that whole "good self image" thing

Once upon a time (like a month and a half ago) I signed up to do the local beauty pageant.
Last Friday on my way to the MG sleep over I got a text from the pageant director informing us we needed our gowns and interview suits by April 5th for pictures. Um, that's less than 2.5 weeks notice. Less than 2.5 weeks, to find a gown & suit, get it altered (because some of us *ahem*me*ahem* are fun sized and not regular sized so everything is typically to long or to baggy in awkward places.


So on my one day off a week, my sister, brother in law and I went in mad pursuit to find a gown. Since March is prom season around here some of the dress shops we went to were wiped clean of any gowns from a size 4-6. I've been a size 4 since 9th grade. I guess in the 2 years I've been out of high school dress manufacturer's have decided to shrink their sizing down. With A-line gowns I used to be able to fit into a size 2 due to my lack of boobage and shoulderage. The A-lines do an awesome job of covering up my massive booty and hips! But i must have gotten boobs all of a sudden or something because I could not even get a dang size 4 gown on.

I tried this dress on way back when in high school, and had it not been so scandalously tight fitting (at least for a high school dance, for a pageant i thought it'd be rockin!)

I tried it on again. I couldn't get the dang thing on. Same size 4 and everything. The other 4 dresses I tried on, I couldn't get to zip up past my rib cage. So we left that first store, and went to a store in the mall.. 4 of the 8 dresses I tried on, had busted zippers (the bottom of the zippers were actually disconnected away from the dress) and so many of them kept getting stuck in the fabric that me and my sister got fed up with it. I left that store feeling very. very. fat. I know I'm not fat, but really, after trying on close to 15 different dresses, and having only a few of them fit right, is very. very. discouraging. So when we got to the third store, i was ready to throw my hands up in the air and yell "I GIVE UP!" either that, or I was going to burst into tears and go on some extreme starvation diet thing. At the third store, they had only one dress in my size, and it was not a very pretty dress on me...so the lady helping us out there, recommended a dress shop that's in the town I live in, but we hadn't even given a thought to going there. So on our way home we stopped there. We told the super nice lady what I was looking for. And she went to the sales rack and pulled off this gorgeous dress. but it was strapless... so we went and dug through some of the other racks, and pulled off 2 more dresses. I went and tried on the dress the sales lady pulled off the rack. It was love at first sight. It fit me like a GLOVE. Like a GLOVE people! Me and my sister looked at each other and agreed that this indeed, was the dress we had been on the hunt for. It made me feel like I was in perfect shape and that I wouldn't need to change a thing about myself (except some skin color would definitely help.).

My gown is somewhere in this picture, but I'm not telling you which one it is until I get it all nice and altered! luckily there's more than enough length at the bottom to make sleeves/straps out of it, even with 3 inch heels on! Yay for shortness!

Don't let other people, especially the media, tell you what a beautiful body is. Because what's beautiful on one person, isn't always beautiful on another. We all don't have the same hip/booty's, legs, waists, chest, ankles, shoulders, and that's more than ok. Do you realize how much more limited our clothing options would be if everyone looked good in the same thing? Sure I'd like to have bigger boobs, (i still may feel that it's not fair my 14 year old sister has bigger boobs than me. by a lot.) but I'm ok with my A-cup. I'm ok that I got a butt that's full, legs that aren't the most athletic looking, or curvy hips. I'm me. I'm different. I think the only time I ever hate my body shape is when I am
A) Shopping for a dress. (what fits the bottom half, is ginormous on the top half.)
B) Swimsuit shopping. Very, very few swimsuit bottoms can actually cover my butt without giving me a walking wedgie.

Through the years I've learned to love my body more and more, as I learn what works with it and what doesn't. I love how I'm only 5'3", sure everything is usually too long, but that doesn't bother me. Length is easy to fix!

I love looking in the mirror every morning and saying to myself "DANG! I'm looking good!" even if I'm just wearing an over sized hoodie and jeans. Telling yourself you love yourself, really will help you learn to love yourself. And when you love yourself, you can love others more than you thought possible.