This was an assignment I did in Junior High. I had to create a “business,” so I created a diet restaurant! I feel like I’m running one right now with our family!

My fingernails, which I originally grew to appear “less disfigured,” have turned out to be an amazing asset for guitar playing. I have rediscovered my classical compositions and it has been very exciting for me. However, although I’ve written about pain and trauma in my life – there is something I am not looking forward to. That would be experiencing the pain of breaking a fingernail!

As our situation and debt becomes more “dire,” I am amazed at how calm I feel. I’ve decided that this is my time in life now. I remember that not too long ago, we invested considerable money for our youngest son to attend a private school, and that saved him. I realize that what I am doing now is investing in myself.

I love every moment of my life right now.

I spend an enormous amount of time writing two blogs, practicing music, and performing. This is in addition to shopping and maintaining our household. I seek no money at all for what I am doing. I am sharing my knowledge, my feelings, my stories, and my music for free. I love the fact that my performances at Border’s are free also.

In my heart I feel certain that what I am doing is still valuable – even if I have no income. I see a future that includes money someday. However, even if that never happens I wouldn’t regret what I am doing one iota!

There are simply not enough words or even the capacity of language to describe my joy from what music has brought to my life.

Here I am eight-years-old, and I already look worried!

One of those pictures that has me wondering why I always thought I was fat.

I’ve decided that today I want to write about another thing that has really made me happy. That would be my physical, self-image.

My entire life I’ve struggled with my weight. Having children and gaining so much weight during my pregnancies (100 pounds with Jason), certainly was real. However, I have found it interesting to see younger pictures of myself where I wasn’t really that heavy. I tortured myself thinking that I was for most of my life.

It wasn’t too long ago when I felt resigned to the fact that I would never be able to lose the weight that made me miserable. Recently, I came across a diary entry where I wrote that I was losing weight for my own wedding! In my entry, I mention that I had an injection in my scar. Prior to my wedding I had plastic surgery for a scar on my chin resulting from a car accident.

Now even my scar feels beautiful for me! I feel liberated now to be fifty. I feel far more beautiful now than I felt when I was thirty or forty.

In the entry below, my music was already starting to fade. I was a nail biter my entire life except for a very brief period when I studied classical guitar for one semester. I was already back to biting my nails; they were gone when I wrote this entry.

Clicking on this brings it up larger.

I’m hoping I’ll never bite my nails again.

I am not going to say that I am certain that I will never struggle with weight again. However, it has been very interesting for me that the whole process of my losing weight this year was about the release of all my sadness. Since I began writing my blog in February, I have lost thirty pounds. It amazes me how easy it was.

I am not hungry for foods that are not “helpful” for me. I don’t really care if I lose any more weight or not. I feel fantastic with where I am right at this moment.

I only eat when I am hungry, and I enjoy what I eat. However overall, food is actually very unimportant to me. I am so filled up with other things in my life; I no longer need to fill myself up with food.

I will end this post with two more pages from my diaries. The entry from 1984 was the second to last entry; I didn’t write again until this past February. I was clearly entering a different phase in my life, and I was hopeful that my weight problems were over.

I had no idea what awaited me with my pregnancy and with Jason’s ordeals.

I worked as a secretary in the summers during college.

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