I'm an emotional eater. When my emotions are even-keeled or on top of the mountain, it's easy to eat what I need. But when I fall down that valley, I struggle to climb my way out. It's probably not a "valley" as much as it is a ditch. You know, those engravings in the earth along our roadways that catch the rain water, garbage from cars, and grow weeds. When I get in a funky mood like Sunday, it feels like I have fallen into one of those ditches, yuck!

Surprisingly, all it takes for me to get out of that ditch is get up on the roadway or have someone pull me out of the ditch to the road. Hubby did that for me on Sunday. He said, "OK, get in the car, we're going for a ride." :) I'm smiling just thinking of it! We got in the car, took a Texas map & went over to a small fishing village on the Gulf coast that I had not visited. We have this fun saying that gets my adrenal going, not sure about hubby's but he seems to enjoy it. "New road, new road!" That means we're on a roadway that we have not been on before. We enjoy seeing the countryside and what it has to offer. Sometimes it's sagebrush and cactus, other times it fields of sugar cane and now and then we see cattle. We even saw a barn that resembled a Midwestern-style barn, painted red and gambrel roof.

Beauty

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is an old quote.

Gary Zukav, writes in Soul Stories, "A Navajo prayer says, 'Beauty above me, Beauty below me, Beauty in front of me. Beauty behind me. All around me Beauty.' This is very different from the way that most people see. Most people think that some of their experiences are more beautiful than others, and that some people are more special than others. Which way is real?"

Yes, what is beauty? What is real beauty? Is "beauty" only a visual thing as most people seem to think?

Each morning on my walk and especially when I walk on the weekends as it's lighter and brighter outside (I walk later in morning), I am struck by the beauty of my neighborhood. Some people may see a dated, eighties-looking neighborhood. But I see the flowers and trees and different kinds of grasses in the lawns. I see bricks of all different shades and colors on the neighborhood houses. I see the sun hitting a house for the first time this day and the home glows. I also hear the birds and the planes lifting off people to far-away places. I feel the humidity of the air and I know that moisture helps our plants to grow. Some days there is a beautiful morning breeze.

It is so easy to use the word beautiful to describe something we can't see..... breeze. Yet we feel the breeze, we may smell what scents the breeze carries, we see the effects of the breeze as it blows through the palms and their leaves sway.

Is beauty only what's outside and all around us? Is beauty something we are? Is beauty something we can be? Is beauty inside of us? I don't feel beautiful, at least not in the physical sense. Does that make me un-beautiful? Does that mean that I'm not a beautiful person? Does that mean that I don't have a beautiful soul?

I can not deny that part of my reasoning for embarking on this project was to change my physical appearance. I think my stomach is too big and protruding for any description of beauty. Yet I don't think that artists in the past were painting what we call Rubensque art, to be cartoon-ish, to make fun of these women. Oh, it's so easy to get wrapped-up in a worldly, physical sense of beauty.

Physically, emotionally and spiritually, I want to explore this subject more. I am going to have a beautiful day!