Back to Life

Long weekends, what a love hate relationship I have with you.  This one felt longer than most.  Meathead Monday was taken over by Myheadhurts Monday, but I spent some quality time with some of my favorite people and made the most of the days! I did some drinking (shocking) and some cooking (also shocking as of late).

Check out these tasty things I made…

Tomato + avocado bruschetta with basil and balsamic.

Caprese turkey burger with balsamic mayo, messy and outstanding.

Buffalo turkey sliders for that ever so familiar wing craving.

I had an interesting realization this weekend when Ben and I went canoeing.  I did NOT grow up doing outdoorsy things like fishing, hiking, canoeing, etc.  When Ben and I started dating I tried all of those things because I wanted to impress him, but I was pretty scared shitless of them.  Then, when I gained weight I stopped agreeing to do those things.  I wasn't confident for SO many reasons.  I didn't wanna hike because I'd literally have to sit down because I'd get so exhausted (you can read about that here).  I didn't wanna go canoeing and camping because I'd have to be in a swimsuit in front of a shit load of people (is shitload one or two words?).  Basically, it's not that the activities weren't fun, it's that the Tara wasn't fun.  I didn't enjoy things and I didn't really enjoy life as much as I should've.

Lately, we've been doing those things.  The things that Ben loves that (gasp) I'm starting to adore!  The things we can enjoy with friends and family and the things that we can do just the two of us and have the best day.  And I think most of the reason I've been enjoying them is because I'm not concerned about how I look in a swimsuit, or what people will think if my shorts are too short (it may help that I drink a decent amount of beers during some of these activities).  I can't help but to think how much more I could've enjoyed things had I adopted that confidence and that I don't care attitude back then.  It absolutely makes a world of difference.  Everyone posts these transformation Tuesday pictures and sure, they're impressive and inspirational, but there's so many more changes you can't see and those are the ones I'm enjoying the most.  With that said, here's a transformation Tuesday picture (holy shit I'm putting a swimsuit picture on the interweb)…I couldn't find a before picture of me in a swimsuit sans coverup (thank your lucky stars for that).

So while the physical transformation is a good one, it's not the only one.  And if you think about it, I bet there's something you can transform starting riiiiight abouuuut now…