Just Another Post About Bathing Suits and Chocolate

Will someone please tell me to back away from the chocolate covered almonds?

Seriously, who bought those things anyway?

I'm not talking a small-packet that makes one look dainty. Oh no! Its a big box, the kind you see at The Costco's (as they call it around here.)

It's that same two-pound box of candy I've spent years looking at telling myself we didn't "need" them.

I didn't "need" them, but I bought them anyway. Because I could.

Until yesterday the container sat virtually untouched. 

But SUDDENLY, the Chocolate Covered Almond Monster is awake in me and they're the only sustenance that will see me through. 

Anyway, I didn't call you here today to talk to you about my dietary habits, as wonderful as they are...I've called you here today for reasons that... illude me.  

Yes, I have settled in at this shiny screen and keyboard and my thoughts have dashed from the room.

I blame it on 14 years of trying to have a conversation in the presence of children. I don't believe I've had a conversation that included a complete sentence, much less an entire thought, since that first home-pregnancy test showed up positive. 

Speaking of positive (and since I've forgotten what I've come here for) let me tell you about my new bathing suit. 

Every year I fret and worry about the bathing suit dilemma. 

I know I have no earthly reason to worry. I know all the "right things" to think about myself when it comes to body contentment, but if I am honest (and you know that I do my best to be) I am THE MOST self-conscious person known to women when it comes wearing a bathing suit. (Or anything else that risks the exposure of bun's and thigh's.)

My answer to the dilemma this year was to find a suit that covered the areas that cause me the most grief (be it rational or not) and be D-O-N-E with it. 

So I did.  

Of course I delayed this task by putting off the bathing suit shopping spree for several weeks - and I mustn't fail to mention that when deciding to take on this monumental project, I found knee-jerk pluckiness and decided to take my kids with me. 

I'm telling you, bathing suits make me c-r-a-z-y, with a hefty portion of CRAZY.

While The Boy tried to keep a low profile and texted his friends of the unfairness of being trapped in the ladies department, his sister tried on every old-lady hat that sparkled and shined -and then knocked on my dressing room door every two minutes so I could "see". 

Which made for fun times. 

But with relative ease (in spite of the circumstances) I bought this top and this bottom both from Lands End on sale. 

Y'all its a lot of suit. 

And, in a GREAT turn of events, (are you sitting down?) I bought this bathing ensemble in the cool color of Pool Blue - stepping out of the black-on-black box I've lived in since I was 16, when the Sassy magazine (do you remember Sassy?)  told me that black will make you look skinny. A "guideline" that I hadn't quite realized had become law in my life.  

Yup. I bought that big'ole Pool Blue bathing suit and figured I'd just put it on and enjoy the pool (and the people in it!) and not worry one-bit about what I looked like. 

Can I tell you this is the best decision and purchase I've made all year? 

Not only did my already-so-vain-ego get a boost by all the sweet compliments I received, but it felt SO good to not be worried in the slightest about all that garbage that fills my head when I am running all over the pool in a suit that makes my thoughts run amuck and puts my focus on the wrong things. 

Instead of worrying about buns and thighs, I just chased kids and had fun.   

There is a first for everything. 

Now, where are those almonds?