Renovating Roxanne

I’ve always cared about my appearance, always wore clean clothes and bathed, but I went through a very plain period; no jewelry, no makeup, ordinary clothes. My ex husband wanted me to stop wearing makeup early on in our marriage. We had no sex life to speak of. I guess once I’d been stripped of everything that made me attractive to him in the first place, there was no attraction left? I squelched my sexual side as a matter of self preservation because I couldn’t bear the rejection anymore. (We had very few arguments in our marriage but those we did have, were over my dissatisfaction with the lack of affection in our marriage.) Anyway, the marriage is over now and I am free to be ME again.

The first thing I did was start get my nails done again. Nothing makes me feel more like a lady than to have my nails nicely manicured.

Shortly afterward I began wearing some mascara. It was hard to get used to at first but now it’s become routine. I burned the sweat pants and got out the cute little tops and jeans & opened toed shoes (painted nails)…

The next part of the process required me to move out of my comfort zone and start doing things alone. That’s always been extremely hard for me to do. The alternative, though, is to not do anything at all. So do I wait around hoping to snag an online suitor who might like to accompany me or do I go out and have a life? Exactly! It is time to start doing all the things that make me happy.

I prefer walking for fitness and it has been a couple of years since I was really active doing it. I moved to a new area and have been afraid to venture out on my own to scout walking locations. I walk for measured distance and speed. I like to keep a record of how many miles I walk in a year. My record is 650 and I would really like to break that record sometime. In a week’s time I’d located a route near my home and another one near my office.

That same week I took a harpy’s advice and got my eyebrows waxed for the third time in my life. I think it looks nice, but I don’t know what all the fuss is about eyebrows. It’s not like I have the Cookie Monster thing going on or anything. I should have taken some before and after pictures I guess.

I’m fresh out of a very brief but extremely stimulating relationship, all my senses are heightened and I feel like I’m on fire a lot of the time. You just can’t unflip that switch.

What I’m learning is that when I feel good about myself, I smile more and when I smile I’m not half bad looking.

One cool thing I got out of the brief-but-stimulating relationship is that I remembered how to flirt and I can tell when I’m being flirted with.

Saturday I got up, put on my face and took my cameras out on a date to greet the sunrise and we captured it on film (well, not film, but you know what I mean). It was a beautiful sunrise too. Afterward we went on a fitness/nature walk through the wildlife preserve and took a few more pictures. I actually enjoy this kind of thing very much but I would enjoy it even more if I had someone to share it with.

I have no idea how much I weigh, I don’t own a scale. I measure my physical reshaping by how much room I take up in the bath tub and by how my clothes fit. Sunday I logged six miles of walking. After a week of walking I already feel different. My body is starting to crave physical activity again. My legs aren’t as jiggly as they were last week. My face has thinned out a good bit and I have a light tan on my arms. Loooooking Good Roxanne!