week 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16

It’s been a while, but I’m back.

During the last few weeks I’ve learned (finally) how to cook Pudim de Leite, one of my favorite desserts growing up and one of my mom’s specialties. I also wanted to learn how to make a unique soup for the chilly evenings and I made an absolutely delicious, flavorful and unexpected corn soup.

I decorated room number 4, the last room of the house. It is our current guest room and one day will be used by baby #3 (who hasn’t been conceived yet). I also finished composing 3 songs.

My husband and I managed to set some Christmas Traditions for our family. Holidays can be tough for a young family. The traditions we grew up with were extremely different from each others’ but we were able to decide what fits us. Our favorite new tradition is to make a Christmas movie with our kids and we hope to do that every year. (clique here to see it)

I also came to a realization of something I’ve been fighting to overcome for a couple of years: Liking what a see in the mirror. Before I get into that, let me give you some background.

Growing up I wasn’t a good looking kid. I looked at the mirror and I saw neither a pretty or ugly girl, I just saw myself. I had no concept of beauty or ugliness, all I knew was that I had bronze skin, big cheeks, very black hair, big eyes and arched eyebrows.

By the time I started school some people described me as ugly. I wasn’t bullied or made fun of, but I often heard people saying things like, “Which one is Juliana? The ugly little one on the right?”

Around that same time my brother and I were going to a private school and they were planning to make a TV commercial to portray the students at the school. The principal invited students individually to participate in the commercial that would be recorded that Saturday. When the week of the commercial came, the principal announced that the students who would participate didn’t need to wear their uniforms on Friday and that their parents should make sure to wash and iron the uniforms for the commercial Saturday. When Friday came, the only two students wearing uniforms were my brother and I. As we later deduced, we were the only ones not invited to participate.

We still laugh about that day. We didn’t feel hurt or humiliated. It wasn’t a surprise that we weren’t invited to participate. Commercials were for good looking kids and we knew we didn’t fit in that category.

My brained got the information that my features and my measurements wouldn’t qualify me as beautiful. We live in a society where to be considered beautiful you have to look a certain way. You have to have the right size, the right weight and the right measurements. Beauty is about numbers.

Since I took my first steps music was my passion. I took my first music lessons at age 4 and never stopped. Growing up I didn’t have a piano so I often practiced at a church building and many times during a youth activity. And every time at started playing people would come and ask me to play their favorite songs. I felt loved and appreciated, and I also have to say, I felt like I had the prettiest hands in the world, not for what they looked, but for what they were capable of doing. I believe the reason I learned how to accept my looks was because I grew up being appreciated for my talents.

I felt lucky to have friends that would tell me that my presence in their party made a difference, or that talking to them on the phone made their day. Numbers and measurements would never give me that.

Although throughout my life I’ve been confident being me, now I see that seeing myself as ugly may not be beneficial. Every time my husband calls me beautiful it bothers me. I do know he finds me attractive, that man had to really fight for this Brazilian and I know he wouldn’t have done all of that for someone he wasn’t attracted to, but it just doesn’t sound right. Because, again, I don’t have the right numbers.

Another reason I’ve been trying to change the way I see myself is because my beautiful daughter was also born in a difficult era, and if she hears me saying I’m ugly, she will believe she’s ugly too. I don’t want her to EVER question her worth.

So what should I strive to see in myself what I look in the mirror? After months of trying to figure it out, I finally found the word. When I look at myself in the mirror I want to see someone FASCINATING!

Have you ever met someone that didn’t have the right measurements, but something about her or him was simply fascinating? Someone that was so unique looking that you couldn’t get your eyes off that person, or had such a great personality that you just wanted to be around him or her?

 I have met so many fascinating people and I want to become one. I want to become a fascinating wife. I don’t want my daughter to try to be pretty. I want her to strive to be fascinating!

What should I do to become fascinating? I want to find the best of ME, because nothing in this world is more unique and fascinating than our “ME”. To become fascinating I will have to improve what is good in me and eliminate what is bad.

And who wants to be pretty if you can be fascinating.