The Butterfly

I posted this in a blog on my Myspace page, but I am reposting part of it here since i did not do it here before. I will comment first on a recent conversation with Emily that pertains to the subject and the blog follows......

The blog is particularly important to me again since a conversation I had with my daughter the other night. I have been drawn to the concept othe metamorphosis that the butterfly goes through for many reasons that of course are obvious to us all, but it fascinates me on a spiritual and emotional level.

But it hit me on a level I have never even begun to understand in my life until I tried to explain a concept to Emily as we were having our bedtime paryer discussion the other night.

We were talking about how difficult it is to do good sometimes and I was telling her it is ok for her to just talk to Jesus and to God and ask them to help her to do the right thing right now, because she is not feeling like doing the right thing. TO actually admit to Jesus that she wants to do bad, and to ask Him to forgive her and to help her to make the right choice, whether it is to be nice to Blake or to obey mommy and daddy or to do her chores when she doesn't want to do them or if she is tempted to lie or whatever it is that she is having a hard time with at that particular time.

So we talked aboutthat for a little bit. And then I told her how she could talk to Him anytime she wanted, she didn't have to pray to him just at night with mommy(although I've told her this many times, I reiterated it and made it sound very very special) and that no matter where she is in the world, that she can always talk to Jesus, and that He is always listening to her and that even more importantly SHE is always on God's mind. I explained to her that God created her and everything and with just His thought, so even the fact that she is lying here is proof that He is thinking of her. And so THAT's pretty incredible to know that the God of the Universe is thinking of you at all times!

And I went on to explain how important we were to Him that He sent the Holy Spirit that we would have a comforter with us in our hearts at all times. And this is wher it gets really interesting.

She said, "You mean in my bloody heart. he sitting in there watching tv or something?" I said, "No, silly, not in our physical heart! We have two hearts. A physical heart and a spiritual heart. The holy spirit is a spirit. So He resides in our spiritual heart. You remember when we talked about going to heaven and your soul goes to heaven but your body stays here?"

She said, "Yes!" She gets really excited when we talk about heaven, although I have only talked about the body/soul separating thing once with her, but she got the point beautifully at the time. But we talk about heaven and the golden streets and the angels singing and all that all the time.

"Well, we have a physical body and a spiritual body. Think about a butterfly. When a butterfly breaks out of its cacoon, what happens?"

She said, "It breaks it open and it flies up to heaven!"

I said, "That's right! ANd what is left behind?"

"The cacoon?" I said, "That's right the shell. But it's just an empty shell. The butterfly is like our spirit and when we die, our spirit has no use for the body anymore and we will have beautiful new bodies, beautiful butterfly bodies!"

She said, "With wings to fly up to heaven!" with a great big smile and it just was the most incredible moment.

And at that moment I saw the magnitude of the whole reason God gave of the creation of the butterfly in this world. For this VERY PURPOSE! To give us an example of the spiritual journey that we go through as dead in our sins, the sinner is even described as a worm in certain places in scripture, we are completely transformed through Christ, then we are given NEW bodies in heaven.

Our cacoon is LIFE here on earth! We cannot attain the true fulfillment of what our transformed bodies completely are until we are released from these shells which are our physical bodies, and that will happen in ALL its fullness at the end of days when we come into the Kingdom.

But the Butterfly is a mirror of what God has put is front of us as His model for change. We are butterflies inside, waiting, to be transformed, to be realized, to be honed, to be tempered, to be released so that we may fly.


Here is the original blog I posted before I had this conversation with Emily:


This is exactly why I CHOSE the word Transformation when I refer to my Makeover. Because I believe when you choose to really make over your body, true change has to take place from the inside out for it to remain. Otherwise you will gain all the weight back and be right back where you started.

Also I have not set out to just "lose Weight". I have always wanted real Transformation, inside and out, physically, mentally, and spiritually, in all the ways that matter.

Just as the caterpillar was always destined to become a butterfly, I am also destined to become better than I am. Where she goes, I must go.

When you look at the cacoon that houses the butterfly before it becomes the butterfly, what does it look like? An ugly, shapeless, sort of bland, colorless little shell. If you didn't already know what was going on inside you wouldn't have any idea of the wonders that are to come!

As the caterpillar goes through the stages of the metamorphosis, only it knows what exactly is happening at any given time inside that shell. Nobody outside that cacoon knows what goes on inside. They see the movement, they see the funny shape, they may hear funny noises and scoff. "What's she doing up there? Why'd she wrap herself up like that? She's sure taking a long time up there. "

Or more cruelly, "Did you hear what she said when she went in there? She want's to fly! She's just a caterpillar! She should just be content with who she is. She always was such a dreamer!"

But she knows who she was meant to be, and the first part of her life was just that, the first par tof her life. And she knows the changes that are happening. Others might not see them because they cannot see into the private places of her mind, her heart, her soul.

So she continues the journey through the quiet, secret, dark, and sometimes painful process of internal metamorphosis that is "The Change".

In her cacoon, the caterpillar MUST transform every process that she has lived her whole life by. She must repurpose her cells, her fibers, her proteins, her systems to new and wonderful purposes!

All this, in order to realize the fantastical, the crazy, the impossible, even the magical "dream" of giving wings to a worm.... the dream of giving flight to a feeble floor feeder!

And then.... when no one expects it.... the cacoon is broken. The ugly wrappings that protected her through "The Change" release a new creature from it's wrappings.

Unbelievably, what was once earthbound is now vibrantly colored and heavenbound!

THAT is God's way of showing ALL of us that REAL change is possible.

The butterfly is not a logical, relatively simple evolutional change from a baby to a child or a child to an adult. This is a change from one kind of creature to another!

If a simple insect is capable of such a change, what is God capable of creating in US, when we let Him?

So I say, Dream On! Let the Transformation continue!

Dropping Like Flies!

Dropping like Flies!


Just an update. Making Over Mommy marches on! When we moved to San Antonio I was still hovering around 183-185 lbs. At the beginning of summer I was 185 lbs.

Yesterday I the scale said 169! and today 168.8! I know the tenths don't really count but when the tenths don't ever budge for years, the tenths DO get you excited. I also know that water fluctuates and the tenths go up and down throughout the day, and some people, like my mother even gain a couple of pounds of water weight throughout the day, which is why I ALWAYS weigh myself at the beginning of the day, after I pee, before I eat a morsel.

But I am and always have been Steady Freddy as far as weight goes. It does not fluctuate more than half a pound from day to day, one pound at the most, unless I have severely overeaten, or around "that" time of the month.

So when I stepped on the scale today, I was quite pleased. 168.8 officially broke the 15 pound goal, from 184! If I count my highest weight of 185, then I have lost 16 pounds this summer! Woooo-Hoooooo!

First Ten+ Pounds Gone!!!!

Wow! Finally! I have been the same weight since the birth of my 4 year old son! And that includes pre-pregnancy weight!

I was lucky enough to drop 20 pounds quickly after the birth of my first child, Emily, since I breastfed her almost exclusively for the first 6 months. In fact, I was at least 10 lbs lighter after breastfeeding than I was before I got pregnant. Cool!

Part of this had to do with the fact that I ate very well during my pregnancy if only for the sake of the baby. I ate better during my pregnancy than I had in the previous 10 years, in fact. And I continued to do so during breasfeeding. It was very important to me that she be getting good nutrition through my body and my milk. And I must say that I believe her immune system definately has seen the benefits of it. She has no allergies, she's always had beautiful skin and hair, even form birth, she had a ton of thick hair, and rarely gets sick.

Anyway, as I gained weight with my second child, Blake, I didn't worry. I actually sort of looked forward to the birth because I thought heck, with breastfeeding I'm going to lose another net 10 pounds after this is all said and done! Lol.

But I wasn't so lucky the second time around. Because my son was breach, I had a c-section, and suffered a terrible spinal migraines for several days after the birth, not to mention the pain of the recuperation form the incision. I tried from the very first hours to breastfeed, to no avail. My milk just barely came in. And of course Blake was hungry and crying, which made my head hurt worse,and my stomach was in excruciating pain, so the early days were so hard! :(

Just trying to hold him while dealing with the migraine was beyond tortuous, and of course the poor soul could sense the frustration in me and was desperately frustrated himself, tryign to get some milk out of me. Finally, my milk began flowing but it never came in as fully as with Emily so we supplemented with Formula.....

Anyway, the weight did not fall off like it did before, and of course I could not exercise for weeks because of the cesarean. I suffered from moderate postpartum depression, at least compared to other women, but it was severe enough to severely disrupt my life for quite some time.

So life has had a lot of changes since then and I have been carrying around this extra weight for 4 years. I was already carrying extra weight, lol.

But although I have had some small successes at lsong weight over the years, a couple of pounds here and there, even 5 pounds, I don't know if I have ever lost a full 10 pounds before! I can't remember that I did. I have always gained and lost 2 or 3, 4-5, or 6-8 pounds.... Then with the pregnancies it JUMPEd up!

So even if it is not a big deal to most people, or even if I still have a ways to go....I am flat out EXCITED to have reached this MILESTONE!

So YEAH MELANIE!!!!

As of today, I have officially dropped not 10, but a full 19 pounds from my post pregnancy weight in 2004. But almost all of this has been since moving to San Antonio. I had already lost about 7 pounds steady weight loss over the years, but this summer I have dropped an additional 13 pounds!

I am absolutely thrilled and especially looking forward to our Christmas Party this year! I can't wait to see what I will be able to shop for the Annual Christmas Party this year. They always have a huge shin-dig and I really want to feel like a princess this time around!

I aim to lose at least another 20 pounds by Christmas, get my migraines and seizures completely under control and just get really healthy!

Of course the other aspects of Making Over Melanie, would be just icing on the cake, like being able to get Lasik, or other cosmetic procedures, like skin treatments and and replacing my porcelain veneer that is 20 years old.

So here's to Dreams!

A Year In Dreams!

I haven't told anyone about this yet, but it falls in line with my project for reinventing myself and my life this summer.



I have begun working on a project I call "A Year In Dreams". I even have the domain for it and want to build a really fun and interesting website for it. I am not a web builder so that has been a challenge. I am hoping to either learn it myself or find someone who can help me build a really cool site for this.



A Year In Dreams is based on the concept that when you start putting your dreams out there, and start really working and praying and speaking positive affirmations, miracles begin to happen.



You know how a vision board works? You put clippings or statements about things that you want to have or goals you want to attain and the ability to actually SEE your vision everyday helps to keep it foremost in your mind. It helps you to focus and helps your mind to continually work on ways to make those things happen.



Well, that is what I want the website to be.....a web-based vision board. Eventually I want it to become a place for others to make their own Web Vision Boards and interact with people around the world about their dreams and goals, about their frustrations or obstacles to their dreams and receive encouragement or advice on how to make their vision a reality!



NOW...the REAL meat of the idea! A YEAR IN DREAMS is all about putting your dreams out there and checking off as many dreams as possible in one year.



Dreams can be ANYTHING you want to accomplish, whether it be getting a new washer or dryer, or a new car, or learning how to salsa dance, or losing weight. Maybe you want to donate time to a charity or bring someone to salvation. Maybe you want to get organized or redecorate your home. Maybe you want to learn to forgive someone or let go of an old hurt.



Anything. It's about having a time frame, a sense of urgency about accomplishing things. It's about focusing and refocusing, adjusting and learning, failing and getting up over and over again. But through it all, your vision board guides you, encourages you, inspires you to work through the pain, the fatigue, the negative thoughts that have been keeping you from these things in the past.



So, Keep checking back . "Making Over Melanie", getting healthy and fit and reclaiming or enhancing the beauty that God gave me, is just one part of my Year In Dreams project.....

When will it end?!

Another migraine coming on!.....

Probably from being on the computer over the last couple of days. But I know stress and sinus problems are the main culprits.

I had a doozy of a migraine the first night in Biloxi, which I forgot to mention. I was throwing up and miserable!

I just want to go hide under a rock right now but I can't. I have two small children. They are both laying down right now, for a late nap, but I couldn't even take solace in a nap, my head hurts so bad. I took some ibuprofin as my neck muscles feel tight as steel. Maybe I can head this off before it gets too bad?.......

I haven't eaten very well today so maybe that is part of the problem too. I will try ot get a well rounded meal tonight with some protein in it for sure. ALthough, the thought of food makes me ill right now! :(

I need to get some housework done, and I will, but I cannot even express how much just bending over to pick up toys off the floor pains me when my head hurts like this!

UUUUGGGGHHHH! Off to work I go........Blog Ya Later!

LIFE: Reinvented

Is it possible to reinvent yourself?

I think so. I think that if you want to, you can totally change whatever you want. What ever happened to make you the way you are can be undone. Whether it is your fault, through sin and laziness, fear or shame; or if it stems from someone else's fault, it is within our power to make dramatic changes, if not a complete turn around.

Now doing it is another story! I know that millions of us grow up thinking that our life is going to be something completely different than what it turns out to be. It never turns out to be what we envisioned. Or at least it rarely is. Sometimes it is better.

Well, this post is just about giving some background about me, what has made me who I am. In later posts I will get into the plan of "Reinvention".......

I always thought I would either be a pilot, flying around the world, or a perfomer, travelling around the world, singing on the stages of the world. I always flew in my dreams at night, up until college at least. It was a beautiful thing! I could see the world from above in my dreams and I floated above the world in pure joy!

I discovered singing when I was in junior high. My aunt was an opera singer and I went to see her and her husband in La Cenerentola (Cinderella) I was hooked! The costumes, the voices, the audience! Wow!

But I still wanted to be a pilot. So I began heading toward my dream of flying in junior high. I joined Civil Air Patrol and immersed myself in CAP. In high school, I joined JROTC and auditioned and joined the Varsity Drill Team. I visited the Air Force Academy in Colorado in Junior high and decided I was going to go there! What a beautiful place!

Well, I became the Varsity Precision Drill Team commander my senior year and took my team to first place against the college teams at competition. What a thrill! I loved the precision, the beauty of unity and everybody stepping in time, in perfect accord. Our signature drill team routine was so good that our rival, Bellevue East, stole it, so when I found out, I created a totally new routine, a routine completely different than what had been used for the past several years in competition. Now that was a thrill, for sure. Bringing something from my own imagination to life and teaching it to my team and then winning! And later, winning against the college teams?!

Well, that was one of the highlights of high school, the other was performing on stage. I sang in the elite choir as well as Madrigals, and the show choir, West Connection. I actually acted in a play once too.

I figured I needed to be well-rounded to get into the Air Force Academy. And I was on track, too.

But you know what was the beginning of my downfall? FEAR and SHAME.

I was a very sexy little woman, even as early as junior high. I had the body of Marilyn Monroe. I hated it! My boobs bounced when I walked and all the boys eyes bounced in time. :)

Even in the very beginning of my developement, my figure was the bane of my existance. I took ballet for years and my teacher wanted me to take private lessons with her because of my talent. But as soon as we began to move into jazz, I became increasingly uncomfortable. All the other little girls (6th grade or so) had lithe, slender little girls bodies. But I had curves and budding breasts.

They bounced. I froze. Then I quit. I don't even think I told my mother I quit, I think I told her we didn't have a performance or something or I didn't tell her the right date and we missed it. I felt shame for that for years. Years! I actually quit something!

One summer, I just popped out like a blow up doll. It was the summer my aunt got married. In spring, my body had just the barest beginnings of curves, and then by late summer my breasts were in full swing, so to speak.:) I was horrified!

Later, I refrained from pursuing many things that I wanted to do, like gymnastics and cheerleading, because of these infernal perky breasts! I didn't take gym either. I tried swimming for a while, because I absolutely loved swimming and figured that most of the time I would be in teh water anyway, so what did my breasts matter? But honestly I just had a lot more drag than all of the other girls and I was a dismal last place in every single meet. I quit that, too.

I began to gain weight in high school, wearing baggy clothes to hide my figure. I think subconsciously I hoped that my weight would deter the boys' interest. But honestly I did not think about the weight, I just ate. I was enjoying something at least.

Prom and formal dances were a mixed bag of shame and delight for me. I loved the whole scene, the idea of the thing, the lights, the dress, the music. But I didn't really want to have a date. I didn't want my date to be attracted to me, my breasts. I just wanted to dance! But then, dancing made them bounce, so I danced sedately, elegantly. Or I just sat it out.

I've wanted a breast reduction since I can remember. I was a 34D in high school, quickly growing to a 34DD by beginning of college. I never got the breast reduction. And I just continued to gain weight. I think now it is around 38DDD or 38EE. It spiraled out of control, although even after college I was at an acceptable weight. But by then I was ashamed of the weight I'd gained and the dreams I'd already let slip away.

I got married, looking forward to building a new dream together. He loved me the way I was. I know I am pretty and some people think I am beautiful. But I see my flaws, I see those things that others don't see; the wasted opportunities, the dreams that got put on the back shelf. The coulda, should, wouldas.......

I got caught up in trying to make a life and didn't fully LIVE. Many things have happened over the last few years to further crush my spirit, but that is for a different time.....

I just know that it is time for reinvention. I know who I am inside, and even better, who I can be. With Christ's help, maybe we can unbury her.....