Search Results

Why Do Women Need to Feel Beautiful? Every day, we’re bombarded with images of women that set unrealistic standards for beauty. From magazines and billboards to social media feeds, we’re constantly told what sexy looks like. Professional models, filters, and Photoshop have created ideals so polished they’re nearly impossible to match—and yet we try. It’s no wonder many women question their bodies: “Am I enough?” “Do I measure up?” The beauty and cosmetic industries make it worse—$500 billion annually—and the average woman spends $150 a year chasing these standards. Feeling beautiful isn’t vanity—it’s self-preservation. It’s about reclaiming control over how we see ourselves in a world that’s constantly judging. Self-Confidence vs. Society’s Illusions Self-confidence is trusting in your own worth, abilities, and judgments. It’s valuing yourself regardless of imperfections or societal expectations. Dressing up, feeling sexy, or even stepping in front of a camera can remind us of the beauty we already possess. Boudoir Photography captures this inner confidence, offering visual proof that women are stunning, powerful, and desirable—just as they are. Beyond being mothers, sisters, daughters, or wives, women deserve to see themselves as more than their roles. Behind the Lens: Conversations with Boudoir Photographers I spoke with talented Boudoir photographers to get their insight into this empowering art form. Jennifer:  “It is not very often you can make a living doing what you adore.” She emphasizes sensitivity to women’s insecurities and helping clients embrace their self-worth. Marina:  “You’re ready. If you’re thinking about it, you are ready.” She highlighted that the nerves women feel before a session often turn into pride and confidence afterward. Some of the questions I asked: Why Boudoir? How long have you been in business? How do your clients change before and after the shoot? How does being on the other side of the camera impact your confidence? Does this confidence last? The answers confirmed one thing: Boudoir isn’t just photography—it’s therapy, empowerment, and self-love all wrapped in a session that’s fun, daring, and transformative. My first conversation was with the very talented Jennifer ( website ) She has terrific insight into women's sensitivity to looks and self-confidence. "It is not very often you can make a living doing what you adore." My following conversation was with the lovely and insightful Marina ( website) "You're ready. If you're thinking about it, you are ready." Final Fry Thought 🍟 Getting undressed in front of a camera isn’t about exhibitionism—it’s about claiming your power and confidence . Experiencing your body through a lens helps you embrace your unique beauty, reminds you of your strength, and celebrates the real you—beyond societal standards. So pour a glass of wine, slip into that lingerie, and let yourself see what others already know: you are beautiful, sexy, and unstoppable. This episode is one of my favorites. We will continue this conversation further, so grab more wine and get ready to explore more about self-confidence. Listen here

Whether you’re training for your next 5K or just enjoying a morning run, what you eat after your workout is just as important as the run itself. Timing, type, and balance of nutrients can make the difference between sore muscles and a stronger, energized body. Here’s the lowdown on fueling your recovery and keeping your energy up: ⏱ Timing Is Everything Eat within 15 minutes post-run  — sooner is even better. Your muscles are primed to absorb nutrients, and this is the golden window for recovery. The focus? Protein plus carbohydrates . 🍫 Quick Recovery Snack Ideas Chocolate milk – yes, it works! Carbs and protein in perfect balance. Yogurt – add fruit or granola for extra carbs. Rice pudding with banana – creamy, sweet, and energizing. Egg and cheese on an English muffin – protein with carbs. Peanut butter toast – simple, tasty, and effective. Eggs – protein-packed and versatile. 🌞 Carbs: Morning & Supper Carbs are your main fuel source. Eating plenty in the morning and at dinner  ensures your energy stores are full, especially if you’re training the next day. Avoid “hitting the wall” or burning out by keeping those glycogen levels topped up. 💪 Protein: Midday & Post-Workout Protein is essential for muscle recovery . After a run or late-night workout, focus on meals or snacks higher in protein. This helps rebuild muscle and repair tissue. 🥗 Foods High in Protein but Also Carbs Some foods give you the best of both worlds: Beans: 20g carbs / 7g protein Broccoli: 13g carbs / 4g protein Potatoes: 49g carbs / 5g protein Refried beans: 20g carbs / 7g protein Soybeans: 39g carbs / 16g protein 🍟 Final Fry Thought Fuel your body smartly after each run — carbs for energy, protein for recovery, and the right timing to maximize results. Your muscles will thank you, and your next run will feel that much easier.

If you ever get the opportunity to design your dream kitchen, it’s worth making sure it checks all the boxes. After all, the kitchen isn’t just a place to cook — it’s often the heart of the home, the hub of family life, and sometimes the unofficial office, homework space, and snack bar all rolled into one. Here’s what to consider: 🔧 1. Function First Top-tier appliances:  Invest in energy-efficient, high-quality brands that will last and make cooking a joy. Ample storage:  Easy-to-reach, easy-to-use, and easy-to-clean cabinetry makes life infinitely smoother. Expansive countertops:  Choose surfaces resistant to stains, cutting, and heat — bonus points for easy cleanup. Flooring that works for you:  Comfortable underfoot and simple to maintain. Lighting:  Natural sunlight during the day, bright, warm lighting at night. Think of your kitchen as a workshop — every element should make life easier and more enjoyable. 🏡 2. Mood Matters Once function is in place, it’s time to consider feel . Contemporary:  Sleek stainless steel, glass, and concrete for a polished, modern vibe. Country:  Warm, cozy, and inviting with natural wood, brick, woven baskets, and hand-painted ceramic tiles. After picking your mood, select furniture and finishes that complement it — chairs, tables, cabinetry, and countertops should all contribute to your chosen ambiance. ⚖️ 3. Harmony in Layout Even the most beautiful kitchen needs flow. Enter the work triangle : stove, sink, and refrigerator.This classic arrangement reduces walking distance while prepping meals and creates a natural traffic pattern, keeping everything efficient and enjoyable. Your kitchen may vary in shape and size, but these three elements — function, mood, and harmony — will always be the foundation of a space that works and feels right. 🍟 Final Fry Thought A dream kitchen isn’t just about looks — it’s about creating a space that feels good to be in. When you nail function, mood, and harmony, you get a kitchen that invites family, sparks joy, and maybe even inspires you to cook more than just takeout.

Broken by Jenney Lawson on Audible . As I started back into my gym routine, I decided to bring a friend — not a real, sweaty workout partner (those people scare me), but Jenny Lawson’s Broken (in the Best Possible Way)  on Audible. There I was, pedaling away on a stationary bike, sweating like a champ, while laughing at the absurd, raw, and painfully relatable moments of Jenny’s life. If anyone was watching, they probably thought I was losing it — grinning one minute, sniffling the next. But honestly? It was perfect. 🧠 Broken but Still Moving Autoimmune diseases, random body aches, and the whole grab bag of mental and emotional crap that comes with life — I’ve got my share. Add anxiety, depression, or the occasional WTF is wrong with me?  spiral, and you’ve got a full workout before you even hit the gym. Listening to Broken  felt like hearing from a friend who gets it — one who doesn’t sugarcoat the hard stuff but still manages to make you laugh so hard you forget for a moment that you’re struggling. Jenny Lawson — aka The Bloggess  — has this wild, wonderful ability to make weirdness feel like home. Every time I dive into one of her books, I’m either working out or traveling, because apparently, that’s the only way I can sit still long enough to listen. Reading requires staying in one place and being calm… and yeah, that’s not my skill set. ☀️ “Dogs Won’t Go Blind Staring at the Eclipse?” That’s the kind of random brilliance that makes her books magic. Her brain wanders — mine does too. Maybe yours does. And somewhere in the chaos, we find comfort. The humor, the heartbreak, the awkward moments — it’s all there. And somehow, in her mess, I see my own. Only hers is better edited and way funnier. 💬 If You Need a Friend If you live with anxiety, depression, chronic illness, or just feel like life sometimes throws too much at once, Broken  is the kind of book that wraps you in a hug and says, “You’re not alone, you magnificent disaster.” We crave understanding — not pity. And this book gives that in spades. You’ll feel seen. You’ll feel understood. And you’ll probably laugh out loud in public. So yeah — buy the book, listen to the audiobook, or do both. It’s therapy with bonus snort-laughs. 🌧️ I Feel It in My Bones As I left the gym, sweaty and smiling, the sky was gray, thick with the promise of rain that hadn’t come yet. And I felt that — deep in my bones. That’s how healing feels sometimes. You can sense it coming before it arrives. You move your body. You laugh at someone else’s chaos. And you remember — being broken doesn’t mean you’re done. It just means you’re still becoming. 🍟 Final Fry Thought Maybe self-improvement isn’t about perfection or progress charts. Maybe it’s just about pedaling, laughing, crying, and being real — all at once. So if you need a little reminder that your weird, messy, beautiful self is doing just fine… cue up Broken  and start moving.

Kindness. It’s one of those words that gets tossed around like confetti — beautiful, well-meaning, but often forgotten when it comes to the person in the mirror. You determine kindness’s meaning. It’s how you  choose to show it. Kindness can be empathy, acceptance, kind gestures, or thoughtfulness. The possibilities are endless — and entirely yours. We usually think of kindness as something we give  to others. A smile. A helping hand. A “you’ve got this” text to a friend. But what about the one person who actually needs  your kindness in order to show it to anyone else — you ? 💭 What If We Treated Ourselves Like Someone Worth Caring About? Imagine if self-care were natural — like brushing your teeth or putting on pants before a Zoom call. If we truly knew how to nurture ourselves without guilt, the entire self-help section of the bookstore would probably vanish. In its place? A lounge filled with cozy sofas where we could actually relax  — guilt-free. But instead, we often treat self-kindness like an optional add-on. Something we’ll get to after we’ve been “good enough,” productive enough, or emotionally stable enough. Spoiler alert: that day never really comes. 🌧️ Kindness in the Messy Moments Being kind to yourself when everything’s sunshine and rainbows is easy. But being kind when you feel miserable?  That’s the real work. It means giving yourself a damn break when you’re down. It means learning from your misery without making it your entire identity. It means understanding that even in the middle of a meltdown, you still deserve softness. You are allowed to be both a masterpiece and a mess.(Preferably with snacks.) 🌸 The Ripple Effect Here’s the secret: the more you practice self-kindness, the more it spills into everything else. You’ll have more patience for others. You’ll feel less resentful, less reactive. You’ll stop chasing validation because you’ll already feel seen — by you. That’s the kind of quiet confidence that makes you magnetic. 🍟 Final Fry Thought Kindness isn’t a grand gesture. It’s the small, everyday choice to not beat yourself up. So the next time you’re spiraling, stop. Breathe. Remind yourself that even the messy, moody, pajama-clad version of you deserves love. Be kind to yourself first — because when you do, kindness to others becomes effortless.

Her wheelchair didn’t fit easily between the table and the kitchen island. I finished helping her get ready for the day — the same routine we’d shared for months — brushing her hair, fixing her breakfast, and making sure the morning ran as smoothly as possible. That day, though, I was bursting with excitement. I had something to show her. The Mango. My new car.Bright. Bold. Orange. I couldn’t believe that I  — the woman who hated attention and proudly claimed the title of “introvert of the year” — now drove something that screamed “look at me.” (The paint color is actually called GoMango — I swear, I didn’t make that up.) Her reaction was simple, classic her: “It is certainly orange.” That was it. And it was already too late. She would never ride in my brand-spankin’-new car — the one that had eight miles on it when I bought it — the one I’d had for only a single day. The Drive That Changed Everything For months, I had been driving back and forth — five hours round trip — sometimes more. My Jeep Cherokee had become my grief carriage, my mobile therapy session, and my sanctuary all at once. When she went from using a cane to a wheelchair, that Jeep became our lifeline. The chair fit just right in the back, though my gut and arms were covered in bruises from lifting it. We’d go out for breakfast, laugh a little, pretend things were normal — but nothing about any of it was easy. When I showed up that day in The Mango , something inside me shifted. The drive down the same highway I’d been crying on for months felt… different. There was peace. And a strange, quiet sense of ease — buried deep under exhaustion and sadness — but still there. For the first time in a long time, I felt a spark  of myself again. I didn’t know it then, but that car — that bright orange beast — was the start of something healing. When Duty Meets Grief The last few months of her life were a blur of duty, heartbreak, and numbness. I did what needed to be done because that’s what you do when someone you love is slipping away. I cried only when I got home — unloading every tear, every frustration, and every ounce of helplessness on my husband. Then, I’d dry my face, gather my strength, and do it all over again. We bought The Mango  in the middle of that storm. It didn’t make sense. It wasn’t practical. But it was something for us  — a small, defiant act of joy in a world that felt like it was falling apart. It sat parked outside that day, right where I could see it from the dining room window — the same one I rearranged the furniture by, just so she could look out and see it too. Twenty-seven days later, I drove that orange car back home — alone. 🍊 What #TheMango Really Means Now, #TheMango  is more than just a car. It’s a symbol of the strength you don’t know you have — the power that’s been sitting quietly inside you, waiting for permission to shine. It’s the reminder that joy can exist alongside heartbreak. That even when you’re falling apart, there are still pieces of you that glow. And most of all — it’s proof that you can look fucking amazing in orange. 🍟 Final Fry Thought Grief changes you .But so does courage. So does love. So does showing up — again and again — even when your heart is heavy. The Mango  is my reminder that I survived. That I still can. And that happiness — even the loud, orange kind — will always find its way back. (The paint is called Gomango.) Mango Happiness Project #themango Join the Mango Happiness Project Group