What Rachel is Reading

Everyone is Beautiful by Katherine Center
Lanie is a wife and mother of 3 (gee, that sound familar) that packs up her home and heads to Boston so her husband can pursue his dreams of becoming a professional musician. But, Lanie realizes that she too has dreams, or did, at some point. She sets changes in motion, joining a gym, signing up for a photography class-all to help her feel like her "old self" again.
I 100% got this book. I identified so much with Lanie, it could have been me in that book. Occasionally (okay, more than occasionally), I do feel drained with the day to day care of my children and husband, and wish I could be just me. This book helped me to see that I have changed-and change is good, but I can still be me, and Mama, and Jeremy's wife. In fact, it is important that I find me in the midst of everything. And most importantly-I am beautiful-in every walk of life I am currently in. And now, I quote from that book that I love and am going to hang up on my mirror-
"Laughter is beautiful. Kindness is beautiful. Cellulite is beautiful. Softness and plumpness and roundness are beautiful. It is more important to be interesting, to be vivid, and to be adventurous, than to sit pretty for pictures. A woman's soft tummy is a miracle of nature. Beauty comes from tenderness. Beauty comes from variety, from specificity, from the fact that no person in the world looks exactly like anyone else. Beauty comes from the tragedy that each person's life is destined to be lost to time. I believe woman are too hard on themselves. I believe that when you love someone, she becomes beautiful to you. I believe the eyes see everything through the heart-and nothing in the world feels as good as resting them on someone you love. I have trained my eyes to look for beauty, and I've gotten very good at finding it."
This is a book that needs to be on my bookshelf. (Caution: there is some language in it.)