Last week I made home made jam.  It was so good, I gave it away.  Except I gave too much away and didn’t save any for myself.  Isn’t that the rule.  If you make something to share it turns out great.  If you make it to store it becomes that food item you have to pay your family to eat.  At least that’s how it works at my house.

Since I ran out, I thought the jam would make perfect mother’s day gifts.  Hey, I’d be giving it away and I’d save a couple jars for myself.  Actually the jam story is a couple blogs, so this story will be told in a couple blogs in reverse order.  I thought, the keyword here is thought, that I had all the necessary supplies.  To find out I was missing some lemon juice.  This entailed a 5th trip to the store today.  I thought to myself, this is a sign.  This will probably be the best jam EVER.

Eerily, the store was empty.  Usually on Sunday evenings the store is packed with last minute get ready for the week shoppers.   Another thing, the people that were there were checking me out.  I had put on a couple of pounds lately and was a little worried about it.   I was happy that it made me look more feminine or curvy but that number on the scale hurts my feelings.  By the way people were looking at me, the weight gain was probably something I needed. They couldn’t hide their stares.

So as they gandered my way, I smiled back. The Teen Challenge guy couldn’t take his eyes off of me.  Needless to say I went home with my lemon juice, 10 gatorades, crackers and 8 boxes of cereal feeling like supermom and supermodel. “I still got it!” I thought to myself.

8 jam jars and a meatloaf dinner later, I took a moment to myself.  When I looked in the mirror I saw what other people were seeing.  I had to look hard too

Straight, my naturally curly hair touches the bottom of my shoulderblades. Meaning this teacher girl has a lot of hair.  My curls are spiral, so when it’s curly, it barely touches my shoulders.  The wind had got a hold of my hair without me realizing it, and my spiral curls were sticking straight up.  At least a good twelve inches straight up.  And if a strand of hair didn’t have the strength to stick up, it stuck out.  Buckwheat had nothing on me.

Did my husband, the love of my life, say anything before I left?  Awww no he didn’t. Then I thought about all those people smiling at me.  Let’s just say I will be doing a lot less thinking and a lot more mirror looking in the future.

For now, my mantra will remain.  “I’m beautiful on the inside.”