Motivational Mondays (Sept. 27)

Mrs. LB has offered up another guest post. I think she'd be a pretty good blogger, but until that happens, I'll be lucky to have her as a guest blogger.

Here's her latest offering.


When it comes to fashion have you ever wished you were the kind of person who could pull something off? For example, some women look great in unique tights in the winter. Some guys look cool in warm up suits. Some women have the ability to pull off the vest and tie look while some men can pull off the skinny jean look (beware of this one, guys, I have a feeling you’ll be looking back on these pics in the future and wishing it weren’t so).

My point here is that for the most part people live in the mainstream of fashion. There aren’t many people who take risks. And among those who do - there are even fewer who make it work.
I always wanted to be the kind of woman who could pull off hats or cool headbands. I love to accessorize and the head seems like another obvious place of adornment. I’ve tried many hats. When I was younger, my girlfriends would convince me in the store I was so a “hat person.” Let it be said here that I now know they were lying.

I have tried headbands of all types - glittery, flower-adorned, preppy, wide, skinny, patterned, solid, etc. You get the picture. For some reason, I cannot accessorize my head. I’ve mostly given this up except for the occasional day when my hair is just not cooperating and then I might steal one of my girls’ headbands to get me through the day. This, by the way, is always a bad idea. It’s usually the day I have an impromptu meeting with a VP or CEO and the headband keeps slipping or makes me look like I’m 12 - not a 30-something HR professional who knows how to guide a corporation in personnel matters.

Anyway, this brings me to my actual point. My husband has always wanted to be the type of guy who looks good wearing a jersey. Soccer, football, baseball and hockey jerseys - he has them. He loves them and likes wearing them. This was difficult for him before he changed to a healthy lifestyle.

We used to have to try and buy them as big as we could find them. This is not possible in the world of soccer jerseys. Maybe you could get away with finding a XXL guy playing football but nobody who plays soccer is large. It’s not possible to run for 90 minutes and be big. So, the manufacturers assume that the fans are also not XXL-wearing kind of people. While this is a bad assumption, it just is what it is.

Recently, I watched my husband as he coached our oldest daughter’s soccer team, The Pink Jaguars, and he was running around in a soccer jersey we had previously deemed decorative since he couldn’t fit into them before. And he looked good. He looked lean and energetic. He looked like a guy you would find on a soccer field.

I know how good he feels when he can buy off the rack. I bought him a Japan national team jersey for his birthday last month and his brother brought him home an awesome Ecuador national team jersey from his South American trip. I was so happy to see Luis’ smile when he slid both of these on and they fit. He’s still self-conscious about anything being too form fitting on top but that’s mostly in his head.

Saturday, he put his navy blue Ecuadorian jersey on over another shirt after taking team pics with The Pink Jaguars and had no trouble at all sliding it down his lean torso.

I hope he rewards himself with many more jerseys in the future as a reminder of how far he’s come.