So I lost a pair of sunglasses.  Last fall sometime.  They were a $20 pair from American Eagle, so nothing special, but they were the first pair I'd managed not to break/sit on/crush or lose after owning for a week or so.  And I liked how they looked, for whatever that is worth.  I had them for over two years, and then suddenly, they were gone.

I tore apart the van in my search for them, went through Smiddy's car, searched the house, moved to a new house and vainly hoped to find them in each box I unpacked, and finally concluded that they were gone forever.  I bought a new pair at Kohl's two weeks ago.

Last night I dreamed that I found my sunglasses.  When I woke up in the morning, I kept thinking that if I could just remember where I found the shades in my dream, I could look there, but the details were gone.

Today I stopped by the home of some friends who have taken care of my children every once in a while for the past few years.  As I fiddled with my new pair of sunglasses, James jumped up and said, "I have to go get those!  They've been at our house for a long time, and Mom said I have to give them to you today!"  And returned with my old pair of sunglasses, which apparently fell out of my van into their driveway--sometime last fall.

How weird is that?  Have you ever had that deja vu feeling?

As usual, I'm here blogging instead of over in my "work" screen getting things done.  Ah, well, the homeschool group doesn't really need their yearbook by the end of April, do they?  I'd like to blame my lack of motivation on spring, but the fickle lady seems to have taken one glance at Western Nebraska and left us to our own devices for the remainder of the season.

Nevertheless, spring is my favorite season (except for in fall, when fall is my favorite, and in winter, when winter is my favorite...summer is never my favorite) and the topic of this month's Featured_Grownups site, so I think I'll expound.

For me, it's the anticipation.  I don't think there's another season I wait for like spring.  I enjoy fall and winter, but I truly look forward to the arrival of the first green stems poking through the grass, the first day when you can sit outside and feel the warmth of the sun on your skin, that first rainshower.  There's just something fresh about spring, something innocent and worth treasuring. 

I love the rain and the thundestorms, and the puddles and mud.  I love the freshness of each new plant that appears, and the fierce growth each one displays at first.  It is as if they are straining to get as close to the sky as possible, as quickly as possible, and that is how I feel, too--that in the spring, the sky is almost touchable, that the warmth is something you can feel the texture of, and that the feeling of anticipation is something you can almost taste.

Wanna know what the single most attention-capturing image is in the advertising world?  A woman's body.  I know this:  I took Marketing.  A long time ago, but the principle still holds true.  The female form will catch the eye of both men and women and keep them looking at an advertisement longer than any other image.  So is it any wonder that we are bombarded with images of women?  We see them in magazines and on TV and billboards and in places you wouldn't expect, such as tire ads and in tractor sales fliers.  And of course, each image is a paradigm of beauty and balance.

I have a theory as to why women worry about their weight so much more, and it has to do with mirrors.  You know how the right rear view mirror on your car says, "Objects in mirror maybe larger than they appear"?  (Actually, it says "closer" not "larger" but I'm writing this blog to suit my purposes, and that includes quotes.  So there.)  Well, women believe the mirror.  We look at ourselves and visually enlarge everything we see--just a tad.

I was watching "What Not To Wear" a while back and the hosts had the victim draw her perception of her body on a wall, and then they traced her body with a different color.  Of course, she'd mis-judged her width by several inches, and her height was off, too.  I'm thinking most women would draw an over-sized image of themselves, while men might be more prone to come out about right.

Here's the other thing.  Men look into the mirror straight on and think, "Hey, I look pretty good!"  And then they walk away, happy with their sense of worth.

Women look into the mirror straight on and think, "Hey, I look okay.  Getting a little wide in the hips, there, Girlie!  Better watch that."  And then we turn to the side and think, "Whoa.  Did I give birth to three kids or a herd of cattle?  Gotta learn to hold that in!"  And then we crank our bodies around a little more and think, "Is that my rear or do I have a PT Cruiser lurking back there?"  And we turn around and around, finding more and more to be disatisfied with on every pass, until by the time we finally tear ourselves away we're vowing to diet and craving a pint of Ben & Jerry's.  We hold our exaggerated sense of size up against an air-brushed, over-dieted magazine ad and wonder why we always come out on the heavy end, why we never measure up to what we see. 

What do you think?  Are men or women more likely to have an accurate idea of their size?  Are men or women more likely to have a healthy sense of self?