Month: April 2021

Why Can’t Apples Be Purple

Why Can’t Apples Be Purple

Imagine yourself in Kindergarten. Imagine the excitement.  The first real school experience. Away from your parents.  Away from bothers and sisters Nervous Excited Scared Anxious All those feelings being felt in a giant ball in your tummy. At that age do we know what it 

Do You NEED A Goal?

Do You NEED A Goal?

Do you even really need a goal?  Can you make progress without a goal or goals?  Do you feel like if you don’t have a goal you can’t make any progress? What say you? I say you can make progress without goals.  But what is 

I’m Just Here For The Buzz

I’m Just Here For The Buzz

I’m Just Here For The Buzz

That’s the feeling I wanted. That’s what I chased. I didn’t like feeling out of control or past the buzz point. But then the dilemma was how to keep just enough buzz without moving past it. It was a fine line. That last one was always too much. No matter how much I knew better. 

If you get my emails or see my social media accounts, you may know that I have not had an alcoholic beverage in a while. It’s actually been 913 days. So, yeah, a while. 

I really don’t ever think about it much anymore. Not drinking is just part of my life right now It doesn’t serve a purpose for me. It was fun, but it was getting to where I was questioning why I was drinking or if I was trying to numb something or if I was just using it to cope with life. I was starting to think about it all the time. It was the – oh, I can’t wait to get off work so I can have a glass of wine – thoughts.  And then the reward thoughts. The if I get my workout in then I can have wine. Or sometimes I ditched the workout altogether and just started in on the wine. 

It also wasn’t doing my health any favors. I was drinking sometimes every night. And then I would tell myself, okay, I’m just going to drink this weekend, and not drink during the week. That would last for a few weeks, sometimes a month. And then I would be right back at it again. It was getting dumb. I would buy a couple bottles of wine for the weekend. But if I had too much of one, that would not leave enough for the rest of the weekend so I would have to go buy more. That was the part for me that was starting to feel really out of control. So I did something about it. I told myself I was going to stop. I needed to check myself. I needed to see if I could do it. 

The more it was becoming normalized all over social media, the more I was getting sick of it. You couldn’t go look on someone’s Facebook page without there being pictures of people drinking. It was in your face everywhere. 

It was being normalized for women to think they couldn’t make it through their day if there wasn’t wine for later. Society was telling us we couldn’t deal with life without wine. Wine time and mommy juice were becoming normal terms. People thought it was funny. It can be, but when it starts to rule your thoughts and your behaviors, then it’s time to take a closer look. 

If you wonder if you drink too much or if you have a drinking problem, you might drink too much and you might have a problem. Isn’t that usually how we start to wonder if something is not quite right in our lives? We wonder why we keep doing what we do. 

We deep down know, but we deep down don’t want to admit. We tell ourselves everything is fine. We still function. We still get up and go to work. We aren’t in jail and we are just having fun. I got tired of burning off the morning fog with caffeine. I got tired of the puffy face and tired eyes. I got tired of feeling like shit all the time. 

When that fun turns into day drinking, and every night drinking and all the weekends drinking and looking for the most amazing flavored vodka drinking, there might be a problem.

But, who the fuck am I to tell you that? There is no right or wrong choice for you. It’s just your choice. I don’t care if you drink. I have a lot of friends that drink and I still love every single one of those friends and can still have fun when I am with them, even if I don’t drink. That’s my choice and I don’t look at anyone who drinks any differently that someone who doesn’t. 

You have to decide how you live your life. Every six months or so, I reevaluate my choice to not drink. I don’t know if I will drink again, but right now I feel really solid in my decision. 

I don’t miss anything. In fact, I love going out and being sober. I love not having to worry if I will be able to drive home or if my husband is going to drive home. I love not having to make the wine decision on a Saturday afternoon, because I might still need to drive somewhere later. I really don’t miss it. I love not feeling like shit anymore. I’m still funny, whether I’m drinking or not. And I still have fun. So for now, I will be sticking to my alcohol free life. 

Pressure Perfect

Pressure Perfect

Pressure Perfect I’ve been wondering again. I’ve told you before. I wonder about a lot of different things. Lately it’s been pressure. The pressure we put on our kids, or the pressure we put on ourselves. The pressures our parents put on us. What kind 

Life is short, time is fast

Life is short, time is fast

We don’t get a replay and we don’t get a rewind. Life IS short and time IS fast. A classmate. Gone too soon. A shock to so many. Life changes in an instant. The time. Her time. We tend to think we will stay young 

Let’s leave nothing for later…

Let’s leave nothing for later…

The funny stuff is here at the beginning. The not so funny stuff gradually builds. The sad kicks in and the feelings start feeling.

#1

Sometimes I wonder about things. Today was such a day. I had a few things. My socks were one of them. Have you sen the socks that have the R and the L stitched on them? Do they think I don’t know my right and left? But more importantly, why the hell would that matter with socks? Does it matter? I don’t think so, but my rule following brain will not let me switch them. I just can’t do it. Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t are able to. Crazy, But true, for me. 

#2

The next thing I wondered about was why women do this. I don’t think I have seen men do it, but they might. I just haven’t come across it. Women will post a picture on FB or IG and then go about making their point and then say this: 

Excuse the sweat

Excuse the mess

Excuse the pajama pants

Excuse my 3 day hair

Excuse the no make-up

Excuse the toys all over the place

Excuse my….

Excuse the ….

Why do we say these things. Shame?  Embarrassment? Or just because we feel we need to? I don’t know. I hate how women make excuses for things. Just stop. You don’t need to excuse anything. You showed up for your day. You did the things. You are living your life. Let’s start normalizing those things. It’s part of life. Nobody is perfect and why the hell try? Live without those excuses. Keep showing up! 

#3

A friend from high school I have mentioned before on my blog is struggling hard. In fact, she won’t last long. She is in hospice care. It’s shocking and sad and scary all at the same time. So many things affect so many things. The surface is shiny, but scratch away a little bit and the shine fades. The reality sets in. The truth sets in. The sadness and the struggles. Let peace envelop her. Let the pain subside. May she rest in eternal peace and have a wonderful reunion with her parents. 

#4

Then the final little thoughts popping in and out all day were of my dad. His birthday is coming up and the thoughts keep rushing in. I was in Walmart yesterday, and an older dad, probably around the age of 75 or so and his daughter, in her 50s was helping him. They walked by and I immediately smelled Afta Shave. The aftershave that dad used. The green bottle of smelly smelling aftershave lotion. I thought about him through the rest of shopping trip. This month kicks my butt. It’s been 21 years and it is still hard. 

Ho-hos and Afta Shave

Plaid shirts and summer caps

Silent humor and can’t behave

Snack Wells cookies and steaks on the grill

Intimidating and subtle impacts

Perception and intuition

Knowing it’s near and feeling fulfilled

Saying goodbye and realizing this disposition

 

He would have turned 81 on the 21st. 

Happy Heavenly Birthday Dad 

Please allow me to introduce myself…

Please allow me to introduce myself…

Sometimes you get on a roll and sometimes you get on the coast vibe. Right now I feel on a roll. A shift if you will. Attitude? Perhaps. The moon? Perhaps. The timing? Perhaps. Things are fun right now. When you love your job, things 

I have this friend…

I have this friend…

I have a friend. Her name is Aileen. I have never actually met her. We are online friends. Facebook friends. I admire her greatly. She is a writer, she is hilarious, she is a life coach and an overall badass. Her newsletter is amazing and 

I want my body back. Hint–you didn’t lose it.

I want my body back. Hint–you didn’t lose it.

I have heard this so many times. I just want my body back. If only I could get my body back. I looked so much better before I had a baby. I used to be so thin in high school. I want my skinny jeans to fit again.

First. You didn’t lose your body. Nobody stole your body. You don’t need to “get it back.”

I remember when I had my first kid. I was soooo young. Holy cow. I was 22. I remember everything I had always heard was you should be back into your “normal” clothes at your six week post baby checkup. WTF?? The pressure was crazy. I mean, who fucking made up that rule? The comments were crazy. It was the “you better lose that baby weight.” “You don’t want to get pregnant again before you’ve had a chance to lose that baby weight.” “It’s not hard, just put your mind to it.” First of all, what new mom has a damn mind? We don’t have time to think about anything, except taking care of a newborn baby. We are fighting with lack of sleep, hormones going crazy, giant boobs, bleeding and sore vaginas and wondering why the hell we decided to have kids in the first place.

At the hospital it’s all cool and nice. Then you get home and it’s like, now what? I remember feeling so overwhelmed. My child ate every two hours. I couldn’t nurse. Another thing that new moms are shamed for. I felt so guilty. I felt like I was short-changing my baby. But then the selfish emotions came knocking. I felt good, because I wanted to lose that weight and I didn’t want to eat. So there was that negotiating going on inside me. Then realization comes knocking reeeaaalllly loud. Realization tells you the straight up in your face truth–this is going to really hard. When we are pregnant we tell ourselves and we tell our friends how we can’t wait to wear normal clothes again. Then after we get there and it all sinks in, we think, well shit, maybe being pregnant wasn’t so bad. It’s all fun and games until even our fat pants don’t fit. LOL

Then when a person actually does come back to their pre-pregnancy weight, you hear things like, “Look how fast she bounced back.” “Wow, she looks amazing.” “I wish I could look like that.” And there we have the constant comments on our bodies and the constant comparison of bodies. It’s no wonder so many women have body image issues, self-esteem issues, disordered eating and shitty relationships with food.

I have four kids and I distinctly remember thinking this 6 week thing was a hard and fast rule I had to follow. Why??????

When we are focusing on changing our bodies after having babies, we are taking away from the process of being in the moment with our babies. It’s normal! What happens to our bodies is normal. Take the time to enjoy your baby and take the time to do what you want to do with your body. It’s your process. Trying to go back to somewhere in the past is absurd. This whole glamorizing of women who after 6 or 8 weeks out from having a baby are back to normal, needs to stop. Let these new moms enjoy their baby time. There is no reason to rush. Women are badasses. Plain and simple.

Look at the process of how the body changes even just in those nine months of being pregnant. Give the body time to recover. It’s okay to want to look a certain way and it’s okay to want to change. I always say do what you want. It’s your life and they are your reasons. Change how you want. Don’t change because someone tells you that you need to or that you should. Don’t change because society thinks getting back into your skinny jeans 6 weeks after having a baby is the be all end all goal. Fuck that.

Our bodies are constantly changing. We can never go back to what we were. We go through puberty, we get our periods, we get pregnant and then we go through peri-menopause and menopause. Nothing is linear. And nothing is “normal.” Every single one of us is going to be different. Everything about each of those experiences is going to be different for all of us. No two women will have the same experience. That is what is so great about us. And that is why we don’t need to conform to those outdated ridiculous standards that someone put in place to make us feel like crap about ourselves. Every stage of your life is an opportunity to get in there and learn about yourself. Love yourself, love your body and live each stage of change.

Life goes by fast enough. Children grow up fast enough. Use your timeline to make the changes you want to make. Stop trying to be somewhere else in your life. Get in the present and live every day.