Have ‘Em Sent UPS, the Postal Service Takes Too Long

The thing about being 40ish is that now is the time, for many women, when the “Big Girl Panties” not only have finally arrived but are fixed and firmly in place. Unlike your twenties - when the BGP haven’t even been ordered yet and you’re still trying desperately to make it through life with a thong rammed between your cheeks (it’s an analogy, go with it) -  when you're not sure who you are and a little terrified that whoever you are, you don't measure up to anyone's expectations, including your own, when you're still hoping against hope that you just don't screw your life up.

40 is a lovely time for a lot of women. They finally grow up. And, stop expecting everyone to love them and approve of  them. They’ve accepted their responsibilities and the work that goes along with them and they expect the people in their lives to do the same. Personally, I think it's a groovy time. I've lived long enough to have really screwed my life up once or twice and to realize that...I didn't and I am happier. Life, it goes on and it surprises you.  I'm still freakin' out just a tad about the fact that I am middle-aged - I am, 40 + 40 = 80! -  that, statistically, the whole thing's more than half over. But I'm thinking that, if I take it in 20 year increments, it looks pretty cool. :) 40 is SO SO SO SO SO SO SO MUCH better than 20 was, it just makes me almost salivate for 60.

There are times when my BGP are too tight, when they chaff around the edges, but for the most part they are my favorite part of my attire. I no longer leave home without them. I've stopped asking permission, from anyone, to live my life.

“If I have to put my Big Girl Panties on 

one more time and deal with it, 

the elastic is going to bust out and then 

I’ll really have to show my ass.” 

-seen on a sign hanging in Horsetown, Marietta, Ga

The Awakening

-Author Unknown

A time comes in your life when you finally get it ... when, in the midst of all your fears and insanity, you stop dead in your tracks and somewhere the voice inside your head cries out - ENOUGH!

Enough fighting and crying or struggling to hold on. And, like a child quieting down after a blind tantrum, your sobs begin to subside, you shudder once or twice, you blink back your tears and begin to look at the world through new eyes.

This is your awakening.

You realize it's time to stop hoping and waiting for something to change ... or for happiness, safety and security to come galloping over the next horizon.

You come to terms with the fact that you are neither Prince Charming nor Cinderella and that in the real world there aren't always fairy tale endings (or beginnings for that matter) and that any guarantee of "happily ever after" must begin with you ... and in the process a sense of serenity is born of acceptance.

You awaken to the fact that you are not perfect and that not everyone will always love, appreciate or approve of who or what you are ... and that's OK.

They are entitled to their own views and opinions.

And you learn the importance of loving and championing yourself ... and in the process a sense of new found confidence is born of self-approval. You stop complaining and blaming other people for the things they did to you (or didn't do for you) and you learn that the only thing you can really count on is the unexpected.

You learn that people don't always say what they mean or mean what they say and that not everyone will always be there for you and that it's not always about you.

So, you learn to stand on your own and to take care of yourself ... and in the process a sense of safety and security is born of self-reliance.

You stop judging and pointing fingers and you begin to accept people as they are and to overlook their shortcomings and human frailties ... and in the process a sense of peace and contentment is born of forgiveness.

You realize that much of the way you view yourself, and the world around you, is as a result of all the messages and opinions that have been ingrained into your psyche.

And you begin to sift through all the junk you've been fed about how you should behave, how you should look, how much you should weigh, what you should wear, what you should do for a living, how much money you should make, what you should drive, how and where you should live, who you should marry, the importance of having and raising children, and what you owe your parents, family, and friends.

You learn to open up to new worlds and different points of view. And you begin reassessing and redefining who you are and what you really stand for.

You learn the difference between wanting and needing and you begin to discard the doctrines and values you've outgrown, or should never have bought into to begin with ... and in the process you learn to go with your instincts.

You learn that it is truly in giving that we receive. And that there is power and glory in creating and contributing and you stop maneuvering through life merely as a "consumer" looking for your next fix.

You learn that principles such as honesty and integrity are not the outdated ideals of a bygone era but the mortar that holds together the foundation upon which you must build a life.

You learn that you don't know everything, it's not your job to save the world and that you can't teach a pig to sing.

You learn to distinguish between guilt and responsibility and the importance of setting boundaries and learning to say NO.

You learn that the only cross to bear is the one you choose to carry and that martyrs get burned at the stake.

Then you learn about love. How to love, how much to give in love, when to stop giving and when to walk away.

You learn to look at relationships as they really are and not as you would have them be.

You stop trying to control people, situations and outcomes.

And you learn that alone does not mean lonely.

You also stop working so hard at putting your feelings aside, smoothing things over and ignoring your needs.

You learn that feelings of entitlement are perfectly OK ... and that it is your right to want things and to ask for the things you want ... and that sometimes it is necessary to make demands.

You come to the realization that you deserve to be treated with love, kindness, sensitivity and respect and you won't settle for less.

And you learn that your body really is your temple.

And you begin to care for it and treat it with respect. You begin to eat a balanced diet, drink more water, and take more time to exercise.

You learn that being tired fuels doubt, fear, and uncertainty and so you take more time to rest.

And, just as food fuels the body, laughter fuels our soul. So you take more time to laugh and to play.

You learn that, for the most part, you get in life what you believe you deserve ... and that much of life truly is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

You learn that anything worth achieving is worth working for and that wishing for something to happen is different from working toward making it happen.

More importantly, you learn that in order to achieve success you need direction, discipline and perseverance.

You also learn that no one can do it all alone ... and that it's OK to risk asking for help.

You learn the only thing you must truly fear is the greatest robber baron of all: FEAR itself.

You learn to step right into and through your fears because you know that whatever happens you can handle it and to give in to fear is to give away the right to live life on your own terms.

And you learn to fight for your life and not to squander it living under a cloud of impending doom.

You learn that life isn't always fair, you don't always get what you think you deserve and that sometimes bad things happen to unsuspecting, good people.

On these occasions you learn not to personalize things.

You learn that God isn't punishing you or failing to answer your prayers. It's just life happening.

And you learn to deal with evil in its most primal state -- the EGO.

You learn that negative feelings such as anger, envy and resentment must be understood and redirected,

redirected or they will suffocate the life out of you and poison the universe that surrounds you.

You learn to admit when you are wrong and to build bridges instead of walls.

You learn to be thankful and to take comfort in many of the simple things we take for granted, things that millions of people upon the earth can only dream about: a full refrigerator, clean running water, a soft warm bed, a long hot shower.

Slowly, you begin to take responsibility for yourself by yourself and you make yourself a promise to never betray yourself and to never, ever settle for less than your heart's desire.

And you hang a wind chime outside your window so you can listen to the wind. And you make it a point to keep smiling, to keep trusting, and to stay open to every wonderful possibility.

Finally, with courage in your heart and God by your side, you take a stand, you take a deep breath, and you begin to design the life you want to live as best you can.

Yeah, like that.

And Then There Were None

I love words.
They are my friends.
I love the way that they feel in my mouth and the way that they tickle my funny bone.
I love the way that related words can differ from one another but only subtly.

The perfect one at the right time can be like rain on a hot thirsty soul
but a person can literally die from want of kind ones.

I love them so much that I have a collection of them - a collection of quotes - that I am constantly adding to.

If I ever write another blog  it'll be called something along the lines of,
"The March- December Blog,"
because in the wintertime I am all out of words. They escape me. Flown south for the winter. Moved to greener pastures. Taken a long winter nap. Something.

I knew that this was true to an extent but I had no idea how very stale I found the words inside my own brain until this week when writing has become so very tiresome.

"Abundant sunshine," this is what the weather forecast calls for, tomorrow. I'm gonna go ride Horse and hold my face up to the sunshine and cross my fingers that the words come bubbling back. (They will, they always do.) Until then, I shall leave you with the wonderful words of other people, pulled from my quote collection:

"I think that all creative people are a little bit nuts."

- Dolly Parton.

"One can be too familiar with vegetables, you know!" 

-Ratatouille

‎"Life is not holding a good hand. Life is playing a poor hand well." 

- Danish Proverb

"Those who don't get it, don't get that they don't get it."

-Colin Cowherd

"It's not 'brave' if you're not scared."

-Bounce

"A God you understood would be less than yourself."

- Flannery O'Connor

"Remember to love your neighbor as you love yourself. 

And if you hate yourself, then please - just leave your neighbor alone." 

-?

"Fear quitting, not failing."

- sign seen at Caribou Coffee, Woodstock, Ga

"Life is a daring adventure or nothing." 

-Helen Keller

"I'd had the quintessential liberal arts experience, 

and I came out of college not having a clue of what to do." 

- John Wesley

"There are years that ask questions and years that answer." 

- Zora Neale Hurston

‎"We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, 

so as to have the life that is waiting for us." 

- Joseph Campbell

"I hate false modesty, it's just another way to lie." 

-Ratatouille

"It's not who you are that holds you back, 

it's who you think you're not". 

-Author Unknown

"In my opinion, the best thing you can do is find a person 

who loves you for exactly what you are. Good mood, bad mood, 

ugly, pretty, handsome, what have you, the right person will still think 

the sun shines out your ass. That's the kind of person that's worth sticking with." 

-Mac MacGuff, Juno

"Tell your story the way God gives it to you, regardless of what people say." 

- Albert Wagner

"Courage is being scared to death....and saddling up anyway." 

-John Wayne

"Little by little, one travels far."

-J.R.R. Tolkien

"Under capitalism man exploits man; 

under socialism the reverse is true." 

-Polish Proverb 

"May those who love us, love us and those who don't love us, may God turn their hearts and

 if He can't turn their hearts, may He turn their ankles so we will know them by their limping."

- My favorite Irish blessing.

“There are two ways to live: 

you can live as if nothing is a miracle; 

you can live as if everything is a miracle.”

-Albert Einstein

"He that would thrive, must ask his wife" 

-English proverb

"Don't do nothing because you can't do everything. Do Something. Anything." 

- Colleen Patrick Goudreau

"Some people walk in the rain; others just get wet."

-Roger Miller

"Only two things are infinite, 

the universe and human stupidity, 

and I'm not sure about the former." 

-Albert Einstein

“Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. 

Accept no ones definition of your life; define yourself.”

- Harvey Fierstein

"Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak. 

Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen."

-Winston Churchill 

"I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is; I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat." 

-- Rebecca West (1892-1983) 

"Truth is, everybody is going to hurt you; you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for." 

-Bob Marley

"A brief shining moment and then, that mouth!"

-Miss Congeniality

"She behaves as if she was beautiful. 

Most American women do. 

It is the secret of their charm."

-Oscar wilde

"There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning." 

-Louis L'Amour

… "I may never forget, but I need not always remember."… 

- from Dr. Frank Ochberg's Survivor Psalm

“I can be changed by what happens to me, I refuse to be reduced by it.” 

- Maya Angelou. 

“Not all who wander are lost.” 

-J.R.R. Tolkien

"The sane would do no good if they made themselves mad to help madmen."

-CS Lewis, The Great Divorce, pg 75

“What kind of relationship that’s worth having requires holding back your truth?”

–Melissa J. Delbridge, Poets and Writers

“A failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.”

- sign, seen hanging in DMV in….California?

"There is nothing the dentist CAN do which will overcome what the patient WILL not do.”

–sign in my childhood Dentist’s office

"Superman isn't brave. 

You can't be brave if you are indestructible. 

It's every day people like me and you that are brave. 

Knowing we can easily be defeated but still continue forward. 

That's true bravery." 

-Jesse Downs

"It took me a long time not to judge myself through someone else's eyes." 

-Sally Field

"Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself."

- One of my favorite coffee mugs.

It's Tuesday Again...

... and I'm having a hard time doing this.
It's that time of year.
The holidays have come and gone and some of the yucky of them is still hanging on like those little fruit juice seeds at the bottom of the glass.
The weather sucks.
My mood sucks.
I'm afraid to write anything because I'm afraid that it will come off way more snarky than I intend. I mean, I don't mind being snarky but I want to mean it when I do it. :)
So, I should just write something funny...yeah, there's not a funny bone in my body, at this moment. And, I'm not sure that you can really decide to be genuinely "funny."
I feel sorta ungrounded in a lot of ways in my life.

I don't have it all together, right now.

The irony is that you have to have it together a certain amount before you have the confidence to admit that you don’t have it all together.

The truth is that nobody has it all together but most of us make a living acting like we do. I’ve found that some of the best-looking facades cover over some of the biggest train wrecks of lives. Now, around the 40s, is often when the lies start to catch up with the liars.

Well, one can hope. :)

There exists inside of me - I think, inside of us all - this need to believe that what we do really does matter. That right decisions really do lead to good consequences - call it "Karma" or "reaping what you sow," or whatever. There is this need to believe that the quote, "Nice guys finish last," is incorrect, that the lies really do  catch up with the liars.

We all love a good underdog story - the guy who isn't supposed to be good enough, who reaches inside himself and finds that mysterious "something," that helps him to propel himself over and above the "giants" of his world.

We love it because, for one tiny moment, the Universe slides into it's proper gear.  Things work like they should, not like they usually do - the little girl beats the cancer, the marriage survives, the bully gets knocked down and learns his lesson, the family is reunited - like a bad 30 minute sitcom, in which everything is made right in the end and where "right" wins out against all odds.  My very good friend, Bea, references that moment, near the end, in "Lassie" where a parent would sit down with the little boy, Timmy, and explain how and why, even though everything looked so bleak, it ended up all right in the end. She calls them, "So you see, Timmy," moments.

What I've seen of life so far, it would appear that good guys do, sometimes (often,) finish last. That injustice does occur, unanswered. That horrible things do happen to really good people. And, that, sometimes, it keeps happening to them. I find myself craving my own sort of "So you see, Timmy," moments. And, wondering if all my battling to do "right" is worth it.

And then, I have to have a real, honest conversation with myself.

Okay, A-Girl, here's the deal : You do what you do because you believe it's right.
Not for any other reason.
If you make the choices that you make because you believe that you're gonna get a big giant prize in the end, how is that different from any other old-fashioned selfishness?

I believe that we were put here on Earth to become better than we are.
I believe that everyday is a new opportunity to evolve into a better creature than we were yesterday.

It takes baby steps, it takes making small "right" decisions all along the way. It takes carving the darkness out of our hearts with a thimble in the hope that someday that thimble is lost in the hugeness of a grown-up, "better" heart. There is a knowledge that I am probably making my life harder than it has to be in the short term because I believe that the growth is worth it, in the end.

It takes faith.

I don't know that I could wrap up my religious beliefs into some nice, tidy package. I'm not even sure that I know what they are, anymore. But I do believe that "this" is not all there is. That "earth" and "now" are part of a much bigger thing.

A thing where bravery and self-sacrifice and standing up for truth, really do mean something.

And that, gives me faith for days like today and hope for tomorrow.

Um, No! Not Five! No, No, No!

A-Girl Note: Yes, it will be FIVE. Just saw the notice.

We are in the middle of our FOURTH snow day. Four. The kids have now had their Pjs on so long that I may have to peel them off their little sticky bodies.  Even if they go back to preschool tomorrow, next is the weekend and then, Monday is a school holiday. <sigh>

Yesterday, my husband managed, somehow, to drive to the ATL airport and fly to Dallas for a business trip…it took me 2 ½ hours to dig my truck out and make it to the grocery store where I scavenged among the grocery shelves. (Did I mention that this leaves me cranky and snow-bound, alone, with a 3yo and a 5yo on the FOURTH snow day????)

We have not gotten mail since Saturday (- just looked out the window, he came! Who knew I'd ever be this excited to get junk mail and bills?)  The frozen trash stands at the curb, getting higher and higher.  “2011 Snowpocalypse” now has 18,095 “attending.”

Anybody misses me, I’ll be outside talking to the snowman.

(People who live in this on a yearly basis are nuts braver than I am.)

So, all this snow talk has gotten me thinking. I don’t really like the snow. Well,  I haven’t in the past. It was novel and nifty but not so much giggling like a small child - which is what I’ve been doing most of this week.  Then, I realize that my joy of the snow was caught from my husband. He LOVES the snow. He stands and watches the sky and hopes, all winter. He talks about Colorado and snow skiing and wants desperately for us to have a reason to go sledding in “Hotlanta,” Georgia.  His joy infected me this year.

This led me to thinking about what makes up personality. Yes, for sure it’s genetics - I have an English degree because it was something that came naturally easy for me. That’s thanks, in large part, to my dad - his first degree was English, he dissected a lot of the movies that we watched, he wrote poetry and other stuff. We’re all “highly verbal.”  I’m sure it’s some sort of “gene thing.”

“Persistence of Memory" 
Salvador Dali-Museum of Modern Art, New York City

As powerful as genetics are, I’m sure that experience counts for just as much. The snow will always be a special thing to me because my hubby loves it. Same as the artist Dali - not my favorite at all, but I’ll never be able to look at “Persistence of Memory,"  again without thinking about my K-Man who loves Dali. In fact, we recently went to the High Museum in Atlanta and braved the CROWDS to see a Dali exhibit. The fact that K-Man even knows that he likes Dali is thanks to his experiences with ME, the woman who loves art and drug him around the Art Institute of Chicago looking at the Impressionists.

"A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte"
Georges-Pierre Seurat - Art Institute of Chicago

 (I almost touched, Seurat’s, "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" - it was AWESOME and huge! I swear that experience was the closest I’ve ever come to doing hard drugs. It totally mesmerized me. We came around the corner and there it was -  a  6 foot x 10 foot canvas of small dots. I was just drawn right up to it and very nearly touched the red and green “frame.”  In fact, I would have if the proctor lady hadn’t screamed at me, “DO NOT TOUCH THE PAINTING!” hahahahahaha)


You know that old adage, “Hindsight is  20-20?” It’s not. Hindsight is a bitch a fantasy. I look back at my life and, in so many ways, I wish I had it to do over again.

I’ve seen interviews with people who said,
“I wouldn’t change anything about my past, it’s made me who I am today,”
and I’ve had to fight the urge to throw a shoe at the Tv screen.
Really?  Hmmmm, maybe your life has been easier than mine?

There are so many things I’d change. So. Many.

And, what if I could?
What if I was able to go back and switch everything around?
What if I was able to do it just exactly the way I think I want?
I wouldn’t be the same person.
Oh, the genes would be the same.
I would still sound like me and talk like me and walk like me.

(But, I’m betting you that there’d be a shallowness, a selfishness that, I hope, isn't there, now - sometimes, the best way to learn compassion is to need it.  It’s possible that I could have gotten the world that I thought I wanted and lost my soul.)

I still deal with regret but it’s lessening. To change my past would change my present. It’s been a job getting here but I like this outcome. Honestly, I don’t think, if I could go back, knowing everything that I know now, that I could choose it. It’s just been too hard, but I am grateful for the lessons that I’ve learned and for where I am today.

My experiences would have been different.
I’d have lost some of “me.”
I like me now, I don’t want to lose a single atom.


Some more things that experience has given me:

My grandmother always had a white Christmas tree with mauve balls.
I LOVED that tree.
When she died I got the mauve balls.
This year, I bought a white Christmas tree to put them on.
Truth be known, having a white tree with mauve balls
will be just a bit over the top for my tastes but I don't care.
Having it in my house will fill me with a sense of
 love and tradition at Christmas time because of her.

Speaking of Christmas, my hubby and, now, my kids LOVE the Polar Express.
I've never been into trains at all - what's the point?
But this year, we ordered a Lionel Polar Express train set for them.
Well, I thought it was for them.
The more we talked the more I realized that it was FOR ME.
I am so excited about that train and about sharing it with my family every year.

This fuzzy picture is a picture of  my Ray-Bans. hahaha
I walked into the mall and said, "I want a pair of prescription sunglasses."
She picked up a pair of Ray-Bans and I couldn't believe it.
They're back?? hahahaha
I ordered them, didn't care what they looked like or even if they fit my face.
I wanted them because they were a link back to my teen years.
I would have been so cool in 1986!

Same with these Converse high tops.
They were all the rage when I was in middle school and I LOVED them.
I wanted a white pair badly so, in my late 30s, I bought a pair. :)

Even my love of horses can be traced back to my experiences.
For an abused little girl, this was freedom and power that I’d never known before. It was the only place that I escaped the stress that was my life. I LIVED for that one hour a week horseback lesson 
when I could get on a horse and FORGET. Obviously, it stuck with me.

My mother loved antiques and
I always head back to the antique store whenever I need furniture.

Ahhhh, we may have finally found one that is all mine.
Ranunculus. My very most favorite flower.
Sorta like the Rose's wild-child rebellious cousin.
Never heard of them until I became an adult.

"Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, 

but anyone can start today and make a new ending." 

-Maria Robinson 

Yes, Please! Let it Snow!

As most of you know, the southeast got slammed by a snow storm.

And, man has it been fun!

Atlanta just NEVER gets this white stuff that falls with purpose from the sky.
We get “oops, it’s snowing, how did that happen?” snow.
We get “pine-needle snow,” where IF you manage to scrape enough up off the ground to make a snowman, he’s gonna have pine needles sticking out of him like a guy who definitely needs an all over body-shave.  (You’ll also be able to tell the exact path that the people took to build him, because that area of the ground will now be devoid of snow and you will be able to see the pine needles sticking up off of the actual ground.)

We do not get REAL “snow storm” snow -this stuff  came down like snowflakes on a mission and it stuck. I mean, it stuck immediately. There was no looking out the window and anxiously asking, “Do you think it will stick?” Nope, no doubt- sticking to the ground …and the cars and the pavement and the rooftops!

It’s fun because it’s novel.  We know that, as snow goes, it’s not a lot of snow. We know that other areas of the country, areas that have to live with this stuff, roll their eyes at our making a big deal out of 4 to 6 (+ in some places) inches of snow. Kinda like we roll our eyes at NY City crying when it gets over 95 degrees in the summer.
(I remember once, when I lived in southwest Oklahoma, an actual news story,
“It’s been raining for over 15 minutes here, in downtown…” 
The whole place flooded - their roads weren’t graded to shed water - and people were running into each other all over the place.
“Please, stay off the roads if possible.” 
I couldn’t help it, I gaped at the Tv - rain? All this over rain?  Yep.)

The issue is not the actual weather, the issue is what people are accustomed to and what they are prepared for. Most areas in the south do not have snow plows or de-icing machines (we are completely shut down, NOTHING moves-it‘s too dangerous. Well, some four-wheelers are moving, not sure they completely understand the concept of "dangerous." :) ) We put salt, primarily, on our popcorn not on our roads. :)  Most of us do not have snow chains for our tires or even winter boots.  In fact, I almost didn't buy gloves for my kids, this year. They don’t really NEED them most days and therefore they won’t wear them. I bought them, “just in case.” Glad I did.

A very wonderful “real-life” friend of mine started a Facebook page,
"2011 Snowpocalypse" 
which, as of this posting (it keeps changing), had 11,642 people "attending."
(This, from a woman who has, as her profile picture on Fb, a picture of a crying baby and the words, “I HATE SNOW!” hahaha She’s also a nurse in downtown Atlanta who is stuck at the hospital until this stuff melts. Read: stuck at work for, literally, days. She’s spending the night in a hospital bed, if she’s lucky. She’s been posting pictures of herself and her nurse friends “sledding” on CPR boards all around the hospital. I’d post pics but they’re not mine to post. I’m betting this “snow day”  was all right in her book.  :)  )

My Facebook world waited on the snow together, en masse, on Sunday night. I could track the course of the storm as my friends, from all over the southeast, alternately wondered impatiently where the snow was and then, all along the edge as the storm moved from the southwest, chimed in to post as their statuses,
“IT’S SNOWING!”

We exchanged “snow cream,” recipes and posted pictures and marveled at something most of us didn’t even know existed- snow thunder! A few of my buddies even saw the lightening to go along with it. Wow. Who knew?

As I write this, I’m still stuck inside my house. The world outside is still joyfully white. It’ll be a couple more days before my husband can get to work safely and my kids go back to preschool. I’ll be pulling my hair out soon, no doubt. :)  Until then, enjoy!

Hmmm, not too bad.

Snow Cream for breakfast which was really good
when we added left over Egg Nog. This was dubbed
"Snow Thunder Nog"
by a Facebook friend of a friend.

Yep, he's standing on the road. See? Treacherous.

"Weebles may wobble..."

...but this one falls down...a lot!

I just love this picture.

<sigh> The gloves. <sigh>

"I hit you."

Unfortunately,
there was no one to take photos of the epic snow battles.
There is nothing more frustrating than to have your hubby CATCH the snowballs that you throw at him
and hit you in the head with them.
That's okay. I won, in the end. :)

Again, with the gloves.

Redneck sled.
I am the only one in my family who has anything remotely close to "snow clothes" to wear in this weather.
And, that's only because I broke down this year and bought cold weather clothes to ride Horse in.
I HATE being cold.

Seriously, Honey?

If all else fails, put ice in the "redneck sled."

If the laundry basket wasn't redneck enough, let's try cardboard!

I know, let's add Bungee Cords!
<groan>
There are soooo many things wrong with this picture.

Time for a nap.

Meanwhile, Mom and Dad finish the snowman.

Here's hoping the kids aren't too traumatized
when the deer eat our snowman's face. hahahaha

See you after the BIG THAW! :)
                                                                                                                                                             

And, Now, the Rest of the Story

So, I liked my last post. It was all very correct -

“age well, be wise, grow character.”

But sometimes, I wonder how honest it was. I mean, I know that I want to be that person, the one who whole-heartedly agrees with Julie Roberts when she says, about wrinkles,

"They're the story of our lives, 

and it shouldn't be a story about your drive to the doctor's office."

Yes. Agreed.

But aren’t we all, in the deep dark reaches of our souls where we don’t let the sunshine in, just a little jealous of those women who do drive to the doctor’s office?

Yeah… not jealous… angry.

I feel an underlying anger that I can’t be normal and fabulous all at the same time. I see those fabulous/surgically-altered women and part of me is pissed. Really, really pissed. I feel like they sold out. They gave into the pressures of society and sold out. Like, being a woman is so hard that we don’t need members of our sex reaching into the “not fair” box?

Maybe, I just want them to be more normal. I feel like they are ruining it for the rest of us. Like steroids on the baseball field, we should be able to “suspend” a woman for using unfair tactics. They set the bar so high that the rest of us should just crawl into a hole, somewhere. I want to stomp my feet, jump up and down and throw a fit: either we all get plastic surgery or none of us do. I vote for none. We should all be good enough just the way we are.

See, the truth is that I am NOT really so angry at the women who get surgery to be "fabulous."

I do get why they do it. I really do. I get it.

It's that I AM so angry at a society that makes them feel like they have to, at a society that defines "fabulous" in such  narrow terms. I am angry at the pressure that we all feel, that we have to work so damn hard to escape from that pressure and that we constantly have to work to strengthen our own feelings of self-worth because, if we don't, our society will rip us apart.

Ask a hundred women what they’d want to change about themselves and you’ll get, maybe not a hundred different answers, but definitely answers, they’d all have something that they’d want to improve -  hips, butt, boobs, hair, teeth, something. Mainly, because we are constantly being shown this standard of perfection that is not attainable. Even the very models themselves aren’t good enough, most of the time the pictures have been AIRBRUSHED or PHOTOSHOPPED - I once watched a fashion show thing where they were Photoshopping underneath the eyes of a FIFTEEN year old because they were too WRINKLY!

EEEEEEE-GADS!!!!

Lose weight, lose weight, lose weight. 

Wait! Keep the boobs!

Is it any wonder we’re all miserable?

Nothing that we are is ever good enough.

I am a very small woman
- thankfully, I have a husband who says he likes that -
but I want cleavage.

There, I said it.

And, I wonder where on earth I got the idea that a woman is a woman based on her cleavage. Well, don’t we all know the answer to that? The media -  which is what informs, and therefore shapes, our society is the answer to that.

( I knew, even as a little girl, that Wonder Woman’s true power was not in her magic bracelets or her invisible plane, it was in her Insta-Boobs.  I tried that maneuver a dozen times as a little girl- I’d twirl my little gangly body around in a circle and never, not once, did I sprout those Wonder Woman Insta-Boobs.  Something was definitely not right on my planet, I’ll tell you that much!)

“You need to buy a bra for your car 

because you sure don’t need one,” 

was one of many statements made to me in high school and I've never really gotten over the feeling that I’m somehow not good enough because of it. After several boyfriends, two husbands, and breastfeeding my kids, I’m still worried that my boobs, and therefore my self, aren't good enough. Obviously, someone found me attractive enough to have three kids with. It's not that I am not attractive, it's that I am not necessarily marketable. My personal "Brand" would need to be totally overhauled by a PR guy, no doubt.  (Oh, how I hate the idea that a human being should be MARKETABLE. Marketable??? I am a round, three-dimensional, complicated, interesting human being. Not some one-dimensional, flat, predicable, boring something that you can USE for your ends!)

Marketable. Yep, it all comes down to money. They want to sell us stuff (make-up, wrinkle cream, diet plans, magazines full of information, new clothes, etcetera AND etcetera) and they need for us to feel desperate to have it so that we'll fork over our money TO THEM to receive the promise that we'll all become a little more like the unattainable standard of perfection that THEY have fed us. Since it's unattainable, we'll never reach it and therefore we'll always need to buy their products. Good for them, huh?

Oh, how I HATE THAT.

I should be judged ALL THE TIME on who I am, not what I look like… and I’m not. 

Neither are you. 

Sucks, huh?

Here I am, stuck inside this body, a body that was dictated to me, in large part, by genetics. The real me is not what I look like but it is a lot of what I feel that I’m judged on. There is a frustration involved in that I feel like people make judgments about my worth that are not tied in any way to me, as a real person.

(And, shocked when the very thing that guys picked on me about so mercilessly as a teenager is now the thing that causes some women to be antagonistic toward me. Every time a total stranger comes up to me and snarls, “You are so skinny!” I am just shocked. Or, my personal favorite, sometimes spouted by people who are suppose to be my friends, “I HATE you for being so skinny.” Really? )

I was hoping that 40 would be the place that I reached where the answer to this was given to me. I was hoping that 40 would be the place where I realized my INTERNAL POWER and really quit caring what those shallow, egotistical/insecure, dumb people who’d judge me based on what I look like, thought.

And, I find that, it’s not.

I mean, those voices are much quieter than they ever have been before. In fact, I feel much sexier now than I ever have in my life...

(partly because I've realized that "sexy" is an attitude much more than it is a shape, partly because my husband is an amazing, SMART man who really does think I'm sexy as hell and partly because I am finally reaching deep down into my own soil of self-worth and finding that I can feed myself, thank you very much. I don't need to feed off anyone else's ideas of what makes me acceptable or not, anymore.)

...but I was hoping that 40 would be the time when I could shut them up for good.

Here’s hoping for 50.

Actually, my husband has an interesting theory. He thinks that we've all been duped. All of us - men and women - fall into peer pressure, admit it or not. He holds the opinion that men’s tastes are as varied as women’s bodies. He really does prefer smaller women. And, he says that admitting that is a little like saying that you don’t like football (he’s a big Ohio State fan.)

“What red-blooded American male,” 

he asks, is going to admit, 

'Hey, I don’t like football and I don’t like big boobs.”  

And, they won't admit it, not because it isn't true, but because even men have been force-fed this same steady diet of bullshit - that if they don't want a certain thing then they, themselves, are not acceptable. (Chill out, I know  a lot of men DO like big boobs. Look me in the eyes <giggle> and hear what I'm saying, don't get sidetracked by the boobs. )

And, it's not just the big boobs, I've heard from men who really like heavy-set women...or skinny women or tall women or short women or women with glasses, etc. (I've even heard of this elusive fellow who gets turned on by "chicks with brains." Oh, momma! There's a REAL man. heehee heehee)

Remember, "Baby Got Back," from waaaay back in the day?  Besides being a funny rap song ("...red beans and rice didn't miss her...")  it was the first time that I'd ever heard a guy say,

 "Forget what I'm supposed to like, this is what I DO like."

Thank you, Sir Mix-a-Lot.

So, then, if we really are okay the way that we are because there really is somebody for everybody - what in the big giant world is the fuss about?  Maybe, we should all just be who we are- surgery or not, diet or not, cleavage or not- and trust that someone will find us beautiful.

To hell with society's expectations.

Here’s hoping for 45 - with a guy like my hubby, my insecurities don’t stand a chance. Maybe, even 40 ½... maybe, on a good day, it’s really 39!

Thanks, K-Man, for reminding me that:

 Being 40 a woman is powerful.

 Being 40 a woman is beautiful.

40 is just a number.

And, that the stinkin' greedy media lies.


"Pretty"
by Katie Makkai

Click on link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6wJl37N9C0
(-no matter what blogger tells me, this is still the easiest way to post a video to my blog. And, if you're easily offended you might want to skip this, she drops the f-bomb. What am I saying?  If you were easily offended you probably wouldn't still be reading my blog... but nonetheless, you've been warned.)

Leonard Susskind says…

A-Girl Note: I missed a WHOLE WEEK. 

It seems my "Merry Christmas Cold" became "New Year's Bronchitis." 

I haven't been this sick in a LONG time. I can't believe how crappy I've felt. In fact, if I wasn't FORCING myself to do this today, it wouldn't get done. So, my apologies for missing last week...I'll make it up to ya. :)

(This is what Leonard says, right here:) 

“The Second Law of Thermodynamics, which says that entropy increases, is just a way of saying that as time goes on, we tend to lose track of the details. Imagine that we put a tiny droplet of ink into a tub of warm water. At first we know precisely where the ink is located. The number of possible configurations of the ink is not too large. But as we watch the ink diffuse through the water, we begin to know less and less about the locations of the individual ink molecules. The number of arrangements that correspond to what we see - namely, the uniform, slightly gray tub of water - has become enormous. We can wait and wait, but we won’t see the ink rearrange into the concentrated drop. Entropy increases. That’s the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Things tend toward boring uniformity.”-The Black Hole War, pg 132

So, I’ve been thinking about this:

Entropy increases…things tend toward boring uniformity.

And, isn’t that what we’re all afraid of anyway? That our great ink spots of youth will spread, depressingly, into the boring depths of middle age? That, we will become those men and women who we’d felt sorry for (and been a bit afraid of) when we were younger? Those minivan driving, mortgage paying, rule making, BORING people?

This fear causes some of us to go to ridiculous lengths to prove that we’re still interesting, still cool, that we’ve still “got it.”  Some of us tattoo our entire bodies, dump the boring responsibility ridden wife and kids for a younger, crazier someone, who makes us feel more “alive,” spend ridiculous amounts of money on silly toys, etc We do stupid things that have horrible consequences and by the time we realize that we don’t really like the consequences, it’s too late. We’re gonna spend most of our middle age, and into the next stage of life, trying to mop up the mess that we’ve made.

I’ve been divorced, I’ve spent money on toys, I’ve seen some tattooed bodies that look amazing -  that’s not what I’m talking about. For some people, a “mid-life crisis” really isn’t. They’ve just reached the point where they have some stuff that they’ve wanted to do and now they finally have the time and money to do it. Good for them.

For other people, it’s a knee-jerk reaction, primarily fueled by this fear that I'm talking about, it’s an “Oh, God!!!" moment to the nth degree. They’ve not learned a damn thing in life. They still think that they can BUY their way to happiness, that "cool" exists as something to obtain. They've missed everything worth knowing in life -that happiness is a choice that comes to fruition through hard work (it has very little to do with outside situations,)  that "cool" is just a fickle, transitory state that changes and means nothing, really.  (In fact, if being myself is not cool, I will very gladly be the biggest dork on the planet. Better to know who I am and be that than waste my time chasing something that is uncatchable. The coolest people I've ever known in my life were those who had the guts to be themselves. Everything else is a lie. And, to me, being a liar is extraordinarily uncool.)

The end results of both scenarios are the same; the causes are entirely different.

That middle-aged, balding, slightly pudgy dude sitting next to the pretty-young-thing in the convertible sports car is a beautiful thing IF he’s doing what he’s doing out of a zest for life and because he's really following his heart and NOT out of denial that he is losing his hair, that the beer belly IS a belly and out of a belief that the horsepower somehow proves that his sex drive is faster than the car.

His ink spot of middle age is brighter and even more interesting than his ink spot of youth was IF he’s let age teach him a thing or two...

(This is not limited to men. We all know that pitiful middle-aged woman who is never satisfied. She’s in a desperate race for one more Botox injection, one more diamond, a bigger house, better clothes, etc. to prove that she’s still young, beautiful and desirable. None of those objects to obtain are bad, in and of themselves, it’s what they represent to this someone that makes them so poisonous. These women are often known by their competitiveness through their daughters - pushing them to excel at harmful levels at “girly” things-the REALLY toxic ones compete against their daughters.
And, I have news for both these types - the man and the woman - life is terminal. Nothing they buy or do will change that. The only thing that really matters in the end is character, how they've lived the life that they had to live.)

...and, let’s just all hope that the pretty-young-thing is his daughter…that idea just makes me feel better, anyway!

There have always been hard times. 

There have always been wars and troubles 

- famine, disease and such-like - 

and some folks are born with money, some with none. 

In the end it is up to the man what he becomes, 

and none of those other things matter. 

It is character that counts.

 -Louis L'amour