Category: Woman Struggles

Women: Frantic Hamsters

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Frantic hamsters.

As I talk to more women it seems that we all begin to follow this path of check marks and lists. A list for yourself, a list for your marriage, a list for your children, a list for your life. It doesn’t matter if a woman is a mother, married, employed, young or old even our hobbies have rules and expectations set by not only our culture but ourselves. Consistently striving to reach a level of perfection that once achieved will only morph into another level to reach. A snowball effect that ultimately means perfection will never be achieved, leaving us women to run like frantic caffeinated hamsters on hot pink wheels in a plastic cage of life that we’ll never escape.

Frantic hamsters.

To further push this idea of perfection into the spotlight, like a carrot held out of reach of a ravenous rabbit, is the guilt that forces it’s self onto women day and night. A crazed little monkey holding tightly to your neck riding your back until you feel as if you can no longer breathe.

Frantic hamsters.

When I was in college I never worried, I let everything just happen.  I never worried about money or clothing or my weight. I never worried about what my house looked like when we had a party or meal planned for a week in advance. I didn’t think about failing and only thought about succeeding. I never lost sleep over things that were out of my control, I just let life happen. I wore what I wanted to and said what came to my mind. I made friendships that meant something and made no effort to small talk with people I didn’t care for. I let life happen. Now all I do is plan. Filling days with check marks and lists. I don’t let anything just happen.

Frantic hamsters.

Never saying “self-look what you HAVE done today!” rather than “what more COULD have you done?” Then the creation of the To-Do List for the following day begins. Knowing but not embracing that there is only REAL time in this moment now, the past is no more and the future isn’t even here.  Instead of flourishing in  It doesn’t matter if a woman is a mother, married, this exact moment we start preparing for what is to come and step over what is exactly here now. Failing to let it all just happen now.

Frantic hamsters.

What if women (and men) were to just let life happen? Would it be so bad? Reflecting on those days of no worry with life just happening, I recall only happiness and a sense of comfortable content. I think that’s why I love having infants because during that first year of baby everything is so unpredictable that there isn’t a need for check marks and lists, there’s only living (or if you have twins,surviving). All you worry about is holding this little amazing bundle of love that you created and life just happens. That frantic hamster doesn’t exist, that pink wheel is donated to Goodwill and life is good.

Frantic hamsters.

I don’t want to be a frantic hamster anymore, but I also don’t want to have another baby in order to donate my hot pink wheel of anxiety. I do want to start letting life just happen. I want to embrace the only REAL time we have. I want  to flourish in this exact moment because we aren’t guaranteed the next. I’m challenging my control freak self to let life just happen. In turn I challenge all of you to do the same.

Frantic hamsters unite.

Put away the hot pink wheels in the form of To-Do Lists, Pinterest boards, recipes and pedometers. Stop planning the next moment and live in the present. It’s amazing the amount of stress and anxiety that melts away and doesn’t actually exist when the layers are peeled away. Take inspiration from the leaves of autumn. Let the expectations and rules go, turning from vibrant colors in our lives to dark brittle dust that’s whisked away by the brisk winds of a new season of life, a season of happening, not planning.

Daddy’s Girl, what does that even mean?

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Daddy’s girl, what does that even mean?

According to Urban Dictionary the top definition is as follows: Any female (teen or grown up woman) who’s close to her father. She’s typically spoiled and bratty. Usually marries a push-over kinda guy that will treat her like her dad does. Any female who relies solely on daddy to pay for anything. Including rent, bills, ect. Where do you think the term “sugar daddy” comes from.

According to this definition I am so not a daddy’s girl.

What’s your definition of a daddy’s girl? Daddy’s girl, what does that even mean?

Prior to writing this, I thought a daddy’s girl was a girl who always got along with her father, her daddy was her BFF. Like BFFs, they have more in common with one another than others in their lives. For me, thinking over the course of my life, at times I was a daddy’s girl and at times I wasn’t. We have a lot in common like cooking, artistic passions, a knack for fitness and a sarcastic sense of humor, but there are so many ways in which I am not anything like my dad. There were times when we were the best of friends and there were times when we were the farthest thing from friends, like when I had boys over the house and got caught or when I got my belly button pierced or when I couldn’t wrap my head around the divorce of my parents. But I am thankful for those times. Those were the times when I needed a father and not a friend. Those were the times I needed to learn to stand on my own two feet. Those were the times when I needed words with some reasoning. But there were also the times when we were the best of friends, like when he picked me up from jail on my 19th birthday (literally a get out jail free card) or when he walked me down the aisle to marry my future best friend or when he saved me at the grocery store by pushing a stroller with screaming infant twins while I shopped. Those were the times when he was my supporter, when he was my daddy. Those were the times when I needed to be rescued before my two feet gave out.

Daddy’s girl, what does that even mean?

Now I understand that every girl that has had a great father figure, has and always will be a daddy’s girl.

So, It turns out that I was my daddy’s girl no matter the circumstance. I was his girl when he was my best friend. I was his girl when he was my protector. I was his girl when he was my bondsman. I was his girl when he was my gatekeeper. I was his girl when he was my watcher of curfews and rules. I was his girl when he ushered me down the aisle. I was his girl when he was the grandfather of my children.

I will always be my daddy’s girl.

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Finding Friends in Taco Dip

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I hear, read and even say a lot of excuses when it comes to making friends as a mom. But what if the excuses weren’t even needed? What if we were just blind to the friends that are right in front of us maybe even found in a bowl of taco dip?

This article is written in the hopes of shaking some friend sense into some other ladies reading this. That friends, really good friends like the ones you feel comfortable in all your mess, saggy after birth skin and bad days as a terrible wife and mother who will still cheer you on  can actually be found right in front of you. I’m also hoping to strengthen the friendships in my life that are “standing” right in front of me. Friendships that are old and new, friendships near and far, friendships that need some nurturing in order to really grow. Like marriage friendship takes work and effort, so I’m pushing up my sleeves and diving in. Texting, calling and making plans for friendship dates throughout the year. I was lucky enough to have one of those dates this past weekend during the Enjoy Friendship Challenge of the #ETHANproject. I hope in sharing the background of this unexpected friendship and the nature of the date, it will inspire other ladies to take the blinders off that the busy of life can put on us and start planning their own friendship dates.

(Read on about the friendship I discovered in the cheese and beans of a taco dip.)

I met my husband in college.

He had two roommates that I met too. One roommate had a girlfriend. This girlfriend made a taco dip that my then boyfriend lost his mind over. I met the girlfriend once or twice as they were a long distance couple. The girlfriend was kind enough to share her secret taco dip recipe with me. I made secret taco dip for years and pot lucks to come.

Fast forward a couple of years after the college years and we find ourselves at the wedding of the roommate and taco dip girlfriend.

Fast forward another couple of years and roommate with taco dip girlfriend are smiling from the pews at our own wedding, later blessing us with their genuine hugs that are as comforting and fulfilling as her taco dip.

Fast forward another couple of years and our first-born meets roommate and taco dip girlfriend on a trip to Chicago to see old college friends.

Fast forward another couple of years and a move to and back from Texas; now our one has turned to three and now a taco dip baby named Sophie has joined the world. All four kiddos hung out as if they knew one another forever.

As a year comes and goes so does life and it’s busyness. Each time our two families tried to make plans something would come up or someone was getting sick. FINALLY, the stars aligned and we met up to wreak havoc on our local zoo. As luck would have it, our twice rescheduled zoo date landed right during the ENJOY Friendship Challenge of the #ETHANproject (proving all reschedulings happen for a reason). The challenge offered the perfect opportunity to bring this genuine and awesome friend and friendship into the bright light it needs to be placed. We spent the morning roaming the zoo and making plans to get together not only this summer but also this fall. So long story short, I found an unexpected friend in an unexpected way. That friend really gets me and makes me feel human again with her acceptance of who I am and my inner thoughts. Who would have thought?!? Taco Dip! I’m excited to see how our friendship will grow and thankful for the ENJOY friendship challenge that gave me a booty bump in the right direction of realizing what friendships are “standing” right in front of me!

Now, it’s your turn to take a look around. Look at the women and friendships in your life that need tending to. push up your sleeves and dive right in. I dare you.

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(Also, please note that this amazing friend also knows the way to my heart! I’m not afraid to say out loud that my love language is GIFTS! So I must share with you my own personal tiara and trendy hair-ties that my taco dip friend be-gifted me. Now I can do my yoga in style among the other way cooler twentysomes in hot yoga.)

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P.S. Don’t forget to chime in on the #ETHANproject too! Please feel free to share your own stories and posts with the bloggers and readers of the project, the more the merrier 🙂

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Comparison is the killer of joy, taking a cue from Bruce Jenner.

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It’s so hard to not compare.

Looks, weight, parenting, clothing, salaries, cars, intimate relationships, engagement rings, after school activities, winning goals. A society all striving to be better than one another, all comparing ourselves to one another, all thinking the grass is greener. (I mean I even went as far as comparing my cheek bones to Bruce Jenner’s when his new self popped up on my Tuesday morning news feed. What I should have been doing instead is taking a cue from his freedom to declare who he/she is!)

When does it stop?

I’m the worst when it comes to falling into this trap. As a woman I fall into it when it comes to my looks and my aspirations, a little voice chanting are you pretty enough? are you ambitious enough? is what you do enough? As a mother I get wrapped up in a web of comparison when it comes to my parenting and my involvement with my kids, another voice whispering that mom is doing more than you, look at that mom with her kids every second, there’s that mom winning the gold with leading the girl scout pack and vomiting out Pinterest worthy crafts and lesson plans with each breath. Comparison even ropes me in as a wife, are you having as much sex? are you everything he wants? wives written for television are the standard, you have your work cut out if you’ll ever be that good. 

Comparison is actually killing our joy. But when I think about stopping the madness it would basically mean cutting all links to the outside world. Unfortunately this isn’t possible. So what if we tried changing the way we interpreted all these comparisons.

Where to start is easy: don’t compare yourself to the other person beside you. But easier said than done, so let’s add a dimension: Turn that comparison you are so tempted to make into inspiration. Be inspired by that person and their abilities, be inspired to take your own steps into coming into your own person. Highlighting your talents and your unique qualities out loud.  However, take care to not confuse inspiration with aspiration. Don’t fall into an even tricky trap than that of comparing, don’t aspire to be another. Always be yourself with your own aspirations.

Next, why not put the light we find so easy to cast on others on ourselves. Treating ourselves as our own best friend, celebrating who we are and even what we are lacking.Rather than focusing and envying the seemingly great qualities or belongings of another, why not focus on the qualities that shine in ourselves and what we have in our lives that we call our own. Declaring the person we are is just amazing as the next.

According to yogic philosophy, we cause ourselves pain by desiring things or personality attributes we don’t have, but think that we need. In other words, we harm ourselves by longing after what belongs to someone else. Whether that be a bigger or cleaner home, a smaller waist or bigger boobs, a mommy that doesn’t yell or one that is a cruise director for her kids on a daily basis, the wife who fulfills all fantasies or wears a nightie every night,  or whatever that comparison may be that is killing our joys. Let’s encourage happiness. Striving to be grateful for what we have rather than yearning for new and different things. By finding happiness with who we are and what we have, we also find joy, relaxation, and peace.

I’m finally learning to accept and to cater to what makes me happy and what makes me, physically, mentally and emotionally at rest. Though it may not be what everyone else deems appropriate or trendy, though it may not make the top pins of Pinterest, setting up the right environment for me to succeed in and to feel as myself, I am able to conquer this whole woman, mommy, wife thing I got going on.

Are you accepting??? Or are you just comparing yourself and losing sight of what you should be declaring out loud about who you are, what you have and what makes you happy? As a reminder to myself to let the person I am flourish in the environment I prefer, I’ll end this post with a “Declaration of Joy for Me”. I hope you all follow suit and write-up your own as we go into the busy summer season.

“Declaration of Joy for Me” ~ A declaration of who I am and the environment in which I flourish in with NO apologies:

I need to exercise every day or I turn into a mean bitch.

Most days I choose to wear makeup because it makes me more productive. However, I wear a baseball hat 50% of the time.

I can’t stand going to Costco, it drives me to the brink of madness. Too many aisles, too much stuff, too many samples.

I love yoga not running, I’ll do yoga until the day I die but probably will never run a marathon.

I don’t drink. I was basically a drunk for all four years of college and the three years following graduation. Once I got pregnant I just never had the desire to indulge again, when I do I instantly regret it as my children wake up between 6 am and 7 am. So I just don’t get all the “mommy wine” shit out there.

I am more at peace in grown-up places like bars, libraries, coffee shops, book stores, salons, gyms even wildlife preserves. I seem to lose a little bit of my soul and sanity when I enter something completely devoted to children. It’s a huge possibility that if we ever make it to Disney that I will completely wither up and turn to dust upon setting foot past the entrance.

I’d rather be stuck in a padded room with my three children than take them to the mall. I hate the mall and mall play areas. I’ve been to the mall a total of 3 times in the last 3 years.

We co-slept with all three kids, including the twins in boppees. That’s right … two adults, twins and two boppees in a king for 3.5 months. Maybe that’s why I refuse to let them climb in bed with us now, but will have a sleepover on the living room floor with them.

My kids follow a strict nap and sleep schedule, and have since the day they were born. Doing so just makes our household run so much smoother.

Buying a piece of clothing that costs more than $10 makes my heart seize up. I am obsessed with online shopping.

I feed my kids McDonald’s meats and drink McCafe ice coffees, the words “Medium ice coffee, sugar-free vanilla, light on the cream” just rolls off my tongue as if second nature. I also eat DQ ice cream.

My way of parenting is old school and not modern at all. I am okay with this. I tend to label it as free-spirit parenting 🙂

I hate Disney Junior and it gets under my skin when moms sing the songs from those shows.  I would be happy if the only channels available were Food Network and Crime TV.

I didn’t like Frozen and my son only saw it once, my other two have never seen it. That’s right, I said NEVER.

My living room constantly looks as if a bomb went off and a small tribe of children have taken over my home, but my kitchen is spotless and I make my bed every morning.

I read an average of 5 books to my kids every day but I find pushing them on a swing one of the most annoying things in life.

I am happy spending the entire day inside with crafts, my laptop, coffee, homemade snacks and my kids in their pajamas. Leaving the house is overrated for me.

I am a believer in gluten-free, paleo, essential oils, coconut oil, organics and making most of our meals and snacks from scratch. I visit our local health food store at least twice a week.

And this folks is the environment that I flourish in with the light on the amazing woman, mom and wife that I am.

(*This post was inspired by the MOPS theme “A Fierce Flourishing” for 2015-2016.)

P.S. My selfie stick came in #mommyselfie

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Mommy’s Yoga Challenge

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Summer is Coming …

As a mommy it can be hard to find the time to fit a workout goal into my life, especially when I have three little lives dictating my own. With my eldest out of school, chaotic camp schedules and not to mention long summer nights equating to erratic mornings, I knew I needed a plan this summer to keep me motivated and moving forward. Birthed from this need is “Mommy’s Yoga challenge.”

Summer is coming …

Between now and the start of school (a.k.a. the end of summer) are 12 weeks. During these 12 weeks my goal is to master, or at least try my damn hardest achieving, ten different yoga poses that I deem freaking hard. My definition of mastering is achieving holding a pose in correct form for 30 seconds. Each yoga challenge blog post will give my progress (possibly a picture of that progress) and a step by step guide to the pose along with links to sites I’ve found helpful to assist you along your way.

My plan is to also get my little crazy children in on the fun, involving them in the challenge by teaching them the pose and capturing yoga through their innocent eyes. I’m always looking for ways to expend all that energy but also for opportunities to bond with them while sharing a laugh and something I am passionate about.

Summer is coming …

Hopefully other mommies will be inspired to get down on the living room floor or in the grass at the park and strike a pose with their little ones in tow. If yoga isn’t your taste then I hope to at least motivate you to create a challenge of your own to stay active while bonding with your clan this summer. (Find picture updates and post your own via social media with the hashtag #funnymommyyoga.)

Below you will find the ten poses of Mommy’s Yoga Challenge!

Birds of Paradise

paradise-22

Crow Pose

crow-pose1

Flying pigeon

flying pigeon

Handstand

handstand

Hurdlers

Hurdle

 

Eagle

eagle

Wheel variations

whell

Firefly

Firefly

Side Plank B

1110-side-plank

Mermaid

Mermaid-Yoga-Pose

Summer is Coming: Enjoying the Here and Now.

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Do you hear that? The screams, the whining, the sweat dripping off a child, your house creaking from the weight of crafts, toys and mess? That’s right, I hear SUMMER COMING.

Summer is coming …

That means my kiddos are going to need me more than usual and yours are going to need you more than usual. No school means more family traveling. Summer hours and long summer days mean more hours focusing on the ones that make up your family rather than on yourself > enter pity party here (for me I will be potty training twins this summer, so I am already feeling sorry for myself).

Summer is coming …

What if we had a ton of women banding together in this pity party? Wouldn’t summer be even better and have more of a guarantee for our survival if we had a support system where troubles and triumphs were shared making you feeling like you were sane rather than feeling as if you were going ape-sh** crazy with kids ruling your world? What if that meant enjoying the here and now as a mommy rather than dreading it’s existence (harsh I know but when three little humans are clawing at you and asking for ANOTHER snack while simultaneously fighting with one another, it does seem like Armageddon). What if you were reminded to embrace the innocence of your children and realize how fast they grow before it’s too late?

Summer is coming …

And so is the #ETHANproject. Simply put, Enjoying the Here and NOW as mommies, women and wives. I am joining with other bloggers on a 10 week challenge to do just that as The Funny In Mommy. We will be sharing our stories, good and bad, while hoping to inspire you all to share yours too. Hoping to motivate everyone to be better and accept when we suck at life, our kids are monsters and our husbands are wondering who the hell they are even married to anymore.  Opening the minds and hearts of women to enjoy their loved ones here and now. The challenges will be tweaked to fit who I am > finding the humor in it all and what my life is about … woman stuff, wife stuff and mommy stuff. It’s like a syllabus for me and a reading guide for you, making the summer a whole lot easier for the both of us and our world, one in which we can enjoy the here and now.

Summer is coming …

I know you’re busy but remember to share your own good, bad, brilliant and idiotic via social media using the #ETHANproject.  Also make a date with Grounded & Surrounded every Friday for a briefing of photos & stories from the #ETHANproject bloggers and their readers. Who knows, maybe you will be featured!

ETHANproject Schedule screen shot

Summer is Coming …

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Summer is coming …

With summer only a day away I’ve decided to change-up my posting focus and schedule. With all three kids home 24/7 and busy schedules for not only myself but also my readers, I’ll be trying out some new ideas to bring some sort of organization to the madness. This article is to share these strokes of brilliance with you.

Summer is coming …

And so is the #ETHANproject and Mommy’s Yoga Challenge. And what the hell are those? The answer to that question will be found in the other two posts Enjoying the Here and Now (hence ETHAN) and  Mommy’s Yoga Challenge that were also published today. Just look for the one you’re interested and read up!  (You can find these in the home section of The Funny In Mommy blog, on my personal Facebook page as well as The Funny In Mommy page. )

Summer is coming …

Sprinkled among the predictability of these summer challenges will of course be some unpredictable posts. Having three kids and an inner control freak can only mean that I will rebel against focus and organization, taking the opportunity to word vomit all over the internet with my stories of being a messy wife, mommy and woman. So look forward to those posts as well. Also remember that you can always sign up to be notified by email when Funny in Mommy posts a new article. To sign up just populate the “Have posts sent straight to your email!!” box with your email address. Super easy, super convenient and super smart.

Get ready … Summer IS coming!

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Mommy Got a Fitbit and Got Wise

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Wife: “I want a Fitbit”

Husband: “I want one too, let’s do it.”

Fast forward one date night evening  later and my husband and I were the new parents of two Fitbit Charges. At the beginning we were competitive in the first days of ownership, seeing who was racking up the better feedback but we have gone our separate ways (probably because I was kicking his ass). Of course my husband is using his the right way. He’s using it to track his movement and calories for health purposes. I on the other hand, I’m using it for a get out of mental health jail card.

Being techy dumb, I have yet to even skim what this thing can do. But I have learned something …

It’s okay to sit on your ass.

Before having kids and even while I was pregnant I was like the Energizer Bunny. I was crushing Pinterest crafts, completing full workouts morning and night, staying up late to watch bad movies and fulfilling my American citizen duties catching up on the lives of reality television stars. Now, 5 years and three kiddos later I’m lucky if I have enough energy to lift the remote at 8:30 pm. I’ve been totally pissed off by this fact. I feel like I should be getting more done or living it up after my babies go to bed. But I just don’t have the energy to do it.

And guess what my little wrist hugging friend the Fitbit told me?

It’s okay to sit on your ass.

I got my first Fitbit report card analyzing my first week. The days I don’t even hit the treadmill I am racking in over 10k steps and the days I do hit the synthetic rubber sidewalk I’m well onto 13k. The calorie burn on my average day is insane. Who the hell needs Crossfit when I’m lugging around twin toddlers on my hips and climbing stairs double duty in order to put not one but two minions down for naps and three little Halperins down for bed.

It’s okay to sit on your ass.

At over 13,500 steps last Friday and 33 flights of stairs climbed … you bet your first-born that I was tired by 8 pm. That doesn’t even take into account sweating my ass off as I twist into limb bending poses in a 102 degree yoga studio (for some reason the Fitbit can’t handle the quantitative calculation in regards to what yoga does to the body which I will address soon). Before my little Fitbit friend came into my life I would have felt like I wasn’t doing enough or that I should be doing something besides soaking up what my DVR was holding. However, I now feel like I’ve been given permission to sit on my ass and feel okay about it rather than feeling like lazy mommy.

I also like the sleep tracker. The Fitbit provides a chart that breaks down the quality of my sleep by tracking all movements while I am alseep. A restless state of sleep indicates that I went from a very restful position with little movement to movement, such as turning over in bed. This doesn’t necessarily mean that I was fully awake, but indicates that I  was not getting the most restful sleep possible.  When the tracker indicates that I was moving so much that restful sleep would not be possible, my sleep graph will indicate that I was awake. From what my graph is telling me I need to hit the sack earlier to get a better quality of sleep.

Keeping up with little people is one tough job. I wish I had my Fitbit handy when a woman asked me a couple of years back “What do you do ALL day as a SAHM?” Or maybe she would have thought that I was just spending my days walking in place and treading up and down the stairs at my house??? However, this little black wristband has given me a whole new perspective on daily life. I’m not to feel guilty if my butt hits the couch the second all three minions are fast asleep. It’s a time of regenerating.

But wait there’s more …

So just like any other friend, if Fitbit is telling me something, what is Fitbit NOT telling me???

Well as I mentioned above it’s not friends with my best friend Yoga. That’s right when I am drenched in sweat while a shirtless hipster dude busts out headstands next to me in yoga class my Fitbit seems to be taking a break somewhere outside that 1,000 degree studio. That’s a big bummer since I take two to three classes per week and also do an at home daily practice. (Yes you can manually enter in exercise data for different activities … but who’s got time for that? I didn’t pay over a hundred dollars to become this thing’s personal assistant.)

It’s also not telling me the truth behind how many steps and calories I am burning when I am pushing a stroller or a grocery cart. You read right, the Fitbit has some problems capturing steps when the arm on which you wear it is fairly steady–as when you are gripping the handle of a stroller or shopping cart …. that might be okay for a character from Gossip Girl  but not for this crazy ass mother who has three kids and tends to be pushing some sort of Fred Flinstone mobile (think bike with kiddie trailer or Target two-seater cart) or stroller 65% of my waking hours.

Yes I could have paid the extra cash for the Charge HR or Surge but as a mommy with a budget it seemed that the mid-level band was the right way to go with the mid-level sticker price. Also, when I really think about my heart rate in yoga and lifting weights I’m not sure if it’s going that bonkers to really make a huge difference on the feedback my Fitbit is giving back to me.

So when it comes down to it I have a love/hate relationship with my little friend. I’ll be trusting in it’s data but take it as an estimation while applying some basic common sense to my level of exertion. It’s like one of those women you meet in a mommy group that tells you lots of things but keeps a lot of things “secret” or tells you little white lies on a regular basis. But I have to say unlike those moms who I’d usually throw out, I’ll be keeping the Fitbit because it breathes some competition into my relationship with my spouse and also tells me that it’s okay to sit on my ass every once in a while.

 

 

 

I Didn’t Appreciate My Mom.

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I’ve always loved my mom. But I can honestly say I don’t think I fully appreciated her as my mom until I became a mom.

Now I realize the sacrifices she made. I understand how she must have felt when I succeeded, failed, cried, laughed or even turned her away. I understand all that her heart endured because now I endure those same obstacles and triumphs. NOW I fully appreciate her as a mother and woman not just as my mommy.

Now at 31, most of my memories are the ones upon analyzing and picking apart my mom made possible through some sort of magic or maybe it was just unconditional love.

Within my appreciation is also admiration. Admiration for the role model and woman she was as grew from a little girl into a woman. She provided me with and has been my biggest fan when it comes to my writing. Since I was small she has done nothing but applaud my story telling skills. She still tells me often that she knows I’ll make something of my writing someday. My mom gave me my love for books and reading. She taught me how to apply eyeliner and blow dry my hair with a round brush. However, I didn’t inherit her social butterfly ability, or her big boobs. We now bond over HGTV, thrift store finds and the odds and ends of life.

When I became a mom it seemed to tear away this curtain to reveal all I was unable to see before. Now I see clearly all that her love holds and all that she still does for not only me but also my sister and my children.

This Mother’s Day I am not only celebrating my mom but I am truly appreciating all that she is.

Happy Mother’s Day mom, I love you as I always have, but now I fully appreciate what that love means because of you.

mom

Women Bashing Women

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“Women are ruthless.”  A statement made by my husband after we overheard a conversation between two women talking about another woman and her diagnosis of PCOS.

“Women are ruthless.” AGAIN, a statement made by husband after overhearing yet another negative conversation between females on the topic of another female.

“Women ARE ruthless.” A statement that ran through my mind as I eavesdropped on three women at the park as they bashed a female acquaintance.  What made the whole situation worse was that each woman had a little girl in tow, so as all three women ranted on about this other woman all three little girls peered up at their mommies, eyes and ears open wide.

What if we stopped focusing on the negatives of a woman we knew and focused on her positive characteristics and attributes?

What if we stopped to better them rather than bash them?

In my younger years, even as a brand-new mommy, I was guilty of judging other women. I am owning the fact that I too was a “woman basher”. Now having a child who is now old enough to develop his own friendships and socialize with others also has me “looking in the mirror” when it comes to my friend behavior.  As I have grown older with the roads of life rocky rather than smooth, those that judge are those I should keep my distance from. I’ve lived and learned that if someone, female or male, is raining on my parade then it’s better to walk away instead of staying under the cloud. Looking back to when I have stayed under the cloud it allowed my words and actions to become dark, gave me a reason to bash. In reality, bashing never made me feel better it just made me feel worse. It made me feel guilty for the things I said, paranoid that others were bashing me and worst of all it made me blind to the positive characteristics  of these same individuals. Now I know that it’s not worth my own character to give into the darkness of gossip.

I’m trying my best to not judge and rather apply another thought process. Rather than becoming annoyed at the attributes and ideas I may not understand or agree with in others, I try to understand their habits or views rather than deeming them wrong and bashing away.

With moving cross-country I’ve been given the opportunity to really embrace the type of friend I want to be along with the type of first impression I want to give.  Thinking back over the last 5 years I am more interested in being more like the women that have really impacted my life in small but big ways.  Women I respect and admire because of the way they carried themselves but also because of their warm hearts. This is where that focusing on the positives piece comes into play. Not only will I do more to be more positive but I’ve also chosen a group of women that I am going to contact each individually. I’m talking about women that are outside of my everyday friends, women that probably have no clue what they have done for me or how I admire them.  I’m going to let them know how much their warm hearts and the positive women they are impacted me. I hope you will do the same. Let’s celebrate the positives in women rather than spending our breath bashing their negatives. Let’s teach our daughters(and sons) that everyone has wonderful qualities that should be celebrated and maybe by treasuring those qualities the not so great ones will disappear before our eyes opening the door to more and deeper friendships.

Women bashing isn’t done just by the beer belly, wife beater wearing ogres we see on COPS, the worst bashers are the ones who use words rather than fists.

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