tick tock - SCORE

Good Friday Morning to you all.
I have two things on my mind, one - GAME FIVE OF THE STANLEY CUP PLAYOFFS and two, I don't wannnnnnaaaa go to work today.
I was so comfortable in my bed dreaming my weird dreams, why oh why alarm clock must you speak to me of realities I am trying to deny?
And so here I am awake with my cup of coffee, stealing away precious moments of my own before they become the time clock's. Am I the only one that thing work should be banned? I mean really....Work? Life is supposed to be about playing. Wait, maybe I am still asleep...
Sigh. It's not that I don't love my job, I do, I mean for the love of God I have been there fourteen years - it's just that I hate the concept of being responsible.
I don't really, but I kinda do.
That is why I need to write a best selling novel and write from home and never ever have to depart from the freedom of a day that is calling me to play....
Beyond writing a book, I would love to have a column - much like what I do here but have enough people reading it that I may actually get paid to rant and muse about this phenom I call life.
I just have so much to say about everything...I wonder why I am made this way? A deep thinker, an expressive communicator? I wonder about it a lot - what is my purpose for having this extremely wide open mind and mouth?
I know that when I sit down to write is usually to ease the burden of an overflowing mind - sometimes if I don't get out what is in my head I feel doomed to erupt - like yesterday and my Mommy dearest rant - write or sit at the kitchen table in silence and bawl my eyes out for lack of anything else to do to ease the stress. I choose writing - I hope you all find my evil rants funny and don't think less of me for saying aloud what a lot of Mother's think silently...And of course I would never let my kids dehydrate although it would serve as a powerful lesson, but no - Gatorade I will pack, a good Mommy less wire coat hangers I will be...
Writing for me is like therapy. When I put my thoughts down on the screen before me and I read them back to myself, I always have a sense of clarity as an end result. I start not having the foggiest idea what I will say and always end, with some sort of moral to my story. Sometimes, hell most times I don't know what the moral is myself until I read about it.
Kinda makes me laugh the way the words just tumble out of me uncontrollably and I literally have little idea of any kind of direction or purpose.
So cool to be a "writer". I guess that's what I am now, a writer who cheats on her dream by having a retail position that kinda sorta pays the bills.
The answer is my book and of this I am sure - just not exactly sure how I can get through that process as my moods come and go with the wind. How will I ever start and finish an entire book? Oh my, it is daunting to even consider....
I am also a poet - I have considered writing a massive amount of poetry to submit to a publisher - I think my poets voice is a strong one - I just write my poetry for me, I am a little wary about releasing them to the world. You guys would know all my secrets then....I would be super duper exposed.
But wouldn't it be nice to do what you love, what you really love - your true passion and have financial success? Ahhhh if only.
I remember that Oprah Winfrey once said, find your true passion and that is the key.
This here, words and words and more words - this is my love of all loves. This is where I feel most alive, most free and most safe.
Now to make the dolla bills yo.
I literally have no idea what I just said FYI -
It is a startlingly beautiful morning and I hear the clock ticking furiously in my head reminding me that I have to get ready for WORK, my not real passion - ugh.
I want to sit here all day instead of deal with women who think they are fat and ugly. Not sure I can muster up the therapist today - not sure the fashion Diva will rise to assuredly outfit these ill of confidence women. I wanna watch the birds in my front yard poke their beaks in and out of the ground searching for their worms instead. That and lay on the pool deck and think....
I guess the plus side of my work day is that I am out at seven o'clock which means I will be home and sitting on my ass with my feet up at opening face off time - I will get to see GAME 5, thank you Jesus. (or Allah, Buddha etc. etc)
These last two games have been some of the most intense hockey I have ever been privy to witness in my long hockey loving life. Man those Canucks are playing dirty tho - Shit there has been a lot of nastiness directed at our team - biting, bad hits, fights. I think it speaks volumes to how threatened they feel. I want the Bruins to get the cup so badly that it hurts my gut whenever I think about it. I want this more than I wanted the World Series for the Sox, more than any super bowl win - I want the cup in my hometown. I want to see it happen in my lifetime for the love of God. And don't I just wish that I were home for this? Don't I wish I were among my people in the midst of the all that New England pride? Yes, yes I do - Something about watching the Garden from Virginia feels weird and wrong. You can take the girl outta Boston, but NEVER get the Boston outta that girl. That's me, a loud and proud Bostonian.
Please, please let the fire from Horton's injury stay ignited under those boys asses, keep that fury in Vancouver and bring it home for the win In Boston - I think Bobby Orr should go to every game and begin it by waving the Horton flag - I think that is all the motivation the B's need to kick ass, take names and make goals.
Wouldn't it just be something for them to get the Stanley Cup? Yes, yes it would....I am praying with all my hockey lovin heart that this is a fairy tale ending for them and for all of us who love them so.
And so, the clock beckons from the other room - I must go although the blinking cursor prompts me to write more. Til Seven I am property of the boutique - then after, I am a hometown fan hoping she gets to blog tomorrow about a game 5 win tonight.
I hope that you all have a blessed work day - UGH... And for those of you who are working your passion from home - I am green with envy.
LET'S GO BRUINS LET'S GO!!!!!

Mommy Dearest

Wow I am in a bad, no wait, TERRIBLE no wait, NASTY mood.
I am going to make my typical disclaimer - I love my kids, of course I love my kids...Right now however I could go to the moon and still not be far away enough from them. HOLY COW what a day I have had.
Nothing major happened really - it has all been business as usual.

I think parenthood is a lot like a menstrual cycle...How so you may be thinking, scratching your chin, going huh, like a period? Um yeah, you read me right and here is how I mean. For women our menses cycle is a process that begins each month with the relief of the misery of a period - the relief is that the pre-menstrual bloating and mood swings - the built up tension both physically and emotionally, finally washes away. Days before your period you may feel like killing someone for no apparent reason, have horrible homicidal thoughts, cry at the drop of a hat or at the stupidest sappiest McDonald's commercial ever made. It blows hard core when normal every day shit that is no more extreme or tedious than any other day, eats at you like a festering infection.
That is where I make the Motherhood correlation - Motherhood is on a cycle too. I have reached my Pre-breaking point with my kids this month and I am praying for a reprieve from the madness before I lock myself in my closet and start talking to my shoes.
They are driving me nuts - and like I said - nothing major today, nothing out of the usual, nothing extraordinary - I have just had it, plain and simple.
It is the constant bickering, the constant antagonizing, the constant "MUM MATTHEW SAID I'M A BUTT HEAD" (insert major girl whine) - and then the retort "NO SHE CALLED ME A BUTT FIRST" (insert total boy denial and aloofness tone)- grrrr
It is the incessant food consumption and constant food waste that makes me really want to starve my kids just for a day so they know how the kids in Africa feel, no you are NOT STARVING and what do you mean you're not eating that perfectly good sandwich I made because the cheese is white and not yellow? OMG shoot me now, pleaseeee.
Whose socks are these and wait there's a tech dech underfoot, can't wait to break my back when I slip on it and fall, and this is not my wet towel, and your books do not belong scattered across my bathroom floor directly in front of the toilet and no your bed is not made so go do it.....NOW.
I am so sick and tired of hearing my own damn voice repeat the same instructions day in and day out. Like beyond sick of my own friggen voice, forget about the coinciding chores that I literally want to stop doing - just drop the laundry in the center of the living room and walk out the front door to my house without a word.
The silent brush my shoulder off...
sigh.
I have repeated the same steps at least 1000 times today - told Matt to clean his dishes off the table 12 times to be exact - I counted for a distraction from the brewing rage. Made my Mother cycle into a little game - let's see how many times he will walk by that wet bathing suit he THREW ON THE KITCHEN FLOOR!!!
I love kids, I do, but I loathe their self centeredness, detest their ability to tune out the bedroom you can't walk through, cannot stand their sibling rivalry which equals mutual emotional torture.
I am over it and unfortunately it is far from over. I have a good solid eleven years of this still ahead of me and by then I will be a Grandmother and start all over again with my grandbabies.
I imagine Grandmotherhood will amount to parental menopause - I will be vacant of any more responsibility beyond spoiling. Ha, let your parents cope with your slobby habits.
There is light at the end of the tunnel, there is future torture in store for my own offspring in the form of thiers...Insert maniacal laughter here.
I think the next time I go to the pool, I will pack my lunch and my gatorade and tell the kids, you're on your own today. Not one bit of help or guidance from me. Hmmmmm bet that'd turn out real well for the numbskulls who take every single chore involved with their survival for granted!
So if one of my kids passes out from dehdration on the pool deck,
you'll know why.....And no Matthew you cannot have a butterfinger from the snack bar, money doesn't grow on trees you know and what is wrong with the fifty dollar food lion trip I packed the cooler for the love of God?
Rant over :)

Competitive Nature ....Nature VS. Nurture?

Good Hot Thursday Morning to you all..
Wow what a scorcher yesterday was here in the South East - I think we were at over 100 degrees with the heat index - sure made for an interesting evening at the mock meet...About ten minutes before I left the house I jumped in the shower to wash the salt water out of my hair (our pool is salt) and then threw on a sundress, ran a pic through my mop top and ran out the door for Emma and Matt's first meet of the season. My hair was a dripping mess of curls and never dried the entire evening - you could have mopped the sweat right off me. Last night was like being trapped in a sauna fully clothed with no exit door. It was a rough one to say the least.
But man did my kiddos bring a heat of their own...Those kids were on fire in that pool.
And this is what I was thinking about as I roused from my slumber this morning...Competitive nature and why my children possess it?
Emma is a born competitor, especially when it comes to swimming. She has rocked it so hard from the very first time she got up on a block and got her stream line pose on. Prior to the climb on the block she has always gnawed on her goggle strap for nerve control. I have watched her and wondered, is she nervous? Is she uncomfortable? Is this too much pressure for her? Thing is, while she sits on the benches in clerk waiting for her race - no matter what - I go to her and kiss her on the pucker, tell her she is awesome, go get em kiddo - give it your best and naturally, I love you....She never looks at me with an Emma Claire 'I don't wanna do this Mum' expression, never cries, never doesn't want to swim - and yet she chews her goggle strap in the moments before as though is she doesn't chew she may explode. I have always chalked it up to control - she is controlling her environment in the moments before the race to exercise what she can in fact control until she hits that water and tries her hardest to dominate. Which, she usually does.... Last year she left most of the other swimmers in the dust, hit the wall at least a quarter length ahead of the pool - she was amazing and even I, who believes she is capable of ANYTHING, was stupefied at her ability and even beyond the wins, her grace. She never boasts, never brags, she always accepts her ribbon gracefully and is supportive of her team mates. She is invested, but not to the point of conceit or bragging. I love her silent pride, it is one of the things I appreciate most about her....
And so I ponder? Where in the hell does she get this? Is it from me or was she born with it, a part of my DNA passed down to her - nature and not nurture. Because, although I yell like a mad woman from the side of the pool and push her to push her hardest, it is not for the win at all, it is so that she hears her Mother, her best friend, her biggest fan, cheering in the crowd - I want my voice to stand out to her as she pulls up to take a breath - I want her to know that I believe in her - that I always will.
And yet, she is a scrapper just like her Momma, I mean just like me.
I can't answer the nature vs. nurture for myself when it comes to me, did my Mom raise me to be the way I am? I certainly FEEL like it is my nature - the fighters spirit is inside me and I have little choice but to regard it as such, for even in times when I want to give up - my gumption always wins out and the defeater in me loses to the winner. I am just that way, and even more so if you tell me that I CANNOT do something. Tell me I can't, tell me I won't, and oh boy you better look out because I will show you, watch me now.
BUT - I was not always this way....There was a time when the defeatist in me was so much more powerful that any other facet to my personality - so much stronger than any other outer force- I was doomed to fail and so why even bother trying...
And this brings me to my Matteo.
Last year he flat out refused to do swim team - "it's stupid - I hate it - it's boring" and I was ready to kill him for his quitters will. He was un-moveable and YET, was in the stupid pool diving like a champion and swimming like a fish and all us adults sat back scratching our heads going HUH? What the hell is his issue???
Well his issue was confidence and his competitive nature. He was afraid to lose more than he was sure he would win and for Matthew, not winning is not okay.
HHHHmmmm again I ask, is this from me? Because although I did not start this way like my Emma with effortless confidence, I have sure arrived at it now as a grown woman. And I will admit it, I do not like to lose. Yes I can be gracious and yes I will always support my opponent, but I DISLIKE coming up short immensely. Take for instance the essay competition this year - I ran in to Jessica (professor) in the hallway as she was handing out info about the competition - she asked "Are you going to submit again this year?" and my reply "Oh yes, but this year I am going to win" and.... I did. Gumption with a Goal.
So with Emma, I worry little about her confidence and the possibility of
loss, she will climb out the pool eat a ring pop and get psyched up for the next race - she never gets pissed about hitting the wall second.
But Matt he is a different story....And last night he won first - first meet of his first season and he hit that wall a long length ahead of the other swimmers. I had one observation - he would have been even faster if he had not wrenched his neck around constantly assessing where his competitors were in regards to him....Oh Matt just swim doll baby - but I don't know if he can do it the way his sister does and I don't know if an all out melt down will occur when he loses - which he inevitably will...Will he throw his cap down and say "I'm done, I hate this!!!" or has he matured enough in the last year to be able to fall off and get right back on that horse without a self hating monologue?
Jesus I hope so.
I handle them so differently, as they are completely different children and yet, both so clearly cut from my cloth. Her, I just whatev's, I love you yadayada - Matteo I do the "I am so proud that you did it, so proud of your effort, so happy to see you in the game" and hope that my pride is enough to sustain him when he doesn't smash in to the wall the winner....
It is so crazy trying to figure out the right methodology in raising healthy self confident kids. I think my first two are still battling this issue well into their teenage and young adult years. Matthew is very much like Brian was and so maybe Brian in his wisdom should mentor him more - he was there yelling right beside me and was the first one to hug his little brother out of the pool :)
I want my kids to be competitive because the world is cut throat, more now than ever. I want them to have a gumption reserve that they can call on in times of need. I want them to believe they are CAPABLE of ANYTHING and I want them to learn most of all that the only thing that stands in the way of their successes is ultimately themselves - they are powerful.
I hope that Emma's confidence comes from seeing a confident Mother who she admires. I hope watching my nose to the books and the President's List letters that come in the mail are teaching her a hard work ethic - I hope that for Matthew it does the same, but that he doesn't JUST see the WIN, he sees the work involved and realizes it is the confidence IN my work that matters to me more than the grade.
Ahhhhh sigh, parenthood is hard. It is some kind of difficult to look at these little humans and know that what they will become is largely in my hands because I will either succeed in giving them the goods or fail...
I want my kids to have all the confidence and all the Maternal support that I did not. I want them to develop into well rounded humans that will pass on my determination and grace.
Because I have figured out that really, this shit is all that matters in life - everything material is inconsequential - it is what you pass on to your kids that matters.
Deep down in my gut I know I am a survivor who has evolved into a thriver - just gotta figure out how to get my kids there without them having to wage war on themselves the way I did.
This aspect is surely nurture.
Regardless of anything - by way of good example or bad, my Mom passed on to me the desire to never have my kids feel unsupported, abandoned or to live with ultimatums of my doing. I am here for these whack jobs come rain or come shine - no matter what.
And even when they fall flat on their faces - I will be here dusting them off, kissing boo boo's and telling them to get their asses back out there but quick.
I hope it all works out. I hope they get their confidence on - in the pool and especially out.
Love me some Matt and Em's - love these knuckle heads with all my heart - bursting with pride this morning and have my over thinking contemplative head in the game right along with them.
Have a great day xo

Summer Breeze makes me feel fine

Good QUIET morning yet again....
Ahhhh sigh. Same scenario as yesterday - debated more sleep, chose more alone time in silence. After all, how could I help myself considering the birds are just singing such beautiful summer tunes this gorgeous June morning? It's as though they were calling me to join them on the deck -
So here I am, steaming cup of coffee and the summer sounds of morning.
I love Summer. Summer is my most favorite season of the year, there is nothing about it I don't like except that it doesn't last year round. Lately I have been asking myself why I don't go further South and find a place that would give this to me a full twelve months? - the answer Autumn duh....I would not fair well without my Autumn splendor and all it's fiery colors. For years I have been proposing to Mother Nature in private conversations that Autumn last from October until December 23rd, then Winter comes dressed in White for the holidays and lasts right up until New Years day than BAM Spring. I think it sounds like a perfect plan actually - Winter is now my sworn enemy and I could do without it completely - I fear Winter 2009 may have forever tainted the Season for me - for the rest of my life snow = fear. I don't care about how pretty it is or that it's fun to play in - to me it is neither of those things - I far prefer to look for dive sticks at the deep end of the pool, screw sledding, screw frost bitten toes. I hate everything about it. I used to love Winter fashion, I dig a pair of knee high boots, but as I sit here in my strapless sundress with the sun kissing my bare shoulders I think better of my boots, better of being covered up at all. I could be bare every day of my life and be perfectly happy.
I fell in love with Summer very early on in my life, way up North in Boston. Because of the long, arduous, annoying Winters in the North by the time Spring cropped, I was about to kill myself for lack of Vitamin D. Restless - to say the very least. I never wanted to have shoes on, I have been a barefoot girl since way back and I just couldn't wait to let my toes out to breathe. Then there were my beach days....Ahhh I miss the New England Coast Line desperately - it is COMPLETELY different from the South East Shores. Here there is only sand, it's white and hot and stretches on forever. Up North he beaches are jagged and imperfect and there are rocks and sand dunes and tide pools, wood drifts and sea weed pods and the sand is cool and brown and littered with shells and other sea trinkets. The New England coast line is a buried treasure chest washed up on shore and busted wide open. I could spend my entire day at a New England Beach searching for the perfect shell or piece of sea glass and in the process view the cycle of ocean life and see my place in it oh so clearly. I knew even before I knew of evolution, I was a sea creature at my inception. I have no doubt that at some point in the cyclical spirit span, that I was a fish of some kind or another....I felt so at peace back in those days with my toes in tide pools and my eyes wandering excitedly through the glinting treasure trove of water mysteries. I felt best with a sunburn and salt water carving out and defining my summer blonde curls, a film of the ocean water on my lips so when I licked them I knew I was at peace.
Yup my love of Summer started young - me and my Nana bobbing in the ocean waves together, me and my laughter and her and her ridiculous bathing cap that I always teased her about and I swore she wore just to give me an little something extra to giggle about.
Those were the beautiful precious days of my Summer youth.
Here in Virginia summer now equals pool time. And although it is not nearly the same experience as my childhood - it gives me a unique pleasure just the same.
I love to hear the culmination of sounds. There is the reverberation of the diving board, the crash of a massive slash, laughter, kids yelling, music playing and slapping flip flops on the wet pool deck. It is a daydream no doubt. I have a family there too, other pool moms, all the kids, the life guards and my favorite table and lounge chair. I love every second of it - feel alive when the pool opens and a little dead inside when it gets drained and the deck chairs get piled by the side, missing us as much as we miss them.
Summer is the time of cold alcoholic beverages, early morning quiet to think, bare skin, swim meets and the whir of my ceiling fan that makes naked night sleeping oh so comfortable. And tan lines...who can forget the tan lines. My kids joke all summer that when I am naked I look like I have on a white bikini....I love my reflection in summer almost as much as I loved Nana's flowered bathing cap.
And let's not forget summer music - summer music is the best music. When I set up shop at the pool, get my station just so and finally settle to disrobe and lay down in the sigh of relaxation, I always start with Jason Mraz's perfect version of Summer Breeze. Blowing through the Jasmine in my mind....Nothing better than a perfect anthem for perfect moments.
Yup I love Summer with all my big gushing heart.
I am a Summer girl in love with everything about the season.
And with that, time to go switch the laundry to the dryer - beach towels and more beach towels :)
Have a glorious Summer day peeps and if you don't have Mr. Mraz's version down load it for me - tell me it isn't just perfection???
Peace and tan lines to you all. xo

Hate on the Brain.

Good quiet morning!!! My exhausted fish children are sleeping like logs, literally....I could log roll on them right now and neither one would rouse. What that means for me is quiet....AHHHHHH
I thought about sleeping in when my phone rang this morning with my early morning wifely call, but I answered and bolted up right, got my coffee on and thought why not seize the silence.
last nights game was insane, no???
Wow B's way to get your game on....Let's do that again Wednesday night please...
So there are two subjects nagging at me.
One is low self esteem in women and two is slavery and what human beings are capable of....Yesterday I worked at the boutique trying all damn dayyyy long to boost the confidence of women who were ragging on themselves un-relentingly and then off to school to discuss slave narratives...
Man that material makes my stomach turn and churn with discomfort and shame.
I have no bad white race feelings, I know that I personally am not to blame for what went on back in the 1800's - I wasn't there in Africa kidnapping, pillaging, raping and enslaving innocent people, nor was I a "Massa" or a "Missus" nor would I have been had I lived then. I would have been a freedom fighter no doubt - blood is blood, flesh is flesh, eyes are eyes regardless of any other factors - I would not have lashed anyone til their skin split open regardless of the color. I am not made that way - Thank you Jesus (or Allah or God or Buddha whatevs)
I am grateful that I get literally nauseous when I read about that time in American history - I feel an unparalleled sorrow for what occurred.
I read one slave narrative in particular that hit home to me due to it's lack of graphic details - the voice used was so removed from the violence and concentrated more on the psychological damage that surely was more of a lashing than any physical beating ever could have been.
This one story was about a young girl of sixteen who was owned by a prominent Doctor in her community. She had it relatively easy compared to those who lived plantation life, she was treated "decently" and was not physically beaten - she was however sexually abused by her "Massa" who raped her all through her teenage years and had a sick controlling obsession that went beyond normal slave/master relationships - he pursued her with a zest that was just creepy - obsession really, made my skin crawl.
Although she discussed other slave experiences and represented them as far worse than her own, she described a punishment that the "Massa's" wife would inflict on the young women who her husband bedded.
Can you imagine being "owned" like cattle, raped, shamed for it and then blamed by the woman of the house for her husbands pigish behavior? TALK ABOUT DE-HUMANIZING.
She described a new Mother (no more than 15) giving birth to a light skinned baby (clearly her Master's) delivering the child under the watch of the wife, who full of contempt and hatred, terribly verbally abused this girl while in the midst of body splitting in two type pain. When the baby came out and was fair, the new Mother was spit on and not allowed to hold her baby, because - the baby is property by birth to the Doctor and his wife OMG....The worst punishment would come randomly when every once in a while, the Missus would come and take the baby just far enough away that the Mother could hear it cry desperately for feeding BUT not be able to touch the baby for 24 hours or more at a time. WTF is that shit???? Psychological damage at it's worst.
Grrrr and why??? WHY WHY WHY?
What the hell makes people do these things to other living, breathing human beings? Where is conscience and compassion? And these were God fearing Christians? OH MY...
Makes me think of all the persecution before and after, The American Indians - The Nazi German's - what's going on in Libya.
SIGH - c'mon humanity learn the lesson so we can stop repeating already.
Deep breath and let's move on before i rant anymore....
Ladies why do you hate yourselves so????
Why do we do the things we do to ourselves and hate so much on what we are?
FYI - men don't give a rats ass what we look like and if they do, they are not worth the time it takes to impress one. Girls we are more than our looks and bodies, pleasssseeeee stop seeing yourself as more than a size six and feeling self hatred because of it. Size only matters when it is bad for your health....Other than that who gives a flying fuck.
I was so depressed yesterday after having customer after customer stand in front of the mirrors in the boutique and rip themselves to shreds....I was like "OMG stop that - you are beautiful"
The lack of confidence hurt my heart to its core. Now I will not deny that I am a diva. Okay I am a Diva - BUT I am a DIVA for me and me only. As we have previosly established I am a girlie girl and love every damn thing about femininity (except for bikini waxing)
I do what I do for ME. Not for any man (psh puhlease) or to be better than any other woman. I want all women to feel like the glorious Goddesses that they are.
We are the Mothers of the Earth girls - our power and beauty is unparalleled.
We rip each other apart too much rather than lift one another up - problemo girls, real problem. Our society pits us against each other like rabid dogs competing for a scrap of meat.
Don't do it - feel good about you and tell every woman you know that she is gorgeous, because she undoubtedly is.
One woman said to me yesterday "Well that is easy for you to say" Okay fine...
She has a point. I am not ugly. Fine. BUTTTTTT, I have felt ugly and bad about myself, battled my self esteem my whole damn life.
What I see now in the mirror that I will agree is beautiful is my self confidence and self embracing.... I AM ME. I have 15 extra pounds according to my doctor, I have stretch marks and my boobs have gone south after breast feeding my four babies. I am no super model but I don't give a SHIT. I have a heart of gold, a love inside that I share with everyone and genuine goodness that has nothing to do with my looks. My most valuable asset as I have been told my whole life is my full voluptuous lips - OKAY fine BUT to me they are an asset because they are the doors to my killer smile that is all about compassion. My smile is all that matters because it conveys my spirit.
I want women to stop hating themselves. I want young girls like my daughter to know that what gives them power is WHO they are not how they LOOK....
Do you hear me sisters? Please say you do....I had so much self deprecating going on around me yesterday that I wanted to stand on a table in the center of the downtown mall and give a motivational self love speech to stop the madness....
If only my power were that powerful.
So there it is my verbal vomit for this quiet morning.
Please don't hurt your fellow human and that really begins by not hurting yourself as I have learned over my long and painful but beautiful life.
Go today and revel in all the beauty that you are.
XO

Just a Sunday Morning is all.

Good Sunday morning blog readers! I hope everyone has had a blessed weekend thus far.
For me, well...yes blessed for sure I am here to write another blog so that surely counts for something - HOWEVER - man what a devastating loss last night for my beloved Boston Bruins. Talk about sudden death GEEZ, what like 22 seconds into the OT period? Ouch it hurt. Like I said in my last blog (I think I said it at least)- this is the way it goes for we die hard Boston sports team fans....They certainly like to keep us on the roller coaster of emotions, right on the brink of a free fall at all times.
It is what Boston Sports are all about - elitist and dominating - but unpredictable and always a little heart breaking.
Like life really....yeah Boston teams are like life. SIGH.
And so I gear up for game 3 and hope those Mother#$*+ers get their hearts back in the game.
They gotta fight in game three like I did to get to college - they gotta want it more than anything. C'mon guys it's the Stanley Cup Playoffs already...
Enough said before my blood pressure rises again.
This morning I am up with the sun/thunderstorms to get my tennis on - the French Open at 9:00 AM. Man do I love tennis too. Nadal and Federer is a guaranteed morning of grunts and surprises - man to be that athletic sigh...
This morning when I got a Mimzy elbow to the jaw (my alarm clock and at least half the reason I spend my life stiff as a board) I decided 7:30 on a Sunday morning is a fine time to rise - Screw it, why not?
I feel energetic this week to say the least - perhaps it is my over active thyroid gland making me feel like a crack head, but I prefer to believe it is the diet I am on, the diet I started Monday and so far, have effortlessly coasted through with little discomfort.
I gave up gluten and dairy.... WOW right, what is there to eat you wonder?
A lot of fruit, veggies and meat.
Funny how when you eliminate specific foods purposefully, you are able to see just how much eating comes from boredom and emotion.
This weekend at work I only ate when my stomach said grumble grumble and my brain said slightly foggy Deb - usually I eat constantly at work to cope with both my stress and especially on dead days, the arduous boredom.
I have lost several pounds this week and feel lighter in my gut region - not skinnier mind you - lighter.
The bloating and the cramping previously associated with meal time has all but vanished....
Do I have an "allergy"? I don't think so - is all that floury shit and heavy dairy gross? YES. DELICIOUS, but not so good for you.
I will admit, I miss cheese and yogurt and I have missed my wheat toast with peanut butter - I have learned to love a rice cake with natural peanut butter in it's place. I miss the bread, but not the uncomfortable feeling of stomach bloat....
Gotta make some trade offs in life - can't bitch if you yourself are the culprit.
Well I mean you can, but it certainly won't change a thing now will it?
I have been keeping a food journal of everything I eat so that I can hone in on what it is specifically that is causing my tummy discomfort and although I am literally only keeping track of food and not associated emotions - I do feel better emotionally too.
No ups and downs associated with the carb spikes and dips. That shit was doing a number on my moods at the end of semester - me and the junk food were in a battle for the happy me I usually am. A reeses peanut cup is so good going down, but talk to me in two hours when I have fallen off the sugar high and want to kill someone or myself.
BAD FOOD = CYCLICAL BITCH
Now....Now... If only I could get my ass back in the gym. How to do this? Oh how to do this?
I laugh at myself regularly while also wanting to punch myself in my own face - what the hell did I do to myself by discontinuing my running and PUMP? I was on endorphin cloud 9 back in the day, a lean muscle machine who could have not only outrun an attacker but given him a fight for his life if somehow he did catch me...
I was a certifiable bad ass.... insert major pout and self hatred here.
I went to college is what happened and it was either Ms. Universe or Mommy time that was gonna have to give....
Can't stop being a MOM now can I???
This entire two year period that I have been a student I have KNOWN that working out would be my very best weapon in not going under in the continually mounting heaps of stress - working out cures all shit that ails me - but there has just not been any time...literally.
I don't know that people get how truly maxed out I am in the minutes department - It's insane how over scheduled I am, truly.
What I need to do in this upcoming week is TRY to adjust my sleep schedule so that I can find the time to get up super early and re-integrate the gym into my life. If I do it this summer while I have down time (yeah right)then maybe come August when I go back to full time student status I will NEED the gym daily like I used to, maybe it will re-become a necessary part of my life again (please God)
And what to do about the cigarettes? The cigarettes that I give up for months even years and then find my way seduced back into their nasty ugly habit....
Mary told me years ago, me smoking is like putting a cigarette out in the middle of a rose.....sigh.
She's right and I hate it.
But man do they satiate my oral fixation - it is the only time my stupid tongue isn't running it's sore little tip off the side of my Dracula tooth.
Excuses Excuses Deborah....
And a question, why the hell does everything that tastes and feels so good have to be so extremely bad for you?
That seems totally unfair to me, like totally.
I mean everything may be a stretch, but a lot of things...
Makes for a life long battle to eliminate habitual badness, ugh.
I type as I sit on my front porch watching the sun do battle with the clouds....C'mon sun I need you today...I need the pool and a lounge chair and my English books and some focus time. If the sun loses, I am doomed to indoors on my day off and homework at my Kitchen table - not a fan of that scenario in June. June is synonymous with pool....
Unfortunately I can't always get what I need it seems, even from myself - why would I expect Mother Nature to be any different?
And so, on that note it is time for some tennis - tennis anyone?
Have a great relaxing wonderful day :)
Peace out.

BOSTON OUR CUP RUNNETH OVER, hell yeah!

Good Morning Blog readers! I hope you are all well...
Well Peeps, it's playoffs time....The fight for the Stanley cup has begun...
If I am on point, the Boston Bruins HAVE won the cup in my lifetime, however I was a wee little munchkin and although I have no doubt that there was lots of commotion in my house that night and I was probably awake and in the thick of it - I don't remember it at all and I say, it's high time for a memory of this nature.
One of the things that SUCKS about living in the South is the lack of availability to my New England sports teams, cause really we do have the best clubs and the best fans, no doubt about it.
The worst of all where accessibility is concerned here in VA. is my beloved Boston Bruins...sure I could do the hockey channel, but it still wouldn't change the fact that I live in an area that lacks the "hockey mentality'....It sucks to say the least and I hate it. Major draw back.
Where I come from, if you have a penis, as soon as you can stand, you are on mini hockey skates and pushed out on the ice. If you have a son, brother, cousin who is male and is not skating by three years old, there is a hush hush about it at family gatherings - we won't acknowledge that Timmy has issues....something wrong with him shhhhh, here comes his father.
Seriously - a New Englander, you live and breathe the sport of hockey, it is a way of life.
Although I have no real access to the sport here in CVILLE, I do every once in a great while get a man in my store who has been playing on the adult league at the rink at the end of the downtown mall (pedestrian historic walking mall fyi in case you have no idea what I mean and picture a massive high rise),
every once in a great while I get convo about hockey...
And don't I love to talk to the talk about my Bruins and don't I love the looks on their faces when they realize I am no demure Southern Belle, I am a Northern girl with hockey sensibility. Yessir I do know what icing is, thank you very much.
My love of hockey started right out of the womb, I had little choice, my Mother was a huge Bruins fan. We watched every game on channel 38 back in the day when rabbit ears would need to be messed with regularly to ensure a good clear picture of the puck. I loved the sport from as far back as I have memories of my life, in fact it was a focal point really, a place where I felt happiness....on the floor of my apartment in Brookline Mass, watching my boys skate back and forth making that great sound of spraying ice. When I was a muchkin I had chronic ear infections and suffered terribly until I had tubes put in - before the tubes I luckily always had ear aches that kept me awake on nights the games were televised and past my bed time. I would listen to the game from my room, tossing and turning and think, if I could just see this, my ear would stop hurting...Footie pajama'd me would come softly walking down the hall, head hung low, praying furiously she didn't make me go to back to bed, hoping to get my hockey on....
Back in the day - the Boston Bruins played at the Boston Garden and I was lucky enough (I say lucky because we were not wealthy people) to frequent the Garden as much as I did the symphony and the ballet - My Mom wanted me cultured, one of the things I credit her for - my love of theater, music and hockey.
I vividly remember the sights and sounds - hearing the word "fuck" in unison of thousands of voices - perfection. The sound of the boards getting hammered on brutal checks and the music that whipped us Boston fans into nothing short of a fantastical frenzy. I loved a home game at the Garden more than life itself.
I think I was seven or maybe eight maybe a little older when a nineteen year old defense man hit the Garden ice for the first time and I fell instantly in love and nearly died on the spot for my heart stopped beating in my chest at the sight.
My number 7 lover Ray Bourque - in my opinion the best defense man the NHL has ever ever and will ever see. A God on the ice, my greatest hockey obsession, one that will never be matched - although Gord Kluzak was some kind of fine in person and when I met him at a benefit baseball game in Watertown one year, I considered a three-some at a ripe young age - sorry faint of heart, I only speak my truths. My teenage years were spent in hockey fantasies....
I loved Ray Bourque and number 7 has been my lucky number ever since....Not 77 either, 7...
My favs consisted of Gerry Cheevers, Stan Jonanthan, Gord Kluzak, Terry O'Reilly for a good scrap, Mike Milbury and I think I was at the game when they retired Peter McNabs number, what was it 8 maybe? Bobby Orr was the Godfather of hockey in my day - I channeled his energy in times of great sudden death over time stress.
Then there came Cam Neely later on, I crushed pretty hard on him too.
But no one could take my Ray's place in my heart, no one ever will - he signifies a happy hockey childhood. And although he was not wearing a Bruins Jersey when he finally got the cup - I cried as though he were, happier than I have ever been to watch a captain hoist that massive trophy up over his head for the victory lap...A great moment in hockey history...
Did I mention that his wife's name is Debbie and that always burned my ass???
And so here we are in the playoff's a devastating loss with 18 seconds left on the clock in the third period - a beautiful goal with an beautifully attempted save by Goalie Tim Thomas - his legs split so wide I am sure his groin hurts today.
Three periods of scoreless hockey makes for some serious game... That game is what playoff hockey should look like.
And, although I would prefer that we are up against the Canadiens, because that rivalry is as bitter and beautiful as the SOX and the YANKEES, I will say that I am glad we are in it to win it with the boys from Canada - the Canadien folk are the original badasses of the sport and it's fitting...
Last night I watched the game in pain from a brutal sunburn (yes I wore sunscreen) and I hearkened back to my youth, I was seventeen and lived in a house with four girls - one of my roomies Caroline had a sunlamp and so I set it up in my bedroom on the floor in front of the tv - I made myself a bed on the floor and tuned into TV38, butt naked attempting a little tan time coupled up with some playoff hockey...
Who knew that the Bruins and Canadiens would battle it out for not only three grueling periods, but oh wait an over time, oh no wait another overtime and we may as well make it a sudden death hat trick and go for three additional periods....
With the stress of the game, I forgot about the lamp - like literally forgot.
HOLY HELL BURN, I couldn't sit on my own ass for two weeks straight and... we eventually lost and I was bitter beyond words - burned in more ways than my ass cheeks.
GRRRR can you tell I am still bitter?
Personally I am glad we lost last night - lets get our losses out of the way. No sweeping a series when you play the Canucks, better to get it done now and get focused for game two. I am soooo looking forward to this series, and seeing that it is Stanley Cup Playoffs - it is nationally televised and so we here in the South can partake too.
I hope we take it all, I hope Chara gets to skate that sucker around the ice - if he does, people in the nose bleeds will have a better view than those up against the boards - that Dude is a giant.
I laughed hysterically as he batted at players with his gloved hand, kinda like my Dog does when he gives paw - and the players went down like a leaf on the wind.
Dude you have to be nuts to think about checking him, NUTS, If it were me I would cry for the shame and skate the other f'in way...
Well I think the time may have come to dig out my Boston Bruin Bear and give him a righteous cuddle - he has been with me for 35 years and looks it. Poor guy is missing his B patch and his black fur is matted and ripped, he has sewn up holes all over his legs and still has my name sewn to his tag from his trip to Pleasant Valley Camp...He is one of my prized possessions for sure. He knows all my childhood dreams, all my teenage secrets and houses my very heart in his stuffed chest.
Time to pull him out and have a serious talk about getting to see the cup at HOME in my lifetime. Gonna channel me some Bobby Orr and Ray Bourque too.
There are a lot of things that make me proud to be New Englander - but being a Boston BRUIN takes the cake, or in this case (hopefully fingers and toes crossed) THE CUP....There is no sport I love more, no team I love more, no city I love more.
Da na na na na da na na na na.....
LET'S GO BOSTON LET'S GO!!!!!!