How I have managed to coexist in this house with several delicious bottles of craft beer for sixty+ days – yet just had to walk a garbage bag filled with a package of double stuff oreos and a half-eaten, 1lb bag of peanut m&ms to. the. curb. –  is beyond me.

SuperManda, over at See.Want.Take.Destroy.Repeat. just finished up a series on happiness. I really enjoyed reading it…especially the parts that I know that I need to work on. I could comment on each of her top 10 ways to reach happiness, but I’d just be messing up what she has already said so well. And it would sound like a middle school book report and we know I already did that last week. So, go on over to visit her and check it out for yourself.

Her thoughts on forgiveness (number 9) struck a chord with me  and I made a mental, a web-based and an actual handwritten, note to come back and write about it here. I love this quote in particular:

“Forgiveness has nothing to do with “being the bigger person.” Rather, forgiveness is all about freeing up space in your life for happiness. I’ve been told being resentful is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”

Isn’t that the greatest?

Forgiveness has come up in a lot of conversations and situations in the past few months. You all know that I am not the cheeriest, most mentally sound person in the universe, but I rarely hold a grudge. I have never made a conscious effort to avoid doing so, it’s just ingrained in me somehow. I could be so outrageously angry with someone and get over it, without resolution, in just a short matter of time. In terms of small things, it happens every day. I simply cannot stay mad at my husband. In larger situations, I am never that “all I want is an apology” type person. If I end a relationship with someone, it’s because I’m tired of their BS, never because I am holding some grudge.

I guess this is why I have such trouble understanding stubborn people and why they hold grudges. How do you go to bed at night and get the hell out of it every morning carrying around all of that negative energy? The negative energy of other people, no less.

If you are holding a grudge, please – let it go. Free up that space for happiness. Quit drinking that poison – it’s killing you slowly, while your nemesis just keeps on keeping on.

…making sense of it all – lyrically.

Lucky I’m sane after all I’ve been through

Everybody says I’m cool

I can’t complain but sometimes I still do

Life’s been good to me so far

joe walsh life’s been good to me so far; found by scrolling through sirius channels.

Contrary to what you might believe – due to my love of peanut butter kandy kakes and hot chocolate – nutrition/eating well is a huge interest of mine. I was pleased to see that this is the issue that the First Lady chose to take on as her official debut in a high-profile policy role. The White House, led by Michelle Obama, recently announced an initiative aimed at revamping the way American children eat and play — reshaping school lunches, playgrounds and even medical checkups — with the goal of eliminating childhood obesity within a generation.

This is just one reason why I chose Michelle Obama as my first feature for Women’s History Month. (And suddenly this feels like a middle school essay)

For one, she’s beautiful and she has amazing style…something I have not seen in my lifetime as far as the White House is concerned. This may be meaningless to some people, but for me, style is right up there with character. If you think that makes me vain, go away. She embraces her fuller figure and she dresses accordingly. She doesn’t hide her hips and thighs, or try to stuff them into dowdy suits (Hillary. cough.cough), she cinches that waist and flaunts it tastefully.

I think she’s quite brave. As a wife, if my husband came to me and said “I want to run for president of the United States” let alone “I want to be the first black president of the United States” I would need more than a few minutes in a warm bath to think it through.

Of course, I’d stand behind anything my husband wanted to do…but it takes a strong woman to support a high profile career of any kind. Especially one that puts your family under constant scrutiny. Oh, and especially one that involves running the most powerful nation in the country during one of its most trying times.

The Let’s Move campaign means a lot to me, because as Michelle explains, “It’s not about weight … it’s about fitness and it’s about overall nutrition.” The world needs to know this. People don’t have to be model thin, perfect, sexy, love-handle free, bereft of cellulite. Love your body for what it is – after you suffer through a brief cardiovascular workout and give your body the nutrients it needs. And for god’s sake – stop eating McDonalds, stop drinking soda, and don’t for the love of baby jesus justify eating a chai/mocha/spiced/pumpkin latte with whipped cream every day.

All joking aside, we have to take care of our bodies. As a nation, we’re disgustingly obese. We wonder why people are afraid of universal healthcare in this country. How about because we eat and eat and eat and never exercise and THEN go to the doctor for a pill or surgery when our bodies react with clogged arteries, high blood pressure, heart attack or diabetes. Perhaps if you lifted a few weights and had ones less diet coke a week, you wouldn’t have back pain.

What was I talking about? Oh. So the Let’s Move campaign aims to reduce childhood obesity in the United States within a generation. Obama asked parents, teachers, physicians, coaches and kids to get involved and suggested they look at the new Let’s Move Web site for helpful tips, strategies and updates on beating obesity in children.

So, thank you Michelle. To this crazy broad, just this one task has made you a woman to honor. I hope that your campaign succeeds and that we’ll be talking about it for generations to come.

please note that for some reason this blog does not support characters other than letters in titles. of course i know that it’s “women’s or womenz” duh.

do i really need to explain the 4th edition of rubies and love songs? okay, just a few words.

This is from Matt Logelin’s blog (wonderful stories about the life of an amazing little girl, as told by her equally amazing father). If you’ve ever had this happen to you, you know how incredibly hard it is to be angry with the toilet paper bandit. Really, it’s just too cute. Our dog did it day after day until we gave up on the t.p holder and placed it on a higher shelf across from the toilet. If you think about it – maybe just let go and try it for yourself – I bet it’s actually a lot of fun.

Today marks sixty days sobriety for me. That’s all.

For those of you that don’t know, March is Women’s History Month. Because here in America, we all get a month. In honor of all my bitches and hoes out there doin they thang (i sure hope you understand sarcasm, if not, i believe its month is july), I want to write about a different woman each week. I haven’t decided if the series will honor women that I know, women in history that I adore, women who have given birth in an elevator or a little bit of everything. A medley of women if you will. Any suggestions? Care to join me by doing the same?

Well, really I just wrote this to ensure that I would actually go forward with the project. Stay tuned!

please note that for some reason this blog does not support characters other than letters in titles. of course i know that it’s “women’s or womenz” duh.

i love when my visual thesaurus word of the day inspires a post. well, that’s only half true, because i promised you a post on facebook negativity, but waking up strangely early on a saturday along with the word, pushed me to write it. back in the day, i wrote many ‘word of the day’ posts. check them out if you’re bored.

antipathy

It looks like the opposite of sympathy and that’s not a bad way to characterize this noun, which means (in its core sense) “intense dislike.” If you’re looking for a verb to stick before it, arouse, overcome, display, and express are all popular candidates.

——

I vote for an antipathy button on facebook. My campaign for positivity in my life has made me more aware of just how miserable people are when taking to their status updates. FML, I don’t want to go to work, When will it stop snowing, The rain is ruining my day, ME, ME, ME, The World should cater to me is all I hear when i read those updates. A few days ago it really started to bring me down for a moment. How how am supposed to remain positive when I am bombarded with all of  this?

Before I post an update, I like to think to myself, will this entertain? will this make my friends laugh, smile or feel good? If it doesn’t, I skip it. There is always someone (even among my 200 friends) that is going through something worse than I am.

I acted on impulse and started a campaign for uplifting updates fan page. This seemed like a good idea until I realized that I was doing the very same thing these people were doing. Believing that what I was feeling was important enough to share/preach at the moment.

Sure, I could just stop logging into Facebook, but I do it because I enjoy seeing new pictures that my sister posts of my niece, what my dad is making my mom for dinner, and what’s going on in the lives of people that live too far away to see every day. The whole reason why I got back into Facebook about a year and a half ago was because my whole family was on there – and as a part of my generation – I think it’s a fine way to stay in touch.

I guess I could just ignore those people, but on some days it feels like virtually everybody wants to fuck their own lives. Perspective. You are not the only person affected by whatever it is you think is out to ruin your day. Snow puts people out of work, keeps people from accessing food and medicine, the outside freaking world. Imagine the older woman, who takes a daily walk to keep the ol’ ticker ticking. Days and days of snow leaves her trapped indoors. For would she risk going outside and breaking a damn hip? But You ( not you ) need to take your young, able body outside and dig out your near-luxury vehicle that has heated seats and rear windshield wipers. To drive to your job that 14 million Americans no longer have. Wow. F your life indeed.

I saw this image of a pothole-turned-garden a few days back (on a different blog, this was just pulled from Oh Joy! yesterday) and thought it was darling. Then ‘old me’ kicked in and thought what’s the point? After a morning spent avoiding the hundreds of newly popped up (or popped in?) potholes in the area, followed by yet another afternoon filled with absoutely miserable Facebook updates*, I was glad to have come across it again. Now I know what the point of it is. Similar to my intention with rubies and love songs, its purpose to turn a frown upside down – try to make a grey day a sunny one – turn a pothole into a garden.

Happy Weekend! It’s become customary for me to post on Saturday, so expect to hear from me domani.

*more on this soon.

So while I was walking the dog today, I spied a tiny teenager wearing a barely there coat and not wearing a hat. I felt stupid for a moment, wearing my North Face zipped up to my chin and with its furry hood pulled up over my noggin. I thought about how old and silly I must look..like the older people who wear winter coats well into spring or turtlenecks with kitties on it. After she passed, I pulled my hood down for a moment and caught a sharp wind on my ears. It was cold! Sure it’s wasn’t bitterly cold, but that hood made my walk far more comfortable. I bet little miss skinny jeans was dressed like that because she would have felt silly all bundled up. It got me thinking about how painfully insecure teenagers are. How insecure I was well into my 20’s. Every move you make and every word that comes our of your mouth feels awkward. You’re constantly seeking approval, feeling inadequate and just waiting for the day when you can finally ‘grow up.’ Or was this just me?

At any rate, clearly I am now the neighborhood woolly mammoth – walking my dog with a tiny bag of poop in my hand. And not giving a damn about how I look in my cloud pjs when I get the mail or when I talk to myself at the supermarket.

Two blocks later I was coming upon a trio of teens walking in the middle of the street. Just before I could finish thinking, God just look at how hard that kid is trying, I tripped on a raised sidewalk. Right in front of them. Overcome with embarrassment, I tried to carry on and pretend it didn’t happen. But I landed on my damn ankle the wrong way and kind of twisted it. So I hobbled my old ass home, a little more aware of the fact that we all have a little teenage insecurity hanging behind. Unless you’re this guy. It must die down somewhere around 70.