I’ve been thinking…..

You know, we all go through our own personal crap in life. We mull and peruse our issues and problems that we are going through. We have bad days, days where we spend far too much time in our brains. Self-defeating talk, recalled and anticipated arguments and scenarios, all bashing around in our inner dialogue.

I’ve had a couple of weeks of this. It’s been… tumultuous in a way. Nothing too overtly concerning, except to me, of course. Just some things that have come up that I have thought long and hard about. Anyways, I yet again, muddled through one of life’s more challenging times by always remembering this poem. I’ve posted it a couple times to my facebook wall.

It’s kept me going, this gifts of words, and I truly love that it can be interpreted so many ways for everyone. It’s like a sacred prayer to me. I hope you find your own personal interpretation.

 

Juan Ramon Jiminez

 
I am not I.
I am this one
walking beside me whom I do not see,
whom at times I manage to visit,
and whom at other times I forget;
the one who remains silent while I talk,
the one who forgives, sweet, when I hate,
the one who takes a walk when I am indoors,
the one who will remain standing when I die.

 

 

Challenge.

The older I get, the more I embrace a challenge.

Any sort, really. This month my friends and I challenged ourselves to go 30 days with no sugar. Ha! You know what contains sugar, right? Yes. ALCOHOL. (Insert that DUN DUN DUN music here). Sugar in chocolate and other yummies isn’t that hard for me personally to give up, but it was interesting to see how my body wanted that glass of wine at 5 while I was cooking dinner. It made all of us step back and inspect our lives and made us “check in” with patterns that we create and what we feel we should do.

But I digress.

Any kind of challenge is good. A dear friend of mine challenged herself to a Crossfit competition this past week. She overcame anxiety and completed it, already talking about how she’s going to kick serious ass in it next year.

Another group of friends conquered Mt. Loki last week, hiking to 9117 feet and feeling that true warrior spirit as they sat and surveyed the world below them on that peak.

How proud I am of these women.

I’m challenging myself in learning a new job after six years of being a stay at home mom.

It feels GOOD to get out of your comfort zone, creating a buzz of fear that you quietly acknowledge and then shove aside to forge ahead in a new adventure. It can be big. It can be small.

It can mean agreeing to sky dive with your Dad. (Yep.)

So here’s my challenge to you. (I was thinking about this a lot lately, as my daughter and I have had many talks about self-worth lately.)

Name five things that you LOVE about yourself.  And I want to read them. You can PM them, or put them on facebook or add them as comments. But you have to shake off any sort of limits, worries about ego or what others might think about you. Give in to your inner diva, goddess, genius, ass-kicker and acknowledge what you and YOU ALONE have that you cherish about yourself.

Nervous? OK, I’ll start.

1. I love my skills as a writer. It hasn’t gotten me anywhere but here in this little blog, but I will read back sometimes and be amazed at a turn of words that sums something up and I think “Wow! I wrote that!!”

2. I love my ass. I’m pretty dang proud of it.

3. I think I’m hilarious and I love me for it. I laugh every single day. I hope to laugh every single day until I die.

4. I love that I love so well. I’m proud of how I live in gratitude and that I create such wonderful relationships with others that in turn nourish my soul.

5. Even though it gets me in trouble, I love that I am outspoken and am not afraid to say what I feel. I have learned to stay quiet when needed, but when it’s necessary, you’ll know how I feel. I’ve learned to hush my internal critic and realize that it’s truly okay to be who I am.

 

Whew. Done.

Are you ready? It’s your turn now……

 

At the risk of being called a snob…. and apologies to one of my besties.

When I am sitting down to dinner and someone hands me a finely grilled rare T-bone, served with sautéed potatoes and fresh asparagus with a touch of lemon butter I know I am in for a feast where I savour every mouthful. It takes me longer to eat a really good meal because it’s worth every single second.

But when that same meal is replaced with a greasy burger, done up with limp lettuce and some ketchup, served with overly salted fries, I can’t say that I wouldn’t eat it if I, perchance, was starving…. but I am pretty positive that I wouldn’t enjoy it nearly as much as that aforementioned steak dinner.

This is how I feel about books.

I read. A lot. I could easily give up most mediums, like TV and internet, as long as my books are left to me unscathed. Evenings in my home are spent with my husband watching a show and me curled up in my recliner, my nose buried deep in the pages of a gripping novel.

I don’t read “bodice rippers” or Harlequin romances. I turn down the works of Daniel Steele and Maeve Binchy. I rely on girlfriends to gush on and on about this book or that and then, yes, I pick it up. I am greedy in my lust for a well-written story. I have read some really shitty books in my past and have absolutely no qualms about tossing that book aside if I feel it sucks.

I tried the first Twilight book and it took me the first five pages before I realized this was just not for me. My daughter loved the series, and who am I to begrudge anyone enjoyment with the written word?

I had heard of 50 Shades of Grey several months ago, and to be honest, was deeply intrigued about it…. until I read the preview through Amazon. I don’t know, it was about 10 pages or so, and I read it, anticipating some titillation and intrigue. The sample I read was … not good…

Then I read a few reviews of the book (puh-lease disregard all the annoying animated GIFs in that link and read it the whole way through) about the same time as two of my most dearest friends read the book. I admit, I was set in my opinion before I read that book. I stubbornly dug my soles in and said “No friggen way” to which my friends admonished me (in the charmingly honest Shut Up Bitch  way that besties can), telling me I should try it, I should read it, it was pretty good, the sex was HOT.

And so I did.

This is how I felt about the book:

-I liked the idea of it, and I am not one to shy away from sex scenes in any novel.

-the character’s names were like either really bad stripper names or taken from some horrible Soap Opera.

-I have NEVER met a woman who had orgasms her first time… so yeah, riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

-I felt the book was written in a hasty way by a horny 17 year old girl who has an absurd extensive knowledge of the BDSM lifestyle.

-for all the hot sex in the book, not once does she say “pussy” or “cock” or any other pornographic genital terminology relating to body parts. Instead she refers to it as “down there“. Really???? Down there????? Are you, like, 12?????

-It annoyed my feminist side. Apart from a little dominant play, this was, admittedly, too much for me. It just didn’t turn me on, you know…. down there. (LOL!!!)

-I was appalled at how many times the author used “Oh my” and “Holy shit”. There are many other words in the English language. Use them.

-It was boring.

-I could (and did) write a waaaaaaay better sex scene.

Look, if you liked the book, then yay for you! This review is NOT to be taken as judgmental against anyone’s preference for reading material. It is a best seller after all.

I just didn’t like it.