A, B, Ease!

I have several things I want to blog about. Topics include:

I am a married lady, but I'd like a man to hit on me. Please!
Hear that, men reading my blog? (are there any mens that read my blog?) FLIRT AWAY.
It will not go ANYWHERE, but I'd really appreciate the gesture...but today is probably not the best day to start, okay? I already had a dream this morning that involved me making out with my childhood crush.  Hubs might get a complex.  I would!


Living With My In-laws.
It's not ideal, but sometimes? It's pretty rad.

 Eating Disorders/ Food Issues.
I am often surprised at how much I still struggle with them.  Sigh.

O is Not Really Talking.
Most of the time, I am completely fine with it and totally confident with my child's developmental track, but then "looks" from other parents send me on a panic spiral. My husband is even worse than me.


The Versatile Blogger Award!
Robin, over at Farewell, Stranger gave me and several other lovely ladies this fun award! I need to post about it, but for now, go visit her!


Some decent material...

buuuuuuuut, the iTunes GCs that my MIL gave me for Easter distracted me, and I've spent a large chunk of O's nap time deciding what to spend them on...


[I could bankrupt our family buying iTunes, seriously.]

So I'm stealing from the fantastical Carrie over at The Sweetest. I kinda love her. Go immerse yourself in her blog! But then skip back over this way for some ABC meme-fun, that I jacked from her, that she shanked from Mean Girl Garage, whom I am not familiar with, but based on just name alone--I'm gonna get that way!

This is a bit of a lazylady post, but hey, you might learn a few gems about me, so that's a win, right?

[For past feats of lazy, go here, and here! If you want see some sad attempts at meme-ing, look no further than there and there. It will never happen AGAIN, promise.]

Plain Letters

A. Age: Dirty Thirty. Showers aren't always in the cards.

B. Bed size: King. We used to have a Cal-King, but it had to go when we moved in with the ILs. Some say it's extravagant, I say it's a marriage saver.

C. Chore you dislike: Vacuuming. With.every.FIBER.of.my.being

D. Dogs: Someday we will have one, I hope. French bulldogs and rat terriers make me smile.

E. Essential start to your day: A good pee, a cup of tea, and a supportive bra.

F. Favorite color: Red. The deeper and sexier, the better.

G. Gold or silver: White Gold. Although, I'm developing this weird obsession with Rose Gold. Very QVC

H. Height: 5’3. I am all sorts of statuesque and lanky. In a petite and roundish sort of way.

I. Instruments you play(ED): I WISH. My brother is the one with all the instrumental talent. I play a mean Rockband tambourine...

J. Job title: WifeyMama and Family CEO/CFO

K. Kids: Fiending for another baby, but trying to play the patience game. Boo.

L. Live: music is the best. TV?  I'd rather DVR.  Residence? SoCal

M. Mom’s name: More Latin than you'd expect, lookin' at her...

N. Nicknames: I think my husband is like the only one that calls me by my given name...There are many. My godson calls me Kiki....


O. Overnight hospital stays: I've lost count.  I fucking abhor hospitals.

P. Pet peeves: Rudeness. Passive aggressive behavior. Racism. Homophobia. Ugg boots worn with short-shorts. Mothers who constantly talk about how much they hate being mothers. Most conservative Republicans. Poor Grammar.

Q. Quote from a movie: "She's not my Special Lady, man! She's just my Lady Friend. Trying to help her conceive!"

R. Righty or Lefty: Left handed.  Left footed. <---kept that from Carrie, because it SO applies here.

S. Siblings: Younger sister and younger brother. I love them like they were my own children, but we have a bit of an estranged relationship, so out of respect, I keep the out of the blog.

T. Time you wake up: 6:00 am.  Trying.

U. Underwear: I prefer comando, but the bladder issues gifted to me by my son has sort of but the kibosh on that....It's Mom-chones, now. Sexy.

V. Vegetables you don’t like: Lima beans, olives, and since the birth of my son--asparagus. Wait, are lima beans considered a veg, or just a legume? Do olives fall into the fruit basket? Whatever.

W. What makes you run late: Miscalculating how long it will take to pack up and get O into the car, and that I can't drive, so I'm always on someone else's clock.

X. X-rays you’ve had: Fairly certain everything on my body has been x-rayed, most likely, several times. It's a wonder O came out with just the one (welllll, two...ahem.) head.

Y. Yummy food you make: My husband is a Kitchen-Nazi, so I don't cook much, but I make a mean pot of spaghetti with meat sauce.

Z. Zoo Animal Favorites: Jirafas! And Elephants. Either, especially in baby form, are guaranteed to make me sqeeeeeee.

Not an Edit, but a Revisit...

    I'm getting a cold....(I hope it's just a cold)

    Again.

    I immediately started panicking about having to go to the doctor.

    (no insurance=panic)

  It was making for kind of a Debbie-Downer kind of day.... 

Which reminded me of a post that had been nibbling at me: 

Remember my my post about Optimism?  Or, rather, my struggle with Optimism? 

I was not happy with the piece.  I didn't feel like I had articulated my feelings on the issue (my issues). 

From the second I hit "Publish," I was worried that people would read it and think that I was a really negative person....something I'm really not. 

I didn't take the post down, because it was where I was in that moment, and honestly?  I couldn't think of another way I wanted to address the post, so fuck it. 

But then I got an awesome comment of encouragement from my dear friend Andrea...Here's a snippet:

"...I think that if getting you through the day is to prepare for the worst and let optimism fly out the window, then more power to you. Seriously...."

I was so thankful for that.  I responded lengthily right.a-way.

 After reading my response to her comment a few times over, I realized that THAT was what I had been trying to say on the first go...

I was going to attempt to flesh that comment into its own post, but I'm feeling crappy and would rather watch a movie, so I'm just going to paste in (with a little bit of editing because this was originally typed via my iTouch) my response:

[Makes more sense, I think....?]

    "Yeah-Thanks so much for this comment! I really appreciate it. 

It's not optimism as a whole that I have a problem with, it's that 

"forced cheerfulness"  and "fantasyland optimism" that we seem to be forcing ourselves into as a society. 

Nothing is ever allowed to not be okay. 

Any time someone mentions how a portion or a time in life is hard, they are bombarded with reasons as to why it's "not that bad" and why the person should be happy. 

Planning for the possibility of hard times has become a character flaw. 

Acknowledging the toll that hardships take on you/your family has somehow been translated into ungratefulness. 

Rough times are turned into "blessings in disguise", disappointments become "lessons that needed to be learned",  disasters are not disastrous, but a healthy dose of "character-building"--and so on...

While I absolutely believe that you learn from the experiences in life, and need to look for the good in your life-not wallowing in negativity, I think we need to be a bit more realistic with ourselves. With each other.

Sometimes life is hard. 

Really fucking hard, and things don't always work out for the best. 

Most of life not going to just fall together happily in our laps. 

It takes work and planning and honesty about what lies ahead. 

And sometimes, even with all the planning or smiles in the world? 

It's not so positive. 

I wish that that could be talked about without the penalty of the label of Negative Nelly McUnappreciative Pants."

I am not a Negative Nelly McUnappreciative Pants.
But I'm not a Positive Polly McRainbowsandUnicorns Pants, either.

Does that make ANY sense?

Suitable for Consumption

Remember when I gifted you all with this fantastical blog?

[If you haven't clicked your way into her world, you are MISSING OUT.]

Well, she has written a review of  my dinky-little-blog-that-could in her weekly  
"Featured Bloggers" post.
Do me a favor, and head on over to read it....Go! Go! Go! Ha!

Honestly? I'm floored by the inclusion.  It bought tears to my eyes and validation to my heart.

And I mean that in the most non-cheese ball way.

I respect her work so much, and each of the bloggers that she has featured thus far have been so diversely special.  To know that she respects me?  That she feels that I need to be shared with others?

Is fucking rad.
 
As of late, I've really tried to push myself with this blog.  I want to be honest. Of the brutal, reaching-out-to-others, staring-down-myself sort.  Not that I have ever lied in these pages, but I have omitted and sugar-coated form time-to-time.  I have censored myself, not saying things that needed to be said and/or not writing posts that should have been written because I was afraid.

of  Rejection

of Mocking

of Anger 

of Judgment  
of FAILURE

Afraid that I would not be believed, understood, or supported.
That no one would want to hear me.  Insecurity and Self-Doubt, reigning supreme...

Mostly, though?

I  was afraid of hearing MYSELF.  Of facing monsters that I've tried to hard to keep at bay.  Of opening up my stores of memories/pain/thoughts/perspective to the light of public view.  Because once I did that, I knew there would be no going back.  Nowhere to hide and pretend to be what I thought people might want.

But here I am.  I have crossed the threshold.

Thank you to all of you who've supported me thus far. I love you all.
Thank you to Kris over at PrettyAllTrue. A Million Times.
Thank you to the new readers who have/may stop on by. Please continue to do so, and feel free to pass me on to others. If you have a story to share, share away!



I will do my best to let you all in...


and let myself out.

T.O.P Week 2: VU Sistas

 

My second note for Thankful on Paper is actually a group of notes (emails) to my:

 

VU Sistas.

Things have been a *smidge* stressful around here as of late, and shockingly, I haven't been all that cheerful. [See: "Ashes" and "The Tearing of Robes"]

But I do feel loved. I have gotten so many emails, FB posts/messages, texts/calls, blog comments, etc. wishing us well and sending us their prayers/love...

The hub of these messages come from a group of women I met in college.

I went to a small, conservative,  Christian University. For those of you who know me well, you might be asking yourself, what the HELL was she doing there?!

(It's a long story, for another time...)

Needless to say, I felt very uncomfortable and out of my element. I didn't belong to a church, hadn't grown up in one, came from basically a "Cops" episode in terms of my childhood, and had a sailor mouth. (still kinda do.) I had the audacity to show...CLEAVAGE. (Get behind thee behind me, Satan!) I was judged and judged HARSHLY.

I kinda hated life. Until I started to meet women who accepted me as I was, and loved me not just in spite of it, but because of it.

I have unique relationships with each one, and while some of the friendships may have been superficial or sporadic to start, over the years, every relationship has deepened and become special to me, and even as life takes us in different directions, I know that they will be there for me, as I will for them.

Every one of these women have entered a place in my heart not as my friends, but as my sisters.

[They know who they are :)]

At different points in the last 9 (almost 10, now, WOAH.) years (It's been a rough decade, to say the least), each woman has touched a part of my life, and has been there to lift me up when I couldn't lift myself.

Now as I've moved into wife and motherhood, they have celebrated and shared with me. Cheered me on and still, step in to not just lift me up in times of turmoil, but also my family.

Whether we talk mostly via FB or email, phone chats, or we see one another regularly, whether we remain friends till we're old and gray or get swept away from each other in the changes of time: 

I am so Thankful for these smart, gorgeous, funny, compassionate, kind, creative, loving, crazy women. I always will be. I love you all, and I hope I have been (and will be) the type of "sister" each of you have been to me.


We don't have Traveling Pants, or anything, but you all are magic in my life.






I may not have Luck, but I have amazing friends....which is kinda lucky.

Gimme Gimme Gimme some LOVIN'.

All the cool kids are doing it....

And by cool kids? I mean Andrea and Kacie. I strive to be as adorably cool as they are someday. Check them out!

Follow my blog with bloglovin

Dearest Readers, Can I ask a favor? As you may have noticed, I changed some things in my neck of the blog woods...I thought that my followers and links would make a smooth transition.

Based on some emails of confusion I've received since, it seems I was mistaken...

So could you take a sec to re-follow me at the new url digs and/or BlogLovin'?

http://goteamjayne.blogspot.com

Just Plain Jayne.

New Look, Same Great Sarcasm!