Mirror,Mirror On The Wall

I was talking to a friend of mine last night who had read my last blog entry about NOT turning forty. She said the funniest thing that was so true....She said that she feels twenty-five all day until she gets out of the shower naked and looks in the mirror! How true is that?!

Why is it so hard for woman to accept their bodies? Im supposed to be teaching my daughters to love theirs, to respect them....but Im constantly trying to change mine. I think we grow up thinking that we have to fit into a certain mold. I really dont think that the media influenced my thinking this way. I think it got passed down through the generations. How many of your mothers were on the cabbage soup diet?

I remember my mother trying every diet out there. I remember her looking "smokin" at my wedding after she had taken off what she thought was extra weight. I remember her going to the gym after work with her friends, she was always trying, always battleing.

Nothings changed. I see woman who dont need to lose a pound at the gym sweating away...(when I go...thats another story) I see woman picking over salads who need to eat a few cupcakes. Is there ever an ideal weight in our own eyes? I mean a realistic one? Id love to lose 20 pounds. Ive did this a few times. How did I get to the twenty pound number? well....that would put me at where I was at when I got married.

Ok, common sense says...youve had three children, your not twenty years old anymore...I know that. I think that weight represents a time where I was really happy with myself. I felt attractive to my husband, I felt young and full of energy.
Who wouldnt want that back.

I know that even if I do manage to get the twenty pounds off, I am probably not going to feel like Im twenty inside again. When I get out of the shower things are still not going to look like they did back then...

Maybe we should all go on a brain diet. Lose the crap is our heads that tells us we are not beautiful. Lose the image off ourselves at twenty, and just try to become the best person we can be at the age we are. Stop mentally kicking ourselves for eating a cookie and having a beer. Learn to burn calories with laughter. Somehow I think that would be healthier for alot of people. Diet your brain first, then the outside. Whos going to remember what size of jeans you wore when you die? No, they'll remember what made you, you. Was it a funny joke? They way you laughed? How much you cared for others? Or was is that you weighed as much as you did on your wedding day?

I know this is easier said then done. I myself am a work in progress. Trying to set a good example for three girls...Thats tough in itself.

I think I have three beautiful daughters inside and out (given the day! ha ha) I wish I could shake them and tell them that one day they will dream they still had the bodies they have now. I want to tell them to focus on the inside a little more then the outside, because that it what is important in the long run. But they are teenagers....so Im not sure what part of that will sink in.

Im sure many more teens will learn the recipe to The Cabbage Soup Diet over the years, Im sure many more will ponder in the mirror about what they want to change...
I just hope when we ALL grow up we can look in the mirror and hopefully say that our hearts are good, our spirit is good, our love is good...and realize that the people we love and who love us unconditionally dont care what our outside package looks like..because if they do..care THAT much about it.....they arent the type of people you should want around anyway.

Forty? I dont think so......

I was looking in the mirror the other day and I noticed that I'm not twenty five anymore. Why didn't someone tell me?

I had my mom on the phone last night and she started laughing telling me that she
was in the store trying to find me a birthday card and was looking at the "Forty!" cards...I'm NOT turning FORTY! She said she started laughing in the aisle when she also realized that I'm NOT turning forty! Thanks mom....

Most people assume that I have to be forty just because of my children's ages. My husband and I decided right after we were married that we shouldn't wait to have kids and only waited about six months months before we started trying. So I was six months pregnant when I turned twenty-one. The second arrived when I was twenty-four and our final one I was twenty-seven.

So now I have a daughter who is graduating high school when I am thirty-nine. I think I enjoyed being a young mom, it was hard, but in the end worth it. I just feel like I should be older....and I think I'm finally starting to feel older...

I cant imagine having little ones running under foot right now. I am amazed at my friends that are having their first and second child right now. I really don't think I could do it. I'm glad we did what we did, but man....I'm tired...

The biggest thing for me is to try to figure out how to have a life when I am about to turn forty...no this year mother! I have spent so much of my time being mommy that I really don't know where to start. I almost feel guilty trying to form a life for myself. I have more time, but I have no idea what to do with it. I could go to the gym, I could get a job, but what would I do?

I think the hardest thing is to realize that I am still young enough to do about anything. The weird thing is that mentally I am probably still twenty-one and haven't figured out what that is....I enjoy being a mom..but the complete neediness is almost over.

I think the hardest thing for a mom to learn is to put herself first. To take care of herself. The old saying "If momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy" is a very true statement. But finding what makes you happy is a hard thing to discover.

I can see how woman can take the road to botox and plastic surgery...somehow the outside isn't matching with the inside. You want to look as young as you feel and have others perceive you that way also. How do you embrace your age? I think I'm going to have a big problem with the big "4-0" I don't want to get older. I want to be young...I want to feel young...I want to do young things..but my body is saying.."Hey lady....your not sooooo young anymore.." SHUT UP!

So I think my mission this year...my soon to be 39th...is to embrace my age and be the best 39 I can be. I haven't quite figured this out yet. Take more time for myself, take better care of myself, become a newlywed again...my husband will like that..but ultimately to put myself first somehow.

Oh by the way, I want a kick ass 40th birthday party also...I want people to think "She cant be Forty!?" Wouldn't that be nice? I don't just want to not look forty..(even thought I know their are some awesome woman who are FORTY! I'm not knockin' you) I want to be younger in spirit. I want my outside to match my insides, and I want my insides to scream..."I'M YOUNG!"

An Old Friend

Old friends can be great, new friends can be great, but sometimes there is that one friend who steps into our lives and changes it forever. I think everyone needs a friend like this in their lives. One who blows in and changes sometimes the way you dress, you talk and how you think about yourself. This is only a good thing of course if your life needs a change.

Quite a few years ago I made my first out of state move with my husband and daughters to Overland Park, KS. We only had lived there a short time when my life was taken over (in a good way) by a bizarre first encounter with someone who would remain a close friend through another move out of state and a couple moves for her.

My first meeting with this soon to be good friend was at a neighborhood swimming pool that only a few of us in the neighborhood seemed to take advantage of. I remember sitting alongside the baby pool with my youngest daughter and seeing this tall, leggy, six pack, Italian woman walking toward me, in a bikini of course. I dont remember how the conversation started, all I remember is her telling me that I looked far too young and too in shape to be wearing this ugly one piece, cover your whole body up, prudy swimsuit! I dont think I even knew what to say. I remember knowing that she was the mother of my oldest daughters new friend and that she was the mother of four. I should have hated her on the spot for her body alone.

I think we started talking at the pool everyday, the husbands met, three of our four children were similar in ages and everything went from there. We went on vacations together (whole other story, those of you who know me well have heard the story of her husband Bill breaking his leg in Mexico literally 45 minutes after we arrived) She also took me bathing suit shopping, go figure.

She is also the one who was by my side after a awful cancer scare just a few short months after we met, who cleaned me up like only a mother would...and dried my tears when I thought I was going to have a hysterectomy at the age of 29.

She drew circles of chalk around our lawn chairs that we set up in the driveway and told the kids that they were not allowed within our circle until the dads got home (maybe not even then) She had me drinking rum and coke from a straw and ordering pizza for dinner on friday nights. She taught me I could still be a mom and sexy at the same time. I had my eyebrows waxed the first time with her and shopped without guilt.

Who doesnt need a friend like this? Weve been through job relocations, teens and tears and all of this through email and over the phone for the last eight years. I only spent a wonderful 18 months living near her, but I feel like I have known her forever.

I think everyone needs just one good friend who can recognize the needs that they will fill in your life. Who does this without asking for anything in return, who knows that even though you might not talk everyday that if you ever need anything they will be there. No questions asked.

Kim...yes I said your name, is the second sister in my life. She is an unconditional, always present not matter the distance, friend. She is the person who came into my life when I needed a strong friend to show me how to grow up without my family around me. She taught me things about being a mom and a few about being a wife. She taught me to put myself first sometimes in risk of losing myself.

That is the one lesson I think most of us have to relearn quite a few times over the years. I wish she was here, I wish she would force me out shopping and to lunch. I wish I could hear her yell at her kids and then give them a kiss. I liked looking up to her as a friend and wishing I could be more like her. Even though she is farther away, shes still in my life.

I just wanted to tell her what a impact she has had on me and to remind everyone that all it takes is one good friend sometimes. It doesnt always take a village......

The Untold Story

I was lying in bed last night and thought of something that I really thought would be neat to share with you today. I was going to get up and make sure I put all my thoughts directly on paper. It was such a great idea that when I told myself that I should really get up and write it down so I wouldn't forget, I thought to myself " you wont forget this, its just to damn good!"

I forgot. But, I swear it was great! It was funny and deep. It was cute but not mushy, it was perfect. Doesn't matter much now, because its long gone.

Ive been writing on and off as long as I can remember. I also remember that I loved my creative writing class in high school yet flunked the class. It wasn't that I sucked at what I wrote; its just that I didn't write about what I was supposed to. I have notebooks full of morbid poems and short stories of romance. I enjoy reading over the teacher comments in the side margins and reading the the compliments yet seeing that the grade was very poor. You wonder why the grade was poor if the comments were so praising? Because I was supposed to write about a leaf and I wrote about the death of my then boyfriends mother.

I could never conform back then. Maybe it was my age, maybe I was just stubborn. I think I was just a little of both. I really think the problem was that I didn't feel anything for that leaf yet I was supposed to write about it. As a teenager all you do is feel things. You feel your first crush, kiss and breakup. You feel the thrill of driving and of breaking rules. What I didn't feel is how the leaf was affecting my life. And since the leaf held no importance in my very self-centered teenage existence, how was I supposed to write about it?

I could write about it now. Ive grown up enough to realize almost everything has a story. Whether it is that leaf or the person down the street I don't know. I feel things different and can now put into words the thoughts that run through my head all day. What I couldn't write about then I can write about now because I have experienced the things in life that I needed to get to this place.

Sometimes when its quiet and I'm trying to fall asleep words will tumble through my head so fast that I find it impossible to relax. I will think back over my day and put the whole memory in story form. Sometimes the people and situations will change till I get the story to come to a conclusion that I feel is appropriate. I will change things I have said during the day and try to figure out a different way to say the things I shouldn't have. In my head I will say the perfect comeback to someones rude comment when hours before I was speechless.

But now in my head as I'm drifting off to sleep I have the timing just right and for once they are without words. It doesn't matter that it took me until midnight to think of it or that nobody will hear it but me.

I always told my mother that when I got older I wanted to write a book. I really thought that was what you were supposed to do if your passion was writing. So over the years I have started and stopped numerous stories. I have tried to write about things that really had no major interest to me, but stuff that I thought would have commercial value. Obviously that didn't work when I was seventeen and it still doesn't. Sure I could write about that leaf if I had to, but there wouldn't be much passion in it. Unless the leaf had landed on my lap as I was doing something else of interest, maybe then I could write about it.

I think we all have a story in our minds. I think we think up great discoveries, cures and answer some of life's biggest questions as we are drifting off to sleep. I think as I'm writing this I could probably think of a few more things to write about as soon as I'm finished. But the crazy thing is, the more I try to remember what I was thinking about last night as I was falling asleep the more it alludes me.

I think its sort of like that leaf in high school that helped me achieve that failing grade. There is a time for everything. There is a reason why I can think of the perfect comeback while I'm falling asleep and not during a time of confrontation. Maybe its a sign that I was better off keeping my mouth shut. Maybe that perfect little story that was running through my head last night will be better off being told many years from now. Its not that it wasn't important its just not its time to be told.

I suppose after twenty years it was about time I did that creative writing project that I was assigned. Now was the time for the little leaf to have its story told. That leaf held little importance to me long ago but now I have a reason to write about it that holds meaning to me. It wasn't so much a story about a leaf, but how that leaf helped me tell a story.

Spring?

I love February! It's not just because I get mushy cards from my kids and if I'm lucky a romantic surprise from my husband either. Its because I consider this month the biggest "teaser" month of the calendar. By "teaser" I mean, one day its -10 degrees and the next day its 40. You might ask, "Why then would she love this?" Well I haven't quite figured that out either. I think its because it reminds me of being home in Nebraska. If you've ever lived closer to the center of the US you know that when the temperature reaches above freezing, you consider that a sign that spring is on the way.

I have lived in Kansas, and I consider that just to far south. All it does there in the winter is spread a nice layer of ice on everything and the whole place shuts down. And if you talk about North Dakota, all I think about is that they should really be part of Canada. In Nebraska you just get nailed with every weather system that is working its way across the US from all directions. That's why they say if you hate the weather there, just wait a day and it will change (sometimes its just a matter of hours) Compared to Nebraska, the winters since Ive lived here have been a breeze. My winter coat only comes out on rare occasions because if its not blistering cold with a wind chill in the negative numbers my sweatshirt is more than sufficient.

When February rolls around, I go into "Nebraska mode" and I'm already pulling out shorts to see if they are going to still fit from last year. That spring-cleaning itch starts and I try to remember what plants will start peeking through the ground first. The snow that's on the ground doesn't bother me much because I know that when it melts its going to leave everything nice and green underneath.

I suppose it seems odd to think that winter is at its end in February, but really what else do you have to look forward to this month? The sun comes out and it feels like heaven. The promise of spring is just around the corner. I don't have to wait until Groundhog day to become excited.

If you have kids, you re already signing them up for spring sports and trying to figure out carpool schedules. If you're going somewhere for spring break your plans are already made or you're checking fares to some sunny destination. If your not going somewhere, that tanning bed is looking like a good alternative.

The hustle and bustle of the holiday season is now over and your social life seems to be just a little less hectic. The kids become stir crazy and a trip to the mailbox is the only time you end up leaving your house if you can help it. Slushy boots and wet gloves litter your entryway and wet dog prints cover your carpet (maybe that's just me) Who wouldn't want this season over with?

So...Ill think of February as spring, just because it makes me feel better to think that winter is almost over. Ill imagine that when I wake up all the snow will be gone, and Ill pray that shorts from last summer will still fit. Ill imagine sitting on my neighbors back patio at 9:00am drinking coffee instead of talking to her on the phone because neither of us wants to venture outside. Ill just stay in denial. I know there is probably going to be a few more snowflakes that fall before March rolls in. If I'm lucky I wont notice because Ill be to busy trying to find shorts that fit in my closet.

Let me start out by saying that I live in a great neighborhood. I have great neighbors and I have met a lot of great friends. Everybody is just great!

Now, for that famous little word, "but..."

But, have you ever noticed that a neighborhood is like a time warp back to high school? You get sucked into all the gossip whether it's good or bad. You have grown women and men complaining about the people next door (sort of like that weird person who used to be in the locker next to you in high school)
What the lady up the street is wearing or more like what she is not wearing (like the Little-you know what-in high school)
And what about the guy down the street? Did you see him in that new car he just bought? (that would be the rich kid)

All kinds of gossip can suck you in. Before you know it you have wasted an hour or two over coffee discussing things about people you hardly know, just because it's entertaining. Maybe everyone gets sucked in because in some small way it makes him or her feel better about themselves. Maybe for just an hour or two you can push aside your own faults and focus on what your perceive to be someone else's. That little group you are having coffee with becomes your most trusted confidants, until you leave.

I've told my daughters many times that once you are out of high school things are a little different. Ive tried to explain that the little clicks that form in middle school and high school usually do not last a whole season once school is out. Kids go off to college; people get married and others just grow up. I try to tell them not to focus too much on trying to be part of a group, rather just have a good friend that supports you. You don't need a group of people who you call your best friends, you just need a true one. Yeh! That's easier said then done. What am I thinking?

I think its a woman's trait to want to be surrounded and accepted by other women. Nobody wants to feel left out, nobody wants to feel that they were not liked enough to be invited somewhere. Even at my age, I still feel that maybe I have did something wrong to someone or maybe wasn't nice enough when I don't receive an invitation somewhere. Its kind of like being the one who didn't get invited to a birthday party when you were in school.

Now, that's happened in this house. Try explaining to a five year old or even a ten year old why all her friends are invited to little Susie's party and why she wasn't. It's hard to do. First you want to call the mother and scream nasty words across a phone line, second you want never to invite that little brat to your house again. Third, you think, shes having twenty little girls there, whats one more?

But, you are a mom, and good moms don't do stuff like that. You calmly sit your child down and explain through her tears, that maybe little Susie was only allowed to invite a certain number of girls. Maybe her mom made up the list. Maybe the mean postman lost her invitation. Then when none of that works, because you will never have a good enough reason why, you take her out for ice-cream and a movie. Then you swear to yourself that little Susie will not be invited to your daughters birthday party next year. But then come next year she is at the top of the list because shes your daughters new best friend and she could care less about last year. And your daughter of seven keeps you from making an ass out of yourself for being stubborn and spiteful.

I don't think high school ever leaves us. I think whether you were popular, a jock, nerd or dropout, it stays somewhere inside of you. As your children grow you worry that they are not going to have enough friends or they wont be with the right group. You worry that someone will hurt them with cruel words or even just a cool stare.

Unfortunately, there is not much we can do about any of this. I cant count how many times one of my girls has come home broken hearted about something that was said to them at school. And amazingly, they get up the next day and go back and survive.

I suppose the lesson I took away from high school socially was that it is "Social" Its nothing more. I made a lot of good friends and probably a few enemies. The thing is, after almost twenty years there is only a few that I can name. They aren't the girls that wouldn't talk to me, they aren't the boys that wouldn't look at me. To me they are about worth remembering as I am to them.

High School is like a practice ground for life. You grow up and get a job, and someones going to resent you for getting it. You marry someone, and some ex boyfriend/girlfriend is jealous, you move into a beautiful neighborhood with beautiful neighbors and a beautiful school, and someone thinks you don't belong.

Sometime gossiping with a bunch of girlfriends is just the right medicine, and sometimes it can be what makes you sick. And its always good to remember that just down the street there is another group of women sitting around someone elses table maybe talking about you. What do you think they are saying?

I suppose there are just some things they you will never be able to teach. Somethings just have to be learned and experienced. Sometimes learning to keep your mouth shut is one of the hardest. Maybe if for one day we all stayed at home, sat down at own kitchen table, drank our own coffee while looking into ourselves for an hour or two, that might do the trick.

I am not an ENGLISH major, so please forgive my bad grammar...and typo's


I'm a mother of three girls. I have a problem.

Trial and error is the direction I am going in at the moment. I have picked up many books (most of them half read) to try to give me some kind of insight into the complexities of raising three girls who are so totally different. I know that what works with one will not necessarily work with all three. I know that a soft voice with one can have the same damage as a loud one with the other. I know that a vicious look can send one into tears and the other slamming into their room. What I don't know is what effect any of this will have on them when they are grown.

Sometimes I wonder if I am grown-up enough for the role I have to fulfill as a mother. I still feel in some ways that I am an insecure child in an adult world. Self-confidence is a hard thing to teach when it is something you are lacking. I witness through my own eyes the effects my nagging has on my girls when I feel that they are not doing something I think is right. Whether its how they are wearing their hair, to the clothes they are wearing on their backs. So my question is how do you correct behavior that you do not agree with without smothering the child's individuality?

Is there a certain point where you just say, "Do what you want! Wear what you want!" and exactly when is this? Is it when they are putting black eyeliner an inch think around their eyes? Is it when they use a can of hair spray to slick back their bangs? Is it when they wear a tank top for summer with their black winter pants and sandals in December? If I tell them to change is that smothering their personal growth? Is the battle that ensues after I open my mouth with a negative reaction better then just letting them leave the house dressed how they want?

It seems that I am raising my daughters in a world that I don't really understand. I know that the media, schools, churches and experts all try to enlighten me with knowledge that I should find helpful. You can walk into any bookstore and find shelves filled with the opinions of others. But while I've been trying to read all those books, Ive discovered that I now have three teenagers living in my house. And I thought I was a fast reader.

While I don't feel that I have delinquents on my hands, I want to make sure that I never do. While I try to give my girls the space they need to learn from their mistakes and to carve a spot in this world, am I leaving myself out of that process too much or am I inserting my opinion where it is not needed or wanted? Or will my opinion really make a difference in the long run?

Well here we go. I'm not an expert, I'm not college educated, but I am a mother. I like whoever came up with the phrase "Domestic Goddess" yet I don't think that quite fits me either. I am a girl in a moms body. I am twelve and insecure, I am seven and scared of the dark, I am ten and have my first crush. I have friends but I am sometimes lonely. I have a husband who is the same to me as the boy I met twenty years ago. I have a father I think will live forever and a mother I wish I could be like. I don't have all the answers, but sometimes feel like I should.

Hopefully these following pages will be filled with what I call "Slices of Life" They are in no way a blueprint of what you should or shouldn't do, but more of a photo capturing my thoughts. I don't think I will ever know if I have did the "right thing" at any given time. I think as a mom I will always second guess every decision that I make. I will wonder "what if?" I know that kind of thinking is unproductive but it is inevitable. You may be able to get pass it, you may be able to forget you asked yourself, but it will happen, even if its just a whisper in your mind as you fall off to sleep.