On a serious note...

I sit down at the computer every Monday with a few goals in mind.  One goal is to reflect on my life, to see the humor in things that have happened along the way, and to examine what got me to where I am.  Another goal is to make the reader laugh. To make the reader find the humor in my life while hopefully relating it to their own.  Another goal is to let those people that don't know me well, to know me.  For those that do know me, to know me better.
The stories I tell are usually deeper than they appear.  I hope that you can look into your own life, reflect on yourself, see what made you who you are.

I had a major turning point in my life around 2.5 years ago. Becoming a mother shook me to my core.  It has been the best thing to happen to me and for me.  It made me take a long hard look in the mirror. This has been , by far, the hardest thing I have done in my life.  To look at yourself and figure out who you are, what you believe in, what you want to be, what others think you are, etc. is emotionally exhausting. At the end of all of that reflection is a big fat rainbow with a  pot of gold at the end. This rainbow is called happiness.  Through this process I have started to see who I really am. I have done something else that is something I couldn't say before and that is I like who I am.  Having a child has shown me that hiding behind this mask of who people want you to be or who you think they want you to be, is a waste.  Having a child made me want to be me always. It made me want to make sure that he knows who his momma is.

I don't want to think that I am the same person I was when I was twelve.  That person was who I was that lead me to who I am.  People sometimes tell me "you have changed."   In my mind I think "thank God."  Change is good. Growth is good.

Being able to laugh has gotten me through some rough times in my life.  Being able to laugh at myself has gotten me through the journey of self discovery.  One thing you may or may not know about me is I have spent a lifetime worrying. Worrying about what people thought, worrying about worrying, worrying about life.  I have also spent my life with a low self-esteem. If you are surprised by that then I think I deserve an Oscar.  =)  I have never felt comfortable in my own skin until very recently.  Now I know that it's mine....too thin, too white, scarred, whatever it is it is mine.  I have grown to love it. It took 29 years but I've done it.

 Over the next few weeks, I will be out in the world trying new things, wearing a bikini and not worrying one bit that I have a 12 inch incision from back surgery, or that my hips are still a little crooked.  I will be wearing my short shorts even though my legs are whiter than this screen I am typing on and I have a lifelong situation of not being able to shave my knees well.  I will be eating foods I never thought I would eat.  I will be enjoying the moment. I will be focusing on the day I am living instead of what I am going to be doing tomorrow.

I will not be posting to my blog for a few weeks. Part of living in the moment is also not living in the past.  I will come back refreshed with many, many Mondays of stories to share. I hope that you will come back and join me.

There is No P.E. in the Real World

In school I dreamed of being old enough to not go to school. I dreamed of having a job.  I did this because I knew in the real world exercise didn't exist.  I knew that I could own a treadmill or bike and use it as a coat hanger.

There are few things I have hated more in my life than P.E.  Physical Education=total suckfest in my book.  I literally dreaded it everyday of my school life. The worst part about it was suiting out. I cannot think of a worse torture than being a teenage girl having to change clothes in front of a roomful of other teenage girls.  Not just that but you have to do it twice in one day!!  I had so many little tricks I would do in order to avoid showing skin.  In hindsight, I had so many tricks I would do to cause the hugest scene and ruckus in the locker room.

I had this way of taking my shirt off. I would move around just right where I could have one shirt going on as the other one was coming off. It really minimized any skin showing.  Another trick I had was to wear pantyhose.  Yes...pantyhose.    I would wear pantyhose then wear my shorts over the pantyhose in order to avoid showing my legs.   What is more ridiculous than a pair of skinny, knock-kneed, white legs?   A person wearing pantyhose under their athletic shorts.   That person looks more ridiculous every time I would have to assume. If I didn't have on pantyhose that particular day, I damn sure would have on the world's tallest socks.  That would cover at least the lower half of my legs.

All of this seems so ridiculous now.   At the time the best thing that could have ever happened to me was the need for back surgery. This was my ticket out of P.E. for a while and I knew it.  I was out of school for six weeks. Once I returned, I got to lay down in the nurses office, in a dark room , alone, and nap during P.E. time.   It was amazing.  I would have probably endured six weeks of agony every year if it meant napping during P.E. once it was over.   The saddest day of my life was when the Dr. said I was good to go and needed to exercise.   Back to P.E.  Back to P.E. shorts and pantyhose.

Having a Boyfriend: The Key to a Faux Self- Esteem

I remember sitting in my bedroom getting my Halloween outfit ready when my sister came home with her new boyfriend "B" for the first time. When I say Halloween outfit I do not mean costume, I mean outfit. It was pumpkin earrings and some horrible shirt. My sister and "B" walked in the doorway. She introduced him. He said "cool earrings." I remember thinking that having a boyfriend would be so cool. I thought he was serious about the earrings. Hindsight is 20/20.

I guess my first official boyfriend was in the 5th grade. "S" was alright I guess. He was a romantic. He requested "Last Dance With Mary Jane" by Tom Petty on the radio for me. He called and said, "Turn on the radio." This was my favorite song. I am sure there were not many other 5th grade girls that were huge Tom Petty fans. "S" also let me wear his Hornets Starter jacket. This, I thought, made me awesome. I am pretty sure there is a homeless man downtown that wears the same exact jacket. I wonder if it is THE jacket. "S" also bought me this rose thing from a convenience store. I thought it was sweet. Now I realize it was probably a crack pipe. I remember going to the movies with him. He wanted to kiss me. I declined. I said it was because I had braces and was afraid of getting stuck. The truth was I didn't love him. I wanted to save that moment for someone really special. Someone special that I met on the Internet.

My Internet boyfriend was the start of a string of bad relationship events that defined my "I am whoever my boyfriend is years." That is a story for a different day.

Cheaters Never Win?

Let me start by saying I am not proud of the following information. I went through a period in my childhood where I was a dirty, dirty cheater. I was never good at art. My sister is a fantastic artist. There was a brief period where I would have her do my art work for me. I cannot say that my parents knew about this. I do not remember. Surely they did not condone this. We will leave them out of it.

I had my sister draw my "Just Say No to Drugs" poster. It was for a contest. A contest that I placed in. My poster got hung up at Western Plaza or somewhere. I felt pretty dirty about this. "My" poster looked way better than the other kids poster. Obviously. It was done by someone six years older.

Another example of dirty, dirty cheating....

I entered a coloring contest to win tickets to Disney on Ice. I had to color a picture of Ursula. Well, my sister did it for me. I won. How awful. Somewhere some kid that got second place got screwed out of the ice show because I cheated! I do know that my parents knew about our scheme at least at the show. A man spilled his entire coke on my head. My parents told me "God was punishing me for lying." Good job parental units. Way to let God handle it at the last minute after I enjoyed the theatrics on ice.

My last attempt at passing my sister's talent off as my own was on a school assignment. We had to color an Indian girl. When I took it to school, my teacher was really impressed. She knew. She so knew. She said "You did this?" I didn't tell her the truth. It was obvious. My in class assignments looked like a monkey had gotten a hold of a crayon and a piece of paper. My take home assignment looked like a masterpiece.

The guilt was enough to scare me out of ever cheating again. I can honestly say I have never cheated on anything ever again. I wouldn't even skip ahead in my online defensive driving.

The moral of the story is cheaters CAN win....but they will feel so bad about it even 20-25 years later. Don't cheat. =)

Why being a mouth breather sucks...

I cannot say that there is anything positive about the inability to breathe through your nose. There are a lot of problems with mouth breathing. Here are a few:

• I do not know if this is scientifically proven, but I feel that you get more sore throats
• waking up every morning feeling like you are choking to death
• looking like a moron at red lights and stop signs
• looking like you are catching flies all the time
• catching flies
• certain death if someone held their hand over your mouth

Another thing I have noticed about mouth breathing is that mouth breathers tend to have the same look. Over the years I have been told I look like a lot of famous people. Unfortunately, they have never been attractive. Even worse, they have never been females.

Here is a list of my celebrity look a likes. (Most of which I disagree with):

• Steve Nash - the greasy haired, horse faced basketball star
• The drummer for the Foo Fighters
• David Spade (more specifically when he played a "Gap Girl.")
• Jon Heder-Napoleon Dynamite,Blades of Glory

What do all of these people have in common? I think they are all mouth breathers. I am not 100% sure of this. Well, except Jon Heder and he is undeniably a mouth breather.

I remember one time me and my sister sitting in a bar together. I just started laughing because both of us were mouth breathing hard. I commented on the fact that we looked like we were catching flies.

If in fact there is a heaven, what would you want to hear God say when you get there? "You can now close your mouth."