I’ve had some nasty comments lately and I don’t mind saying that I’ve deleted them, and will continue to. I don’t know if that’s because those comments were hateful or because they hatefully made me aware (and regretful) of my own hatefulness. None the less, this isn’t a place to come if you are feeling nasty or want to air. There’s a double standard too because I air and get nasty here sometimes and it’s ok. I pay a pretty penny to have a website and I’ll censor things as I see fit– sometimes that means censoring my own hatefulness because I feel bad about what/how I said something later. This blog is my therapy and my outlet. If you want to be nasty and talk shit, GET YOUR OWN BLOG and get your groove on! No holds barred.

I don’t assume to be a nice person all the time. But no one is, even if they intend to be. I guess your being nasty and juvenile on my blog through comments is better than me being nasty or juvenile on my own blog because I’ve had a bad day? Do me a favor and go take your bad day somewhere else because you ain’t gonna be nuthin’ but censored and rejected here. Right or wrong, this is my place. Take it or leave it. But if you leave it, leave it in peace and leave the judgment and ridicule for your politicians or your parents… Not my blog.

I learned something valuable this week and these nasty comments have further validated it for me:

Some people look for the bad in others, and that bad somehow sticks out to them more than anything… they can’t move past it. Some look for the goodness in others, no matter what. I want to be one that looks for the good, even when I find it challenging, because everyone deserves a benefit of the doubt, forgiveness, compassion. If you were to read through my blog and my life’s stories, surely you will find a little of the ugly and a little of the sweet. Hopefully you leave here with the goodness. Because that’s what I’d want.

When I tread, I want my footprints to leave a consistent pattern of goodness, but I know that I’ll hop, skip, slide, and stumble along my way too. I hope you see that here… in me, and my words: I’m human. Love me through it and perhaps, when we meet on the other side, we’ll have mastered goodness finally and there will be no need to judge or look beyond faults and weaknesses. We’ll all just be able to love one another then.

A great movie that I find really haunted me and renewed this whole “human” goodness/weakness thing is “Crash”. Rent it. Watch a movie that will stay with you for awhile instead of visiting my blog to air meanness. Time better spent. And I forgive you if you forgive me…

So, I know you’ve been wondering what I fill my days with, especially since I don’t have any girlfriends to help me out with that. These kids are the best friend a person could ever want!

Today I got all packed up and ready for the gym. Kids shoes and coats on, bag packed. Oops! Forgot to start the car, kiddos! I go to the car and there’s no pulse. Nada. The battery is dead (thank you Bella for leaving that light on). Ok, no biggie. Kids, take your coats off and get cozy.

We pull out crayons and practice writing letters. We paint on the kitchen table with shaving cream. We eat. We play hide and seek, to which my chihuahua always shows the kids where I hid. We then go for a nice walk to the park. We get home with growling bellies. Lunchtime. Some more crafts. I then decide to get all domestic and bake some cinnamon rolls from scratch. We get flour in our hair and clothes and sweet sugar in our teeth. We watch the dough rise with excitement. We get the rolls all filled with sugary goo and I pop them into the fridge to bake later on. It’s NAPTIME! Yahooo!

While the babies sleep, I dyed and cut my hair (haven’t seen a hairdresser since February). I then decided to do makeup and curl the fresh do. One of my favorite things to do is play with my hair. Did I ever tell you I was a beauty school drop out? I missed my calling or something because I’m addicted to products and hair irons.

Once I was done dolling up to go no where, I then decide to do some crafts. We had all these gorgeous shells and some moss from our trip to Tampa, so I decided to use them. Last night I made this after the babes went to bed (bad picture, batteries were low):

So today I decided to pull out this mosquito netting that I had in my attic and decorate it with some shells and moss too. This is how it turned out:

I finally replaced my stolen bedspread with a GORGEOUS cheap spread from Target (sorry you can’t see it in the pic). It was perfect because when I ordered it I had just gotten back from Tampa and was all blue and homesick– longing for the smell of the ocean. I saw this spread online and thought, “Wow, that looks so vintage 50’s beachy.” Perfect for bringing the beach home (perfect for me because I love the 50’s). And it was only $39 on clearance. The shell wreath and netting just seemed to be the perfect final touches.

There’s a day in my exciting, wild life! Crafts. Hair. Hide-N-Seek. Giggles. Yummy Cinnamon Rolls. What on Earth more could I wish for? To think I could have been sitting at my old desk chewing on my pencil, drinking stale coffee, and cooking books. Blech!

I rather like my new career!

I’ve lived in Colorado for 8 years. I have noticed from day one that I am different and don’t fit into that “Colorado Mom” clique thing. I’m sure that the women in my area are really nice. I’m sure that if I were someone other than me, I would blend right in and have friends. Perhaps it’s a behavioral thing on my part, perhaps it’s a social thing in my community. Maybe both. But I just haven’t made any genuine connections here and sometimes I’m just lonely for a girlfriend.

When I was younger, I found myself struggling to fit in with those pretty girls in school. Always awkward and lanky– never very graceful or outgoing. Now that I’m older, more confident, I find that I don’t fit in for different reasons. I don’t feel awkward or socially slow. I feel good about myself. And I sometimes wonder if that intimidates women.

I’ve actually had a “friend” tell me that she didn’t really feel comfortable hanging out with me around her husband because it made her feel insecure. Wha? And I’ve had a lot of women connect with me when I was looking a bit frumpy or comfortable, but when I’d see them again with a cute outfit on, fake lashes, nails, hair done, etc.– they didn’t have nearly the friendliness or sweetness as before. And what had changed? I didn’t change. I’m still me. Hellloooo? Remember me? Remember how we hit it off and our kids loved each other and we talked for hours at the park? What’s the cold shoulder all about?

There are gorgeous, beautiful women everywhere. It has nothing to do at all with superficial crap like skinny bodies and things on the surface. But some women like dolling up– SO WHAT!? Either you like a person or you don’t. But do you like a person more because they wear sweatpants with crocks and a nappy braid!?

Why are some women so catty?

I’m losing a friend right now, and I guess that’s where this post comes from. She listens to me and is attentive and supportive if I talk about quilting or arts. But if I talk about something like my diet going well, my new position with the Children’s Museum, my gym success, or MOST things I find important right now, she clams up and acts indifferent. I know she broke up with a friend a few months ago because she felt that friend was trying to be competitive with her and trying to make her feel bad about herself. That friend was simply learning to bake treats and make homemade cheese. But it made my friend feel inferior, so she “broke up” with that friend. Which is weird because her friend didn’t learn to make cheese JUST TO MAKE HER JEALOUS, or to make her feel inferior. She learned to make cheese because she wanted to! Geez. So now I feel like she doesn’t have this game to play with her old friend anymore, and now she’s directing it at me, and my successes.

But I’m not a competitive person and if I were, I’d have a nice hand of cards to play with. No worries there. I’d just rather not have any friends than to have a bunch of shallow competitive friendships.

The friend she broke up with also wore a low cut shirt to dinner at her house one night. My friend was all in tears later because, “she has these amazing breasts and why would she show them off like that to my husband at a family dinner?” Maybe she was showing them off because she can, but I doubt it had anything to do with your husband! Maybe you should show yours off too? Are you going to end a friendship because of something so menial? If so, perhaps the friendship never stood a chance in the first place. Perhaps no friendship would for you. Why don’t you just admit that you can’t have frienships without using them as an excuse for feeling like shit about yourself?

I recently shared with my friend that Bella had some cavities. I was stressed a bit about it because she’s only 3. The dentist assures me that it’s not our lifestyle or lack of hygiene– Bella just has very deep crevices in her molars and is therefore more susceptible to cavities. But my friend went and had her daughter’s teeth cleaned last week and she had no cavities. I’m so happy for her! That’s great! But the way my friend almost used it as a weapon is weird to me. She was talking to another mother about it today and kind of snidely looked back at me, “And Brandy went to the dentist and has NO CAVITIES. Yayyy.” But that look she gave me when she said it, it was so disconnected and catty. Why? Why are we competing? We used to be friends. I could tell her anything. She sent me flowers when I was sad! I gave her the best veggies in my garden. We spent our maternity leaves from work together and quit our jobs at the same time to be stay at home moms. I’ve seen her cry from a love lost and vomit from drinking too much. We were buddies. But now? It’s just so different. I’ve been waiting to see if it got better. And it isn’t, despite that I’ve tried to help it along. I think maybe people just outgrow one another. That’s what sets apart the friends from the soul mates, I guess.

And the whole thing make me so mad that I allowed it to give me the catty bug. I’m thinking, “What the hell, woman? Bella could have a mouth full of rotten teeth and still be way cuter and have way more personality than your perfect toofed brat!”

Someone slap me! Moods are contagious though, aren’t they? And when a friendship makes you feel yucky and makes ugly come out of you where it used to brighten you and uplift you– It’s time to move on.

I just miss sisterhood. Where is my BFF? And why is it so hard for women to just be strong in themselves and use that strength to encourage and empower other women they love? Food for thought… And, if you are a sistah, go and hug another sistah. Cyber hugs are just as good!

Hugs to you…

When we left for our vacation, I harvested what was left of our garden. There wasn’t much left and I was zuchinnied out of my mind, so I didn’t pick anything. I did look to see if  had some pumpkins and low and behold– I had ONE. ONE HUGE PUMPKIN hiding under my zuchinni plant. It was MASSIVE and beautiful and perfect. I didn’t pick it, but rather moved some foliage out of the way so it could orange a bit while we were gone.

GUESS WHAT!?

Someone STOLE my only pumpkin! I went to pluck my healthy pumpkin a few days ago and set her on the porch for carving and she was GONE! There’s a huge hole where she used to lie. There is cut marks on what was once her stem.

What kind of ghetto shit is that? They didn’t steal tools or a lawn mower or any other more expensive whatevers out of our yard. They stole my only pumpkin. I’m soooooo pissed. So, karma is somehow coming back on me. One comforter lost though a bad eBay transaction, one comforter stolen out of a washing machine at the laundry mat, and one pumpkin stolen right out of my yard.

People. Is the economy THAT bad?