A highly intelligent lady once confided in me how she was able to pull herself out of a major life overhaul that lead her to be flat ass broke and in dire straits. She said the single most crucial move she made was to simply make a list. Her list consisted of very basic necessities...job, house, security. Today that lady has everything she could want or need. I took her advice, made myself a list consisting of one thing- "get a job", and low and behold I got myself a job. Now I need to think outside the job. I need to expand the list. Not because I want more shit, mind you. Accumulating stuff makes my skin crawl. I wouldn't go so far as to say I have claustrophobia. Being in small or cramped spaces doesn't freak me out...unless the items in the space keep moving around. My boys make sure every item in every space of every room never...stays...put. That's one of their purposes in life- to make sure that I am always putting things back where they go. The more stuff we acquire, the more I have to put back. So, when I say I want to add to the list...I ain't talking about more crap to fill my house. You could argue that there is one item on my list that comes close to being a want but trust me, it is definitely a need...and OK kind of a want. So, I suppose this is my New Year's Resolution type list...only I don't expect to attain all of these goals within this year.

1. Knit More- This year I got a whopping one teacher present that wasn't candy and it was a good one! Gift certificate to a yarn shop. My tremor makes it impossible to knit but the repetition calms me. I need more shit that calms me. Knitting it is.

2. Learn Math- pretty vague and all encompassing....that's because I need to be better in all areas of Math. No one wants a Math teacher that's a big fucking dumb dumb.

3. Blog- Notice I didn't write "Blog More". That's because I don't blog at all these days. I've written a ton of entries that I haven't published. For some reason I've always felt like I had to polish every entry before I publish it. I'm not writing a fucking novel nor do I have any sponsors so who the fuck cares? Typing is so much easier for me (again, because of the tremor) and it's important for me to reflect on whatever. So, I need to write more. Not writing that's poetic and shit. Just writing. Just to get it out of my head. Incomplete sentences and all;)

4. Buy and USE a God Damn Planner- I have four children. It it ridiculous that I do not utilize a freaking planner to keep all our shit straight. I have a bit of a disorganization issue, I'll admit. That extends to my scheduling abilities. Many a missed appointments. I rock the dry erase wall calendar. Fill that baby up with appointments and play dates and performances and birthdays...then I never look at it once...or the 5 year old erases the entire thing (true story...he was beaming with such pride I couldn't be mad at him).

5. Save for a House- When I got divorced I dreamed big pretty daydreams about how awesome it was going to be to not own a house anymore. No responsibilities. No headaches. If shit breaks, ya just call the landlord. Well, real life didn't turn out to be quite that pretty of a picture. It's actually rather humiliating to have your landlord walk through, what you believed to be, your house as if you're a trespassing slob. We need to not feel that way in our home. No one needs to feel that way...ever. All I want is a simple little house. Nothing fancy...something small, comfy, no granite shit, no stainless steel...just enough room for me and the boys to be happy. Saving money will prove to be tricky since we spend every last dime of my salary every month. Some months we are in the hole. It's possible I will need to get a weekend job. If that's what needs to happen, then that's what I will do. I thought getting a job would be impossible. It wasn't. I thought being financially independent would be impossible. It isn't. I need a house. I want a home. Not gonna happen in one year but I WILL begin saving now, one way or another.

So, there. Not a lengthy unattainable set of goals, really. I accomplished one thing from the list simply by writing this entry. Fuckin' A. Happy New Year.

So, I get home from work yesterday to this email from Pinterest:

"Hi Holly,

 We recently removed one of your pins because it goes against our policies. The pin was from your board "curves, vintage and modern" and it originally came from http://d3oeu2l8qd7s1b.cloudfront.net/286939-1038966-7.jpg. Could you please remove any other pins like this from your account? We don’t allow things that are inappropriate for the general public, like sexually explicit pins, anywhere on Pinterest. We do allow works of art and educational pins, like you might see in a museum or classroom. Could you please delete any other pins that go against our policies?

Thanks for your help,
 Ben & The Pinterest Team"

Yeah.....This is the "sexually explicit" pin they removed:

Dear Team Ben (and person who obviously reported this pin),

1. This IS art.
2. I think it's safe to say this is something I WOULD see in a museum.
3. The female form in and of itself is not inappropriate. It is beautiful and elegant.
4. 99% of what I have on Pinterest boards are repinned directly from Pinterest so no, I will not take anything down. You don't like it? You take it down.
5. Thank you and fuck off. 


Sincerely,
Team Alice


Well, I know I feel better:)

I can't resist pictures of children expressing extreme joy. These three are my favorites. When I'm being stupid and down I look at these and all is better.

Dogs scare the hell out of me but she looks so tickled!

I'm choosing to believe this is a joy moment and not a terrified and scarred for life moment. 

The roller skates and those knees!

In other words, I think too much.

There's this lovely thing called the mean girl syndrome....or I guess you could call it an effect or an illness or a phenomenon. Whatever you call it it seems to repeat generation to generation. It's very interesting to me. I say "interesting" because I've fallen prey to the "mean girls" all throughout my life and although my first reaction is to curl up into the fetal position and cry until my head bursts, the very next inclination I have is one of pity and wonder. Being a magnet for evil doesn't mean I have to let it beat me down. So, why not turn it around and approach it from a scientist's perspective? As a truly great teacher at my school says to his students "Don't get furious, get curious". I love that.

No need to go into what happened and who said what. That part is my burden. Running over and over every situation in my mind to try and determine the root of why someone doesn't particularly care for me to the point of exhaustion is one of my many super powers. Sounds torturous but after days of doing this somehow I eventually find peace and move on. Flooding;)

What it all boils down to..."determining the root of why". Why are these women the way they are? Why is it so important to tear someone down in order to feel awesome about themselves? There are so many different ways to go about feeling awesome without hurting another human being. Also, why are these people so many times characterized as being "leaders"? "Well, she's bossy now but I believe when she's an adult she will be a leader!!!" OK. How about telling that "bossy" girlchild that being a good leader.....fuck, being a good person doesn't involved manipulation? How about explaining to that future leader the concept of integrity and humility and empathy? Or we can simplify it if that's too difficult. How about laying out for them what's right and what's wrong? I'd venture to guess that these adult mean girls didn't have that someone in their lives to spell out any of those concepts and that's where my pity comes in.

A dear friend's daughter recently participated in something called an Instagram Beauty Contest, completely inadvertently, of course. It seemed harmless enough to her. You post pictures of your friends and people vote for the ones that are the prettiest. Each time they vote someone gets eliminated. The person left standing is considered the prettiest. She's way too young to understand the ramifications of this crazy ass game and honestly if I hadn't seen a news report the night before I never would have thought anything of it. It isn't like they were outright calling girls ugly.....but the implication was certainly there. So, being the awesome Momma that she is, my friend explained to her daughter how this game was wrong. On her own volition, her daughter immediately took down the contest.

I think that intervention....that clarification of what's right and what's wrong.....wasn't provided for the adult mean girls in my situation. In fact, calling them "mean girls" isn't right. They aren't mean. They're incomplete. Maybe they weren't taught to be curious enough....to find out why people are different from them.....to celebrate differences and instead of highlighting people's weaknesses, celebrate their strengths. Embrace what each person can bring to the table....don't chip away at what's broken. If you can't get past the broken parts, then for god's sake help them repair what's broken. That's what I would want. That's what I DO want. You see a part of me you don't like.....a part you consider unrefined and broken??? By all means, give me some help to try and build that part up. If it's going to make me a better person....a better Momma...a better teacher...I want what you have to offer.

Seek to think deeper. The curiouser you are, the more easily attainable empathy becomes.

God bless my dear sweet friends for trying to help me out of the summer blues by inviting me to block parties and various other anxiety inducing social functions. I can't help but feeling like this pup in those situations, though.

I adore the look on his face. So can relate.

Cabbage Soup Detox Diary- Day 4-7 (see Day 1-3 in the previous post)

Day 4: BANANAS AND MILK!!! (thank god I love bananas)
For breakfast I made a banana, skim milk, and yogurt smoothie. It was the most sugar I've had in 3 days and my heart was beating out of my chest! Maybe shoulda not put in the yogurt:/. For my main food all day I had the throw up soup.....oddly it tasted really good after all that sugar...so I'm not gonna call it that anymore, I guess. The awesome thing about this day is I could go visit a friend and drink coffee with almond milk and eat bananas for hours. I'm a creature of habit and two situations are synonymous with munching...visiting with friends and watching a movie.

Challenge: I get the summer blues (and yes, that is a real thing.....thankyouveryfuckingmuch, "therapists"). Today I was down and I think it had something to do with the sugar aspect. If you have a sensitivity to sugar I suggest skipping the yogurt and maybe limiting yourself to 5 bananas. Spread it out by making a big batch of banana smoothies (skim milk, ice, bananas, titch of water mixed with sugar substitute) and sip on that all day. Eat a ton of the cabbage soup to give you the chewing satisfaction.

Day 5: PROTEIN AND TOMATOES!!! (changed the cabbage soup a bit today by adding chilies and veggie stock instead of chicken stock.....spicy;)

Actually, either I've turned into a pod person or this soup is growing on me...looking a little less throw uppey.

Oh how I've been looking forward to this one! I love grilled chicken! My plan was to grill up some chicken and maters and eat chicken all fucking day. Fired up the grill, put the chicken on, came back to flip them and what do ya know?....raw bird. Completely out of gas:(. For lunch I had to eat tuna from the pouch rather quickly as the cats circled me menacingly. For dinner, though, I added ground beef to the cabbage soup and I SWEAR it tasted like spaghetti!!! Of course, at this point I might be a tad delusional.

Challenge: Honestly, I wasn't all that challenged today. My blues are better (sugar really is the devil's doing) and I wasn't even tempted by the pancakes I made the boys for dinner....and I make some pretty rad pancakes.

DAY 6: PROTEIN AND VEGGIES (notice no exclamation marks)
I had dental work today and had some....other personal issues came up so this day was difficult. Basically I did the same thing I did yesterday only with SURPRISE asparagus. Still, I took the boys to get ice cream and I wasn't tempted:). One more day to go.

Day 7: Fruit, Veggies, and Juices!!! (welcome back, my beloved watermelon)
Breakfast was frozen dark cherries, warmed in the microwave for a minute and cranberry juice. Lunch: see "challenge" below. Dinner: cabbage soup, veggie burger, frozen cherries. And I wasn't even hungry during the hungry hours (7-10). BOOM!

Challenge: I had a teacher training to go to today and everyone knows that bowls of miniature candy on every fucking table go hand in hand with teacher trainings. A little relocation of the mini chocolate sirens and I was perfectly fine....until the guy that sat next to me relocated them back to my side and continued to munch on them all day. Asshole. No really, he was nice. His chocolate breath blowing on me every time he spoke was something I could have done without but whatever. Another challenge-lunch! I forgot that I had given my son the house key when I dropped him with his Grandma this morning. When I arrived at my house on lunch break I was ready to eat my weight in cabbage soup. Yep. Didn't even occur to me that I couldn't get it the damn house. I ran to the store and bought some fruit cups to eat at the afternoon training......of course I forgot the fact that I would need some kind of utensil with which to eat the fruit. Not a good memory day.

Overall Result: 
Never been a fan of scales so I have no idea how much weight I lost but since that wasn't the point from the get go I'm not heart broken. In general, I feel great! Also, the size 10 bathing suit I bought before I did the detox is now too big, so THERE! I'm a little trepidatious about what's going to happen from now on. So, I decided to do the Jillian Michael's detox tea for the next week (because it's a good detox tea and because she's my gay role model). I'm going to try to eat like a normal person and drink the tea at the same time. The idea of making my body healthy is even more appealing now that I know how easy it can be. Really, this week hasn't been all that difficult. I never starved (except for maybe on the all veggie day) and I never got bored with it. "Very doable" is my official stance on the cabbage soup detox. Thumbs up!!!

Cabbage Soup Detox Diary

So I'm always the last to know about all these diet fads and I'm sure there are a million reasons why NOT to do the cabbage diet but I say "fuck it". My biggest concern at this point is the amount of grossness that I put in my body. The cabbage diet is supposed to be a good safe detox from all the sugar, carbs, and general nastiness we put in our bellies. The juice diet didn't do it for me because I needed to chew something. Well, I will definitely get to chew on this one. Chewing's awesome:D. I researched a lot of different blogs with the recipe and description of each day. The Divas Can Cook one wasn't stupid so I'm going with that one. So here we go!


Day 1: FRUIT DAY! (sweet sweet watermelon....oh and puke in a bowl)

Warning! Do NOT eat with your eyes!

Cabbage soup- not bad for a half a day....after the hungers set in I was practically eating watermelon and droopy cabbage with my hands. I'm not hungry but the sugar that's seeping out of my body is trying to find something to make it hush.

Challenge: The 4 year old has been having asthma attack after asthma attack all fucking day. Every time I hear him cough I want to run to the pantry and lick the nutella jar clean (since I cleaned all the naughty stuff out, nutella is the naughtiest thing I have around). Not being able to help him makes me so crazy cakes!

Day 2: VEGGIE DAY! (ew)

"Prewashed and Ready to Eat Steam in the Bag Stinky Pee Asparagus", I love you!

A lot easier even though it's veggie day. I had a steamed and mashed potato for breakfast....then asparagus all day long (you can eat as much veggies as you want today but asparagus are the only veggie I don't hate). I got sick of the cabbage today but the broth is still yummy.

Challenge: I had a friend over tonight night and it was hard to not want the yummy drink he was having!!! I'm a sucker for sweet adult beverages:(. BUT I stayed strong!!! GO ME!

Day 3: VEGGIE AND FRUIT DAY!

Looks like I slaughtered a fuckin' gremlin and ate it with the pink shit that came out of the Poltergeist hole. Appetizing.

My boys are gone and the only thing prying me out of bed this morning was the thought of that giant beautiful watermelon on the fridge;)Not supposed to eat a potato today but I found this day to be difficult so I cheated and mixed in a little veggie patty with my cabbage. I also had all the fruit and veggies I can handle.

Challenge: After calculating my budget for the summer I realized I can only spend about $130 a week (and that's pushing it). My boys eat on an average $150 worth of food a week. Plus, I wanted to take them on a trip at the end of the summer so knock off another $50 a week to save for that trip. Plus, my friend is getting married so I will need to save for THAT trip....another $10 a week to save. Oy.
1. Calculating how much money we eat a week makes me hungry.
2. Wedding cake=hungry.
3. Beach Trip=thoughts of banana dacharies=HUNGRY!
4. Broken period button on the keyboard that I have to press down on with with strength of a a motherfucking elephant every time I use it=SOFUCKINGHUNGRY!!!

Thoughts on Day 1-3: I don't weigh myself so as far as being able to lose 10 pounds on this I wouldn't be the one to ask. BUT I do have a lot more energy and I haven't had a candy bar in 3 days!!! I think this is a good start to a "diet" or just to eating better. Tomorrow begins bananapalooza and I'm quite excited about that because I LOVE bananas!!!