Keep Going.

Tonight, I decided to watch "The Company Men," starring Ben Affleck and a slew of other top notch actors. The story line is simple - a company begins to downsize to save money, and people get laid off. Or fired. Whatever you want to call it - you end up with severance and your holiday pay. Either way, you are without a job.

The characters take you through all of the emotions and scenarios of job loss. I have to admit, it hit a little too close to home.

The part that really got me was when people had to move. Tonight, for the first time, I put up my dining room set for sale on Craig's List. I feel a bit numb, but hopeful. The sale of that furniture will help pay for rent. Or a move... which ever is more affordable.

It's hard, you know? There is no sugar coating it. My economic outlook is not so good this month, but I have hope that it will turn around, and soon. I am at the mercy of two possible job offers. It's both exciting and scary at the same time.

Through out this entire journey, I have bared my soul with you. The ups, the downs, the numbness, the false hope, and the possibilities. We are down to the wire.

One of the best "work-related" blogs out there actually asked me to write a post about how to stay positive during a job loss. At first, I thought it was a joke, because though I may be portraying a happy face/written voice sometimes, I may not "feel" that way all of the time. But after I took some time to think about it, I realized there is one thing I do - "Fake it until you make it." If I were to imagine what I look like when frightened, I see a duck in water. That duck looks cool - just gliding along.. but I am kicking up a storm underneath. That's what I am doing.. holding it together, trying to stick to the plan, and kick like hell!

I wrote my story for her, and you can find it at Savvy Working Gal's Blog. It will post at 7am CST on Thursday, September the 15th. I recommend following her blog! She has great advice for the "Working Gal" and hopefully, my little story can help someone else.

It's been a long day, and even longer week. I pray you each find some peace tonight - and I will be back tomorrow!

The New Anti-Christ!

Guest Blogger: Leanne

**I doubt many of you need too much of an introduction for Leanne - I am a HUGE fan of her blog: From Chaos Comes Happiness. Her button is right down there on the right hand side - don't be afraid to click on it! She cracks me up and has truly become my favorite person in Chicago!

Ok, I'm going to post about an experience that is quite personal, but what the heck - I think I threw out the privacy factor when I posted last week about perimenopause - so why stop there, right? My subject for today is something that, maybe, a few more of you might understand. Well, maybe. . .


You see, today I am on the defense against . . . SPANX. Seriously. Spanx. I believe that Spanx is the anti-christ. I'm pretty sure of it. And I'm a little offended that someone suggested I try them. That someone? A sweet, full-figured sales person at my favorite Lane Bryant store. Ok - I've made some strong statements here . . . so I better start backing them up, don't you think?



So the other day I had an opportunity to stop at Lane Bryant (hereby affectionately referred to as LB). I have a gift card from my sister that I haven't used yet, and thought I would stop in and see if I could find anything I can wear for an upcoming business trip. I found a few pairs of pants to try on, and was pretty sure they would work (right? wrong). Anyway, #1 . . . had some potential, #2 . . . was bad, #3 . . . was actually pretty good. However, I wasn't completely happy with the lines on my bottom (hereby affectionately referred to as bootie.) That's when the sweet, full-figured sales person suggested I try the SPANX. Let me start by telling you - I'm not upset with her. She was a doll and was really helping me. However, what she DID was sic the Anti-Christ on my thighs. And that action requires a little mentioning.



First of all - what is SPANX? Well . . . it's a GIRDLE!!!! Why have we given something a trendy modern name when it is just a plain ol'fashioned GIRDLE!?!?! Yes, I know SPANX are much lighter than the girdles of, say, my grandma's day and age. However . . . getting the Spanx up and over the bootie was, let's just say, a WILD CIRCUS ACT that surely would have gotten 1million+ hits on You Tube, if I had a camera with me. (Darn, why didn't I think of that? I could have made $1million off of America's Funniest Home videos! Wait - that means my bootie would have been seen by people all over the world. Ah, well.) Anyway, after much pulling, pushing, shoving, grunting, squatting, stretching and sweating . . . the spanx were on. And how did they look? Well, without the pants, I looked like a freshly stuffed polish sausage link. With the pants . . . I looked . . . pretty darn good. So I took the dressing room runway walk, up and down, and checked out my bootie from all angles. Yes, pretty good. I could live with this. That is . . . until I remembered something.



You see, I know that at some point when wearing said pants and spanx, I will have to use the ladies room. That's just a normal thing, right? Now, let's just imagine that it is the restroom ON AN AIRPLANE. Let's just IMAGINE that for a brief moment, why don't we? (But don't imagine it TOO long, because the thought is quite disturbing!) But could you, for a brief moment, picture my bootie and I pulling, pushing, shoving, grunting, squatting, stretching and sweating in an actual AIRPLANE restroom? HELL NO!



So, I did what any intelligent woman would do. I gladly handed my sweet, full-figure LB girl the opened SPANX and said, "No thank you!" and bought #1 - the some potential one. Taking a second look at #1 now, and I have to tell you, they look pretty darn good! Photo of spanx courtesy of http://www.spanx.com/.

Are there ever any answers?

Guest Blogger: Kathy Rosenbaum

*I met Kathy back in 1997 at 13WMAZ TV. She was a reporter and I was one of her producers. She is an amazing woman who lives her life open and has an incredible story to tell.  She is also one of my dearest friends. I hope you find her post as interesting as I did.

When Nicole asked me to be one of her “guest bloggers”, I spent a few days wondering what to write about. The responsibilities of pet ownership? Why I’m a member of the Tea Party? The joys of gardening? How it sucks to be a southerner trapped in the Northeast?



Then, my in-laws handed me an article from the New York Times and it got me started…

Since most of you don’t know me, I feel fairly comfortable using this introduction: I’m a stay at home mom to two broken kids. Does it make you mad for me to describe my children that way? Some people get angry, believing that all children are precious despite their afflictions. Mine are certainly precious to me- but they’re broken.

My oldest son was born 10 days late and he was literally blue from lack of oxygen. He is nine years old now and attends a special needs school about half an hour from our home. My youngest son was diagnosed with a “thought disorder” last year after a couple of years of depression, suicidal thoughts and angry, violent tendencies. If he were a few years older, that “thought disorder” would be lableled Bipolar disorder. My youngest son is six.

With my older son, it’s fairly obvious to see he’s got some challenges. He walks a little funny, has trouble controlling his movements and is incredibly immature for his age. It’s also easier to understand why he has the challenges- lack of oxygen. Knowing this doesn’t make him any easier to live with or care for, but at least there’s a reason David is how he is.


With my baby, this diagnosis came out of the blue. He was perfect. He was my “angel love”- cuddly, agreeable and hit every milestone as a baby and toddler. It wasn’t until he was 3, then 4 when I started to think maybe there was an issue bigger than stubbornness on his part.

How can a small child be depressed? How can a kindergartener even realize what killing himself would mean? Why would a young boy withdraw from the world and be so violent to those around him? All good questions- and I have no freaking clue what the answers are. As a matter of fact, that’s how I knew there was something seriously wrong with my child and got him help as fast as I could.

Now, back to that New York Times article. The writer, Duff Wilson, insists psychiatrists are putting kids on anti-psychotic drugs too early and for the wrong reasons. Wilson, details the story of a mother who, “at her wits end” medicates her child on the advice of her doctor. That doctor wasn’t a psychiatrist- he was a pediatrician. The pediatrician sent the child to specialists: neurologists, psychiatrists, therapists… all came up with a reason why this child needed medication. The mother says her son’s “shell was there, but he wasn’t there…” and that she “didn’t like that.”

In the end, doctors believe this child’s issues developed from the fact that his mother was unwed, having more children, on social services and essentially ignoring her son. Ok- that makes sense. The woman had no business having children in the first place and didn’t take care of them, so her kid had issues.

But what about for those kids who have stable, loving homes? Where’s the medical explanation for them?

My son “presented” as a child who had been verbally and emotionally abused- except he hadn’t. He acted like he’d been called a failure his whole life. Daniel told teachers and therapists that I never hugged him or told him I loved him. None of those things ever happened- in fact, the opposite was true. Why would he say these things? Only psychiatrists know for sure, but after he told the public school psychologist that he had an “extermination list” of 8 people including his family and a couple of students, I realized it was time for something more than “play therapy”. I took him to a child psychiatrist, had him evaluated and started him on meds.

It took months to see a real difference in my son’s behavior and thinking, but once his “mania” broke, I had my wonderful child back. It’s not without consequences; he’s gained a lot of weight and feels tired a lot. He’s not perfect- by ANY means. He still has negative thoughts and can be overly moody, but at least he no longer calls himself a demon who wants to stab me in the heart and cut my head off with a machete. I work with him everyday as his makeshift therapist to handle his extremely strong willed personality so he can overcome his neuroses and be a normal little boy.

It’s not easy being the one responsible for another life, whether it’s a pet, a child or an aging parent. In fact, it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done- and I’ve done some really, really difficult things in my life.

I get through it day by day because I’m committed to being responsible. It’s no one else’s job to handle my child’s issues or secure his happiness but mine. I partner with teachers and therapists, but at the end of the day what determines whether my boys sink or swim is the quality of my work.


That NY Times article seems to imply that doctors and drug companies have it in for unsuspecting parents and small children… not true. As a parent- a good parent- you are constantly evaluating and weighing what’s best for your child, especially if your child is broken. Sometimes, what’s best for your child isn’t pleasant. Sometimes, it’s downright frightening. I’ve found that I have to be strong enough and responsible enough to fix what’s broken and still have enough love and affection to spend some “love time” with them at the end of the day. Maybe that’s the toughest part of all…

As I write this, my boys are outside riding scooters and hitting golf balls- acting like regular kids. It’s become my favorite sound in the entire world. I know that in another few minutes, there’ll be another crisis to handle where these boys are concerned, but that’s my job. And I’m thankful to be working on it every single day.

In the words of Whitney Houston.. "How will I know?"

Guest Blogger: Telisa Cunningham

*So this happens to be a person I would consider my best friend. I have known Telisa since I was 12 (over 25 years) but we really became  close friends when we were 18. Our love of travel and culture created a fascinating friendship. Through marriages, divorces, children, jobs lost, jobs gained, death - you name it - We still remain close friends to this day. This post is very much a "Telisa" thought process. I know your feedback will be appreciated! Enjoy!

What is love and when do you know you’re in it? Why do people fall out of love? Is love necessary for a marriage to work? What about passion? These are all questions that I ask myself.



I knew what love meant when my daughter was born. I thought I knew what it was before, but as any mother can tell you, there is nothing like the love a mother feels for her child. Nothing.


But that’s not the kind of love I’m writing about now. I’m talking men and women, Venus and Mars kind of love. Where do we learn our concepts of love from? Is it television? Is it our parents or other adults we observe? Are our twenty-first century ideas of love realistic??


My boyfriend always cringes when I tell him that I do not think ANYONE is capable of being a faithful spouse/companion for an entire adulthood. He takes this as a sign that I am thinking about my options, but I really don’t mean it that way. I am just being honest. The person you fall in love with is NOT the same person in five, ten, or twenty years. If he/she IS the same person, then WOW, you really need to move on! Under the best of circumstances, you grow together as a couple. Under the worst, you grow in opposite directions. Is it possible to be completely faithful to your partner forever? Should we, as people in committed relationships, just accept that it’s not possible and turn our heads at the minor infractions? All the clichés about married couples are true. FOR A REASON.


I often wish that I was a stupid teenager again. At least then I wasn’t afraid to be an idiot for love. I got butterflies and did REALLY dumb things like drive for hours on Saturday night to see “him”, knowing I would have to drive right back the next morning. I wrote his name a thousand times with squigglies and hearts. We’ve all been there… talking on the phone for hours, LONGING to be together. Don’t you remember those moments? Would any of us adults do that for the ones we love today? What happens when the “new” wears off? When the romance has passed? The typical romantic/comedy movie only lasts two hours and we don’t see what happens after that. Or -God forbid- we watch The Notebook (one of the greatest love stories EVER) and create TRULY unrealistic ideals of love and passion. What we expect in our relationships is so out of reach, so unattainable, how can we ever expect a real person to ever live up to it? What would we give to have that back, even for a day or even an hour?


Is love without passion enough to make a marriage work? I think it can. Can we live without the passion that made us crazy in love to begin with? You tell me.

Wrong?

Guest Blogger: Dewin

*Dewin is actually one of the first blogs I followed and vice versa. She found me quite by accident, and bestowed a Sunshine Blog award upon me. From there, I have met one of the most fascinating, intelligent and deep thinkers I have known. Her blog is inspiring and raw and real. She is an artist - a photographer - and here is one of her pics. Enoy!

When I go to a restaurant, I am notorious for ordering the same thing every time. On the occasion that I stray to other parts of the menu, I always seem to be disappointed with the outcome. And, so I politely push the menu aside and repeat my order word for word from my last visit.


In this life, it would seem we have endless choices. Where we go, what we do, who we associate with, who we love. When you are young, people tell you that you can be anything you want to be. Every children’s theme park encourages you to dream, and dream big. But somewhere around age twelve that stops. As we travel the familiar journey from junior high to high school to college to the “real world”, our path gets narrower. We get the grades to get into the college that supposedly gets us the job that allows us what is called “upward mobility”. This tidy plan has a certain momentum that seems to increase incrementally until we can’t even see in any other direction.

A friend told me a story this past weekend about a teacher she knows. This teacher has a teenage son who attended the elite private high school where she worked. Yet, he continually became more aloof, one day telling her that he hated school. His mother was heartbroken that he would hate anything. So, she made a choice. She pulled him out of school, bought an RV, and they traveled around the country for a year.

So, I wondered which is better- more choices or less? I asked myself: why do I prefer fewer choices in a restaurant? Because when I order something that is not good, I am angry with myself that I made the wrong decision and wasted my money. So, I continually order the same thing so that I can never be wrong, thereby always being right. I never venture out of the safety zone for fear of things being worse. Thus, the reason for the path.

Human beings have unknowingly lessened their choices by decreasing the size of their world into a nice manageable mass. The universe can’t possibly contain other life forms. Earth is the only planet worthy of such advancement. And the universe shrinks into a single planet. Other countries/religions/cultures/languages are inferior, even evil. And the planet shrinks into one country. My path in life is to go to school, go to college, and get a job. And your life shrinks into a credit card commercial.

People enforce limitations on themselves and their lives for the sole purpose of not being wrong. They don’t want to worry that maybe they made the wrong life choice, so they simply take away all the other choices. They are safe. And, if anyone around them veers from their rat maze, they condemn them as wrong, or even crazy.

But what if we were a little crazy? What if we ended up being wrong? Would that be so wrong?

Guest bloggers start Friday!

Slowly but surely, my guest bloggers have submitted their posts! I got the great idea from my dear friend, Leanne, at From Chaos Comes Happiness. She is going on vacation soon, and decided to get a few bloggy friends to help her out!

I then scheduled almost 10 days away and thought to myself, "Self - what are you going to do?" Then *ding *ding *ding - I thought I would try the same thing out. I am booked solid with activity and travel, and I KNOW there are people out there that have plenty to say!

The thing is, I asked mostly people who do not blog. Seriously! I picked people I thought were interesting, or deep, or were always full of strong opinions or deep comments on my FB fan page or personal page. I wanted to introduce a few people to the world of blogging! Each one of these women (yes, I picked all girls) has something to say... I laugh because they go into great LENGTH to say it! LOL Love it - girls after my own heart!

I did ask a few friends here also. I think you will like their stuff!

Here is the basic rundown of who will be posting and what day (some.. I am still waiting, so it is subject to change!):

1. Calandra - Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear - Friday, 09/10
2. Mitzi - Building a Solid Foundation - Saturday - 09/11
3.  Laura - Fall is in the air - Sunday - 09/12
4. Dewin - Wrong - Monday - 09/13
5. Kaprial - Doing More, Spending Less, Getting Happy - Tuesday - 09/14
6. Robin - Dreaming the Dream - Wednesday - 09/15
7.  Telisa - TBA - Thursday - Thursday -  09/16
8. Erica - Photo Blog -  Friday - 09/17
9. Kathy - TBA - Saturday - 09/18
10. Leanne - TBA - Sunday 09/19

Thank you ladies for your amazing spirit! If there is anyone out there dying to contribute, you know me - I am not afraid to post two a day! Bring it - you never know, one of the TBAs may back out!

Wide variety of topics - all THOUGHT provoking!