An Evening With Ann Leary: The Good House

One of the true pleasures in my life is to always be in the midst of a book I look forward to disappearing into every night. I carry it with me, everywhere. I read while I wait at school pick up, I read while at Doctor appointments, I read before I go to sleep. Reading until my eyes begin to roll in their sockets and the book drops off my lap onto the floor is a ritual I haven't gone without, ever, even when I had newborns. Maybe especially when I had newborns.

Writers that make you feel like you've sneaked into a life that could so easily be one that's real, that's the mark of a smart, compelling author. Ann Leary does just that with her latest, The Good House. I have to tame myself from not devouring a satisfying read like The Good House in one sitting, so that I can try to make it last at least a week. Controlling myself, not turning the page to begin a new chapter; that was something I failed at with The Good House.

I was only able to make The Good House last four days.

Ann Leary's book was released January 15. I began reading it as soon as it arrived at my door inside its manila envelope. With the first sentence, I had the Can't Put This One Down feeling. The Good House strips away unnecessary scene building and dialogue, stuff you could do without, and what we get instead is knowing that every word placed on those pages, has to be there. There are the moments of humor you don't see coming that make the read even more delicious. There are the moments of deep dark sharing, where you feel like you're a ghost peering over someone's shoulder as they write secret journal entries in the night.

Hildy, the main character of The Good House, is so endearingly honest that she became living and breathing to me. Flawed and vulnerable, she has to make herself tough. Tough. Because that's all she's got. I love that.

Ann Leary writes with a pen that both pierces my heart with love for Hildy, as well as makes me want to hold her hand and promise her it will all be all right.

I am in love with this book, and tonight, I get to meet Ann Leary at a book signing. She'll be appearing at Lynden Sculpture Gardens at 7 PM tonight. I can hardly wait to thank her for her words.  

And here's more exciting news: I HAVE A SIGNED COPY OF ANN'S BOOK THE GOOD HOUSE to give away here. You want this book. I haven't met a person who's read The Good House who hasn't fallen in love with it.

Comment, tweet, to win. "Entering to win @annleary 's #TheGoodHouse because I love good books! via @gdrpempress"

Gotta run, six inches of uberarctic blast predicted for tonight and I promised Ann a hunter's cap. She'll look adorable in it.

Comment, tweet, fingers crossed for you.

***

What's Hot in 2013

"That Amie's so dang hot she listened to me wail for 20 minutes and never once checked her phone..."

There are several ways to be really cool and in on the latest trends for 2013.

One hip and happening way to ride above the norm of the normal is to listen to someone talk about grief and loss until they've talked your ear off.

Let them wear out their welcome on your sleeve. And after they do that, flip 'em over and let them do it to your other sleeve. Listen to them tell you all about the first time they met their beloved, and go on through their favorite memory, and then hold them while they incoherently sob and gasp about the day the earth stood still for them.

Those on the cutting edge of coolness will sit without looking at their watch once, letting time stand still for them as it has for the person they're receiving wet words from.

You can start by asking how they are doing. If you are the Elvis of emotion, you'll gently place your hand on their forearm and offer to do anything. There are things that are simple to you but impossible for them right now. Tell them you're going to the grocery store anyway and will pick up what they need for them as long as you're there -- they'll appreciate this because supermarket music will bring them to their knees with their eternal loop of Jackson Brown's "Fountain of Sorrow." Leave a surprise package of four Starbucks frappuccinos on their doorstep with a sheet of white paper taped to the top -- nothing but a big red heart drawn on it in marker.

Write the words "I love you" on  the back.

Once you've decided to be a Love Rebel With a Cause, grab that black kickass love leather coat of yours and crank it up a notch. Call your griever in the morning, for only a few seconds and rock their world. Say, "Hey. Want you to know that I'm thinking about you." Yank on your badass Frye boots and use them to strut your tough self over to their doorstep; you may have to kick the door once or twice to let them know you're there because your hands will be too full with that night's dinner.

To ensure that you go all sexy James Dean Love on their walloped soul, tweak this special time with them:

• Strip your mind of all other thoughts when you're with them
• Turn off all communication devices
• DON'T USE YOUR PHONE
• Emphasize what they mean to you
• There are a hundred places you could be right now, LET THEM KNOW THIS IS THE ONLY ONE THAT COUNTS
• Let AVAILABLE become your first, middle, and last name
• Look at allllllll their pictures, their letters, their videos, look at it all, and say "I'm sorry"
• Mean every word 

Sometimes life looks you right center in the eye and gifts you with the chance to be a rockstar. Take it, and be someone's Keith Richards -- who we all know is the cooler Rolling Stone.

*I want to thank all my outasite bohemian beatniks who swooped down on their sparkly jagged wings of hep cat healing love and carried me through this month on their cool breeze.

I love you.


photo credit: Kid Paparazzi via photopin cc

*** 

Warrior Scholar

Many of you have heard by now of my beautiful nephew passing away just two weeks ago. I thank you for your cards and emails sending me love and hope during this devastating time for my family. My heart is heavy with his unexpected death, but I find joy and pride in all that he accomplished. 

Thank you for honoring him, by acknowledging the momentary stop in the earth's spin, as he left us.

***

Tomas Garret-Rosas

WarriorScholars

Tomás Garrett-Rosas is a Sociology Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. Some of the courses he teaches are Communities of Color, Social Problems and Social Change.  His research focuses on the academic achievement of African American, Latina/o, and mixed race/multiethnic urban high school students.  He received his Master’s degree in Sociology from the University of Illinois at Chicago and his Ph.D. in Urban Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Dr. Garrett-Rosas is also a Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Fellow. He participated in the Minority Activist Apprenticeship Program and completed an internship in Oakland, California.  He shared a passion for social change, and was an avid community volunteer and activist. It was through his time spent motivating union workers and at risk youths, that Dr. Garret-Rosas realized the power of organizing: 

"Ever since participating in MAAP my life has been focused on the empowerment of communities of color. I’ve worked on organizing campaigns dealing with various issues such as lead abatement, immigration, police accountability and asset forfeiture. While working with Action for a Better Community in Denver, we were able to get the first free lead tests for children in the state of Colorado. I also initially organized Youth of Oakland United to train teens of color in Oakland to organize against forms of social control.

My experience with MAAP helped to build the foundation for the rest of my life. It inspires and shapes my current research on urban youth of color. I sometimes run my research work past folks at CTWO to get insight and advice.  Finally, my teaching is informed by my experiences in organizing and from the training that I received since initially becoming part of this extraordinary family.  “Always remember the first rule of power tactics; power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.” (Saul Alinsky)

Source: WarriorScholars 

***

The depth of one's grief is measured by the depth of one's love, and we have felt that this week. We're struggling through, Tommy, missing the bright star that you were in so many lives.

Did you know that during your visitation Thursday night, the staff at the funeral home had to find additional guest pages for your book from the other rooms because our guest register had used every page after only one hour? Did you know that with the crowd that came to see you that night, there was no room left to even stand? Spilling out into the street, the people that came to see you waited in the rain to say good bye.

I arrived early that afternoon, 3 o'clock, somehow finding my way there, almost unable to read the street signs through the blur of my tears. I came to set up your reception area for your guests, confident that I had brought enough food along with me to last until 7 p.m. By 5:15, I knew I wouldn't have enough. The crowd there to see you, so many -- the only thing I had left to offer your friends was a platter of small dinner rolls.

Did you see the church holding your services Friday morning?

Not a spare seat on the main floor, the balconies filled, and people standing in the church stairwell, one behind the other, because there were no more places to sit.

Did you see it, Tommy? So many people, for you.

Be at rest, my beautiful nephew. I love you.

What? You Don't Google "Large Black Mole" at 3 a.m.?

Nuh-uh. Don't make it like I'm the only one.

And if I am, so what. I never said I was normal.

Up on AimingLow today, my post on what to do when you WebMD too much.

You're welcome, and thank you, for your love and kindness these past two weeks. (really. HUGE thank you)

Lucky You, The One Who Just Won Celebrity sTalker

Overdue, but exciting news nonetheless; we have the winner of Suzy Soro of Where Hot Comes To Die, new book, Celebrity sTalker.

LDiggity (don't the coolest names come here??) who has been blogging since 2002! at  The Lovely Simulacrum (best to look up this word and learn something new today), has won a copy of Suzy's Hollywood tales of celebrity talking/not stalking. Good thing, too, since she was due with a little one January 13, and we all know how much time she'll have to lounge around and read Suzy's book once the baby comes.

Congratulations, and please email me your address, LDiggity, and I'll send out Suzy's book for you to lap up in one sitting, because you will.

***

Everything You Remember Is Still There

Even the smallest of snippets from your life, the kind that flash through lightning quick at the most surprising of times, can end up becoming your strongest memories--though they never were intended to be. Passages of blurred depictions, some without feeling attached, just a visual lasting barely half a second, but even so--staying imprinted in our minds.

What gives these moments, that particular brief scene, the longevity to become what we call up, when someone asks, "What is your earliest memory?" The further back you reach, the less pushing and shoving there is for what is sent forth, to play over again and again. The more your mind falls to a specific memory, the easier that same one will be the one that repeatedly surfaces by default.

I don't want that.

I don't want the automatic, to lose all of the other that I know I can remember if I work hard and intentionally dig through the mental films stowed away. I want to find those early memories before they disappear; I want to make them strong, so I have the beginning pages of my life.

I've been staying up late, while in bed, trying to go back and retrieve what happened in chapters one and two. It helps if I begin sorting through by calling up categories from the buried, long held closed drawers and drawers of what my eyes and ears and heart have been witness to. First pretty dress, first buckle shoes, first tricycle, first trip to the water. I begin with a roll call list of firsts, and the images timidly swim before my mind's eye, like a child peeking out from behind a curtain.

The memories are skittish, unsure if it's them I'm looking for, but over a few nights' time, they become confident--yes, they tell themselves, she wants us. I don't stay up to fight with them, to tell them they're not my choice of what I want to see. I let them decide. They tell me, this is what you asked for.

Something keeps these memories in my banks, it's the something that tells me these are mine.

I'm going to sit quietly again tonight, with the lights out, my fingers pressed against my eyes, while the called out images tentatively peer out, growing bolder as they sense my acceptance. It'll take awhile for them to believe that I'm happy to see them--they've stayed away because for so long that's what I told them to do; dismissing them as annoying, irritating, intruding.

I trust them now; these visual records. They are insightful, legitimate, as they wave before me like wisps. There is no weight of judgment that comes with their appearance. In the still night, I invitingly extend my long overdue hand out to them--praying they remember me. I am grateful they still recognize the girl who abandoned them--and that I am no longer a stranger. 

***

And Again, You've Held Me Up

It makes no sense how everything in the world didn't stop this week. Bills still have to be paid, jobs still need to be completed, and appointments still must be kept.

There are 43 messages in my voice mail and over 500 emails in my inbox.

Life goes on, even when a beloved one's has stopped.

We have to keep going. Steel ourselves up and keep going. Even when we've become that crazy lady who looks up at everyone who crosses their path, and says to total strangers in the store check-out lane, "my nephew died, you know? And I can't believe it."

People have been kind; these poor strangers who have no idea who I am. One woman touched my arm, and could barely whisper, "I'm so sorry." A man told me he lost his sister, and that he'd pray for our family. I turned my dentist into my psychotherapist today--because that's what we do when devastation hits. (he took off his mask, held my hand, listened, wiped his eyes, and now I will follow him anywhere, even if he falls out of my dental care network)

We seek out, looking for others, to help us. There are so many of us doing the daily must-dos, carrying our stories of suspended disbelief inside, wondering, asking the unanswerable, how do we keep going?

A big part of that answer for me has been in all of you, who have become my community. I have my faith, my belief, I have my family. But I also have your cards, your emails, phone messages, tweets, texts, facebook messages, comments here on my blog, and every single one of these, a gift to me in the long hours of a sleepless night.

You may not realize the strength that comes from knowing that so many care and are heartbroken along with me, but it does. To feel you all sharing in this pain with me, that runs as an undercurrent through every single thought of mine. My family has suffered a great loss, an untimely death of a brilliant star that lit up our lives. I know just how much more overwhelming this time for us would feel, if I didn't have your kind words here to make me smile.

I smile, through tears, but I smile. With genuine gratitude and appreciation for how you have kept me from feeling alone in this tremendous blow.

Once again, you all save my life, daily, as we have to go back to what the world calls "normal," something our lives will never be again.

Thank you.

Today

       Mend a quarrel. Search out a forgotten friend. Dismiss suspicion and
      replace it with trust. Write a love letter. Share some treasure. Give a soft
      answer. Encourage youth. Manifest your loyalty in a word or deed.       Keep a promise. Find the time. Forego a grudge. Forgive an enemy. Listen.
      Apologize if you were wrong. Try to understand. Flout envy. Examine your
      demands on others. Think first of someone else. Appreciate, be kind, be
      gentle. Laugh a little more.
      Deserve confidence. Take up arms against malice. Decry complacency.
      Express your gratitude. Worship your God. Gladden the heart of a child.
      Take pleasure in the beauty and wonder of the earth.
      Speak your love. Speak it again. Speak it still again. Speak it still once again.

                                                                                      --- Author Unknown

   ***

Shine Bright Like a Diamond

I was going through old family photos, trying to find some of my nephew to give to my sister. Through eyes blurry with tears, I saw picture after picture of him, but only in one setting--a party in our house.

It's all I had of him, there were no pensive poses, no deep-in-thought profiles--every photo was balloons! party hats! table streamers! The funny thing is, I don't remember having all of these parties growing up. My family was not a celebrating bunch. My childhood home would best be described as quiet, heavy, tense.

And yet, I had over 30 pictures showing him with arms raised, all with huge beaming smiles, and he is at the center of it all. I mean, how many childhood birthday parties can you have when you only celebrate once a year, right?

Then it hit me like a bolt. There wasn't picture after picture of smiles and joyous grins because we were always in the midst of a celebration. The one common denominator of every party picture is that he is in it. HE was the party. HE would turn any occasion into a slice of life. You see him, in the moment, the joy, the arms in the air, over receiving a swirly red and white marbled playground ball.

My nephew would spend weekends with us when he was so very very small. I was 12 and the main baby sitter who would take care of getting lunch ready for him. One day, as he stood on his tip toes and watched me slice up an apple, he looked up at me with widened eyes; waving his arms up over his head, he began shouting breathlessly, "are we having an apple party?! It's an apple party, isn't it?!" This, over getting apple wedges rather than a whole apple handed to him. He worked his magic on bananas, oranges, pears--turning any fruit--into a fruit party.

Nothing was ever ordinary with him. I would come home with tangerines, the ones called "cuties" that come in those miniature wooden crates, that he'd later use to build a Hot Wheels parking structure, and he'd clap and shout, "you brought the baby oranges that come in the Hot Wheel house!"

This is who he was to me, who he was to my entire family. Mention his name to anyone now, and before a word is spoken about him, a smile first appears. Laughter, joy, pura vida, with him in the middle of it all.

So, no, growing up, we didn't have parties a lot--what we had was him a lot.

For a family that lived in a reserved, guarded, non demonstrative manner, there are no words for how larger than life he made us all feel. Like we were somebody, and look at us--we're happy!

We thank you, Tommy, for bringing noise, raucousness, mega-watt smiles into a house where the air felt as if it were weighed down with bricks.

You were lightness and presence and yes, when we were around you, there was a reason to blow up the balloons, put on the party hats, and crank the noise makers.

You were with us, you were there, and you made everything a celebration.

Thank you, for the way you made our world shine so bright, for the time you were here.

We will miss you in a way I will try to explain for the rest of my life.

I love you so very much.

***

*We lost my beloved nephew, Tomas, suddenly early Sunday morning. We're still reeling from this news, and I can't imagine how we're going to go back to our lives, as we must. But we have to return to work, jobs, responsibilities, commitments. I thank you all here, for the love you've sent me since Monday. On twitter, on Facebook, the amazing comments offering to listen, from all of you--I appreciate them more than I can tell you.

Thank you all so much. It is community that carries us through, it is the wonderful people who will listen to my stories about him, that make the one day at a time in our lives right now, possible.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

The Unpreparedness of No Good-bye

Grief,
the resounding echo
to one’s new reality.
Existing in time,
without part of one’s heart;

Grief,
the resounding echo
feeling, so surreal
Existing in time,
without part of one’s heart;
pain, deep, unable to feel.

Grief,
the resounding echo
tolerating days,
Existing in time
without part of one’s heart;
the unpreparedness of no good bye.

~Susan Alldred Lugton

My beautiful nephew died suddenly early Sunday morning, before the day even had a chance to begin. My heart is broken and my tears won't stop from the pain of not wanting this to be true for my sister's child. There is not enough room here to tell of the tightness in my throat that I can't swallow away and memories of a little boy echoing so desperately in my mind that they scream "Come back!" The only word for what we are right now is devastated. 

I hate that this is real.

Please send us your prayers, your love, your hope for our healing -- for something that feels so far out of the natural order. 

Thank you. 

***

I Have Something - And You're Going to Like It

January, and we all are in need of a little vacation, a little crazy, some living larger than we are right now. Not anything too drastic - just a little something to take us away for awhile, something that won't give us urethral inflammation like a Calgon bath would.

I have just the thing, lucky people. Something to take you beyond your days of lemon dusting your coffee table and finally getting to that linen closet.

It's this.

Celebrity sTalker by Suzy Soro: Stories From a Woman Who Thinks Celebrities Are Dying to Talk to Her, Only They Aren't.

  
Suzy Soro's new book: a mini vacation in pages - away from our mondo mundane. Want to know what it's like to live in Hollywood and see the stars and have the nerves of steel to talk, not stalk, them? Well, Suzy Soro of Curb Your Enthusiasm and Seinfeld fame, has done this all for you. And we get to eavesdrop on alllll the conversations, the juiciness of life among the stars. It's not all glamour, it's a lot of down to earth poignancy along with an  inside glimpse of how the other half lives, from someone who really knows Hollywood.

Suzy is very funny, unpredictable, and compelling enough to pull my hedge fund reading husband away from his WSJ. He was so drawn into her book that he finished it in one sitting. His review? "Interesting." I read it one sitting too and my reaction was pretty much "More more tell us more!" I'm ready for Suzy to get started on Volumes two and three.

If you're into knowing the deep down of life in a lane other than 15 items or less, get this book.

Wait, I'll get you this book. I have a copy for you. (say that in a singsongy voice)

Please leave me a comment telling me you want Hot Comes To Die's Celebrity sTalker, facebook that you want Celebrity sTalker, tweet out that you want Celebrity sTalker. Tell everyone "I'ma get Suzy Soro's Celebrity sTalker if I have to win it myself!"

I'll use random.org to pick a winner. Contest closes next week Saturday. If you don't want to wait and can't wait to see if you win this book, order it on kindle for $4.99, or paperback now, from Amazon.


"Celebrity sTalker details comedian Suzy Soro's obsessive need to talk to celebrities, especially the ones who don't want to be bothered. It takes you inside ladies' rooms, restaurants, and even their homes. Why did the world's most beautiful movie star offer to help? Which sitcom star is really pushy? How many celebrities do you have to know to get on The Tonight Show? In this offbeat memoir of her run-ins with famous people, Suzy answers these, and other, ridiculous questions. It's funny, it's painful, it's embarrassing, and it will make you glad you're not her."  --Amazon

**Follow Suzy Soro on her blog Hot Comes To Die, or on facebook, and follow her on twitter @hotcomestodie , where she is the queen of one liners.

GOOD LUCK!!

***

2012 Highlights and Kind of Like a Pep Rally

At about age ten, fourth grade, I think, I started keeping a list of all the changes from one year to the next. Not really a best of, or highlights of the year list; but just a "I was there, now I'm here" record. I found comfort in reading and rereading the items that went on in the hundreds. I'd fill sheets of paper with sentences beginning with "I used to like Star Trek but now I like Mannix," and "Purple is not my favorite color for clothes anymore."

I still do this, this documentation of shifts and backslides and growth from the previous year--though working and mothering and messing around on the internet have cut my itemized account down to 20 entries or so. But I do it, because the reflection has become addictive to me. I have to measure, in some way, the movement of my life. It opens my eyes to gratitude, it helps me to see that effort can yield results, it screams to me, "You can do more than you tell yourself you can."

I'm sharing my things, my life in 2012, with you, because I'm hoping you'll tell me what's gone from point A to point B in your life, too. Something that's hard for me to do is to take stock in the good--even if I've worked hard for it. I've been trained that sharing good news is bragging. It's not appropriate to talk about how something awesome has come your way. I want to work on this, because when the coolest things happen, we feel happy--but some of us have been told and believe that talking about it isn't the right thing to do. What do we do then, with the joy? Tell no one? How do we celebrate, without appearing to gloat?

I know you all from the blogosphere, and I'm lucky to have you in my life, and I'd like to see what you document as change and movement and enlightening from your year. Tell me.

2012, My Year in Review:

--Normal mammogram (no small thing)
--Ditto on the normal blood work, dental exam, pap smear this year: I never take "normal" for granted
--Happy to still be working ::knocks on wood::
--Great tremendous personal news for my 17 year old son (keeping private, you can email me though)
--Middlest started high school and he has found his element (love this)
--Youngest is turning into a sports rock star (despite his mother's gene contribution)
--We went to Washington DC and had a week that we recorded in comic book form (should post this-illustrated vomiting on airplane and all)
--Getting off coffee was easier than I thought (guess it was all just in my head)
--My feelings for Clint Eastwood have not changed (I am able to overlook #Chairgate)
--My years-old biker boots--amazed at how they never fail to make me feel BA
--Still trying to grow my hair out since 8th grade
--Gotta confess, disappointed I haven't taken the free drum circle class offered, I know I'd totally dig it. (barefoot, long skirt--it's practically calling my name)
--Rihanna grew on me with "Shine Like a Diamond"
--My mind has remained opened to possibility of future with Restylane or Botox or a knee lift
--Content and fulfilled that I'm still writing for Aiming Low, FunnynotSlutty, TikiTikiBlog, Milwaukeemoms
--Promoted to editor of Aiming Low Guest Posts (with lots of help from Kym-my girl)
--Still presenting to women's groups on importance of self care when a young mom (am really digging this)
--Read with Molly Ringwald at The Moth StoryTeller's Tour in May. Holla!
--Will be part of team bringing Listen To Your Mother Show to Milwaukee in May. *highfive*
--Figuring out how I got such great kids who do so well when we bring my mother with dementia here on Sundays for her visits (these three--they are so awesome)
--Presented panel at BlogHer/NYC on "Blogging For The Love of It"
--Part of Round Table Presenters at Aiming Low's NonCon in Georgia (made good good friends that weekend)
--Published in BlogHer '12 VOTY anthology
--Babble told me that I was a "Babble Top 100 Mom Blogger" (stoked about that one)
--Went to Erma Bombeck Humor Writers' Workshop in Dayton. Met and fell in love with Molly Campbell.
--Working through my own shit with this whole aging and changes process. Making peace with never being beyond Level 1 in Jillian Michael's 30 day shred.
--Still submitting to McSweeneys on a monthly basis and still never hearing back. Maybe I'll break a record of ten years straight of submissions and that's even cooler than Stephen King's 300+ rejection slips and Kathryn Stockett's 50some publisher rejections.
--My youngest still dances with me when no one else is around. My 17 year old still loves going to the movies with me, and my 16 year old still laughs at my jokes and tells me I'm funny.
--Year to year, daily appreciation for my online friend, Brian Miller, of Waystation One.

And now for the Pep Rally Part.

What I don't talk about here is how much time I spend and how much of my writing I submit and submit and enter and enter in contests, knocking on publication doors, pitching ideas to magazines. I come up empty handed too many times to count, and I mean empty as in not even a response back.

But I can't stop trying. Because I've seen how trying is the only thing that's gotten me anything with regard to my writing.

And this is where self talk comes in. This is where comparison can be da debil. I follow funny funny all star women, and when they're featured on top sites, I follow and read more of them there. I love reading funny as much as I love writing funny. I study the sites where these women are published, and then send my work in there. I could a.) tell myself I'm not even close to that level of expertise in humor writing, or b.) just keep on emailing my work in blind hope, sending it out with a push of a key and a prayer. Which is how I do most anything on the internet anyway.

The point to this is (and if you're still here, I love you) that you never know which one, which post, will get noticed.

MyPheme is a hot humor site I began following over three years ago after I saw that Anna Lefler, Wendi Aarons (yes, that Anna Lefler and that Wendi Aarons) were published there. I submitted, I waited, they picked me up as their featured essay today.

Thank you to Robbie and Susan, for the jumping up and down you didn't see when I opened your email. I am honored, thrilled, grinning to be on your front page today. 

If you feel generous, please celebrate with me today and visit me on MyPheme.

And to all of you reading this right now--whatever it is you dream of, don't talk yourself out of it. Keep trying, keep wishing, keep taking any steps--baby ones still count--anything that gets you closer to your goal. If you don't do it, no one else will do it for you. And dreams don't come true by magic, the only way to even get a little bit close to where you want to be is to put your ass out there. Believing, it's so necessary.

Here's to 2013!

***

These, are the Magic Letters

Happy New Year! It's so cute how a new year has us all talking high hopes, big dreams, determined plans, to make this year OUR YEAR.

I love how people do that, and I love reading about all the powerhouse moves to get you where you want to be. Live large or go home, right?

So cool to see. Me? I just want to finally figure out how to avoid. AVOID. How can I get through this life gig with the least amount of stress and strife? I think I found a way. I apply four simple letters to any stomach acid producing situation, and get 'er done.

My New Year Plan for stress-free living, and decluttering the unpleasant out of your life. Brought to you by Aiming Low.

I wish you a peaceful 2013, and if there are any problems, may they be only the little tiny bitty kind.


xo