But It's Not A Gun

Boys.

Guns.

Toys.

And my collective 17 years experience with this.

No boys? Come read what it's like.

Then send me flowers.

My post up today, at Aiming Low, How to call it a gun when mom says no guns.

Hope to see you there.

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**HEY! Have you all met Lynn from AllFookedUp ? She writes a blog where there is never a dull moment. She also features funny bloggers on her Thursday series, Go Ahead, Amuse me. She invited me to guest post there, and my post is up today, where I talk about striking out with my pick up lines at the mom's meat market: the park. Stop on over and get to know Lynn, and email her your own funny post to be featured on her Go Ahead, Amuse Me Thursday series.

And Their Legs Turn To Jelly?

The mysteries of the woman.

What turns one to jello doesn't even cause a bed of sweat in another.

Like an accent. Some women just about spontaneously combust at the sound of a trilled r.

I ask you today, at FunnynotSlutty, to 'splain to me the allure of the espanish accent.

I'd love to understand the effect that the men in my family have on the world.

Happy post Valentine's Day! 

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Don't Get Valentine's Day The Wrong Way

The roses, the diamonds, the radio and TV commercials that will run all day and night today: get that special someone in your life something that tells them what they mean to you. Chances are, that special someone doesn't need roses or diamonds.

But, the forgotten group, the lonely, the newly divorced or widowed, the empty nester, the young adult you see living alone in a new city for the first time. So many people who will be reminded all day long today that they are not 'someone special enough' for the dinner and flowers.

Don't get Valentine's Day wrong today, take the  five minutes out of your life to run into a store and grab a pack of Valentine's Day cards, and take them with you to work to put on the desks of those that wouldn't otherwise find a card waiting for them. Stick a card in the mailbox of the sweet older woman at the end of the street whose last child has left for college, taking her heart along with them.

To the single mom you see juggling work and three children on her own in the pick up line at school today, give her a smile and hand her a card saying I see all you do. You are amazing.

The retired woman who helps with playground duty who always seems to have that extra eye out for your little guy and a kind word for you, how about placing a card in her hand to say thank you for making my world brighter.

My kids and I left for school thirty minutes earlier this morning to drop off homemade cards and $4.99 tulip bunches at the homes of two dear friends we know are struggling this year. One recently divorced, one just beginning the process.

In doing this, we became the ones receiving our own Valentine's Day diamonds, the ones glistening in our friends' eyes.

*Happy Valentine's Day to all the wonderful people I've met here. You have been so good to me and I am so very lucky to know you. Thank you for your kindness.

cc
Photopin via Pinksherbet
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**Plans for tonight? Dinner and a movie? Thinking about seeing The Vow? Well, I saw it. And I had to blog about it.

My post up today at Sprocket Ink, dishing on the No. One box office draw this Valentine's Day.

Where news meets snark. daily.

Latinaness

TikiTiki, a community blog that I am proud to be a part of, is running my post today on "Latinaness."

I ask who, what, how, determines the definition of "being enough."

Does anyone have a right to do that? Have you ever felt excluded by a group that you identify with?

I hope you click over, and tell me your feelings on others deciding whether or not you are enough of a something to belong.

Thank you, as always, for taking the time to learn more about the woman who blogs here.

I appreciate it so very much.

The Thing About The Bloggess Is This

The Bloggess.

Boom.

Just having that up as the post title and I risk having my site crash.

Saying you've never heard of The Bloggess is like Paul McCartney believing Heather Mills when she turned to him and said, "The Beatles? I never heard of them."

Yeah. Suspect. Like that.

The series I've been doing this month highlighting the Great Depression Slayers of 2010 is now down to the second last living hero in my life: Jenny Lawson, The Bloggess. It took only two weeks back in 2008, when I first found out about blogs and bloggers to land at Jenny's site. Picture a woman, a quiet introspective over analytical woman who has been feeling like she fell off the face of the earth since she began staying home with her children in 1995. Feeling different and unlike the other SAHMs she's met. Hiding the truth about her depression, anxiety, and just pick a card already...they'd all apply.

Then she clicks over to a site and the post she finds there reads as if her brain has just been pulled out and transcribed. That woman would be me, mouth all agape, and spending close to 3 hours clicking on post after post at a blog called The Bloggess. Finding more and more words that make me feel like I found my tribe. The commenters there, hundreds of them, all saying the same thing: we have found our Mother Ship, and her name is Jenny.

I followed Jenny Lawson over from a passing mention on another site, it read "...like something you'd see at The Bloggess'." Lackadaisical like that, as if we should all just know The Bloggess.  After clicking over, I couldn't leave.

Because this is the thing about The Bloggess. She has this we're all in this together feeling in her writing. And it's sincere. You can't convince me otherwise. You feel her love for you, her compassion and you know if you needed her, for whatever reason, she'd do anything to get you the right words you needed to hear to make it through just one more day.

That's one thing about The Bloggess.  The other is that she makes you just want to hop on a plane to Texas and be her bestie.

To hell with your Fear of Flying.

Jenny, for the four years you've given me, and the many more years you've given everyone else who has fallen so easily in love with you, Thank You for loving on us. For taking us into your fold and whispering, shhhhh...it's ok, you'll make it -- I'm making it, look at me. Giant metal chickens named Beyonce knocking on my mofo front door and all.

I'm making it, Jenny, and you've helped me, by giving me a place where I feel I belong.

I love you, Jenny Lawson.

 Photo of The Bloggess by Karen Walrond

 **This blogger was one of the handful so implicit in my making it through the winters and the seasonal depression they bring, before I began my own blog in 2010 and became a part of this incredible online community. During this month, I'll be highlighting the bloggers I call "The Great Depression Slayers of 2010." To the crucial ones I clung to before I began blogging, the ones that pulled me through, I thank you.
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