Author Archives: JL

Some Days You Just Gotta Laugh

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Source: Pixababy

It’s been a bit of a tiring (yes, tiring – not trying) week for me. I want to say I’m not sure if that’s good or bad, because I want to believe there might be some good in being this exhausted. The good part would be that I’m kind of surprised it’s already Thursday—like really, the whole week is almost gone? That went fast.

Of course, other than dragging my ass out to do two interviews for a feature I’m writing on deadline, I slept all but four hours of Wednesday. So there’s a whole lost day vibe going on.

Anyway, I needed a break. Tomorrow I’ll kick it in gear and get my feature written, or at least get a first draft. Tonight, I needed to laugh. And when I need to laugh out loud, belly grabbing, tears running down my leg kind of laughing, there are a few go-to blogs I can pop in on for some good guffaws.

One of my favorites, The Bloggess never disappoints. Her latest post got me thinking about the weirdest advice my mother ever gave me. It was hard to come up with something. Not that she didn’t give me tons—megatons even—of advice, but most of it was good.

I know, it turns out mother are always right.

Then I remembered the weirdest of some pretty not weird words my mother shared with me. She told me, “Any time you think about marrying a man, ask yourself if you can stand to smell his dirty sox and underwear.”

It still makes me laugh. I can’t help conjuring a picture of literally nose sucking stinking foot and butt clothing. I don’t even want to go into the situations where this might arise.

mom-1364496_1280Some kind of kinky foreplay?

Honestly, though, I knew what she meant because at the time she was emptying my father’s clothes hamper to do the laundry. So not only did she have to sniff these smelly items retrieving them from the bottom of the hamper, she had to handle them, launder them and fold them.

As it turned out, it might have been the best advice my mother ever gave me. Many times when my stomach was executing back flips and my heart was going pit-a-pat over some Studley Do-Right ( do me right, do me wrong, who cares just do me now), I’d hear my mother’s words and immediately the image of his smelly unmentionables would pop into my head. The steamy moment was murdered; talk about your birth control.

Bottom line, you really, really have to love somebody (man or woman) to be willing to get that up close and personal with their smelliest laundry. So, thank you Mom, for the weirdest, best advice you ever gave me.

Oh, and btw, I married a man who does all his own laundry.

Drop a comment on me and share the funniest, weirdest or worst advice your mother ever gave you.

 

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I’m Blogging Along With Effy all this month. Click here to learn more.


These Things Happen

Just when I thought I had it all figured out, navigating this blogging platform stuff. Ugh. I shared a post on social media and even though I selected a featured image when I posted, it doesn’t show up in the link. Instead there is a big blank space.

Technically, I should say I thought I had it figured out again—because I’ve done all this before, and before that and even before that. But I don’t post consistently. I let my blog languish and then I forget how the platform works. So, I’ve joined a group of other bloggers in a challenge to post daily.

I’m blogging along with Effy Wild and her tribe, a fabulously creative woman, an inspiration not only by her artistic talent, but also her determination to navigate her life with honesty and grace.

A little voice in my head is telling me, Effy would have none of that blank space. She would find the problem and fix it.

It’s almost midnight and I’m cranky; my inner bitch is saying Fuck Effy (sorry Effy, you know I love you). It’s probably because I’ve been binge watching The Handmaid’s Tale and my inner bitch in overdrive, not at all in the mood to conform.

Still, I hate that big blank space. It’s not like the promise of a blank canvas—I already did the work, I made the pretty picture. You’ll just have to take my word for it.

These things happen.

“And so I step up into the darkness within. Or else the light.” Offred—The Handmaid’s Tale

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Happiness Is Wanting What You Have

Somebody said that. I don’t know who, or if they were important or well known. Whoever it was also added that happiness is not having what you want.

Fifteen years ago I was meandering around the interwebs looking for things. I wasn’t sure what things, but things that would fulfill me, fill me. I’d know when I found it.

I found SoulCollage®. I knew I wanted it, or rather, wanted to learn how to create the telling cards and use the system of self discovery that was going to bring positive change in my life and others I would teach.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have the spare change to fly my ass out to the West Coast, the only place training was offered at the time, let alone to cover the fee for the weekend intensive. So, I did what I always do, read every word I could find and improvised.

Almost ten years later, SoulCollage® training made it’s way east, to Chicago. This time I scraped up the fee, enrolled in the training and pointed my little VW Bug toward the Windy City.

It was everything I expected, and less. Let me explain. I was not disappointed in the least by the substance and quality of the training, the experience of community that I found with those of like mind, or the unique location—a former Catholic campus, turned residence home for retired nuns and priests.

Are you kidding me? A gaggle of middle aged feminists dallying with tarot-like image cards to access our soul purpose? We may as well have hauled out the Ouiji board and pentagrams.

Turns out the nuns were not only curious, but very open to the concept. As I explained it to one of them over lunch she smiled and said to me, “Oh, you mean you’re trying to know your inner Christ.”

You say potAto, I say potAHto . . . we’re both still eating carbs.

So, back to the part about being less than I expected. It didn’t change my life in any revolutionary way (at least not then). Probably because like many things I want with all of my being when I see them, once in my possession there are new wants to pursue. Nature of the beast, or nurturing from a consumer driven environment pushing us to always acquire more in our doing, being and having? New flash!  There is never enough, we are never enough in that paradigm.Screen Shot 2017-09-02 at 11.45.07 PM

So, as it turns out, I’ve made quite a collection of SoulCollage® cards, and a funny thing happened along the way, a subtle change in my wants. Sure, some of my cards  speak to me about consumption and abundance, and time running out, about wanting what my eyes see—like this one. Can’t you just hear her, saying it . . . “Oh, I want that!”

But so many others are about hidden magic, creativity, freedom from expectations and a sense of wonder at the unexpected. Like me, a recovering Catholic school girl pulling up to a nunnery and not running in the opposite direction; totally unexpected. Or so enjoying the three days spent there that I have wanted to return ever since!

It’s very first world, to be able to say I’m learning to want fewer material things from the physical realm. It means I am secure and my needs are met—there is no wolf at the door. It’s the epitome of privilege to say I’m learning to want what I have instead of having what I want.

It’s where I’m at and who I am right now. And it’s enough.

I am the MAD Goddess, and I’ve got the *magic* in me.

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