Mom to the Screaming Masses

Life Well Lived - Is Happiness Found Online?

 

 

How does blogging, journaling, writing and connecting online help to increase your happiness?

The simple answer is, how does it NOT?

Blogging and connecting online has been an integral part of my life for more than 12 years now. It's brought me friends, given me opportunities and taught me more than I ever dreamed possible.

When Gabe was a baby - TWELVE years ago - I discovered a website called One Hot Mama. I was originally searching for nursing clothing that didn't look like they belonged on Little House on the Prairie.

Nothing wrong with that show. I love that show. Just don't want to dress like it, kwim?

The discussion boards quickly became part of my life. I found friends there that were more authentic and understanding than people who were in my life on a daily basis. We formed such a tight bond that I traveled across the country with my baby to spend a week with these women - who I had NEVER met and who my husband was convinced weren't real people - and I never looked back.

When one of the women started a blog, I decided to follow suit.

And the rest is history.

I will forever be grateful to the women of OHM, who befriended me, supported me, corrected me lovingly when I was wrong, taught me so much more than I ever imagined, and are still, to this day, there for me in ways that those on the outside cannot imagine. From these first online friends I learned compassion, stick-to-it-iv-ness, developed moxie and a backbone.

Currently, the vast majority of my friends live in the computer. I know more about online friends than local, spend vast quantities of time online and can't imagine my life without an online component. I've taken blog junket trips to Ford, Stouffers, Campbells and Ninja sponsored events, learned about nutrition initiatives on trips to NYC and save my pennies every year to attend blog conferences - all the things I do that make me one happy person.

 

All online friends - women I love more than life itself - all of whom live inside my computer

Head over to Blogher and enter to win an iPod Touch and a $50 iTunes giftcard!

Making Together Better

This is my entry into the "Win a full sponsorship to the Type A Conference" contest sponsored by Brica. The theme is Making Together Better.

For a long time, I thought that the problem was other people.

They were unhappy. They were demanding. So, so demanding. They had unrealistic expectations and desires and were intolerant. Being with those other people was no fun. They wanted SO MUCH! I could feel the judgement and the harsh stares. Hear the critical words, and even more importantly, the words that went unsaid. I constantly felt left out, ignored, the wallflower on the sidelines who wanted, so badly, to be included.

I tried to fit in. Oh, how I tried. I tried on personality after personality, as if they were thrift store jeans, discarding them as quickly as I'd adopted them. Each time I became someone new, to try to fit in to the mold, to become who they'd want to be around, to make them happy. If I didn't agree with what the crowd did, oh well. Even in my marriage and family relationships - I tried to be the person that I *thought* each relationship needed. The harder I worked at being who everyone else wanted, the further I got from being who I was supposed to be.

But that's ok, I rationalized. Everyone else seems fine with the status quo.

Until one day I realized, quite simply, that the problem was me. I was unhappy.

And I decided to work on that.

How do I Make Together Better? By making ME better. I took some time and really got to know me. Who I am, who I want to be. What makes me laugh, what makes me cry, and what makes me so unbelievably happy that there are no words. I stopped doing the things that other people thought I needed to do to be a complete and whole human being - and I did those things that I know fulfill me.The activites and pleasures that make me happy, that scream "Carmen" from the rooftops.

I took up boxing. I earned my black belt in Muay Thai. I started cooking and baking from scratch.

Sometimes I take myself out to lunch. Alone. Sometimes I go to bed at 9. Alone.

I make sure to take time to read every day. I started going to the beach without my kids. I remember to get a pedicure regularly, and I started to devote time to my physical appearance.

I want to like what I see in the mirror. It makes me feel good.

And I began, once again, to dance. Having spent my formative years dancing, it has always been a part of me. But mothers don't dance, especially mothers of large families and mothers of a certain age and mothers of teenagers DEFINITELY don't dance. And religious people - one of the many robes I'd tried - certainly they don't dance.

Dancing makes me happy. Dancing makes me complete. I no longer care if you think I should dance - because it's as vital to me as the air I breathe.

You've changed! I've heard time and again from people I used to follow, used to idolize, used to form my life around. What's gotten in to you?

Me. I've gotten into Me.

By getting to know me, by learning what makes me happy, by spending time and attention to make me the very best me that I can be - I'm making us better. All the parts of us. I'm no longer busy trying to make you happy, but by making myself happy - I'm making together better. Giving you the best of me makes us better.

All of us.

We are all worth it.

______________________________

Thanks to Brica for giving me the opportunity to write something that has been rattling around for quite a while. Please check Brica out on Facebook and The Twitter. I probably would never have written this if it wasn't for the Type A contest - I've never been, and won't be able to afford it, so I was excited to see this opportunity.

 

 

Other Stuff to See

Lots of linkage extraordinaire for your reading pleasure:

If you need a Mother's Day gift, I can highly recommend Red Envelope - and in particular, these silk pajamas - which I totally gave to myself. But! Never fear! There's lots of other Mother's Day stuff going up THIS WEEK.

I'm giving away a $50 Food Lion Grocery store gift card

I am pleased to announce that I have been hired to write a blog, sponsored by Reynolds,(you know the foil people - but they are so!much!more!)  in which I talk Baking with Kids. My first two posts are up - Baking 101 and How to Get Started Cooking with Kids.

On the Hallmark blog, I am talking Letters from Home. Do you have special letters that you've saved?

i had a very bad day today. It started off terribly with shrieking and screaming and door slamming and yelling and tantrums and ended up worse - but! There was a brief moment of awesome, when I went to the dermatologist for my melanoma follow up and was pronounced to be -

MELANOMA FREE.

Which is every bit as awesome as it sounds.

But because every cloud has a silver lining, the kid I took with me to have a wart cut out (because after three attempts to freeze it off, and it still remains, Mama don't play around) had to have a super suspicious place cut out.And sent to pathology.

Roller coaster, here I am.

I did buy myself a cupcake today. AND I ATE IT. I deserved it.

 

 

 

I Hate Tennis for a Reason

When we were in Puerto Rico - and seriously? I know I've started a dozen posts this way. I'm almost finished, I swear.

Anywho, back to the story.

My husband loves to play tennis. I hate to play tennis. I mean, I HATTTTTEEEEE to play tennis. It ranks right up there with, say, shooting pool -

which is also something that he loves to do. Sigh. Poor him, married to me.

On Friday, he really wanted to play tennis. He asked his workmate, who had gone on the trip with us, and whose wife is MUCH more fun than I am - and both of them wanted to play tennis. So I put on a new to me pair of shorts (my dear friend Kendra had sent them to me just the day before I left, and this becomes very important later in the story) and begrudgingly made my way down the street to the courts.

Picture Me, Raising My Diet Coke to You

So, I spent the entire of today getting @#$#& done.

It was a long overdue day. I paid a few bills. Balanced my checkbook. Cleared up my spreadsheets. Transferred my SIRIUS subscription over (finally) to my Jeep. Made dermatology appointments and allergy appointments and above all, I cleaned.

I spent 5 hours upstairs. I didn't touch the big peoples rooms - but the two bathrooms and the two bedrooms (as well as my own) that were cleaned - they were really, really cleaned.

I washed clothes. I hung up clothes. As soon as I'm done with this post, imagine that you will see me folding those clothes and setting up the steamer.

I washed dishes. I cleaned out the refrigerator. I emptied all of the trash. I vacuumed and dusted and put the house back in some semblance of order.

I will not get thanked for doing these things.

My husband? Yes. He will thank me. Mostly because I'm a total brat and spend vast quantities of time - time that could be better spent ironing, say - pointing out what I did and how much work it was and how tired I am. The rest of the family could care less, and while I was working today - I realized that the work we do as mothers and wives is badly under appreciated.

Booty Shorts in the Rain Forest

Pictures or it didn't happen.

It's a common refrain 'round here.

I'm sure you know what it means, but if not - I don't believe what you are telling me unless I see it with my own eyes.

When we were in Puerto Rico (yes, I'm still talking about this trip, what can I say, a LOT of stuff happened on it!) we were given the opportunity to choose from two tours. We didn't have to take either - we could have stayed at the hotel and hung out by the pool - which was my choice. But the husband and I, we vacay differently.

In his opinion, rest is for the weak and the dead. On vacay, you see everything everywhere that you possibly can. I go away to sleep. And to lay by the pool. And sleep some more.

Faith, Strawberries and First Communion

Wednesday afternoon, Riley was cutting strawberries. I had her set up on a bar stool, with a cutting board and a knife. I've taught her knife safety and how to cut without leaving fruit OR fingers behind. She is the primary eater of the strawberries, so I figured it'd be a good job for her - and it is - she takes it very seriously.

My husband came in, saw her cutting the fruit, and stopped dead.

She's cutting the strawberries, he said.

Yep, I said. That's her job today.

But, she's using a knife, he remarked. Shouldn't she be using a butter knife?

Now I've Seen Everything

We were scheduled to leave Puerto Rico on Sunday at 3:30. Being that it was a) Sunday and b) Divine Mercy Sunday, my husband made it a point to find out when and where the closest Catholic church was having Mass.

12:30, six blocks away.

The shuttle was scheduled to pick us up at 1:30.

Whoops.

The Book of Jonas - Blogher Book Club Selection

I have this thing with books. I have to like the characters - or, at least, the main character. I have to. I've been known to stop reading books if I don't like the main character.

I most emphatically did not like Jonas.

I still read The Book of Jonas. It was that good.

The story of a 15 year old boy who was the victim of war violence in an unnamed Muslim country - that aggravate me like no other, I desperately wanted to know where he was from - Jonas loses everything and comes to America as a refuge. He finds love and loses it, and realizes that he can't move forward in his life until he faces, and more importantly understands, what happened to him in his home country.

Books that aren't linear aggravate me.

This book wasn't linear. It bounced from before to after, with stops along the way at during and current.  There were unclear hints and tiny nudges of concepts that made no sense - until, suddenly, they did.

I still read it. I still thought about it, and reflected, and pondered.

It was that good.

A Comment Can Stick With You Forever

***Comments are too heated and thus have been closed.***

I think I've made great strides in myself in the past five years.

Losing a lot of weight, getting a job, suffering a major injury, having a miscarriage, and a small nervous breakdown, seeing my blog take off, quitting that job, getting another one, losing that job and various other life circumstances will do that to a person. One thing I have tried to work on again and again is my self confidence.

That, and my alcohol tolerance. Ba-da-Boom!

All kidding aside, I've worked really hard to not let other people's opinions or comments get me down, to stop being someone who is so affected by the words of others, and to enjoy my life without worrying what others think of me. I think I've been pretty successful in this.

When I was a kid and took dance, the instructor told me that I couldn't do jazz because I was no good at it. She made the class so uncomfortable for me that for years I assumed she was right - I couldn't "popular dance". And I never tried, and was so self conscious when we went out that I avoided dancing at all costs.

So not the case now. I break it DOWN. Ahem.