Category Archives: Ten Day Challenge

10 Day Challenge (10!)

Posted on December 2, 2010 | 5 comments

Day Ten: One confession.

The last of the Ten Day Challenge has me a little uncomfortable.  I don’t have a lot of secrets.  So, a confession isn’t easy for me to come up with.  The only real option is to say something “out loud” that makes me uncomfortable.  It is not a secret, so it isn’t really a  confession, that I want to get pregnant next Spring.

The confession is that I am terrified.  I am scared I won’t be able to get pregnant.  I am scared that something will go wrong with a resulting pregnancy and I won’t know how to not be heartbroken, even though I “have a perfectly healthy child already.”  I am scared that my age will have caught up with me and another pregnancy might not be as easy as my last.  I am scared that “trying” to get pregnant will become the most unromantic thing ever, thereby ruining whatever honeymoon phase MQD and I get to experience after our wedding.  I am scared I will get pregnant and everything will go beautifully until I have an infant in my arms.  And then I will begin to mourn the loss of the time when it was just me and Emily and I will never love another as I do her.  I  am scared that the peace I have come to with my post-baby body will not come back to me again.  I am scared.  Of everything.

I am scared to say it out loud.  That I want another baby.  I wanted another child not long after I had Emily.  I loved being pregnant.  I want Em to be a sister.  I want MQD to experience fatherhood from conception.  I want him to be a  Daddy and not “just a Mike.”  Even though I absolutely know he is not just a Mike, and I hope against hope he knows that, too.  I want to trust that it will happen when it’s right, if it’s right.  But I want it so god damn badly.  And as I have written about in the past… I don’t feel really comfortable when I want something so badly.  Because wanting something opens the door for failing to achieve it.

The scariest part?  I truly believe it will all be fine.  I do.  But I sure do love worrying about things I can’t control.  Call it a hobby.

Super pregnant with Emily…. this reminds me, I need new Reefs.  They are fabulous flip-flops.  I loved this day.  I felt huge.  And ready.  This was about two weeks before Em was born.

About five months pregnant at a Panic show  in Portsmouth.  Proof that I stick my tongue out  if you point a camera at me, even when I am not drinking.

About two month’s pregnant at Scott & Lauren’s wedding.  Proof that I  hug my brother occasionally, even when I am not drinking.

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10 Day Challenge (9) Happy Thanksgiving!!

Posted on November 25, 2010 | 1 comment

Day Nine: Two smileys that describe your life right now.

This one is easy.  :) and  :)

I really couldn’t be happier.  So very much to be thankful for.  Hope you’re all with your family enjoying a day dedicated to remembering the things we need most.  Food, friends, family and wine.

 

 

Happy Thanksgiving.

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10 Day Challenge (8)

Posted on November 24, 2010 | Leave a comment

Day Eight: Three turn-ons.

In thinking about this the last few minutes I realized (for the first time TODAY, certainly not the last) what a big, fat sap I am.  For such a crass girl, I sure have a sweet spot for romance.

  1. Good manners.  Open the door for me, or pull out my chair.  And I will probably blush if I don’t know you.
  2. When MQD puts his hand in the middle of my back when he walks by me in the house.  It is the smallest gesture.  But it makes me feel like his girl .
  3. Al Green.  Yep, I’m that complicated.  All it takes is Al Green.

Or if you really want  to melt me…. look at me like this.

And then like this….

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10 Day Challenge (7)

Posted on November 23, 2010 | 2 comments

Day Seven: Four turn offs.

  1. Close-minded people make me bonkers.  Opinionated, I adore, but close-minded?  I am immediately disinterested in spending any time with you.
  2. This could be a sub-category of being close-minded but it deserves its own spot on the list.  Homophobes.  How could I love or be attracted to a person that doesn’t understand that on a basic level I didn’t decide to love or be attracted to them?  That it is just who I am.   It’s that simple.
  3. Disrespect.  Whether it is their mother, or their bartender, or their children, or their friends.  It is impossible for me to see a person treat other people with disrespect and not wonder when they will turn that same behavior on me .
  4. And lest you start thinking I am not at all shallow… I will give you the double-whammy for Number 4.  Two shallow turn-offs for the price of one.  Shortness and jacked up teeth.

(P.S.  I recognize how absurd it is to say I am “turned-off” by people who are close-minded AND then list an arbitrary characteristic like height.  But below you’ll see there is a reason, really, there is.)

This reminds me of a tale from long ago that I recently shared with a couple of friends via email.   Pasting it here to share with the rest of you, it is  a pretty fair description of what it is I don’t find attractive about short men. As well as a good example of my inability to censor myself.

You know when someone repeats something to you that you said and you think “oh no… I totally said that, it sounds just like me.”

Way back a hundred years ago I was tending bar and I had a great customer, he was at my bar every night and he LOVED me. He was very short.  This didn’t stop him from laying it on thick, nightly. He comes in one evening and he is a little more tight-lipped than normal. I said “What’s the deal? You over me?” And I laughed.

He says “Well, since you said what you said last night I guess I don’t have a chance, huh?” And all of a sudden it all started to come back, I remembered running in to him at the bar late night.

Foolishly, I said “What the hell did I say?”

He says with a sheepish grin “You said you like to kiss and fuck at the same time.”

All I could say was “Umm, yeah, I pretty much do.”

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10 Day Challenge (6)

Posted on November 21, 2010 | Leave a comment

Day Six: Five people who mean a lot (in no order whatsoever)

I have a tough time separating “units” of people.  So, in some ways I guess it would be cheating to put together a list like this.

  1. My parents (Mom & David, Dad &Cathy)
  2. My brother and his wife, Lauren
  3. Emily June
  4. MQD
  5. Jeremy

Not particularly interesting.  But 100% true.  I am so very lucky to have amazing friends.  But I think I am even luckier that the people I call my family are among them.

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10 Day Challenge (5)

Posted on November 21, 2010 | Leave a comment

Day Five: Six things you wish you’d never done.

I try to live without regret.  The big things, the hard things, the things that make me who I am, there’s nothing I’d change.  Because I believe in my heart of hearts I am the person that I am because of the choices I have made.  This makes forgiveness a hard thing for me to wrap my mind around, both of myself and of others.  Because I think people really are a sum of their parts.  But I’ll give this a whirl.

  1. Start smoking.  The very first time.  I don’t think I would have started if I’d not started so young.  I wasn’t one to just roll along with the crowd once I got older.  Damn you and you enticing Capri Menthol Ultra Lights from the vending machine at the Chinese restaurant.
  2. Worry so damn much about my weight.  Especially when looking back I can see I was strong and healthy.  And dare I say, thin?
  3. Rip my stitches out of my arm at lunch when I was 8.  Because I have a gross scar I’d likely not have if I’d not done that.
  4. Wait so long to tell my dad that I have a hard time communicating with him.  I know it hurt him to hear, but it wasn’t his fault.  We are so similar.  And just saying it out loud made it ten times better instantly.
  5. Hide from people that cared about me when I was in the thick of my divorce.  I missed two weddings because I didn’t want anyone that knew me to see how much I was hurting.  I avoided phone calls.  I hid.  In a time of my life when I needed to reach out most.  I just wasn’t ready to see someone make that “Ohhh… I am so sorry to hear that” face.  I thought that I’d be pitied.  And I couldn’t stomach that.  When I finally pulled my big-girl pants on and reached out I realized that the people I loved, and that loved me, were proud of me for making changes.  For taking steps towards happiness even though I was frightened.  They didn’t pity me at all.  I wasted a lot of time.
  6. Stop wearing my retainer.  Because while it works for Lauren Hutton, I hate the gap in my teeth.

And one to grow on… said the girl who has no regrets.  I wish I hadn’t discounted the necessity of women in my life for so long.  I was “one of the boys” for a long, long time.  And I thought it was because I didn’t really like women, or they didn’t like me.  I can see now it was because your girlfriends don’t let you get away with shit .   They call your bluff and see right through you.  I’m glad I figured this one out when I did.  But I can’t imagine how much less lonely I’d have been if I’d figured it out sooner.

And just because this makes me giggle…

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10 Day Challenge (4)

Posted on November 20, 2010 | Leave a comment

Day Four: Seven things that cross your mind a lot.

This is a pretty easy challenge, as I am fairly simple-minded.

  1. I wonder if anyone else thought that was funny.
  2. Wow, I am lucky.  Who knew?
  3. Sex.
  4. Can anyone tell I am crying?
  5. Baby girl, I love you like crazy, love you.  And I am so proud of you.  And of me.
  6. Am I really hungry or just bored?
  7. Sex.

Yup.  Sex places twice.  Amidst food, my disbelief over how lucky I am and how beautifully my life has come together, my overwhelming love for my daughter, my inability to not both laugh and cry when the spirit moves me … yeah… that’s about right.  That’s pretty much what I think about.  In between thinking like a fourteen year old boy.

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10 Day Challenge (3)

Posted on November 18, 2010 | Leave a comment

Day Three: Eight ways to win your heart.

  1. Well here are 365 ways.  And 365 more.  
  2. Be honest.  With me, sure.  But with yourself, first and foremost.
  3. Be funny. Think I am funny.  Laugh easily.
  4. Make direct eye contact with me for long enough for it to  almost be uncomfortable.
  5. Love a band with all your heart.  Or ten bands.  I don’t care what band it is, shitty or not, but if music moves you then you “get me.”  Extra points if you can’t really sing or play an instrument.
  6. Be self confident.  To the point of being cocky.
  7. Challenge me.
  8. Wear a god damn belt.  Always.  Wear a belt.

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10 Day Challenge (2) & Day 53

Posted on November 18, 2010 | 2 comments

Quick and dirty, right to the point…..

Day Two: Nine things about yourself.

  1. I miss my family even more now that I am happier.  That seems backwards to me.
  2. Lists like this make me very self-conscious.
  3. I don’t read as often or as much  as I wish I did.
  4. Of all the things I no longer have a budget for (booze, smokes, shoes, drugs & rock and roll) the thing I miss buying most is underwear.
  5. If I hadn’t encouraged Em to wean at 3.5 I think she’d still be nursing.  And I am okay with that.
  6. Watching shitty television, while it is an embarrassing habit, is more relaxing to me even than napping.  Because I have an awful time falling asleep.
  7. Locking the doors to the house at any time other than before I go to bed makes me feel unnecessarily frightened.  I feel more comfortable with the windows open and the doors unlocked than I do barricaded in my house.  Even after our home was broken in to last year, I still rarely lock my doors when we are home.
  8. I would much rather be cold than hot.
  9. I think I cry once a day.  Sometimes more.  The Happiness meter is judged by whether or not I was crying over something silly and sentimental or something sad.   But I’d rather be over-emotional than a robot.

And as for Day 53’s challenge to “Return to Sender” all my junk mail, I finally got some last night.  (Heh, some junk mail, I mean.) However, none of it is really worth sending back.

Can’t send back catalogs, they provide countless hours of entertainment in our house.  They barely qualify as “junk mail.”  And while I generally consider unsolicited requests for charitable donations to fall in the category of “junk mail” I am not going to go to mail it back to them, costing them time and money in processing its return.  So, in order to keep today from being a total wash, I did look up the way to stop receiving ValPak coupons.  Because they annoy the crap out of me.  I have never used one.  Ever.  And yet, I’d bet there are a few on my fridge right now.

Now, if you’ll excuse me I am gonna wake this lazy bag o’ bones and take him outside for a few.

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10 Day Challenge & a kick in the ass

Posted on November 17, 2010 | Leave a comment

I have much to report and a lot of things on my mind.  And sadly, very little time to get it all on paper. Sometime the floating around of BIG ideas makes it harder to sit down and get something down.  A friend (who has incidentally abandoned me in our shared mission to change my “Life”  with “This Book“) recently shared a mini challenge that I decided to go  ahead and do here, in an effort to make myself sit down and get something “on paper.”

Quick synopsis and then on to my first day of the ten day challenge.

As for “This Book” and the Life Changin’ – Day 53’s challenge is to return my junk mail to the sender.  And I kid you not I have not received a SINGLE piece of junk mail since Thursday, Nov 11 (which was Veteran’s Day, hence no mail.) But I will be back on that horse ASAP.

In other news…. Em’s dad came to visit.  She was over the moon.

And… in even BIGGER news… someone else tagged along for the trip and will be staying for an indeterminate length of time.

Much to say about both of these developments… but for now day one of Kristen’s challenge.

Day One: Ten things you want to say to ten different people right now.

1.  Are you fucking kidding me?  ( I pretty much want to say this to this person at least once a day.)

2.  Thank you.  For holding on, to get to here.

3.  Changing your name won’t actually make you any cooler or more talented.

4.  So, did you get it?  Or are you ignoring it to be cool?  Or am I reading too much in to this?

5.   You don’t really have your feelings hurt, right?  Because for fuck’s sake…

6.  Or you could reorganize your schedule to suit that of mine and my CHILD’S.  In case you didn’t get the capitalization that was to put emphasis on the fact that Em is the child in this scenario, not you.

7.  Thank you.  With every piece of me, I thank you.  I don’t know where men like you come from, and I am not counting on ever needing to find another one… so i guess that’s okay.

8.  Is it really okay that I swear this much?  Because sometimes I think it is, and then I think maybe it isn’t, and then you say “fuck” in a meeting and I start thinking, again, that I over-think this kind of thing….

9.  Please.  Please, be here in April. I know it’s not in your control, but it won’t be the same without you.

10.  Let’s do it.   

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