Favorite Things Friday

Hey friends!

No theme this week because, quite frankly, I'm too tired to be creative and theme-y.  Instead, I'll stick closer to the High Fives for Friday format that Lauren at From My Grey Desk uses.  Sorry if that disappoints in any way.

1.  I'm moving to this building!  (Also, my post from yesterday didn't publish somehow and it's a fun and interactive one so keep scrolling and enjoy yourselves.  At this point it's already a little outdated but it'll do!)

 2.  My baby sister gets married TWO WEEKS FROM TOMORROW!  Ah!!!  Way back when they got engaged (two years ago) I planned to write a post about them and it never happened.  Expect wedding posts soon.  Because really, after I move next week, that's all I'll be thinking about for a good week!

3.  That nail polish from yesterday is still a high-five.  Seriously.  It's rocking my world.

4.  The blog address has changed - subtly.  I started the blog before I had two little munchkins (the photo is from the first day I had Charlie.  My how they have grown.) and never got around the changing the address.  So I've finally added the "s" officially instead of just having an (s) in the title.  I needed to make the change now because.......


5.  My dear friend Lindsay (why do I always call her that when I write about her?!) is in the process of helping me revamp the blog.  Stay tuned, friends.  I'm jazzed about the upcoming changes and am so happy she's forcing me to stop procrastinating.  Even if she is a total pain in my butt for adding one more thing to the to do list right now.


Happy Friday!

Happy Birthday Lady Bug!

Lady turned 3 yesterday, which means I've had for a 2.5 years. 

The last 2.5 years have been pretty full (for me and for her, I'm sure considering that she's seen more of the world than some children at 3).  That's 2.5 years of moving, traveling and road tripping, working, snuggling, reading, arguing, and loving.  I didn't even like cats that much when I first got her and now I literally could not imagine my life without Lady and Charlie to go home to.  They really do make anywhere I'm living feel like home.

Below is a photo collage of some of our favorite moments in Lady's 3 years.  The day I brought her home, the day I brought Charlie home, outfits I've made her wear (my favorite moments, not hers), football games, days she came to work with me, driving to my parents' house, hours looking out the window at the world outside, and countless mornings and nights spent cuddling in bed.

Enjoy!

Maybe I Really Can Do Anything...

One of my coworkers jokingly asks on a regular basis if there is anything I can't do.  I've accomplished a lot in my life, mostly though my own hard work and the support of pretty great people around me.  But there's is one thing I have never been able to do.

Quit biting my nails.

For people who don't have this habit, it sounds so simply.  Just stop.  Or keep them painted.  Or use that bitter stuff.

Easier said than done.

I have quit a lot of things in my life, in addition to the aforementioned accomplishments.  I quit smoking.  I've "quit" people who were worse than bad habits.  I've quit jobs.  But quitting the nail biting?  Nope.  No such luck.

Until recently.

I really wanted natural nails for my sister's wedding.  And more than just natural, I didn't want them to look painful.  You see, I used to bite my nails to the point that they bled.  And then I'd chew around the finger nails and down to the cuticles.  If I painted my nails, I just chipped off the polish until I could get to the nails again.  But I was bound and determined to have pretty nails for the up coming wedding.

It may very well be the hardest thing I've ever done.  And I'm not exaggerating.

But here, without further ado, is a photo of how far I've come.

It is really hard to take pictures of your own hands, FYI.

Let's take a closer look, shall we?

THOSE ARE REAL FREAKING NAILS!!

I've been keeping them painted to help strengthen them, but last Friday I had to take the polish off because they had chipped and I had some important meetings to attend.  I panicked a little because I had just enough time to take off the polish but not enough time to repaint them.  And I made it a whole day without chewing, picking, or biting.

If I really can break this habit, maybe I really can do anything I set my mind to.

Have you done anything recently that you're really proud of?

Celebrating Women

So I know Mothers Day has come and gone but I'm a bit behind on my "daily" reading of articles, other blogs, magazines, on and on and on... So bear with me.  This week, I'll be writing a few different posts responding to a couple of things I should have read closer to Mothers Day.  I want to reflect on these, mostly because my mom is a) awesome and b) incredible but also because it's worth discussing the power of awesome and incredible women every day not just one day in the year where Hallmark tells us to talk about it.  That's not to say I think of Mothers Day as just a Hallmark holiday in the least.  Quite the opposite.

This paragraph from a recent Math Geek Mom post on Mama PhD, a blog I read regularly from InsideHigherEd.com, has stuck with me.

Mother’s Day is often anticipated with advertisements for flowers and greeting cards, with hardly a mention of the very radical origin of the day. Indeed, the day was created by Julia Ward Howe in 1870 as a day for women, especially mothers, to come together to work for peace. The day’s founders proposed that the women of the world, with a vested interest in the well-being of the next generation, could find ways to create a better world. As I think of the women I know who mother, I have to agree.

If that's true, which I'm assuming it is, that's awesome.  Seriously awesome.  In part because Mothers Day isn't about being a good mom or a bad mom or a trying-really-hard mom or not being a mom at all.  It's about celebrating women.

Celebrating the power of women coming together to change the world.  

Celebrating leaving this place better for those that come after us than it was for our own generations.

I've talked about this a little before, but I want to discuss it again.  I am not a mom.  I don't know that I ever want to be a mom.  But I cherish the children in my life who I am blessed to be close to.  And I serve as a mother / big sister / crazy aunt / mentor to dozens of students at the many colleges where I've worked.  I had multiple "Happy Pseudo-Mothers Day" messages.

That in no way diminishes true moms out there.  I made a point to reach out to all the mommies in my life - my friends who have small children or are expecting - and was so grateful to spend Mothers Day with my own mom and sister - something we haven't always had the luxury to do since we're all spread out.

But Mothers Day was created to be bigger than that.

It was created to to celebrate the power of positive female interaction.  And again, that's just awesome.

Too often, women are tough on one another.  We get down on each out about how we look and what we wear, what we say and what we don't say, how we parent or don't parent (more on that in a later post)... really, we get down on each other for just about everything.  And in turn we get down on ourselves and it's a ridiculous vicious cycle.

Basically this long "Mothers Day" rant is a reminder to be nice to one another.  To remember the origin of Mothers Day every single day.  To remember to celebrate the power we all have when we work together instead of working against.

It's worth reading the entire article I linked above, by the way.  All of those women mentioned are worth celebrating.  All of them.  As are all of us out there not mothering but who are trying our damnedest to make a difference in this world.

It's not that men can't do it.  It's that we shouldn't let them do everything when we could be so powerful on our own.