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This post hails from CardioGirl a kick ass blogger Definitely a recommend read for you, I read nearly every post, if not every one of them.

And now…..without further delay…

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As a mere sprite, I was the youngest of six — five girls and one boy — my mother constantly told me the story of my birth and how everyone hoped, for her sake, that I would be a boy. Back then in the Stone Ages ultrasound was not used to check on the baby, much less to determine the gender, so it was a waiting game.

Regardless, in the late 60s, a pregnant woman who had four daughters and one boy garnered sympathy from those other women in a similar state. They would all tell my mother they hoped it was boy. Maybe, if she were lucky, she would have two sons.

She always finished the story with this, “But God gave me the baby I was meant to have. And that was you.” She made sure to tell me that she didn’t care, boy or girl, she just wanted a healthy baby. Then she would further elaborate that gender didn’t matter. Women can create their own opportunities; they are just as smart, just as capable and just as worthy.

But somehow, hearing that over and over I only picked up on the dismay the “other people” in her life expressed. I knew my mom loved me and was fine with the fact that I was a girl. But all I heard from her was that society had hoped for a boy for her.

I always thought it was weird the way she phrased the story. Couldn’t she have focused on something other than gender and ended with, “But God gave me the baby I was meant to have. And that was you.”

Times have changed, though, and society’s stigma of having a boy vs. a girl has lightened a bit. But I must admit when I was pregnant with my second child and out and about with my first daughter, people would say to me, “Well, maybe you’ll have a boy.” Then I had my second daughter.

And when I was out and about with my two daughters and pregnant the third time, almost everyone I ran into felt the need to speculate, “Maybe this will be your boy.” But between you and me, I really wanted another girl. I prayed for another girl. I understand the equipment that comes with girls. I enjoy my girls. I knew I would love a boy, but I wanted another girl.

And I made sure to never say that around my older daughters, because I didn’t want to taint their memories. And God sent me my third daughter.

Now when I talk with my girls it never comes up about their gender. So far this issue of boys being smarter than girls has not reared its ugly head. Yet. I do believe it’s possible to celebrate the opportunities available to girls without discounting girls.

Again, I really believe it’s all how you present the story. I could tell my daughters, like my mother told me, “You can do anything even though you’re a girl.”

But instead I like to tell my daughters, “Because you are clever and hard working you can achieve anything you want to achieve.” No disclaimers necessary.

Like most folks out there, I’m a work in progress. I am still trying to re-frame my own way of thinking about myself. I think I’m getting close. Although I still have to remind myself, daily, that I can achieve anything I want, as long as I put the effort into it.

I still have to tell myself I rock just because I’m me. Not a chick. Not a dude. But uniquely me.

Hopefully my daughters will grow up knowing they are more than just a girl – instead of less than a boy.

Cardiogirl

http://www.cardiogirl.net

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This post is from Ruby an artist, writer and overall talented and eloquent person. Known for works such as Sinister Sisters and other artwork found on DeviantArt.com.

Without further ado…

I was born afraid.

As a child I clung to walls when I walked. I developed more and more fears as I grew up. I was afraid of dogs, heights, the dark, people, being alone and most of all of going crazy. I recall trying to cross a bridge and being so paralyzed with fright I actually crawled to the other side. I could not explain it. I just knew it terrified me.

Fear crippled me.

By the time I was in high school I was suffering from panic attacks constantly. I was certain I was losing my mind and so it just got worse. I turned to drinking to calm me down. Drinking made me feel sane, that is until I found myself alone in my cluttered bedroom one night with an empty bottle of vodka at my feet and the feeling of not wanting to do anything… at all.

It was around that time that I was only interacting with people via the internet. It was effortless. I could type much better than try to get my voice to work with live people. I wanted change badly, though. And I told people, probably desperately, that I needed something more.

And then an internet friend suggested I visit them. It took less than a day for me to decide to go. I figured, what else was I doing? I took the greyhound to California. Now that sounds so simple, but it wasn’t. I was afraid. Afraid of all those people crammed up against each other, of being in a vehicle, of going somewhere I’d never been, of meeting new people and most of all of doing something so completely crazy. But I did.

That visit completely opened my mind. For the first time I knew what freedom was. And upon returning home to Texas, I decided right away that I wanted to move to California. I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it all.

In a couple of months I had two luggage cases and a back pack packed up with art supplies and clothes and two hundred dollars in my pocket. I got on that greyhound and left. Everyone said I was being crazy. I knew it was what I really needed to do.

A lot happened during that journey. I was raped, robbed at gunpoint, homeless and all sorts of things. But I also found my own strength and overcame my fears. I wasn’t going to let anything keep me from pushing forward. I loved. I created art. Went to school and studied animation. Had a book published. Made a lot of great friends.

Most of all I faced myself and learned that ultimately I am in charge of my life. Friends and family are just a wonderful addition that completes it. Returning to Texas was not a failure. And even today as I’m unemployed and sleeping on my sister’s couch, I feel great. I still have confidence everything will be okay. And as long as I’m alive, I’m going to keep LIVING.

All it takes is just going out there and doing it.

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No mojo today folks, sorry.

I’ve been tagged by @Kionee over at DecidedlyEvil.com and since I always respond to these I thought I’d throw you for a loop today.

The rules are simple:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on the blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post.
5. Let each person know they have been tagged.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Everyone else tagged with this meme has been rather revealing with theirs so I think I’m going to have to follow the same trend. I’m taking a deep breath.

1. My mother married my last stepfather after dating him for three months and letting him move in, three months later he was found in a motel room about 20 miles away having swallowed his marine corps rifle and pulling the trigger with his toe.

That was and still remains one of the most devastating events in my life. I liked and respected him a lot and felt he made my mother sane, or at least he kept her off my ass. He had been a career marine and I had aspirations of joining the military at that age. He treated me like an adult, and at that time, I lived as though I was, I worked, paid rent and went to school. I was 14 when it happened and I’ll never forget the day we found out. I was just finished getting ready for work when our doorbell rang, I expected it to be a friend of my little sisters’ and when I opened the door and saw a police officer and a man with a white collar I called my Mom to the door. I’ll never forget the way she crumbled to the floor. I know now the issues he had and felt he needed to escape but to this day I still think of him as a coward, and a liar.

2. My mother threatened to kill me when I was 17.

Which was the reason I left home at 17, I knew she had issues and I knew that the way that we lived wasn’t normal, but I felt if I could hang on until I was 18, I would be okay. But I wasn’t able to do that, I still have a very vivid memory of running at full speed towards my room, with my mother hot on my heels holding a billy club over her head and beating down the door with it because I had locked her out. I had a dead bolt on my door and she beat that until it bent and let her in. Once she got my door open she saw that I had the phone in my hands ready to call the cops and I told her I would be leaving as soon as I could get my shit together. She made me leave my car there and I did, my Dad called me a week later and told me to come get it from his house, she had told him to come get it.
I have not forgiven her for that day, or many other things that happened before and since then, but I find myself at peace largely because I keep her out of my life.

3. I got married once, knowingly for all the wrong reasons.

I was 19 and stupid and thought that it would change things and it did not. Less than a year after our wedding date I left him and begun to chart my own path with my son. When I did leave, he knew about it and hid my son from me, telling me I would never see him again, it took a couple thousand dollars and a good lawyer to get my son back quickly from him, I knew he would not be safe with him. Some people just have no respect for themselves, and thus don’t have any business raising children. I’m no angel, but I always took every precaution available to protect my son and never put him in situations where he would get hurt. Which was far more than I could say for his father, who is now out of the picture thanks to my determination to show my judge that he was unfit.

Okay, now on to some great things since my dark and shady past.

4. I met my hubby on the internet.

I also believe this is not so rare anymore, we met close to 7 years ago on AOL, of all mediums. He still kids me that I made him wait a week to meet me after meeting on the internet. I too felt an immediate connection when we began to talk but wanted to be careful and take a little more time to get to know him. We only spoke briefly over the internet before I gave him my phone number, and we spoke on the phone for about a week before we met in person. The moment I met him and he hugged me in greeting I felt at home, which was a feeling I’d never known before. “Home” was always a myth to me, I thought it was wherever I laid my head, but now I understand the difference between a house and home. When I saw his picture for the first time I remember thinking I was way outta my league, but I’d see how far it went. I got lucky.

5. I get bored very quickly in my jobs and start getting anxious to make a change.

I worked in retail until I was about 20 and then I got a job at a hospital. I worked then in the medical field for about eight years and moved over to the legal world last year. I am already bored with it. Despite what some might say, the law is very boring. I find myself very conflicted as to my next move in life because I know I can’t just keep hopping jobs and hoping to find my niche. I have gotten halfway through a degree and can still change my major and go in a way I hope will make me happy. I think that writing (as I wrote about yesterday) might be the thing for me. Now I just have to figure out how I can, or want to make a living at it.

6. I’m going on my first “real” vacation ever in one week.

I say “real” vacation because I don’t count the road trips to South Padre Island and Galveston because those involved me driving to them and only one day because that’s all we could afford. This vacation will be for five days, we just have to drive to the port and get on the ship. I’m anxious because I have a fear of water and i think we’ve all seen Titanic. But I’m going to not think about that very much and buy some Dramamine on the way down there, just in case. I will be sure to write about it when we get back and let you all know how it was.

Whew. I never thought I’d get those last two. Thinking about the past like that threw me into a bag full of memories I usually leave tied up in a neat little bow, neglected in a dark corner, where I feel it belongs. So now you know more about me, and my dysfunction.

Now I must tag a few others, as those are the rules. So, who to tag…hmmm.

I’m tagging Rachel @ Rachel’s Lucid Garden as well as:
Ruby @ DreamLeech.com and;
Debo @ DeboHobo.com and;
Dan @ DCR Blogs.com
and anyone else who wants to participate in this meme, I’m only lacking two tags, so I’m sure two of you that would like to participate will pick this up and let me know right?

Awesome! Happy Monday everyone!

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I was going through my email today, it gets deep fast so I have to constantly sift through it. But to be fair, I have several email addresses forwarded to it, so it’s the culmination of a few. Anyways, I came across one that I wanted to share with you. It’s your link to a free Women’s Health Calendar for 2009.

http://www.womenshealth.gov/pub/2009Calendar/

This is a Women’s Health Calendar that you can send away for and it is free. They only allow ONE per person. It’s a great FREE calendar/journal, full of information about and for women. It talks about topics of interest to us such as health, nutrition, life etc…
I advise all of you to order ASAP. Most women don’t find out about this book until Nov/Dec. and by then they are usually out. So you have an early heads up.

Click on any of the links below or copy and paste into your browser to get this great calendar/journal.
http://www.womenshealth.gov/pub/2009Calendar/
http://www.4woman.gov/pub/2009Calendar/

So now you have a link to get a handy tool.

I wanted to mention again that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and it’s important that everyone understand that the odds are not in our favor. It’s important to start doing regular check ups on your breasts for lumps. Go to your doctor for regular physicals and well woman checkups and men, go get your physicals and wellness checkups yearly as well. It’s important because we won’t live forever and quality of life is what’s important, not quantity.

Here’s a link to loads of information about Breast Cancer on Wikipedia. I learned on the radio this morning about Christina Applegate’s preventive mastectomy last year. While you would think Breast Cancer would only affect women, men are no exception, Montel Williams at 19 years old had the same procedure performed on him.

Me, I would like to think I would be strong and go through whatever I had to in order to rid myself of the disease, but I am almost 100% sure I would be a basket case. It would scare the Hell out of me and that’s only the beginning. I love my hair and my boobs, they’re a prominent part of my appearance and I think I would have a BIG problem with no longer having either. Likewise if my best friend or any of my sisters were to face this.

We’ve already had quite the scare with my youngest sister Sarah. I have never wished to be in someone’s place more than I did when she was being treated for Cervical Cancer. My boss’s wife lost her hair in her ongoing battle with Mesothelioma, you can read more here. They’ve been dealing with this now for almost a year! It was either a few days before or after Halloween that she went to the hospital and I believe only a few days later when I put together the site so that they could chronicle her struggle publicly, for her friends, family and for any one else that might benefit from the posts. That’s four people I know directly that have dealt with Cancer in my lifetime, too many.

So I ask you, what would you do if you found out you had a lump? Have you or anyone you know faced this or any other type of Cancer?

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The little goings on that impress me through the day. A few days ago, the hubby and I were talking in the kitchen, I don’t recall the subject, but I said I was too busy for it anymore and about that time MouthyBoy piped in and asked if I was doing work at home again. I said no, in fact, in the Spring I was going to go back to school and I didn’t want to fill my calendar with other things that would distract from studying.

To that he said, “That’s cool.”

So at 11 years of age, does, “That’s cool.” mean nothing like it does when an adult says it or does it mean he thinks it’s cool?

I like the idea of being thought cool….and the idea of doing my homework right alongside MouthyBoy to show him you’re never too old to learn something new. And to him, I’m sure I’m old. Ouch.

But the coolest thing about influencing him, is seeing the influence I’ve already had on him, I recognize his personality and I’m seeing his humor, I see in him a good guy.

He’s going to take care of things and really be a caring man, and though I have to keep after him to do his chores, I can see the care in his eyes when he pets our cats, when he comes to help me carry things he knows are heavy, other things I’ve taught him and hubby have taught him that are just the right thing to do.

The MouthyBoy is turning into quite a good boy. He showed me his averages in his classes, he has four major subjects and in all but one the grades are an A. I was impressed. He’s a smart boy, I’ve always known that and like I told him, those grades prove that. They prove that when he works at it, as with most of us, he gets it and does well with it. Knowledge is so priceless, and one day I hope he tells me that’s one of the things he understood from me was of the utmost importance, that education is so important to being successful in life. It’s not a myth, it’s not an old wives tale, or a belief.

It’s a fact.

I want him to do and be much better than me, and by instilling in him a work ethic, common decency, common sense and how to be a gentle person, I think any woman would be lucky to have him. Once he’s grown…like 25 and has had his college fun and lived through a lot of years and experience and college.

Til tomorrow friends!

If you have come across any hilarious emails that literally made you LOL, please forward said email to me for sharing in the weekly Wednesday Fwd. Tomorrow is another one, you could be the contributor!

Email me at MouthyGirl@Gmail.com

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I don’t think I’m alone in this so I’m going to talk about it here. I hit these periods in my life where I spend a lot of time looking back over the past few years. Now sometimes when this happens I like what I see, what I’ve done, where I’ve been. Sometimes I am proud and pat myself on the back a little.

But sometimes I don’t like what I’ve seen and I’m disappointed in myself and my lack of progress. Don’t get me wrong…these are not regrets, just deficiencies I see in myself and in time that I spent idle when I could’ve been moving forward.

I’ve hit one of these periods recently and what triggers them I think is big changes in my life. Two years ago I did the same thing after my uncle passed, and now after my Great Aunt has passed, I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me this interest in my recent history and personal evaluation. To a certain degree I suppose I should be glad I’ve been affected profoundly enough to feel it’s time to alter the course of my life.

Several years ago, my son started having trouble in school and after thinking long and hard about it, I decided to take a break from going to school part time and be here for him in the evening to help with his homework. Though I can’t say either of us has benefited from the homework help because he’s a stubborn boy, I have enjoyed the time just being a mom that works and comes home. My house is cleaner than it used to be, most of the time.

I still feel that I’ve been idle and have left a piece of the puzzle out. I feel I’ve got unfinished business and I’m fortunate to know what it is. I have a degree to finish.

Funny thing though, what once was so clear regarding the direction I wanted to take has now become a hazy, gray area and I’m not sure what I want to do. I considered a writing/english type degree, but really what would that get me? I am a greedy one, if I’m spending the money on the education, it needs to make me some money in return.

However some of my real life experience in the working world has changed my opinion of what I desire to do with my time. I’m at an impasse.

You see I remember a time a long time ago, when I was hanging out with a friend of mine, near and dear to me now, that waxed prophetic to me one day and changed my life. She said that no matter what you do in life, Education is the one thing no one can take from you. No matter how low in life you get, if what you know got you to the top once, it can get you there again. I was in school already that’s where I met her, but I was just going to get a certificate and be on my way.

Oddly I can’t remember what certificate program I started after. It was months after we became friends that she said that to me, but it stuck with me and made me decide that a certificate program wasn’t going to cut it. I realized that it would never be enough and I was selling my son short.

And myself.

She didn’t know it then but she changed my life that day. That was the day that I began in a small way to believe in myself. And it was because she believed in me. I knew she must have or she wouldn’t have wasted her breath on me….she is not the kind of person that believes in lost causes, I knew that then and even more so now. Until that time, I didn’t know what that was like.

I re-evaluated my life shortly after that and decided major changes needed to be made that were hindering my forward movement in life. I became a single mom when my son was two and from that time on I had so much more to prove, to him and to me.

Lately I think I’ve become complacent and can’t believe for a while there I actually thought school had nothing more to teach me. I’m shocked at myself for adopting such a view. So now I’m motivated again to make something of myself, to prove that I can be somebody. I’m going to go back to school…once I figure out some sort of direction. I’m giving myself til December or January, whenever the enrollment period is for school, and I’m going back, in the Spring.

But I wondered…

Do you believe in you? Where do you see yourself in five years?

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Every morning I wake up I feel different than the morning before. Sometimes I wake up tired, sometimes I wake up refreshed and sometimes and I just want to ignore the world and stay home all day, good mood or not.

But overall I would like to think I have a pretty positive outlook on life. I try to see the lighter side, enjoy life and think about my potential and work towards it. I set goals and typically within the time frame I accomplish them. Lately however, I have been lacking in goals. I’ve kind of been in a holding pattern. That’s not to say I’m bored with where I’m at, it just means that for me, it’s time to get back in gear and start planning more for the future.

Trying to get by is just not for me, I’m always trying to get better. Albeit I’ve not been in school completing my Bachelor’s or anything, I have been in a constant state of learning since I started school right after my son was born. Trust me, you have to be if you want to have any sort of edge in life.

With blogging here I’m always reading helpful blogs, various books and tutorials on writing, in an effort to hone those skills and of course, to not bore you to tears.. I’m all for self-improvement.

But that’s just how I am — not satisfied to just stand still, I crave forward motion. So because of this I’ve always kind of held the belief in the back of my mind that just getting by is not good enough for me, I’m always wanting to get better, so that my future holds brighter things.

I wonder though if others feel the way I do about life in that it’s an uphill climb most of the way? I mean I know there are people that don’t want to be rich, don’t care to be rich. That’s not really my goal, though if it happens that would certainly be great… Some of the greatest people I’ve ever known in my life didn’t aspire to be great, they did what was expected of them and that was their success. What’s your version of success?

Do you find yourself reaching for the stars regardless of your current status in life? Do you make short term and long term goals? Have you already accomplished all your dreams? Do you have more that you are working towards?

Tell me about your future.

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