How to make a kick-ass watermelon smoothie
Why I love taking my dogs for walks on the beach
How I bought a real home in my real home and how crazy amazing it is to feel truly at home
Why "community" is actually overrated, despite the fact that I've been attempting to discover, build and nurture mine forever
How hanging out with triathletes and endurance runners made me feel like crap about myself
How my tribe is much smaller than I thought it was or thought it should be
How I learned the necessity of protecting and nurturing MY tiny tribe even if that upsets people outside my tiny tribe
How there really are levels of love and how wise my sister is
How much I hate seeing people I love go through bad times I can't change for them
Why do I have to re-learn the same lessons about diet, exercise, sleep and relaxation techniques EVERY single month?
How I've gained twenty pounds since the last time I really felt great about my body and how this isn't the first time and how disappointed I am in myself and how am I going to face the mean girls at work who were only nice to me when I was skinny and who the hell do I think I am teaching fitness to anybody?
And I still miss my mom...a lot.
How I can't bring my mom or my brother or my sister-in-law back to life by living in the town they lived in and knowing the people they knew
How every time I swim in Lake Michigan it feels like a baptism into the church of I-get-it-now
How it's good to always be a little hungry even though it's one of the most uncomfortable feelings for me
How I stopped riding my tri-bike after a dumb bike accident at the beginning of this summer where I cracked my head against the concrete and ruined my helmet. I got a new helmet. Sadly, I can't get a new head
How the only bike I'll ride since that accident is a cruiser that moves at about 5 miles per hour, at top speed
How I learned that cuddling is really good for my health
The art of slowing down
& why I want to start The Slow Movement Movement
Why "training" makes me gain weight instead of lose or maintain
Why casual completion of endurance races is a recipe for disaster for people who want to or need to lose weight
How scared I am of my actual, physical heart
How I still really really miss my mom
How I realize now that no one ever stops missing their mom once she's gone
Perimenopause & breast tenderness & having periods even though, without a uterus, I don't bleed anymore & what total bullshit ALL of this is & how more women need to speak openly about the gritty horrors of taking care of a female body so that we can really start to understand and deal rationally with everything we go through physically (I mean, if men had been experiencing this shit for millennia, there'd be a hundred breast massage therapists in every city by now! And their services would be 100% covered by health insurance!)
Why I stopped hanging out at internet bars like Facebook and even, eventually, Instagram (though I still do have my Instagram account @queenprincessofmojo and haven't decided to never return just yet) [which reminds me! please email me at [email protected] if you want to receive notifications of new posts -- since I won't be "sharing" to Facebook anymore]
My top ten favorite TED talks
How lazy I decided to be this summer
How feeling like there are ten million things I could and should be doing at any moment means I probably won't end up doing shit
How I've discovered River-tubing and wish I could do it every single day of my life (and how that single admission might actually indicate that there is more redneck in me than I ever imagined)
Why I wear my bikini anyway (even though I did have a nervous breakdown and threw it in the trash earlier this summer)
Watching my daughter and son lay claim to Lake Michigan. Watching them settle into knowing where they are "home."
The horror show that is middle age & how eagerly I await mellowing past it (a recent book I found told me perimenopause is like a second teen stage for women-- ooooooh, goodie!!! As if the FIRST fucking teen stage wasn't horrific enough!)
Embracing my sassiness and learning whose opinion I really shouldn't give a fuck about
How even the coolest churches/ religions sometimes feel like a big stupid circle-jerk of non-thinking
How swimming in Lake Michigan is my church
How fucking arrogant I am despite constantly trying for the opposite
How Saint Anne (Lamott) says, "Here are the two best prayers I know: 'Help me, Help me, Help me' and 'Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.'" And how I've been praying like hell all summer
How I wish I could wake up tomorrow and be Anne Lamott or Elizabeth Gilbert but then I'd actually have to write all of the time and not just pretend to be a writer in my happy land of make-believe
How our lives become whatever it is that we spend our time doing
How really quality chocolate is worth the expense and the time
How instead of blogging or writing this summer, I just lived my life...with (as much) love (as possible)
How, once again, I've had to learn the hard way that my writing is not a hobby or an occupation but rather MY anti-depressant/ anti-anxiety/ anti-inflammatory/ antioxidant / pain-relieving MEDICINE & if I don't take it, that's just totally irresponsible (& miserable for everyone around me)
How I never was, am not, and never will be the QueenPrincess of anything... nevertheless...
I'll keep being whatever I am, with love,
The QP (I'm thinking about making a signature image -- probably not at all necessary but... could be fun)