It’s free & it’s fun..join mee and lets build a community table in a new location!
Chattanooga Choo..Chooo, Red Lobster & The Aquarium.
March 19, 2011
This is just a straight up blog about MEE & my process, ’cause fo’sho shawty I’m in the middle of one!
Our 37th house guest since Sept. has just left the building – yep that’s 37 extra people other than the ones that live here in the house – and “those people” that reside here can feel like 37 folks. I’m telling you I run a small inn on top of the many other tasks that are under my command. I recently read that most women do 3 hours of house work every morning before leaving for their 8 hour jobs. I am one of these people – I wake up at 6, prepare breakfast, make lunches, dress my girls, make beds, start laundry, tidy play room, cook dinner – for later – OH MAN – The garbage truck just pulled away & for the second week in a row I forgot to get it out there! DANG..OK, back to the list – I shower, take Lola to pre-school and usually make it to my office at 10am. This means that I have until 2pm to write columns, feed two websites & work on my book. I’m totally screwed if my kids stay home from school sick or I try to sneak in an appointment with a doctor, hairdresser, dentist. Of course I volunteer at Bella’s school or at least show up for lunch once a month – but dang, it feels like a marathon I’m running over here. OH how could I possibly have forgotten to add in the Noble Food Makeover, morning show appearances & radio interviews? Plus, cooking lessons..whew. And the big one Homework, being an attentive mother and wife.
And Last but not least – ANSWERING EMAILS – Seriously this could take 4 hours a day if I stayed up on it.
The other night I watched the movie Date Nite with Tina Fey and my favorite part was actually hearing a woman say that her dream vacation is to check into a luxury hotel and sit in a chair, alone. No one touching her, talking to her, asking her, calling her. I’ve been away once alone in 8.5 years – I’m starting to feel like Tina Fey, the only difference is I’m so glad to feel well enough to participate in life that I don’t want to miss a second. It’s as if a small flame has attached it’s self to me and I’m burning to keep going – to achieve my dreams and expand as a human.
I HAD a family helper (way better term than nanny), she picked Lola up twice a week after school, stayed for 3 hours & came on Fridays so I could work for a couple or do errands alone. However we had a big old “situation”.
On Fridays she and Lola picked Bella up at 2pm from school and she’d keep both girls until 4pm. On this particular Friday (a few weeks ago) she decided to leave Lola home alone and drive to get Bella – Lola is 4 years old!!!
Lola panicked, walked outside saw that her car was gone and proceeded to walk up and down the street screaming for help..Heart breaking right?
Two teenage boys found her and brought her home, waiting on the porch with her. Yep..again thank goodness they were nice kids, ’cause that could have been down right horrible.
Can you imagine the abandonment?
So, since I’ve been swinging the show and Lee is often out of town, my person is busy being a bunch of persons to everyone. I don’t want to hire someone new because I KNOW Lola needs to know that I am here and that she is safe and secure…but dang y’all I’m tired……As I’m writing this I’m listening to NPR in the background and I am reminded of the Nobility of the Japanese people, as they have lost everything and are standing in lines patiently, supporting one another not robbing or stealing – I feel inspired by them – to keep my head high and be my best person.
I’m not certain if the “nanny” drama or if Japan turning upside down has me clinging to my girls, knowing that my role on being the main influence in their life is dissipating and that life can change in an instant. I’m spinning with time again and seeing my mother as an individual – as she must have felt parenting us. I have a birthday approaching next week and it’s significant because I will have out lived my mother and two years ago I thought I was wearing her blue shoes – but look at me, I’m well and participating – rockin’ my very own pair of PLATFORMS – with flames attached that is.
Gotta run, it’s parent teacher conferences and I’m stuck in a Chapter writing – can’t seem to push through. Plus we are having us a real Tennessee Spring Break – going to Chattanooga & the aquarium, and then fulfilling Bella’s dream - to go to Red Lobster, as she is obsessed with it – and all she talks about. I think she thinks that when you enter the doors, suddenly we will be in Punta de Mita, Mexico where we sat and ate fresh lobster by the sea. Her only lobster experience.
Last night I watched Eat Pray & Love, too missing the exotic places that we have lived and then I woke up realizing that here in Nashville I too have learned to EAT, PRAY & LOVE – what a great bday gift, I have outlived my mother and the disease that she died with is no longer haunting me.
So, I’m creating my own exotic experience; I guess when your first book is entitled “Princess Know It All..Queen Of The Double Wides” Chattanooga becomes ones Riviera. ‘Cause it’s about the square footage of ones life, not the size of our house, reminding us that our life is good enough when we see it as so.”
HEALTHY LIFESTYLES: TIPS TO GREENING YOUR COCINA!
July 8, 2009
Feeling overwhelmed with changing your lifestyle is fo’real a bit scary!
The first character that popped into the my room was “Hi It’s Hard, I Can’t & You Don’t Understand.” The hardest part for her was “This cost’s too much money!” So I heard her complaints and then seized control of the situation. Once every two weeks I buy one green item for the kitchen and attempt to recycle the old.
Here is this weeks first tip:
Wooden Spoons and Cooking Utensils!
This is huge, we all know that plastic melts, leaks and changes when heated. So when we cook our food, we place these plastic utensils directly in the hottest temps! Like boiling water, fired up grease! This plastic is MELTING into our meal! YIKES!!!
Plus wooden spoons are not so expensive, just remember to not put them in the dishwasher.
Use a stainless steel spatula too!
The old plastic items
SEEING & HEARING WITH OUR HEARTS..NOT OUR FEAR.
July 5, 2009
Although I’m home from our Florida “Benjamin Button” themed journey, I am still reflecting. Spending time with people who have already finished the greater part of their lives and are now reflecting on who they were and what happened has created a lasting impression in my mind.
I guess a by the time you’re 80 you become wiser- you know you will either survive or not and fighting it just is a waste of the moment.
Sweetness is much more important than confrontation, so what does it matter?
My grandparents and my mother in law and Idora (who is Idora?), are for sure living from a place of sweetness and deciding not to view life with “Hi I Hold On To Things” eyes.
I spent most of my days (in Florida?) sitting at a small table in the kitchen with Idora. Idora was a perfect meal mate; she has to chew 50 times (her teeth are not so good anymore) which led to both chewing and eating in silence.
Every once in a while she would look up and stare out the window, shake her head, giggle to herself and say “I’m Old and I’m Black.”
Soon enough, my daughter, Lola, was walking around the house singing to the music only she could hear in her head: “She’s Old and She’s Black..She’s Old and She’s Black…” Then she’d giggle like Doe… (Who is Doe?- is it Idora?)
What I really wonder is, do we ever really see the person standing in front of us?
Or, do we only see our memories of someone or of a situation that is triggered by that person standing before us?
Let me explain: One of the women that works for my mother-in-law got herself all worked up and in a tizzy. You see, years ago her husband suffered from Cancer. He went on a strict diet and wouldn’t allow her to assist him in any way, and subsequently, he also got very thin. The good news is that whatever ailed him went away and he is now in his 80′s and healthy!
Instead being happy that he was well and alive or being happy watching me take the time to prepare my food and think about the choices I offer my children, my mother-in-law failed to see MEE. Instead she could only see her husband and how he isolated her. She was unable to listen to any of the great conversation I thought we shared because she was all tangled up in her own personal fearful and judgmental memories. She was unable to separate the past from present and passed her past poison onto me…
This happens to everyone all the time; we do it in almost all of our interactions and relationships, especially our male-female relationships.
I just wonder, can we ever really see the person in front of us? hmmmm…
Another example is high school reunions. Mine is coming up soon and I wonder, how many of us will be able to see the people that are actually before us rather than the memory of who they were in high school?
Sure, some folks won’t have changed a bit inside, arrested in their emotional development – but most people have spent the past 10 to 20 years stepping up to the plate and stretching our minds and hearts. This created new people, returning to the old world of high school.
Image is also a very interesting thing; some people never look past the mask that is presented. They form an opinion (opinions are NEVER true- they are always JUDGMENTS) of the mask and then tie it to some memory of another situation so that they can’t even hear whatever “convo” is going on around them… They are set off in another direction by the image, because their relationships are based on their own “IMAGE” that they present to the world – rather than their deeper relationship with life.
The lady who couldn’t hear or see me was so caught up in all of the things she was afraid of that every time she looked at me she could only see fear and hear fear (we twist everything we hear when we hear with fearful ears). She felt so rejected by her husband that this rejection sat inside her, turning to anger and then poison… total bummer dude.
