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I'm a work in progress

I have stopped making official New Year's resolutions because I've never made it past the second week.

I stopped giving 'things' up for Lent because I've rarely made halfway through the 40 days without succumbing. (That Jesus was sure amazing because I've given up things like chocolate or wine but He gave up the essentials, like food and water. And the only tempter I had was a commercial or a walk through the grocery store - with a full stomach and plenty of water to drink. Jesus had Satan, the greatest of tempters, and he certainly had to be hungry and thirsty).

I recently signed up for a 30 Day challenge to lose 12 pounds. Not a monumental task except for the fact that I signed up for it while transitioning to the wheelchair. In winter. With a wheelchair without snow tires that made it especially challenging to get out and about.  Yep, I set myself up for failure on that one! 

On one of the diet plans I tried a few years back, my goal was to lose 40 pounds. I got to 38, and called it good. (By the way, I've lost and gained the same 40 pounds at least four times in my adult life.)

My epic failures do not all relate to weight loss or food either. I have on numerous occasions, promised myself that I would:

     1) Write daily;
     2) Write weekly;
     3) Write.

Like the book I've been working on for the past two years - and I think it's good and might even have a chance to get published - I've promised myself to finish it. This year. Well it's March 17 (Happy St. Patrick's Day, by the way!), and I've worked on it twice. 

I have also made promises to myself to stop swearing. It took three children mimicking my words and about 10 years, but I've largely succeeded except for the occasional damn or hell.

And recently, I promised that I would not focus on politics since it raised my blood pressure and increased my frustration. I promised myself not to post on Facebook anything political. That lasted until the next debate or primary or funny/thought-provoking/amazingly stupid incident in this 'presidential -campaign- like- no- other- presidential- campaign'. #makedonalddrumpfagain
And can you believe that ...  See, I can't even write this paragraph about my pledge to NOT focus on politics without focusing on one of the frustrating aspects.

I am a work in progress. 

I'd like to write that I know my limitations, but clearly that's not true since I keep losing, then gaining the same 40 pounds. Work in progress, I am. Or that my political abstention can't last more than 10 minutes. Working. Progress. Or that while thinking about politics, in addition to raising my blood pressure and breaking that pledge, I'm breaking my 'no swearing' promise and mumbling mild expletives. So much work and so little progress!

So, instead of ending this on a note of defeat and because the glass is half full, I will end this blog post this way.

I wrote today!

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It's not a popularity contest, but ...

When an ass is so much more

  Body image. Body positivity.  Or about coming to an appreciation for a previously much maligned back end.  In junior high (that's middle school for all of you non boomers), I was given the nickname "big butt Bowen". It was a nickname that stung because I did indeed have a large ass. I tried to mask it, a difficult endeavor since the current fashion (and remember this is junior high when fitting in was paramount) was wearing hip hugger jeans with midriff tops and my disguise of choice were peasant blouses or dresses. That style choice earned an additional nickname, Mama Cass. For those of you that don't know who Mama Cass was, she was part of the Mamas and Papas and known for her beautiful voice but also for her large body.  All about Mama Cass I was cruelly nicknamed at a time when nicknames can really mess with a girl's psyche. And I spent a lifetime as that girl with the messed up psyche. I'm sure there are more than one of you out there that can relate. B

Peter Pan no more

                          It's time. Peter Pan had to grow up.  For nearly 18 months of his life, Matthew dressed in this costume. In this picture it's new, just out of the box. He picked the costume out of a catalog and when it arrived, two weeks prior to Halloween, he asked daily if today was the day he could finally wear his Peter Pan costume. He didn't like the hat and only wore it on Halloween, but the rest of the costume he wore daily! You read that correctly - DAILY. He wore it to Meijer (for those of you unfamiliar with Meijer, it's a cleaner, friendlier, more 'upscale' version of WalMart), to church, to play dates and preschool ... Heck, he was three and adorable and it worked for him!  (Yes you read that correctly, he even wore it to church on one or two occasions when it seemed arguing with a three year old about not wearing a costume to church was not a battle worth waging. He once mentioned the priests wore dresses . . . I don't think Joh

Cabin fever made me do it!

Like nearly ever person in West Michigan, I have a serious case of cabin fever.  I won't waste your time however, complaining about the two-hundred feet of snow that's fallen in the last two hours. I won't share about the twenty or thirty times I've had to shovel my walk today as gusts blew it right back in my face. And I certainly will not lament about the temperatures that hover around negative double digits making your nostrils freeze together within moments of stepping outside. To bore you with tales of how we have to shovel areas in our yard so that our large dog and can do his 'duty' because the snow is deeper than he is tall and dogs for whatever reason cannot poop in the same place twice, is not what I will share. You will not hear about how when I open the slider to let aforementioned dog outside, gusts of wind blow drifts of snow inside and require a shovel to once again close the door.  Nor will I share how some roads around here are drifted shut be