Author: the outside lane

Happy. That about covers it.
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Hubris: I Can Haz?

the outside lane

Today is the big day for me on Parents Connect’s Sexy, Sassy Mama Boot Camp.  I am thrilled and excited, and exhausted from the Universe’s balancing act, specially designed to keep my ego in check.

Come on, Sugar, let me know.

See, my day started just after 2am, with a little boy snuffling and crying, “My whole body hurts.”  And I guess it did, as burning hot as it was!  So, after cool baths, over the counter medicine, and a lot of hugs (and me doing a very early web check in at the CareNow clinic, and sending my boss an obscenely early text message), we crawled back into my bed at 4:48 this morning.  By 8:15, we were in the clinic and Thor was being diagnosed with a nasty sinus infection–poor guy.

Grandma is going to watch him this afternoon so I can go to work.  Thank goodness for grandparents!

Meanwhile, I was trying to decide if I still felt sexy in my bare-faced, puffy-eyed, scraggly ponytailed state.  And, yeah, I kinda do.  Why?  Because, as my friend Jenifer put it, “Great mamas are sexy.”  And I’m pretty good at being a mother.

However, my sexy and my sassy factors dipped dangerously low when we met Grandma for lunch at IHOP.  I managed to choose the bathroom stall that had no toilet paper in it, and only made this discovery after having availed myself of the facilities.  There is very little either sexy, or sassy about trying to scrabble into the next stall with your jeans around your thighs, hoping you can get the door shut before some other hapless patron walks in on you.

Which reminds me that I should tell you the story of the time I was exposed to an entire nightclub full of people, as I sat on a toilet.  Geez.  At least my shoes were cute!

Now, I’m going to go put myself together for work and cue up the Darth Vader theme.  There are days when my inner soundtrack sounds far too much like the jinky music behind a Keystone Cops movie.

Advice, boot camp best, Health, Inside Lane, Philosophy, relationships, Uncategorized

What is Sexy: Part Five and Final

the outside lane

In just a couple of days, on May 22, you’ll see The Outside Lane featured on theNickelodeon Parents Connect Sexy Mama Boot Camp.  Leading up to that, I’d like to introduce you (and any new readers) to some things I think are sexy.

1.  Taking care of yourself is sexy.

The older I get, the more truth I find in the addage, “If mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”  And, mama can’t be happy if she is sick, tired, or sad.  I find in my own family that my attitude affects everyone.  Last year, around this time, I felt like I was mired in a mess of myself and tired of making excuses for putting off taking care of Lane.

  • I had not taken time to exercise because I already had working-mother-guilt about leaving Thor in daycare, and I couldn’t stand the thought of him being in someone else’s care for even five minutes more than was absolutely necessary.  This was an excellent excuse to avoid the gym!
  • I had neglected my eating habits because I didn’t have time to shop, prepare, or cook decently.  This was an excellent reason to order pizza!
  • I had completely ignored my emotional self because I was trying to be a soldier.  This was an excellent reason to…uh…blog?

A friend’s divorce (that mirrored my parents’)  pushed me over the edge.  I was reliving the same hurt I had experienced with my parents’ nasty split, and old splinters from that broken heart were working their way into the present.  It jolted me and forced me to really take stock of what I had, and what I needed to have in order to get me through the next fifty years of my life.

Breaking points don’t have to be bad.  You remember Glow Sticks?  The only way to get anything good out of them is to break the capsule inside, release the chemical compound that catalyzes illumination, then shake like crazy.  The potential to glow is in the stick the whole time, but until you crack the hard shell surrounding the hydrogen peroxide and let it out into the phenyl oxalate ester and fluorescent dye (thanks, Bill Nye, Science Guy!), activating the potential, you’ve just got a whole lot of nothing at all.

I think a lot about glow sticks when I’m having a rough patch.  How will I shake up what’s been broken, so that instead of being bitter, I can be brighter?  Sounds corny, doesn’t it?  Rave on!

Last year, I quit making excuses for not taking care of myself. 

I got into therapy, joined Weight Watchers, started working the menus I had through my membership to JulieAnneRhodes.com, and I hit the gym.  I worked on healing my heart, my health, and the circumference of my hips.  I swam laps.  I did yoga.  I substituted apples for Doritos.  I went for long walks with my family.  I changed jobs.  I made changes in relationships.  I learned to say no to other people, and yes to myself without guilt.  And I like to think I am brighter for it.  I know I’m happier.  I know I’m healthier.

Following is a list I can highly recommend for sexy, sexy self-improvement.  Some of it is local to me (in Dallas/Fort Worth), but it’s a starting place of what to look for if you’re outside the area.  Take care of you, Boo.  No one else is going to do it for you, but everyone around you will benefit when you get started.

boot camp best, Explaining the Strange Behavior, Women Worth Knowing

I’d Do Me

the outside lane

I want this blog entry to be really special.  Because, if you’re a new reader who has come over from the Nickelodeon Parents Connect site and hit the “previous posts” button, it is likely that this will be the blog entry you read, and I want you to enjoy yourself here. 

I started blogging with a LiveJournal in December of 2001.  I had met this guy I really liked, and I wanted him to like me.  He had an LJ, and I hoped that if I started one, I could catch and keep his interest.  It worked well enough that he married me, and seems to still like me.  He still reads my blog after ten years.  That’s something!

I drove all my LJ friends berserk with journaling my wedding (2 out of 4 bridesmaids have confirmed I was bridezilla.  The other 2 said I was just fine, but they might just have been afraid of me.)  Eleven months after that hoopla died down, I started driving readers further nuts with journaling my pregnancy.  My first Mommy Blog was born five months into the pregnancy, and I kept up with Mommie Diarist until just before Thor (the nickname our son has had since his first sonogram) started Kindergarten–he learned to read, and I didn’t want to embarrass him by keeping a totally Thor-centric blog. 

I started To The 9s, a fashion/style/etiquette based blog, while I was working for a staffing agency.  The impetus for that being the number of job candidates I was seeing, who showed up for interviews wearing dirty, wrinkled, extremely casual attire, including flip-flops, and the coworker who never bothered to dry her hair before coming in to work. 

I kept up with that through the chronicles of my Exotic Dance Class, a diet, and the gutting depression that came with having made a very bad decision to change jobs.  The Women Worth Knowing project came out of those days as well. 

I started thinking about the wonderful women I knew all across this world, and wanted to introduce them to one another.  I created a profile Q&A and sent it off to various and sundry, and started posting those as a means of highlighting women who were successful in their endeavours at home, in the workplace, and in the world.  You can read the archives here and join the Facebook group here.  Eventually, I’ll start updating again.  I know some really amazing women.

To the 9s went the way of the Dodo, and when I was ready to start blogging again, it became The Outside Lane.  Part mommy-blog, part human interest blog, part fashion/music/movie reviews blog, part soapbox, part therapy, all me.  I have no idea how you would market this thing.  It’s very…diverse?  I hope it’s diverse and not just scattered.  I write about what I find interesting.  I write the topics of conversation I’d like to have.  I like to think the common thread is my personal sense of humor, and I like to think that comes across whether I’m shaking my tiny fist of rage, or shaking my booty.

If you’re here from Nickelodeon’s Parents Connect, then you’ve come by way of the Sexy Mama Bootcamp.  If you’re looking for advice on how to be sexy, the best I can give you is to fall in love with yourself. 

And buy one of these t-shirts.  If you wear one of these t-shirts, you will be totally sexy.  Trust me.  I’m an expert.

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A Special Highlight Post

the outside lane

In just a couple of days, on May 22, you’ll see The Outside Lane featured on theNickelodeon Parents Connect Sexy Mama Boot Camp.  Leading up to that, I’d like to introduce you (and any new readers) to some things I think are–this is something I think is outstanding.  You’ll remember LynDee Walker from a previous highlight post.  Her daughter, Avery, is a young activist, whose work to save people from the painful deaths associated with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder and heart disease caused by smoking should not go unnoticed.

Consider this a mini-Women Worth Knowing entry.

Avery and her grandmother.

Avery’s much beloved grandmother died after a protracted battle with diseases caused from years of smoking.  Not one to sit idly by, then eight-year-old Avery took a stand against smoking.  Kids Against Smoking is the resulting website, with Avery’s story, 10 Gross Smoking Facts, and a No-Smoking pledge.  She says:

Kids should be against smoking so they won’t grow up and hurt their grandchildren the way losing my grandma hurt me. I miss her, and so do my mommy and little brother. My mommy says that if my grandma had never started smoking, she would probably still be here with us. She started when she was 14. That’s still just a kid, not that much older than me.

Avery and her very proud mommy.
boot camp best

What is Sexy: Part Four

the outside lane

In just a couple of days, on May 22, you’ll see The Outside Lane featured on theNickelodeon Parents Connect Sexy Mama Boot Camp.  Leading up to that, I’d like to introduce you (and any new readers) to some things I think are sexy.

1.  Music is sexy

All the music you want to hear

My friend, Sunshine, is the host of the raddest retro radio station around: The Retro Red-Eye Express.  Retro Red-Eye Express, is on Saturday night, 11pm-2am CT on 90.1 FM KKFI (in Kansas City area), and streams live on http://kkfi.org.  The show features music which mostly tends toward New Wave, 80s Alternative, Post-Punk, Gothic/Industrial, 90s Electronica, Punk, some 70s Glam Rock, and many current artists whose music is influenced by those genres.

Saturday nights 11pm – 2am (CT) on 90.1 FM KKFI, Kansas City Community Radio
Listen Live via Web-streaming Website: http://www.kkfi.org
Playlists: http://retroredeye.blogspot.com
MySpace: http://myspace.com/retrosunshine
Facebook: http://facebook.com/retrosunshine
Twitter: http://twitter.com/retrosunshine
2.  Helping Senior Citizens is sexy
One of my personal favorite community outreaches is the Dallas based Senior Source.  Seniors are a forgotten population, hidden away in nursing homes, or invisible because they are homebound and helpless.  The mission of The Senior Source is to improve the quality of life of older adults in the greater Dallas area through protection, eldercare, advocacy, volunteerism, and employment services.  Since 1961, The Senior Source has served greater Dallas as the go-to nonprofit for aging services.  We assist older adults at all income levels from the most active to the very frail. People come to us for help with job searches, nursing home advocacy, money management, volunteer opportunities and counseling on any aging issue.
If you’re in DFW, look them up and see how you can help.  Otherwise, look for your local senior resources and get involved!  We’ll all be old one day.  Let’s make sure our elders have the care we’re going to want to have.
3.  Sexy vampires are sexy