As a new blogger, I subscribe to and take the advice of many of the experienced bloggers who make it one of their primary goals to provide value to their readers. One of those pieces of advice arrived today in my BlogLines account from Daniel at Daily Blog Tips entitled “Write Monthly Roundups.” Daniel states:
“At the beginning of every month simply check your statistics to see what were the posts that attracted the most traffic over the past four weeks, and present them to your readers with a short summary.”
What this advice encouraged me to do, then, is to examine my statistics to see what my readers valued most.
So this post is the first of my Monthly Roundups. And these are my findings:
- “Reclaiming Ourselves – Women Who Run With The Wolves” appeared as most popular during the month of January. In this post, I introduced my intent to begin a weekly reflection/discussion of this wonderful book which is meant to help women rediscover and reclaim ourselves. I am excited about this “project,” and hope you will join me.
- “Airtran Kicks Family Off Of Plane!!!” appeared as my second most popular post. This post generated s-o-o-o many hits, I believe, because, while I did not mean for it to be controversial, it ended up being so. I took on this subject from the vantage point of “How do we treat families who are in distress in public?” My commenters took the matter on from other points of view. None of the commenters agreed with my opinion, by the way.
- “Cluttered Desk, Cluttered Mind” generated a fair amount of traffic (according to my SiteMeter statistics), although comments were few. I don’t have any particular theories about why this post was popular, although some readers may have wanted to justify their own clutter by saying, “Einstein was messy too!” (ha!) Another theory is that many readers were interested in the image to which I referred in which Einstein is standing in the midst of a cluttered office. While it appeared in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution edition to which I refer, I didn’t copy it onto the site because of copyright laws and it would’ve costed me $90 for licensing rights!
- “Powerful, Gorgeous, Talented, Brilliant, Who, Me?” is the last post to get mention in this roundup. We (particularly women) have a tendency, I believe, to put ourselves down and beat ourselves up when we make mistakes or our lives are not moving in the direction we think they ought. We tend to blame ourselves for what’s wrong in our world. But self-deprecation and self-blame is counterproductive. My point in this post was to encourage us that we truly are God’s children with tremendous value – we just need to claim that value within ourselves.
This concludes the January 2007 edition of the Monthly Roundup…
Tomorrow I will present my five favorite posts of the week…Stay tuned!!!
I feel intruded upon. I feel like my time is wasted. Yet, there are people out there who have fallen for this scam, so I will take the time to put it out there, just in case…
I received two emails today. Here is the first (don’t spend too much time on it – just skim it):
UK NATIONAL LOTTERY HEADQUARTERS
2 Lansdowne Row, Berkeley Square.
London, W1J 6H,
United Kingdom.
Dear Winner
This is to inform you that you have been selected for a cash prize of £1,000,000.00 (British Pounds) held on the 27th of January 2007, in
London Uk.The selection process was carried out through random selection in our computerized email selection system (ess) from a database of over 250,000 email addresses drawn from which you were selected. your e-mail address emerged as one of two winners in the category “A” with the following winning information:
REF No: UKNL-L/200-26937
BATCH No: 2007MJL-01
TICKET No: 20511465463-7644
SERIAL No: S/N-00168
LUCKY No: 887-13-865-37-10-83
The BRITISH UK. Lottery is approved by the British Gaming Board. To begin the processing of your prize, you are to contact our fiduaciary claims department for more infomation as regards procedures to claim your prize.
Mr. Nolan Woods.
Email: (I deleted this so no one could link to the address)
Tel : + (I deleted these numbers)
+ (I deleted these numbers)
Fax: + (I deleted these numbers)
Contact him by sending him with the underlisted informations;
NAME:
AGE:
SEX:
ADDRESS:
EMAIL:
PHONE:
OCCUPATION:
COMPANY:
COUNTRY:
AMOUNT WON:
Reply to this confidential email account: email:
(I deleted this email)
Congratulations once more from our members of staff and thank you for being part of our promotional program.
Yours faithfully,
Mrs. Caroline Bryan
Online coordinator for UK NATIONAL LOTTERY
Sweepstakes International Program.
NATIONAL LOTTERY.
Here is the second email (again, just skim it):
Dear Friend,
I have not considered this medium to be the best manner to have approached you on this issue being that the internet has been greatly abused over the recent years and is very unsecured for informations of vital importance. I have decided to take the chance seeing that no other means could have been faster and more efficient than the E-mail.
The name is Mr. Henry Coleman and I am the director of foreign operations of my Bank. I have been incharge of this department for six years and to best of my knowleage have discharge my duty with equity. I had a foreign client who is deceased as at this time, but have assets still unclaimed with the bank.
In the process of review of the financial report by my department, I discovered that both of you have a similar last name, hence I contacted you so that I can give you further briefing on my intention and how to disburse the estate he left behind.
I will most welcome your prompt response as that would enable us to start something immediately.
Sincerely,
Henry Coleman.
As I know we’re relatively computer-savvy (we started at least one blog, didn’t we?), to fall for these scams seems to be improbable to me. Nevertheless, I wanted to do a little bit of research on them since they seem to be popping up more frequently in my inbox, as they may have in yours.
Both of these emails, as well as different versions of them, are referred to as one of the following (from Snopes.com):
- Nigerian Scam
- Advance Fraud Scheme
- 419 Scheme
In spite of the fact that there has been much press exposing this scheme and its initiators, people are still getting duped by it. Dr. Kevin Pho at “Kevin, M.D. Medical Weblog” writes about doctors getting scammed by the Advanced Fraud Scheme.
The folks over at “BoingBoing” and “TailRank” write about Thomas Katona, a county treasurer in Michigan, who fell for the scam and ended up getting arraigned for embezzlement of funds.
Mail & Guardian Online report of a retired Italian banker who lost over $1 million by participating in this fraud.
And according to Freep.com, the “Nigerian email scam [is] still collecting from its victims.”
The “419 Coalition” has a series of steps to take if you do receive one these emails.
However, that is not the purpose for this post. Because these scams have been originating in Nigeria (although other variations of the scam have been popping up in other locations throughout the world), it would be “natural” for people to begin associating Nigerians with “scam.” Essentially, because of press coverage this topic has received, the risk for “scam profiling” of Nigerians is quite high. So I wanted to bring attention to the fact that just because there are Nigerians associated with this scam does not mean that all Nigerians endorse it or condone the behavior of the scam artists. In fact, Nilla, a patriotic Nigerian, says this:
“For all non-Nigerians, scammers are not celebrated in Nigeria, only the scammers celebrate what they’ve achieved.”
As you receive these emails and hear the news reports about the scam artists behind them, let’s remember that a few bad apples do not represent an entire people. Most Nigerians abide by the law. Let’s stomp racial profiling to where it belongs – into the pit of hell.
My husband used to call me “My Dream Come True.” After almost six years of marriage, he now has another name for me…
99.9%
My husband thinks that I am 99.9% better than all the other women out there in the world! This is incredible to me, because while we have had some good times, it’s been very difficult alot of the time. He even wrote about it on his blog, “When Least Expected™. (Of course, I’ve got to give my husband some link love, you know.) Before you say, “She sure is self-aggrandizing and self-absorbed,” I have to tell you a couple of things that precipitated me writing about this.
First, I read a post at “Crunchy Carpets” (I love that name and what it represents!) today entitled “What’s going on with men and women these days?” Read the entire entry, but for our purposes I want you to focus on the first half of her post and the indented quotation spoken by a woman (not Crunchy Carpets!) against her husband (please go there if you haven’t yet). To summarize, she works all day while her husband stays home with the baby, and when she comes home, the house is a mess. The quote concludes by her ranting,
“He was home all day—couldn’t he at least run a freaking load of laundry?”
Crunchy Carpets responds by saying:
“…this a very sad example of what a relationship is supposed to be about. The narcissism and selfishness appall me.”
Her comment gave me pause. I had to stop and think about what she was saying. That leads to the second thing that precipated this post.
I am a teacher. My husband is a writer (which is one reason why he started his blog – to work some things out in the process of him publishing his book soon), speaker, poet, photographer, and general and all-around fix-it man. After we had our daughter, when my summer vacation was over, my husband stayed at home with her for three months while I went to work. And while I came home sometimes to a cluttered home, it didn’t matter; he was taking great care of our little girl.
However (and this is the second thing that precipitated this post), I have had many lapses, train wrecks, and brain farts. My husband works from home. On my way to school, I drop off our daughter at the daycare (which is on the campus where I work). While I don’t get on him about the house, I will complain about other stuff, mainly the car (he knows everything about a VW Passat GLX VR6!) or anything else that needs fixing. Brakes, tune-up, oil change, water pump (now that’s particularly difficult to do by yourself on a Passat!) – we have needed it all done. But my husband is one man (and at the moment, our budget is tight, so we do what we can). He’s getting some things off the ground with regard to his business. And I need to trust him that he’s letting God lead him and let him do his thing, even when it’s hard. Even when our lives don’t seem to be the way I think they should be (based upon our ages, education, children, etc.). Even when we are looking at each other sideways.
So while we have a long way to go, my husband and I are learning how to be together, in spite of the difficulty. And I was reminded today by Crunchy Carpets of the incredible, priceless value my husband brings to our relationship. Thank you, Crunchy Carpets!
In spite of what is going on around you, in spite of your circumstances (other than abuse), what value does your husband brings to your relationship (really think about this)? What can we do to keep that impression at the forefront of our minds and hearts? Should we be asking other questions? Or am I way off?
Before the new year one evening as I was doing some laundry, I noticed a book my husband had in his library that I’ve seen many times over the years but have never been compelled to pick up. This night, though, the book called out to me. I wrote a post about my experience of being “drawn” to the book as I read the following narrative from the inside jacket cover:
“Within every woman there is a wild and natural creature, a powerful force, filled with good instincts, passionate creativity, and ageless knowing. Her name is Wild Woman, but she is an endangered species. Though the gifts of wildish nature come to us at birth, society’s attempt to ‘civilize’ us into rigid roles has plundered this treasure, and muffled the deep, life-giving messages of our own souls. Without Wild Woman, we become over-domesticated, fearful, uncreative, trapped…
…In Women Who Run With The Wolves, Dr. Estes has created a new lexicon for describing the female psyche. Fertile and life-giving, it is a psychology of women in the truest sense, a knowing of the soul.”
Well, it is time, now, to begin the journey of this “knowing of the soul.” I will be dedicating each Monday for a reflection and, hopefully, discussion, on this wonderful resource, Women Who Run with the Wolves
by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D. Why would I want to study this book in a blog? It has made a tremendous impact on me, and I believe it will make that same, if not more profound, impact on others. But don’t take my word for it…following are some reviews (from Amazon.com):
“This volume reminds us that we are nature for all our sophistication, that we are still wild, and the recovery of that vitality will itself set us right in the world.” –Thomas Moore, Author of Care of the Soul
“I am grateful to Women Who Run with the Wolves and to Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés. The work shows the reader how glorious it is to be daring, to be caring, and to be women. Everyone who can read should read this book.” –Maya Angelou
This book will become a bible for women interested in doing deep work….It is a road map of all the pitfalls, those familiar and those horrifically unexpected, that a woman encounters on the way back to her instinctual self. Wolves…is a gift.” –Los Angeles Times
Now, here is a reader’s review (from Amazon.com):
“I first read Women Who Run With the Wolves when I was a teenager. I was struck deeply by all of the stories. At the time, the stories that stood out the most in my mind were Bluebeard, Skeleton Woman, and Sealskin, Soulskin. They lived on, in my mind, as I grew, and I never forgot the messages I learned from the stories. That was an incredible influence on my life. The stories and Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ descriptions were the wise women I needed to guide me away from allowing myself to be destructed and instead choosing to be aware. I highly recommend sharing this book with your teenage daughters, and talking with them about the messages. In addition this book helped me to view all the stories that I had enjoyed as a child as commentary on my survival (from sexual abuse).”
And from the blogosphere, E-Nadaha says,
“…the way her writings extract that power buried within is just amazing…”
We’ll begin with the introductory chapter next week, “Singing Over the Bones,” where we will discover the characteristics of the Wild Woman (the healthy, passionate, vibrant woman), how we lose that instinctual nature, and how the telling of stories can help turn us around on the path toward the recreation of ourselves.
Join me as we begin a wonderful journey of rediscovery and reclamation. Please comment and let me know if you’re interested!
While I have become increasingly politically aware and informed as I’ve matured through my 30s and now 40s, I don’t tend to write about politics. Quite frankly, those discussions make me a little uncomfortable because of their incredible complexity and charge. Necessarily, though, the socio-political issue of race which seems to have taken over the airwaves because of the 2008 presidential campaign is one that we can’t ignore. And so I will carefully throw in my “5 cents” (yes, it is worth more than 2 in my opinion) as the coming week progresses.
Nonetheless, you should know that I will not approach the issue in a politically partisan or non-partisan way. As an African-American woman, it is true that I have experienced much discrimination and racism in my lifetime. But I am concerned for the many Blacks (especially women) who have been “discriminated against” by their own. The pain that results from the rejection one feels by not being accepted by those supposedly within your circle sometimes hurts worse than the rejection felt by those without. As a result, feelings of inadequacy and self-hatred can ensue, causing one to “lose their identity” or wish they were somebody else. This is an especially troublesome issue for young Black girls.
I want to address this issue because it is real; I experienced it. I want to address this issue because I have a daughter. I don’t want her thinking that because she has a certain skin tone and a certain texture of hair that that makes her to be “this” (whatever “this” is). I want her to be able to deal with the very real possibility that she may be hurt by her own. And I want her to be able to handle it. So within these posts will be my hashing out of an “ideology” I will communicate to my daughter as she is growing up…so that she will better understand those “matters” of race.
I invite you to join me in the evolution of this discussion…
One of my goals for 2007 is to begin a few blogging traditions. The first tradition is to begin a weekly “Five Favorites For Friday” post. Each Friday, I will list and provide a description of my five favorite posts for that week. They may or may not have a specific focus – the only requirement is that I found them interesting or funny or informative or whatever… Let me know what you think, and if you’d like, please submit your own! Here are my five for the week…
- “Let me give you some constructive criticism…” We’ve heard that saying often. We’ve probably even said it to other people ourselves. Yet, is our “criticism” truly “constructive,” or is it just something we say to have an excuse to tell someone what we really think without really thinking (I’m guilty of this myself…)? Although targeted toward businesses, Ben Yoskovitz at Instigator Blog provides three tips for anyone on how to give feedback in a tough situation. Thanks Ben. Great post.
- I have noticed over the years that we don’t give the elderly the respect and awe they’ve received and deserved in generations past. I love this post by Rochelle Ritzi at Dream Bigger because it gives honor to “Hello Kitty,” an elderly woman who was visited often by Rochelle’s husband in his weekly visits to the nursing home in which she lived. This is just a touching post to me, as it reminded me of the grandmother I didn’t get an opportunity to see before she passed many years ago…
- Did you know that “God makes puppies cute so we don’t kill them”? If you have a dog, or even if you don’t, you’ve got to check out Carol’s post entitled “She’s Not Quite Housebroken” at her blog She Lives. Not only will you get good tips about how to clean up those wonderful little “messes,” you may just crack up at the “cartoon” at the end of the post (especially if you’re a “24″ fan). This is a fun post you’ll enjoy reading to “lighten things up.”
- Losing your keys and forgetting to turn in overdue DVDs can indicate you may be a little disorganized. But did you know this disorganization can lead to a hole in your pocket? Read about it and get incentive to change at MightyBargainHunter.com‘s “Sixteen Ways Being Disorganized Costs You Money.”
- What if you could eliminate your greatest weakness this very instant? Would you be able to make more money? Would you be a better spouse? Wendy Piersall at eMomsathome.com discusses the way we look at obstacles in our lives and how to move beyond them in “How to Become An Unstoppable Force in Business, Blogging, and Life.”
I vaguely remember what is was like before I gave birth to my daughter almost 3 years ago. One thing I distinctly remember is how I responded when I heard screaming babies and misbehaving toddlers in grocery stores, malls, restaurants, movies… Some of my thoughts included:
- “Why can’t she control her kids?”
- “Doesn’t she realize she’s the adult in the family?”
- “Surely that kid is going to grow up with no self-control.”
- “I know what I’d do to that child if she were mine.”
Until I had my own…
I can recall a recent grocery store visit in which my daughter wanted to push the cart. I was in a hurry, so of course I quietly but matter-of-factly said, “No, you need to get in the cart for now. You can push the cart later.” Indeed, the best way for her to respond would have been for her to say, “Okay, mommy.” BUT, we’re talking about a 2-year old. This 2-year old begins to cry, not in a quiet sort of way that would have been bearable to me. She screams loudly so the entire grocery store would feel her pain. (Of course, no one can relate to this, can they?)
Well, how about this…
Parents Gerald, Julie, and their 3-year old Elly Kulesza were on an AirTran flight preparing to depart out of Florida to go home to Boston when Elly became “unmanageable.” She began crying and would not stop. She sat down on the floor of the plane and threw a temper tantrum. Her parents could not console her. Julie believes it may have happened because she recently had had some ear surgery and was remembering some discomfort she may have felt on the flight into Florida. After some time, an AirTran employee approaches Mr. Kulesza, saying,
“Sir, you need to get off the plane.”
The family eventually left the plane. They missed their flight and were banned from flying AirTran for 24 hours. They eventually made it home and seems that the situation was resolved between AirTran and the family. The Kulesza’s vowed to never fly AirTrain again. Read the entire story here.
Nevertheless, that could have happened to any one who is traveling with a toddler, whether parent, sibling, aunt, uncle, anybody! In fact, last March, my daughter flew for the first time when we went to visit my mother in Milwaukee. She was not yet 2 years old, so I didn’t have to buy her a separate ticket, and she sat on my lap. She was quite active, but the passengers around us didn’t seem to mind.
It was slightly different on the way back to Atlanta. A woman sitting next to me had a Nintendo gadget (I’m not all that familiar with them, which is why I call it a “gadget”). My daughter loves small electronic devices, so she proceeded to move toward it in an effort to lay hold of it. The woman said, “Hold on, let me fix it for you so you can play with it.” She was so incredibly gracious, and I was so appreciative. And I needed to be. She lost her pacifier in Milwaukee, and she had become very cranky because of it. I eventually found it, but after a couple of days of being without it, she didn’t believe it was hers. So I didn’t have a way to really calm her during the flight (she didn’t blow a gasket, thank God!).
In addition she had had lots of Ritz crackers and apple juice that day, so after a period of time on the flight, she vomited without warning! Again, the woman sitting next to me was helpful, even giving me encouragement by saying, “You really are handling your daughter very well.” She was a veteran – she had adult children (reading that – “adult children” – is funny!). She oughta have known; she was an “expert.” Been there – done that.
I was so grateful. I’m sure some passengers around me felt their peace was disturbed, but others were helpful. One passenger quickly gave me one of those “throw up bags” because I was sort of in a daze as to what was going on.
Interestingly, this was an AirTran flight.
In my mind, AirTran did this family a tremendous disservice. It seems we are always in a rush to get somewhere (I myself included). We don’t want to be inconvenienced (I myself included). We must have everything go perfectly (yes, I can relate). And when things don’t go as planned, let’s eliminate the source of the problem.
AirTran did exactly that. It seems the real source of the problem in that situation was the inability of the AirTran employees to practice a little empathy. They lacked the ability to be creative and to attempt to help this family through a crisis. But of course, it was none of their business and not their responsibility. We have someplace to go! We have people to see! Who cares what your needs are? And who cares that you bought tickets anyway?
AirTran’s slogan is, “Go. There’s nothing stopping you.”
Yeah, right.
I think I’ve done pretty well not going overboard with worry when my 2 year, 8 month old daughter is not feeling well. Since she started daycare when she was 7 months old, she’s gotten colds, though their onset occurs less frequently. I now feel a bit more comfortable properly medicating her without calling the nurse’s line at the pediatrician’s office every time she gets a fever (which isn’t often at all). When she takes a spill, I try to laugh so she doesn’t get freaked out by my personal panic. But last week, after months of being free of the “peeds,” I had to make that call.
My daughter gets this cough many times when she has a cold or just a plain runny nose. She’s been getting this cough off and on since she was about 8 months old. After a couple of bouts with this terrible, thick, deep sounding cough, her pediatrician put her on a nebulizer with albuterol and pulmicort treatments. No, she has not been diagnosed with asthma – in fact, I had only been giving her treatments as needed, not on a predetermined schedule. It seems, nevertheless, this cough came back with a vengeance last week. She coughed so much at night, and sometimes the treatment wouldn’t work. It got so that one night, as we were praying, she said, “Pray for my cough.” My heart sunk. I made the appointment for her for the following Tuesday afternoon, trying to monitor her and give her the treatments she needed at home. The symptoms did subside, but I kept the appointment.
That appointment was today. This is a new pediatrician we’re going to, recommended by the dear and wonderful director of the daycare my daughter attends. This doctor was fabulous! And she’s much closer to where my daughter goes to school and to where I teach. I was pleased I made the switch.
The appointment went well. The doctor prescribed her one more medication; I feel fine about that right now. But (not really a but, but it’s there for effect, I guess) this appointment confirmed my very strong suspicions that…she’s growing!
Well how did I know that? When my husband put some jeans on her yesterday morning, I know when I looked at her I said something to the effect of “You’ll be prepared to wade without getting your pants wet if there’s a flood at any point in time today.”
I was excited when the nurse took us to the scale. She’s grown another couple of inches since her two year well visit last May. She’s 38-1/4 inches tall and 34 pounds! Though not the youngest, she’s the biggest “Big Girl” at the daycare. It makes me feel so good to watch her, to see how healthy she is and looks, to love listening to her talk.
My “Big” girl is growing up way too fast…
I remember hearing a debate before Christmas over what type of tree was better – real or artificial. We have an artificial tree for very practical reasons (probably the main one being that I can kill plants that no one can kill – ask my husband!). However, part of that tree is still up! (My husband is in the middle of a major project, so I’ve not bothered him with helping me with the tree, even though he would if I really needed him to; it’s just not been a priority.)
So my first Tackle It Tuesday project is to finish taking the tree down, putting it in the box, packing up the ornaments and lights, and getting them to storage. That will free up much space in our dining room area. It will also help me to get caught up on things around the house that neglected because I’m a newbie blogger! (Thank you, sweetheart, for your encouragement and support. I love you.)
Thanks for the incentive! I’ll let you know how it goes!
I have so much fun with my daughter (she’s 2 years and 8 months old as of Jan. 20th). While driving to school in the morning with her, I listen to the Steve Harvey Morning Show (it is the most hilarious show I have ever heard in my life!). This morning, as I was listening to the show, I heard her singing something as she sat in her car seat. I turned the radio volume down to hear her singing an improvisation of the English version of the well-known children’s song “Frère Jacques” entitled “Are You Sleeping?” To refresh your memories, here are the words:
Are you sleeping, Are you sleeping,
Brother John? Brother John?
Morning bells are ringing, morning bells are ringing.
Ding, dang, dong. Ding, dang, dong.
Do you remember? My daughter remembers. She remembers so much so that she changed the words to fit her immediate mobile (in the car) situation. Let me describe.
My daughter loves to bring stuffed animals and such with her on our 40-45 minute drive each morning. Today she brought her leopard, a pug dog, and Barney, gathering them in her lap for her leisurely trek to daycare. As always happens when she attempts to give all of her toys love at the same time, one, or all, of her animals (or M&M guy) ends up on the car floor. It was Barney’s turn; he ended up on the floor face down. To honor his temporary downfall (pun intended), my daughter sings:
Where is Barney? Where is Barney?
There he is! There he is!
He fell on the floor, he fell on the floor,
Ding, ding, dong! Ding, ding, dong!
When I heard the song, I cracked up in utter hilarity! Doesn’t sound funny to you? I found it to be incredible that a toddler has the presence of mind to take a song and create new lyrics to fit an immediate situation. In my mind, it’s pure genius and innovation! And it was funnier than whatever was going on during Steve Harvey’s Morning Show at the time (which says alot for her!)! I said to her, “Thank you, sweetheart, for making me laugh,” to which she replied, “You’re welcome,” chuckling herself.
She makes up songs like this frequently. One especially creative one comes to mind, sung to the melody of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” (She sang this as she was looking at the vacuum cleaner in the corner of the room one day.) It went like this:
Cleaner, cleaner, cleaner, cleaner,
Cleaner, cleaner, cleaner, cleaner,
Cleaner, cleaner, cleaner, cleaner,
Cleaner, cleaner, cleaner, cleaner,
Cleaner, cleaner, cleaner, cleaner,
Cleaner, cleaner, cleaner, cleaner,
I suppose she just wanted to give the vacuum cleaner special homage.
How incredible are our children? And if it wasn’t for our children (even if you don’t have them yourself), how dull and ordinary would our lives be? I often think to myself and sometimes say aloud, “What did I do for the first 40 years of my life?” (Of course, my marriage isn’t included here.)
Sometimes I wish it could stay funny this way much of the time…but then, how would we grow as women attempting to gain wisdom and understanding to be better mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, friends?
(And can’t we grow without those “terrible two’s”?)
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