Did You Ever Know You're My She-ro: Part 1

I am a shopper. Shopping is like breathing for me. But I do understand value and I LOVE a good bargain! Thus, I get those flash sale emails. Everyone in my office knows not to bother me around 11:00 because that’s when most of them usually come in and I need to attack and open them and see what delightful goodies they have for me at such amazing prices.

Recently I saw that one of them said, “Super Hero Capes".

(tires screeching to a halt)

what What WHAT!

Super Hero Capes. 

SUPER HERO CAPES!!!

Visions of my friends wearing capes running around my house giggling while trying not to spill their sangria/martinis/champagne happily ran though my head (yes, we would do this. I had a sleep over last year while still living at the lake house and we ended up playing hide and seek at midnight using night vision goggles. Six grown up women, running around a yard as big as a postage stamp, trying not to fall in the lake or spill our champagne, giggling like maniacs. I ended up with a sprained ankle that didn't heal for over a year but didn't spill a drop of champagne!).

Would they be capes for real super heroes, like Superman and Wonder Woman (yes she had a cape like thing, it was red)!

Behold my cape, disbelievers!
Don't ever doubt the Fairy Godmother's knowledge of Wonder Woman again!

Maybe they were made up super heroes, like, Captain Obvious, Nega-tor, Super Shopper (me! me!),  Wino Woman (hmmm, could also be me), or Fashionisto. I quickly started worrying about how I would divide them among my friends. 

Who wants to be Wino Woman? Cape and wine glass included!

At 11:00:01, I dove right into that email, scrolling down as fast as possible to get to that particular sale and – DISAPPOINTMENT – they were for children.

No super hero capes for adults? Why, that's un-American!

Maybe this is an unfilled niche? A long time ago, a boyfriend told me that if I were a superhero, my name would be Defender of the Defenseless, due to my penchant for always trying to stick up for the underdog. Nice but boring. Speaking of boring, have you noticed that Good is almost always boring, and Evil usually gets the cool toys and costumes? Maleficent, the Evil Queen from Snow White, Ursula from the Little Mermaid (ok, she just looked real cool) ... even the Evil Queen from the tv series Once Upon a Time has amazing clothes.

If crime doesn't pay, how come we evil ladies always look so good?

They also seem to have the best powers, too. We need to have some fairy tales where the good witches and heroines have some rocking wardrobes and some kick ass powers. Like a cross between Xena (I HEART Xena), Kick Ass and the Evil Queen from Once Upon a Time. And cool theme songs they could hum to themselves as they run to go beat Evil senseless.

If you were a superhero, what would your name be? What would your superhero outfit be (make sure you can move in it as you run to your supercool theme song)? What powers would you have? If you need help creating a name, there are several Super Hero Name Generator out there online. (Sure, no capes for adults but plenty of name generators. Where's the logic??) Here are a couple for you to try:

For you lazy future super hero wannabes (MEEEE!), this one does it for you (powers not included):

http://www.quizopolis.com/superhero_name.php - 

For those of you who think even THAT'S too much work, this one comes up with the name AND powers for you:

http://superhero.namegeneratorfun.com/

This one takes some thought but has some cool phrases you mix and match:

http://brideofbigfoot.wordpress.com/2012/05/22/serious-superhero-name-generator-sensible-supervillain-codenames/ - 

Have fun planning your super alter ego. I'm thinking I see a new theme party in MY future.

Until our next post,

Ciao bellas.

   

I Believe I Can Fly (Well, Not Really ... But I Do Believe In Other Things)

Hello Gentle Readers.  

I keep writing about my life goals without telling you what they are. Does it matter what they are? Not really (if you are interested, I will share them with you. Remember, I love making lists). This blog is more about trying to make them happen in the hopes that some of what I've learned and learn will help you meet yours and that you'll share your knowledge with me.

Recently I watched the movie Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. I watched it because I had Vertigo (also a great movie but sadly, not the kind of Vertigo I had), and if you've ever had Vertigo you know that it's basically like being drunk without the fun part but with all of the room spins and nausea. And the really great thing is, you have to wait Vertigo out, medicine doesn't make it go away. Reading, surfing the net, even walking made it worse, and closing my eyes didn't help. I needed something to distract me from the spinning and nausea that surrounded me so, (even though we've been in the house for almost a year, we still don't have a radio hooked up - thank you, Steve Jobs) I put on the tv to listen to the noise.

Imagine the theme from Twlight Zone, too, for the full depiction of how I felt.
Image courtesy of winnond / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

As fate would have it, or, as I believe, as I was supposed to see, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen was on. So I watched - or listened to it - and I learned. As I was supposed to.

Even though we're in a great movie in the middle of the desert in Yemen, 

we printed out this great blog by the Fairy Godmother!

One of the many things that struck me about this move was the discussion about faith. We discover Dr. Brown (Ewan McGregor) doesn't believe in God. The Sheik likens believing in something, having faith, to fishing. He says:

“How many hours do you fish before you catch something?  Is that a good use of your time for a facts and figures man?  But you persist, in the wind and the rain and the cold.  With such poor odds of success, why?  Because you are a man of faith and, in the end, you are are rewarded for your faith and constancy with a fish.”

I have faith, or I believe, in certain things. Four have been the biggest in shaping my life.

First, I believe that you have the power to shape your own life. 

Thoughts become things. You draw to you that which you put forth .... that kind of thing. I believe that God, the Universe, whatever you call it, wants you to have what you want. You just have to believe that it's available to you, and that you deserve them. And when I say believe, I mean BELIEVE. Not half heartedly, not sometimes, but down to every last iota you have every second of every day. That also means believing that when something you want doesn't happen, you believe that there's a great reason why, and are thankful for it because something even better is coming. Of course, all of this is much easier said, or written, than done and if you can do that, please let us know how you do it.

Second, I believe that people or things you encounter are sent to help you achieve what you want. 

Friends you make, acquaintances you meet, even something as sill as a movie you watch, can be a sign or provide help or direction. So often I will be musing over a concept and all of a sudden I will read or hear something that helps me further explore that concept, just like Salmon Fishing in the Yemen did. It's not always something I want to learn, either. I remember once I was fighting with a colleague of mine ... the whole team was fed up with her duplicity and lying and scheming. As I was wondering how to deal with her, how to make her understand that what she was doing was wrong and how to stop it, I read a quote by Eckhart Tolle that said, "If peace is what you want, you will choose peace."

While I would like to believe that we can pick and choose what guidance we need, the reality is we can't. I wasn't thrilled as the realization that, if I wanted to stop fighting with this woman and stop feeling sick to my stomach every day, I had to change myself, not her. My choices, although they may not have been ego-fulfilling in pointing out to her how wrong she was or winning one for the team, would determine if she and I had peace or not. I had to make a decision - was what I wanted really peace or did I want to win and feel good about myself?

I chose these fingers over a different finger when dealing with my colleague

I sat down with her, had a heart to heart as neutrally as I could, speaking only for myself on how her actions hurt my work, asked for help and from then on used that quote to determine my actions and reactions as she continued about her old ways. Did it make me feel great? No. Was she proven to be the spawn of satan we all knew her to be? No. As a matter of fact, the rest of us have left that company and she remains there, doing well. But I did have peace for the rest of the time I had to interact with her.

That didn't mean I let her walk all over me, or all of a sudden think she was wonderful. To this day I would never work with her again, and she's truly the only person I've ever felt that way about. But when I had a choice to rail against her or complain or worry incessantly about what she would do next I didn't. I chose instead to focus on my own actions and what I could control. When we clashed, they were disagreements that were much more professional and less heated than the fights we used to have, and I was able to do so from a position of calm centered-ness rather than ego.

What I had been hoping for was insight into how to stop fighting by making her realize she was wrong, how awful she was being, how she was hurting the team and understand and get into line with the rest of us. What I was given was a solution for how to stop fighting, period. It was my choice to act on it for not.

Speaking of acting, third, I believe that, as Hamlet said (or Shakespeare wrote), 
 "... For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."

That's right! You heard it here first, bitches!
Um, I mean, I wish I had written a blog as great as this!

As I mentioned in my post on my watching too much TV, where your thoughts are is where your energy lies. How we perceive, or judge, a situation or person or thing often dictates our feelings around that person, situation or thing. A person, place or thing usually just IS, we are the ones who attach a particular meaning to it or them, be it a good or bad meaning. My favorite example of this is rain. People always say, "What a terrible day, it's raining." Why does the rain make the day terrible? I understand there are bad things that happen due to rain, but otherwise, it's just rain. Rain gives you an excuse to stay inside and snuggle up or read a book, it makes things grow, prevents droughts ... rain is only good or bad depending upon what you think of it, how you judge it. Otherwise it just IS. So are most of the things that happen in your life.

I seem to be on a movie roll, so I will continue with it. Have you ever seen Life of Pi? (Yet another movie I had no desire to see but really liked once I saw it). I can't say anything else because it will ruin the movie for you if you haven't seen it, but watch it and you will understand more about perception.


Fourth, you will keep being put in or reliving situations until you learn the lesson you are supposed to. 

This is very frustrating because some of us are very pigheaded, even when we realize what we are doing wrong. One of my favorite quotes (hey, I read a lot so I have a lot of favorite quotes. Cut a Fairy Godmother some slack) is:

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Albert Einstein

Does it make you insane that this quote has no end quote marks? It certainly bugs the fairy dust out of me. 

    http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alberteins133991.html#EGKu38mxYRVVkH4B.99 

I used to always date the same kind of guy - emotionally unavailable ones. Some part of me at that time needed them to be that way because it filled a need I had. When I finally saw the patten I created and was following and how ultimately it was making me unhappy, I stopped. I focused on filling that need for myself and when that happened, suddenly I wasn't willing to tolerate that kind of behavior and I wasn't attracted to those kinds of men anymore. Was it easy to stop? No. Did I discover what I was getting from that type of relationship and how to get it from a healthier source right away? No. But unless I took the steps to stop it, to change it, to do something different, I was going to keep repeating the same mistake over and over and over. And voila, when I wasn't looking or expecting it, Prince Charming came into my life.

So there you have it gentle readers, four of my core beliefs that help me build the life I want. What do you believe and hold to be true? Are you sure they're your beliefs? Do you need to change anything? What will it take for you to start empowering yourself? What situation do you keep finding yourself in that you don't want to be in? Please feel free to share, because as Cloud Atlas, another movie I listened to during my playtime with Vertigo, said:

Sonmi-451: If I had remained invisible, the truth would stay hidden. I couldn't allow that.
Archivist: And what if no one believes this truth?

Sonmi-451: Someone already does. 

And with that dramatic ending, I will whip my Fairy Godmother cape around me dramatically and fly off into the wind.

Until next post, Sayonara babies!

Cinderelley, Cinderelley - You Sit Too Long In Front Of the Telly

Since our last post together, I've been thinking.

In that musing, I mentioned how I do have the time to accomplish some things I would like to do, but not necessarily the energy. I leave my job where, like almost everyone else I know, I am uninspired and bored, fight traffic to get home and then have to deal with the remaining chores of the day. Except I don't deal with the remaining chores of the day. Usually I sink in front of the tv with the handsome Prince Charming and our two dogs and surf the net until bedtime. At first we blamed the winter weather, but now it's spring and not much has changed. Occasionally we will go for a walk (part of our goal to get in shape) or do an errand, or go out to eat, but mostly we sit in front of the television.

Say it with me: TV, TV, it's eating all my energy

As is my FG nature, I immediately started researching (no doubt doing this research in front of the television) about energy drains and what to do about them.  Interestingly, a lot of the drains are the same, which leads me to wonder why we let them prevail as a society, but that's a topic for another post. Obviously, being uninspired at work is a drain, as is sitting in traffic, so I need to change my job and commute - but I also need to eat and pay the mortgage and vet bills for the puppies. I also read an article in the April 2013 edition of Family Circle (my mother, sister, cousin and I all trade magazines we get. It's very interesting to me to see what magazines each person reads and what articles they flag as important. But I digress ...) called, "Refresh, Renew. Recharged." Some of the energy drains they pointed out were - skipping sex (really? I thought that was a casualty of not having energy), sugar loading (Guilty! As a matter of fact I just ate a Whatchamacallit bar), ignoring your body clock, getting too much rest - they say not to veg out on the weekends and that - wait for it, golden nugget coming: "The more physically active you are, the more vitality you have. ... Activity begets the urge to do more activity."

Ding Ding Ding! Ladies and Gentlemen we have a winner!

Of course! I believe that 100%. Seriously! (I will tell you when I am being sarcastic). When I worked two jobs I also had energy to go to the gym and go out and do almost everything else I wanted. So in order to be more active, I need to become more active. Kind of like the chicken or the egg paradox, except with an answer, and without a chicken, or an egg. 

I also believe that whatever is in writing must be true (now THAT was sarcastic), so I am going to list some things I need to do to have more energy and then I will do them (don't be mean, this is not me being sarcastic, it is me being hopeful). While I can't really address the body clock issue I have: my energy peaks while I am at work, I did muse on what are my biggest drains/issues and how I might percent or fix them. I will let you know how it turns out. 

FG's LIST OF GETTING MORE ENERGY TO DO MORE THINGS

1. Eat better: less sugary items (booooo!), more balanced meals

Issues to overcome: buy better food, plan out meals/recipes so they're easy and quick to make, eat a better breakfast, have a healthy snack before leaving work so when I get home I have the energy and willpower to cook something healthy for dinner.

2. Force myself to do some thing, even if it's a little thing, instead of plopping my arse in front of the tv (when IS the new episode of Vikings going to be on anyway!!) 

 In the words of a great Nike slogan (please don't sue me Nike) "Just Do It."

3. Look for a job that makes me excited to wake up in the morning and makes me feel energized doing it. 

'Nuff said.

4. Until I find said job, make what I have better.

Download audio books for the long commute. Focus on what is good about the job (see #5).

5. Remember this phrase: Where your thoughts are is where your energy lies.

I read this a long time ago and while I believe it 100%, I forget it about 80% of the time. If I am focusing on my long commute, the crazy drivers (why can't they all drive like me? HA!), how uninspiring my job is, of course I am going to feel drained. If instead I manage to see the good in these circumstances, and there always is good, I will feel energized. The lenses I choose to see through and with are exactly that - my choice.

These are my musings - MY musings, on what I need to do. What are YOUR energy drains? List them out, and then see what you can do about them. Be detailed in how you will handle them; consider what might make you fall back to your old habits and prepare for those as well. And please, as always, share what you do or found.

Until our next post, ciao babies. 

Your FG

Priorities, Schmiorities. We Want to Watch Vikings!

Priorities. Is it arrogant to say that we all have priorities? Maybe, (but this is my blog so I'll take the leap of faith and say we do).  But that wasn't my real question anyway (remember, my blog - I'm allowed to waiver) . My real question is, are the priorities we have truly OUR priorities, or those put on us by family, society, culture, etc. Oh, and another question - do we hide behind priorities that aren't really ours because it's easier?

I can honestly say that I have met most of my goals by making them a priority. If you knew me, you might say - as some have - "Well, that was easy for you - you were by yourself and didn't have children or a husband or family to worry about." Maybe, and I do accept that maybe it's easier to pursue your priorities when you don't have other people truly relying on you - but I say maybe because a) although I consider my Prince Charming (PC) and dogs my family, we don't have children so I can't speak as to what that experience is like and b) when you're alone, it's all on --and up to -- you. Of course you have family and friends, but still, to paraphrase former US President Harry Truman,  the buck stops with you.

 

As a former President, I wish I had had access to a blog as great as this!

It may be easier when "alone" because you have the freedom to be ... not necessarily selfish although that may be the correct word, (it just has such a negative connotation) ... but self-oriented. But I digress. I do want to address being self-oriented, but I will save that for a later post.

So where was I? Oh yes, Priorities. I was thinking about priorities because I have a couple of friends that are able to do things I want to do, but can't seem to accomplish, even though they have busy lives. One of those is a friend we shall call Ted.

Ted lives in a big, beautiful, pristine three floor town home with his partner, commutes over an hour to work, has an active social life, and somehow manages to keep that town home SPOTLESS. I mean, his floors are cleaner than most people's plates. I have always had an issue with my house not being as clean as I would like it. Don't get me wrong -- if you're invited over, you would usually see something as organized as this:

This is not my living room, but isn't it well organized and neat? 

No fingerprints or dust on THAT coffee table!

What you won't see, unless you walk around opening closets and peeking under bedskirts (and some of our relatives do!), is where we've quickly stashed things that we don't know where to put. AND, if you happen to drop in unannounced you might catch us how we truly are ... much like animals in their natural environment:

Our desk is not as neat as this one, I sadly promise you

It bothers me that my house isn't spotless and that everything doesn't have its place and it isn't always "sure, just drop in" ready. While I would like to blame this on PC and his habits, I cannot. When I lived alone, I always had little piles of things everywhere until my weekly cleaning fit would hit me.  It doesn't bother me if other people's houses aren't all neat and orderly, just mine, and I envy those whose are. So when I saw Ted the other day, I asked him how he does it. "You have a long commute, you are busy, you have an active social life and are super busy. How do you keep your home so clean and neat?"

His reply: "My house is clean because I'd be more stressed if it wasn't. I prioritize it as important."

There it is ladies and gentlemen, the A-HA moment I had. He PRIORITIZES it as important. And a priority, according to a search on Google, is:

Search Results

1. 1. pri·or·i·ty  

      /prīˈôrətē/
      

      Noun A thing that is regarded as more important than another. The fact or condition of being regarded or treated as more important.

      Synonyms precedence - preference - precedency - primacy

   More info - Dictionary.com - Answers.com - Merriam-Webster - The Free Dictionary

I always say or think, "I wish I had more time" but, truth be told, I have the time when I get home from work, just not always the energy. We sit and watch On Demand (we still don't know when Vikings is really on but we love it!) and basically waste the evening away. Is that more important to me than other things I'd like to do? No, but you would think it was considering that is how I spend a lot of my time on weekdays.

I'm the star of the awesome show Vikings on the History Channel. I DARE you

to blame me when you visit the Fairy Godmother's home and it's not picture perfect!

If vegging out in front of the tele is what matters to you, no judgements, truly! I am not you, so who am I to judge. Oh gentle reader, being the SMART, gentle readers you are, you might say, 

"But that is relaxation time for you; time for you to spend with handsome PC and the dogs, 

watching good looking Vikings fight and live and try to appease their gods as you share your day's adventures!" 

And it is. I'm not saying it's not important, but there are new goals I want to accomplish, and I need to focus on making them priorities again. It's quite possible I could combine items -- for example, one of my goals is to get in better shape. So perhaps PC and I could spend that time together exercising rather than watching the tube. Let's be realistic -- I am sure just collapsing on the couch and being mindless will be my priority of certain days, or even weeks ... but overall, I need to start focusing on and defining what my priorities truly are and how to accomplish them. If that means finding the time, energy, money, whatever, to make them happen, then so be it. If it's important to me, I must find a way.

So today's learning (thanks Ted): Think about what your goals are. Then ask yourself if you've made any of them priorities. If not, why not? And what are your priorities? Are they truly YOURS or put upon you by some other source? 

If you have any thoughts or advice to share, please do. 

Until our next blog time together, I bid you adieu.

Fairy Godmother

From Cowgirl to Fairy Godmother ... How It All Started

I guess this all started a long time ago when I a little girl. A lot of my friends dreamed of finding the RIGHT GUY and GETTING MARRIED. I never did. I wanted to be a cowgirl with my own horse and dog living on a ranch somewhere eating waffles for breakfast and riding out on the vast terrain.

Howdy Pardners, welcome to my blog

(Please don't sue me person whose image I used. I am new to this) 

But little girls grow up and soon my dreams of sleeping under the stars smelling the dying campfire and faint scent of saddle leather gave way to different dreams  -- simple and few as they were. I  dreamt of owning a house somewhere on the water, driving a convertible and having a dog at my side. So I worked hard and slowly saved until I got the convertible, bought a tiny house on a lake, and -- when I felt my lifestyle would be fair enough, got the last piece of my happiness pie -- my dog.

Hi, I am not my mom's actual dog, but a hopefully free-stock-image representing cute dogs in general. Don't you want to take me home and read blogs with me at your side?

When my offer on the house was accepted, I remember calling my mother excitedly and telling her. I had never thought I would own my own home. This is basically how the conversation went. I've used the parens and Latin terms to indicate our tone.

Me (super excitedus): "Mom, I did it! I finally did it! I am so happy! I've done it! I can't believe it! I ..." 

Mom (super rudeus interuptus): "What! You got married???" 

... crickets ... (oh gentle friends, I looked for an image of a cricket but they grossed me out so I went the verbal route. Trust me, you are thankful for that. Gross!) 

.. more crickets ... 

Mom (concernedus but excitedes): "FG? You still there?"

Me (super disappointedly-us): "Um, yes. I didn't get married! Are you kidding me? I am not even dating anyone. I got the house!"

Mom (L-O-N-G pause, then longus sighus and super disappointedly-us): "Oh FG, now you'll never get married. I thought at least you might need two salaries to afford a house."

The point of this tale of woe isn't to let you know that my entire Irish/Italian Catholic family is dying for me to get married ... nor is it exactly a tale of woe. I shared it because I had realized long ago that I had better take things into my own hands and make my own goals and dreams come true. No waiting for Prince Charming to come in, sweep me off my feet and carry me to my castle where we would live happily ever after or for my Fairy Godmother to come make it happen for me. To quote the Eurthymics, a British pop duo, Aretha Franklin and anyone else who sang the song, "Sisters are doing it for themselves." So I became my own Fairy Godmother, and built the life I wanted.

People tell me how lucky I am all of the time, they say I lead a charmed life and believe me, I know. I am thankful for it. Are there things I want that I don't have? Yes, of course.  Could I be richer, thinner, healthier, a better person? Of course. And probably many more things. But when you look at the core of my being, the one thing I truly am is happy. HAPPY. People ask me all of the time how I got here. Hopefully my blog will let you know.

Recently, things changed for me.  I have my own Prince Charming in my life now (although we are not married yet, much to the dismay of our families), we just moved into a new home in a new area, have two dogs (and fosters on and off) and he kills crickets for me. It's a new stage of my life, and I find my goals have changed. So I thought I'd set up a blog of musings on things I've learned, am learning and should learn (but stubbornly refuse to do so) to meet those new goals and create and keep the life I want to have and person I want to be. In essence, share, continue to learn how to and sometimes fail at being my own fairy godmother again. Because sister, there ain't no body else who's gonna do it for you. (I think I am quoting my own bad self there but who knows).

I hope you enjoy the ride. Yee-haw!