Shine bright like a diamond!

I'm home sick today and finally, finally, after sleeping most of the day, I have a little time to myself to put down in words the amazingness that was Girls' Weekend.

Some of you might recall I was less than enthusiastic about the trip in the very beginning. Not because I didn't very much want to see and catch up with this bright, hilarious, wonderful group of women, but because I worried about being away from my kids for three days and leaving Lester alone all that time with two 3-year-olds and a 2-year-old (can you imagine?)

But I am SO glad I went.

The obvious reasons need little explaining. I had three days of free time - truly free. No demands whatsoever from anyone. This was unspeakably glorious! I also ate amazing meals (it's NOLA, hello!) and drank delicious cocktails and then could sleep in the next morning. People without children have no idea the luxury of being able to wake up naturally after a night of healthy drankin'...
I got to laugh and talk with women I like and admire and missed. And I met C. Thomas Howell on the way home!!! What's not to love, right?

But the real boon of the weekend came entirely unexpectedly.

I anticipated all the laughter. I anticipated all the great conversation. I did not anticipate all the crying. Or all the encouragement. All the building-up. All the intense, but loving, scrutiny and accountability -- the kind that can only lead to self-improvement down the road. I had no idea all that was coming. Or how much I needed it.

But from the first moment we all sat down for a meal, there were confessions, tears and support (all before dessert). Apparently, before I arrived, the same thing had happened at dinner with another woman. And before I left New Orleans, it would happen again  -- and again. Each one of us had things we needed to say, to reveal or to lament -- about marriage and parenting, careers and friendship, love and ambition, transgressions and regrets, loneliness and self-doubt. And when one of us would venture out into the water of vulnerability, all the rest of us would swarm around her like bouys, arms outstretched. Sometimes to pull her in for a hug; many times to push her on to truth.

It was, in a word, DEEP.

I knew I'd missed having girlfriends around, but even I was stunned by how needy we all seemed for sister-love.

Back at home, we all marveled at how emotionally naked we'd gotten -- after not being in the same place all at the same time for more than 10 years.

One of my girls sent us this message afterward, which I've edited a bit, to protect identities.

Was talking to my good friend, XXXX, this morning. She just got back from a long girls' weekend of her own - a birthday celebration at a Miami spa. I think her group had six gals, all of whom are friends from high school.

Anyway, she mentioned that the weekend had been insanely intense: in-jokes, crying, liquor, sleep, laughing, confessions, etc. She said it felt like an exorcism or maybe a rebirth. That beyond the ties of love, husbands, kids and friendship, there was the specter of their shared mid-40s. And that, my friends, is a scary place to be.

That must be what we tapped into in New Orleans. That this time in a woman's life opens her up to much intense emotion and self-reflection. Because how else to explain how quickly we reached that amazing place where we showed ourselves to each other after so many years apart? It definitely could have gone another way, but by the time we all got to [the house in New Orleans], it was ON.

I'm turning 45 on Sunday, and can I tell you how excited I am about it?! And I wasn't, really, before our NOLA retreat. These past couple of years have been especially tiring and scary. I've been lower than I've ever been in my entire life ....But New Orleans brought me back to life in a surprising way. I can face my new life with renewed passion and energy.
 
She is so right, y'all! Reading that again, I get all goosebumpy. My life is not on hold (remember that post from just a few days before I left for my trip?) I just need to approach my life with renewed passion and energy!

Since coming back from NOLA, I started Sugar-Free February, determined not to let sugar continue its chokehold on me. I'm not saying I'll never eat another sugary thing, that's ridiculous. But I want to be in control of what I eat, not the other way around. My girls helped me to get to this point -- they made me KNOW that I can do it. They also encouraged me (as many of you have as well) to take the time to get to the gym or to yoga and believe that my children will be just fine for a few hours a week without me -- even if I work all day long. I'm mulling that one over, but I'm much closer to pulling the trigger on at least ONE night of yoga a week than I was before my trip.

And maybe most importantly, we have all started talking about writing a book together -- and have a conference call planned for tomorrow night to talk about what that book might be, what it might look like, what do we regular gals -- wives, mothers, friends, writers -- have to say that hasn't already been said a million times.

But we know that whatever it is, it will somehow tap into the unofficial theme we adopted over the weekend, a running inside joke about a comically-sung Rihanna tune that somehow turned into our mantra: Shine Bright Like a Diamond.

Because whatever we do, wherever life has taken us or will take us, we know we all have the ability, the capacity, the responsibility to shine bright in our respective worlds (whatever that means to us individually), like the diamonds we are.

Food!

Friends!

Faraway friends who crashed the weekend! (So glad she did!)

Fuel!!

The French Quarter!

And the Fountain Lounge, where a five-hour sweat lodge, over never-ending cocktails, went down. I will never forget this night. EPIC.

I highly encourage you all to take a girls' trip, if you haven't done one already. You'll be so glad you did.

Sugar-free update; so far, not too bad.

Counting today, I have nine days left to go in Sugar-Free February.

So far, it hasn't been as bad as I feared, although there have been some setbacks.

First, I tried so, so, so, so, so, so hard to resist the cupcakes I made for Clair's birthday. But in the end, I decided to take one bite to see if the cake part was moist (it was!) and that one bite sent me down the evil sugar spiral. I devoured the entire cupcake.

And then, the next day was President's Day, so Lester and I had the day off. After spending a few hours getting some work done in my office, I went on an afternoon date with my husband! We went to a movie ("American Hustle" -- very good acting!) and then grabbed a late lunch of tacos and margaritas.

Four or five long, satisfying sips into my margarita, I realized: OH SNAP! Margaritas have SUGAR! And lots of it! I might or might not have cursed a good bit and then I promptly gave the rest to Lester, but dang! The damage was done. I got home and had a massive sugar crash. I had to lie down for 20 minutes until it passed.

The sneaky sugar-laden culprit!

The fact that it only took a few sips of a syrupy-sweet margarita to send me crashing is actually somewhat good news. It usually takes way more sugar and carbs than that, because of my high tolerance for sweet things, earned over many, many years of indulging my sweet tooth.
So I think it means that that amount of sugar was a real shock to my system, giving me room to assume that I've done a pretty good job ridding my body of the toxin in the first place!

I wish I could say I could physically feel the difference from all this careful attention to my added-sugar consumption, but I still have children waking me up at night (Clair's been sick; Cary had a bad dream) so I'm still tired in the morning. I don't think I've lost a pound (my friend Jeanne says she GAINED 2 lbs. since starting this challenge. What the hail?) and I still have to actively fight the urge for something sweet afer I eat meals.

But fight I do, and aside from those two transgressions, I have not given in! Not a Valentine's Day chocolate was consumed, or even a post-lunch Hershey's Kiss. So I might not physically feel different, yet, but I do feel emotionally better about myself. I feel like I'm starting, ever-so-slowly, to take control of my sugar habit, my body and my health. And that makes me feel like a winner!

Clair is 2!

Our baby girl turned 2 on Sunday!

We celebrated by having a relaxing day, just the five of us. We went to church, came home, the kids had lunch and took a nap. And while they were all sleeping, I made cupcakes, decorated the living room with party-themed goodies and strung up some balloons.

When the kids came down from their nap, they were thrilled!

And we had our very own birthday party, complete with kids music, a few small presents and an activity: decorating the cupcakes with sprinkles -- as many as they wanted! (They took that part to heart, believe me.)

Clair mostly wanted to eat frosting and sprinkles. She enjoyed her presents for a few seconds, but then she wanted more sprinkles. Note to self: Never buy presents for 2-year-olds, no matter how small. All they want is sprinkles. And balloons.

Also at the "party," I gave the boys some pirate gear, which has proved to be a huge hit.

AAARRGH!

My little baby girl is 2, y'all. Two years ago I was still in the hospital, sore and crying because she wouldn't nurse, and soooo, sooo happy that my little Curve Ball had finally arrived.

She has turned into such a beautiful, spunky, hilarious, determined, loud and lovable little person. I am so glad God knew better than we did when we declared we were done having children.

Happy birthday, Clairzee! We LOVE you!!!

(P.S. I haven't forgotten about my promised post about girls' weekend. But I couldn't let my baby's birthday go by un-documented!)

Sugar pressure!

I just started the effort to rid my diet of added sugars (for at least the month of February) and I was careful not to begin until I'd surrounded myself with a support system -- friends and co-workers who are doing this right along with me and are there to offer encouragement, advice, good reading material or a swift kick in the butt.

So imagine how blindsided I was to feel sugar pressure coming from an unexpected group of tiny little plan-thwarters: My kids!

Yesterday at dinner, I asked the boys what was their favorite part of their school snack (I do this sometimes to assess what items to skip or what to buy more of). After sorta answering my question, Dean grins and says, "Juice!"

"Silly!" I said, "You know you don't get juice." (We send a thermos of water for them for snack.)

To which Cary says, "Mommy, all the kids at school have juice. Except us. We only have water."

"All the kids?" I asked.

And Dean says, "Yes. All of them. Except us."

You hear the daggers entering my heart, right? "Except us..."

Here's how I heard that: "Except us poor, left-out, weirdo kids whose parents clearly hate them and only send them to school with water -- FROM THE TAP!"

I would be less than truthful if I said I didn't feel a little twinge. I always thought I would feel good about our healthful food choices, especially since we have resolved not to be sooo completely crazy about every little thing they put in their bodies. We're not crazy health nuts; we're moderates! Heck, we even introduced them to Five Guys a couple weekends ago! (Mmmmm. Five Guys...)

My poor boys want juice and we make them drink the liquid of life instead! We're horrible!

And for a super-quick second, I honestly thought, "I don't want them to be outcasts. Maybe I can give them juice boxes twice a week or on Fridays or something."

But then I thought about Sugar Free February, and how much incredible effort it takes for me to get through every day without eating something sweet or not great for me. And I thought about the lifetime of unhealthful choices I've made that have contributed to this addiction I have -- because that's what it is, an addiction. I have a sweet tooth, no doubt, and that's genetic. But I have fed and stroked and catered to that sweet tooth so much, I've become a slave to it.

My sweet tooth is my master and it is literally killing me. My yearly hemoglobin A1C reports tell me so in big bold numbers. Each report calls me pre-diabetic and says, "Do something differently or you will. die." (In so many words...)

I want to break the yoke that sugar has around my neck. Why would I ever start the process of putting that same yoke around my children's?

That's why I won't succumb to the sugar pressure -- for myself or for them. An occasional treat is OK, like I said, we're not fanatical about it. But daily juice just gets their taste buds in the habit for something sweet with all meals. If I indulge that sweet tooth, juice becomes soda becomes Big Gulps becomes must.have.chocolate.cake. (Mmmm. Chocolate cake.)

As long as I'm in charge of what goes in their snack bags, they will drink water.  And so will I.

So much to say about my girls' weekend! And also: PONYBOY!!

You guys! I have SOOO much to say about my girls' weekend, but I really have to process it all first. Like, for real. It was amazing and I want to get it down right.

So I need to post when I'm not at work, because I have so little time to post in between calls and projects and email and meetings.

I promise I will post about it though, because it is good stuff. Good stuff that we all need!

BUT... you need to know two things.

One is that today I started a no-added-sugar challenge. I'm calling it Sugar-Free February and it's from now until the end of the month. By now, most of you know me pretty well, so you know how hard a no-sugar-challenge is going to be for me. Just today I had to throw away my cinnamon raisin bread and drink my coffee without French Vanilla creamer. (The horror!!) And I have likely overdosed on pistachios. If you have tips for getting through this insanity I've started, please pass them along. And I'll be sure to post updates periodically so you know that I have not jumped off the roof of my house in search of a chocolate lava cake.

The second thing you NEED to know is (I'm hyperventilating as I get ready to type this):
I MET PONYBOY CURTIS IN THE NEW ORLEANS AIRPORT!!

That is ME, standing with PONYBOY!! OH. EM. GEE!!!

I have a call in 7 minutes so I don't have time to type out how much I loved The Outsiders - every single one of those Greasers!!! -- and C. Thomas Howell in particular, or how completely NUTS I went (on the inside) to meet him. So I will just re-post a comment I made on my Facebook post about it, when someone asked me to detail how this historic and chance meeting happened.

Here's how it went down: I was standing behind him in line at a snack kiosk and I was like, "I know him. Have we dated?? Who is he?" So I said to him, "I feel like I know you. Are you from Baltimore?" And he smiles, kindly, and says, "No, but I'm an actor, maybe that's it?" So I go, "Hmm. What might I have seen you in?" (Meanwhile, I'm thinking ... if this is Ponyboy, I'm going to scream. I am going to scream right here in this airport.) So he says (I'm paraphrasing), "I played somebody or another in Criminal Minds and I also worked on a show called Southland." So then I'm a little bummed, right? Because I didn't watch those shows, so that's not why I know him. So, good journalist that I am, I ask the follow-up question: "And what's your name?" So he says, "C. Thomas Howell." And I said: "OHMYGOD!!!! You were in The OUTSIDERS!!!!!" (People were staring at me at this point.) And then he says, "Yes! I played..." And I cut him off and yelled (seriously, I hollered) "PONYBOY CURTIS!!!" And he looked a little bit flattered and also a little bit scared, because I was like, yelling. So then I started fanning myself and stammering like an idiot and I told him how The Outsiders was like my favorite movie and how much I loved him and his character and then I stopped mid-sentence and said, "YOU. LOOK. AMAZING!" And he was very nice about me gushing all over him. But the people behind us in line were a little annoyed, especially when I pulled out my phone and said, "Can I take your picture? Please! I have to post this on Facebook!" And he said, "Of course! Let's both be in the picture!" And he even stooped down a little bit to make it easier for me to get the photo because I am really short and a bad selfie taker to boot. And people behind us were harrumphing and whatnot and I was paying them absolutely no attention whatsoever because PONYBOY!! And then he said thank you and smiled at me and said "Nice meeting you" and walked away and I was so flustered I left all my change at the counter and the little woman yelled after me, "Mees! Mees! You forgot you change!" And I was like, OMG. My life. Is. Complete. The end.

My Facebook post has attracted lots of  SHUT-UP! FERREAL?! OMG! I'm SO JEALOUS! And also some baffling comments like, "Who?"

And I have now decided to divide my friends into two camps: 1) People who know and respect the awesomeness that is The Outsiders and 2) People who are wack.

I hope to keep all of you in the good camp. But if I have to cull my list of friends, so be it.

Because nothing gold can stay, y'all. Nothing gold can stay.

PONYBOY!!!

Girls' trip!!

Tomorrow morning, I leave to go on my first post-kids girls' trip. Whoo-hoo!

Here's a photo to give a hint as to where I am going:

That's right, y'all! I am headed to NOLA!

I'm going with four amazing, talented, beautiful women who all worked at The Baltimore Sun when I was there.

All of us are still writing, though none at newspapers. Four of us are married, one is divorced. Four of us have children, but only one of us is a bit of a nervous wreck about leaving her kids for three days. Bet you can guess who that one is.

Nevertheless, I know it will be fine -- better than fine, actually. The kids will have a great time hanging out with their Dad, who has made lots of fun plans for them, and my sides are already prepping for the soreness I'm sure to have after all the laughing that will take place this weekend.

Also, Erin (who owns the house we're staying in) already has reservations for us at crazy-good restaurants, like this one on Saturday night. So my tastebuds (and waistline) are prepping for three days of non-stop phantasmagoria.

I am excited about catching up with my friend Candice, too, who lives in LaPlace - about 35 minutes outside New Orleans. (I met her at the Kansas City Star. She left to become a lawyer, and then a full-time SAHM. It's interesting to me how almost none of my journalist friends [save a few] stayed in the business. Hmmm.)

So this should be a great weekend of eating, drinking, talking, laughing and, mostly, feeding my soul.

I can't wait!

My hilarious hellraiser

I have never been parent to a little girl before, and I don't know all the little girl children who have ever lived, so I know this is a totally unscientific statement. But, hear me when I say: Clair is the craziest, funniest, most maddening human child to ever walk the Earth.

She will be 2 in a couple weeks and she has already hit the terrible 2s most terribly.

She doesn't just defy, she laughs maniacally when defying. She doesn't just refuse to unhand the thing you're telling her she can't have, she hurls it across the room like a shot putter. She doesn't ask for anything, she SCREAMS for what she wants -- ear-piercing, relentless, nerve-grating screams.
She hits. She spits. She throws her food off her plate when she's done eating. She shouts, "GOOD!BYE!" and storms out of rooms. She terrorizes her brothers and confounds her parents.

She is, quite simply, a piece. of. work.

And then...just when you have decided to pack her up and ship her to Siberia...just then she:

Befriends a little girl at her Saturday tumbling class:

Loves all up on the patient, sweet "kitty" (AKA miniature Schnauzer) at a SuperBowl party:

Climbs up at a keyboard and says, "I sing Farm, Mommy. McDonald Farm," and plunks away:

Takes pity on her poor father (this was in an email to me):

I just asked her for a kiss and she said no.

I pretended to cry and she said "Ho On, daddy. I readin. Finish. Then kiss. OK?"

I said, "OK. But how long do I have to hold on?"

"I READIN! Wait I finish. OK?"

"OK."

Then she closed the book, leaned in and gave me a kiss. Ha. She's too funny.

 

And sees God in everything around her (also in an email from Lester):

 

Showing me the football helmet stamped on her left hand:

Me: Who gave you a helmet?

Clair with a mouthful of cereal: GeeZus

Me: Jesus?

Clair: Yas.

Me: Jesus put that helmet on your hand?

Clair: Yas. GeeZus gave me Hal-mut.

Me: Well OK.

 

(Note: She got the football helmet after her tumbling class. A cheerful 20-something named Amberlee gave it to her.) 

Hahahaha! Too funny.

 

Clair never fails to lean in and hug a crying Dean, or say, "God bless you, Cary" when he sneezes. She asks, "What matter you, Mommy? You OK?" when you cough and she always shares her last bit of chauk-wit (chocolate) with anyone who asks.

She cracks us up; she makes us want to cry. She is a hilarious, heart-warming hellraiser.

I couldn't be more delighted with her -- or more afraid of the pre-teen and teenaged years.

Pray for us. :-)