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Day 16: Thanks, Kid.
I know you feel stuck, Kid; you’re fighting what feels like an impossible fight and you’re not gaining any ground. I know you had big dreams based on bigger promises and all that’s crashing down around you. You feel helpless and out of control. I know it hurts to breathe and you can’t imagine the new world order in front of you. I know your heart’s been broken so many times you’ve lost count. But thank you. For choosing to look past treatment that shook you to the core and challenged what it meant to love another person greater than yourself. Hell, for dealing with things that challenged you to…
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Day 8: Doing Life Better
For many, the new year is all about trying to live better, fuller, happier, whatever-er. We pretend we can reset the system. And as much as I wish we could just start some things over, we can’t. So we’ve got to be real about where we are and create tangible plans for where we want to go. Today’s blogging challenge is to make a list of five ways we can take care of ourselves. While most people are focused on how to improve the physical around this time of year, I’d like to take a look at how to improve the mental. 1. Be in the Moment Anxiety is no…
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Day 7: Lessons from 2018
Today’s blogging challenge is to take a look at lessons learned from 2018 through a course, book, social media, article, or website. And that’s hard. I feel like I learned so much from last year. So how can I pick one thing? There are books and experiences galore, but one of the most impactful things I did was for a presentation in group therapy. I worked with another woman to share the enneagram, and if you’ve never heard of the Riso-Hudson Enneagram Type Indicator (RHETI), it’s kind of like a more scientific Myers-Briggs. Tons of corporations use this tool to manage their people and projects more efficiently. On a personal…
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Day 6: Movie Review
Today’s blogging challenge is to review a favorite movie from 2018. My choice was released just before the new year, and it hit home hard. You’ve probably heard of a little Netflix gem called Birdbox, yeah? I mean, in the first 7 days it was out, some 45 million people watched it. So I’m chilling at the a-p-t when the BFF messages me and tells me he’s watching Bird Box. He wants to see what all the fuss is about. That, and get all the memes. Well, hell. Now I gotta watch it too so we can chat about it. Confession: I’d seen articles about how the movie addressed the…
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Day 5: Letter to Myself
Today’s challenge is to write a letter to myself explaining to future me where I’ll be in a year. It’s kinda like a written vision board. What’s cool about today’s challenge is that I actually do a similar assignment like this with my students every year. They have certain prompts that they respond to, but the letter is a composition all their own. We seal them in envelopes and I lock them in a filing cabinet. They basically forget about them, and then I give them back out on the last day of school. The kids will leave themselves all kinds of neat things in these letters, too. Sometimes, they’ll…
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Day 3: Hold My Beer
Today’s blogging challenge is to write about my biggest blogging / writing / personal challenge from 2018. Lawd. I’mma bless my own heart here. Because all 2018’s punk self did was look at me when I begged it for mercy and say, “Hold my beer!” If you’re not from around here, we Southerners have a phrase for when we think a situation’s found its most extreme point (2016 and 2017) and then that drunk buddy of yours (2018) comes along and emphatically yells, “Hold my beer!!!” This is the guy that’s gonna show everyone his ass, of course, and usually quite literally. Sane people would just say, “Challenge accepted.” Whereas…
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Day 2: To Resolution or Not to Resolution
For Day 2 of my January blogging challenge, I’ve been tasked with talking about New Year’s Resolutions. I kinda touched on this already on the way out the door of 2018, but let’s take a deeper look at the nature of resolutions. Are they right for you? Why Do This To Ourselves? Historically, new year’s resolutions can be traced back to the Babylonians who were trying to get right with their gods (even though the calendar wasn’t quite the same then and they were setting new goals with the spring equinox). Once the ancient Romans worked out the Julian calendar, it all fell more in line with our current practices.…
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2018: Glad that’s over…
Ready to make your New Year’s Resolutions? Will 2019 be your year finally? ‘Cause let’s face it – 2018 doesn’t seem to have done many of us any favors. If you believe the memes, everyone else thinks so, too. The picture quality sucks, but I’m a big fan of this one: On the flip side, I see tons of people sharing their happies on social media, and that makes me both smile and roll my eyes simultaneously. I do love a good paradox. Delightful. Good for you folks. So, yeah. 2018. Dunno about you, but it kicked me in the ribs. Not that 2016 and 2017 were all that kind,…
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Merry Christmas and Be Good to Each Other
Merry Christmas, even though it’s something I don’t even really celebrate. My bah-humbug attitude from this morning has been completely displaced by my appreciation for the strength and beauty of humanity. The Orphan Christmas Firstly, thank you Bardog for being open today, for all the employees who gave up time with their families to feed a bunch of us flying solo or those looking to escape tonight. Don’t know that you’ll ever know how thankful we all really are. I got the special tonight. Blackened chicken Alfredo on penne with sautĆ©ed mushrooms, and in true Bardog fashion, it was delicious. I couldn’t eat it all and had my leftovers boxed…
