Women Who Eat Chocolate

Satire at it's finest here.  I really want to be Micah J. Murray when I grow up.  http://redemptionpictures.com/2014/04/30/what-i-wish-women-knew-about-me n/

This week I will drive to Indiana and pick up Selena from college. Where this first year of her college life has gone is beyond me, but she has loved every minute and is working hard at her nursing degree. Her tenacity for study has astounded me, and I’m very proud of her, just as I am my other two children who are working hard for their futures. It seems we’re all working hard to attain, to achieve, to go one step further and strive for that hard-won prize.  I wasn’t much for studying in high school. I would wait until the night before a test to cram some information into my brain, hoping that the grade I would get would be at best average. English papers? Those were mostly done the night before as well, and I could always squeak out a solid A- or B+ on my writing skills alone. College wasn’t on my radar back in the mid 1980s as I just knew that the collegiate life wasn’t for me. I wanted adventure and foreign countries, plus I wanted more than just books and learning. Most of all...

For most people, confidence comes easy. They stride into a room like they belong there, not caring what anyone else might think of their swagger. People gravitate unknowingly toward them and their persona that reaches out and snares people—not in a bad way. Snare might be the wrong word, but you get the picture—confidence with a capital C. This is, for many of us, a struggle-trait. You know, the one thing we wrestle with on a daily basis, and I mean wrestle down to the ground and put a choke hold on it. It’s a visceral thing that can be seen, felt, and actually tamped down.  I have struggled with confidence for years, even though that may come as a surprise for most of you. I was the one who had my own thoughts, yet didn’t voice them. Or if I did, the ones who said they would have my back slunk slowly into the corner, making me look like a fool—like I was standing alone. Maybe the confidence I have now was always there, I just let others hold it down, like a volcano ready to erupt....

Joy is an elusive thing that we try to grasp for daily. Realizing when we have it in our palm is the hardest thing. Aside from family, what brings you joy? Is it the click of numbers as you do accounting for people? Maybe you are a firefighter that puts out fires and saves people’s lives. They say that our hobbies are our passions – where does your heart lie? What do you do every day that you could turn into your profession? In elementary school I had a teacher that I loved. She was hard yet fun in the classroom and I loved her. She was the first one to notice, really notice, the writing abilities I had. She asked me read a ten page story I had written in front of the entire class – and I was enthralled. I realized then that words had power. So much power to use for good, bad, or to take a reader to heights they hadn’t imagined. I am an admitted “word nerd” and anyone in my family can vouch for that. If my kids use wrong vocabulary or ask me how to spell something they know th...

The sands of time keep softly falling and we are now several months out from when we first found out about my sister-in-law Malena. For those not following her story, she is married to my husband's brother Chucho. They live in Mexico and she has six children, and numerous grandchildren. She was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor, a very large one. She is only 48 years old. We found out about her condition, or details of it, right at Christmas. The condition she was in was not made known to us the way we would've liked it. I wanted the nitty, gritty details and I wanted them now. It was slow in coming, as is the very measured way in which Latinos give information (if they do at all), and when we finally found out how bad it really was we were simply floored. It took my breath away.  They sent us pictures of a Malena that I didn't recognize. I like to say that I'm a robust, zaftig woman as was Malena. The pictures I received from her girls of her appearance now was a...