100.

100 hundred days until election. Wow. It's been a long time coming. You know why I think Trump should go? Because he encourages people to be the worst version of themselves. I'm not as worried about policy as I am worried about our country. Meanness has increased during this administration.

It's the way Trump talks to and about people. It's the way he doesn't argue a point, he just tears people down. He has a weird relationship with women: his words about them are exploitive, condescending, and vengeful. All of his conflicts, whether diplomatic or personal, are inflamed by his rush to negative emotion. He reacts without discretion or foresight, without regard for the fallout he produces. His focus is always inward and when he comments on others, it is only to celebrate or condemn those who impact him. 

To me, that is the thing that has done the most harm to our country: Trump's focus on himself. He has encouraged, through policy and poor personal example, Americans to disregard the need for a society of equals. The administration's policies encourage the rise of income inequality, through taxes that benefit the wealthiest and, ultimately, rob from the middle class. His environmental policy puts public health at risk, and benefits those wealthy enough to exploit our public lands. When offered the opportunity to speak to Americans, or for Americans, Trump takes the low road. Whether it is denigrating his predecessor, sending paramilitary goons to Oregon, locking children in cages along the border, or using alt-right dogwhistles to signal his support for the white supremacist movement in America, Trump manages to undermine what has been our strength for 240+ years: our commitment to each other. Whether it is refusing to wear a mask to protect others and set a good example, or having peaceful protesters forcibly removed to facilitate a photo op(with an upside-down Bible, no less), he is only interested in his own desires and personal image. 

There have been other presidents who I didn't support, but who I assumed loved their country as much as any other American, but I doubt this with Trump. His only pledge is to himself. 

In 100 hundred days, will you vote for the man who mocks anyone who disagrees with him, like a petulant pre-teen? Who feels bad for Ghislaine Maxwell? Who disrespects women? Is the stock market the only thing you value? Is your personal wealth more important than democracy and community? It is time to ask ourselves what matters most to us. I'll vote with my values, and it won't be for Trump.

Bread in a Can

Hey y'all!

So, it's been four months, or 17 years in global pandemic time.
What in the Hell? Bill Gates told us it was coming, but we always underestimate him, don't we? We are stuck in this weird limbo of not leaving our homes, but trying to stay connected. Frankly, I am not making the most of this time off, unless you count breaking all of my previous screen time records.

Here is a list of things I thought I could get accomplished while I have 24/7 uninterrupted time with my family:

1. Exercise every day.
2. Clean out all of the closets and the junk drawers.
3. Develop a filing system to manage the mountains of paper("paperless society," ha!)
4. Weed the yard.
5. Clean the storage rooms(inside and outside).
6. Make something!
7. Write beautiful blogs once a week.
8. Journal, with gratitude.
9. Spend lots of quality time building up my children and encouraging them to do good things.
10. Spend lots of quality time with my hubs, building him up and encouraging him to do good things.
11. Keep a bottle of wine in the fridge for more than 1 day.
12. Take the dogs on long, brisk walks to get out in nature.

Here is how it's working out:

1. I have 8 workouts recorded on my fitness app. So 8/30 days(27%). To be fair, the other day, I forgot what I was doing so I went up and down the stairs about 10 times in 10 minutes, so I feel like that counts as 9/30(30%).
2. I tried to clean out the closet under the stairs(even before we had a tornado warning), but it is filled with things to be shredded and the shredder died a very stinky, electrical-burning smell death after about 30 minutes. I mean, I tried. Also, I cleaned out my armoire and gave my 90's neckerchiefs to my children to repurpose as headbands. Also, found a flannel nightshirt that came in really handy last night when we dropped to the 40's! TWO WINS!!
3. Yeah, no.
4. Um, no.
5. So, no.
6. I have done some art with my friend, Mama D, via Facebook Live. And made a watercolor of a tree. I hand-embroidered some gifts. I hand-sewed a mask because my sewing machine is buried in the storage closet(and I think it's broken, can't remember). GO ME!
7. I'm working on this one! 1/4(25%)
8. The first few days, I wrote down my plan for what the kids should do in case Michael and I got coronavirus and died. Not exactly uplifting, but maybe necessary? (hey kids, it's in a spiral notebook by my bed.) One of the things is #3, so I guess I should get on that. I have been trying to think grateful thoughts, and I am putting on my perspectacles, (https://momastery.com/blog/2014/08/11/give-liberty-give-debt/) to keep myself in check when I get down in the dumps. We may be eating bread out of a can today, and we have more than we can eat today.

The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and I am here to enjoy it. I may not be journaling, but I am grateful for all that I have. Thanks, God. 50% win-woohoo.
9. I am spending lots of time with my children. I am encouraging them to go to their rooms a lot(also demanding that). We are talking a lot about boundaries and reading over peoples' shoulders and putting our feet on others and why 10 minutes of math a day has never killed anyone. And also, we are all still alive and mostly functioning, so WINNING ALL AROUND.
10. Does the question "how many beers have you had?" count as building someone up? Hmm. I have started hugging him again, now that he hasn't shown any symptoms. Wife of the Year🎖
11. So, I don't have wine EVERY day. When I do, I like to commit. But I have managed to leave one glass in the bottle twice now. WHAT AN ACCOMPLISHMENT.
12. Someone has walked a dog everyday. We have 2 dogs, so not 100%. Zelda, our tiny Weim, struggles with the world beyond our fence. She's afraid of everything. Walking with her is a challenge because, first, she wants to wrap herself around you so that she is as close to you as possible. And second, her goal on a walk is to get back home, so she runs towards the house at top speed, even if you are walking away from the house(wrapped up in her leash). Zelda does get frisbee time every day and frisbee is her passion, so yay. Pepper, our chill-except-around small-mammals-and-some-other-dogs, likes to poop in the street, which makes things fun. 100%, because dogs can't do math! 

I am doing my best and it's not great, but it's all I have. Hope you are all doing your best and being kind to yourselves and WASHING YOUR HANDS! Stay home and maybe I will write something else. But, maybe not.

Love,
Corks

Learning Year

Y'all!

It's been so long: a year since I have written anything. I am trying to think back to what I was doing, and it was everything and nothing. Intentionality went out the window this year, because I was just trying to keep my head above water. I existed. The nicest thing I could say is that 2019 was a learning year. I learned all kinds of things, like:

1. Not everyone is going to like me. Not even if I am good. Not even if I bend over backwards trying to prove how good I am. Apparently, this is the lesson of my life that I have to relearn and relearn until I finally let go of other people's perceptions and embrace myself. Brené Brown says, "our sense of belonging can never be greater than our sense of self-acceptance." Yikes. That's a toughy.

2. I am a hell of a worker. I can work and work and work forever, until I have weird freak out meltdown that reinforces the perceptions of the people that weren't going to like me anyway(see above). Busy has been my mantra and my motto and my mission statement and my core value and all the other things for a number of decades now, and I am kind of over it. I need to find a space where I can just be. ***Somebody remind me of this when I am saying "yes" to whatever I have been asked to do. Of course, there are things I want to do, I just can't do them all.***

3. I can't save anybody. I want to save everybody, but I am neither equipped to save them, nor is it my job. But I want to save them sooooo badly. If only everyone would listen to my sage advice all the time. GEEZ.

4. I have reached the point that I am old when it comes to technology. I will not be the TikTok dancing mom. Snapchat has left me behind. I will Instagram until my fingers bleed, and Words with Friends is my part-time job, but learning new things is hard. I am always going to be about 6 months-a year behind and I am the butt of my children's jokes, which is, I suppose, an appropriate role for me(and I am still going to play the victim when they tease me, because I enjoy torturing them in small ways, not just big ones).

5. Creativity enhances my life. Nothing I make is really excellent(e.g., this blog post), but the joy is in the practice, not the result. Ok, sometimes it is about the result and if I let my perfectionism get involved, it's all about the thing I have created. The lesson I really tried to learn this year is to let go of the power of the thing, and enjoy the practice. Really, really tried to learn that lesson, and still really concerned with the results, if I'm honest. So, like relearning that not everyone will like me, also relearning that practicing is the goal, and perfection is not the end game. THE HARDEST LESSON.

What was your learning from 2019? Did you have a good year? Send me your wisest thoughts and practices. I need them.

Love,
Corks

PS I missed you guys. I am going to try to write to you more often.

You did it!

Happy New Year, my hearts!

It is January 1, and I was going to construct a vision board, but it was becoming too much pressure. Where would I get my pictures? My words? What do I want anyway? Am I ever intentional?

My lack of intention became a rabbit hole down which I lost hours and which took hours to escape.

Then I was going to take an online class about my Inner Warrior, which I may still do, but I can't print off the instructional material because we have no magenta ink(can't even print in black and white, because buying printer ink is a Ponzi scheme). The instruction was to decide to commit to being the "shu," the follower, so drawing my own "shu" card isn't good enough to stick in my shoe for one day(that's the instruction).  I have to put off engaging my Inner Warrior one more day until I can get magenta and cyan ink, (because where magenta goes, cyan is quick to follow).

I set my sights on resolutions. Resolutions are hard for me because I have that weird form of perfectionism that makes my inner voice say "You are not doing this right. You will never do this right. If you can't do it well, don't do it." My inner voice is kind of a bastard. For me, resolutions are an exercise in fatalism and failure. One poor attempt at change and I fall apart.

To remedy all of these quirks, I bought a planner and I wrote all of my good intentions out for the month. Get up and dress my Inner Warrior at 6 AM. Cool down with yoga for relaxation at 8PM, followed by journaling to discover my truths, so that next year, my vision board will make itself. I'm already regretting putting it all in there. Now it's recorded for me to fail to complete or to cross out in shame or to pretend to do, but really half-ass it. I did buy my favorite pens and used my best penmanship, so I've got that going for me. I have cute stickers to add to it, and goodness knows I can fill the days with all of the things I do in a day, or a week, or a month, but most likely I will only see the sad reminders of what I haven't completed.

It occurs to me that I don't need to write a "TO DO" list. I need to pen a "YOU DID IT" list. If I list my accomplishments, no matter how mundane, maybe I won't see the failure in every attempt, but all of the attempts.

It seems too easy. I guess I will add that to my gorgeous new planner pages. Like this:

Hope you are feeling excited about all of the possibilities in the New Year, but not making yourself sick over them. Let's just be kind to ourselves and each other. We are doing the best that we can, when we can.

Love,
Corks

What's the story?

Oh HELLO!!!

It has been a while, my loves. I have been focusing on my mental health, because Trump. I can't even. ANYWAY, I digress, on to more hopeful things. 

 I love flowers. When I was 4, my parents took me to pick up my first dog. She was a fluffy gray Old English/Black Lab mix. My dad told me I needed to think long and hard about the most perfect name for her. After several seconds of deep preschool contemplation, I chose "Tulip." At the time, tulips were my favorite flower. Since, we have lived with pets named Daffodil, Marigold, and Pepper Daisy. Also, a daughter nicknamed Lily. I would also have a daughter called Poppy, but the men in my family are not whimsical enough.

Flowers are my thing. I love to get up close and peer into their little flower hearts. Stripey pansy faces, layer upon layer of camellia blossoms, the white, fragrant trumpets of jasmine in Spring make my heart full. My favorites, though, might be humble morning glories. They persevere through brutal Southern Summer by closing themselves down tight in the hottest hot of the afternoon, only to regale themselves of the dewy morning crispness(if 78 and 85% humidity is crisp) by casting the sun's rays back to her from their bright, tear-dropped trumpets. They make me wax poetic. 

I threw some morning glory seeds in front of our fence about 10 years ago and they have flourished! Every year, they find a new place to spread--this year it was the camellia--and we have to remove them to keep them from taking over the garden, à la kudzu.  But they grow back along the fence early every Summer and die back sometime between late September and late October. This morning, they greeted me like this:

The big bustle of beauty at the top of the fence is show-stopping, but the flower that caught my eye was the one down toward the bottom. If I were a morning glory, I would be that one. I feel like I am always far from where I want to be. Personal growth is really hard for me. I start out at the top of my game, with makeup on and my hair done, but after a while, I desperately need to shut down, pulling myself inward to muster my resources until it's my time to shine once more. I come back again and again, getting up to greet the day with my goals in mind and my face turned to the sun. I grow a little bit every day and I keep showing up, after some much needed quiet, just like that lone flower.  We might make it to the top, we might not. 

The glory is in the trying. 

Keep finding the sun, friends.

Love, 

Corks

Enough, loves.

Hey loves,

This week has been a doozy. We have lost a couple of our faves in the very saddest way to lose them. We do not get answers. There is no goodbye. Frankly, it sucks. 

Me and mine, we have big feelings--high and low. Most of us, in my family, have lower lows than higher highs. It's our chemistry, our DNA, our birthright. We know what it feels like to be alone in a crowd. To feel like we are losing, even when we are winning.  There is no rhyme or reason to it. Oftentimes, happiness is temporary. Terrible is the cloud the follows us from home to work, city to city, state to state. Seriously, it's like a Smiths' song come to life. 

We keep living our lives. God helps. We are people of faith and church is often my personal respite. 

Dogs help. If you've wondered about our family dog obsession, I think it's because you are never alone when you have a dog. Dogs have a way of comforting our deepest, saddest, innermost souls. Our house will never be without one. Or two. Or three. (Other people have other pets, but for us, it's dogs. Ok, and the occasional cat who wanders up on the patio.)

Doctors help. Friends help. Work helps. Sunshine helps. Exercise helps. Books help. Music helps. Driving helps. Shopping helps. A little wine helps. Instagram helps. Facebook helps. Just. Making. The. Effort. Helps. 

We are not depressive, morose people on the outside. I mean, most of the time. We laugh. We make things. We cook. We celebrate. We love each other and other people. We also bicker and fight and make a general mess of things. We look regular.  

We are regular. 

So are you, if sometimes you feel like nothing ever goes your way and no one ever hears you. Also, if you just want to lie on your bed until you become a part of the sheets and never have to move or bathe or anything. Or if you push through the fog to go out and fake it for the world. All of us, in this world, know what heartbreak is in some way or another. We know how it feels not to feel loved(even when we are). 

One of my kids went to drama camp this week. During the orientation, the number one question from the kids to the director was, "what if I mess up when we are performing?" The director's answer was my favorite thing ever. She said, "we say to each other, 'you are enough.'" When someone makes a mistake or forgets their lines or messes up, they say "you are enough." 

YOU. ARE. ENOUGH.

You are enough. 

you are enough.

YoU aRe EnOuGh.

You are enough

I love you.
 Corks

PS Get the help you need, if you can. Help a friend to get help, if you can.
https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org
text: "home" to 741741 to speak to a crisis counselor
call: 1-800-273-8255

You are so beautiful. To me.

Y'ALL.

I need to say this to you. To all of you.

You are not perfect. It is so okay.


If you know me, you know that I sell clothes to women. If you don't know me, well, I sell clothes to women. I am a professional salesperson. I love people, color, and fabric--not always in that order--so it is a job that suits me. I am also REALLY good at surprising people with what will look good on them and really honest when I think something doesn't suit them(I can be wrong. I'm looking at you, CZ, that polo dress).

Here's what I say when I think something looks good on a person:

"That looks great on you."

Here's what I say when I think we could find a better fit for a person:

"I think we can do better."

Both statements are true. I don't say either one unless I mean it. The funny thing is that woman always take me at face value when I tell them we can do better. They agree that something doesn't suit them. But--you know where I am going with this--they almost always ask "are you sure?" when something DOES LOOK AMAZING. It's kind of annoying.

How many times has a woman asked me "can you see how crepey, floppy, pale, loosey-goosey my arms are?" COUNTLESS.

"I was born with thick legs." I have heard this 1 BILLION times(feels like).

"If I was a pretty, young thing I could wear this." Seriously? If you don't have the confidence now, you wouldn't have had it then.

"I'm so disappointed in myself."
Ok, that's the one that makes me want to shake every. single. woman. who says it. Why are you so hard on yourself? Your figure is not up to the Mattel ideal, but that's because you are a real person, not a freak in a plastic box. You baked and it smelled so good that you ate an extra cookie(or five). You had some super fun evenings out and you ate great food with friends and family and you gained 7 pounds.  You live in a house with a teenager and wine, cheese, and chocolate are truly the only things keeping you going. You had 5 kids and your stomach just can't ever go back to what it was when you were 15 and too self-conscious to appreciate it(there's another whole lesson in that). And it all happens to everyone at some time and some place because calories and gravity.

You have this body that is keeping you going, maybe not perfectly, maybe not swiftly.
If you are reading this you are alive, so that's something. Don't let a number on a tag or a scale define your worth. It doesn't matter. Do the things that make you healthy, but don't be obsessed with stretch marks, cellulite, or the elasticity of your arm skin. That's not healthy either. And because I used to sell clothes to tween girls, I can tell you that every word you say goes in their ears. They told me that their butts were too big, or they had thick ankles. And they were 8-14. That 6 years is tumultuous already, with hormones affecting everything from body hair to emotional stability. Those kids don't need to internalize your negative self image, because you and I both know how perfect they actually are. Just like their mommas.

To sum up, you are actually amazing. Everyone has something they don't like and cannot do anything about. Enjoy your life, make the choices that work for you. Finally, if I tell you something looks good on you, it looks good on you. Trust me, I'm a professional.

Love,
Corks