Thrive As You

I feel like I owe everyone an apology.  I moved my blog to this new exciting site and I promised an explanation of why and then fell off the face of the earth-ish.   I'm too busy thriving.  In reality, as promised, I am writing the book  which is a full time job.  And then I have yanno, an actual full time job.  Oh, and also I'm a single mom.  So that means I have 100 full time jobs.  So sometimes I forget to blog.  Or I sit down to write and pull one of these. Except I never ever look THAT put together or peaceful when I'm crashed out. Merriam-Webster  defines the word thrive as.... Let's discuss in order, shall we? 1.   to grow vigorously: flourish   Yes please.  More growth, more flourishing.  I visualize it like this. Geraniums on the left are surviving.  They really are.  They aren't dead.  They even have buds on them, they are on the verge  of blooming.  Bu...

As I've mentioned in a previous post , I can't really describe the call to be inked, I just know that it's there.  I've been thinking for awhile about my next "word" tattoo and of course, waded through a myriad of choices. The word "worthy" kept coming back to me over and over again.  Particularly because it has been said to me in church several times by people, including my pastor who have prayed over me.  In my heart I believe that God was telling me that I am worthy. Ok great, so here's my tattoo! Nah, too easy. I was talking to a new friend, one I've only known for a few weeks and I was discussing this tattoo idea with him.  He's not a tattoo guy and he's not a guy who really even knows me so why the heck was I asking him to begin with?   But here's what he said. "You already KNOW you are worthy." "Worthy is a word you needed for your past." "You need something else that will rep...

As promised, I'm going to explain how I ended up with "thrive as you" for the name of my new website.  This is just part one.  There are times when I have so much to say on a topic that I don't know where to begin and therefore I just don't.   So I decided to beak this up into the many different facets of how I landed on this word, thrive. When I first started doing yoga nearly two years ago, here's how and why I started my journey.  A new yoga studio opened in my town and they offered a groupon that was, as groupons are, a ridiculously good deal for some cheap yoga.  So I bought it!  And then didn't go to yoga for about 6 months. But continued to wear yoga pants just in case.  You see, I have been medically diagnosed with a severe allergy to exercise.  Okay not really but the truth is, I. HATE. EXERCISE.  Like truly people, as a writer I can't even think of the words to express how much I hate it.  Over the course of my life I have...

Good morning friends!  I have just been so excited about my new site, that I couldn't even sleep another minute and I had to get out of bed and make this thing LIVE! First and foremost, it's a work in progress!  It's so not where I want it to be yet.  Right now I'm trying to decide if I want to stay with blogger and feed my posts to the site or, if I can accept change and blog directly from the website itself.  Both options entail a bit of design work which is not exactly my strong suit.  I'm a writer  not a web designer after all! But here we go! Good news.  I won't be moving my blog or changing the name anymore.  I bought this domain name, thriveasyou.com and this weekend, I'm going to spend a lot of time telling you how I came to that name.  So I own this little piece of space on the interweb and I'm going to stay here.  Yay! Please tell me what your initial thoughts are!  I'm going for a very clean simplified, look. ...

As you know, I am manifesting... well, my LIFE.  And it starts with this. What can I say? I will enjoy my last few days of summer break! I have made a commitment to myself, and to my writing that I will wake up each and every day with intention.  I will wake up each and every day and write.  This not only helps me hone my writing skills, but it helps to set the tone for my day, which is going to positive.  Each and every day.  Even on those days when I don't WANT to get up, I don't WANT to move, I don't feel like I actually CAN move, I will remember my intention.   For me, being as OCD as I am, part of this is having the right space in which to do this.  After I got a divorce, I painted my bedroom pink.  Yes, pink.  It's me and two boys living in this house, there's not a lot of feminine vibe in here, so I made my room pink.  And I absolutely LOVE it.  It is one of my favorite spaces and happiest places to be, primarily...

Fun fact about video blogging on the fly... you realize how many times you say, "um," and how often you overuse air quotes.  Hope you enjoy anyway! You Tube chooses the kindest screenshots.

I hope you like the way this blog looks because it's going to be getting some changes.  AGAIN.  I love change.  Some people hate it, but I love it.  Sometimes it's painful as hell but man, transformation feels so damn good, right? So here's the thing.  I'm ready to make some big changes.  I'm ready to receive some big changes.  Just over a year ago, you may remember that I created a " Super Moon Manifesto ."  I achieved almost everything on my manifesto.   Really.  It was in a sealed envelope.  I wrote it and never read it again for another month and when I did I was shocked to learn I had accomplished almost everything.  Maybe the right word is, manifested .  So why did it take me another year to write one?   I should be writing one every month, and so should you.  But I digress.  I wrote another one last week as I was flying to Arizona.  I titled this one, "The Super Sky Manifesto."  and I...

A friend of mine was kind enough to point out that I haven't written since February.  Well two things.  First of all, I went and got myself a real, bonafide J.O.B.  Like the full time kind where I have to show up every day.  It's putting a major cramp in my style and in my ability to write.  And secondly, my friend was wrong.  I have been writing, in what little time I have found... it's just that I've started writing, the book .  Insert screams here! All jokes aside, I absolutely love my job.  I am a special education teaching assistant at an elementary school about 6 minutes from my house. I have the joy of working with some phenomenal women and the sheer blessing to work with some of the most miraculous kids I could ever hope to meet.  All of that and I have the same schedule as my own children, so I'm still able to be home for them.  Honestly, my job is nothing short of a miracle. But enough about that, let's get down to the nitt...

   This was said at church tonight and it really resonates with me. God plants seeds and dreams in us and we are not to doubt them or question them. We are to go forth and live-- to put life and integrity in those dreams. Furthermore, we need to listen to the dream that God is giving to us, planting in us.  Sometimes we create dreams in our own minds. We have our own plan. This isn't for us to decide. That's where surrender comes in.  Throughout my life I've had many broken dreams. This is something we can all relate to. As a professional, as a mother, as a wife, as a woman, as a human. But we must stay the course. God is preparing us to fulfill the dream. I have a dream of writing a book. This was not something I woke up and decided to do. This is a seed that was planted in me. Over the years I've questioned it. I've picked it up, I've put it down-- in short, I haven't lived in the integrity of that dream. I, in all of my glorious imperfection have pulled a...

I've never actually thought of myself as a writer  per se.   Several years ago, my friend encouraged me to start a blog about what it's like to be an autism mama.  She thought maybe some people might like to hear what I had to say about my journey, my walk, with autism.  And so I did. I'm an avid reader, but that doesn't make me qualified to write .  I've always loved writing, I was the editor of our yearbook in high school, wrote for the school paper, etc.  Essays were my favorite kind of tests.  I excel with words.  I think it has something to do with talking so much.  But I've never taken a class on writing, on grammar, on where punctuation should go and stuff.  As a substitute teacher I have found myself googling the most basic of grammar questions because I just forgot all of those endless rules.  I always tell the students, "Listen, it's been about 100 years since I was in 4th grade."  And sometimes it feels like just ...

S ometimes I have so much to write about, I end up not writing at all.  Kind of like this. http://thuglifeshirts.com/ A few weeks ago, I was talking with a dear friend about some extremely odd behavior of a grown man and she said, "I mean really , have some dignity" Dignity. And that got me REALLY thinking about that word.   I have a thing with words, maybe you've noticed?  Anyway, Merriam-Webster defines dignity as.... : a way of appearing or behaving that suggests seriousness and self-control : the quality of being worthy of honor or respect I'm not so sure about the "seriousness" part but self-control?   Yes.  Being worthy of honor and respect? Sign me up please.  I define dignity as Or some sort of version of that.  Dignity for me is really that thing buried deep inside of you, likely entangled with your soul and your self worth and things like pride and inner strength that tell you, "I'm be...