Warts And All...

I am, at my best, a highly flawed person.

I think that one of the most important things that we can do during this journey through life is to identify our flaws. The most down to earth and approachable people that I know are people who have achieved a high level of self-awareness, warts and all. There's just something so real about them. It's intriguing how they wear who they are on their sleeves; they don't apologize for it. Of course, there are occasions when those flaws have flared up and hurt someone in the process, as flaws tend to do, which renders an apology. But, they don't apologize for WHO they are, just that they failed to maintain control. And, that's where that evolution from annoyingly flawed to interestingly flawed comes: control. Or, at least the attempt to control.

Me, I'm in the in-between stage. I'm pretty aware of my flaws.

• I love me some gossip.
• I'm not always reliable.
• I trust almost nobody, completely. And most people I trust hardly at all.
  
• I can be scatterbrained.
• I have zero to no short-term memory. This is sometimes funny, sometimes a major hassle.
• I can be lazy if not particularly motivated.
• I suffer from only-child syndrome (which has its own little set of issues).
• I'm insecure.
• I tend to get worked up and react on impulse. (This is one I'm getting better at with age. But, it's still a work in progress. e.g.: If it involves my son being treated unfairly- watch out! I'm a mama bear.)
  
• I can get impatient when people don't get something right away, just because I want to keep moving on, and they're slowing me down. LOL
• I can get bored with conversations/arguments right in the middle when the other person is all worked up. Sorry, I'm done. Next!
  
• I can be up and down, emotionally, with no clue as to what triggers it most of the time.
• I have semi-serious social anxiety (depending on the situation). Though I may be wearing a smile, I'm likely freaking out on the inside hoping I don't have to come up with something clever to talk about.
  
• I have abandonment issues.
• I wear my heart on my sleeve, but pretend it's coated in steel.
• I always feel like people who are being idiots need to KNOW they are being idiots, and get frustrated when they have no clue. And I get mad at the people who enable them.
  
• I'm outspoken. (This one is the bane of my existence).
  
• I also have a high standard of loyalty that I place on people and don't tell them the parameters- mainly because I think they just make sense and should be tacitly understood. Most cannot stand up to this standard and I have a tendency to write them off or distance myself from them when they fail to fulfill the expectation. Sounds fair, right? Yeah, I know...
  

I'm sure you could add some more to the list, if you know me well enough. But, this isn't your blog, so HA!

So, what I mean by the in-between stage is that I've identified these flaws, am always looking to identify more, but have yet to fully embrace and learn to control them. And, in order to control them I really do think you have to learn to embrace them. How can you control something that you're in denial about or think you can hide?

You also have to learn which are worth attempting to control, I think, because not all of them are worth it, and you'll just drive yourself bonkers trying to. But, some of them you can work on. And I think that God will send people into your life to help you along in that process.

Maybe they're the person who patiently and gently points the flaws out to you. Sometimes this will go over well. Sometimes you'll get really pissed. Sometimes that may be your initial reaction, but you'll sit and think about it and thank them for it later.

Maybe they're the person who acts as a mirror for you. You know who I'm talking about. That person who absolutely drives you up the wall bonkers? I guarantee if you look closely at that person you'll see that what drives you nuts about them is something that you have yet to fully embrace about yourself. But, that is such a blessing! You get to see it from the outside, to see how what you do affects others. To see how it affects you, even if you don't know it yet. Then you can work to fix it! It's hard, and you'll hate it at times, but it's still such a blessing.

There are days when all you feel are your flaws. It's an overwhelming sensation, almost like you're drowning in them. These are the days when you need to take a good look at your positive aspects. I always find those harder to identify than the flaws. But, here are a few:

• I prioritize my husband and son before myself.
  
• I'm a fighter.
  
• If you're my friend or loved one, I've got your back. No questions asked; let's roll.
  
• I'm good in an emergency. I get very calm and clear-headed and do what needs to be done. This is my greatest gift.
• I'm a pretty good wife and mother (most of the time).
• I'm a big picture, glass is half full type (most of the time- ha!).
• I can be creative, when properly inspired.
• I love to laugh.
  
• I'm a good listener.
• I will apologize when I'm in the wrong- even if the other person was wrong, as well, and refuses to acknowledge it. I know that I'm responsible for myself and my actions.
  
• I don't pretend to be something I'm not.
  

So, that's my list. That's what I try to focus on. And, I'm trying to learn that, while I have flaws, we all have them. I don't make excuses for myself. I am who I am. But, that's not to say that I can't work to fix the flaws that need fixing.

I want to be like those people who inspire me, those people who know who they are, know which parts of themselves they need to learn to live with and which parts they need to fix, and go through life embracing who they are. They don't hide it, they wear it as a badge of honor. They don't let the people who don't like those things about them get them down. They just roll on.

I want the "Self Aware" badge. And I'm working to get it every day.



One more flaw: I ramble endlessly in blogs. But, hopefully my ramblings can help you in some small way. So... You're welcome, in advance. ;)

Here comes my first controversy

So, I'm just gonna come out and say it... Shower poofs suck.

You can't properly clean your ears with them, for one. So, that just adds extra work for you after your shower.

Second, they fall apart. They start out in this tight little ball, and then slowly, but surely, get bigger and bigger and looser and looser until one end of the loop has made its way out of the handle that acts as a binding for the unit, and the thing is toast. Usually this process takes about a month.

Lastly, and this is the disturbing part, they sell them unwrapped in a big bin. I know many of you have probably seen The People of Walmart. Imagine these people rooting through the shower poof bin. See them digging their arms down into the pile, their mullets brushing over their shoulders and onto disregarded poofs, armpit sweat dripping down their arms and eventually cascading into the bin...

It really makes you want to dig in there and pull out one of the poofs that they left behind, doesn't it?

Leaving those fine folks out of it, how often have you rounded the corner to find several poofs on the floor and, in an instinctual effort to be helpful, picked up the runaway poofs and thrown them back into the bin?

*raises hand* I'm guilty.

So, all things considered, in her most controversial decision yet, this gal is going back to the good old-fashioned soap and washcloth.

Deal with it.

Fair Warning...

This blog is in the process of being resurrected. Upon reading future posts you may find yourself in various states of reaction. At any given time you could be laughing, crying, nodding your head in silent approval, shouting angrily at your computer screen, etc... Or your reaction could be a surprising combination of any of the above.

Please be assured that this is a normal response, so you (probably) do not need to call your doctor or psychiatrist.

I look forward to our journey together. Until next time...
Sonia

Drowning in creative juices

Well, I have to admit that this blog was a pretty great idea. It's really gotten my creative juices flowing. The only problem is that they are flowing so fast and in so many different directions that I haven't had time to sit down every day and blog.

Baseball season has started and I have gotten a lot of photography work in. This is our first year of kid pitch. We're playing with the big boys now. It's been so much fun watching the kids learn the mechanics of pitching. I've gotten some fantastic shots of a couple of the boys that I am going to submit to our local paper for printing.

And that brings me to my latest endeavor. I've finally thrown my hat into the ring for a board position with Green Baseball/Softball Federation. Jim and our friend and fellow coach, Kyra, have been trying to get me to join for over a year now, but it was never for something that I was interested in. And I know me, if it's not something that rings my bell, it would be completely non-productive to have me in there.

With all the practice I've gotten writing blogs here and on MySpace and Facebook, words just flow out of me whenever I sit at a keyboard nowadays. So, I decided to try to make that work for GBSF. I came up with an idea for e-mails that can be sent out at strategic times of the year to kids who did register with us and for kids who registered with us in the past, but didn't this season, for whatever reason. My main focus was to emphasize what GBSF offers versus Little League. That Jason Elkins and his brother, Mike, are going to rue the day that I deided to make it my mission to see that their mission fails. (Muahahahaha... and other silly thoughts like that.)

I have also discussed several other ideas with Kyra over the last year or so and she suggested that I bundle them all up and submit them to the board. So, I did. And the president of the board loved them. He sent me an e-mail response that was so enthusiastic that it got me even more excited and now more ideas are flowing. I can't hold them all in.

We are going to get together and discuss exactly how we can use my ideas, starting with taking pictures of several of the teams in action, captioning them, and sending them into the local paper- which I already mentionsed. We're also going to use them on the website.

Next is organizing the players for the Memorial Day parade and making banners and fliers to hand out. It's going to be so much fun. I also am going to look into getting window clings made up with the GBSF logo (which I will design) and selling them in the concession stands.

I created a new GBSF banner:

and I thought we could put it on t-shirts for the kids and any parents who are interested. I just want to get the GBSF brand out there wherever we can. Little League is banking on people who don't pay attentnion and generically call all youth baseball, "little league". And, trust me, that has caused a lot of confusion, which I predicted last fall.

Well, so that's a little of what has been occupying me lately. Add to that the family picture project, the family tree stuff, baseball practices, church, bowling, my FROGGS, Easter, etc... It's been busy.

I will continue to push myself to blog when I can.

My Epic Inner Battle

I probably should just wait to do this later, as I really need to get moving, but I figure I should get started now because if I put it off until later, it likely won't get done. I'm trying to meet my challenge, ya know?

So, I was doing a little self-analysis this morning while thinking about politics, because these days I'm always thinking about politics. (Gah! Help me!)

I have been conservative my whole life. It's the way I was raised, but I also think it has to do with the times I was raised in. I'm a Reagan baby. I thought that man walked on water when I was a child and so, naturally, I always gravitated towards the Republican Party.

On the flip side, deeply engraved into my soul is this love of art, my mediums of choice being music (instrumental, not necessarily vocal, as I often times don't even listen to song lyrics), photography, and self-expression through writing.

As a child, I also dabbled in drawing. I thought myself to be the next great cartoonist. One of my older step-brothers went off to boot camp when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade, and I made a whole comic book to entertain him on his trip. It was about him and the many adventures he would have in the Army. In the book he had a really mean drill sergeant, whose face I can still picture if I concentrate hard enough. He looked a little like Sarge from Beavis and Butthead, but mine came first.

I also used to draw Garfield so well that people thought I had traced it, until I recreated the image before their eyes. I even invented my own character at one point. His name was Sloopy. He was a skinny white Rabbit who walked upright, and who's ears resembled Odie's, completely coincidental, of course. *ahem* He wore a red hooded sweatshirt, Bermuda shorts (remember those?), and Converse high-top sneakers. I don't remember much more about it. I wish I knew where the strips all went. I know I gave some of them away to friends.

It didn't take me long to discover, however, that my talents for creating comic characters from scratch and drawing them in different positions and surrounding them with other new characters were limited. I can recreate almost any cartoon if I really try, my latest challenge has been Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes. But, alas, I will not be the next Jim Davis or Bill Waterson.

So, I have decided to concentrate on writing and photography. I truly enjoy them both and I think that if I put enough effort into them I could become quite good at both.

And now I get to my point. What do you think of when you hear the word artist? Free spirited (check), creative (check), laid back (check- most days), outspoken liberal political tendencies (screeeeeeeeeeech!!!). Uh-oh.

I think I have just figured out something about myself. You see, I've always known that I have some form of inner conflict, and have never been able to quite put my finger on where it came from. But, now I think I get it.

You see, I have this creative streak inside of me, and it's incessantly looking for a medium through which to freely express itself. But, I think that it is stifled by my conservative side. I don't allow it to breathe, or be totally and unabashedly open because there is this internal stop sign that screams, "BOUNDARIES" at me whenever I get too close to the line.

I always wonder what people will think if I really, REALLY say the way I feel about various subjects, political or otherwise. Now, I don't often hold back an opinion, if I'm amongst company with whom I'm comfortable. But, I don't always express it well, because I'm holding back where it comes from, and sometimes it's so stifled that I probably don't actually know where it's coming from. And then I get frustrated and usually just end up coming off as angry.

I think I'm learning that this conservative indoctrination is controlling me, to a certain extent. It guides my every move, my every thought or impulse. I'm sure that's normal for most people, be they conservative or liberal, but what if it forever stifles my creativity? The horror!

I have to find a way to make them work together, as they are equally a part of who I am.

Musings and Determinations

Okay, okay... so I missed my first deadline. I told you, I'm a publisher's nightmare. What did I do with all the time that I spent dodging the challenge I set for myself? I did have a pretty busy schedule, but mostly I spent it working on my family tree project. You'd be surprised how easy it is to get completely drawn into that, getting irritated at anything that pulls your focus away from finding out where that next little green leaf that indicates a records match to the people on the tree will take you. It's completely addicting.

But, I'm here now, determined to get a little blogging work done.

So, I'll start with a musing: Why is it that my husband cannot seem to put his dishes in the dishwasher when he's done with them? Why do I always find them sitting in or around the sink? When I ask him, his reply is always, "I didn't know if the dishwasher was clean or dirty".

Now, come on, am I seriously to believe that this highly intelligent man with a wonderfully analytical mind cannot open the dishwasher, observe the contents, and reach a conclusion based on how many dishes are in there, whether or not there are drippings from dirty cups or bowls on the bottom, or simply noticing that the smell of the detergent is not present? Seriously?



Moving on... Jimmy has been getting himself in a lot of trouble with me lately. I hate when we go through patches like this. He's been getting really mouthy, arguing every little thing, farting around and not doing things he's asked to do until I start yelling, and then playing victim to the big bad mommy. After a few days, I get so sensitive to the constant disrespect that little things immediately set me off. And I feel like I'm always yelling. I hate the way that feels, and I'm sure Jimmy does, too. I wish there was a button I could push and just have him obey the first time.

So, I have to invent the button. I have taken away the thing that he loves the most, his Nintendo DS. He got so upset when I told him it was gone for a day (and, I mean, he moved immediately into an absolute meltdown) that he worked himself up to 3 days without it. When I realized he was going to keep hollering, I took the Wii away, too. Ooooooo... That got him to quiet down, but the sniffling continued the whole way home (we were driving home from Scouts), and he stomped and pouted all the way through the bedtime routine.

But, I was proud of myself because I really stuck to my guns. Normally I will parole him from being grounded if he behaves himself, but I made it clear to him that this would not be the case this go around. And when, before baseball practice on Saturday, he had another episode, I took them away for 3 more days. I think I really got his attention.

It's so hard, as a parent, to know that your child is mad at you. You start to question yourself and wonder if you should have handled things differently. This is what always has led to the parolings in the past. But, I now realize the consequences of that. He has come to not respect the punishment, because he knows he can schmooze his way out of it.

I need to resolve that, instead of yelling, which really does nothing at this point, I need to go right for the jugular- taking away that DS. And every protestation to the punishment brings another day of separation. And I need to keep my cool while doing it. I don't think it will take that many occurrences to get him to understand that mom's not playing around any more.

It won't be easy, but there's too much at stake. I don't want this to progress to worse experiences when he becomes a teenager. I want him to learn self-control and that there are consequences for every choice you make in life. I've been cheating him of that lesson, and not doing him any favors in the process.

I guess that will have to be it for today. Exercise and unfinished laundry are calling to me. I wish they'd shut up.

Introduction

Hello. Welcome to my blog. =)

I have always communicated better through writing than I ever have through conversation. The discovery of this fact is probably what has allowed me to have such a happy marriage. We don't argue much, but when we do it often has a much better resolution when I put my thoughts and feelings into writing, rather than shooting from the hip in a verbal confrontation.

I have not done much structured writing in my life, having avoided creative writing classes when in school like the plague. Forced creativity is a raging contradiction in my point of view. And an entire class structured around that exact purpose would be torture for me, unless I decide that's what I want to do. Yes, that's immature and I'm sure it kept me from discovering wonderful things about myself, but it is what it is.

Upon enlisting in social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook I found my own way to writing down my thoughts in a creative (and often humorous) fashion, first through arguing religion and politics in groups, then I would write the occasional blog (this is where the humor really comes into play), whenever inspiration hit.

To my surprise and amusement, the people whom have subjected themselves to my disjointed ramblings have told me over and over that I should become a writer. Apparently they get a kick out of my (mostly humorous/sometimes ranting) perspective on things. But, I always tell them that while the encouragement is greatly appreciated, any publisher would hate to have me as a client. The deadlines would kill any creative spark in me.

Having said that, the sentiment has been issued so often as of late that I have decided to start a blog. Perhaps this will allow me to build up some real writing chops, and I have decided to set the goal of blogging daily, in the hopes that perhaps someday those deadlines will not seem so daunting and constrictive.

So, I will give it my best shot. Be forewarned, this goal will not be achieved overnight. I'm sure that my postings will be spotty, at best, in the beginning. Please be patient, I am a work in progress.

Thank you for reading this. Until next time.

Oops, I meant to say, "Until tomorrow".