The (NOT SO) Skinny Girl

One of the things my psychologist noted about me is that I don't say the nicest things... to myself.  I would say things like "I'm a chicken without a head", "I'm scatterbrained", "I'm so dumb", "You probably think I'm crazy/psycho".  She asked me if I do this a lot. Truth is, yeah- all the time. You know how in 'Babe' the farmer guy says "That'll do, pig", and he means it as the highest compliment? I have said it to myself while looking in the mirror getting ready for work. I say it with this face 😕. Not quite a compliment. Even the title of my blog is a backhanded compliment... "not so skinny Jazzy". Yeah, people who weigh more than me think I'm skinny. I sure don't! Apparently, it's not that horrendous of a realization to not be able to fit into your wedding dress 2 years later. Because 2 years and 30lbs= happily married?! This is seriously a conversion I had. This is serious...

Scenario: I'm at the park, walking my dog, and I see a group of disabled people on an outing. They are all smiling. They are happy. They smile at me, and smile at my dog. And one woman steps forward and asks "May I pet your dog?". She's so very polite and I tell her yes he's friendly but he might jump but don't be frightened he loves to give kisses. And she reaches down, gently, and he embraces her. And he kisses her as if she's the most perfect wonderful person he has ever met. And this is basically how he greets everyone. And she tells me he is handsome, and she tells me she likes my hair, and I tell her I love her bright colored sneakers. And she says thank you and I tell her to have a wonderful day. And we part ways. I know I was smiling. My dog was smiling. She was clearly smiling the whole time. I wish everyone had more interactions like this. #1- Smiles for days. SMILES. FOR. DAYS. I said to my husband this weekend "Do I have anything in my...

So recently it's all about BLACK lives matter, LGBT lives matter, BLUE (police) lives matter....the question begs to be answered: WHY DON'T ALL LIVES MATTER? When we were children, we would tell our parents that we had a new friend. They were nice to us. They shared their snack. They were a boy or  a girl, and they had brown/blonde/red hair.... they had some distinguishing characteristics. Most likely, we picked them out because #1 they were nice to us and #2 they stood out to us. Maybe because of their characteristics, but probably because of their personality. I really don't think I ever came home and told my parents I had a black/white/purple (whatever) friend- that didn't matter. But maybe when my parents finally met that special friend they said something like "Oh they're Asian" or "oh the little black boy". It took an adult's perception to put a gender or raced based category to my new friend. And then you grow up doing that- Classify...

Have  compassion  for all living things. What is compassion? By definition: sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others. Synonyms: pity, sympathy, empathy, fellow feeling, care, concern, solicitude, sensitivity, warmth, love, tenderness, mercy, leniency, tolerance, kindness , humanity, charity. That word- compassion- is so full of meaning.  Empathy, concern, mercy, sensitivity, tolerance, HUMANITY. I would say the #1 way to promote compassion is to say you should have concern for the well-being of others. That's the simplest way to put it. And it's so simple. It's like that saying- don't be quick to judge, you  don't know whats going on in someone else's life. If we were quicker to show concern for others, we'd be not as quick to show hate and judgement. We see people's expressions and without asking, we come to our own conclusion. Resting Bitch Face is a THING. SO instead of saying to someone- why do you always look...