"My soul is full of longing for the secret of the sea, and the heart of the great ocean sends a thrilling pulse through me." – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Author: The Great Kaysby
I’m a wife, mother, daughter, cat lover, believer in Him and His word, teacher, beauty consultant, actress, costumer, and avid volunteer. 👩🏻🦰 My biggest gift in life is how I can still experience the world with childlike wonder as an adult. 🤩 I love winning, prizes, shiny objects, travel, food, and games! I use emojis way too much but they make me happy! 😊
Currently, I am taking a class on Coursera called “Mindshift.” The concept of the class is to help you break through mental barriers and be able to learn concepts/topics that you never thought possible. The following was the first discussion prompt: “Tell others about unexpected assets you’ve brought into your work from your past, sometimes seemingly unconnected knowledge.” When I read this prompt I immediately thought about my crazy journey of a college education, and how all the seemingly completely different aspects of it have come together in my life. Here is my response:
I feel like this entire concept is me in a nutshell. For as long as I can remember, I have had a variety of interests and skill sets that somehow find a way to compliment each other. From a young age, I was interested in the performing arts namely acting and singing. Thus, when I first entered college, I was going to get a Bachelors Degree of Arts in Theatre. After two years of theatre coursework, I decided that the starving artist life was not one that I wanted to pursue. However, the skills I learned at 18 and 19 are still coming in handy now that I’m 40. As an example, one of the theatre classes we had to take was lighting design. In this course, we had to learn how to rewire broken stage lights. To this day, if necessary, I am confidant that I can rewire a lamp if necessary. During this time frame, I also learned skills for public speaking that I still use today when I give business presentations.
My next college move led me to pursue two degrees in Business Management. By the time I finished the second degree in the field, I knew that I didn’t actually want to be a manager at any local business. So instead of being an unhappy manager, I put those skills to use in my own business while also pursuing a Masters in Teaching. For several years, I worked my own business and taught school. At times the skills from both overlapped especially when talking about time management, emotional management, and organization. While teaching I started being the costumer for our Drama Club which allowed me to connect with technical design and utilize all the sewing skills I picked up when I used to do Medieval Re-enactment.
Now, I have left teaching because the pandemic made me realize that I don’t want to be raising other people’s children more than I am raising my own. Thus, now the teaching skills are being used to homeschool our child, and the business degree skills are being used for two freelance style jobs and our business creating journals and planners.
Side note, those theatre skills learned early on? I may not be a pro, but I have put them to use in Community Theatre over the years! Bonus, I’ve also used to the business skills to serve on Boards for local non-profit groups.
Talk about full circle!
I’d love to know in the comments how previous career, education, and hobbies have given you skills that are an asset to what you currently do!
“The Greatest Gift” for me is not a cat, but I thought a picture of something I love was fitting for my response. The greatest gift that one can give or receive is love. Love can be presented in many ways: sharing a meal, spending time together, texting to check on someone, sending a card in the mail, taking a trip together, snuggling a little one (pet or person), etc. Love can also be shown by giving someone a physical gift as what you give often shows that you know them. The most important thing is to do all that you do with love in your heart. There is no greater gift!
Do you play in your daily life? What says “playtime” to you?
I play a lot! To me playtime is any time you are doing something that is fun for you and brings you joy. The emphasis is on you because playtime is different for everyone. I feel like I’m having playtime when I practice yoga, write, walk, hike, sew, paint, read, learn a language, play games, put together puzzles, make glamour videos, and much more! I think the key to playtime is knowing what you enjoy and taking time each day – even if it is just 15 minutes – to do it.
I cannot take full credit for this idea. I came up with the idea when I saw this post going around social media about a lady asking her husband and kids to buy her 12 books for Christmas and wrap them with a label for each month. This would be like her own Book of the Month club. Of course I saw this after the holiday, but I thought “I can adapt this!” At first I thought I would just adapt it for myself by rewrapping and labeling books I got for Christmas. Then I got to thinking that this could be a great way to get LilKsby to read different books! He loves to read, but a lot of times we end up reading the same 15 or so over and over. So I went to his bookshelf to find books he hasn’t previously shown an interest in reading and a couple new ones we had set aside. Tonight I wrapped them and put a label on each one. Then I put them all in a shoebox so that it looks a treasure chest. I cannot wait for him to see this box and be excited to unwrap a book each month!
So why am I sharing this here? As I wrapped them, I thought this could be a great way to encourage kids who do not like reading to pick up a book. It could also be a fun way for teachers to introduce a book each month to their class. Participate in summer reading? The same idea could be applied just for summer. This is “literacy” a fun idea for all ages!
“Follow your heart, your intuition/It will lead you in the right direction/Let go of your mind, your intuition/Is easy to find, just follow your heart, baby.”
Does anyone else remember that song from Jewel aptly titled “Intuition”? It’s the first thing I thought of for this prompt, and I think it’s appropriate. I would love to say that I always follow my heart; however, a lot of time my pesky brain gets in the way. When faced with a situation, I typically find that my intuition is often accurate (especially Mother’s Intuition) as the heart’s responses often align with my values. Unfortunately, the brain, which can be riddled by anxiety and worry, sometimes trumps the heart. Perhaps sometimes it’s hard to follow my intuition because of a gift that I share with my late grandmother: an eerie feeling of knowing what’s going to happen before it does. It can make wanting to follow your intuition difficult! Eventually, I usually find my way back to my heart, but it can take time that is filled with error and misguided events. And that makes me think of another lyric: “The words to say/The road to take/To find a way back to your heart.” This one is from BSB’s “Back to Your Heart.”
Well…it’s not even 8 am and I’ve referenced two songs while writing a blog. My intuition says this will be a productive day!
Can we just agree that some of these daily writing prompts are odd? I can truly say I have never thought about what my favorite month of the year is. Favorite holiday? Sure. Favorite season? Okay. (Spoiler, all four have their perks.) Favorite month? All I can think of is that clip from Miss Congeniality where the girl says the perfect date is April 25. So instead of a favorite month, how about a pros and cons list? My followers know how much I love a good list!!!!
Pros
January – Snow is likely! This means hot chocolate, snuggles, and “lazy” days.
February – important family celebrations and snow
March – NCAA Tournament (the only time I make a point of watching Sportsball) and Spring! Also, sometimes snow!
April – Gardening and outside time weather begins!
May – lots of fun celebrations!!!
June – summer camps
July – important celebrations
August – important birthday and State Fair
September – Fall starts! That means all the fun fall activities begin!
October – fall activities and Halloween
November – Christmas prep! Celebrations! Sometimes it snows!!!
December – Christmas palooza! Winter time!!! Family celebrations!
Cons
Each month has some sort of con associated with it because of something that has happened or because there is a holiday you don’t agree with celebrating. However, it’s not enough to ruin a month.
Do you have a favorite month, or do they all have their merits?
What part of your routine do you always try to skip if you can?
Good news! If you don’t have a consistent routine, you can’t always try and skip something. Bad news! If you don’t have a consistent routine, then you tend to go into surviving not thriving mode. For me the biggest takeaway from this question is the need to establish and follow a routine period.
I have great intentions when it comes to having a routine. However, there’s two obstacles that tend to get in my way. One, if I get invited to do something fun, I have a hard time saying no even if it goes against original plans. Two, when there are only loosely established plans, I tend to throw in as many things as possible. This just leads to chaos. Along with both of these I’m also easily distracted by becoming hyper focused on things that aren’t important.
So, I suppose my answer to today’s daily question is when I establish and follow a routine, I’ll let you know what I skip!
Who is the most famous or infamous person you have ever met?
This is a really hard question for me to answer. I’ve met a lot of famous people because of attending cons, but does that count? Here’s my thought on this question…
Most Interesting Meeting – Waylon Jennings – When I met him, I had no idea who he was. I was a kid (must of been around age 9 because Hurricane Andrew had just happened), and I was at a barbecue buffet with my parents. This random stranger started telling me I was a cute young lady, and I told him that I couldn’t talk to strangers. I didn’t understand at the time why my mom was staring at me slack jawed. Now I get it!
Most Meaningful – William Daniels – I grew up watching Boy Meets World, and when I became a teacher, I wanted to be the kind that made the impact that Mr Feeny did on those kids. I am so glad that I could tell him thank you for being an inspiration. Bonus, LilKsby was so upset that I didn’t pick the Knight Rider picture for our autograph that his wife, Bonnie Bartlett, gave us one. 😊
Most Awkward – Howie D – I’ve been a huge BSB fan for a long time, and when we saw him coming out of a hotel, the words asking for an autograph barely came out of my mouth. They did come out, but I know I was shaking. Side note, that was the morning after the concert where we were close enough to slip them our room number. They didn’t call that night, so me and my besties are still waiting for them to call us to hangout. 😂
Most Kind – Luke Perry and Sean Patrick Flannery – I met them at a Con. Luke Perry and I had a conversation about hand sanitizer, and he let me use some of his. Same Con, a fan had given Sean Patrick Flannery some brownies, and he shared his brownies with me and my aunt. That was pretty awesome! We’d done the Boondocks Saints photo op the day before, so that made it even better!
When you become a parent, one of the things that modern society likes to imply is that you can easily balance everything in your life. There is the implication of you can work full time, feel like a stellar parent, have plenty of time for a romantic life, and so on and so forth. Here’s the truth and the secret to my seemingly so well balanced parent life: the idea that you can have it all in equal proportion is pure BS.
Think of it from a mathematical standpoint. If you are trying to balance 4 things equally in a 24 hour period, then you have to be able to devote six hours to each one of those things. Wait! You have necessities that have to be done such as sleeping, eating, and showering. Suppose those take 8 hours per day. That leaves you with 16 hours per day which would allot only 4 hours for each of those things. If you only applied 4 hours a day to your job, your boss would probably get irritated with you pretty quickly especially if they are paying you for 8 hours per day. While this isn’t a perfect example, do you see why you can’t equally balance your priorities?
This is where prioritizing the things that are important to you comes into play. If you’re rolling your eyes because you’re thinking well she’s a work from home mom, so this is easy for her to do, I ask you to take a moment and reflect on what’s preventing you from having an open mind. Having an open mind about your priorities is actually a key to finding balance. For you to find balance as a parent, one of the things you have to think about is what your priorities truly are. Obviously, a main priority is being able to provide financially for ones family. I think most everyone would agree on that. But what are your priorities after that? Do you put keeping a clean house over playing with your child? Do you put making coffee with your SO every night above sitting down and watching TV by yourself while they are in another room? Do you make it a priority to go on dates with your SO even if you’ve been married for a long timed? Once you decide on what the priorities are that will make you feel balanced and complete, then you can move on to implementing your balanced life as a parent.
For me, balance comes from having a Six Most Important things to do list every day. I actually divide my list in order of my priorities which tend to be Faith, Family, Work from Home, and Me Time. If you find that there is little or no fun in your life, then I highly recommend you invest in the Me time. Life is short, so you need to have fun! After looking at those things, I put what the most important thing is that needs to happen for each. Usually Faith has something like prayer, read a religious or spiritual text, and silent reflection. Family has things like School (we homeschool and try to spend at least two hours a day on lessons), Daily Chores (I have specific chores assigned to specific days of the week), and then any other errands that need to be done (call and schedule this appointment, go to the park, etc). The other two totally depend on what I’m doing at the time for those tasks. Sometimes my Work from Home says tutor while other times it is tasks for my DS business. One night a week it is designing journals for Letters & Lore (thegreatkaysby.com/letters-lore). My Me Time has been known to have things like paint, watch a movie, play video games, shave your legs, and paint your nails. Both of those are reflective of what is happening at the time. Does everything get done on my list each day? Nope. Shit happens. Sometimes you don’t find yourself able to get everything done. So how can that still make you feel balanced? Circle it and put it at the top of tomorrow’s list!
The last part of my secret to balanced parent life is to listen to your child(ren). This one is something I’m working to improve as I can feel easily overwhelmed and shutdown when things don’t go exactly as planned. However, your little one won’t remember that they went to bed while there was dirty dishes in the sink. They will remember that you had dinner late because the family took time to play a board game together. Likewise, they won’t remember that you didn’t vacuum this week. They will remember that you took two hours to play outside or spent time decorating the house for a holiday together. Along the same lines, they won’t remember that your car had peanut butter crackers smashed in the floorboard. They will remember the trips to the playground, going on hikes, and driving around to look at the changing leaves. Learning to listen to my child has been one of the best ways to find balance as a parent. By the way, this is also applicable to your SO. Listen to them and their cues both verbal and non-verbal. They need you too!
So there you go. Call it “Tip Tuesday” or just some general life advice, whatever you want to call it. Take the advice or leave it. But know that I didn’t do everything on my to list today because this seemed more important to share. I’ve long been told we teach on what we need to learn, so maybe I needed this more today than completing a list.
Matthew Perry once said that people would be shocked by his death, but they wouldn’t be surprised. I suppose he said this given the way that many people react to the death of someone who was either a recovering addict or a known addict. The fact that Matthew was the former of the two was as well known as the fact that he became famous for playing Chandler Bing. While many of us loved Chandler, we related to Matthew because of his openness with his struggles battling addiction as many people have either had the same battle personally or have a family member or friend that’s fought that battle.
Since hearing about Mattman’s untimely death last night (about 25 hours ago to be precise), I’ve thought a lot about him. This was in part due to listening to Friends while cleaning today, but it was mostly because in a lot of ways, I feel like I have lost a friend myself. Though we never met in person, from things like interviews and following him on Instagram, I found myself feeling connected on a personal level (much like it is easy to feel connected to a lot of people you friend/follow on social media). From what he put out there, he was very open about his battle with addiction and how he thought he could use his personal struggles to help others during their own fights with addiction. At one point he event turned his Malibu beach house into Perry House to give men who were starting their recovery journey a safe haven. I can’t think of a lot of people – celebrity or “normal guy” – who would be willing to do such a thing. Mattman was also very open about his 2018 health scare when he was given a 2% chance of survival after his colon burst and how looking at the colostomy bag was enough to keep him going on the recovery journey. He also truly believed that there was a reason God got him through this health scare, and he felt it was his mission to give others who were fighting addiction hope. This desire to spread hope led to the writing of his book and a script about his struggles. Imagine having a desire to spread hope after so much struggle just to survive! We could all stand to be a little more like that!
Whether you’re reading this as a general fan of Matthew Perry or a fan of Friends, I hope that you will take a moment of remembrance for Mattman and remember that he was more than Chandler Bing. As someone who didn’t grow up watching Friends (I wasn’t even a teenager when it started), yet grew up watching Friends, it can be hard to not want to focus on his legacy from the show standpoint. However, I will do my best to honor the man he was and the legacy of hope that he strived to pass forward. In a recent Instagram post, he said, “Sleep well everybody, I’ve got the city tonight – Mattman.” Tonight, he’s got all of us from above. Rest easy, Mattman!
Two and a half years ago, I was co-teaching a sophomore English Lit class, and we were studying the works of Richard Blanco. If you’re not familiar with his works, he writes a lot of poetry that really gets you thinking about a variety of topics some of which people don’t like to mention. At the time that I was teaching about him, our country was in the middle of much turmoil itself. Covid was still RAMPANT, and vaccines were just starting to be given. There was a lot of rioting spurred by attitudes focused around the sentiment of “You can’t tell me what to do! Unless I don’t like what you’re doing then I’m going to tell you what to do!” With encouragement provided by the media, everything happening in the world felt like it was close to imploding. Inspired by Blanco, I found myself writing the following:
Constitutional Rights?
The Constitution says we have freedom of religion. This isn’t a right to use religion to exclude others. This isn’t a right to persecute those with different beliefs. This isn’t a right to act superior over others because of religious differences.
The Constitution says we have freedom of speech. This isn’t a right to allow students to cuss their teachers. This isn’t a right to give permission to use racial slurs. This isn’t a greenlight for verbal assault.
The Constitution says we have a right to bear arms. This isn’t a justification for needing assault weapons in your home. This isn’t an excuse for taking lives in the name of “self defense.” This isn’t a reason to make a mockery with photos of children holding guns.
The Constitution says no soldier shall be quartered in any house without owner’s consent. This isn’t a way of saying don’t open your home to those in need. This isn’t a reason to avoid helping homeless Veterans. This isn’t indicating that we should keep all people out of our lives.
The Constitution says we have a right to not be a witness against ourselves in criminal cases. This isn’t a way to get out of admitting when you’ve done wrong. This isn’t designed to be said as an excuse with a shit eating grin. This isn’t a justification to do as you damn well please without concern for others.
The Constitutions says we have a right to a speedy public trial with an impartial jury. This isn’t a right for “the law” to convict unequally based on race, gender, economic class, or sexual orientation. This isn’t a vehicle for inflicting personal prejudice on a possible criminals. This isn’t a process to apply unequally because of someone’s biased reason behind their actions.
The Constitution says we have a right to peaceful protest. This isn’t a weapon for silencing those who don’t agree with your biased opinion. This doesn’t mean you can riot violently in the name of Civil Disobedience. This isn’t a way to further your unconstitutional agenda.
Until recently I had forgotten that I wrote this. Then I found the handwritten copy in a stack of other papers on my desk. I kept putting it to the side, and it kept resurfacing. Finally, I took that as a sign that this is meant to be shared. When I wrote it, I didn’t have the confidence to share this with anyone because I hate to stir up conflict. However, I want those around me to never be afraid to voice their truths, and I believe in leading by example.
I love Jigsaw Puzzles. I’ve enjoyed putting together puzzles for as long as I can remember. Over the years, I’ve completed easy ones, difficult ones, ones with missing pieces, etc. Recently I’ve gotten into solving puzzles online. These are challenging because they are timed and have various degrees of difficulty: easy, normal, and expert. I had been sticking to easy and some normal, but yesterday I tried expert. When I solved it, I thought of how puzzles are a metaphor for life.
Think about it. How many of us whether it is intentional or not find ourselves living our lives on easy mode? After all, easy mode is the one that takes the least effort while providing satisfactory, adequate outcomes. Even those of us who have big dreams can find ourselves stuck in easy mode from laziness, fear, etc. Until we get unstuck and switch to expert mode, our dreams will never become a reality.
So how do we switch? For me it is a lot of telling myself things like “short term sacrifice for long term gain” and “work hard so you can play hard” coupled with extreme planning! When I’m in expert mode, I plan like a maniac. At this point I’m great at the planning, but often the execution lands me back in easy mode. It’s not because I don’t want to be in expert mode and experiencing abundant success; it’s because I get inside my own head and shutdown.
Getting inside my head is my biggest issue with success in my Direct Selling business. Sometimes that mindset finds its way into other things like solving the puzzle on expert mode. I almost didn’t try expert mode because I was sure I would fail, but a little voice inside my head convinced me to try. After all with a puzzle online, if I failed I could just try again. Then I got to thinking. This is also true of the path to success in life. It is better to stumble, fall, and get back up than to not even try.
The conclusion? It’s time to try expert mode in a variety of things not just puzzles!
Most people have heard of the concept called the “Circle of Control.” Within this concept there is a circle in the middle of a blank space. Inside the circle is written things that you can personally control, and outside of the circle is written the things that you cannot control that cause you stress. For example, you can control if you go out and check the mail so that would be on the inside of the circle. However, you cannot control what shows up in your mailbox on a given day so that would be on the outside of the circle. These examples are trivial in comparison to most of life’s stressors, but you get the concept.
The concept of the “Circle of Control” is something I try to remind myself of a lot. At times I can have a tendency to get overly emotional about things that are completely out of my control. (Keep in mind I’m not talking about tragic kinds of things.) When this happens, I try to remind myself of the circle, but I have found that there are a couple of flaws with it. The biggest is that I am part of a generation where we were very much as a whole taught to never show emotion or ask for help because these are perceived as signs of weakness. Which I now realize might be the kind of thought process that made me prefer to get bad grades as opposed to ask for help in Calculus. Anyway, getting away from this line of thought to a more healthy one isn’t easy, but it has become a goal for me as I want to be a good example for LilKsby.
So I got to thinking…what if instead of a “Circle of Control” there is a “Spectrum of Sparkle”? Why a spectrum? Because I have realized that there are a lot of things in my life that have aspects I can control while also having aspects that rely on others. With the circle concept, the two are completely separate. However, I’ve come to believe that the biggest success to emotional control lies on a spectrum where you find balance between knowing what you can control and learning to cope with what you can’t as opposed to being told to just let it go. On the “Spectrum of Sparkle” you could start by listing various aspects of your life such as faith, family, friends, you, and avenues of income. Then you could list under that the things that you have complete control over such as silent mediation time, your family chores, your daily habits, etc. Beneath those you could list the things that are partially in your control but also not. These would be things like you can control what days you go to the grocery pickup, but you can’t control how long it will take to get your order. Just knowing what these things are can help you know how to cope with them which can lead to better emotional management. Finally, list the things that are totally out of your control. These can be things that are obviously out of your control like “I can’t control the weather,” or they can be things that are personal like, “I can’t let how someone reacts to my decision ruin how excited I am about it.” One of the hardest lessons to learn for people like me who are super easily excitable is that not everyone is going to be excited as you are and as happy about something as you are. You also have to learn that you cannot control other people. You have to let people live their lives how they want even when you (a) think you know better for them or (b) disagree with their decisions. You can 100% love someone and not agree with everything they do. That’s called being a Golden Rule person.
Now that I’ve answered “why a spectrum?” I feel the need to answer “why of sparkle?” Well for one I like sparkly things. Two, the things that we get the most passionate and upset about are usually the things that make us sparkle and shine inside and out. It’s also important to know that those things can take an emotional toll on us, and we should recognize that even things that make us sparkle have parts that our out of our control. Until the next time!
“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among stars” is a quote often attributed to Norman Vincent Peale. When you Google it, a lot of people have said the quote and fully determining its origin seems rather impossible From time to time, I have even said this quote when speaking with people. In fact, one year when I was still teaching, I had this quote on my classroom door as an attempt to motivate students to do their best. Along with me other great minds like those of Oscar Wilde, Brian Littrell (the recent Savannah Bananas intro is a sure sign of his genius), Mary Kay Ash, and Les Brown have said this same quote at some point in their respective careers. Since the first time I heard this quote, I have loved that it is so simplistic while at the same time being extremely deep. To think that if you try your hardest, even if you come short of the goal, you will have had so much success in the process!
Lately I have been wanting to blog a lot, but I have found that I haven’t had a lot of deep, meaningful pieces of wisdom to share. Instead of just blogging anyway which could have lead to inspirational pieces, I’ve been doing a lot of other activities. Some of the activities were just for fun like summer vacation, visits with friends, a road trip to IKEA (when the nearest one is three hours away, traveling there totally counts as a road trip), amusement park trips, and more. However, other activities have been like shooting for the moon and landing among the stars. These are the activities that took some getting out of my comfort zone, time, and effort; these are the activities that are life changing.
The first activity that was life changing involved the State Fair. If you’ve read my blog since 2018, then you know that I have always enjoyed the State Fair for the food. What you may not have known is that I have always dreamed of entering the competitions at the State Fair. I’ve talked about it for years, and for years I never did anything about it. This year – as part of my mission to be more fearless at forty than ever before – I finally entered the State Fair. I shot for the moon by entering two photos, five scrapbook pages, and two sewing pieces. One of the photos advanced to the final round of judging, and one of the sewing pieces placed second in the category. More importantly than the outcomes from the judges, were the outcomes that I felt from landing among the stars. Just from finally entering the State Fair, I was reminded of just how much I enjoy my various hobbies. I find them relaxing, and I find that I love creating. Seeing pieces come together to create a whole when you are working on a project is so satisfying! If you’re an artisan, you know exactly what I mean. The biggest star from finally entering? It made me want to do more next year! In fact, I’ve already started planning some pieces. For someone with time management and organization issues, this planning “star” might just be the most important takeaway I could have from finally entering!
My second life changing activity has to do with overcoming fear of not being in control. Back story here, you have to understand that I have always said that I hate flying and am afraid of it. Some of this was probably rooted in the fact that my first flight when I was twelve was in one of those like three passenger planes. It was a short trip, but the plane shook a lot and though the views were cool, the overall experience was terrifying. It took me another twelve years to get back on a plane, and when I did, I realized that flying wasn’t as bad as I had made it out to be. However, I still did not like it. I just always felt safer driving myself than trusting my life to a pilot that I’ve never met. This summer after another 16 years, I got on a plane again. I wasn’t overly thrilled by it, and at times leading up to the travel, I was sure that something was going to go horrifically wrong. However, I knew that taking a plane trip was going to be the only way that I could attend a business conference while minimizing the time away from home. On some levels the fact that I was even willing to book the flight was like landing among the stars before the trip even occurred!
Fast forward to the trip occurring. When I booked my flights, I purposefully booked aisle seats so that I wouldn’t have to look out the window. I thought this might help me to be able to pretend that I was in a car or on a train instead of flying in a plane. For the majority of the flight there, I kept trying to look out the window. So on my way back, I actually switched my seat to a window seat. Guess what? I was mesmerized the entire flight home! The world looked so beautiful from the plane! Also, I know it sounds cliché, but I felt so close to Heaven and calm while flying. I felt like this trip finally made me feel at peace with flying, and I look forward to what doors this willingness will open for me! I’m so thankful that instead of landing on moon by staying in my driving comfort zone, I landed among stars and now feel like I can do anything!
Finally, one recent final activity has been like landing among stars. For as long as I can remember, I have had an interest in writing and journaling. Shocker right that someone who blogs would be interested in these things? I’ve also always wanted to somehow find a way to publish some of my original ideas. I’ve not really wanted to make a lot of money of it, but I always thought it would be cool to see something I contributed to in print. Through a collaboration with Letters & Lore (checkout the new page on my site about them), I am getting to do just that! I’m not sure what will come of it, but just the learning process has been fun. Even if we don’t make it to the moon, the stars we’re landing among are amazing!
Wow! I wrote a lot more about this than I thought I would, and it is getting late. I have an early class tomorrow (side note, taking free classes has also led to star like growth), and I should try and get some rest. I hope this inspires you to shoot for the moon, but if nothing else, this blog is getting me back in the groove!
Spoiler Alert!!! This blog contains spoilers of And Just Like That Season 2!!!
Normally, I don’t write about things like TV shows, but since finishing the Season 2 finale of And Just Like That, I’ve read a lot of articles slamming it. I loved it so much that I feel like I need to stand up for the show. Before I begin, let me give you a little of my backstory with the SATC universe. My first exposure to it was when the first film came out in 2008. I saw it in the theater, and I fell in love! As a 20 something, I found their lives fascinating. I immediately dove into the series and loved the evolution of each character’s story. It was so interesting to see how they got from their characterizations in Season 1 to where they were in the film. When the second movie came out, I was equally excited and thoroughly enjoyed it as well. So of course when AJLT was announced, I couldn’t wait!
When I first started watching Season 1, I struggled with AJLT a lot specifically with Miranda and Che. For example it bothered me that because she was unhappy, Miranda cheated on Steve instead of separating before beginning a new relationship. This seemed extremely out of character given how upset Miranda was when Steve cheated. Additionally, it really bothered me when Miranda and Che hooked up while Carrie peed herself in the other room. Not because they were together, but because it seemed out of character for Miranda to neglect her bestie. Finally, my biggest problem with Season 1 was Che Diaz because their characterization was just too much. However, a recent quote from Sara Ramirez made me reflect differently on the character. The gist was that Che is being written by a bunch of writers who cannot relate to being non-binary and what life is like for someone with that gender identity which has led to some over the top and inaccurate characterization. I thought they made a great point, and it really made me rethink my opinion of Che.
Speaking of Che, I really liked their character development in the later half of Season 2. I thought that their story lines did a great job of showing how they are struggling to find their place in the world professionally and in both platonic and romantic relationships. During the later half of the season, I also felt like we got to see a warm and generous side (Miranda bashing stand up aside) to Che that hadn’t been explored before. Seriously, how cute was Che cuddling all those kitties? (Side note when I’m 47, I want skin as lovely as Sara Ramirez’s.) I was thankful for this because I almost gave up on Che when they were so mad at Miranda for leaving LA to be with her suicidal son.
Miranda leaving LA to take care of Brady is a prime example of why I think Season 2 was so great. For many of the characters this season showed how they had grown to be the strong family oriented, successful career and/or philanthropic women that they have become. I feel like this growth exemplifies a lot of the natural change that comes with maturing as a person in real life. I also thought that the family centered storylines did a great job of making the characters relatable to a variety of people. For example, LTW’s guilt over her miscarriage is extremely relatable for anyone who has ever gone through pregnancy loss. There are so many associated emotions with such a loss, and the show did a great job of showing both the woman’s guilt and man’s mourning the loss and guilt. Additionally, I thought Charlotte’s story about going back to working in a gallery because she felt as though she had lost her identity as herself was highly relatable. As a mom, it is so easy to get absorbed in your family commitments that it can be easy to lose your own personality! Kudos to them for showing that is a real thing!
I could go on and on about how great Season 2 was, but I know it will still have critics. I think those who are criticizing it for not being more like SATC forget that the original first aired 25 years ago. By expecting the characters to be the same as they were in 1998 is like expecting that people never change. In my opinion, I think how people change over the years is what makes them interesting. If the characters were all acting exactly the same as they had 25 years ago, that would be sad as it would mean they hadn’t experienced personal growth. They would also be highly unrelatable to most of us if they were still just chasing after men, drinking, and parading around in fancy clothes that cost as much as my mortgage.
So …and just like that I fell in love with my gal pals all over again!
The Great Kaysby 