The Homeless Man and The Cupcake!

                I've been diligently working on the fruits of the spirit, and one of them is to be kind, always.  Oh that’s easy, you say!? Well, it’s really NOT!  Once I started really checking myself, I realized that sometimes, just sometimes, I’m not a very kind person. Not in the way God is to me. Because you see, kindness does not hold any standards. It doesn’t ask, “What have you done for me lately?” Kindness is the appropriate response to any wrongdoing from the world onto us. True kindness is letting go completely of any prejudice and loving the un-loveable. And that, my friends, is not easy. Especially if you’re not consistently monitoring how you behave towards others. It is so easy for me to be kind to those who are kind to me. I love being kind to people who give me presents… and compliments… and fan me… and feed me grapes… and put treasures at my feet. It’s a little difficult to be nice to someone who just pooped on my lawn, if you know what I mean.

 So case in point; Today, I was running a tad bit late for my madre’s birthday celebration. At my dismay, I got stuck at a red light because the amazing Ford Focus in front of me wasn’t focusing on the task at hand, that being driving! He was dilly-dawdling and what do ya know, biggidy bam, we got stuck at the looooongest red light ever. See not kind there…..  As I’m waiting, I turn my head to the left and see a homeless man standing with his sign reading, “Homeless, need help, God bless.” For a split second, I turn away so that I don’t have to “see” the man, because if I don’t “see” him than I don’t need to help, right?  Life is full of these split second decisions, decisions that threaded together compile our daily story, and in the end tell us who we are. Who do you want to be?  The person who took the time to search in their hearts to see what act of kindness they could perform, even if it was at the expense of their time or money? Or the person who looked away to not be inconvenienced?  There I was in my car, blessed as all can be and I got convicted very quickly. I knew I didn’t have any cash on me to give to the man wearing drabs, the man who in 3 seconds I judged and turned away from. But I felt in my heart the need to do something. His sign read, “need help.” How could I help in the next minute I was stuck at this light? I worked quickly to get the foil and tightly wrapped saran wrap. (By the way, why is saran wrap so awesome and why is it so hard to get unwrapped, I will never know. Sorry, back to the story. I allow myself at least one tangent per story, moving on!) I removed the saran wrap to get my freshly baked Tres Leches (that’s three milks) cupcakes and I rolled my window down and gave the man my cupcake. He smiled at me and I knew I had done the right thing. I couldn’t help but keep looking at him, hoping to see what his reaction was after eating my cupcake. He took a bite, and made the most awesome face ever! Then, he turned to me and with a smile and a side of thumbs up he said, “This is good!”  

               Wow, who got blessed there? ME, that’s who! I got such joy in my heart that, number one, I did something kind, and number two, the homeless man loved my baked goodies.

              Okay, I am not saying that I will be kind every second of every day. Let’s face it, I’m human and I’m going to fail time and time again. BUT, being more conscious of my actions will help me bear the fruit of kindness, as well as realizing that kindness will blossom even more when I allow God stirring in me. Be kind and rewind ya’ll!

Stay blessed, stay saucy!!

The Homemaker!

If you asked me six years ago if I would enjoy cleaning toilets, changing diapers, and not having a “real” job, I would have said H-E double hockey sticks NO! If you asked me if I would enjoy my list of responsibilities reading the following:

·        - Keep a clean home

·         -Care and raise a baby

·         -Cook meals for your husband

I would have laughed and said that I needed something more fulfilling for my life. My vision of happiness and success was far from the list up above. At one point in my life I didn’t even believe in marriage, and didn’t want to have children. Wowza, do things change or what?! When my husband and I prayed about what we would do in regards to my career, we were encouraged to have me stay home with our baby.  At first I was so excited for the new adventure, but as I was faced with the reality of it, I can truly say it was a very rocky start. I had a lot of turmoil within myself because I wasn’t being used to my potential if you will. I was no longer an integral part of a business meeting. I wasn’t being challenged intellectually, my words of choice suddenly became…. Goo-goo ,ga-ga. There was no instant gratification for the hard work I was putting in. For some reason Madelyn was NOT gabbing at how amazing I was at changing her diaper. Because of my competitive edge, I would start timing myself in diaper changes to see how much I was improving (I’m not joking!). And sadly enough, anytime I was at a play date and someone would change a diaper at the same time as me, I would have a full fledge competition with that person to see who was faster (I didn’t tell them we were in competition, but I sure had fun in my head!). The only gratification I got from Maddy was spit up on my freshly cleaned shirt and cries demanding “More boobie, more boobie, woman!!!”

                How was I supposed to love staying at home with my baby when so much of my life was spent doing everything possible for me to NOT end up in a position like thus. I needed an education so that I DIDN’T have to just be a homemaker. I needed a fulfilling career so that I felt accomplished and worth something. You can see how lost I felt, the better part of my life I spent preparing for the business world and neglected the business of taking care of a home. I would reject my mother’s advice on cooking or sewing or cleaning. My madre would tell me no one was going to want to marry me because I didn’t know how to cook and I didn’t like to clean. I would laugh and say that I would find a husband who could cook and clean for ME! Well that I did because I was blessed to find Doug and he loves to cook, but that’s beside the point. As I ventured into our marriage I found myself wanting to cook and clean for the home, but I still didn’t think that I would want to do that 100% and full time. When I had an 8-5 job too, I was able to engage Doug into being fairsies 50-50 in the home duties, you can do that when you are both working. But now that I stay at home full time, I have no excuse. I don’t expect Doug to come home from his job and do all the cleaning and cooking (although I must say that he is so generous that he still helps around the house!).  Fortunately for me (and Doug ((sometimes)), after I left my mother’s house and lived on my own, I became a cleaning nut! If I could, I would have dates with myself and treat me to cleaning my entire house for fun! I find doing dishes therapeutic so I have no need for my dish washer (it serves a greater purpose in storing my baking gadgets), and I like my cereal boxes to be in order of tallest to shortest. You can see what a spoiler a baby can be in my cleaning regimen, I have to clean when she’s asleep! But even with this newly and STRANGELY found love for cleaning, I still didn’t feel like being a stay at home mommy was going to be all that it’s cracked out to be.  Now, eight months into it I’ve found out the beauty that is homemaking. I don’t NEED some suit to tell me I’m doing a great job at life, I can see it in the happiness of my home that I am. And who cares if I have to clean every day of my life and care for my little one? I find the importance in what I am doing everyday because that’s what gives me purpose. I find my responsibilities extremely important, no matter how mundane and non-classy they might be. I’ve found a great lesson here. It doesn’t matter what you do to earn a living, what matters is the attitude you carry in your heart day to day. Are you allowing yourself to find the blessings and the importance of your livelihood? Our world tells us that we must have this and we must have that to be happy and successful. Why it is that even the wealthiest people are sometimes not happy? Because happiness starts inside your soul! It dwells in your heart; you have to find the importance of you and your life with in you. Not in your career, your financial worth or your possessions.  I find my homemaking skills a true asset and a great accomplishment in my life. For me, happiness is within me, I can be cleaning poopie and still be happy! Find your happiness inside of you and don’t let your twisted manager, or your boring job be the boss of you, for today is the only day we can truly count on. Do you want to waste it not feeling unhappy and unsatisfied with your life? NO Be happy, be blessed, and stay saucy!!

Dora... Why are you so wise?

This morning Dora the Explorer said, “Let’s stop and think.” while Maddy and I watched Season 1, episode 3. Haha *Side note, I like it how even children’s programs have seasons. Maddy has watched Season 1 over and over; I don’t think she has noticed that the plot isn’t thickening. *End side note. Dora’s words made me literally stop and think about the last time I’ve allowed myself to just wait a second before having verbal diarrhea. I thought back to this week and how I’ve been behaving towards my wonderful husband. Every time he has said something that doesn’t quite agree with me, I’ve just been so quick to snap back at him. If he were the one doing this to me, I would be so upset! I’ve had no patience with him and it just seems as though my tongue has a mind of its own. I know if I had a second to think about what I was going to say, 99.9% of things wouldn’t have come out of my mouth (the other 1% might have been granted…. Just sayin’).And, I don’t want to blame it on my lady bits having their monthly maintenance, but let’s face it; something DOES happen to us ladies when this event is going down, amen?  Amen! Regardless of what’s going on with me, I need to realize that other people reside in this world while I’m having PMS issues or other issues none-the-less. *Side, side note; How wonderful would it be if we could just go into a monthly hibernation for a couple of days while “things” happened. And somehow the Lady Part Fairy would come visit us and manicured our nails, died our hair and gave us a brow wax while we relaxed? We would come out of the hibernation not only looking stunning but having not lashed out at those around us! Solid! End side, side note. So thank you Dora for making me stop and think! Next time I have any human interaction I will pause before saying what I think to make sure it is something I want to make its way out of my mouth (Sorry Joelle, our rendezvous today might be filled with pauses). I hope my husband can forgive me and look forward to the new me! At least until I have lady part malfunction again and forget that I even wrote this post.….

And wait! Now that I’m “thinking” about this a little more I realize that, the stop and think method is not only for situations where I’m talking to someone. It’s for all those times that I feel wrapped up in the world and I have a problem of sorts. Giving a second of pondering will help me greatly, for it allows me to think of my options and weigh in consequences before just jumping the gun on any given situation. This world is on crack now-a-days, going by so fast with all of our High-speed internets, fastest 3G, 4G, 9M networks or whatever, and a hundred and one items to make living simpler. Just seems like we could use some time to think about what we are doing next rather than just doing. Today, I am going to take the time to consider what my words and actions will be and make sure that it’s what I want to put out there in this amazing crazy fast world of ours. I hope you are having an awesome-sauce day!

Stay blessed, stay saucy! 

I have an eating disorder….. Do you?

Last year most of my weight gain; I mean ALL of my weight-gain, happened because I had the pleasure of hosting a little nugget for nine months in my belly. As the pounds accumulated, I vowed to get rid of my “baby” weight ASAP as possible (hopefully some of you are fans of The Office. If not, this joke meant NOTHING to you. Movin’ on!) I made it a point to stay active during my pregnancy and to eat very healthy food. This all proved to work for me, once I had Madelyn, the pounds just sort of melted off. Thank God! Now I’ve been training for a half marathon and that’s put me at a point where I now weigh less than before I got knocked up. Why am I bragging about my success in losing weight? I am not, I just think it’s going to prove a really good point later on, at least I hope it will.

Let’s rewind to my “weight” past adventures. First of all, I’ve always struggled with my weight; I am what I like to call, a weight yo-yoer. Second of all, I’m also an extremist; so I have a hard time with balance in a bazillion aspects of my life, one of which happens to be FOOD! Sometimes I eat supper healthy and other times I binge. Third of all, I think I am going to use the word “weight” lavishly on this post, so bear with me. Now that we have all these, “of all’s” in order let’s move on shall we…… There was a point in time that, even though I am not proud of it, I was making myself throw up. This stint only lasted for about a month because I was able to get help from God and stop the self- destructive behavior. What would drive someone to do something like that? After analyzing myself a lot, I’ve come to find out that there is something wrong with ME! Ha, there is definitely a disconnect on how I view myself and how others view me. I’m my own worst critic and I can be a Meany VonVincent sometimes. There have been times that I’ve been super healthy and in great shape. Then, there have been times that, let’s just say I’ve had a-lotta-more padding. When I am on a good streak, I feel great that I feel good in my clothing but the sad part is, even when I was the most physically fit; I still thought I could lose ten more pounds. When is enough, enough? Thinking back on those times, I realize that I was still thinking of myself as a “biggen”, even when I was at my all-time skinniest. What is wrong with that picture!!? I know that there is a fine line between feeling good about your-self and being complacent. I am a fan of always trying to better your-self as a human being, from the physical to the mental, to the spiritual, so on and so on. BUT I NEVER feel completely happy, per say, with my body. Then I started talking to a couple of girlfriends of mine about this and found out, surprisingly, that I am not alone! They too feel the same way. How can we live a life that is free of self-image paranoia? I don’t know; if you find out the cure please contact me pronto! I am not at all an expert at nutrition or fitness, but I do know that the more you stress out about a goal, the less likely it is that you can achieve it. The more I obsess about the girl I see in my body length mirror, the more this body dysmorphia takes over me and I see myself as something other than what I really am. I am a beautiful person on the inside and the outside is only a shell that gets me from point A to point B. The outside is not going with me when I die. I’ve been giving this subject up and am praying every day for deliverance of what feel like chains, and I can definitely feel a difference since I started praying about it. I know I will need to take care of my body to the best of my ability because if I don’t, my quality of life will suffer substantially. However, I need to start loving the shell that I’m in today. Not nit-picking at every part of my body I can possibly find a flaw in. I wanted to share this because I know how difficult it’s been for me over the years to struggle with this, so if you are too, know that you are not alone. Know that you are beautiful no matter what. All of this makes me wonder, what are we really “craving”?

Stay blessed, Stay saucy!