Category Archives: life

Inspiring a dream

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You may say I’m a dreamer. It says so right on the front of my website. 😉 And I am a dreamer. The bigger the dream, the better.

It was the dream of doing something big that led me to direct pageants. I had always wanted to compete but my mom didn’t like the idea. Eventually, at the age of 37, I competed for the first time. It was great and I was bitten by the pageant “bug”.

All of us pageant people know the bug. 😉

I competed for a total of three years before venturing into directing. I knew that I would be a good director. I like people and I like a project.  I think I really excelled at all of the technical aspects of pageant directing.

What I didn’t count on was the complete and total satisfaction I would get from working with the women that I would direct. After several years, I viewed myself as more of a mentor of women than a pageant director.

A lot of women enter pageants because they have something, some cause, they need to bring attention to. Over and over again, I saw how placing a crown and a banner on a woman would open doors to her that might have otherwise remained closed.

One such woman is Debbie Bunch. Debbie came to our 2009 pageant after emailing me to ask about how she would go about the process of competing the following year. She made her mind up that she was going to compete at that pageant but she didn’t introduce herself even though she said she almost ran into me coming out of the ladies room. She knew who I was but I had never seen her.

Me with Debbie at the Tulsa Women's Living Expo

She then came to the send-off party for our 2009 titleholders. This was where I first met this wonderful, sweet, amazing woman who would become one of my lifelong, forever friends.

Debbie, at the time I met her, had lost a lot of weight but she was still not your typical pageant contestant. I didn’t care. I never told my judges that they had to pick a queen of a certain size. To me, the total package, was the more important thing and Debbie had so much going for her.

What Debbie wanted to do with her title was to bring attention to a very serious and, sadly, common issue: sexual child abuse. Debbie is, herself, a survivor.

Crowned as Mrs. Canadian County 2010, Debbie went right to work. She was determined even though she was a little hesitant. I felt like my encouragement allowed her to go after her dream of making a difference in her community against child abuse.

Debbie didn’t win the 2010 Mrs. Oklahoma crown but she finished just out of the top 5 in 6th place. Pretty great for a girl who told one of our judges that she didn’t deserve to be Mrs. Oklahoma more than any of the other girls. She also won the Pageantry Spirit Award because she completely exemplifies what that award is about.

Since then, Debbie has done amazing things. And, like I said above, I’d like to believe that my encouragement helped her to live her dream because she is doing it!

She has been named the National Spokesperson for Dreamcatchers for Abused Children and works hard in her efforts to help them with their mission.

She recently held a candlelight vigil during child abuse awareness month. In a weekend full of the most incredibly awful weather that pulled attention away from her event, it was still well attended and called a resounding success by Debbie and others who were involved.

After the vigil, she began working on a bill that would require all sex offenders to wear ankle tracking bracelets. I know this motivated woman will make sure this bill is passed and made a law.

Debbie has even begun her own national pageant called Mrs. Community Service where she encourages others to live their dreams via community service. Her pageant benefits her charity Dreamcatchers for Abused Children.

I am so blessed to know Debbie and look forward to watching all of the great things she’s going to do in her life. If I had even a small part in helping her dream become a reality, then it’s more than enough for me.

You can do incredible things if you dare to dream and then actually put your dream into action as you can see by Debbie’s story above. I’d like to recommend a book to help you unleash your dreams.

Whitney Johnson has a new book out entitled  Dare, Dream, Do: Remarkable Things Happen When You Dare to Dream, which is available at bookstores nationwide, as well as on all major online retailers, including Amazon, B&N, Indiebound and others.” Maybe this is the book you need to give you the encouragement to live your dream.

Whatever your dream is, don’t just think about it. Get out and do it. I can’t wait to hear about it! 🙂

Reliable

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Yesterday, before the storm had really even started, we lost our DirecTV signal. This is standard. As soon as the wind picks up, the signal is lost.

So I tweeted it.

And it’s true. When it begins to storm I can reliably expect my TV to look like this:

(Video taken just now, not yesterday.)

Reliably unreliable. 😉

Unintended

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So you know I made a deal with my BFF’s husband to run a marathon next year. And I’ve been gearing up to start running again. But…I’ve been way too afraid to go out the door and run. I was afraid someone would laugh at me.

On Saturday, there was a run here, in Bartlesville. I hadn’t heard about it so I googled it when we got back from walking Boo Boo. Turns out it was even a 10k which used to be my favorite distance.

I looked at the map and I saw that it followed the Pathfinder north and behind the police station before ending up Downtown again. Hmmm. I have seen the Pathfinder but never really knew where to get on it.

When we were driving back from grocery shopping, I asked David if we couldn’t turn on the road that would take us to that spot on the race map and he did. Guess what? There’s an entrance to the Pathfinder with a parking lot and everything!

Suddenly…

I figured that if I went down to the Pathfinder to run, there would be way fewer people to see me. And that’s what I did today.

Today was supposed to be a recon mission. Check it out, see how it goes, who was there. I planned to walk and loaded a 60 minute Latin walking file onto my iPod. I planned to run tomorrow provided the Pathfinder was suitably empty.

When I turned on my iPod, it wasn’t the Latin walking workout, it was the Jeff Galloway 30/30 Run/Walk workout. So…I decided to go for it.

It went well! Yes, running feels weird at this weight. I haven’t run since 1999 and I was considerably lighter then. But the 30 seconds running alternating with 30 seconds of walking made it into a workout that I could do.

Wee hoo! I was so excited to run. I’m really going to run a marathon. But first up is The Color Run in June. 🙂

Worlds oldest bridesmaid

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August 1, 2005 was a day like any other.

Or so I thought.

That was the day that I “met” Lyndzee Vieweg when her registration form sailed into my email box stating that she would like to represent Oklahoma as Miss Teen Oklahoma.

The first time she tried, she won the Northern regional pageant we produced and was Miss Teen Northern Oklahoma International. But it wasn’t yet her time to wear the state crown.

In 2009, she finally captured the Miss Teen Oklahoma International title but she captured my heart straight away. Way back before I ever met her in real life.

I call Lyndzee my mini-me. No, we look nothing alike but I don’t know if I could have a child more like me even if my blood ran in her veins. We’ve actually had people ask, “Are you sure you two aren’t related?”

I adore her. We have so much fun together. We laugh and our wacky brains run on the very same track. We usually think of the same thing at the same time but if not, the one who doesn’t think of it is quick to get aboard the crazy train with the other.

Now, Lyndzee is grown up. The most beautiful young woman both inside and out. She’s getting married!

I’m so excited for her and her fiance’, Dustin, seems like the perfect match for her. He reminds me a lot of David. He lets her be her own unique self and just smiles and raises his eyebrow at times. 🙂

And now, I’m about to embark on the next role of my life: World’s Oldest Bridesmaid.

Yep, Lyndzee has asked me to be her Matron of Honor.

Whoa! What? Matron? Do I drive a station wagon? LOL!

I desperately try to not be matronly. I am, after all, tragically hip and incredibly cool. 😉

I’m honored beyond belief to serve in this role for Lyndzee but we did have to have a discussion about the title. We have come up with Glamazon of Honor. I think I can live with that.

When Lyndzee asked me if I would stand up for her, my first reaction was to laugh. I mean, seriously? I’m old. I asked her if she was sure she didn’t want me to sit in the pew next to her mom and she emphatically told me, no, that she wants me to be her bridesmaid.

I’m beyond honored. Sincerely. 🙂

We went shopping for wedding dresses on Saturday. Of course Lyndzee had a different idea for the belts she was shown.

And she really wasn’t a bridezilla while waiting for more dresses.

She’s too much fun for that.

But it’s clear to me that Lyndzee is going to be one gorgeous bride. (This is not the dress she will be wearing.)

I’m so excited to go on this journey with my mini-me. I’ll try not to be too sappy over the next year as we head towards their wedding date, April 13, 2013.

Life is truly interesting and you never know how someone you meet will factor into your life long term. I am completely blessed to have Lyndzee as a friend. 🙂

21 Day Sugar Detox – Week 1 recap

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Whew! I did it. I finished one week of the 21 Day Sugar Detox.

If you’ve followed along, you know that we started eating a paleo diet back in November of 2010. I did pretty well with that until this summer when we found out that Nikki was pregnant. Geoff was in Saudi and, like the good mother-in-law that I am, I ate along with her. Oh it was fun!

But I didn’t feel good. All of the reasons why we chose to change our eating habits came flying back into my face. I was tired, my joints ached, I was gaining weight.

I tried really hard to get back on track. But then came Pinterest with all of those delicious recipes (my baking…nom nom nom board was my most popular) and Christmas and I just couldn’t manage to be more than 50/50 on Paleo. I was slipping into a sugar hole.

Unicorn came back from Saudi and went to a project in Little Rock. I had disentangled from EVERYTHING in my life in order to go to Saudi and I was kind of at loose ends trying to figure out what to do.

I stumbled across the Daring Bakers Challenge. And joined it. Then I found Tuesday’s With Dorie which is a group baking their way thruogh a Julia Child baking book. I joined them. And then I found Project Pastry Queen. I bought the book and joined them.

My thought was that I would bake the items and give them away. But I didn’t know anyone in Little Rock to give them to so I either ate them or threw them away. Both bad choices.

I was back and forth between Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma babysitting for my friend’s twins and the birth of our glambaby, Aniston.

On February 25th, faced with having to make a quick bread, a rum cake and chocolate tarts for the challenges, I had an epiphany: THIS IS NOT GOOD FOR ME!

It came down from high, I’m sure. 😉

I had seen the 21 Day Sugar Detox and had been leaning towards doing it and it seemed like it was the perfect time. A new group was beginning on March 5.

I bought the program and got started. I’ve done the first week and it hasn’t been too hard. The night of the third day, I got a headache. I was expecting a headache but am still not sure if it came from taking the sugar out of my diet or the heinous winds we had here in Oklahoma last week.

I was flat out tired by days four through six. I expected that, too.

But I was able to stick to the program and eat no sugar. I really do feel better overall. And, I’ve lost 5 1/2 pounds as a cherry on top.

I know I can make it through the 21 days and on into the future. I KNOW how bad sugar is for me. But when I read an article saying that sugar helps to cause wrinkles, it gave me extra motivation to succeed. 🙂

If you find yourself falling in the sugar hole and not being able to climb out, I suggest you give the 21 Day Sugar Detox a whirl. They have a facebook page where you can find support, answers to your questions, recipes and all manner of good things.

What do you have to lose but some pounds and wrinkles? 🙂

Robo ridiculosity

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It’s the political season. Super Tuesday is tomorrow, the day when Oklahoma votes in the GOP primary. As the primary gets closer, the robo calls increase.

We have our home phone with Vonage. They provide us a visual voicemail of each missed call via email. Each email contains a transcription of the call and a .wav file of the actual call for us to listen to.

The transcriptions are more than humorous. They are HILARIOUS!

I’ve been tweeting pieces of the calls but they are beyond funny so I offer you the full transcript of several calls for your entertaiment pleasure. 🙂

“Hi, this is Richard door. Next time you’re at the gas station watching the dollar amounts and higher and higher on the gas pump and she that’s four digits come up and it’s 20. Thank you Betsy you girl for all the present Obama’s cost you more money because of his one word energy plan. So it was really off our coast. It really the deep water, the driling in Alaska and no key still by four and of course, know listening to the American people. Instead personal bottle and he wants to listen to radical and Barbara washed answering our economy with our national security at risk. I’m present. That’s all going to change Britney’s American cutting’s technology for the safe extraction of oil on our coastal Federal Williams. S131 I will sign in order to build that Keystone pipeline with thousands of people to work. If you wanna seal up extract and watching the” … more. Please listen to your voicemail for the remainder of this message.

Oh my.

“Hello, this is former Congressman JC Watts. I’m calling today on behalf of my friend Newt Gingrich news there’s a conservative leader we need to defeat Pres. Obama in November and that’s why I’ve endorsed noon for Pres., new shares our Oklahoma values and you can change Washington because he’s done it before, under his leadership the speaker at the budget was balanced unemployment was only 4.2% and pro growth policies help create over 11 million new jobs. Now new to have a plan to use our domestic energy resources to lower the price of gasoline to $2.50 per gallon and a lemonade. I did pendant on foreign oil. This election will be very close and every vote will make a difference. Polls will open from 7:00AM to 7:00PM in Oklahoma. So please make sure you get out to cast your vote for noon. Again, I ask you to please join me in supporting Newt Gingrich for president and Tuesday’s election. Thank you so much for your time” … more. Please listen to your voicemail for the remainder of this message.

All we need is $2.5o and a lemonade for a gallon of gas. LOL! 😉

“I’m calling with red, white and blue fund America desperately need to change. We can’t afford four more years of Barack Obama. We need to replace them with the true conservative and that man is with Antwan, Rick is Amanda character, a dedicated family man a man with the record as a strong principals conservative. We can all be proud of, he’s strong and economic moral cultural and national security issues, Brooks. Antwan this is only Republican running for president that has beaten the democratic incumbent and he’s done it twice. This election against Obama is going to be top and we need a proven conservative leader like with Antwan to win and get our nation back on the right track. As you go vote, remember that Barack Obama and ask you to believe in him. It looks Antwan believes it’s time we have a president who believes in you vote with Santoro for the Republican nomination for president on Tuesday, March 6. Thank you. This call is paid for by red one blue fun and not autho rized by any candidate or candidates committee. “

I need to run right out and find Antwan (is he a Steeler?) because he’s clearly the man who knows who I should vote for. LOL!

I hope you found these as amusing as I did. I won’t miss the robo calls when they are gone but we’ve sure had a great time laughing at the transcripts as each one sails into our email box. 🙂

And the USPS wonders why

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They wonder why no one is mailing things anymore.

I was recently in Texas visiting my friend, Denise. As she did the time before, she handed me a card she had sent me that had been returned to her.

Denise is the new mom of twins and she had addressed the first card to Bartlesville, TX. Bartlesville is in Oklahoma, though, so it made sense why it was returned to her.

This card, however, was addressed correctly.

I looked at it and looked at it and couldn’t figure it out. I guessed I was missing something and stuck it in my purse to look at later.

When I arrived back in Little Rock, I went to our mail box and found this:

Clearly marked DO NOT BEND, this envelope was pretty mooshed and I struggled to get it out of the box. It’s a good thing that the newborn photos I ordered were on a  disc and weren’t damaged by the carelessness with which the envelope was jammed in my box.

I looked at the envelope from Denise again after a good nights sleep but couldn’t find any reason at all why it should be returned.

I went down to the post office to see if they could tell me why my mail was returned to Denise marked VACANT when we have been living here for over a month and have been receiving our mail. Well, except for the certified piece of mail I had to track down at the post office last week that we never received a notice for.

She had no answers and asked if she could keep the envelope to show the carrier. I told her that was fine. She taped it to a piece of paper with all of the info on it and I left.

Yesterday, I opened my mailbox and found this:

With no explanation. LOL! I guess I should be happy that they were able to finally deliver it correctly.

If the USPS wanted to just step back and take a small, little look at their situation, it wouldn’t be hard at all for them to figure out why people aren’t mailing things anymore.

Giving of

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Today is the first day of Lent. The 40 day period that the Christian Church devotes to fasting, abstinence, and penitence.

I grew up in the Episcopal church and, as a kid, we always had to give up sweets for Lent. The only time we got to eat sweets during the entire 40 days was on my mom’s birthday when we got to have a piece of birthday cake.

I adore sweet things and this wasn’t a favorite time for me.

When I was seven, a girl in my Sunday school class got to give up wearing slips for Lent. Hmmm…slips….chocolate cake. Unfair!

I’d have given up wearing slips in an instant.

Back in the 1990’s we attended church in Dowagiac, MI. Father Robert gave his Lenten sermon and it wasn’t about giving up anything. Instead, it was about giving of.  The giving of yourself.

He suggested that instead of giving up something we find some area in the community where we could give of ourselves. Our time, our talents. An “almsgiving” as it were, that would make so much more of a difference than the giving up of chocolate cake.

I LOVED this idea. And it made so much more sense to me than to give up wearing my slip. 🙂

I do believe that whether you give up or give of, Lent should be a time of introspection. If you give something up, that’s great. But I wanted to share the idea of giving of, just in case you thought it was as great an idea as I did.