Ahh, vacation. Sand in your toes, sunshine warming your skin, piña colada in your hand, and some island beats floating over the waves. You slip back into your lounge chair, and for a blink close your eyes, imagining for just a moment that your two year old is not crying about the sunscreen in her eyes and six year old isn’t the loudest creature on the beach. Take a big sip from that straw and let it wash down the acceptance that your drink doesn’t even have rum in it, because hey, you’re almost six months pregnant.

Vacationing with kids, especially small ones, is definitely not for the faint of heart. Doing it with a huge belly is on a whole new level. But if you just remember to let go of those expectations and fond memories of life before sippy cups and strollers, it can be worth it and one of the best experiences. To me, the key is choosing a vacation that focuses on fun in a family friendly way, which makes cruising with kids on Carnival a perfect option.

Most cruise lines’ policies only allow you to sail pregnant up to a certain date, so we planned our spring getaway around my growing bump. The second trimester is definitely the time to travel if you are taking a babymoon, since you’re past the morning sickness (hopefully) and not into that “holy sh*t I am huge” stage just yet. One thing I love about Carnival is that their website allows you to pre-plan a lot of details, which is essential for any type-a personality mom traveling with her little crew. With “My Cruise Manager” you can review the itinerary,
times you are in ports of call, read reviews about and choose shore excursions, and even arrange special occasion gifts like setting up the cabin in a birthday theme. All of this can certainly be done onboard just as easily, but it’s nice to know the options are there.

(Note: I will admit that although I’m tech-savvy and generally prefer to do things myself instead of calling a 1-800 number and gambling on the fact that I may end up frustrated with someone overseas, booking a cruise is the one time in my opinion that calling a real human is a must. Carnival’s vacation planners are all US-based with offices in Florida, and can answer questions you didn’t even know you’d have about each and every ship or port of call. Plus, doesn’t it just have a nice ring to it when people in the office ask who’s calling and you say “Oh, just my personal vacation planner.” then sip your coffee with your little pinky in the air?)

So we sailed on the Carnival Liberty in April out of Port Miami, 7 days to the eastern Caribbean. We visited Nassau, St. Thomas, San Juan, and Grand Turk with a couple of fun sea days along the way. The staff was fantastic and service enough to get you used to VIP treatment 24/7. And of course, we can’t forget the food. Although my OB-GYN may or may not have scolded me the week we returned for gaining weight a little too fast, it’s safe to say I thoroughly enjoyed my pregnancy vices a la escargot, unlimited gourmet pizza, chocolate melting cakes, and Guy Fieri’s burgers with ‘super melty cheese’. Because the Liberty is one of the ships upgraded to Funship 2.0 with amenities like the Punchliner comedy club by George Lopez, EA sports bars, and non-stop DJs spinning the sounds of DJ Irie – we were lucky enough to enjoy Guy’s burgers poolside almost daily.

Of course the entertainment for the kids can’t be beat though, and they probably had a better time than us! Between the waterslide, Camp Carnival (now Camp Ocean) activities, dance parties, teddy bear making and rockstar dress up nights, and movies shown on deck (and in the cabins for rental! We definitely took advantage of these while we were trying to have a few hours quiet or get dressed for dinner) there is no shortage of fun for the little ones. Did I mention unlimited ice cream 24/7? Yeah, there’s that. (Update: the Carnival Liberty is now sailing from Port Canaveral with some similar ports of call but also to the Western Caribbean now, which might be perfect if your family is spending a few days in Orlando first anyway!)

Admittedly, our two year old was too shy to join in the fun at Camp Carnival, which was a disappointment but we tried to keep the
perspective that she won’t be this little for so long. In ten years I will be wishing she would beg to come to dinner instead of her
friends, I’m sure. She made friends with all of the waitstaff and Maitre D, and was practically the little star of the dining room. My 6-year old son definitely loved Camp Carnival though, even insisting he stay for the Night Owl parties from 10pm-1am and only joining us for dinner on the formal evening upon our insistence. That being said, we unfortunately didn’t get to try to onboard steakhouse or relax in the adults-only Serenity adult retreat this trip. I did however, enjoy an amazing prenatal massage in the Cloud 9 Spa and attend a free onboard “Ladies’ Pamper Party” hosted by the salon and spa crew on one of the sea days. And we also got to experience the new American Feast and American Table menus that Carnival recently rolled out, which featured “Rare Finds” like frog legs and “Port of Call” dishes like Masitas de Puerco (fried pork chunks) local to San Juan.

We had a blast, so much that we actually booked another cruise (without kids!) only two weeks later. But any parent knows that suitcases do not pack themselves, and a great week can quickly turn into a poorly scheduled, nap-less meltdown fueled disaster. So here are my top ten tips for sailing on a Carnival cruise with kids:

TOP 10 TIPS FOR CRUISING CARNIVAL WITH KIDS

1.  Book at the right time for savings and in the right place!

Carnival’s personal vacation planners are great about talking you through the details, but depending on when and where you want to sail, you can receive some major discounts for booking at certain times during the year. This really depends on a lot of factors, but surprisingly
it’s not always the best rates to book very far in advance. It’s always best to check with your planner and get the best deal for your family. They can also fit you to the best ship or itinerary based on what your kids really consider vacation must-haves, and even help you arrange airfare and transportation to the port. Maybe more importantly they can help you understand the size of cabins and decide how many you may need. With two adults and our two small kids, an inside stateroom would have been too cramped and claustrophobic for sure. We chose a balcony, but depending on your situation, an oceanview may be enough. Next time, we will be booking two adjoining cabins for sure. It’s often no price difference (or a minimal one) if your guest count doesn’t increase, and even then, what parent wouldn’t pay a couple hundred dollars to not spend 7 blocks of 24 hours straight with your offspring?

2. Become a list fanatic.

In case you aren’t already like me (I make lists for everything, *ahem*), planning a cruise is definitely the time to start breaking out the bullet points and highlighters. A detailed list of items to pack for each suitcase or each family member is a must. Check it, double check it. I also like to make a list of things to take care of before the cruise (newspaper pause, away messages or voicemail changes, arrange for homework makeup if your child is missing school, alert the bank you’re traveling, boarding for the family dog, take out cash from the ATM, etc) and a list for each person who may be helping you during the time you are gone (how/when to water the plants, check the mail, feed the cats).

3. Prep the correct documents.

Carnival cruises, even those that leave the country, do not require passports if you are returning to a US port of call (although I do still recommend getting one! You never know when they may become required). However, you will need appropriate forms of ID such as birth certificates (originals, not the feetprint keepsake kind) and valid drivers licenses for each traveler. Do not carry your social security cards, but make sure you have all other identification for each family member, including the kids. People are left at the port every day for forgetting the proper documentation and not being able to have it faxed soon enough. For women, it may be a good idea to bring a copy of your marriage license if your documents show different names. Depending on the circumstance, especially for medical conditions or pregnancy, you may be required to send paperwork in advance to the booking agents, however you should always bring physical copies of any and all required items as well – they will ask again at check-in. Making copies of your documents to keep in a separate, safe location (paper or on your phone, flash drive) is always a good idea also in case your originals should become lost or if you are in port and have an emergency that requires your passport, etc. Other important documents include of course your boarding passes, medical insurance cards, and any clearance paperwork such as prenatal massage/yoga clearance if necessary. Remember to keep all of these
in your CARRY-ON and not your checked luggage.

4. Use the stroller wisely.

Although they can be bulky or a hassle through security, strollers are also great for lugging around carry-ons and of course sleepy children. We took the stroller everywhere, especially in ports of call. We have a double stroller but instead took a rather sturdy umbrella one that is big enough for either child to sleep in if necessary. (Those whiny “But Mama my FEET HURT” moments are total vacation vibe killers.)

5. Insist on, and plan on, nap times.

Even if your kids are past the nap stage in your daily routine, vacations are overwhelming and the excitement on a cruise can be a lot to take in. The room stewards are happy to have the cabins ready for afternoon naps if you let them know, and the blackout curtains (if you have a balcony or oceanview) are perfect for sleepyheads to doze off. Our cabin had a drop side bunk bed and couch that converted to a bed, and each afternoon I took the kids back to snooze (with the do not disturb sign on the door) for a couple of hours while my husband enjoyed a drink or cigar on the deck. Kids are just so much more pleasant when well-rested and activities onboard can often run late, even for family-friendly ones such as the Caribbean deck parties or all ages comedy shows.

6. Attend the Camp Carnival orientation (usually during Sail Away).

The staff will explain the program, highlight some of the fun activities you won’t want to miss, explain the rules, and there are usually giveaways (we got free beanbag toys for the kids to toss around while they chatted with us). For the youngest kids, they also provide phones that work onboard between you and the Camp Carnival line so you can keep in touch while your kids are playing pirate dress up and you’re sipping a cocktail in the nightclub. It’s important to know the meal times, drop off and pick up rules, and which activities or hours have an extra associated cost – which they verbally provide and will also hand you a weekly time schedule that includes all the info. Plus it gets the kids pumped up by seeing how many new friends they will make and hearing about the fun they will have.

7. Take advantage of the planned activities in the Fun Times and Camp Carnival guides.

There are SO many fun games, shows, poolside movies, and other activities onboard a Carnival cruise – all you have to do is read the daily guide and plan to be there. Packing a highlighter is a good idea (or ask guest services, they might have one) to sit with your kids each morning at breakfast and choose what everyone would like to do for the day while at sea or before or after time off the ship.

8. Book shore excursions!

Unless you are in a port that literally has a walkable beach from the ship (Grand Turk) or you just want to do some light shopping and sight-seeing in a familiar port (Nassau/Straw Market), shore excursions are well worth the cost. Most of them will include transportation, scenic photo opportunities along the way, and one or two family-friendly activities like the beach or shopping, planned perfectly to get you back to the ship on time guaranteed. Sometimes they even provide lunch or snacks. The cost is usually the same or less than taking a taxi on your own, as taxi rates in a lot of places are flat rate or charged per person and not private taxis anyway. Having a group coordinator to answer questions and guide you to the best places is always a good idea, especially if you want to do a lot in a short period of time or you are not familiar with the location. On one tour we took, the driver even let us lock all our beach bags in the bus so we didn’t have to carry them around while shopping. Best of all, a lot of shore excursions are FREE for kids under certain ages. Our two year old did not pay at all. The shore excursions crew at the desk (usually in the lobby/atrium) is great about recommending excursions based on your children’s ages and what you’d all like to do. These do book up fast, so it’s best to stop by early and make plans for the week.

9. Eat meals onboard the ship.

If you are traveling to US ports, there are of course many reputable restaurants on land that are worth trying. Some of the freshest seafood is available on some islands, and you should definitely get a taste of local must-haves if you are a foodie like we are. But children do not share our immune system strength, and if you are pregnant, there is even more reason to be cautious. If you are going to eat on land, make sure the food is heated to an extreme temp or kept extremely cold (no lukewarm, room temp items that could breed bacteria) and try to drink bottled sodas, waters, etc. But more importantly, the ship meals are included in the cruise fare and often include the same menu items as each port could offer! Who doesn’t want to save money and spend it on souvenirs instead? I would also recommend to eat in the dining rooms for breakfast and dinner when your kids are joining you. Yes, the buffet is great for quick bites to eat and a variety of foods (you can even grab a couple boxes of cereal from the line to keep for snacks in the room or on land). But juggling two or more plates through a sometimes-long line of other guests, figuring out where to seat your kids or reminding them not to touch the food on the line, and making sure everyone gets what they want can be a hassle at busy meal times. Sitting in the dining room, you can enjoy chatting with your little ones, sometimes with an ocean view, and order whatever everyone wants without having to lift a finger except those gripped lovingly around your coffee mug.

9. If your kids are old enough, give them a souvenir allowance. But focus on photos and memories.

Giving your child a set amount of cash to spend on souvenirs is a good way to teach responsibility and also make them feel special. As parents on vacation, we sometimes tend to get a little too sentimental also, wanting to memorialize every single moment (and often with items that WE like for them, not what they really want). This can break our budget if we want to buy them something in each and every port and each time you walk by the gift shop. Explain to your child when there will be opportunities to shop and help them choose the best items for their value and significance, but otherwise let them choose. Also, take advantage of the photo opportunities! Every night before dinner, photographers line the promenade deck (it’s a little overkill, if we are being honest) with at least 10 different backdrops to choose from for great photos. They will take their time and make sure you have 3-4 good shots in different poses, but feel free to let them know if you want a different pose. There are also photographers almost nightly at dinner in the dining rooms, when arriving in ports at the gangway, at sail away and deck parties, and with fun characters like pirates, towel animals, and Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head. There is never an obligation to buy the photos so take as many as you’d like to make sure you get a few good ones. Then when you’re ready to pick them up in the photo gallery, it’s fun to have the kids search for your faces on the wall, and often there are massive discounts or free gear like unique photo albums or coffee mugs, t-shirts, keychains etc. offered when you purchase a set number of photos.

10. Remember to let them be kids!

Be silly with them! Make a fool out of yourself dancing the cupid shuffle, go down the waterslides, make the towel animals have funny voices, and let them have the extra dessert. Build the biggest sand castle, race them on the hiking trail, let them make echo sounds in the old monuments if that’s more exciting than learning the history. There is no one to impress and everyone onboard is there to have a good time too. Your kids will remember the time spent with you more than any other aspect of a family vacation – and that’s something money can’t buy.

Tell me: What is your favorite family vacation? Have you cruised with kids and have any more tips to add? 

The post Cruising with Kids on the Carnival Liberty – Family Vacation appeared first on Josi Denise.

Always looking for new pancake recipes? Mango Pancakes with Rum Glaze…It’s like eating healthy dessert for breakfast!

I am not usually one to brag, but just ride along with me for a moment because this deserves it. I have a mango tree in my backyard.

We just moved in last July, and while I vaguely remember one of the landscaping guys mentioning that we just missed mango season, I suppose at the time I wasn’t paying attention. Maybe I had too many things on my mind like, oh you know, unpacking an entire house full of way too many boxes accumulated over the years in our Miami condo closets and things shoved haphazardly in random boxes on the truck during our only two days off from extremely busy schedules (wow, I don’t miss that).

So about a month ago, my daughter started to pick up these strange little lime-looking things from the ground and brought them to me in a bucket. “Look at my apples that fell from the tree,” she said. I had no idea what they were, because, well, I am from the rural midwest. My only time spent in Florida thus far has been 25 stories up with concrete and neon lights. I knew Florida had things like, you know, trees. But never have I seen a baby mango. A few google searches and several patient weeks later – woohoo! We have fresh mangoes in the back corner of our yard! And they are starting to ripen.

Last week we had the first taste of afternoon summer rains starting to return for the year, and with that came a much needed lazy day but also strong winds that blew a lot of mangoes out of the tree. I took out my little two year old helper with her basket, and then let them ripen on my kitchen counter until the weekend.

There’s just something about Sundays and pancakes that go together like nothing else. No buzzing alarm clocks, little messy haired children lounging in pajamas, baking in your underwear and apron (oh, sorry, just me? ok.. liars), and in our house usually a breeze pouring in the windows with fans spinning on high. I hope the excitement never drains from my kids’ voices when I ask if they want to help make pancakes and they respond with an enthusiastic “of course!” and “yay!” and run through the house to announce that we are going to make pancakes!

I have to admit my recipe is pretty perfect by now, after a countless number of batches. But while I prefer classic blueberry, and my kids will beg for chocolate chip, I like to mix it up and try new additions – usually with whatever is fresh in season or needs to be used from the pantry. I’ve only failed once, and that was a not-so-red red velvet cheesecake disaster that I ambitiously attempted from Pinterest. I didn’t have enough red food coloring (seriously who has that much on hand?) and to be fair, it wasn’t my core pancake recipe. They were a mess. But some of my successes have included lemon poppyseed, almond ricotta, skinny protein pumpkin, and of course peanut butter banana. I am not a fan of (fake) bottled maple syrup, so unless we have the real stuff on hand (like, leftover from a given-up attempt at the lemonade master cleanse, perhaps….ahem) I like to make a quick fruit or chocolate sauce, or stay simple with butter and powdered sugar.  I’ve used whole wheat, and also made them flourless with protein powder and greek yogurt. But some things are better untouched – like the fluffy perfection of classic (white flour) pancakes on a Sunday.

My six year old son told me “Mama, you have to go on Chopped. These are the best pancakes EVER.” which admittedly he says about any pancake, ever, but still flattering. (My husband and I may or may not have an addiction to watching Chopped. I even caught my mom yelling at the judges on the screen the other day.) While I am no match for a competitive kitchen, I do enjoy my slower version of the creative cooking process. And these mango pancakes were like a tropical, fluffy little heaven on a plate. Rum glaze drizzled on top, and it’s the close a pregnant girl is getting to an island drink. In fact, how cute would these be with a colorful little umbrella poked in the top? You could also dress them up for a brunch “build your own” pancake bar with extra toppings like shredded coconut, toasted almonds, or diced fresh pineapples.

Before the recipe, my most solid piece of advice if you attempt to make these: double the batch. You will thank me later.

The post Mango Pancakes with Rum Glaze appeared first on Josi Denise.

Happy Weekend! Quick post today, I just wanted to share these FREE PRINTABLES with you all of 150+ Activities and Adventures for Kids on Summer Break and a Daily Summer Schedule for Kids. I made this lists of kids activities and schedule for our household, but I figured other moms might find them useful! Click on the download links below to save the images as JPEGs.

Print the Daily Schedule and make copies (I am taking my cute color copy to Staples or somewhere to get cheap black and white copies). Each night, fill in the next day’s activities on the Summer Schedule. Depending on how old your children are, this can be a great way to help them tell time – so place the schedule near a clock. My son, who just graduated Kindergarten (photos in an upcoming post about our camping adventure this weekend!), is so used to routine at school that longer summer days and free time can take a toll on him. My two year old is not used to having a constant playmate in the house, so meltdowns happen as often as “Mama, I’m bored” hours. Sticking to a schedule helps us have better days, and gives kids the structure they need to feel secure and happy. Plus, it gives mamas a break or at least scheduled time to do what you need to! Amen to that.

We will be having fun with these activities and adventures all summer, and posting photos to Instagram, Twitter, & Facebook. Make sure you’re following me to see these ideas in action! With that being said, just a quick reminder for our sanity’s sake that these are helpful tools. They are not super-mom rules. They are not strict enforcements. You are not a bad parent if you post this on your fridge and skip craft time 4 days in a row. These are not meant to give you another reason to set high expectations for yourself, and feel mom-guilt if you don’t perfectly execute them. Just have fun.

(Note: The activities list may be hard to read on the blog photo, but will print fine. I have included a typed list below the photo if you’d rather copy and paste, but please give credit to The American Mama and remember any content you see here is under copyright.) IMPORTANT: Saving the files directly from this page will result in blurry printing – the resolution is not high enough for 8.5×11 letter paper. You must click the link below the photos to save the JPEG in the right file size.

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD DAILY SUMMER SCHEDULE FOR KIDS – JPEG FILE FROM GOOGLE DOCS

Prints on 8.5 x 11 plain printer paper! Could be printed smaller if you’d like.

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD ACTIVITIES FOR KIDS ON SUMMER BREAK LIST – JPEG FILE FROM GOOGLE DOCS

Prints on 8.5 x 11 plain printer paper!   Enjoy! Please share with other moms you know that may find this helpful, and if you have any ideas that aren’t on the list feel free to share in the comments below!

And lastly…the LIST with links to helpful tips and tools for the activities. Please give credit to this blog when sharing any content.

150+ Activities and Adventures for Kids on Summer Break

Blow Bubbles
Finger Painting
Coloring Books
Washable Paint in the Bathtub
Paint with Shaving Cream
Jump Rope
Hopscotch
Host a Yard Sale


Ice Cream Party
Dance Party
Build Personal Pizzas
Bake Cupcakes
Freeze tiny toys in ice, watch them melt
Make Cereal Box Robots
Write with Glitter and Gluesticks
Read a new picture book


Banana Split Party
Make A Train Station Ticket Booth
Prince and Princess Dressup
Make a Lifesize Self Drawing
Write 10 Things I Love About Brother or Sister
Make Lemonade
Make Playdough


Sidewalk Chalk
Neighbor Popsicle Party
Make S’mores
Tell Ghost Stories
Backyard Camp Out
Catch Bugs
Plant Flowers
Science Experiment


Play with Alphabet Blocks
Printable Math Worksheets
Cardboard box Rocketships
Make a Blanket Fort
Pretend to be Dinosaurs
Pretend to be Animals
Ride Bicycles


Roll down a Hill
Find shapes in the Clouds
Water gun/balloons
Make paperbag puppets
Build a bird feeder
Make a birthday gift for a friend
Wash the Car
Throw a Ball


Pillow Fight
Glowstick Dark Party
Watch a Movie
Online Kid’s Games
Opposite Day
Pirate Dress Up
Popcorn Race Blowing through Straws
Pajama Day
Scavenger Hunt


Play a board game
Dress Up
Watercolor Paints
Towel Folding Race
Kid’s Spa Day Party
Play shadow puppets
Water the Plants
Build Lego Cities


Put together a Puzzle
Puppet Show
Jumping Jack Contest
Sack Race
Draw Silly Monsters
Magazine Collage
Bounce on a trampoline
Play House
Decorate and Fly Paper Planes


Cooking Fun Kitchen Help
Clean House Party
Slip & Slide
Play Hide & Seek
Learn a Magic Trick
Create Cup String Telephones
Play in the Mud
Teddybear Picnic
Decorate Cookies
Play with Marbles


Count Pennies
Host a Tea Party
Take Pictures
Play I-Spy on a Walk
Hula Hoop
Make Jello
Practice Typing Letters
Build a Bird Feeder
Play Doctor


Make Musical Instruments
Create Jewelry
Feed Ducks by a Lake
Pick a Pinterest Craft
Jump in Rain Puddles
Create a Family Tree
Make Paper Boats in the Tub
Listen to classical music and draw
Play 20 questions


Facepainting Party
Play with sparklers
Practice How to Tie Shoes
Play Simon Says
Have a Silly Hair Day
Make Pasta Bracelets
Draw a Self Portrait
Black and White Movie
Egg and Spoon Race
Build a Time Capsule
Towel Folding Race


Paint Cans to make Windchimes
Play in a Ball Pit Mini Pool
Create Paper Plate Masks
Limbo Dance with a Pool Noodle
Have a Whipped Cream Pie Fight
Bean Bag/Stuffed Toy Toss
Draw the solar system
Go to the Zoo
Pool Day or Waterpark
Indoor Play Gym
Grocery Shopping
Mall Shopping
Visit a Museum


Outdoor Movie
Home Depot Kid’s Workshop
Playground
Picnic at the Park
Toy Store Visit
Day Road Trip
Make Cereal Art
Beach Day


Dollar Store Allowance
Michael’s Kids Craft Class
Movie Theater Matinee
Go to the Library
Donate Toys
Visit a Farmer’s Market
Go for a Pony Ride
Ikea Day
Go Bowling
Pet Store Shopping
Take a ball to a Soccer Park
Go to a Baseball Game 


*RELAX a little, Mama!*

The post 150+ Activities for Kids on Summer Break + Summer Schedule for Kids – FREE Printables! appeared first on Josi Denise.

I am going to let you in on a little secret today. I say little because in truth, it’s so simple it shouldn’t even be a secret. But, I am the only one in my household who knows this. Each weekend, I buy two large packages of chicken breasts (usually from Sam’s Club, sometimes organic, depends on what’s on sale) and bake them up at once for easy meal prep all week. Every family member and friend who eats my chicken asks me how I get it so juicy and tasty, or they ask if it’s rotisserie chicken! I use the same method on Thanksgiving, so my guests always flatter me with the compliment that I have the juiciest turkey recipe.

But it’s not a recipe at all actually. It’s SO SIMPLE. And results in the juiciest chicken.

Ready?

DON’T USE SALT.

(What?!)

There are two schools of thought on this if you ask chefs throughout the world, and some of them get pretty passionate about it. Team salt says that small amounts of it can help cells hold water, and of course, make it more flavorful. Team no-salt says that it has a dehydrating effect, draws moisture to the outside of the meat, and leaves you with a dry texture. While it of course depends on the type of meat, amount and type of salt, and time and temperature you cook it – in general, as I am not a chef but just a mom and home cook – this method never, ever fails me. So I am on team no-salt. Here’s what I do:

-Spray a glass baking dish with non-stick cooking spray. You can use unsalted butter if you want.

-Layer the chicken breasts in the dish. They can overlap and be touchy-feely, in fact that may actually help the process, I don’t know but mine always are. (Note: I have used both FROZEN and FRESH chicken, this works just the same on both.)

-Splash balsamic vinegar over each breast. Vinegar is an acidic liquid that tenderizes muscle fibers = soft, juicy meat. Other acidic liquids could be any other type of vinegar, lemon, or pineapple. I use balsamic – it works.

-Bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes.

-When it comes out, let it rest at least 30 minutes. Mine always has a puddle of juices around it that have kept the chicken moist and juicy while baking. I save this liquid and pour it into ice cube trays for quick chicken stock in recipes later.

-I store my chicken in gallon size Ziploc bags (double bagged, after they have cooled enough) and throughout the week I will chop it, reheat it, or season it for salads and meals. If I add salt, I do it AFTER it is cooked.

The chicken I make is NEVER dry, always flavorful, and can easily be coated with sauce or herbs to fit any flavor profile for different types of meals. When I make turkey, I do the same thing but I use apple cider vinegar. Once the turkey has rested and cooled, then I salt and pepper the top, or individual slices as it’s served. If I am making pork, I will often use the crockpot for 6 to 8 hours, with a splash of vinegar and my frozen chicken stock. Be careful with canned broths and stocks – they are very high in sodium aka salt!

So there you have it. My juicy secret for the best breasts. (Google is going to have fun with that search term! Yikes!)

Do you have a no-fail method for cooking juicy meat?? Or a horror story of dry birds served for the holidays? Share below please!

UPDATE OCT 2015: This post has gone viral in the past two weeks, amidst a very long cross country move with just me and my three little ones. Thank you so much to everyone who has shared and reached out and I apologize I wasn’t able to reach back out to everyone sooner with answers to questions! So the big one question seems to be: Covered or not!? And the answer is no, I do NOT cover mine. I think you could cover with aluminum foil though and I don’t think it would make much of a difference. If you try it both ways, let me know which works better!

Be sure to subscribe via email to stay updated for all our new adventures. <3 xoxo Josi

The post The Secret to the Juiciest Chicken You’ll Ever Make – Shhh! appeared first on Josi Denise.

If you’ve come to this blog via Pinterest or a link to a post that’s no longer live, I apologize for your disappointment.

It’s been about a week since my blog has been offline. Maybe longer, actually. I’m not really sure to be honest. To make a long story short, my hosting provider deleted all my data. (And then I promptly switched to a better hosting provider, obviously.) While I have the majority of my blog backed up, there was something luring about the blank canvas I couldn’t deny.

After a few days of deliberation, I’ve decided to start from scratch. In a way, it feels devastating that all the work I’ve done, all the life I’ve lived and written about – it’s all gone. But on the other hand, it’s incredibly liberating, and I have learned so much. Below, I’ll tell you the story from the beginning and why blogging flipped my life upside down. And almost destroyed me, but it was worth it.

But first, here are 10 things for you to think about Before You Start a Blog:

1. Why do you want to start a blog? I mean really, ask yourself why.
2. What are your days like? What hours do you see yourself blogging? Will it be a major lifestyle adjustment?
3. What do you want to blog about?
4. What will you call your blog? After you realize the name is taken, try about 5 more times. Then make sure the names are available on social media platforms.
5. Are you ready to invest? Nothing is free. Everything costs time, money, or another currency such as social shares. You can get where you want to be, but you have to be ready to invest yourself.
6. Are you going to take original photos? Do you have the right equipment?
7. What kind of system do you see yourself coming up with for creating content, writing posts, editing photos, and then sharing? Depending on the type of blog you write and computer you have, this might take some creativity.
8. How will you start? Do you want to take the time to learn how to set everything up from scratch, or enlist the help of someone who has been there? How much of a budget do you have to design and launch your blog? It can be done successfully and beautifully, no matter where you start from.
9. If you want to grow your blog into a business, are you prepared to be self-employed? Purchase health insurance, file (and probably owe) taxes as a small business depending on the state you live in, and keep track of expenses throughout the year?
10. Do you like reading blogs? This is important. Do you know how much competition there is out there? Are you familiar with a few different types of blogger “voices” and do you know how you would stand out and be unique? You’ll also have to network with other bloggers, and reading and commenting on other blogs is one of the best ways to connect. You’ll also meet some really good lifelong friends in the process.

If you don’t know the answers to these questions, that’s ok.  Whatever it is you want to achieve, first you have to ask yourself what exactly it is that you want, and then just know where to find the info.

I didn’t have a big plan to start a blog. I never started off with dreams of writing for brands or being a social media superstar. I wrote no goals, short term or long term. I had absolutely no clue what I was doing, really. But before we get to the part about all the fancy shit I now know how to do and how it was all worth it and offer you all my unsolicited advice on blogging blah blah, let’s take it way back.

Early 2000’s – I’m 15. I’m obsessed with making my Myspace profile to look cool and listing out all my favorite bands in bold and italic and strikethrough and putting little xx‘s and ♥’s around things I write. I’m also obsessed with a boy I met in my new English class, whose electric brown eyes I can’t get out of my head. Put the two together, and there I was awake at 5am writing novel-length messages and unknowingly learning HTML along the way.

Fast forward 8 years. Life happened, I live in Miami Beach, married with kids. I’ve spent the last 5 years working in hospitality management, planning luxury events, and moving into human resources. I have a meltdown trying to balance long office days in heels and raising babies, and decide to give up my job with benefits to stay home as a mom and wife in the suburbs of Florida. That boy? We’ve written thousands of emails to each other nearly every day for almost a decade by this point, and I call him my best friend. But we live 1000 miles away and we are both in committed relationships that we respect. Feelings have gotten deeper and they hurt, so we decide to do the right thing and stop talking. Lost without being able to write him, I decide to find another outlet.

The blog is born. I write about recipes I’m baking with all my newfound time. I tell little stories about the kids. I read every article I can find on how to gain readers, how the blogging world works, and how to grow a site into a successful business. I use my marketing and PR background to pitch to brands, and within a year I’ve partnered with corporations and small companies alike to write sponsored posts. I grow my social media accounts, I order business cards, I travel and attend conferences, I shoot high-quality photos on my expensive DSLR camera, I laugh with other bloggers about my early days figuring it all out. I’m a professional blogger. Except one problem: everything I wrote about was a lie.

You have no idea how good it feels to write that sentence and not worry about the fact that I’m calling out all my old posts as bullshit. Because those posts are gone. And it’s true. Although the actual events I wrote about happened, and I really did love the products and brands I wrote about, underneath every single word about my family and marriage being happy and enjoyable, hiding in between the lines somewhere was a big lie. I was miserable.

For awhile, I thought it had just become a job. I rationalized the dread I felt as I was writing blog posts as that familiar feeling of just procrastinating things on a to-do list. While I loved writing and taking photos, I thought I’d scheduled myself into just another endless hole of deadlines and expectations from brands. I had wanted to work for myself and have no boss, and I ended up feeling like I had a dozen bosses at any given time because I was working for so many different clients and trying to please them all.

Time with my family suffered. I was homeschooling, and aside from the scheduled hours with the kids, I was absorbed in my blog. Every activity and adventure became a stressful photoshoot instead of living in the moment. My already unstable relationship became more strained as the pressure to write in a certain “mommy-blog” voice made it painfully clear how distant we really were. A company wants me to write about how much we enjoyed Father’s Day and how much I love my husband, paired alongside a recipe featuring their product? Sure. Let me just snap a few photos of us in between arguments and pretend it’s all reality. It’s all about the sunshine and good photos anyway, right? At least I’m getting paid?

I know I’m not the only guilty one. I know social media and blogs in general are known to highlight the good and omit the bad. Being real online is hard. Being real when you’re trying to squeeze key messages into a sponsored post is even harder. Being real when you are incredibly unhappy and your life is not set up in any way whatsoever for the support necessary to run a successful business from home? Fucking impossible.

We could go down this road. I could tell you how I’d lay on the bathroom floor crying, questioning my ability as a mother with the kids locked out of my bedroom, when I was supposed to be writing a post. I could tell you how focusing on the blog stole so many moments of my early years with the kids, and that I ended up feeling like I’d made a huge mistake in quitting my job. I could tell you how I felt trapped and misunderstood in my marriage because trying to share our life online meant admitting what an unhealthy, miserable relationship I was in. I could tell you about how much self-confidence I lost when everyone in my life acted like I was a bored housewife and this was a just a hobby. I could tell you how I failed at blogging because nothing in my life was right and I felt like it never would be. If the story ended here, I would tell you all of that.

But the truth is, blogging carried me through. Pouring my life into words on a weekly basis, documenting the way my children were growing up, even setting unrealistic goals for myself… all of it shaped me into who I want to be. For a long time, that meant living in a painful position, breaking from the mold I was in. And eventually it meant changing my entire life, one area at a time, before I got to the root of it all. Along the way, I blamed blogging. But I can see now that it’s actually the best thing that ever happened to me.

And my best friend I wrote to endlessly? Eleven years later, here we are living together in our hometown, happily in love and building the life we’ve always wanted together. And that is absolutely the truth, and I have not been compensated in anyway to bullshit about it.

Somewhere along the way, I realized that in my spare time (aka moments of severe procrastination), I’d put off things that needed to be done in order to play with my blog’s design. Instead of writing a few new posts or scheduling Facebook shares or replying to email pitches, I’d suddenly decide I needed a new logo. And then a new theme. And then for the sidebar to be a different color. And then to have custom social media buttons. And then when I finished, I’d write a couple posts and do it all again. In three years, I believe I’ve redesigned my blog about 25 times. Not counting all the side project blogs I started that never came to life fully – those were really just excuses to come up with new designs also.

So last summer after I got bored of my fourth project in a matter of weeks, I even sought help from a psychiatrist, who diagnosed me as ADHD. Equipped with medication to help me focus, I tried and tried to make plans for what I wanted to do. I wanted to use my HTML and CSS skills to offer custom design services to bloggers like me, who wanted a new look for their site but didn’t want to pay thousands for a custom built web design with year long waiting lists. I wanted to finish classes to be able to offer even better services. And I knew even then that it had nothing to do with my inability to focus. At the time I still blamed blogging, and I was encouraged by those close to me to “Stick with it, you’ve already built a good thing, why change your whole plan? The blog works.”

Life had other ideas, and I spent the next 6 months packing and relocating and starting over in so many ways. And like most things, if you focus on what other people think is the best path for you, you probably won’t be fulfilled or satisfied. So just like that, I did what I wanted. And the girl who is never satisfied because the woman who is happy and ready to take action on her goals and dreams. Creativity may be similar to ADHD, but medication isn’t what I needed. I needed to question the way I lived, and make tough choices, and then changes.

So when I try to explain the relief I feel now, looking back at how much I struggled then, it’s difficult to put into words. It seems melodramatic to say that blogging changed my life, but it has. When you write about the personal aspects of your days and relationships, and the lines are blurred between reality and home life and work and professional life, it’s easy to lose yourself. If you aren’t sure of who you are or what you want to do in life, you’re going to get swept away in the current of trying to make a post clickable or caught up in the frenzy of how many likes you got on your last Instagram shot. In my case, I think it took a few too many years but I finally found my voice.

I know what I want, I know how to get there, and because of the confidence and reassurance and discipline blogging has taught me, I am nothing but excited about what the future holds.  I want to share the practical advice, but it’s been overdone and only you can be you. My most valuable piece of advice I wish someone had told me? Be prepared to question your entire life.

If your goal is writing a few posts about your home life as a hobby, or to share with other family members, you’ll be fine. If you want to build a successful, beautiful blog that provides income and a source of fulfillment as a career, well…it’s a journey. And it’s not always fun or rewarding. Bloggers are not just bloggers. We are writers, we are photographers, we are graphic designers, we are editors, we are curators, we are publishers, we are marketing experts, we are social media managers, we are trendsetters, many of us are mothers, and we are also entrepreneurs. And on top of all that, nobody fucking understands what you do. And they won’t. Even if they say they get it, trust me, they still don’t.

When you write what you honestly feel, embrace that power, and find the right balance between sharing your individual, personal stories – making genuine connections with people who read them – and using your voice to monetize in a way that isn’t deceptive or makes you feel like you’re selling your soul, then you hit that sweet spot where blogging is no longer a job, just a lifestyle you love that supports you to do what you want. And if along the way you realize your life isn’t set up in the way it needs to be, or you lack the support you need to build your own business and work from home, then maybe you’ll face a wall like I did and decide if you want to quit or climb it.

And I definitely fucking climbed it.

In the last three years, here are some of my most favorite moments and adventures I got to experience through blogging:

My children and I got to swim with dolphins at Dolphin Cove in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. I got to take my son to NASA Kennedy Space Center for his birthday, and then attend a NASA Social alone a few weeks later to watch a launch up close and tweet about it. I perfected my chocolate chip cookie recipe through batch after batch of different tests. I was invited to Arkansas on behalf of No Kid Hungry and toured the Tyson corporate headquarters, helping to end childhood hunger. I did a complete DIY renovation of my old kitchen and transformed it into a vintage dream. I wrote about my home birth and hospital experiences, and I partnered with Seventh Generation throughout the end of my last pregnancy.

I watched my the two most unexpected posts of mine ever to go viral: a recipe for Chicken Bacon Ranch Tater Tot casserole and a post about the Secret to the Juiciest Chicken, and then watched the internet argue ferociously about chicken in the comments section.

I got the html code for a heart symbol tattooed on my arm.

I dug through my Gramma’s old cookbooks to recreate her banana bread.

I locked myself out of my house one morning and spent a couple hours taking candid photos of my kids, when I realized it was time to make a big change. I wrote about my decision to divorce and move 1000 miles across the country with my three kids.

I toured Atlanta during the Social Influencer’s Travel Summit and stuffed my face with shrimp and grits while meeting some amazing people.

I found every excuse possible to take photos at the beach. My food photography improved. (I cringe now when I look at the early photos I posted. This guava coconut cake was my first post.)

All of my photography improved really. I was determined to learn more about how to get the perfect shots. Now I love that I can capture my kids in such a special way as they grow.

I found some me-time with Bigelow tea, “found happiness” with a Coca-Cola campaign, and watched my children experience falling leaves for the first time at Garden of the Gods.

I traveled to Tennessee twice in 2015, crossing it off my bucket list. The first time was with my little sister when we saw the beautiful Rock City and Ruby Falls.

The second time was to ring in the New Year in downtown Nashville with my love.

I worked with dozens of companies, on hundreds of campaigns including sponsored posts and social media promotion. Some of my favorite campaigns I did and brands I worked with include: Tyson, Evolution Fresh, McCormick, FarmRich, Seventh Generation, Driscoll’s Berries, Krusteaz, MY M&M’S, gDiapers, Peeps, Coca Cola, Bigelow, Hallmark, Just Dance, TurboTax, PopSugar, Piggy Paint, Kiwi Crate, BeautyBox Five, and so many more.

But sponsored posts can only get you so far, and they make you feel soulless in the end.

Most of my favorite posts were the ones that were completely my own. One Thanksgiving, I gave away a brand new Kitchenaid Mixer.

When I announced the winner (who sent me her adorable photo below), I asked that everyone donate to No Kid Hungry.

This started somewhat of a tradition, and the following year I asked readers to help again. We raised money to feed over 3000 meals to children.

I changed my blog name not once, but twice in three years. Starting as MissJosiDenise.com, I rebranded to The American Mama in May 2014. Only last month did I finally make the switch back to JosiDenise.com because I was tired of being boxed into the “mommy” blogosphere. This was my first header and logo:

And then I literally became my blog pin-up character for a fun photoshoot.

And none of this would’ve happened without my blog. As much as some days I’ve hated it, or wondered if I should have pursued a 9 to 5 office job somewhere, I have to be thankful for all these experiences and how much blogging has taught me.

I wish I could go back to the beginning and have someone tell me just how far spilling some words on paper would take me. As I venture into new avenues of writing elsewhere, of course I’ll still be blogging. Headphones on, getting lost in the way the keys type across the page, the rush of hitting the publish button – those things I can’t give up. Plus I like owning my own space to post photos of the kids and tell my stories, where I am not dependent on Facebook or Instagram to disappear one day and all my work would be gone.

(On that note, Blog Lesson #1: Always back up your work, even if you trust your hosting provider.)

It’s strange not to see a long list of archived posts on the right anymore. I guess in a way, this post is a small tribute to all I’ve done before and the fun memories I have from blogging experiences. But what’s to come is going to be so much better.

If you’re thinking about starting your own blog, I say do it. But be prepared to question your life.

The post Before You Start a Blog: Question Your Life appeared first on Josi Denise.

She doesn’t want roses. She doesn’t want diamonds. She doesn’t want chocolate, a giant teddy bear, or a dinner date.

She wants you. She wants you to be there.

She wants you to look at her, and make her feel like it doesn’t matter how messy her hair is. She wants you to listen to her like she is the most interesting person you’ve met. She wants you to make her lose track of time with just one kiss. She wants you to touch her, and actually feel her. She wants you to see her, not in the way you see her every day, but as the woman you fell in love with years ago. She doesn’t want lust. Lust is cheap. Since knowledge is a prerequisite of love, love says “I know you, inside and out. And I still want you, more than ever.” She wants you to be reminded how well you know her.

She wants you to be passionate. Not about her, not about sex. She wants to share your passion for life. She wants to feel alive with you. She wants you to be thoughtful. She wants you to do the dishes, or fold the laundry, without having to ask for help. She wants to be told she’s not superwoman, and that she doesn’t have to keep trying to be. She wants you to choose her, every day. She wants you to take 30 seconds before you sit down to watch tv or scroll through your Facebook, and look into her eyes.

She wants you to make her feel like she is valued. She wants to know that you think she is worth more than anything. She wants you to appreciate the things she does, the way she laughs, the stretch marks that are proof of the life you created, and the little wrinkles that mark the time you’ve spent together. She wants you to love her. She wants you to be there and be thankful that she is there.

She might want roses once a year. But if you’re just giving her roses, you’re not giving enough.

She doesn’t want roses. 

The post She Doesn’t Want Roses appeared first on Josi Denise.

Dear father who won’t pay child support,

I just want to know one thing. Do you know what you’re doing?

Ask yourself, aside from financial assistance, what else are you doing?

When is the last time you trimmed tiny little fingernails? Do you wake up before the sun rises to make sure your child gets on the school bus? How many hours do you spend each week helping with homework, and are you paid to do it? Are you holding your child’s hand at doctor appointments, and paying the $35 copay? How many meals do you plan, purchase for about $150 a week, prepare, serve to, and clean up after other people on a daily basis? How many nights lately have you been woken up multiple times because of your child’s nightmares? Do you know the name’s of your child’s friends, and how many play dates do you host at your house weekly, going through 3 $5 boxes of snacks in a couple hours? When is the last time you did 5 loads of laundry on a Saturday, paying for the soap and hot water and dryer sheets, and then did another two loads for good measure on Tuesday when a blanket was covered in vomit and crackers? How many days of work have you missed because of your child’s runny nose, and did you get paid time off? Do you know what stuffed animals they can’t sleep without and how they like their apples cut into slices without the skin? How many night lights do you have powered on each and every single night? Do you know how many $39 boxes of diapers and $12 boxes of wipes a toddler goes through in year? When is the last time you bought and baked a birthday cake and wrapped all the presents and paid for all the party supplies?

How many bathtubs full of hot water do you pay for in your house each month? When is the last time you had to remember yet another password to log into a school website and pay for your child’s $1.50 per day school lunch allowances? How many packages of $12 toilet paper do you buy in a month, or tubes of $4 toothpaste, or bottles of $2 hand soap? When is the last time you changed multiple sets of bedsheets at 4am with a screaming, crying child needing you to make them feel better? The last time you bought a $9 bottle of baby tylenol, and sacrificed everything on your to do list including sleep, just to monitor a fever and be prepared for an ER visit and accompanying copay? Do you know what insurance your child has? Do you know the name of their doctor? What about the name of their teacher? Did you send in 22 separate gift bags that cost $20 for the last class party? Do you know what size shoes they wear, and when is the last time you bought them a $20 pair? When is the last time you paid $15 for your child’s haircut? When your child’s last tooth fell out, did you play tooth fairy and have the cash to do so? How many $5 bottles of children’s shampoo have you bought lately, or how about $6 boxes of dish detergent to run the dishwasher nightly? How many career opportunities have you given up or failed at because you put the priorities of your children first? When is the last time you buckled multiple carseat straps before you could run to the store for a couple of things? How many $3 gallons of milk do you buy weekly? Where are you when your child needs to clean their room, or they spill spaghetti sauce all over their third outfit for the day and need to be changed?

Where are you? Are you doing these things, and if given the chance, could you do these things 24/7? Would you be able to do it alone, relying only on the income you could find time to create, and not paying anyone else to raise your kids or taking time off to attend their school events and teacher conferences? Could you do all of this alone? Are you doing any of this?

What are you doing?

Oh, that’s right, you’re working so hard. Never mind the fact that you’re underworking to be able to say you “can’t provide” what you should. You’re working so hard, when you feel like it. And you’ve got needs too. You have an electric bill to pay and you need gas for your car, you’ve got to eat, and you’re trying to save for that vacation because you deserve a damn break. And when you only have so much left after that, why should you send “your” money to “help” the mother of your child? It was her choice to be in this situation, anyway, right? Maybe she should’ve just put up with your abuse, addiction, affair-filled, or just unhappy relationship, she wouldn’t be a single mom now. Maybe in a few weeks or months, if you make a little extra cash, you could decide to be so overly generous and send a couple hundred dollars. Not because you’re legally obligated but because you are such a good guy lavishing your children with all you can spare, and you’re doing all you can, and she should be grateful you even want to help, right?

You’re wrong. 

Do you know what you’re doing? Where are you in the grocery store when someone has to tell your child no, they can’t have the poptarts with cartoon characters on them? Where are you when someone has to tell your 2nd grader they can’t afford to buy a $25 yearbook this year? Why don’t your children deserve new clothes, and trips to the expensive kid’s museums? Why can’t they join the clubs they want to, or attend the summer camps their friends are going to? Do you know how ever present you really are in your child’s life, simply with the gentle daily reminder that they live in a one income household and must make sacrifices? Why can’t your children grow up with a mother who lives a comfortable life? Why can’t they have a mother who doesn’t try her best to hide the anxiety in the house that comes from never knowing when your next payment might be? Why can’t they have a mother who allows herself to splurge on things like mascara and yoga pants that don’t have holes in them, instead of knowing she has to put every penny towards her children? Why don’t your children deserve a vacation on spring break? Where are you when your child breaks a favorite toy and someone has to tell them with a broken heart that they won’t have the money to replace it? Where are you when someone has to snap on the 5th reminder in a night to please turn off the lights, or when someone has to tell your child to wear the same jeans again to save on laundry costs? What are you doing?

You’re defending yourself. You’ve got all the reasons why you are only doing what you can, and why the mother of your child doesn’t really need your help anyway. You’re sleeping well at night, and still carry that feeling that you’ve been treated with injustice. Everyone knows you’re a damn good father. You could raise your kids better than her anyway, right, all alone without help? And heaven forbid she start dating or have a boyfriend, isn’t that his problem who pays his damn water bill then? You didn’t tell her to move in with someone – she should be doing it all alone like you tell everyone you would be able to so perfectly and effortlessly.

I just want you to ask yourself that one question: Do you really know what you are doing when you refuse to send child support? Do you realize just how much you are doing to your child’s quality of life and wellbeing of their mother, just by doing nothing? Do you realize that no matter what happened between you and the woman you once loved enough to have a child with, that you are still responsible for the financial stability of your child and supporting the person who is devoting her entire life to raising your child? Not because you’re being generous, or because you got paid a little extra to spare like you’d toss to a homeless man on the corner, not because a court ordered you to do so, but because it’s your responsibility without expecting praise or over-the-top thank you notes in return. When is the last time you told that woman thank you for everything she does in a day for your child? You are not entitled to a thank you for providing financial assistance required for the basic necessities to raise your child.

Raising children is not a game of narcissism and rewards for good behavior. This shit is exhausting, and they are half your DNA. They are not only yours to claim when you’re showing off how they have your eyes and how you treated them to ice cream one weekend. The rest of the world might take your side, they might reassure you when you fish for attention on social media, that you are doing the best you can. You might have perfected the image of successful, over-worked man with only the best interests of his children in mind. Too bad they don’t know how many months of support you’re behind in, or how your children have become nothing more than an outstanding debt. Their mother’s pleas for help and financial assistance have become nothing more than another creditor blowing up your phone and not worth your time or cost. And just like every other bill you put off until it’s shut off, you’ll continue this route because nobody else knows right? No matter what, they are “your” kids and you have rights too, right? Who cares if you aren’t supporting them?

Dear father who won’t pay child support, I think you know, deep inside, that you’re wrong. If only you could see what you’re really doing.

The post A Letter to the Father Who Won’t Pay Child Support appeared first on Josi Denise.

I don’t have time to write. I don’t have time to write, or do anything else, because I have small children at home.

No.

I don’t have the attention span to write. I don’t have the energy to write.

I don’t have the emotional stability to write. The mental clarity.

I have time.

Why do I write?

I write because I do. Because I always have. Because I feel better. Because I breathe.

I write because I have overflowing thoughts, and they spill into words on paper.

I don’t know why I write, but I need to. There are many things we do but don’t understand.

So why can’t I write now? Fear of perfection. Fear of writing something I don’t want to read? Something I don’t want to admit is inside my head?

I have time to write. I have time to do anything I want. We all do, right?

I don’t write because there are dishes. Because there is laundry. Because there are doctor’s appointments to schedule. Because there is dinner to cook. Because my journal to keep myself on track of things is already days behind. I don’t write because of the guilt that I should be playing outside too. Because of the guilt that I should be walking the dog. I should be taking the kids to the park. I should be enjoying a movie cuddled with them instead of putting on the tv for them while I escape into my headphones for peace and quiet.

I don’t write because I’ve forgotten how to write for myself.

I don’t write because I can make money. I can be paid for my writing, if I am writing in a certain voice. If I am writing about a certain product. If I am reaching a certain audience. If I am telling you what you need to hear, or what a brand wants you to hear. If I save up all the thoughts for the perfect flow of words that will go viral. I can make money if I do those things, so I don’t write for myself.

Because you don’t want to read this. I don’t want to read this. I don’t want to give life to what’s in my mind. I don’t want to let it be real.

I don’t have time to write. But I do. I don’t write because I am afraid of myself. I am afraid that I will feel something. I am afraid that I will not be good enough. I don’t write because I want to be a good mom, and I feel like I can’t be. Like I don’t enjoy the things I’m supposed to. That normal people don’t need to write out their feelings just to have patience for ten minutes of playing with barbie dolls in the moment.

I don’t write because it’s easier to press pause. It’s easier to step outside of the moment and let the weight of all the things I want to do wash over me, to suffocate me in paralyzing guilt.

I don’t write because I would rather be at the beach. Or hiking through a forest. Or getting a new tattoo. Or I decide to redecorate my house. I don’t write because if it feels like a job, I want to run away. If it feels like a chore, I want to feel alive.

I don’t write because I am distracted. I am distracted by everything. I am distracted by needing a four letter label for my distraction. By trying to hide my distraction, or medicate my distraction. By trying to rationalize why and how my brain chemistry works and put it into explicable little definitions. I am distracted by trying to make sense of what I am, and who I am. I am worried that everyone else can see the mess of wires tangled behind my eyes. I’m overwhelmed by the pressure I place on myself.

I don’t write because I am worried someone will read it. I am worried someone will tell me I am an inspiration, and I will feel like an imposter. I don’t write because my words can hurt. I am afraid that the things I have to say will break someone into pieces. Or show everyone all my broken pieces.

I don’t write because I don’t know what to fucking say. I am afraid everyone will tell me I am excellent and eloquent, and I will look in the mirror and see my flaws. And deny that I do. And try to take the compliments with grace. How do I do it all? ‘Oh, haha, I don’t know, it just comes natural.’

It doesn’t. I don’t do it all. I curl up in my bed and cry. And I feel like a failure. And I let those thoughts consume me and I rush around at the last minute to wipe my tears and put on some lipstick and make sure the kids don’t have dirty nails and polish up the surface of our life and I cover up the crazy for you. Or at least make the crazy look cute and use terms like “hot mess”.

I don’t write because it’s never quiet. Because there is always someone screaming or crying or chewing or needing their diaper changed or barking or something boiling or beeping or asking me questions. I don’t write because I am needed in a million other ways. And when I could write, I can’t just write like this.

I can’t write because who cares what my banana pudding recipe is like. You all have pinterest too. I have no secrets to share. Why am I unique? I don’t write because I don’t feel like I am special.

I don’t write because I am not entitled. I don’t write because I don’t think I am enough. I am not enough to be placed on a pedestal, to have followers. Why me? I am not more important than you because I have a messy head and my chaos happens to look like creativity.

I don’t write because what if someone takes me seriously? What if this ‘little blog of mine’ is not just a phase? What if it’s ok to spend my days taking photos of my life and sharing my diary with hundreds of thousands of people?

I don’t write because I don’t take myself seriously. I don’t write because if I do, I feel vulnerable. And confused why anyone cares what I have to say. What is everyone searching for that they think they will find in the alphabetic vomit that I type into a keyboard?

I don’t write because this is not a safe space. Because my words are powerful, and they can make changes. They can change me, they can cause legal action, they can persuade others, and they can change the world. And that’s scary as fuck. I’m not powerful.

I don’t write because there is no safe space. Someone could always read what I write, no matter where I write it. The only really safe space is inside my head.

I don’t write because I’ve been abused. Because I question everything I do in every moment of the day, because I’ve been taught to walk on eggshells and overanalyze my words and actions. Because I am too busy making sure I look like I have my shit together, convincing everyone I am strong and unaffected by the years of emotional turmoil that’s in the past. Because it’s not in the past – it still spins in my head every waking moment.

I don’t write because I am impulsive. I don’t trust myself to believe the things I say after I say them, enough to feel certain about the results. When I say things, it makes things happen. I move across the country, I make people feel things. I make people fall in love, with things, with places, with me. I affect the lives of everyone around me. I don’t want to be responsible for that sort of thing. What if I change my mind? What if I get bored and unhappy as usual? What if everyone sees that I really have no idea what I’m doing because I say the opposite of something I was so sure of yesterday?

I don’t write because there are rules, you know. Even though this isn’t a real job, in the real world, where people really respect you and what you do as work. There are still rules. Because posts have to be this many words, and they have to have this many well-lit photos with eye-catching text overlays. Because sentences have to end in periods and begin with capital letters and you have to share it all on Twitter with a catchy headline and your Facebook photos have to be certain dimensions and you have to plan an editorial calendar around the holidays and you have to be relatable and you have to share good content on a regular predictable schedule and you have to engage and you have to plan your stories with a purpose and a vision and treat it like a business and you have to do this and that and you have to follow the fucking rules, don’t you know? You can’t break the rules.

I don’t write because I think the rules are fucking dumb. I don’t write because I am afraid that the way I write is not how you’re supposed to. Because the way I write is the way I think and the way I think isn’t normal either. And who cares what I think? I am not an authority.

I’m just kind of a mess. I don’t write because I can’t anymore without admitting that.

So there it is.

The post Tongue Tied appeared first on Josi Denise.

This is it. I’m fucking done.

Video killed the radio star. I’m killing the mommy blog.

You won’t want to hear any of this, but someone needs to tell you.

Let me preface with a few important things. I am was a mommy blogger. I have three kids, and I’m popping out another one this fall. I have a background in marketing and had “real jobs” in the “real world” working with PR teams on the daily. I started this blog in 2013, thinking I could combine my writing talents with professional experience and rock this new industry of influencer marketing (before it was called that). And I did, I guess.

The American Mama reached tens of thousands of readers monthly, and under that name I worked with hundreds of big name brands on sponsored campaigns. I am a member of virtually every ‘blog network’ and agency that “connects brands with bloggers”. I’ve attended all their conferences and been invited on free trips to swim with dolphins and sip bougie cocktails in exchange for instagram snaps. I even founded and briefly promoted my own company, American Mama Media, working as the middle man between the hundreds of pitches I was receiving each week and the tribe of bloggers I’d collected information and stats from.

I hosted dozens of giveaways sponsored by brands wanting me to promote their products. I gained hundreds and then thousands of email subscribers, and social media followers, by requiring a follow in exchange for a giveaway entry. I used social media management services to connect with similar bloggers on twitter and instagram, and then unfollow those who didn’t return the follow. I paid a virtual assistant to post my links in round ups all over the internet, for back links and extra traffic. I joined blog directory sites, where asking readers for clicks sends you to the top of the list, and some PR intern googling “mom blogs” then finds you when they want someone to review their product. I sent out my media kit with embellished stats and highlights about my ‘targeted audience of mothers who make purchasing decisions for their household’ and negotiated my rates for free products and paid reviews.

I made thousands of dollars during months I was focusing and working hard to dig through box after box of shitty as-seen-on-tv like products and share “my 100% honest opinion” about them, that weren’t at all influenced by the page after page of “key messages” the brand requested that I include in my review. You won’t find most of those posts on this blog today. They aren’t gone forever, and I do plan to revive some of them. But for the most part, they are dead and I want them to stay buried forever. Because, like 90% of the fake nonsense I used to share on the internet as a mommy blogger writing about my fake life and oh-so-happy marriage, they are pure bullshit.

And yet here we are. So there’s my “I’ve been there” argument. Now for fuck’s sake, please listen to me and understand that I mean this in the most loving and well-intentioned manner:

Your mommy blog fucking sucks.

//nobody is reading your shit

I mean no one. Even the people you think are reading your shit? They aren’t really reading it. The other mommy bloggers sure as hell aren’t reading it. They are scanning it for keywords that they can use in the comments. “So cute! Yum! I have to try this!” They’ve been told, like you, that in order to grow your brand, you must read and comment on other similar-sized and similar-themed blogs. The people clicking on it from Pinterest aren’t reading it. They are looking for your recipe, or helpful tip promised in the clickbait, or before and after photo, then they might re-pin the image, then they are done. The people sharing it on Facebook? They aren’t reading it either. They just want to say whatever it is your headline says, but can’t find the words themselves. Your family? Nope. They are checking to make sure they don’t have double chins in the photos you post of them, and zoning in on paragraphs where their names are mentioned.

Why? Because your shit is boring. Nobody cares about your shampoo you bought at Walmart and how you’re so thankful the company decided to work with you. Nobody cares about anything you are saying because you aren’t telling an engaging story. You are not giving your readers anything they haven’t already heard. You are not being helpful, and you are not being interesting. If you are constantly writing about your pregnancy, your baby’s milestones, your religious devotion, your marriage bliss, or your love of wine and coffee…. are you saying anything new? Anything at all? Tell me something I haven’t heard before, that someone hasn’t said before. From a different perspective, or making a new point at the end at least if I have to suffer through a cliche story about your faceless, nameless kid.

You’re writing in an inauthentic voice about an unoriginal subject, worse if sprinkled with horrible grammar and spelling, and you are contributing nothing to the world but static noise.

//there’s no way in hell you are actually that happy

Why do you put exclamation points after every fucking sentence!? Why is this a thing?? I get it, you want to be seen as positive and really excited about a brand or product or experience or whatever the hell you’re writing about. But nobody talks like that in real life. If you do, nobody actually likes being around you. Love my hubby, love my life, love my kiddos, love jesus, love cupcakes, love it all! No. You are not that happy in your every day life. Nobody buys it. And if they do, you’re just making them feel bad about themselves. You’re watering down all the rest of your content because every single subject cannot possibly be that exciting. People are not idiots. As a reader, I cannot connect to someone who writes like they are hard-selling broccoli to kindergarteners.

Life has dark days. Real and raw is relatable. Even if your personal style is only focusing on the positive in life, you can do it without sounding cheap and robot-like. Relying on punctuation to make your point is weak writing. If you are telling a story and telling the truth, you can let the world know how much you love something without using an exclamation point at the end of every sentence.

Side note: The last brand I worked with sent me back my blog post draft edited with at least a half dozen exclamation points added. It may or may not have slightly inspired this post and my attitude about finally saying fuck it, I’m writing only what I want, when I want whether that means I’ll lose sponsored work or not. What’s the point of having your own space to write if you’re being paid to sound like you work for a corporation? 

//your goals are just as confused as you

What are your goals? At all the conferences I’ve attended and in all the Facebook groups, I hear women with the same answers. “To gain traffic. To grow my blog.” But why? What are you going to do with that traffic? What’s the point of any of it?

Do you handcraft brilliantly unique things and you want to promote your Etsy shop? Are you an excellent writer and you want to connect with people who read and relate to your stories? I’m guessing no. I’m guessing you’re a bored housewife or working mom who has heard that blogging can earn you some extra cash. You like getting free products and feeling like you are a special snowflake. No. Just no. If your entire goal is to make money, please quit. Go get a traditional job.

I’m not saying you can’t make money like that. There are endless numbers of brands and companies just now jumping on the blogging bandwagon, willing to send you free products and pay you a measly $150 a post for way more hours of work to use the product, photograph, edit, write about, and promote than you’ll even admit to yourself. If that’s your goal, fine. But how long term is that? Who are your loyal readers?

//you are wasting your money

So you paid $434 for a conference ticket, $389 for a flight, $252 for a hotel that you’re sharing with your bloggy-bff, $150 for a new outfit that makes you look more professional than the torn yoga pants you wear every day, and $30 for business cards to make sure you don’t miss a single networking opportunity. Oh, and last week you paid $45 for a new WordPress theme to make sure your blog looked conference ready. You were so excited to meet some top execs from the big brands they promised would be mingling in your cocktail hour. But now you’ve sat through a day of speakers and realized only one thing: that you’re doing everything wrong.

Because they are experts, right? God, if only you were so smart and able to get such amazing partnerships like these big bloggers and business women. So now, you better go pay $3500 for a web designer to make your site look professional, because they said no one gets work if they are using a cheap template with bad coding. And you really have to put your social icons at the top right of your page, because if not, no PR manager will take the time to click through your page. And if you don’t have the exact location and age of your children listed in your about profile, you also won’t be worth a dime. Oh, and personality? Save that for somewhere else, brand managers don’t have time to read your cute story about who you are.

But at least now you’ve got solid advice on how to grow your following right? You can’t wait to get home and use the six pages of notes you scribbled down during sessions, gaining so many new followers on social media and using their proven formulas for popular digestible posts. A list of ten things? Brilliant. But you’ll need a subscription to a stock photo service, at least until you can buy yourself a DSLR camera for $500 and take that $195 photography course they said was a must-take. And now all you have to do is post 11 times on Facebook, scheduled of course, daily, and then 23 times on Pinterest, but make sure you’re sharing other bloggers’ content too. And retweet, don’t forget — wait. Slow the fuck down.

How can you not see these conferences, and better-your-blog courses, are just making money off of you? If they had the secrets to success, don’t you think they would be running their own successful blogs? Sure, there are exceptions, but for the most part, in any given room of those 500+ women attending, how many of those will actually be blogging in a year? Five years? It’s a waste of your money. Everything you need to know can be learned by trial and error, or taking a course in a specific subject you’d like to better yourself in.

There is an entire industry waiting to take advantage of your insecurities when you want to be a better blogger, and in reality all they are doing is shoving tips down your throat about how to make their jobs easier, how to put more money in their pockets by building an army of cookie-cutter bloggers who will keep paying for conference tickets and ‘exclusive’ insider info. The more mediocre bloggers they have with the exact same design layout and the exact same voice, the easier they can sell themselves to clients willing to pay them tens of thousands of dollars for a few reports showing ridiculous monthly page view stats. In the end, you get chosen for one $150 post every couple of months, a headache and a half trying to write a shitty post on your boring blog, and you spent 4x that amount becoming a part of their clique. Maybe you met one or two interesting people while all those other bloggers were trying to get their business card in your face.

You are wasting your money and they are laughing all the way to the bank.

//pr friendly = “I have no soul”

Have you seen this in your “favorite” blogger’s twitter bio? Maybe it’s listed in your media kit. Hell, you might even have it as a link on your blog menu with contact info for brands to reach you. Do you know what this says? PR Friendly says “For the right price, I will be anyone you want me to be.”

It screams desperation and says you really have no idea what the hell you are doing – just that you are willing to do backflips for basically any company that will throw a big enough bone in your direction. Oh, but let me guess, you’re a lifestyle blogger? I blog about our life, so really I can cover a variety of topics and brands. No. I used to say that shit too. What you’re really saying is that you have no direction and although you may be passionate about one hobby or particular area of life, you’re too scared to narrow that down because what if you decide to write only about one thing and you could have so many more opportunities with different products your family could use?

You see this a lot in blogging networks that work with big brands. “We’re looking for 100 bloggers to come up with out of the box ways to show your readers how they can use our bladder leakage products to make their lives more enjoyable! Write about your shitty kid not listening to you at the park and running off, and how you were able to chase him down without pissing your pants! Or, maybe brainstorm a creative craft or eco-friendly plant starter – the possibilities are endless!” Seriously? No. If your possibilities, and what you’re willing to write about, are endless, then you are doing it wrong.

Stop selling your soul for peanuts. You have no credibility left when you do this over and over.

//building your own prison with copycat guards

Do you really think that big companies see you as valuable? When I hear the argument that brands “need” bloggers, I die laughing. In a way, this is true, but not at all in the way you think. I could go on about this for hours and probably will write a dozen more posts about it.

Just ask yourself this: When a brand sends you a nice little note, pays you to write about their product, often asks you to buy it in store and take photographs of the place you picked it up in store, and includes a dozen bullet points of positive things you can say about their brand…. are you more likely, as a consumer, to purchase that brand in the future? And when a big brand runs a campaign that consists of 10 “rounds” over a series of several months, and by the end of it, they’ve paid pennies to thousands of women with mommy blogs to talk about their product, do you think they really care about your original outtake on life and trust you to market their brand? They just gained thousands of loyal customers, who are now terrified to ever speak poorly of that brand, and more likely to personally purchase their products on their weekly shopping trips.

Would you buy those products otherwise, and not just make them at home or buy cheaper alternatives? Do you really need twenty different beauty products for different body parts? Do you really need these materialistic things? Do you know how many products are introduced to the market every single day by big corporations and small companies, all hoping to snag the attention of women just like you? By running a mommy blog that readily accepts a hundred dollar bill and a box of sugared cereal in exchange for 300-400 words and some crappy iPhone pictures, you’re handing advertisers the keys to your home. They no longer have to deal with the middle man, marketing for billions on mass media and hopefully reaching you via television commercials and print ads. They are knocking directly on your door, convincing you why you need to buy their products, and patting you on the head for “helping” them to do so and telling all your friends. Congrats, mommy blogger, you’re such a great writer!

I’m not claiming some crazy conspiracy theory that all brands are out to get us and manipulate women into brand awareness and consumerism. But it’s not too far fetched. Midcentury advertising tactics, that did exactly that with no shame, are very well documented. Results of those campaigns, and how the marketing industry has improved upon those tactics to produce more sales, have been studied endlessly in the decades between then and now. Regardless, marketing is very much a copycat game. Whether or not this business model even works, or if a few corporations at the top have a team of psychologists studying the effect of influencer marketing on bottom line sales, the trends still trickle down.

The PR manager who just emailed you about receiving their crappy parenting book or colorful potty training tool? They have now adapted the exact same “rules” and guidelines of how to work with bloggers. They do not know any better when they offer you stuff in exchange for “exposure on their twitter!” or practically demand that you share only glowing sentiments in your reviews. And we won’t even get started on the legal issues that can arise when you sign contracts, without any legal experience or guidance, as an independent publisher for a company.

I know you want to take yourself seriously. But unfortunately most brands don’t. They are just testing the waters because it’s a cheap, trendy way of getting the word out about their products right now. They are using you to build your own prison of commercialism, and the sheer volume of copycat marketers and bloggers following along sets the standards and expectations of this relatively new media. The foundation is rocky and even the brands that “just want numbers” are relying on stats about retweets and impressions that come from PR companies taking half the cut when they connect influencers to campaigns. I’m not saying blogging is dying, but this specific little monster branch of it, sponsored content disguised as horribly written “day in the life” stories about your kids and pets? It can’t possibly last. Do you really want to be stuck on the inside when it crumbles?

//sunshine and fucking daisy reviews

On the note of being manipulated by brands, have you ever seen a negative review on a mommy blog? Ever? And if you did, have you ever seen one that still said “This post was sponsored by XYZ brand, and opinions are all my own” at the top?

Fuck no. Because every single blogger is terrified to tell the truth. I’ve seen women in blogging groups dish about how much they hated a product, or how it broke in the mail, or how awful the customer service team was to deal with. They ask their fellow bloggers what they should do about their moral dilemma of being paid to post about it (or receiving the product for free) and in real life being terribly disappointed. And every single fucking blogger in the group responds with something like “Well, you don’t want to upset the brand…” or “You don’t want to post anything negative about a product or company, even if you don’t want to work with them again, because other brands might see it and be scared off.”

Are you fucking kidding me? You have no spine. If you are so scared about telling it like it is, and you rely that much on putting up a sunshine and daisy front for potential sponsorships, then what is the point? Go work for a company instead of yourself. What happened to your argument that “brands need bloggers” anyway?

This shit would never fly in traditional journalism. Whether you’re getting paid or not, if the product you’ve been asked to review is complete shit, why would you lie to your readers? Refund the payment if you have to, return the product, whatever. If your blog is your career and you consider yourself a professional, why are you selling your readers’ time knowing you aren’t writing the truth?

//giveaway entries are not real fans

In November 2014, I followed some regurgitated advice about blogging and ran a big giveaway. I purchased a Kitchenaid mixer with my own cash, and asked readers to sign up for my newsletter and follow me on social media for a chance to win. I gained 600 email subscribers and thousands of fans on Facebook and Twitter, sure. I gained a loyal reader that won the mixer. I even devoted my winner announcement post, on Thanksgiving, to charity, asking readers to help end childhood hunger. Because of that, I was invited on an all-expense paid trip to tour a certain chicken corporation’s headquarters to hear about how much money they donate to said charity, and then roped into a writing a post about that even though I didn’t agree with the ethics of the company at all. All of this sounds great, and there are many positives, but in the end? I gained nothing.

If you are incentivizing people to join your mailing list, or follow you on Facebook, then they are not real fans. If you are purchasing Instagram followers to make your numbers look bigger, or tossing goodie bags in the mail for everyone who shares your big post a certain number of times, you’re fucking cheating. If you are interesting, if you have something worth saying, and you say it well – you need none of this. People will find a way to follow you, and they will click your social media and subscribe buttons with their own free will.

In February 2016, I wrote an angry, heartfelt letter vaguely directed at my ex in regards to not paying child support. It was the most real and vulnerable shit I’ve ever posted on the internet thus far, and I was terrified to hit publish for many reasons. Within a week, it went viral, and as of today it’s been shared more than 312 thousand times. How many times would I have killed for a sponsored post to do that well?

In the last week, I unfollowed over 2200 uninteresting people on social media, and I’m not finished. Someone asked me “But what if they all unfollow you?!” And my response? #byefelicia I’m not interested in having fake friends in real life, and I’m certainly not interested in having fake followers that I don’t even like, on the internet.

Genuine content, with a genuine voice, is the only way to gain real readers and connect with real people.

//you are wasting your time

“Each suburban wife struggles with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night- she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question– ‘Is this all?”
― Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique

What could you be doing instead of writing your shitty mommy blog? Would you spend an extra hour in the morning cuddling with your toddler? Would you read some intellectual books or find a hobby? Go back to school and launch a career? Would you leave your marriage? Would you travel? Would you lose weight and be more active? Would you make some new friends you actually enjoy talking to? What hole are you trying to fill by calling yourself a blogger?

Just quit. Quit now before you get burnt out and feel guilty. Quit before you realize you wasted years of your life writing bullshit about your kids’ childhood and your relationships instead of being actually involved. Quit before you get caught up in some legal mess with a brand contract and your house is cluttered with shit to review that you do not need and nobody else needs either. Quit before you feel like a failure instead of finding the intersection of happy and fulfilled.

Quit because your mommy blog fucking sucks. And it’s not going to get better. There are probably a dozen things you are actually good at.

Find what you love, and what you do better than anyone else, and do that. 

Sincerely,

A former typical ‘mommy blogger’ whose blog sucked just as bad as yours

The post Dear Mommy Blogger appeared first on Josi Denise.

In case you missed it over the weekend, I wrote a few thousand brutally honest words about why mommy blogging is a dying industry and the women in it should find something better to do with their lives.

In other words, I lit the deepest pits of internet hell on fire as the torches came out and my name was typed thousands of times with the @ symbol in front of it.

Like any good Saturday, ours was spent disconnected, visiting friends at their lake a few hours away, hiking and teaching the kids the patience required to catch a fish. We drove back home covered in mud, soaking up the silence of sleeping children in the backseat. I caught and replied to only a handful of the responses to my post in the patches of road where we had cell service.

I saw enough though. Enough so that when my eyes closed to fight back tears under the hot shower water at midnight, all that ran through my head was this: “What if they are right?”

What if, in being bold and truthful, I had isolated myself from my career? What if, in burning all the bridges I did, I found that I was really just burnt out? What if these other women really were truly that happy with their lives and, and found a joy I could not in writing mostly sponsored posts about the trivial parts being a mother? What if I was just not able to balance my life the way they were? What if there was something wrong with me? What if I really was just an attention seeking whore that bitched too much?

Wait. This sounded too familiar. I’d heard all these things before. All the venom spreading about me online, I’ve heard them for years, a lifetime ago in an emotionally abusive relationship.  I’ve had my personality attacked and I’ve been objectified down to the core, left to feel like nothing more than a collection of female body parts and impossible expectations in every role I ever played. But that was with a man. A man who knew me intimately. Women though, in a professional context defending an inherently feminine industry, resorting to the same belittling tactics and evoking the same walk-on-eggshell response?

A little voice in my head reminded me ‘You’re tougher than this.” like it often has to do when I’m physically and emotionally exhausted and really need some fucking sleep. So I spent the next 24 hours tangled up under bedsheets until noon and getting sunburnt digging in our new garden bed.

Then I sat down with my headphones, The Civil Wars, and a giant fucking chocolate chip cookie and decided to dig through the trenches. I started with replying to the hundreds of “fuck yes, amen” messages from non-blogging readers and respected writers who agreed with my sentiments about the over-saturation of inauthenticity amongst mommy bloggers and influencer marketing trends in the advertising industry. Then I moved on to the negative threads and the dozen or so blog posts that have been published throughout the internet, comment sections sprinkled with nodding heads and defense of the exclamation mark.

And I read every comment I could find publicly available, for one reason mainly – I noticed a disturbing trend.

//The Things I Deserved To Hear?

I’ll let you draw your own conclusions while reading them below. But I’d like you to ask yourself a few questions while you do so, and again after you are finished. 

1. If I was a man, who wrote an honest, strongly opinionated critique of an industry in which he had years of experience, would any of these specific responses have been said as debate against the points he made?
2. If you are a woman reading this, and a man said any of these things to you, would it be worse than a woman saying them?
3. If these women pride themselves on being professional and positive, is their behavior justified in this specific case because they disagreed with my opinion? Why?
4. How can you expect the rest of society to take women seriously, to value the opinion of any woman, if our work can be so easily tossed out as lacking credibility because she is more easily assumed to be seeking attention, emotionally unstable, or hormonal?
5. When is it ok to say these things to a woman? What is the criteria that must be met in order for this type of behavior to be socially acceptable?
6. Which women deserve sexism then, if you can so easily choose to use it yourselves when convenient?

Although I singled no one out in my original post – I didn’t “bully” any individuals – I did say some really harsh truths about mommy bloggers as a whole. I stand by my words, and what’s interesting to me is that even the critics and negative comments mostly started their thoughts with something along the lines of “She made some valid points, I agree with a lot of what she said about blogging, but..” and things went sharply downhill from there.

Several people missed the point entirely, lecturing me that now I’ll never be able to work with brands again, or that I’ve lost my “biggest readership” as though mommy bloggers are the only human beings consuming digital content in the world. They argued that they’ve never heard of me before, so why read what I wrote now? Point proven. Of course you wouldn’t have heard of my blog when it was just a mindless, never-ending carousel of commercials rather than genuine writing. Of course it is hypocritical that I called out the exact type of blogs I myself published, until you step outside of that box and remember that I knew that all along. I played by the mommy blogger rules, sure, but I am by nature a writer with a passion for the marketing industry, not a sorority girl turned tupperware party attendee.

I completely deserved, and welcomed healthy and heated debate (including as many swear words as you can throw my way, sure). I appreciate reading the opinions of others that varied from mine. I even respect that the things I said were taken personally – I get it, I pissed them off – so the defensive tone and instantly disliking me is more than understood and frankly, expected.

I still welcome criticism of the points I made. I’d love for someone to tell me why I’m wrong, and that the influencer marketing industry will thrive longterm rather than collapse into itself. I’d absolutely deserve to hear that in response to the points I made.

I deserved to be told that you think I am wrong, because you love your blog and you disagree with the way that I write. I deserved to be completely ignored, even.

But what I did not deserve was to have my voice tossed out the window simply because I am a woman.

None of these things would have been said about a man, his personal life, his emotional stability, or his ability to parent. Not a single one.

//Things that women have said to and about me:

“Attention whore much?”
-Katie Sanchez, wife and mother of 1, KatieTalksAbout.com

“You demand respect and yet you treat others this way? No wonder you never got far. Ugh. You’re a sick sick person and I feel horrible for your children.”
“If her kids are being raised by someone who has no self respect or respect for others, I feel bad for them. I said nothing to offend the children. Respect is a two way street. If she continues in this path her children will not respect her.”
-Maria Briggs, wife and step-mom to 3, TheMammaHomemaker.com

“You come across whiney, jealous, and insecure… You are miserable in some part of your life and you just want to make everyone else miserable around you. And you’re hormonal. I mean I get it.”
“I think baby #4 is messing with her normal human brain. The part of it that tells her it isn’t nice to call other people names just because she is an unhappy person.”
“She wasn’t being honest. She was being whiney because she had indigestion or some shit.”
“Don’t play the victim in a drama you started honey. And FYI – I was totally imitating your post. And have made that abundantly clear. And it wasn’t in a flattering way.”
– Brandi Best-Fletcher, mother of 5 and step-mom to 5 more,  LifeWithFiveMonkies.com

“I think she is jealous, hormonal, and just plain unhappy.”
– Karen Eidson, 63 year old grandma to 6, FabGrandma.com

“I kinda just want to know if this whole flipping out thing is just your hormones talking? Like really?”
“..it seems to me that after all the drama you have had lately you should be more worried about that baby you are growing, those kids who you moved across the country whore dad is not in the picture..”
– Lisa Sauter, wife and mother of 1, GoofballMommy.com

“I think Josi Denise is not in a good place […] maybe a mitigating circumstance?”
“She’s pregnant. Maybe it’s the hormones. IDK.”
-Jill Robbins, mom of 3, RippedJeansAndBifocals.com

“I have no idea who you are, but kiss my ass.”
“We aren’t defending ourselves. We’re doing very well. We’re laughing your insecurity and stupidity. You’re showing your ass.”
“STFU, dumbass. Seriously, this is the biggest load of shit I’ve read in ages.”
“Honey, our reaction is strong because you’re trying to throw a whole industry under the bus when your real issue is you suck.”
“Or some don’t allow comments because they don’t have the balls to get called out on their nonsense.”
“It’s so adorable how you try to be condescending and just end up sounding ridiculous.”
– Kelby Hartson Carr, CEO/Founder of Type A Parent the “world’s premier conference, influencer network and community for mom bloggers” with “highly influential, business-minded and professional bloggers”

Cat Lincoln, CEO Clever Girls Collective: “No one else thinks it’s hysterical that she started in 2013? HAHAHAHAHAHA – I’m so glad she could get in at the start /sarcasmfont”
Kelby Carr, CEO Type A: “Pahahahahaha bless her heart.”
Cat: “At least she’s a fast learner”
“Also, I have a feeling she won’t be “bothered” by a lot of sponsored opportunities ever again. Just a feeling.”
Me: “Hmmm… I wonder how the screenshot of this thread would make all the new bloggers feel when they are trying to decide whether your blogging conferences and courses are worth it? Don’t pay me, I have no advice for you except that you should’ve started a decade ago. Good luck!”
Other blogger: “Seriously. You’re talking to a bunch of bloggers and business owners who are really supportive, do really well, and employ a lot of people. But when we’re being attacked as a group, we back each other up.”
-Cat Lincoln, CEO and Founder of Clever Girls Collective “A respected market professional […] Founder and CEO of Clever Girls, an esteemed influencer marketing agency specializing in connecting top brands with influential women online.”

(I’ll preface this one: I thankfully do not struggle with depression, nor have I ever written about it. Spreading lies about someone’s mental health on the internet, including an entire blog post dedicated to me, because you can’t accept that they have a differing opinion or they don’t like the same things and people as you? How much lower can you go? After 50+ comments, I eventually chose to block this woman from my social media profiles.)
“Don’t play the victim when this is exactly what you wanted […] I’ve already said I agreed with your points, but you presented it in such a desperate way I just feel bad for you.”
“I see now your other post came from a place of hurt and self-hate, maybe even a place of jealousy because so many others seem to have their shit together.”
“I wasn’t being condescending. I understand more after reading about your struggles with depression, adhd, etc. I thought you were being hateful, but you’re just hurting. People lash out when they’re hurting.”
“I’m sorry you’re in such a dark place. I hope you’re able to look back on this soon and realize how wrong you were, trying to drag so many down just because you felt down.”
“We are standing up for those that are being bullied by her. […] Don’t play the victim after being the attacker.”
“I read some of her other posts and kind of understand why she’s so hateful in this post. Her last post talked a lot about self doubt and depression. She needed to hurt others as much as she’s hurting. […] I hope she tries to do the right thing by reflecting before she writes anything else.”
Jen Grenier, mother on Facebook in reply to Sadie: “That worriers me that she is unstable like that and trying to influence a group. This is why we have to take bullies with a grain of salt. I feel bad that she is hurting. I hope she gets the help she needs. This was clearly a lashing out/cry for help…and all those applauding her bullying are not helping.” Sadie: “Agreed.”
-Sadie Lankford, mother of 3, SlapDashMom.com

“…just a show of how badly her life is falling apart. “No ones husband can love them that much cuz mine left” type sh*t…[…] Jo, I hope somebody hugs you…soon!”
-Yah’Zahra Adira,  nspiyahdlife.com

“She discovered that bitching about her ex got her a viral post..so she’s bitching about a larger group this time.”
– Jenn Chapman Hethcoat, mother of 3, SuperJenn.com

“Shame she never seemed to […] make a choice to NOT whore herself.”
Kelby Carr: “Pretty much.”
-Erin Kotechi Vest, QueensofPainBlog.com

“I honestly feel for her now that I’m learning more of what’s going on in her life. I bet she will delete this post and go about trying to be a better mom blogger after the drama dies down.”
-Danielle Faust, FitNoire.com

If women perpetuate this type of sexism amongst themselves, how do they not deserve it everywhere else it may inconvenience them?

Oh, and no, you will most certainly not find me trailing breadcrumbs back to the mommy blogger world.

The post Women Who Deserve Sexism appeared first on Josi Denise.

On the top shelf of my children’s closet, there is an old Pampers box taped sloppily shut. Inside that box is a plastic zipper bag that once housed a comforter or something. And inside that are dozens of tiny, baby blue fabric scraps of guilt.

When my son was a baby, I saved his most sentimental outfits with the idea to make a quilt. Have I ever made a quilt before? Absolutely not. Do have the slightest clue how to make a quilt? No. But even before Pinterest existed to fuel my never-finished projects, I kept each and every little ducky onesie and striped footed pajama set. I have the little blue kitten gown he wore when he was sick once, and the tiny velvet green pajamas with the letters “NICU” still sharpied on the tag.

I told myself that I would save the quilt for a nesting project if and when I had my second child. Well, my daughter is 2 and a half. And my son turns 6 today. The only time those baby clothes have left that plastic bag was a few weeks before my daughter’s home birth. I recruited my mother, and together sprawled on my living room floor, we searched the keepsakes for recyclable baby clothes. We found a few yellow pieces and some cute white lace booties that were feminine enough, but mostly I just opened up a box of memories that I was unprepared to deal with.

Those first 11 nights alone without my baby boy, after hours of rushed, medicated labor and fearful, breathless moments after birth – just to leave him hooked to those machines and drive through the snow back to our bed, no feet kicking in my belly and no warm little snuggles in the outfits neatly lined on his shelves. Memories of lunch with my now husband, feeling like an imposter eating alone with our 2 day old son sleeping in a nurse’s arms. Driving an hour both ways several times a day just to have a chance to nurse him. Guilt of not being able to nurse him more, guilt of not knowing all that I know now about childbirth and life.

Memories of our first flight to Florida, his fuzzy little head nuzzled on my chest in the baby carrier, on our way to a culture shock and new life. Memories both of the wonderful kind, and painful reminders of our family’s rocky start. But the smell, that sweet baby smell was gone. Where had it gone? His little socks and mittens had not been washed since they were last on his once teensy toes and fingers, only packed in that bag to taunt my thoughts in my most stressful, overwhelmed moments (along with those thousands of unsorted digital photos) for years to come. How unfair it was for that smell to escape, as though a cruel reminder that they grow too fast and the precious time cannot be captured as we wish.

So folded carefully, with a melancholy quiet filling the air, those little clothes went back in the box. “Oh well, I wouldn’t want to cut them up anyway,” I justified. “Maybe next time I’m pregnant I’ll have more energy to be creative.” I joked. And I swallowed the guilt, taping the box back up, feeding that little voice that likes to convince us we are not good mothers because we cannot meet expectations we set for ourselves.

This year, he wants a skateboard. “But I’ll wear my helmet in case I fall, Mama.” He wanted a skateboard last year too, when I didn’t think he was old enough (and still don’t). And the year before that, when I compromised and Santa brought a bicycle instead. And even when I bought him a new helmet because he outgrew the first one, I had a full bleary-eyed meltdown in the shopping aisle as a little voice reminded me that no, he probably wouldn’t like the cute little colorful dinosaur helmet anymore, and I should buy him the cool black skull one. I wanted to argue back with that voice playfully, but when I realized the truth, I was a hopeless mess.

Why do you have to grow up sweet angel? Can’t you just stay chubby-cheeked and blubbery forever? Can’t we just spend a few more hours in the rocking chair singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow, playing with your little stuffed giraffe, and counting the stars on your ceiling above the crib? Can’t I just have one more day with you strapped to my chest, sleeping peacefully as we buy groceries? Just one more ride back from the park sweaty and exhausted, sipping your little juicebox, knee propped in the carseat while you play with your shoelaces and try not to drift off to sleep? Even just another two-year-old cuddle reading Brown Bear, Brown Bear, before you knew how to read all the words?

Everyone warns you, to the point of annoyance, how fast time flies when you have children. It’s almost one of those polite conversation fillers when people aren’t sure what else to say to new parents. There is never enough genuine sentiment expressed because it’s just impossible to understand until you experience it yourself. It feels like yesterday I was checking off “Baby Lists” and picking out zoo themed gear, and here he is more than halfway to a decade old, talking obsessively about traveling to the moon “when he’s twenty” and spending already too much free time with friends instead of under mama’s feet. I’ve become “Mommy” this year when addressing me to his classmates, although that wide-eyed grin when I pick him up from school always lets a “Mama!” slip by most days.

Not a year has gone by that I have been able to get through the ‘Happy Birthday’ verse with dry eyes. (Although I think we can ALL agree my cakes have improved since that Snakes, Snails, & Puppy Dog Tails sprinkle overload disaster. I mean, really.) Every single time we blow out the candles, you can find me dodging the cameras and trying my hardest to keep it together. I know it’s a celebration, and I understand how overjoyed he is to have cake and presents, but it’s not fair! I want to scream and cry and stomp my feet. Why do you have to grow older? Why is everyone so happy about this? Can’t you all see that someone replaced my bouncing bundle of giggles with this smart, independent child without even asking my permission? Stop clapping and cheering and let me selfishly sob my eyes out already.

“But you say I’ll always be your baby boy, Mama. Even when I’m 13?” he asks me cuddled in my bed when he can’t sleep. “No sweetheart, even when you’re 113. You’ll always be my baby boy.” And he sighs and squeezes me tighter.

Somewhere in the daily grind of breakfast, drive, clean, work, lunch, nap, homework, bath, bed, rinse, repeat – this feeling is often lost, but the most important to remember. In a few years, the frustration to help find and buckle shoes will be gone. The late-night set of footsteps in the hall and voice asking to help find stuffed animals who fell under the bed – will not exist. Even the relentless questions and ever present piles of clothes and toys will be missed. There won’t be sticky fingerprints on my laptop, and I won’t find random bags of goldfish under my bed pillows.

And maybe then, I’ll find time to make that quilt. Hell, maybe I’ll have time to learn how to even sew at all. Or maybe I’ll just travel the world and visit my beautiful grandchildren, if I am so lucky to have them. But in the meantime, that guilt, and all the other forms of it – can stay exactly where it is on the top shelf of a closet. Because time spent is all that matters. And I feel like I’ve already missed so much of it, waiting for some distant moment in the future when we are supposed to begin to live. I have a feeling when he is turning fifteen, I will miss him being a kindergartener just as much. So I’ll try my best to embrace that although my big-brown eyed tot is all grown up, he’s still got a ways to go. I can’t ask for the growing to stop, I know – all I can pray for is that the years come slow and sweet like honey.

Here’s to being six, and being here to witness what it’s like while it lasts.

The post Please Stop Growing Up appeared first on Josi Denise.

“Is there something about me, that if other people know it or see it, that I won’t be worthy of connection?”

Brené Brown, a research professor whose TED talk about the power of vulnerability has been viewed over 25 million times, spent a decade studying vulnerability, courage, authenticity, and shame.

Connection, she says, is why we are here. It’s the essence of being human and what we all crave.

Curiously enough, I stumbled upon her words this past weekend trying to escape all the notifications blowing up my phone.

Connection. Community. Tribe.

How many times had I seen these vague terms tossed about in praise of an industry whose victims I somewhat accidentally attacked?

In fact, it was the number one criticism I received. The only rebuttal, and one that I couldn’t quite grasp. I sat cross-legged in my office chair and poured over dozens of blogs defending their livelihood and repeatedly insisting that my words did not strike a nerve. At one point, I wondered aloud what the hell I was looking for, and why I was so fascinated by these women.

I desperately wanted to hear why I was wrong.

I read post after post claiming I wrote intentionally sensationalist clickbait before storming off the internet in a fit of rage, and that I’d earned my fifteen seconds of fame through a hateful and profanity-laced rant using stereotypes to my advantage. I read post after post admitting that I had made valid points, that the vile and inauthentic world I had described does exist, but to clarify – “not here, not on my blog, not in my tribe of women who write blogs like mine.”

They felt sorry for me, that I had not found that connection. They felt disbelief, that I could betray such a community. They felt a collective disappointment, that I had not delivered my message in a more uplifting tone. They felt fear for me, that I had burnt so many bridges I’d never be hired again. They felt pity that I had, in their eyes, alienated myself from my biggest audience.

They assumed there must be something wrong with me. I must have more going on in my personal life than meets the eye. I must be such a miserable person who chose a miserable path. I must be hurting and lashing out. I must be so insecure and unhappy.

…This is why you should not write when you are sad or mad. This is why you should sleep on it. This is why I write with exclamation marks. This is why I choose to share only the happy parts of our life, and I’m okay with that. We all have things we want to write about, but we can’t, because the reality is that dirty laundry doesn’t belong on the internet….

I was confused reading these labels and explanations strangers had offered on my behalf. I am none of these things. I am happier and more confident in my personal life than I ever have been. In my darkest days, a couple of years ago when my life was a perfectly curated lie, I would have never been able to speak so raw and without fear of being hurt more than I already was inside. And I didn’t feel a gaping hole in my chest, so maybe something was wrong with me that I didn’t have this deep yearning for belonging in their community? I guess at one point I was searching for that though, because after all I did start a blog about my life as a mother, just like they did.

But I became a cautionary tale.

I wrote something real, and unfiltered, and that’s not allowed. If you do that, you’ll never find this empowering connection that these women talk so much about with their lists of ten reasons to ignore me and continue on exactly as they are. This sense of belonging in a community that I apparently was never #blessed enough to experience in fruition, and yet seems to be the only ethical and acceptable driving force behind a mother wanting to start a blog.

I still wish someone could have told me why I was wrong about the monetized industry that is “mommy blogging”. I wish there was hard data on the positive impact native advertising is having on society. I wish there was proof that influencer marketing truly is “stealing dollars” from traditional media, changing the world in the process, and that it’s not a bubble waiting to pop. I wish that the mothers trapped on the inside could hear themselves and see that corporations are taking advantage of them, rather than defending their authentic belief in the products they’ve chosen to promote and share.

For the record, this is the last time I’ll write about this topic here. I have no intentions of beginning a career out of marketing to bloggers or riding this media horse into the sunset happily ever after. There are plenty more stories to be told, and contrary to popular belief at the moment, I do believe that having a voice is a responsibility.

I only have this left to say:

I understand. 

I have been there, feeling alone and questioning whether what I contribute as a woman and mother to our society, is enough. I understand that by writing a blog, there is a hope for connection and to belong in a community. 

I heard you.

I understand that my words may have hurt others, but I beg you to ask yourself why. 

I know that when you tell a story about your life, you always end it with a smile on your face because you think it demonstrates strength. I know that you want to be an inspiration to others, and show that no matter what curveballs are thrown your way, that you’re able to put a positive spin on the situation and share how it all worked out eventually.

You aren’t liars, and you may not be intentionally inauthentic. But you aren’t doing yourself any favors.

Believe that what makes you vulnerable makes you beautiful.

In Brené Brown’s talk about her extensive studies on human connection, she found that people who have a sense of worthiness (the wholehearted, she calls them) only share one common trait. They simply believe that they are worthy of love and belonging, because they embrace vulnerability as neither comfortable or excruciating, but just necessary.

“Vulnerability is kind of the core of shame and fear and our struggle for worthiness, but it appears that it is also the birthplace of joy, of creativity, of belonging, of love.”

If connection is why we are here, then vulnerability is how we find it.

When we attempt to numb vulnerability, we numb everything. When we attempt to select emotions, to pick out the bad parts and say “I don’t want to feel these anymore”, we fall into a dangerous cycle. When we are afraid – we try to perfect and pretend, and therefore we are never really being seen. When we attempt to block out the dark, to highlight only the sunny and cheerful, we will forever be seeking genuine connection.

“When you lose your capacity to care what other people think, you’ve lost your ability to connect. But when you’re defined by it, you’ve lost your ability to be vulnerable.” – Brené Brown

I am not saying that I don’t care what you think. But I refuse to be defined by it.

To be vulnerable is to say “I am alive, and I am enough.” I am comfortable with all my messy, raw, dirty-laundry, hormonal, imperfect, profanity-laced ups and downs. I am comfortable with my past and how it has shaped me. I am comfortable with the way that I write, as it is the way that I think. I don’t feel that emptiness inside causing me to hope for a place to belong, the need that draws so many women in and causes them to defend their “community” of blogging. Because I am comfortable with vulnerability, and therefore I already instinctively know I am worthy of love and belonging.

I am human, and I am wholehearted.

But I promise you, it hasn’t always been this way.

There is power in vulnerability, in putting ourselves out there, and letting ourselves be deeply seen. Not without fear, not without introspection, not without hurt feelings – but without apology.

The post Apology appeared first on Josi Denise.

something about pregnancy makes me quiet.

like, write in all lowercase letters, speak in all whispers, disappear for months kind of quiet.

obviously.

at the same time, it makes me fierce.

nine months since I’ve had whiskey on my lips, the burn of smoke twirling from my lungs into cold air.

three months since I’ve hit publish.

one year since the bruises covering my face faded and I flew thirty thousand feet above salt water.

one month I’ve been staring at the contract on my desk telling me I have stories to tell.

forty eight weeks of sound sleep next to the heart that beats like mine.

and the tiny heart we created, that beats inside.

we nervously watched it flicker on so many black and white screens, breath held with hope for proper mechanics.

just a few days left. hours maybe.

i wish i could bottle up this wisdom of silence, label this patience, and keep it on a shelf for a rainy day.

i can’t, but I won’t need it anyway.

new life is healing. it destroys what was, and brings what will be.

it transforms what we find beautiful.

the quiet is healing. it’s not a nervous quiet. it’s not a socially anxious hibernation.

it’s a calm stillness that absorbs, takes in the energy of the world.

abstaining from vices, listening to the hands tick on the clock.

it teaches me to say “I don’t owe you an explanation.”

i am in control of what I share with others, and why I choose to do so.

it strongly demands, in a consuming way, that i be fully alive and present in this body.

biological feminism. not lost in my mind, not maintaining an image, not proving any points.

just here, with raw purpose and nothing to hide.

full breasts soon to be dripping with milk,

veins pulsing with my lover’s DNA.

nerves firing off chemical reactions we don’t quite understand,

skin stretched in a way that will leave plenty of proof.

a soft reminder, in every moment, that this is what’s important.

The post Quiet appeared first on Josi Denise.

True, you can’t press a flower as a keepsake between two blog pages.

You can’t accidentally splatter coffee on them, or watch saltwater drops spread across words if you cry.

You can’t stumble upon emails at the bottom of a box like a folded note covered in heart shaped ink.

What I write here has little proof. No tangible evidence that I existed, I was relatable. I was loved, or hated.

I don’t need it.

Without proof, without hundreds of likes on social media, without a picture…

We are not lost.

Two weeks ago, I was shaking uncontrollably in the arms of a man I trust with my life. My white knuckles told his shoulder blades all about the most excruciating pain I’ve ever felt, and his breath told me to be still for just a little longer. His collar bone absorbed my screams, his t-shirt my tears.

What must have been running through such a mind, holding a woman birthing his child, all control lost.

No matter how many thousands of words are spoken by the photographs we have, I am thankful this moment wasn’t captured.

It is my favorite. I never have to forget how it felt, because there is no film strip to erase and rewrite the image burnt in my head.

I was loved. And I was alive. And I am here.

[Charles Benjamin was born September 5th, 2016 at a healthy 8lbs 4oz and 20 inches.]

The post Bookmark Baby appeared first on Josi Denise.

[trigger warning]

These goddamn photos. August 9, 2015.

You know that feeling when your mouth starts to salivate right before you vomit?

This girl’s eyes look fucking dead. I make eye contact with her, and I want her to look away. She just keeps staring.

It chills me, like a cautionary tale of what could have been.

I remember imagining the headlines that would have spread across social media. Imagining what everyone who never really knew me would’ve said.

‘They seemed like such a happy family.’

But these goddamn photos. They didn’t make it on to Instagram. No nashville filter and doubletapped hearts.

I hate everything about myself in these. My stringy, brassy bleach blonde hair. My pale, sickly skin from months of medicating self-destructing with xanax and vodka. My blonde eyelashes that make me look 14 years old and couldn’t be covered with mascara for sake of evidence.  My doughy chin showing the extra weight I’d gained from stress and an unwanted pregnancy. My chapped, thin lips pressed tight in front of the teeth I was always clenching.

I do see the bruises. I see my nose, not quite my nose, swollen and crooked. I see the broken blood vessels spreading towards my purple cheekbone.

I see these things I should hate more than my natural appearance. I see more than you could possibly know just from looking at these photos. I hear years of words cutting like knives. I hear myself screaming. I see a shell of the intelligent, beautiful creature I expect to see behind those eyes.

But I loved him.

I hear your sigh. And I know that doesn’t make sense, unless you’ve been this girl.

Contrary to popular belief, time doesn’t heal. Time dulls the sharp edges. Time clarifies the things that were too blurry in the moment. Time fades fear.

I’ve held onto time and distance for 365 days, like a child to her favorite blanket. September 27, 2015. Sixteen more hours in my little sister’s car, three kids safe and sound. The rush of hitting the gas pedal on I-95 heading out of Miami for the last time.

Months and months of waiting for the storm to pass, waiting for everyone to forget and quietly accept.

This, of course, was a lifetime ago already.

I am fucking happy. I made tough choices and monumental changes and my life is perfectly mundane and mostly wonderful now. I can sweep this shit under the rug and move on and pretend the past is irrelevant and he is dead and gone.

But these photos haunt me. They remind me that I need to use my voice. They remind me that the past decade actually happened.

They remind me that although I’ve picked up all the puzzle pieces, there are a handful at the bottom of the box that will never fit here. There are just as many pieces I left behind, and gaping holes in the picture.

I loved someone enough to try, and keep trying. I loved someone enough to carry around three little humans and years of everlasting hope. I loved someone enough to want to save him from his vices and throw him my own lifejacket when he was drowning in a sea of his own fucking lies.

I loved someone enough to let him nearly destroy me.

And I loved myself enough to leave.

The post But I Loved Him appeared first on Josi Denise.

//Words

My next door neighbors have a pig.

Well, they had a pig. And then that pig got sick and died, and they got a new mini pig, according to my five year old daughter who is more social than I am and has conversations with neighbors and doesn’t yet avoid midwestern small talk like the plague.

All I know is that when I escape to my porch throughout the day for coffee and a cigarette, that little fucker squeals and I’m never sure if it’s the baby I thought was sleeping or the toddler I thought was watching that new Disney movie on netflix about conspiracy theories and mildly racist anthropomorphic animals for the 200th time.

Also, let’s clarify that I do not live on a farm. There is no logical or legal reason, but I’m gonna blame Mike Pence. Because he seems to be an advocate for such creatures.

So, anyway, now you know about my mini pig problem. Thanks, internet. I feel better.

While we’re at it, other things I’m currently struggling with:

• sleep with a five week old human in the house
• replying to emails
• the number on the bathroom scale vs. the number on my clothes tags
• laundry that I sorted into piles on the kitchen floor with good intentions
• trump signs in trailer park yards and the fact that I moved back to the bible belt
• the number of stupid people I follow on twitter
• trying to cook anything that isn’t frozen or prepackaged
• procrastinating making a dentist appointment
• how to fit 48 hours into 24 every single day
• having too many ideas and not executing any of them because adhd and fear of imperfection

This year, I’ve thought a lot about what it means to have a blog.

I spent January through April hating sponsored post obligations and fighting my inner rebel telling me to do something better with my time. In May, I wrote about hating mommy blogs and quitting mine, and I had national television producers blowing up my inbox and calling my friends and family. In June, I was bouncing emails back and forth with a handful of major publications wanting me to write for them. By July, I’d signed a contract with a management agency to put my writing in print. Which is laughable, since I have to actually write something in order to print and sell it in the form of a book.

Today, right about now actually, I’m supposed to be flying to Atlanta and checking into a swanky hotel to be showered the rest of the week with sponsored gifts and hashtag-ready dinners. Towards the end of summer, I was asked to speak at the Social Influencer Travel Summit on the topic of authenticity in writing. A few days before I gave birth in September, I cancelled the trip and declined the invitation. Shortly after that, they thought it was cute to remind everyone how drunk I got last year on all their free booze.

At the end of last month, I shared some photos I hate and some vague tip of the iceberg details testing the waters. I had to stare at that post for hours wondering the same question that he asked me along with threats and pleas to take it down – why share this? But that’s what happens when someone invades your mind and their voice becomes a resident in your thoughts. You question yourself. I try to read your messages thanking me. I try to let it sink in when you tell me you’re inspired or crying over my words. I try to comprehend all the emails I’ve received urging me to please. keep. writing. 

The past few weeks I’ve stared at the bookshelves in our living room for hours while rocking the baby, wondering whether what I have to say is worth it. I could fill page after page, but then there’s no turning back.

So, baby steps. I’m here now. We’ll see what happens next.

//Whatnot

• that time I said fuck it to Facebook marketing and asked everyone to just be my friend instead. add me. 
• this death cab video about how to get started in life is fucking everything
• $20 and 3 hours = what I spent this weekend buying a “scarecrow family” and planting evergreen bushes for fall. being an adult is stupid.
• fuck baby spider nests
• last Saturday a cell phone fell from a fall festival ride and hit my son in the arm in the middle of a large crowd and it was panicky af and I wondered if they sell bubbles we could grow children in instead of the real world
• the girl on the train aka the book on my end table that I still haven’t found time to read
• whatever kind of day you’re having at least someone didn’t just vomit down your back into your shoe as you’re walking out the door, which is more than I can say about my afternoon

xoxo, Josi

The post Words and Whatnot appeared first on Josi Denise.

Soft grey light right before sunrise, and waking up to you in our bed. I don’t mind that I can’t sleep.

I couldn’t dream a better picture than you, with your chest rising and falling slowly and your eyes hiding behind those lashes. Strong hands resting on the pillow, the contrast of your dark beard and lush lips.

I want to run my fingers through your hair but you look so peaceful. I want to curl up into your arms and listen to you breathe me in, instinctively pulling me closer in your sleep.

I want to kiss the skin on your neck that isn’t covered by the blanket, and climb on top of you to feel you harden between my legs as you wake. I want to feel you inside of me, replaying last night with the warm glow of 6AM illuminating our bodies.

Instead I watch until you stretch, your muscles flexing across your back as you breath deep and let out a low growl.

I want things to be this way forever.

The post Morning appeared first on Josi Denise.

I am not afraid of the dark.

I know you are.

I see it in your eyes, watching me. I hear the caution in your voice, asking me how my day went.

You are afraid of this darkness.

I wish I could be like you. Stable, patient, focused. I wish I could trust my own mind.

I wish I could control it instead of relying on vices and getting lost in things that seduce.

I know I’m not broken. I know I can write my way out.

It hurts, though. Fuck it hurts. And it’s frustrating.

Like trying to read fine print without glasses, trying to hear the lyrics when the radio is just barely on.

That half asleep dream-like state where everything is so real, but you can’t speak. You can’t move.

The world is the same, but not at all. Instead, it’s dark.

Like a wave of deep grey, I know it’s powerful. It will pull you under.

Make no mistake, I will pull you under.

But for me, it’s all temporary.

The lights will come back on. Like flipping a switch, the circuits behind my eyes will spark and then, glow.

Like a butterfly in a chrysalis, I will wake up in the morning, maybe tomorrow, and be ready for what’s next.

The darkness swallows, then it fades. And the aftermath is almost always beautiful.

When everything is overwhelming, eventually you stop feeling. When you can feel again, even drinking in the air feels like ecstasy. When everything is blurry, eventually you stop trying to think. When you can see clearly again, every thought is like magic. I trust that when I take that last breath, I will come back up for another.

Without these underwater days, without the uncomfortable, there is no creativity. Without pain, there is no beauty.

I am not broken. I am human.

I know this to be true. So I am not afraid of the dark.

I am only thankful, for your fingers laced between mine, and your bravery to follow me into it.

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We are drowning in stuff, and we know Santa Claus isn’t real. 

The alarm goes off, the baby cries, the toddler is yelling for milk, the school kids need help brushing their hair. I steal a couple moments between helping everyone who instantly needs me, and I throw on whatever clean clothes made it onto hangers this week. I sneak out to the porch for coffee and think of all the things I could do today.

I need to write. I want to work. I want to be creative. I want to help people. I want to tell stories. I want to do more with my time. I want to enjoy what I do.

I want to spend my weekends cuddled on the couch with our children, who all have trimmed fingernails and clean pajamas. I want to sit through an entire movie instead of matching socks at the same time, and nuzzle the sweet smelling hair of our toddler who isn’t covered in lollipop stickiness. I want to cheerfully agree to read books at bedtime, in beds with clean sheets and a couple of stuffed animals, and put the books back on shelves where they belong. I want to cook healthy meals for our family, and sit down after a day of rewarding work to real plates and real silverware and not a single component of our meal previously frozen. I want to turn off the kitchen lights after the kids go to bed, with the dishwasher swishing and clean coffee cups set out for the morning. I want to spend time with my love by the tree, all dazzling with lights that we pulled out of red and green storage boxes and strung across the branches without a bit of stress.

I want to enjoy the holidays. I want to enjoy winter. I want our children to grow up with memories of late night snowfalls and early morning hot chocolate and nothing but giggles.

//I want my children to appreciate the value of presence more than the value of presents. 

And the honest truth? I am never present.

I can’t be, because I am the manager of stuff. I am the keeper of stuff, and the organizer of stuff. I am the sorter of stuff, and the fixer of stuff. I open the stuff, I assemble the stuff. I put the stuff away. I pick the stuff up. I clean the stuff. I evaluate how much we need the stuff. I find a place for the stuff. I donate the extra stuff. I read the tags and labels on stuff and decide whether the stuff will work for us. I even buy some stuff. But mostly, I am just drowning in stuff.

We are a culture obsessed with stuff. This stuff is going to be on sale. This stuff is wrapped in pretty bows. This stuff will make kids smile. This stuff will fit in our budget. What kind of stuff should we get for our extended family members? I wonder what kind of stuff they will get for us. Oh look, more stuff. This aisle is full of clearance stuff, and I could really use this stuff. This stuff is so pretty. This stuff is a limited time offer. This stuff needs to come home with us. This stuff will express how much I care about someone when I give it to them.

We gift each other stuff, and we watch our bank accounts drain, and we open the stuff, and we smile politely about the stuff. Maybe we get genuinely excited about the stuff, and we watch the children’s eyes light up when they open their stuff.

What kind of ungrateful parent would complain about free stuff when it’s so hard to raise four kids anyway? Who the hell does she think she is, not letting her poor children enjoy a few more new toys? What kind of mother is she anyway?

//I am that mother. We are drowning in stuff, and we know Santa Claus isn’t real. 

We are not religious. Maybe because I am not a regular church goer, or maybe because I have common sense, but I fail to understand the connection between the birth of a savior and waiting in line for a good deal on a new 59″ tv. I can’t comprehend the point. And I certainly don’t understand how it’s benefitting my children to believe a fat bearded man in a suit is bringing the gifts we work hard to buy for them.

This year, we told our kids that the Easter bunny doesn’t exist. Within a couple of weeks, they will not believe in Santa either. Because I am going to tell them he isn’t real. Because he isn’t.

If my children are disappointed and enjoy the holidays less, then I will know that they had the wrong idea of what we are celebrating in the first place. I will reinforce the importance of family and rejoicing in the change of seasons.

//So this is my plea. 

First, I am asking you to understand we are not ungrateful. In fact, I am begging you to evaluate what it means to you to be thankful, and ask yourself what you believe the best way to instill that thankfulness in the younger generations.

How do we teach our children to be grateful?

Last year, I moved across the country with my three children and a car load of belongings. A truck followed us with our keepsake boxes and necessary furniture. We kept our favorite toys and clothes. We had very little. But for an entire month my children played outside in the fall leaves instead of on their iPads.

Everyone was so excited to buy them gifts for their first year in my hometown. Add to that everyone’s good intentions to give what they could since we had been in such a disadvantaged situation. The aftermath of our holiday season culminated in a pile of toys that literally swallowed our living room. It took us countless hours, and several emotional meltdowns, to dig our way out.

Nevermind the fact that this took us until April to get around to, in a house that I already wanted to find time to redecorate. We lived for months in clutter, unable to play with most things buried and lost in the noise, unable to paint or put in new flooring or renovate anything without first decluttering, unable to enjoy our home.

Half of the toys we donated were unopened. Not because I didn’t let them play with things. Not because I am a control freak that demands things are minimal and clean all day every day. But because there is simply not enough time or space for the amount of stuff in our life and home. 

I know I am not alone in this. Even if you teach your children to believe in Santa and you fully embrace Christmas with religious meaning or not, I know that everyone is overcome with stress and guilt during the holiday season. I know that many struggle wondering where the money will come from to give their children a good Christmas. Because how can they go to school and listen to their friends talk about the mountains of gifts they unwrapped, feeling like they have less? We tell them to be good all year, and they will be rewarded with gifts.

If they receive less presents than their classmates, does that mean they aren’t good enough?

If we give them less presents and spend less money, does that mean we aren’t good enough?

//We are sending the wrong message. 

The point of playing with toys is to develop skills and encourage creativity, so that children can better navigate their world as they grow. They are items of comfort or joy that children can rely on to entertain and occupy them. How can toys serve their purpose when they are overflowing from boxes, and children are too overwhelmed by the volume of stuff to choose which toy to play with? They don’t. They get neglected, and children become blind to the clutter, so they instantly gravitate towards screens that will instantly stimulate them without fail.

So do we buy a bigger house to comfortably contain all the toys our children are lucky enough to own? Spend a few more Saturdays installing extra shelves to house the gifts we receive?

There has to be a better answer. It wasn’t always like this. I am tired of wasting my life on stuff. 

Do you know what I really want for Christmas? I want time.

I want time with my children. I want time to enjoy my passions and pursue my dreams, that doesn’t get pushed back because I had to do the dishes that didn’t get done the day before because I was searching for school clothes before bedtime in a rush because I didn’t have time to do laundry because I was trying to clean the house and couldn’t find a place to put everything because I haven’t found time to sort through clothes and get winter wardrobes ready. [breath]

I want time to myself when I should have it. I want to not spend hours of my days each week running extra stuff that doesn’t fit or isn’t played with to goodwill. I have a folding table set up in my kitchen right now that’s loaded up with eight bags of baby clothes that need to be sorted into drawers, but those drawers first need to be emptied and the clothes in the drawers need to be sorted by size and keepsake and hand-me-downs. And I can’t even think about doing any of that until I finish tracking down all the stray candy wrappers left over from the overconsumption that was Halloween.

I want time to sit and play in the kids rooms each day without the pickup game of goldfish crumbs mixed into toy trains and blocks and that missing shoe that made us late out the door this morning. I want to not feel constantly behind, like surely there are other people out there who have things more together. If I could just organize a little neater, if I could just discipline the kids and keep up with a chore chart, if I could just have a little more childcare, if I just use paper plates, if I just tried a little harder. If I just had more hours in the day, if I just had more energy.

It’s taken me awhile to pinpoint why I am never caught up. Why it feels like I just finally got the house in order and a day later it’s chaos. Why there is a looming stress of knowing the next month needs to be spent purging old toys and clothes to make room for new stuff, buying new stuff for others, and then in the spring, reevaluating which new stuff needs to stay before we do it all again.

And I’ve realized it’s not me. And if you’re relating to everything I just wrote, then please know – it’s not you either. It’s not our fault.

We just have too much. Our culture is obsessed with consumerism and it dominates our days. I don’t want the holidays to be like this. I don’t want our every day life to be like this.

I want to not be the manager of stuff. I want to not be drowning in stuff. I want the kids to appreciate what we work hard for, and I want them to be content. I want them to be genuinely thankful for thoughtful gifts.

I want, like most people I believe, to enjoy winter more and stress less.

I want to be present. 

//A new guide to gift giving.

What if we looked forward to the holiday season with excitement and cheer? What if we anxiously awaited the upcoming days where we load our cars full of children and covered dishes, leaving each celebration with a sense of peace and love rather than a trunk full of new toys and an exhaustion that won’t be cured until January? What if we could catch up on the stuff in our house every day, rather than constantly picking up and washing and sorting and finding a place for stuff under the bed or in the garage?

None of this is fun anymore. Nobody looks forward to mediocre ham and pie with relatives when our bank accounts are drained and we are numb from the past two months of listening to Jingle Bells in Walmart, trying to pick out a $10 boxed gift set for everyone on your list without looking cheap or thoughtless. Children are overwhelmed by piles of wrapping paper and flashing lights and noises on toys they will play with for a day or two at most. Roads are jammed with traffic and malls are open late and Thanksgiving dinners are cut short so that we can buy even more stuff.

Can we just stop? I understand that what I’m saying may anger some, and I am not trying to kill the excitement of grandparents and extended relatives and friends who love wrapping dozens of presents with pretty ribbons and showering little ones they don’t see too often. I am not suggesting we end gift giving altogether. I am writing this not because I want to sound ungrateful or because I want to hurt anyone’s feelings. It’s just that I know I’m not the only one who feels this way, more and more every year. As a mother, I want to enjoy the holidays, instilling a deeper meaning of thankfulness in my babies. I want to enjoy the smiles on their faces without knowing my next week will be spent breaking down cardboard boxes and tripping over piles of gifts that there simply isn’t enough time or space to fully appreciate.

So if you are buying a gift, please ask yourself a few things.

• Will it add meaningful value to this person’s life? Will it truly make this child happy, or is it just temporarily making me feel good to be able to give it to them?
• Will it be something that encourages creativity and education?
• Will it allow the family to bond? Will it be a time intensive activity requiring full involvement of  the parent whose time is already stretched thin?
• Will it be worth the money you worked hard for to save and spend? Will the child remember this gift in 5 years?

Depending on your answers, please think before you purchase something. Understand that at least on a personal note, our family will not be offended if you do not buy the children gifts. We do not expect them, and in fact, we really kind of don’t want them. We might just donate them actually, and feel absolutely guilty when it happens because we never had the time or space to enjoy what you gave us.

Can we please just avoid all that and enjoy some time together while you save your money and I save my time? Can we collectively teach our young humans to value people over things?

//Think outside the box. 

If you’d still like to buy a gift, here are some ideas that reinvigorate the holiday spirit without driving parents batshit crazy.

• Memberships or passes. Local zoos, children’s museums, science museums, nature clubs, water parks, family gyms. All of these things offer annual or seasonal passes that can be gifts families are able to enjoy together.
• Books and media gift cards. I do not believe you can have too many books. A trip to the bookstore or being able to download a family movie is far more enjoyable than cleaning up colored sand art from a child’s floor. Even $5 to pick out their own book or to save to put towards a bigger purchase is a gift that allows for a fun experience and educational entertainment.
• Gift cards in general. A gift card to a movie theater, which is a splurge that a lot of parents often can’t justify, allows a child to have a fun time and create a memory. There’s no rush to use gift cards right away, so parents (and kids) aren’t overwhelmed by the amount of exciting gifts they received all at once. They might not use a gift card until March, and they will still be appreciative of your thoughtfulness months later when they do.
• Subscriptions. Whether it’s a magazine (NatGeo Kids, Highlights For Children, TIME for kids, Kids Discover) or a monthly subscription box, this will be a gift that a child can enjoy all year long. Also, have you ever seen how excited a kid gets when they receive mail? Seriously.
• Practical gifts. I know, these aren’t fun. But only in comparison to bright shiny new toys under the tree. In any other situation, kids can and do get excited about having new bedsheets or shoes or clothes. Just make sure you’re asking the parents what they need and respecting that they may like to pick out their own style of things. Even a cute, personalized bath towel is a functional gift that kids will love and parents will already have a place for.
• Chip in for a big surprise. Get together with 10 family members and friends and put $250 towards a summer camp the child really wants to go to, or a play swing set they could have in their backyard, instead of shelling out $25 each on toys that won’t last.
• Bake. Do you remember being 10 years old? Did anyone ever give you a tin of cookies with only your name on them? Do you have a favorite memory baking with a family member? I guarantee if you let a child bake whatever kind of sweets they want and wrap them in a pretty box, they will be more excited than opening a toy. Snap a picture of the two of you in aprons, print it out and attach it to the cookie tin, instant cherished memory.
• Make a date. Give the child a “coupon” to come stay at your house for a fun weekend sleepover, or buy tickets to an upcoming event that you’ll enjoy with them one on one.
• Buy quality toys. I don’t mean you have to spend more money. I just mean that if you do buy toys, please try to value quality over quantity. Make it meaningful. If a child enjoys art, get them one really nice set of colored pencils instead of three different make-your-own-sequin-glitter-styrofoam-animal craft “art” kits.
• Charity. I know your inner-child is asking “Is she serious? No fun.” but hear me out. Children learn how to measure their worth and what value to place on things from us, even moreso during the holiday season. Donating to a family in need on behalf of a child can make them feel special. You’d be surprised how appreciative and generous most children can be if you explain how lucky they are to have what they do, and teach them to give their abundances to others. Look at it as gifting them a life lesson, one that can’t be bought in the pop up holiday store at the mall.

All of these ideas are equally applicable for adults in your life and can become meaningful gifts that feel good for both the giver and the receiver.

What if we could end the dread that creeps up your throat when you see the ornaments and stockings start popping up in stores each year? What if we took back the holiday season and bought only what is truly beautiful, useful, or loved?

What more could I accomplish without the never-ending responsibility of all the stuff in our life? What if we only gave gifts that sparked wonder and nurtured creativity, leaving lasting memories and a sense of connectedness vs. consumerism? What if I could spend my holiday break the way I want, enjoying my time with the children, rather than swimming upstream through a sea of stuff that invokes guilt and stress and honestly more work?

Could you give me that this year? Could my plea for change be heard so that I can have what I want for Christmas? Could everyone please think twice before they spend so much of their time buying useless, empty stuff that clutters our homes and minds and hearts?

Or, you know, I could just shut up and smile and spend the majority of December like everyone else, hustling from store to store to make sure everyone is checked off my list without breaking the budget just in time to exchange all our last-minute gifts and go home exhausted. Which is probably what will happen, whether I spent this entire post bitching or not.

Because, stuff. And so it begins.

Merry materialism 2016. 

The post Merry Materialism appeared first on Josi Denise.

There are too many words today. I feel the need to choose mine carefully.

There are also too many tears, but I don’t know how to limit those.

A rusty pickup truck rattles down the road, bumper stickers praising Jesus. It drowns out the speakers in the drive-through, spewing carbon dioxide like hate.

Sixteen year old me exchanges money for french fries, eyes glazed over across the empty parking lot beyond the window. A cross hanging from the rear view mirror sways back and forth, over and over in every car.

I dream of more.

I will spend the next decade, and a few extra years for good measure, running from home. I am a product of the Bible Belt. I am the result of Mike Pence’s ideal homeland. I was taught, fed by foodstamps with my pigtails and cowboy boots, that we could all be anything we wanted to be. Land of the free, home of the brave.

I was lied to. America failed me. Don’t you fucking dare tell me it didn’t.

We cannot be so many things.

It’s become clear, we cannot be equal. We cannot be respected. We cannot be accepted. We cannot be trusted with our bodies. We cannot be trusted with our choices of who to love, or how to live. We cannot be valued.

So it begs the question, why be here at all?

It hurts.

I’ve asked myself this question before. “Getting out of this town” is a common theme where I’m from. I’ve lived my entire life feeling like I do not belong, and trying to escape the black hole time-machine that is the rural midwest. I’ve even come full circle, as many have, moving home while trying to embrace the nostalgia of Americana through aesthetics and appreciation of roots.

I cannot embrace this America. I feel chewed up and spit out. I feel betrayed. I feel defeated.

But I am thankful today that I do not feel victorious. You see, I am the poster child for what happens when a generation is raised by bigots hiding behind a two thousand year old book. To me, this election feels as though my hometown gasped for air, opened wide, and swallowed the rest of the country in one disgusting gulp.

A new era, they call it, typing from their city offices, views overlooking a sea of people varying in color and culture. Unexpected, surprising, stunning, shocking.

It’s not.

It’s not new, it’s not surprising. This revolt has festered in the underbelly of the country for decades. We could overanalyze the causes for eternity, but we can’t undo what’s been done, so it doesn’t matter.

Part of our sorrow, I believe, is stemming from the fact that somewhere deep inside we saw this coming. We chose instead to live in a bubble. We took for granted the fights so many fought before us. In wanting to move forward so eagerly, to provide a safe country with emphasis on the pursuit of happiness, that we fell out of touch with reality.

To say there is nothing to fear now would be at best, irresponsible. But perhaps if we had been instilled with a healthy dose of fear from birth, we would not be where we are.

Our children may have had their fates decided today as future warriors for peace. Even still, we can’t prepare the path for the child, but the child for the path.

We must find a balance between what is and what we want to be, and pass that on as a gift. Our task now is not to wallow in misery and give up. We must first learn to accept the truth, and unfortunately that means mourning the loss of what we thought America was. And then, only after we have opened our eyes to the fact that hatred and racism and sexism are in fact a real part of our lives, we must stay.

We must try our best to understand why the hate is there, and to dissolve it. We must make it clear that in our America, everyone is welcome. We must not run. We must stay where we are, and we must show the world that love is louder than hate. We must not doubt this. We’ve been here before, and we’ve been through worse. We have got this.

It’s hard, but I promise you, we can take baby steps. Hold my hand, we’ll put one foot in front of the other.

You can’t fix this overnight, and neither can I.

What I can do, however, is teach you how to hope.

For I am living proof that we are not born with fear and hatred in our hearts. Like a flower that blossoms between cracks in the concrete, my mind and my heart are full of love and acceptance. I was raised by the very privileged, redneck resistance that proudly waved their flags this morning. I have struggled, and I have learned to swim against the tide, but somehow miraculously I have never been pulled under by the strong currents of criticism and discrimination that grows in “forgotten America” as abundant as genetically modified corn.

I still dream of more. 

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