awww & awe.

& it's november.
the month of gratitude.

i'm kicking it off with
three things i'm grateful for today:

1. the power of the internet to connect our world
with fabulous, fascinating & fun information,
especially via video.

2. this hilarious, poignant video of
a little birthday girl's extreme dedication & love
for her puppy pinata — just under two minutes of
awwwwwww:



3. this beautiful, spiritual video of
a murmuration of european starlings signaling the beginning of winter
above ireland's river shannon — just under two minutes of
awe:

Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.

& you're welcome. :)
so, what are you grateful for today? please share [videos welcome]!

say yes, say no.

so, i'm currently enrolled in & enjoying
a four-week telecourse with my dear friend,
author & life balance coach renée trudeau.

it's called a new way of being —
let go, embrace flow & love your life.

sounds amazing, yes? oh, yes.

yet, i'm realistic. i realize four hour-long conference calls,
a handful of emessages & a facebook group
aren't going to magically transform my life
or transport me into a new way of living it.

still, it's providing me with refreshed perspective,
some aha! insights, & many tasty concepts for my
spirit, intellect & psyche to chew on.

for example, during our latest class/call,
renée mentioned, as her new way of being,
things she was saying "yes" to
& others she was saying "no" to.

inspired, i put together my oui/non list du jour:

today, i say yes to
:: the fall weather front
:: morning minutes
:: following my gut for my girl
:: being softer & more structured simultaneously
:: pacing myself
:: a poncho-like sweater
:: a pedicure
:: approaching the holidays
:: three days of single parenthood
:: a glass of wine
:: scrapbooking
:: breathing
:: healing
:: abundance
:: love.

today, i say no to
:: humidity
:: contempt
:: hardness & harshness
:: resentment
:: scrambling to keep up
:: homework over sleep
:: mirror abuse
:: the why's of what's not working
:: worries about the past or the future
:: operating from fear.

so, what are you saying yes or no to today??


image source: newwayofbeing.net.

hello, monday. {linkup!}

i'm linking up with lisa leonard
to tell this monday hello!

hello, final week of october — you've been a monstrous month!

hello, slowly improving weather.
[hello, rain? please???]

hello, appreciation for great clients.
[hello, new projects? please???]

hello, prepping for a creepy critters party —
pumpkins & spiders & skulls [oh, my!].

hello, putting final touches on hallowe'en costumes.

hello, putting christmas[!] binder together.

hello, empowered ease, morning minutes, decluttering,
oprah's lifeclass & universal guidance.

hello, three days of single-parenthood.

hello, return to scrapbooking.

hello, dearest girlfriends.

hello, dad's 80th year.

hello, new day for libya.

hello, old right for americans to peaceably assemble.

hello, monday — it's gonna be a good week, dangit!!


so, what are you saying hello to today?

a teen mom.

a teen mom . . .
that's me.

not a mom who's a teen,
but as of today, a mom of a teen.

yep. big girl turns "lucky" 13 today.

& i don't like it.

not because we're already experiencing
a taste of teenage angst/attitude/hormones,
& realizing we're facing several years
of the same — & no doubt worse — ahead of us.

not because her growing up
means i'm growing old ... er.
[see "cruel irony of moms & daughters
going through 'the change' simultaneously."]

but because she's 13.
thirteen.

how is this possible

when she was just awakening us via baby monitor
with the sweetest little babbling sing-songs,
live from the crib at the crack of dawn,
bright & shiny as a penny in the brand new day?

when she was just riding in the front of the basket
& wowing the cashier at target
by answering the question about her favorite dinosaur
with "a pawathauwapholuth [parasaurapholus]"?

when she was just pressing her preschooler ear
to my big belly, "listening" to her little brother?
"does it sound like the ocean?" i wondered.
"it sounds like a little bird," she chirped.

how is this possible
when i was just feeling her
roll around in my round belly
yesterday?

i'm unnerved by how this occasion unravels me.

from seemingly nowhere, i'm reminded of
kahlil gibran's words of wisdom on children:

your children are not your children.
they are the sons & daughters of life's longing for itself.
they come through you, but not from you,
& though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

& i realize that until just about now,
i thought that poem was philosophically lovely,
but not really true.

i mean, of course she came from me —
look at her eyes, look at my stretch marks!
of course she belongs to me —
see how she needs me, see how i take care of her!

of course she is my child.
who else's??

today, i get it.

she has begun to shed the skin of being my child,
& today, i'm beginning to feel it.

what i'm feeling today are the first twinges of her
coming through me
into her own self.

& just like our first labor together,
i work to breathe through the pain.
breathe through to the other side.

welcome to the world,
my amazing, beautiful, brilliant, miraculous

teen girl.


image source: her & me, 11.98.

set your dvr!

in one week, american teenagers spend
31 hours watching television,
17 hours listening to music,
10 hours online,
4 hours reading magazines,
& 3 hours watching movies.

that's almost eleven hours a day of media consumption.

& the collective message our young women & men
overwhelmingly get through that media is that
a woman's value & power lie in her youth, beauty & sexuality.

the documentary miss representation
challenges the media's extremely limited & frequently demeaning portrayals
of women & girls,
& exposes how the media contributes to the under-representation
of women in positions of power & influence in america.

today, the u.s. is 90th worldwide for women
in national legislatures.
women hold only 3% of executive positions
in american mainstream media, while
65% of women & girls have eating disorders.

the oprah winfrey network [own]
will air miss representation
this thursday, october 20th, @ 8p CDT,
followed by the doc club with rosie o'donnell.

rosie will talk with the filmmaker,
jennifer siebel newsom, about her movie
& the call-to-action campaign seeking to
empower women & girls to
challenge limiting labels in order to
fulfill their real potential.

not sure it's worth your dvr space? watch the trailer:




image source: gatherr.com.

this i believe.

we think we are raising them,

but they are raising us,

teaching us new flight patterns

day by day,

& pushing us to be better

than we think we are.


~ gina ~



image source: eyeshoot photography@ etsy.com.

3 women 4 peace.

last week, the 2011 nobel peace prize
was awarded to three women
"for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women
& for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work."

liberian president ellen johnson sirleaf, 72,
is africa's first democratically elected woman president.
she accepted the presidency in 2005, following
almost 15 years of civil war & a quarter-million deaths in her nation.
known as "the iron lady," sirleaf holds a harvard university master's degree
in public administration & is up for reelection this year.

liberian peace warrior leymah gbowee, 39,
led her country's women to defy warlords,
their use of child soldiers & rape as "a toy of war."
she inspired a huge group of chirstian & muslim women
to stage a 2002 sex strike, refusing to engage with their husbands
until the violence of liberia's 14+-year civil war was over.
gbowee is the executive director of the women-focused peace-building organization
women peace & security network africa, & a mother of five.

yemen's arab spring activist tawakkul karman, 32,
leads the human rights organization women journalists without chains.
she has braved prison many times to fight for
women's rights, media freedoms & political prisoners' release,
& is a leader in the uprising against yemen's longtime president.
she has not left sanaa's change square, the center of demonstrations,
for four months, for fear of assassination by the president's gunmen.
karman is the youngest peace prize winner ever,
the first arab woman ever to receive the nobel & a mother of three.

the 2011 laureates bump the number of women winners
to a whopping 15 in the 110-year history of the nobel peace prize.
they're the first women to receive the honor since 2004,
when kenyan ecologist wangari maathai won.

the american foreign press called the choice
to award the peace prize to the trio of women's rights activists
"a celebration of women's growing empowerment
globally & especially in deeply conservative & tribal communities."

united nations chief ban ki-moon called it
"a testament to the power of women's leadership ...
& the vital role women play in the advancement of
peace & security, development & human rights."

united states president barack obama said,
"the[se] three women are all not only examples of
remarkable determination & spirit, but also a reminder that
when we we empower women around the world,
everyone is better off."