Sometimes, Melissa runs her legs. Sometimes, she runs her mouth.
This first video was created by Ben of Ben Does Life. He is from Arkansas and was overweight. He began running and managed to lose 120 pounds.
This is a guy who does Dexy’s Midnight Runners’s “Come on Eileen” with just violins.
I attempted to watch the Lunar eclipse but it was too cloudy in my town.
He got some sort of allergic reaction and bit the tip of his tail off. Well the skin off the tip of his tail. He was bleeding everywhere. IT was like a horror movie. He’s always been a little weird in that he would chase his tail and sometimes lightly bite it in a “I caught you” sort of way. This last week, however, he started growling at it and then he started biting it hard. Later, he came to sit in his usual place and his tail felt wet but I assumed he had knocked over the water bowl again. (he’s bad like that). Then when I went to the bathroom, it looked like I was at Carrie’s Prom.
It was scary! So much blood. Then I picked him up and looked at his tail and the tip was just blood. There was this little ball and then I watched as he BIT IT OFF!
Horror horror.
I took him to the vet and they said he had some allergic reaction. He got a shot and some antibiotics. If he keeps this up, they’re cutting his tail off.
I had never taken him outside so I was a little nervous about the whole thing. He cried and cried in his pet taxi as I carried him to the car. He cried a little bit more. He had pretty much calmed down by the time I got him to the vet. He didn’t hiss at the vet at all although it was very apparent he didn’t like getting his temperature taken. He meowed the most when they took him to another room without me to weigh him. He was all “meow meow meow” The vet nurse said my kitty had a nice talking voice and that he was the most talkative kitty she had ever seen.
Yeah he meows all the time. He recognizes his name and will usually meow in response to it if he’s not asleep or staring at a squirrel or another cat outside.
So he is better now and he is still snuggly wuggly. It may just be that he’s cold. He doesn’t really like his medicine but he doesn’t run away or try to beat me when I give him his drops. I found this new type of canned food that he adores. He eats it up so fast. It gives him the silent deadly farts from hades. ugh.
but my kitty is on his way to feeling better. (i hope. He really likes flailing his tail around).
When it comes to aspirations, it’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen. What’s your next step?
(Author: Scott Belsky)
I am a list maker. I make tons of lists and have tons of goals. Many of them are listed somewhere or other on this page.
The next step for me is to always overcome self doubt and just do something. More precisely, the next step is to just make a step. Any journey begins with one step. Any task can be broken down into a sequence of simple mini tasks. The goal is to squelch the naysayers whether they be inside your head or out in the world and just make that step.
December 12 – Body Integration
This year, when did you feel the most integrated with your body? Did you have a moment where there wasn’t mind and body, but simply a cohesive YOU, alive and present?
I have a confession. I don’t really have “Body integration.” You want me to prove it to you.
When I saw a picture of myself at the Women for Bloggers event, I screamed. I mean I knew I was overweight. I knew I was morbidly obese. I’m not proud of this and accept it as a flaw and am working to get healthier BUT I HAD NO IDEA THAT I LOOKED LIKE THAT!!!
It was disconcerting.
It was a wake up call.
Saturday, the Arkansas Women Bloggers hosted a lunch/mini-conference at Arkansas’s Museum of Discovery in Little Rock. It was during lunch time and so we got some yummy light lunch goodies with Petit Jean Meats, fancy bread, and cupcakes. CUPCAKES.
Cupcakes make everybody happy.
So we ate and I got to see a lot of my LRTweetup friends like Amy, Kerri, Sarabeth… okay I’ll stop too many too mention but I saw a lot of people I knew.
Latonya gave a talk on finding your voice through your blog. Her advice is to be yourself and keep writing. She said that no one else can be you better than you and that imitating someone else will only make you second rate. I thought for a minute all this talk about being yourself was going to end up with a big group hug. She mentioned that with practice you’ll figure things out. Yeah she said you were going to suck (okay she didn’t actually use the word “suck” or maybe she did) but she said that they might not be that good until you get your groove.
About this time, the phone rang and Katie McManners just picked up that phone and hung it up again. OH YES SHE DID. She does work at the Museum but I did have a good old laugh at the girl just barely picking up the receiver and hanging it up. Then they called back. She picked up the phone again and said “we’re busy”
Don’t mess with Miss McManners. She will cut you!
Speaking of cuts, she has a sassy new short hairdo.
Then Kyran from Plainting Dandelions spoke about building an audience and stats. More specifically, the numbers don’t always measure success. She did confess that a lot of people are interested in stat numbers (i.e. how many people read your blog) but that there are different ways to value your blog. She did mention that she managed to get a gig at Good Housekeeping and her memoirs are being published in 2011 based on her blog even though she ONLY! was getting 50 hits a day. (only 50 hits… okay.. hmmm… wait). She did point out that not all the positives of blogging are monetary: enjoying the process itself is a positive and the friends you meet via blogging is a positive.
There were also door prizes. No I didn’t win one. But they were pretty cool prizes. Honestly, I wasn’t aware of door prizes until after the speakers started and so I didn’t check out the shelves of prizes. I do know that there was a big ole HAM over there.
I met new people. I reconnected with .. err “old” people. It was a lot of fun.
Then I went Christmas shopping in Little Rock.
December 11 – 11 Things What are 11 things your life doesn’t need in 2011? How will you go about eliminating them? How will getting rid of these 11 things change your life? (Author: Sam Davidson)
December 10 – Wisdom Wisdom. What was the wisest decision you made this year, and how did it play out? (Author: Susannah Conway)
I had some big plans. I put them on hold in order to take care of myself for a while. My friend’s death really kicked me in the gut and I thought that staying here for a little while might be in my best year.
Sometimes, I think it is the wisest decision. Other times, I think it is my most foolish decision.
Prompt: Party. What social gathering rocked your socks off in 2010? Describe the people, music, food, drink, clothes, shenanigans.
(Author: Shauna Reid)
I’m not sure about rocking the socks but I did attend several parties this year. Each one rocked my socks off for one reason or another.
At one party, I met this guy who had so many overlaps in my career and academic interests overlapped so much that it was freaky. The next chapter in his life involved him doing something that I had always wanted to do. There’s nothing like meeting a mere mortal who is doing activities that constitute your wildest dream to inspire you to be a better person and just go for it. That experience knocked my socks off.
Another party that rocked my socks off was the Tweeties. Central Arkansas’s Twitter Community is so prolific that after a year, they decided they needed an awards show to celebrate all the twitter goodness coming out of the area. There was singing and dancing. There were blue feather boas and tiaras. Oh, and I literally fell down and broke my ass. Okay not literally breaking my ass but I did fall down on my butt. I actually hurt the hell out of my arm. It was out of commission for a good two weeks.
Tomorrow is a reception for Arkansas Women Bloggers. I am so down. This might be the party that ROCKS MY SOCKS clean OFF!!! I’ll let you know.
Think about what makes you different and what you do that lights people up. Reflect on all the things that make you different – you’ll find they’re what make you beautiful.
(Author: Karen Walrond
)
I’m always a little flummoxed by this types of posts because while I can guestimate on what makes me different, I’m not sure what makes me beautiful or beloved by other people. “Lights people up” I’m not a mind reader but here we go.
According to my friend Angela (RIP), I was different because I “really don’t care about race” when it comes to judging people. Surely that isn’t that special but since it was mentioned by someone else.
I’m pretty tall — Statuesque even.
I’m really curious about other cultures and ways of doing things. It’s part of the reason I have a travel bug.
I’ve lived in a wide variety of places and types of housing and had some pretty awesome jobs in my time.
I feel things from the top of my skull to the tips of my toes. I’m very passionate in that regard. Over the years, I’ve tried to keep a reign on that because sometimes it will get me in trouble.
I am a very loyal friend.
I used to be able to play piano beautifully. I’ve even made people cry before (in a good way, I was told). I haven’t played in a while so I’m not sure what I can do RIGHT NOW.
I have really thick hair with just the right amount of body to hold a curl. My stylists always get really happy about it. Then they end up thinning the hell out of it with thinning shears.
I’m not afraid of being silly.
But really, people are more alike than they are different. They want to be loved and respected. They want to feel useful and that they are not wasting their time. They want to have their existence validated.
December 7 – Community Prompt: Community. Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011? (Author: Cali Harris)
This year, I discovered community in a variety of places. I’ve found myself among a community of runners. The same people seem to run the same races every year and there’s a core group of people who seem to run the same races that I run. I also managed to rekindle old friendships and make new ones out of the death of my friend Angela: many high school classmates came back. Since her death, I have spent time with her family including her parents and her cousins. I’ve also managed to go to the tweetups in Little Rock and meet quite a few people there. I’m considered a “LRTWEETER” so there you go. That is not even counting the community of attorneys I have met over the past year. Community, like family or life even, is what you make of it.
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