Do over!

Wow, it's been a while since my last post, huh?  I really got around to doing that, didn't I?  The thing is, while it seems like I haven't been busy, I have, just not online, or at least not on my blog.  I have, in fact, pursued awesomeness.  For example, shortly after that post, I took a trip to Florida with my children to see about living there.  I had gone to several cities in Florida on a family vacation as a teenager and loved the city of St. Augustine the most (the other cities were St. Petersburg and Orlando).  On our trip, the only thing we did that was remotely vacationy is go to the beach, and they fell in love with it just like I did.  The rest of the trip was mainly to see about the cost of living there and checking out some motorcycle repair schools that my husband was interested in.

Since the kids were on board, the next step was to put our house in Oklahoma on the market, which we did.  It was ready to sell two weeks before the homebuyer's incentives expired.  We almost sold it during that two weeks, but we were runner up, and it took a while after that because the market slowed down, but we finally did sell our house in November 2010.  Then we moved into a rental while we looked for a home in Florida.  We endured another Oklahoma winter, another blizzard, and during the winter, I treated myself to a mommy makeover, got a breast lift/augmentation and a tummy tuck.  Then in March, my husband and I went to Florida to check out some homes.

We found one that we really liked and put an offer in on it.  It was supposed to be ours in a month, and it took 3 months, but we did get into it and we moved to Florida in June of 2011.  We have been here a year now and we really do like it.  It is such a treat to live just minutes from the ocean, and when I feel overwhelmed or need to be reminded of how small I am in the big scheme of things, a short drive down to the beach can center me quickly.  Our friends and family in Oklahoma say they had the mildest winter ever last year (figures), but we really enjoyed the last year.  We have met some really amazing people, the kids have settled in and my husband started motorcycle repair school in January of this year. 

Now that we have everyone settled, I'm pursuing another area of awesomeness that I had set to the side when I pursued the awesomeness of living where I'd always wanted, and that is my writing career.  It's easy to be overwhelmed by something if you look at where you are and where you want to be.  In hindsight, if I had just kept typing I could have blogged about my surgery or the process of selling my old house or buying my new one and it would have fit into my theme of pursuing what you loved perfectly.  Right now, transcription is still my day job, but pursuing my dreams is something that I'm focused on and I'm taking each day as a learning process.  You can always be a better version of yourself and we are all works in progress.  I can't change my past, but I can learn from it, and I look forward to my future.  Life is too short to spend it wishing you were someone or somewhere else.  Be the best you that you can be RIGHT NOW.

Introducing the Pursuit of Awesomeness!

Wouldn't it be awesome if women had their own real answer to Playboy...not something smutty but something with hot guys sprinkled with things that we really care about? I think most women WANT to be real Renaissance women...and be a little bit of everything to everybody. We have so many design shows, how to look better shows, watch the train wreck happen shows, how to be better parent shows, how to be better in general shows...what if we could combine all that in with some pictures of some hot naked guys! I was so frustrated when I bought my husband a subscription to Playboy, only to find out that Playgirl is no longer being published. WTF! This is just not right! So that was my frustration #1.

Frustration #2...Lifetime TV is NOT equal to Spike. Some of their movies are really cute, and I must say they seem to be moving in the right direction with the acquisition of Project Runway (SCORE!), but a lot of their movies focus on the awful things that women do to other women, or the victimization of women, which I think is just not right at all. There aren't any movies on Spike where guys are just victimized over and over. Guys don't want to watch this, they would think it is weak, and I don't know why women should have to watch it, either. And where is our EYE CANDY? Come on! Bring on Carter Oosterhouse, make him half-naked and have him fix up a house....or make super manny smoking HOT (but still straight!) and have him give advice...I'm just saying. They have questions, they've got MANSWERS and we have reruns of Will and Grace. Not fair!

Frustration #3...and I know a lot of guys and girls with this one...I am not doing what I believe I was put here to do. We all have our own talents and things that come easily to us, and I believe finding a way to showcase them and make money off of it is like the Holy Grail of Life. Obviously I am not going to become the female version of Hugh Hefner by working as a medical transcriptionist. I have done transcription for 12 years now, and it hasn't put me any closer to achieving any of the goals I set for myself, except maybe being able to stay at home with my kids and making some money on the side. Yes, that's awesome, but I lost track with who I am and who I want to be. And now that I'm getting older, I'm starting to feel like I wasted a WHOLE LOT of time!

So in answer to these frustrations, I've developed the Pursuit of Awesomeness, a blog about going from point A, lost and frustrated, to point B, happy and fulfilled...and it may take many forms, from a beauty product I've discovered that is super awesome and actually does what it says to advice I hope my kids will read and actually take to heart, to my transition from working class stiff to publishing guru!