IT's THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN

Today's Post is brought to you by my
TRUE CONFESSIONS

It was Halloween last night. I had a great time with my girlfriends. One of those moments where you look at yourself in the moment and you realize how truly blessed with amazing people your life really is. But with all of our fun and frivolity last night, I gotta be honest... I was a little grumpy. In fact, I was grumpy all day. I teach theater on Saturday's and I could even feel myself fighting off being grumpy with this class of funny teenagers whom I love!

It wasn't until I opened up about it to one of my friends that I actually pinpointed the source of my "ornery pants"... It was yet one more holiday I celebrated... SINGLE.

To my younger audience of women, I don't mean to exclude you here, but I remember those carefree days of my younger 20's when these types of thoughts never even crossed my mind, so you may or may not feel the weight of my next point but when I was getting my costume all put together I kept thinking...

"I don't want to dress up again and go to parties and flirt with dudes. I want to be at home with my husband and kids, making chili and getting the kids to settle down before we head out to trick or treat. I want to share these moments with them... my fictitious little family."

And now we are embarking on the best season of the whole year, the season where we focus on loved ones and family and laughter. I can't help but pay my respects to that small pang in my chest that calls out to the universe... PLEASE... don't let me be alone again this year.

So this week I have decided to focus all of my energies on finding hope in my future. Finding excitement in the things I am blessed to have this year. I have decided to prepare a veritable backpack full of positive energy NOW so that when Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Years hit, I am filled with the spirit of happiness and hope and joy. With or without someone special to share them with.

Ladies, I know I'm not alone out here in what feels like a wasteland of things hoped for and not seen... but you should know, I pray for you... I really do. I know it's hard and this time of year seems to bear down with a weight we must fight off. But we will do it and if you trust in our Father in Heaven, he will make this year a very merry one indeed.

HURRY UP!!

If I have never admitted to this before, I will do so now... I am an EXTREMELY impatient girl.

+ I know that I am certainly not even close to being (nor would I be expected to be) ready to date again... but sometimes I actually get impatient with myself that I am not ready yet.

Please don't ask me to explain this because all I can come up with at this point is this: I have been in the land of heartbreak before, I know it very well, I hate being here, I'm tired of purging and processing and cleansing and reminiscing and all of it... I don't want to do this. EVER. AGAIN.

At this stage in my game of life I am certainly so very impatient with having to STILL be in the land of the single. I have to sometimes actually fight off the urge to roll my eyes and scoff when I get invited to go with a bunch of people from my ward to a haunted house-- oh golly gosh I sure do hope that one guy comes because maybe when he, and the ONLY OTHER DUDE that came, get finished flirting with all 10 of the other girls in the group-- maybe just maybe he will have time to pay attention to me!!

Please forgive the sarcasm, I guess this is just a yuck mood today. JUST SO IMPATIENT that this is still where I am after 30 years of living and breathing and serving and flirting and dating and churching and munch and mingling... sitting alone on a Friday night, posting my negative feelings on a blog meant for positivity, because I just didn't want to go out tonight!

This would be a good time for me to stop, because I don't want this rave to undermine everything I said (and still feel very strongly about) in my last post. Or how I feel in general.

Life Really Is Good-- I just want it to be even better-- Like Right NOW!

PLEASE-- someone tell me that I am not alone!

PEGGY's LIST

So I was doing research on a certain topic on the LDS WEBSITE and each time I typed the particular words into the search engine, to help me find the inspiration I was looking for, this same little story from The Friend Magazine kept coming up.

Harold's list, in it's own right, is so very profound yet it is oozing with sugary, gooey white bread and warm milk churchy goodness (wow, how many adjectives can I squeeze into one analogy!?) For a full read go HERE to check out the story, but if you'd rather not, I will give you the best darn Cliff Notes version I can.

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Everything BAD happens to Harold. Think "The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day" type plot line. Finally when he thinks that it just can't get any worse, he slips and falls on his backpack, smushing his lunch and dousing his book report with the contents of his juice box. Mr Grumpy then walks into class in a huff and when approached by his teacher, lists all of the horrible things that ALWAYS happen to him. In her attempt to teach him a valuable lesson, she asks him to write a list of EVERYTHING that happens to him that day-- the good and the bad. AND... just like in every J-Lo Rom-Com movie, you can see right where this little story is headed. You guessed it, Harold becomes aware that good things DO happen- he just wasn't looking at it from that perspective. TA-DAH! End scene.

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Anyhoo, as you can tell by the fact that I am posting about this, our little story got me thinking about my own perspectives and whether they lead me to looking for the Amazing or the Crappy things in my life. Gotta be pretty honest, I can sometimes be a "down in the dumps" kind of girl. It's true. If I were to put my grumpy glasses on and look back at the past 3 years of my life, I would bore you to tears with all the bad things that have happened to me-- you may even think that I am making half of it up.

BUT

As I have been looking at my life these last few days, and let me tell you I have room to complain here, I have actually found myself being overwhelmed by how much I DO have. I can't stop looking at all my blessings. I can't stop seeing how lucky I am, how amazing my friends and family are, how truly spectacular my life is.

Yes, I don't have a job and I have been tirelessly looking for quite some time now. True, I no longer have a boyfriend (and I am missing him like crazy these days). Who knows how long it will be before I am finally a wife and mother. Yes, these things are stressful and rather painful and hard. But oh my holy heck and stuff... I HAVE SO MUCH.

Harold has inspired me. I haven't written down an actual list, but I have definitely been taking mental note of the many things in my life that make it so good to be alive. Just even by choosing to look at things this way I feel a million miles away from the trouble that seems to loom over my head. I feel empowered that my life is going to be great, that just around the corner are ALL the many blessings I have been praying and fasting for and they're going to smack me in the face.

And you know what? Between you, me and Harold, at the end of this life I'm going to have one MAJOR ROCKSTATIC LIST!

So Today's challenge is to sluff off the grumpy and make a list. Okay, okay I won't pretend to ask you to actually write it down, stick it on your mirror and do a morning mantra to it or anything, but for anyone that is out there, struggling with the world around them-- make your Harold list... DO IT! I defy you to not feel like One Million Dollars at the end of the day!

WHY?? IT'S JUST A COAT!!

When I was about 8 years old, our family dog Annie (whom we just loved to pieces, she really was the perfect dog) was hit by a car. I will never forget that moment. It was a hot summer's day and I was in the family room watching Full House as my mother was bustling in the kitchen making dinner. Out of nowhere my brother burst into the house with a tear streaked face screaming that Annie had gotten loose from his grasp, ran out onto the "big road" and gotten hit. This was one of my first encounters with something this tragic and the shock to my system is something I will never forget.

I have very muddled memories as to what happened next. We ran out to the scene where the very horrified driver was attempting to pick up the almost lifeless dog. My mother was crying and all I can really remember was the panic I felt and the chaos that seemed to whirl around me. By now most of the neighborhood children had gathered around and it was too much for me. I took off running back to the house and into my bedroom. How can this be happening? She can't die, she just can't.

Then I remembered that there were stories in the scriptures about Jesus healing the sick and afflicted. There were stories of people being near death, or very ill and because of prayers and blessings, had lived. I knew what I had to do.

I dropped to my knees, and will all the fervor of a very scared little girl conjured up all the faith I had in a Father in Heaven I believed was there and prayed for him to save Annie. I don't remember how long the prayer was, but when I stood up, I knew... just knew that she would live.

I walked outside to our front porch, where the crowd was now very large and saw the look on my brother's face. He looked at me and said "Annie's dead" and then broke down crying.

WHAT? How could this happen? I prayed so strongly and used every last bit of faith... WHY?

Why is such a hard question. We want and need answers for WHY things happen in our lives. Why the Lord doesn't just come and save us from heartache and pain and suffering. Why does he allow bad things in this world when he loves his children so much? Why didn't he heal my dog... I had the faith and I had gone to him in prayer. Why?

So many times the answers wouldn't even make sense to us if every WHY was answered. Just like my nephews who don't understand WHY they have to put a coat on to go outside and play when it's 30 degrees. They can't see the possible consequences for this decision. They don't have the reason and logic to fully understand the need. So when the demand is made to put their coat on their first response is a whiny WHY?? It's funny to watch them as the answer is given, in all reality they didn't really want the answer, they just wanted to complain and do what their little minds wanted to do in the first place-- go outside to play-- unrestricted by a silly coat. Gosh this would just be so much easier if they would just listen to their mother without the need to ask WHY all the time. She wouldn't ask it of them, if she didn't know how important it is.

Granted the pain we sometimes experience when life is hard and doesn't look like we wanted it to, feels so much more complicated than putting on a coat. But in reality, an eternal, loving parent, who can see the end from the beginning is there with the full perspective and He too wouldn't ask these trials of us if he didn't know how absolutely important it was for us.

My first response is always to call up to him in confusion, WHY? Sometimes I beg him to tell me, to explain to me, to help me see. He patiently waits for me to stop the temper tantrum, tire myself out and finally just come to him and ask for comfort and patience. For the smart girl, the next step is to wipe the tears, stand back up and keep her feet moving, putting on that coat, regardless of the pain and just trusting that by doing so she will find the peace and protection she needs.

And as one really amazing friend said to me just last night, by the time we are able to see the WHY, we don't care about it anymore. Well not that we don't care about it so much as we will be in a better position to see things from a larger perspective and the NEED for the WHY won't be as important as seeing the bigger picture.

My prayer today is for the strength to put my coat on without the whiny WHY?? and trust that there are more infinite details at work in my life right now. Details that I wouldn't fully be able to understand if I knew them right now anyway.

So I'm gonna go outside and play, wanna come?

From WE back to ME

There is something quite amazing about the word WE. You married people probably don't remember now because you are so used to saying it, but to a single person, when you have finally found someone that takes you out every week and says the L word to you-- you get to start saying WE and it feels grand!

"Oh, I'm sorry WE can't make it because WE already have plans."
"WE went out last night to this great restaurant."

It rolls off the tongue and just is the best word you can think of. You find yourself saying it all the time, whenever you can and become like a kid who just got his braces off that smiles extra big so that people will notice his sparkly new, unfettered grill.

Then, as with some relationships, things come to an end. Yes, amongst all the hurt and confusion and disappointment, is the realization that the word WE no longer belongs to you and you start to feel like Gollum after Bilbo Baggins just made off with your Precious Ring. You have to start answering questions like

"So what are you doing Thursday?" with, "I'M not sure I will have to check MY schedule."

No two ways about it... it plain sucks!

So this last break up has been hard. Okay, most break-ups are hard. But part of what was so hard about this one, was that this man was AWESOME, and took care of me better than any guy I have dated up to this point. No really. On top of that he had unofficially asked me to marry him, so most of our conversations sounded something like "When we are married..." or "When you move in, don't forget to bring..." I had already started to pick colors and had gone dress shopping with my mom and sisters... my dad even bought me a veil.

So here I sit, back in my ME world, trying as hard as I can to down-shift back to You're Single and Not Getting Married. It feels so out of body. On top of that, when one is over the age of 27, you begin to realize that your 20's slipped by ever so quickly and you are faced wondering how fast you are going to cross the 40 finish line. Will you be married by then? Will you still be swinging and missing every time you come to bat with a new guy? (man this post is just filled with analogies isn't it?)

I have decided that the two best artists to listen to when you are breaking up are Kelly Clarkson and India Arie. Kelly, because she gets all angry and just screams out your pain. And India because her words are soulful and are filled with truth and positivity.

The other day I was driving to my brother's house, surrounded by my self-pity and the music of India, when the following song came on and I was lifted by the words. I know that these words were from her experience, but they resonated with me and my experience too. They spoke pain and heartache and disappointment, but more importantly Hope.

This song is dedicated to all my single girls, whose silent tears fall at night, whose hopes of being wives and mothers still softly burn in pain in the center of their chests. Keep looking forward and having faith. This day too shall pass.

This Too Shall Pass Lyrics


I've achieved so much in life,
but I'm an amateur in love
My bank account is doing just fine
but my emotions are bankrupt


My body is nice and strong
but my heart is in a million pieces
When the sun is shining so am I
but when night falls, so do my tears


Sometimes the beat is so loud in my heart
that I can barely tell our voices apart
Sometimes the fear is so loud in my head
that I can barely hear what God says


but then I hear a whisper that this too shall pass
I hear the angels whisper that this too shall pass
my ancestors whisper that this day will one day be the past
so I walk in faith that this too shall pass


The one that loved me the most
turned around and hurt me the worst
Been doing my best to move on
but the pain just keeps singing me songs


My head and my heart are at war
cause love ain't happening the way I want it
Feel like I'm about to break down
can't hear the light at the end of the tunnel
is when I pray for healing in my heart
to be put back together what is torn apart
and I pray for quiet in my head
that I can hear clearly what GOD says
but then I hear a whisper that this too shall pass
I hear the angels whisper that this too shall pass
my ancestors whisper that this day will one day be the past
so I walk in faith that this too shall pass

All of a sudden I realized
that it only hurts worst to fight it
So I embrace my shadow and hold on to the morning light

this too shall pass...

I hear the angels whisper that trouble don't have to last always
I hear the angels whisper even the day after tomorrow will one day be yesterday
I hear my angels whisper
I hear my angels whisper
this too shall pass

NUTSHELLIN' IT

I'M BACK FROM ITALY!

I'M 30!

I'M DATING SOMEONE!

More to come later on all 3. Just thought I'd let you all know that I still live and breath!

HIATUS

This Blog is currently on HIATUS for approximately 3 months due to the fact that I am out of the country.

Have a great summer everyone!

guest blogger- Kylee- MAKE IT HAPPEN

This gal is up to some awesome stuff-- making good use of the knowledge she's taken with her on her path of singlehood! You Go Girl!


In 2006 I decided I needed a change so I joined AmeriCorps and moved to Boston. That year, my motto became: Make it Happen! This mindset has transformed my life. I don't think I'm unique in this endeavor.

In a day and age where people are paralyzed by fear, where they are not only losing their jobs but their confidence, and where people are losing hope I choose to tell a different story!

I want to collect personal essays/stories from people that have MADE things happen in their lives. This includes dreams they made come true, goals they've accomplished, trips they've taken, people they've met, and so much more.

Please send me your "Make it Happen" story!

Your personal story/essay needs to be around 2 pages (1000 words), clear, concise, and how it is you made it happen! Send your story to me: kyleeshields@gmail.com. w/a very brief bio of yourself.

I will be putting together a collection of these inspiring stories to hopefully publish in a book.

FOLLOW THE LINK TO FIND OUT MORE INFO ABOUT THIS GROUP ON FACEBOOK!
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=101911645010&ref=ts

FREE-TIME DO's

This is the first of many posts about the volunteer work that is out there.

Today's post is brought to you by:

BIG BROTHERS, BIG SISTERS



I chose to start with this program because I have personal experience with this organization.

In the winter of 2000, I became a BIG SISTER! I was assigned a 13 year old girl who came from a very poverty-stricken, single parent home. For as fun and rewarding as this experience was, it was also challenging in ways i never expected it to be and I learned a lot about myself in this year of knowing my LITTLE SISTER. But most importantly, she taught me to never take for granted the many blessings I have been given on this earth.


I highly recommend this program for anyone looking to get involved in the lives of the children in your community that may or may not have awesome support at home.

Big Brothers/Big Sisters offers 2 different ways you can volunteer:

1: Community-Based Mentoring- you will spend as little as 1 hour per week with your "little" doing anything from going on a walk to singing together at a retirement center, to making cookies.

2: School-Based Mentoring- you will meet with your "little" at a school or rec. center and not only help them with homework, but spend time getting to know each other as well.

For more information click on the link provided above or if you are in the Utah area call:

(801) 313- 0303

DON'T WAIT-- BE A BRACE-FACE!

PERSONAL STORY TIME!

When I was in high school, I, much like a lot of you, had braces. In the fall of my Senior Year, they were taken off! About 3 years later, my retainer broke, taking me back to the orthodontist. It was then that he noticed that my bite had shifted and recommended that I go back into braces for another 2 years.

{okay you're not allowed to make fun of my reaction}

"But I'm 21, what if I get married within those two years," I thought, "I don't want braces in my pictures!!"

{HEY! I told you not to laugh!}

So, off I went, as stubborn as can be, and chose not to get those braces. Fast forward 2 years, I was now working for a company that had awesome benefits and so I skipped on over to the dentist who recommended that I go and see my orthodontist.

Once again, Mr. Fix-My-Mouth recommended those darned braces. "Probably for 2 years," he said with urgency. "If you don't do this soon, some of your back molars are going to shift and it's going to take a lot longer than 2 years to fix them. Oh and by the way, you are NOT a candidate for Invisi-Line."

Despite his warning, I the nerd 20-something thought, once again:

"But I'm 23! I could get married at any time AND I'm doing film and television now, and I don't want braces to get in the way!"

So the braces didn't happen. And would you believe me if I told you, that almost 9 YEARS has passed since that first visit to the orthodontist, I still didn't get the braces, my bite is now worse than ever, the back molars have shifted markedly AND, would you believe it... I'm still not married!! GO FIGURE!! If I had gone straight into braces when the orthodontist had told me to... I would have been out of braces 7 years ago! Oh my gosh, I hang my head in shame!!

Okay, so now to the moral of the story:

Sometimes I think we, as single women, get afraid to go and do or become because, "What if I could get married?" If anything this braces story has taught me, it's that sitting around waiting didn't accomplish ANY of my hopes and desires... it didn't cause me to get married and it most certainly did not fix my bite!

Is there something that you've been wanting to do for a long time and never did because you were afraid it would get in the way of other hopes and desires?

A friend of mine from Boston, who recently got engaged, met her man AFTER she had felt prompted to move to a new state. He moved in, just as she was moving out and they didn't even meet until a party they were both at, in Utah!

She later commented "I guess it goes to show you, that it doesn't matter, where you move or when, when the right guy is supposed to be in your life, it will happen."

So here's your kick in the pants for today:

GO AND DO! DON'T WAIT! YOU WON'T REGRET IT!

Oh and by the way, when I get back from Italy, I'm getting braces!

MY TURN ON EARTH

Everyone has their own story, on the journey of being single.

Here's Mine:

The Apple Dress and Pigtails

So in essence, this is where it begins. I would have shown you a baby picture here, but when you are #6 of 8 kids... baby pictures are something you learn to deal without.

Here I am in kindergarten, all bright-eyed and ready to conquer the world in my most favorite jumper my mom made for me! (excluding the Rainbow Bright jumper, of course)

I've always had strong will and a ready opinion. It was at this age that I had a best friend named Jeffery. I pretty much bossed him around and made him play house and barbies with me every time we played together, which was often. It was also at this age that my kindergarten teacher wrote the following words on my report card:

"Peggy is a good student. I enjoy talking with her, she is quite the conversationalist."

Obviously, nothing's changed!

The HE Mullet!

I would like to submit to you today, that it should be considered a form of child abuse to cut your child's hair into a mullet, of any sort. What with that nasty cowlick practically dead-center of my forehead, my hair has been the ridicule of many a sibling when looking back on my past. Oh and take a look at those teeth! A right of passage, for everyone in my family, is to finally grow a noggin big enough to accommodate the ginormous teeth we were born with!

Needless to say, this was the beginning in the decline of my self esteem.

The Awkward Lonely Years

I state this as fact and not a means of receiving pity, I didn't really have any friends during my elementary school years. I was awkward and tom-boyish and was always trying to assert myself where others did not want it asserted. And I was a very emotional little girl (I know, I know, nothing has changed there either), and you can only pitch a fit for not getting your way, so many times, before people stop wanting to hear it.

I spent most of my Junior High years trying to sort out my need for friendship and developed better "people skills." This is also the stage where men (or rather boys) entered my life and I discarded them as quickly as they came into it. I "went" with a different boy each year of my Junior High career.

High School

By this time, I was completely involved in theater. I found confidence in my abilities and also found that relieving some of those pent-up emotions on stage was far better then off stage. Yet, I was still a teenager and caught up in the emotions of friend drama, boyfriends, dating and school dances.

By my senior year, though, I was spending a lot of time with my sister who was already in college. I much preferred hanging out with her and her college friends and sneaking into Young Single Adult dances (sorry dad), only to get that forlorn look from the dudes when they asked how old I was and I responded "17."

The Fiance

Yes, you read that right. At the age of 19 I met a guy. He was 9 years older than me, already been married and newly divorced and wasn't so "into the church." Despite the warnings of loved-ones (did I mention that I am strong-willed?), I got engaged to this man right before my 20th birthday. (Are you kidding me with those matching white button-ups and khaki pants!?! ridiculous!)

To put this mildly, this year of being with this man, did more damage to my soul and self than any other relationship I had been in before or since. I was in over my head in a relationship that was far more adult than I was ready for and when all was said and done, he left me for dead and married an ex-girlfriend, while I tried to pick up the pieces of my shattered life.


Getting Over It

During the proceeding years, I submerged myself into theater and also got an agent doing a few local television spots. It was during this time I also decided to finally take myself to college.

THE BYU was, well, not what I hoped it would be. I went from being a girl that got asked out pretty regularly to never getting asked out and wondering if I too needed to start making plates of brownies and taking them over to the guy's house that I liked, so that he would know how good I was at domestic life.

A few years later I had dropped out of school, gotten a job making more money than I could even dream about now and was officially inactive in the church. I also gained a lot of weight, virtually disappeared from the view of men, lost a lot of weight and then went searching for love outside of the church, with men that I really shouldn't have been with.

The Boston Years

July of 2003, I got laid off from my cushy job and decided, without much hesitation, that I would move to Boston (I had always wanted to live there for some reason). During this time, I also started going back to church. At the time my Bishop in Provo was terrified of me moving so far away from an area so permeated with members of my own faith... but I was determined and Boston couldn't have ended being a more perfect a place to regain my testimony.

So I packed up my car and drove to a city I knew nothing about and knew not one soul. I spent 5 glorious years there, learning about myself, learning how to heal, finding deeper faith in Christ and connecting with some of the most amazing people I will ever know. I know, I'm a lucky girl!


The 2nd Most Influential Relationship

Yes, there were other boyfriends between the fiance and this one, but I count this relationship to be a large part of my late 20's... and a very pivotal one at that.

When I met this guy, I was instantly and utterly on board. There are few people on this planet that I get as excited to talk to, banter, flirt and be witty with than this guy. I was head-over-heels in love with him and if he had asked me to marry him, there wouldn't have been one shred of doubt as to what I would have said.

We tried, with all of our might, to love each other, and for years after the break-up, I was still looking for a way it could work out. Even when other men entered my life, I was still always holding out hope, that someway, I could be with him. It has been the most heart-wrenching thing to realize that he will probably never love me the way I want him to and make the decision to move forward. This one was more painful than all the previous dudes (including the fiance), combined.


Here I Am Today

Well, life may not look a thing like I ever planned it to, but I am excited about the future. I moved back to Utah this past September, to undergo surgery and with certain divine moments of meeting amazing women, I have decided to stay. I am currently trying the online dating thing (more to come on that!) and I am getting ready to live in Italy for 3 months to teach theater. Life couldn't look more promising than if I had mapped it out myself.

I am so grateful for the ups and downs of life. I might be a complainer by nature, but when I can look back, I see how incredible it's all been and I see the amazing woman I am turning out to be and I can't help but smile and be so thankful for all of it!

ALL MY GIRLS, WE'RE IN A CIRCLE. SO CLAP YOU'RE HANDS THIS IS FOR YOU!

Hello! Welcome! You're Here!
Now What?

Well, I think maybe I will begin with why I started the blog and a brief explanation of what it is I intend to accomplish with such a forum as this.

This year, I celebrate my 3rd decade on this planet! YEP! In just a few short months, I will begin telling people that I am 30!! Yee-haw! What a time to live! What a time to celebrate being an adult and all the glorious things that go along with being an adult!

Paying Bills
Career Advancement
Not over-reacting to your brother when he calls you that confounded nickname you had when you were 7!!

-Just to name a few-

But with all of the amazing things that come when you are a single person at this ripe, old age the pressure from the culture that raised you from Mia Maids to Young Women's to Relief Society Member seems to bear down with questions like:

Why aren't you married yet???

Lady, if I could answer that question I probably wouldn't be sitting in my bed, with greasy hair, furiously typing up this mildly amusing blog-post about being single!!

In any case, I know I'm not alone. I go to church with some of the most beautiful, amazing women that walk this earth and we all sit and look at each other during munch and mingle and wonder "How in the WORLD is SHE not married yet??" But the fact of the matter is, WHO KNOWS?? The dating world is even more a mystery to me today than it was 10 years ago.

And it's not for a lack of trying my best. I date occasionally. I have opinions on the do's and don'ts of flirting, dating and men in general. I utilize said opinions whenever possible and yet, I find myself still empty handed.

The thing is ladies, we can't really control when that right guy walks through the door and will stop at nothing to be with us. But what we can control is our ATTITUDE, our SPUNK, our GUMPTION to just keep on going, growing, learning and doing.

So this blog was born. Born out of the desire to help inspire, encourage and get that little extra shot of "you're still awesome, even without a dude." In the coming blog posts I will be pontificating on my opinions about dating and life and being an amazing woman. I will be inviting guest-bloggers who have their own amazing stories to share. But most importantly, I hope this ends up being a place we can all come and recharge our energy to just keep on going... no matter who or what comes into our lives!

So give a SHOUT-OUT
Invite all your GF's
Let's get ready to RUMBLE!!