The TRUTH About Motherhood

Author: Deborah Cruz

Easter ~ is Religion for the Weak?
I read a post the other day called Easter Week for Stoics. I read it with a completely open heart and mind. In fact, I like the writer’s perspective most of the time. We have a lot in common. This post, however, just didn’t sit right with me because while I feel everyone can celebrate Easter week as they like, something about it felt “don’t judge me because I don’t cry when I’m “supposed” to but I might be judging you for crying” post. I’m not sure that’s how she meant it to come across but that is how it read, to me.
I feel like we live in a world where it’s not always “cool” to be openly Christian. If you share a religious quote, obviously you are zealot and you don’t vaccinate or believe in doctors and if you are Catholic, you drive a minivan and have 20 kids because you don’t believe in birth control. Sometimes, being religious is seen as a weakness by those who are not. I mean honestly, being openly religious sometimes feels like telling people that you still believe in Santa and then dropping the mike and running away. Some people just get that blank stare on their face, like you just farted.
I am Catholic and for me The Passion of the Christ was more than just a movie. While we are very prone to following liturgical calendars and celebrating in a very organized way (my own husband makes refers to mass as his Sunday calisthenics and is not above referring to it as the cult of Christianity), I have never felt emotionally manipulated. I have free will. Just because our mass is regimented and organized, it does not make our response to the word any less spontaneous. Just because we don’t dance in the aisles, speak in tongues or handle snakes does not make my faith any less true or authentic. We just choose to worship differently.
I am not one of those stuffy people who attends mass to prove to others that I am dedicated nor am I someone who only attends mass on Easter and Christmas. God is with me every single day and has been since I was a small child. My faith permeates everything I do and I don’t have to prove it to anyone. I go to church because being there makes me feel at peace with the world; it makes me feel safe. It is my quiet sanctuary. That is the relationship that I have with my faith. I do not judge others for their perspective and I never mock what I don’t understand.
I don’t believe you have to be in church every Sunday to have a relationship with God and I don’t think there is a right or wrong way to have faith. My belief is that faith is something you learn as a child and becomes a trusted part of who you are as an adult. I don’t know how I would have survived some of the hard times in my life if I didn’t have a higher being to hand my worry off to or believe that my God can do anything. My faith gives me hope.
In our house, Easter has always been about more than bunnies, candy and a pretty new spring dress.
I appreciate Christ’s sacrifice. I believe in it. I embrace it. I am humbled by it. I am grateful for my faith. I want to pass that on to my daughters. I’m raising them to believe in God, to believe in human compassion, kindness and forgiveness and to not sit in judgment of others. I want them to be tolerant, to love their fellow man (& woman) and to do these things every day not just on Sunday or just because they are supposed to. Most importantly, I want them to be good people by anyone’s standards even if it’s not the cool thing to do. I want them to make the right choices because they believe in them despite what others might think.
When I touched that wooden Jesus on the cross on Good Friday, I said a prayer for the world and myself to be better. I unexpectedly began to weep because my heart was so heavy in reaction to Mary helplessly watching her son be crucified. As a mother, there is nothing I can fathom to make it hurt less, even if it were to save all of mankind. I crossed myself, touched the wooden hand of Jesus and wept for his mother; wept for every mother and father.
I’ve never been one to do things simply because I was supposed to or because everyone else was doing it. My parents had the “if all your friends were jumping off a bridge, would you?” conversation very early on with me and my answer has been “no” ever since. My relationship with God is personal. It is intimate. I believe that God knows what is in our hearts without us ever shedding a tear or speaking a word but if I want to sob uncontrollably or sit stoically quiet, I’d prefer no one judge me.
Crying on command may be something that some people do as proof to their congregation or maybe they are genuinely having a moment of religious reconciliation. I don’t know. I don’t know their heart. The one thing I do know is that it is not my place to judge anyone for anything, ever though I know we all have but I am trying to be less cynical.
We all celebrate Easter (or we don’t) in our own way and that’s all right too because, in the end, you can only be who you are and you can only believe what you do. I guess the only thing that really bothered me about the post was not that she didn’t cry but that I felt she was judging those who did.
How did you celebrate your Easter?
2014/04/21
Disneynature’s Bears Gives Back
For a year, my little one has been waiting for this Disneynature’s Bears to come to theaters. She is a huge animal lover and from the moment she found out that all proceeds on opening weekend were being donated, she was counting down the days even saving her own money to take and donate. This kid, she is something else. So , guess who is seeing Disneynature’s Bears this weekend? Me and my entire family, even grandma.
In an epic tale of breathtaking beauty, Disneynature’s new true life adventure “Bears” follows the year in the life of two mother bears as they raise and impart life lessons to their impressionable young cubs.
“Bears” is set against the majestic Alaskan backdrop. The journey begins as winter comes to an end and the bears emerge from hibernation to face the bitter cold.
The world outside is exciting and dangerous as the cubs’ descent down the mountain carries with it the threat of avalanches. As it changes from spring to summer, brown bear families work together to find food, feasting at a plentiful salmon run, while staying safe from predators, such as wolf pack that constantly seem to be around.
“Bears” captures the action and suspense of life in one of the planet’s last great wildernesses. The very survival of the cubs depends on adhering to their mothers’ instruction, and family togetherness is the shelter that protects them from the elements of Alaska.
Like “Chimpanzees”, Disneynature has a way of infiltrating the natural habitat of the animals being filmed without disturbing them. The result is capturing amazing footage of some of the world’s most awe inspiring creatures doing exactly what they do when humans are not present. This is unprecedented and thrilling to watch.
These films give us a look into the mind of these animals and demonstrate just how alike we all really are when it comes to nurturing our children. I cannot wait to see this film.
Photo Source: Disney
2014/04/18
Hangry Wife, Unhappy LIfe
Hangry, are you familiar with the term?
Hangry is when a person who is hungry becomes unreasonably angry. I call it my Joe Pecsi side. I can be the kindest person you’ll ever meet but when my blood sugar gets low, I get the shakes, I feel faint and I go from sweetie to full on bitch in a matter of seconds; like a rabid dog. I am short and my words are biting, no one is safe. As I get the cold sweats and perspiration beads upon my upper lip, all I can think, is Dear God, please let me get some carbs in me before I fall flat on my face or kill someone.
Hey, you, you walking at snail speed through the grocery store on Tuesday morning. I don’t care if you are 85-years-old (carrying a newborn in a carrier or have three broken legs), I’ve not eaten in 14 hours and if you don’t move your brittle boned (exhausted, non-sleep having, hoveraound driving) ass, I am going to start chewing on your elbow. Think Linda Blair in The Exorcist.
Enter doughnut. Enter compassion and patience and love. Hug a tree. Kiss a baby. Wipe an old person’s nose. Carry a spider outside. Smile at a stranger.
Excuse me, ma’am, can I get that for you. Here, I will help you. I love the elderly ( new moms, disabled). ** I am seriously not myself when I am hungry. I go from Mrs. Hyde to Dr. Hangry in a matter of minutes. It’s scary. Luckily, the cure is a piece of food. God, I must have been miserable to be around when I was anorexic. (That was a joke and I can make that one because I lived to tell about it.)
Well, a new study validates me. Low blood sugar makes couples more aggressive. 107 couples were asked to measure their blood sugar levels every morning and night for 21 days. Each night they were asked to stick up to 51 pins in a voodoo doll, depending on how angry they were at their spouse. The researchers compared this aggression level to the participants’ average glucose levels over the study period.
The results proved that study participants with lower nightly blood sugar levels were more aggressive and pinned the voodoo doll substantially more. These findings remained true even after researchers controlled the data for relationship satisfaction. See hangry is real and it’s dangerous.
Luckily for me, the Big Guy, never lets himself starve. He is the glue that keeps this marriage together because God knows when I go all Pesci, I get on my own damn nerves.
When I am hangry, I want to throat punch everyone including myself.
Everyone gets upset at their spouse on occasion, that’s normal. People have bad days and some times you just need your damn space or the kids are being assholes or your husband refuses to pick up his socks for 5 years but self-control and maturity prevents you from going all ape shit bananas on them and attacking. Hopefully, if your husband says something stupid your first instinct isn’t to bash his brains in with a bat. But self-control is a limited resource (don’t I know it?) and each time you use it, you have a little less. When self-control stops, aggression starts. You replenish your self-control with energy, from food. So when you are starving and you’ve already used up your daily allowance of self-control, hangry enters like a Tasmanian devil and wreaks havoc on everyone in it’s path. You wouldn’t like me when I am hungry. It’s ugly.
So next time you are thinking of juicing or starving yourself before a reunion or for bikini season, ask yourself this, are you feeling lucky? Because while nothing tastes as good as thin feels, nothing is worth dealing with a hangry person acting all Joe Pesci. Give that hangry person a piece of cake and tell them you prefer them just the way they are.
You’ve heard the song, If you want to be happy for the rest of your life, better make an ugly woman your wife? Well, it’s because it’s better to feed your beloved and have her be a little less attractive than to starve her into waif thin model shape and have her take an ice pick to you over a piece of toast. The moral of the story is never discuss politics, religion, finances or those 10 extra pounds you want to lose or his sock on the floor issue on an empty stomach or someone might get hurt.
Do you ever get hangry?
2014/04/16
Throat Punch Thursday ~ WTF America?
School stabbings. School shootings. School bombings. Children molested by trusted adult. Nanny murders children. Mom drives minivan full of children into ocean. Terrorists bomb the Boston marathon. Teenagers knock out unsuspecting adults for “fun”. Teens lure an unpopular teen out to some deserted place and kill him because they are bored. Kids cyber bullying kids to the point of suicide. Young girls get gang raped and videotaped while others watch. WTF America? Does anyone else feel like the world has become the unsafest place in the universe? The world used to feel safer; more innocent. Less cynical. It seems that lately no one is safe, anywhere. Unfortunately, as people are no,t as of ye,t living on Mars, this is all we’ve got.
When I was a child, we played outside until the streetlights came on. We rode our bikes up and down the block with no supervision. We walked to school with a group of friends. Our parents trusted our friends’ parents and people were kinder to one another. There was a modicum of respect for human life. It wasn’t perfect, we had serial killers and we were cautious. Sure, there were assholes. There always are but for the most part, when you let your kids out of the house to go to school or left them with a babysitter, you weren’t afraid that it was the last time you’d ever see them.
The other day, I saw a video from 1987. It was a group of 18-year-old guys in Orlando at a convenience store with their camera asking strangers questions. Actual strangers interacting with one another, no smart ass comments, no knock out game, no bullying, no bullshit..just simple human communication. There was no real point to this video. It was just a rare snippet into an innocuous moment in history before every moment was documented. It made me nostalgic for those days before whatever this is happened. If you tried that same thing now, you would be ignored or worse, assaulted.
There were no school stabbings. You used your words.
When I was a teenager, back in the 80’s, high school boys would call high school girls that they didn’t even know because they had seen them in the hallways or a friend told a friend about so and so, actual human interaction. Yes, boys would actually cold call girls on a landline telephone. Start a fucking conversation and try to impress her, maybe even ask for a date. Hell, some guys would even pull up after school and offer you a ride home. If the girl liked him, more often than not, girls would take the ride or at the very least give him her phone number. Sounds crazy, right? Sounds like something that would give me a heart attack if my daughters did that today. Back then, either there was not so much danger or we just didn’t know about it because there was no social media and Internet. I miss those days. I miss my ignorant bliss in a time when people knew what consequences were.
I am sad that my girls live in a world where they will never fully know trust in another human being. They will never not be exposed and bombarded by social media. I am sad that they might never know the butterflies that you get when a boy who likes you walks over to you and makes adorably awkward conversation because now it’s all text and social media and there is nothing “adorably awkward” about a teen boy’s penis in a sext or finding out your hotness rating on some website. The world has become to in-your-face for my liking. It’s abrasive and feels unsafe to me.
Yesterday morning, Alex Hribal, a 16-year-old at a Pennsylvania High School went on a stabbing and slashing spree for no apparent reason. At 7:15 in the morning, he ran through the hallways slashing and stabbing anyone he could get; 22 people in 5 minutes. His attorney says that he is “confused, scared and depressed”. Yeah, well, guess what? Who gives a shit what he is. His time for fucking counseling is over. The only ones who have a right to be confused, scared and depressed are his vicitms…the American people that this asshole has made feel, once again, unsafe in their own homes.
I am so sick of the Alex Hribal, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Adam Lanza and James Holmes of the world. So they were a little weird and misunderstood. So fucking what? We’ve all been an outcast at some point or another. We’ve all felt alone but that doesn’t give you the right to take it out on innocent people. They say he might have a mental illness. Get therapy. Take your meds. Talk to your parents. Change your life but don’t take other people’s children with you because you’re having a fucking bad day! Many of us have mental illness but most of us don’t go batshit crazy and try to kill everyone in sight.
We live in a world where every single morning when I drop my little girls off at school and watch them walk toward the school hand-in-hand, I get a knot in my stomach and pray (literally PRAY) that this is not the last time that I see them. How twisted is that?
Something has got to change. We can’t unring the technology bell that has gotten us to this point. We can’t make people like people but we can raise our children in a world where they are not taught that if everything is not going their way they can just go crazy and kill people. It’s a fucking temper tantrum. It’s a poor pitiful me pity party of epic proportions. We hover and coddle and then we turn our children loose into the teen years with no social skills and an expectation of instant gratification. They don’t know consequences and they feel like the world owes them a pound of flesh because everything’s not going their way and they exact their punishment. We are raising a generation of narcissistic assholes who are so detached from human emotion that they can walk into a school and stab 22 people, shoot 26 elementary aged children, bomb an entire marathon of unsuspecting onlookers, shoot up a theater with families and not give a shit because all they care about it how they “feel”.
We have to change this. I can’t bear to hear about one more school stabbing or shooting. It starts with us, the parents. We need to teach our children that there are consequences to their actions. We need to teach them that life is not always about getting what you want or how you “feel”. Sometimes life sucks but we make changes, we talk it out, we get help, we fight for ourselves and we move on.
We teach them that these bad days don’t last forever. We quit raising kids who think the world revolves around them; who think that if they fail it’s the end of the world. We teach them to learn to get over rejection and work harder to be better. We teach them to respect human life. We teach them tenacity and self-confidence. We let them know that we are there for them and that we love them unconditionally and we pray that’s enough.
What are your thoughts on the school stabbings?

photo Trang Nguyen
2014/04/10
10 Tips How to Not Become an Internet Casualty
I don’t want to become an Internet casualty. As a Lionlock ambassador, I take password and online security very seriously. Safety online is not just needed it is imperative in my line of work. As a blogger, I am in the business of sharing my life out loud on the Internet. Even as someone who has been doing this for years now and as an adult, I still have security slips. I sometimes forget that the Internet is forever and I get caught with my metaphorical pants down.
You know that saying, “A moment on the lips, and forever on the hips”? Well, the Internet is JUST.LIKE.THAT! We are so trusting of the Internet that we often forget that a moment on the Internet truly is FOREVER in the world. You can delete and undo all sorts of things but you are always just a screen grab away for being immortalized in Internet infamy. Those private sexts you sent to your ex? There is no such thing. You say Snap Chat? I say screen grab. That nasty comment you left and then deleted? Already sitting in someone’s inbox. That petty FB update about your soon to be ex? Yep, his lawyers already have a copy in their file. The cute naked photo of your toddler in the bathtub that you uploaded and promptly second-guessed and took down 5 minutes later? Some pedo is already getting his rocks off to it. There is no privacy online.
We’ve all put something on the Internet that we wish we hadn’t. It’s embarrassing and we get over it. It’s like going to a party, drinking too much and wanting to crawl under a rock and die the next day when you see the proof on Facebook. It might not ruin us, but it might. None the less, we’d prefer those moments stayed private because we are left feeling compromised and vulnerable. Unfortunately, there are no second chances on the Internet so you have to know going in that everything you put on the Internet is set in stone for eternity. No matter how badly it may differ from reality. The Internet knows you from glimpses, social media shares and sound bites. There is no emotion, connotation, context or empathy. There is only what you say, what you share and what it sees. The Internet is a cold-hearted bitch and she doesn’t get innuendo or anecdotes. So what you put out there is who she thinks you are. So be safe and think before you go online.
While LionLock automatically audits any interaction that takes place with your passwords in the vault, it is still important to use common sense when sharing any important private information.
Here are a few online security tips to keep you from becoming just another Internet casualty.
1. Keep a Clean Machine
Keep all Internet connected devices free from infection and malware by keeping all critical software—security software, web browsers, apps and operating systems—up to date so that you can counter any new viruses lurking.
Have your security software set to monitor your computer continually, not just a weekly scan.
2. Protect Your Personal Information
Secure your accounts by making passwords long, strong and unique.
3. Own Your Online Presence
This is my favorite. I am very transparent; probably more so than I should be, but I know when I put it out there that it is out there. I consider this every single time I post anything. Set security and privacy settings to your comfort level of sharing.
4. When in Doubt, Throw it Out
If an email, social network post or text looks suspicious, even if you know the source, delete it.
5. Be Web Wise
Be wary of communications that implore you to act immediately, offer something that sounds too good to be true, or ask for personal information.
6. Be a Good Online Citizen or Don’t be a Web Douche canoe
Post only about others what you would have them post about you.
7. Beware of public Wi-Fi ( hint: There is no such thing as FREE wi-fi)
Anytime you use public Wi-Fi, keep in mind that everything you do can be visible to a 3^rd party/stranger that is also connected to the network. Criminals can see everything the users do and capture any information that is sent over the network. Find a staff member at the coffee shop or hotel that can verify the name of the proper network. Also disable auto-connection features when Wi-Fi is not in use.
8. Save money matters for your trusted networks
Even if you’re not on a compromised Wi-Fi hotspot, it’s really best to wait until you’re back on a secure network you trust before shopping or banking. If it’s an emergency and you need to move funds from one account to another, use your cellular data connection rather than public Wi-Fi.
9. Use Secure Sites (Https://)
Secure SSL connections are connections that encrypt any data you send through a website, adding a layer of protection for your private information. There are a couple different ways that you can check to verify that a site is secure. The first is that you’ll notice the https:// turns into https://, with the s indicating it is a secure network. Additionally, there should be a padlock displayed in the URL bar.
10. Secure your mobile devices
In addition to installing security software on computers, it is equally important to have a mobile security app, for your mobile devices. These apps will help your mobile devices stay secure by detecting security flaws in your apps and preventing you from clicking on malicious links.
The Internet is a wonderful place to live and play but it really is what you make it. Just like your home, you wouldn’t go on vacation and leave all the doors and windows open nor would you announce to the neighborhood gossip that you have syphilis. So use your common sense and take precautions to protect yourself online just like you would in your real life.
How do you keep yourself from becoming just another Internet casualty?

Photo Credit: Ellen von Unwerth
Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post on behalf of Lionlock but all opinions are my own. Don’t be an Internet Casualty!
2014/04/09
I Used to Be Beautiful
I use to be beautiful but no one told me how to embrace getting older. When I was younger, I always thought I could be taller, thinner, lips fuller, breasts bigger, skin darker, nose straighter, fingers longer. Believe me, I had a laundry list of things that I wanted to change about myself. I think most of us probably do, at that age. But photos tell a different story. In retrospect, I can see that I was beautiful. My skin was flawless and the perfect shade of golden brown or alabaster, depending on the time of year. I had great legs, hair and boobs. I can see now that I was pretty. I couldn’t see it then.
Now, I am middle-aged and though not “ugly”, I look tired and grey. I look worn and everything is the victim of gravity from eyelids to breasts and my ass. Every part of me is exhausted from years of sporadic sleep, worry and stress. When I gave birth, I knew there would be sacrifices but I had no idea how much it would change me, inside and out. I had no idea that it would rob me of my vitality.
READ ALSO: I will not become the Invisible Woman
I am no longer first in my life. I probably never will be again. Even when I try to make myself a priority, my heart knows that my children always come first. I don’t mind so much. I feel like I have given my life over to a higher purpose. I sacrificed myself for them. It sounds damn pitiful when I write it out but it’s not.
The only time it bothers me is when I show an old photo of myself to my girls and they stare blankly at it for a few minutes trying desperately to place the face. It’s mine but not one they recognize because it has bright white teeth, big happy eyes, make-up on, hair not in a ponytail and a body that I should have been thanking God back then instead of complaining and killing myself via starvation of my body and soul.
I used to be beautiful.
The girl in the photo is young, beautiful with perky breasts and svelte legs. She was well rested and ridiculously optimistic. She had her entire life ahead of her. There was nothing but hope ahead. She still lives inside of the woman you see today.
The thing is this, I don’t want to be who I was at 25 because then I wouldn’t be who I am today but I also don’t want my children to look at photos of me when I was 25 and find me unrecognizable. That hurts because to me, I am still that girl. I know I am exhausted, and not as hip or free-spirited as I once was. I am no longer the life of the party or the girl who lived so big and hard that the only thing constraining her was the atmosphere. No, she is long gone but in her place, someone deeper, wiser and better has emerged even if I do have more luggage under my eyes than I do in my attic.
READ ALSO: I’m so Tired
I was not born a mother; run down and tired from caring for others constantly. I was not born old. I used to travel, dance and go out to fancy dinners. I used to enjoy being the center of attention. I used to be selfish in ways that you cannot imagine. I am much happier now.
I used to be beautiful.
2014/03/25
The Hidden Dangers of Juicing

Do you know the hidden dangers of juicing? A couple weeks ago, I watched the documentary Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead and obviously, related a little too much. I immediately wanted to start juicing as a way to incorporate more fruits and veggies into our everyday diet. The fact that I have read that juicing helps with everything from losing weight to curing cancer made it even that more lucrative.
But I never considered that there could be hidden dangers of juicing.
Juicing is healthy, or so I thought. I’ve known for some time that our diets have began to see a deficit in fresh fruit and vegetables and I want to change that. So, I told my husband that I wanted a juicer for Mother’s Day…but I wanted it now. Why put off til tomorrow what you can do today? Carpe Diem and all that shit.
I must have had that crazy look in my eyes because he agreed and within a few days, my brand spanking new Breville juicer arrived. I was very eager to get started so I downloaded the Joe Juice Diet book ( by the guy who did the Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead documentary) and got started. This is exactly why I am not allowed to watch infomercials. See The Enya incident of 1997, the Zumba incident of 2007, the Meaningful Beauty incident of 2006 and the Insanity & T25 incidents of 2012 and 2013. I am the optimistic insomniac who is easily sold anything in her delirious state. Anyways, I digress.
I got my Breville juicer and decided on a 3-day juice. I served all my juice over ice because I need juice to be cold but you can drink it room temperature if you prefer.
Here is what my juicing experience looked like:
Day 1-3
Breakfast:
Hot water with lemon ( instead of coffee & to jumpstart your metabolism)

Bye-Bye Blue Juice ( ½ cup blueberries, 1 cucumber, 1 lime, 1 pear. Makes 1 serving.)
Snack:
Water/ Coconut Water
Lunch:
Joe’s Mean Green Juice (16 Kale leaves, 2 cucumbers, 8 celery stalks, 4 apples, 1 lemon and a 2-inch piece of fresh ginger. Makes 2 servings.)
Afternoon snack:
Green Citrus ( 4 apples, 4 oranges and 12 handfuls of leafy greens. I use Kale. Makes 2 servings.)
Dinner:
Joe’s Mean Green
Dessert:
Peach Delight (1 sweet potato, 2 ripe peaches, 1 apple, 1 1/3 cup of blueberries and a dash of cinnamon.)
Now, while I liked all of the juices with the exception of the Mean Green which I just haven’t gotten the recipe to taste yet. I think it needs less cucumber. Cucumber is so overpowering and I love it but it’s just been a tad too much for me. Full Disclosure: by the end of day two, I was so famished that I would have eaten my own arm off. I ended up eating an actual salad with grilled chicken. Juicing is hard. I did lose 3 pounds in 3 days and I had a lot of energy.
Bedtime:
Herbal Tea
My experience showed e the hidden dangers of juicing.
I loved the drinks but two things happened to me that I wasn’t anticipating and they scared me a little bit.
1) I had a lot of energy. Like too much. I was talking a lot ( more than usual and if you know me you know that is A LOT!) and apparently, I was very loud and fidgety. Now, this may not be alarming to any of you but for me a person who flirts with mania, well, it felt a little too close to home for me. So, if you are prone to bouts of mania or hypomania, maybe juicing is not for you unless you are trying to induce an episode in which case, call your doctor right now!
2) As a person 16 years in recovery from eating disorders, juicing felt a lot like a gateway drug to restricting. I felt a switch flip and I have been obsessing over everything I put into my mouth ever since which, yes, I did need to be more aware of but didn’t necessarily want to be hyperaware and experience the guilt that I associate with carbs so this has me a little worried. I find it alarming that simply by following a regimented diet for 3 days; I can feel those old tendencies pulling at me so strongly. The good news is that I am completely aware of it and have added whole foods back into my diet but the refined sugars and flours are just not worth it to me at this point. I’m not sure I would recommend juicing for anyone who has had issues with restricting in the past, it could be a trigger.
My plan is to continue juicing for breakfast and for my afternoon and evening snack and to eat healthy meals for lunch and dinner. So my takeaway is that I do love juicing. I love the energy and knowing that I am adding a lot of great fruits and veggies back into our diet and that is good for all us but I could never live on just juice of an extended amount of time. And if you’re interested in learning more about juicing, you can visit https://juiceguru.com.
Also, I don’t drink a lot of alcohol or coffee on a regular basis so I never experienced the usual withdrawals so I can’t tell you how bad those might be. I can say that my morning Bye-Bye Blues juice blend gave me a lot more energy than a cup of coffee ever has.
Tips:
Don’t overdue the kale because it can be bad for you
Remove peels from citrus
A little lemon/lime go a LONG way
Cucumber is powerful
Remove the pits from peaches
Remove seeds from your apples ( cyanide). I forgot.
Use organic ingredients if you are juicing the skin
Too much fruits equal too much sugar.
Do you juice? Please share your favorite juicing or smoothie recipes?
Have you discovered any hidden dangers to juicing?
2014/03/24
Preschooler Mauled by Pitbull so Let’s Euthanize the Babysitter
I don’t really expect anyone to euthanize the babysitter but, let’s be honest, if anyone is responsible for 4-year-old, Kevin Vincente being mauled by his neighbor’s pitbull, Mickey, maybe we should place blame where it belongs…at the feet of the negligent adult whose care he was in. The poor kid has been mauled beyond recognition and there is a Facebook campaign to save the dog from being euthanized. Too bad no one fought that hard for the preschooler to be in the care of an attentive adult. Even if you want to save the dog, people need to realize there is a much bigger issue at hand; a child being neglected and in turn could have been killed.
Little Kevin Vincente was being babysat by an “adult” woman who somehow lost sight of a 4-year-old long enough for him to walk next door ( there were no fences) approach the neighbor’s chained pitbull and pick up the dog’s bone, at which point he was mauled. This poor little kid. I am sure he is traumatized. But the question remains, what the fuck was the babysitter doing that was more important than actually watching the kid? This wasn’t a slip off of a chair, he had to actually leave the house and it took time for this to take place.
Next, there was apparently an eyewitness, the girlfriend of the son of the babysitter ( yes, I know confusing). Okay, I don’t know about you but if I am “eyewitness” to a baby about to get his face chewed off by a dog, I am running as fast as I can to save the child. My priority is not to file a petition to have the dog euthanized after the child has been mauled. It’s as bad as those assholes who watch someone die in a wreck or a fire because they were too busy documenting it on Instagram to actually give a shit about anyone.
By my count, we have two negligent adults now involved and neither is the owner of the pitbull Mickey. In our house, our dog is like family, but Lola and everyone else knows that the two-legged children trump the 4-legged ones. It was established from the very start that if our dog ever snipped at the children or bit them, the dog would have to go; whether it be to another home or that farm “in the sky” we would never tolerate an animal that hurt our children. Of course, we wouldn’t allow our children to put themselves in dangerous situations either. We would never allow our children to take a bone away from our puppy. She’s still too young to know any better and it is our responsibility as parents and pet owners to take care of these little people and animals who depend on us.
All that being said, the dog was in his own yard. Minding his own damn business. Chained up. This poor unsuspecting preschooler picked up the bone because he didn’t know any better. And anyone whose ever had a dog knows that if you approach a dog with a bone in his mouth or take it away, you are going to piss that dog off. Dogs are territorial about their shit, especially their food. It’s a natural instinct. It has nothing to do with Mickey being a pitbull and everything to do with little Kevin Vincente being in the care of the world’s most negligent babysitter and definitely in the wrong place at the wrong time.
People are divided; euthanize the dog or save the dog. What about the kid? Is anyone worried about this kid? What everyone is failing to remember is that there is now a terrified little boy who will be living next door to his attacker. There is a little boy who will be permanently disfigured and scarred for life. If the dog is not euthanized, this little boy will have to face his biggest fear just going into his own backyard. He will be a prisoner of his own home.
It is a tragedy but I think the dog needs to be euthanized or removed from the area. Unfortunately, we cannot euthanize the truly responsible party in all of this; the terrible babysitter who neglected to keep the child safe in the first place. As a parent, I can understand wanting the responsible party to pay every time you look into the sweet disfigured face of your son. If it were my child, I want the dog euthanized. In this case, responsibility is being deflected to the dog, he’s the scapegoat, but I think we all know who is to blame for this tragedy and she doesn’t have four legs. Lucky for that bitch, we don’t euthanize assholes.
Who do you think is to blame in all of this? Would you euthanize the dog? Would you euthanize the babysitter or the “eyewitness’ who did nothing to stop it?
Where are the advocates for Kevin Vincente?
2014/03/19
Are You Too Trusting When it Comes to the Internet?
Last month when I announced my ambassadorship with LionLock, I told you what an incredible password management tool I think it is. It’s perfect for every 21^st century small business from freelance writers, digital marketing professionals, and social media consultants to virtual assistants. And let’s not forget about us busy 21^st century parents who do everything from monitor their nannycams to subscribe to parenting websites and manage their baby’s college fund online. We trust the Internet. We depend on it.
LionLock can securely store all kinds of protected information, including passwords, website logins, bank accounts and credit card details. This information is your “secrets”; called so because they should be protected. Each account or password is it’s own separate secret.
LionLock then encrypts and stores all of your Secrets using AES-256, which is the same level of encryption the government uses for Top Secret documents and then stores all of your information in the vault. It’s one secure place that you can access from your work computer, home computer or any of your mobile devices. Blockchain Startups are also utilized to ensure that vital and personal documents cannot be tampered easily by others especially hackers.
If you need to share a “secret” you created with clients, you can easily grant them access. If the situation or your mind changes, simply adjust their access permissions. You only have to change one password. It’s that simple. As the Secret Owner you have full control of a Secret. Only you can edit, delete, and grant access to other users.
To help secret owners know how their accounts are being used, LionLock keeps automatic reports of all the users of that you share vaults/passwords with and date/time users viewed or changed any passwords that hey have access to. Owners can view all reports associated with a secret they own. You have complete control of your “secrets”. Nice, right?
But, where does all that information go? I mean the Internet can be a giant scary place and sometimes, I have so much information out “there” that I get a little agoraphobic and want to just keep it all close to home but that’s not really a solution. What am I a social media password hoarder? Maybe I need an intervention.
I work from home and I am my own brand so my reputation means everything. If a brand hires me or I am collaborating on a campaign with a client, I need to be responsible and professional not only for my sake but for theirs, as well. Those pieces of paper with notes written all over them is not professional. It’s very unprofessional and it is just an accident waiting to happen and jobs to be lost. If I want to be taken seriously, I need to act seriously. My clients need to know that their information is safe on my site and in my hands.
So where does all that private, personal information go? This is going to be a little technical but you will be glad that I told you, so bear with me. Amazon EC2 secure servers in the United States host LionLock. It’s sort of like Dropbox taken to the security extreme. One major security feature of LionLock is that the passwords are not stored on the client machine (my computer, laptop or phone). Nope all the passwords are stored in the secure Lionlock website.
What does any of this mean to you and why should you care? Well, if your computer crashes, your passwords are safely stored on the cloud so you do not have to freak out worrying that they are gone forever and you will have to look unprofessional losing all of your information. People pay you so they don’t have to worry about every single detail.
Also, with passwords being stored offsite (like your money in the Cayman islands) there is never the worry that someone is going to “accidentally” get access from your computer. All passwords are retrieved from the Lionlock website using a secure SSL connection; this is the same web standard used by banks. And no, the developers at Lionlock do not have access to Amazon’s servers and data so they cannot access your “secrets”.
If you don’t believe me, try LionLock out for yourself. An account for up to three users and 25 passwords is free! If you need more users and unlimited password storage, LionLock has that too! I’m hooked because it just makes my daily work so much easier and more streamlined. I have everything securely stored for myself and my clients.
Lionlock allows me to trust that my passwords and my clients are safe and so is my my reputation.
Have you had the chance to try LionLock yet?

Photo Credit: 1954 Ellen von Unwerth
Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post on behalf of Lionlock but all opinions are my own.
2014/03/18
The Craziest Things I Ever Did to Get My Kids To Brush their Teeth
This paid post is brought to you by the new free Oral-B Disney Timer App as part of a Type-A Parent Community Sponsored Post.
I, myself, am a self-proclaimed tooth brushing fanatic. I am obsessed with clean, straight and perfectly kept teeth. I picked up this habit as a teenager while I wore braces. Sure, my mom always warned us of cavities and horror stories of teeth falling out but not even the four cavities that I had filled at age 10 made me a believer. Fast-forward 3 years, imagine a young me sitting at the orthodontist office getting braces put on. I was terrified, it was 1985 and I just knew my brothers and sisters were not going to be wanting for torturous nicknames like Trap Jaw and Tin Grin but what I didn’t expect was the speech from my orthodontist.
“Debi, if you do not brush your teeth three times a day and floss and you continue to drink pop or any dark colored liquids, when I take these things off in a year or two, your teeth could be discolored or worse…rotten!”
Now, maybe that was the standard scare a kid straight speech given in the 80’s and maybe he was full of caca but what I heard was, “Girl, when I take these things off, if you haven’t been brushing like your life depended on it…the only thing holding those not so pearly whites in your mouth will be the wires and brackets I am torturing you with right now!”
You know, sort of like that time when I was seven and had to get tubes put in my ears. I heard, “We will need to chop your ears off!” Crazy imagination gets the better of me a lot of the time. Anyways, the speech about the teeth stuck and I have been a brushaholic ever since and I have the recession to prove it.
**Tip for parents, if you’re going to scare the kiddies straight with tales of rotten teeth, buy them an electric toothbrush unless you want them to brush away all of their gums.
Anyways, I have “tried” to pass the urgency of teeth brushing down to my daughters. Apparently, it is not genetic because they are not one bit afraid of losing teeth. It may have something to do with the fact that my 6 –year-old is currently losing all of her baby teeth at an alarming rate. So, I have tried using an egg timer, a sand timer, sang happy birthday the required amount of times and we’ve even tried swishing our mouths with red dye to show them the residue that was left behind (that used to scare me to death in elementary school). Nope, none of it has worked. I even pulled out the magnifying glass to show them up close what they had missed in their brushing efforts. They laughed and went on about their business. Basically, short of their teeth actually falling out and rotting, they have no interest in brushing for two minutes. If you’re having the same problem with your kids, you may ask your family dentist to explain to them the importance of regular brushing of teeth.
I even have a 9-year-old with invisalign braces who I have shared the horrific tale of teeth held in place only by braces and still she poopooed me. So, when I learned of the Disney Magic Timer app I was ready to try anything and let’s be honest, my kids are crazy for the Mouse and all the princesses. I still can’t get them to stop singing Let it Go and I won’t even embarrass myself and tell you how many times we’ve had to watch all the Princess movies.
I opened the free Disney Magic Timer app on my phone (next time we will be using my old ipod because they covered my phone in tooth paste) and created accounts for both girls. They get to choose from a few different characters; Bella chose Belle, of course, and Gabs chose Ariel. Next, you have the option of scanning in your Oral-B products to unlock character. I had a little trouble scanning on my phone but I am very impatient. My husband did it and said it was a breeze. We happen to have a lot of Oral-B products because every time the girls go to the dentist, he gives them a new one. They also earn stickers to unlock character by brushing regularly. Think of it as the way we potty trained with stickers. It still works.
Then you choose your unlocked character and start your timer. Then this happens; a tiny toothbrush appears on the screen and starts brushing (yep, the kids can copy and do a great job at brushing the teeth) and as the 2 minutes passes, with music playing in the background, a cute Disney scene appears. I won’t lie; it totally kept the girls brushing because they wanted to reveal the photo. I told them if they stopped brushing, I was stopping the timer and no photo for them. And that, is how I got my girls to brush their teeth twice a day for 2 complete minutes each time. Now, our only problem is they want to brush their teeth constantly but we are working on it.
How do you get your kids to brush their teeth the recommended 2 minutes?
This is a paid post is brought to you by the new free Oral-B Disney Timer App as part of a Type-A Parent Community Sponsored Post. Featuring sixteen of your favorite Disney and Marvel characters, use this app to seamlessly encourage your kids to brush longer. Collect a new digital sticker after each successful two minutes of brushing; track progress with stars and milestone badges on the Brushing Calendar. Longer, happier brushing for your little one is just a download away!
Download the Free App Here
2014/03/15