Spirited Woman Blogger Team

Light My Fire

I was nine years old the first time I decided to run away from home. It had been an unfortunate day full of bad choices. After my friend Kathleen proposed we play with her Ken and Barbie dolls in my backyard, I suggested that Ken and Barbie heat up the already hot summer day with a campfire. My best friend reluctantly agreed and as I dashed in the house for matches, she gathered kindling.

Lighting the matches was always my favorite part and as I held it in my hand, transfixed by the flame, my friend screamed in a rather hysteric tone, “Throw it on the sticks!”  I flung the match down and stared as flames began stretching toward the top of Barbie and Ken’s recreational vehicle while smoke billowed out and around toward the front of the house. Kathleen and I were so paralyzed by the fire’s hypnotic powers that we never heard my younger sister’s footsteps. After my sister quickly surveyed the situation, she announced in a sing-songy voice, “I’m telling Mom when she gets home.” As I stomped out the fire, I felt my saddle shoes melting, but even worse, I knew I had no choice but to run away from home. The punishment always fit the crime at my house and I had definitely committed a felony. I planned to pack and be gone before my mother’s 1964 Ford pulled in the driveway.

I stuffed eight pairs of underwear and a flashlight into a small suitcase and quietly shut the front door as I left my old life behind. I made it a block before I sat on the curb and contemplated my next move. Where would I go?  How would I support myself?  How would I eat? What if I got into a car accident and all eight pairs of underwear were dirty? My mother would be horrified. I was only nine years old, but even then I thought realistically—except when it came to fire. I enjoyed a few more minutes of freedom then reluctantly, I headed home. I would face my punishment with the grit and determination that only a hardened criminal possesses.

When I heard the recent story about Steven Slater, the JetBlue flight attendant who decided to run away from work after a bad day, I couldn’t help but wonder why I didn’t think to make a more dramatic exit that day from my house. Little did I know that I could have been the talk of the neighborhood—or maybe even the national news—if I had grabbed two root beers and glided gracefully down the slide attached to my backyard swing set with my suitcase on my lap and a grin on my face.

To be honest, part of me thinks that Steven Slater is my hero for life—and the other part of me thinks, “What? In this economy?” Either way you view his exit from the airplane that day, I think we can all relate to his experience. Who hasn’t had a day when they wanted to change their name to Thelma, find a friend named Louise, rent a convertible, and head down the highway without a real destination in mind except “anywhere away from here?”

The fictional folktale character Uncle Remus once said, “You can’t run away from trouble. There ain’t no place that far.” It’s true—our problems are like loyal dogs—they follow us everywhere. As I trudged home that hot summer afternoon to face the music, I realized that what I really needed to change was how I reacted to life’s greatest challenges.

- Vicky De Coster - www.wackywomanhood.com
Click here for more of Vicky's posts.

A Spirited Woman Raises a Spirited Son

As my fourteen-year-old son and I sat on the deck of our rented cabin the first day of our vacation this summer and watched the barges chug by on Lake Superior, I turned to look at him and asked, “Did you remember your acne medicine?”

“Even pimples deserve a vacation, Mom,” my son replied gently as he smiled.

Touché. As we sat next to each other in comfortable silence listening to the waves crash against the shore, I realized I was beginning to see glimpses of the man my son would soon become.

Mothers will often say that the time seems to drag when our children are little and then when they begin to grow up, we want to stop the clock and savor every moment. I am no exception. All of a sudden, my son’s voice is changing, his baby face has disappeared, and I am left wondering … did I do everything right?

Raising a kind and considerate young man has always been my priority and as a Spirited Woman, I feel it is my duty to raise the kind of man any of us would be proud to call a son-in-law. As I steal a quick glance at his face, I can’t help but notice the peach fuzz that lines his upper lip and the way his glasses have slipped down a bit on his nose.  I look down at his hand resting on the chair, his long fingers quietly tapping to the song that plays in his head. I know that someday he won’t be all mine anymore … he will have a wife and his own children to love and I will slowly become less influential in his life.

But for now, he is still fourteen and I still have work to do as a mother. I reach over, grasp his hand with the long fingers, and squeeze tightly. He turns to look at me and grins. He squeezes back. And so we sit … together in silence, holding hands, each of us lost in our own thoughts but still together. Mother and son.

- Vicky De Coster - www.wackywomanhood.com
Click here for more of Vicky's posts.

Reject Rejection

It was on the playground at Harrison Elementary School where I first felt the sting of rejection. As I stood in a line at the edge of a dusty softball field, I glanced over at the appointed team captain. “Cindy!” he yelled. Cindy turned around, smiled at me, and gave me the thumbs up sign as she gleefully ran over to her new team. The other team captain glanced over at me and then scanned the bench where two kids sat—Bill and me. “Bill!” the team captain shouted.

Bill slowly pulled himself up off the bench and grabbed his crutches. He hobbled over to where the opposite team stood. Despite a recently broken leg and severe concussion, Bill had been picked over me—a gangly, pale, uncoordinated kid with cat glasses. As I sat on the bench on the edge of that dusty ball field and watched the two team captains flip a coin over who was unlucky enough to have me on their team, I wondered if being chosen last wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

As I quickly evaluated my strengths on the softball field, I came to grips with the fact that just being able to swing the bat at a ball without dropping it really wasn’t a valuable skill in the competitive world of playground sports. Neither was ducking every time someone threw the ball in my direction. I realized that I had just learned a valuable life lesson. My talents obviously lay in a different direction.

When I was eighteen, I declared to my mother, the Pope, and anyone else who would listen that I wanted to become a writer. I wrote poem after poem and article after article for five years, sending them into a variety of publications who promptly sent back letters of rejection. “Thank you for trying,” the editor would reply, or “We know how much this story means to you,” or “Have you ever tried softball?” But this time, I refused to let rejection dictate my destiny. I was never so sure of anything in my life - I loved to write and I knew that if I kept perfecting my craft, I would one day become published.

Have You Hugged Someone Today?

I was born into a family of huggers. As a child growing up in a family obsessed with embracing at every possible moment, it was a well-known fact that a hug was required both when I entered as well as departed a relative’s house. We hugged when we were happy, when we were sad, and when my sisters and I realized we weren’t having spinach for dinner. Somehow all the prior generations in my family already knew what researchers at the University of North Carolina discovered a few years ago - hugs are good for your heart, lower blood pressure, and reduce stress - and the positive effects of hugging are greatest for women. Who knew two arms had the power to do so much good in the world?

There is a fine art to hugging and it changes from state-to-state or culture-to-culture as I discovered when I moved from Nebraska to southern California in the early 1980s. I had no idea that in California, total strangers hug total strangers and think nothing about adding a kiss on the lips to boot. So when I returned to Nebraska from California a few years later and accidentally hugged the checker in the grocery store after she handed me my receipt and gallon of milk, I had to re-train myself, remembering that Midwesterners rarely hug total strangers unless, of course, we’ve just won the lottery.

In all my years of embracing others, I’ve discovered there are several types of huggers. There’s the Bear Hugger who squeezes so hard you’ll never need to pay a chiropractor for a spinal adjustment again. Then, there’s the Back Slapping Sideways Hugger who is uncomfortable with full frontal hugs and embraces sideways while slapping your back, leaving both of you looking like you’re ready to compete in a potato sack race at the neighborhood block party. Finally, there’s the Reluctant Hugger - the one who really doesn’t want to hug, but feels it will be rude if she doesn’t - and this is usually someone in the twelve to twenty age group.

Once a hugger, always a hugger. I still hug everyone I know whether they’re happy, sad, scared, or just found out they’re having beets for school lunch. American cartoonist Bil Keane once said, “They invented hugs to let people know you love them without saying anything.” As spirited women, we owe it to ourselves and those around us to open our arms wide and squeeze like the dickens whenever we have the opportunity.

I recently found a video created by Juan Mann - creator of the Free Hugs Campaign - that highlights his unique idea of reaching out to others. I hope you’ll let this video inspire you to go out today and use your own two arms to make a positive difference in someone’s day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpzkHhgcZG4&feature=player_embedded.

- Vicky De Coster - www.wackywomanhood.com
Click here for more of Vicky's posts. 

She's baaaack ... and badder than ever! A former member of the original Spirited Woman Blogger Team, Vicky DeCoster is an award-winning humor writer and the author of Husbands, Hot Flashes, and All That Hullabaloo! and The Wacky World of Womanhood. She has been published in over 60 magazines, books, and on several web sites. Vicky lives in Nebraska with her husband and two children where she is working on her third book of humorous essays.

Grade School Chin-Ups Teach a Life Lesson

The annual Presidential Fitness Test at my elementary school was always preceded with a feeling of dread that completely overtook my spindly little body. The pressure to perform athletic feats I was clearly incapable of completing was tremendous. Skinny and weak, I was barely able to pass the square dancing portion of my gym class, let alone do fifty sit-ups followed by thirty push-ups proceeded by ten chin-ups. I obviously had talents in other areas that required a high level of skill and athletic ability. Unfortunately, my gym teacher, whom I'll call "Mr. Buff," had no idea that I was the only one at my lunch table who could eat a peanut butter sandwich in three bites and not require the principal to perform the Heimlich maneuver.

On the morning of the Presidential Fitness Test, I ate a bowl of Wheaties for breakfast with the hope that I would suddenly turn into one of the Olympic athletes featured on the box. No such luck. A few hours later, I lay on the hard gym floor and said a prayer while another student held my feet. My gym teacher blew his whistle. I quickly glanced around. All my classmates were doing sit-ups like they were in boot camp. The boy who held my feet yelled, “Come on, whassa matter?” I crossed my arms over my chest, counted to three, and gave it my best shot. My face turned red, my cheeks puffed up with air, and I managed to sit up … once. The whistle blew again. Everyone flipped over like pancakes and began doing push-ups. I made it halfway down before I face-planted on a floor that smelled like a cross between dirty gym socks and rubber tires.

The whistle blew one final time. Now, I knew deep inside that I wasn’t the best at sit-ups and push-ups, but if there was one thing I was sure of back then, it was that I was horrible at chin-ups. Mr. Buff motioned me under the bar. “Jump up,” he instructed. I jumped up and hung on for dear life. “Pull yourself up!” he shouted from below. Easy for him to say. He had arms like Popeye. I had arms like Twiggy. I hung and I hung and I hung some more without doing a thing until it was time to hand out the medals. Mr. Buff helped me down. “Maybe next year, kid,” he said with unrealistic optimism as he handed me my cardboard “Participant Medal.” As I watched all the other kids receive their shiny gold “Presidential Medals,” I felt crushed, defeated, and not strong at all.

My Lipstick Stains, The Carpet Cleaner & Love

I have a confession. I’m in love with my carpet cleaner. I’m as giddy as a school girl every spring when I schedule my annual appointment with Jim, a spry man who has a way with natural and synthetic fibers like no other carpet cleaner I’ve ever known. Jim is a lifesaver because it's inevitable that several times each year, my son will vomit red juice, my husband will spill a glass of Pinot Noir, my daughter will have a bloody nose, or I will drop my favorite tube of candied apple lipstick … all over my light beige carpet. To be honest, by the time Jim arrives, my living room looks like a crime scene without the police tape or a chalk outline of a victim.

This spring, as Jim backed his van into my driveway, I smiled as I remembered the scene in Pretty Woman when Richard Gere pulled in front of Julia Robert’s apartment and climbs halfway up the staircase to meet her. “Rescue me, and I’ll rescue you right back,” I whispered as I quickly checked my lipstick in the mirror. When the doorbell rang, my heart beat as fast as a hummingbird flaps its wings and my palms started to drip sweat like a leaky faucet in need of repair, but when I answered the door, my voice sounded as calm as an ocean breeze as I huskily said, “Why hello Jim, I’ve been waiting for you. Come on in.”

As he stepped inside, he took note of the one-piece leopard jumpsuit that I’d worn just for him as he clutched his clipboard and began to jot down measurements. He surveyed the twelve months of damage with a quick glance, shook his head, and announced, “I smell cheap carpet stain remover and I don’t like it.” I immediately acted like I was in a confessional with a priest, nervously smoothed the invisible wrinkles in my jumpsuit, and sheepishly admitted, “Forgive me, Jim, I was desperate when, during Thanksgiving dinner with my in-laws, the dog dragged a half-dead and bloodied rabbit into the dining room from the backyard.” This time it was me who shook my head in a desperate attempt to erase the horrific memory of me on my hands and knees under the Thanksgiving table with a bottle of cheap carpet stain remover in one hand and a sponge in the other while my mother-in-law attempted to make casual conversation.

Self-Acceptance is the Path to Happiness

My entire childhood, I longed to be the cool kid. You know the kind of kid I’m referring to - a girl who looks great in everything she wears, possesses a hidden talent to cover a pimple the size of Mount St. Helens, and never accidentally snorts when she laughs. Instead, I was the girl who learned to tap dance when everyone else was doing the limbo, who carried on a lively conversation with the cutest boy in school not realizing I had a chive stuck in my tooth, and who always dressed at least one decade behind my classmates. Plain and simple - when I looked in the mirror, I saw a girl who wanted to fit in with the popular crowd, but lost the road map that provided the directions on how to get there.

As I grew older and wiser, I eventually learned how to style my hair so it feathered like Farrah Fawcett’s, make a pimple invisible with a bit of cover-up and a lot of powder, and laugh so gently that I sounded like a tiny bell jingling on a sleigh. I was thrilled when, ever so slowly, I was finally accepted into the warm and cozy womb of popularity. As I sat at the lunch table with the jocks and the cheerleaders, I was sure I had finally arrived. But when I went home at night and I looked in the mirror, a stranger looked back at me. Who had I really become?” Something was still missing.

Through all of my questions and insecurities in my twenties, I came to realize that there was only one person who could determine my fate - me. Did it really matter what others thought of me? I stopped worrying about whether I looked like how everyone else wanted me to look and started developing my own original style. I stopped creating a career path that others wanted for me and started to look inward to discover my own passions. I stopped looking in the mirror and focusing on what I didn’t like and began concentrating on the attributes that made me different from everyone else in the world. On my journey to self-acceptance, I encountered hurdles and challenges, but as I slowly transformed into a Spirited Woman who celebrated her uniqueness, I became the happiest I’d ever been.

The beautiful and talented Ingrid Bergman once said, “Be yourself. The world worships the original.” What an important and powerful message to share with your daughters, your girl friends, and most importantly, yourself.

- Vicky De Coster - www.wackywomanhood.com
Click here for more of Vicky's posts. 

She's baaaack ... and badder than ever! A former member of the original Spirited Woman Blogger Team, Vicky DeCoster is an award-winning humor writer and the author of Husbands, Hot Flashes, and All That Hullabaloo! and The Wacky World of Womanhood. She has been published in over 60 magazines, books, and on several web sites. Vicky lives in Nebraska with her husband and two children where she is working on her third book of humorous essays.

Paws Make Me Pause

In the past two years, I’ve learned a lot from my chocolate Labrador Retriever. I’ve learned that it’s okay to take a nap on the couch in the warm sun on a cold winter’s day and that there’s nothing wrong with drooling when you smell delicious food cooking in the oven. I’ve learned that it’s okay to protect your house with every ounce of your being and to run around in circles while chasing nothing at all. I’ve learned that there’s nothing wrong with getting really excited when someone says, “Do you want to go bye-bye in the car?” or “Do you want your belly scratched?” I’ve also learned that it’s perfectly normal to sleep just light enough so if you hear a potato chip bag crinkling six miles away, you’re able to wake up with your eyes wide open and gallop into the same room with the person holding the chip bag in exactly two seconds.

Sammi, short for Samantha, has taught me many lessons, but the most important, is the one she teaches me when we go on a walk together. I have always been that annoying person who creates a to-do list every day and then derives great pleasure in checking off every item from the list, including activities that involve “supposed” relaxation. I work my way through the weights at the gym like a soldier on a mission and I flip through magazines like I’ve just graduated at the top of my speed reading class.

To be honest, I used to try to rush through my walks with Sammi too. I’d constantly check my watch during our walks because after all, there was always the next item to check off my list. But Sammi lives her life with a different mindset. Each walk is a new reason to explore the world beneath her paws, around fire hydrants, and in the park where we conclude our walk. Although she doesn’t stop to sniff the flowers, she does stop to sniff everything else in her path.

At first, I used to become annoyed with her dawdling—now I look at it as an excuse to stop and enjoy the world around me—to breathe in the fresh air, watch the sun gently disappear beyond the horizon, and reflect on my day. As Sammi bounds through the weeds, she seems to almost smile. The little things bring her joy like chasing a tiny frog, sticking her nose down a dark hole, or chewing on a blade of grass. And when she sees someone new she’d like to meet—dog or otherwise—she is thrilled beyond thrilled.

There is a great quote by John De Paola that says, “Slow down and everything you are chasing will come around and catch you.” My beautiful dog with her gentle spirit has taught me that in the circle of life, making time for me is the most precious gift I can give my own spirit.

- Vicky De Coster - www.wackywomanhood.com
Click here for more of Vicky's posts. 

She's baaaack ... and badder than ever! A former member of the original Spirited Woman Blogger Team, Vicky DeCoster is an award-winning humor writer and the author of Husbands, Hot Flashes, and All That Hullabaloo! and The Wacky World of Womanhood. She has been published in over 60 magazines, books, and on several web sites. Vicky lives in Nebraska with her husband and two children where she is working on her third book of humorous essays.

It is Never Too Late to Act Like a Kid Again

It was a cold and snowy day two years ago when a co-worker noticed something unusual outside our office window. “Come here!” he motioned excitedly to all of us, “You have to see this!” We all ran to the window and looked out at the school across the street that was surrounded by large hills. “Look,” he pointed, “At the two people sledding!”

We all squinted to catch a glimpse of the couple as they tore down the hill on their respective toboggans. There was a collective gasp as we all realized the same thing at the same time. I turned to a co-worker and exclaimed, “I can’t believe it!” There they were—a man and a woman we guessed to be around eighty years old—sledding down the hill at excessive speeds and having a great time doing it. As they reached the bottom of the hill time and time again, they high-fived each other, laughed hysterically, and tromped back up the hill for another try. We stood there for quite a while, chatting amongst ourselves about how much we admired that couple for their youthful attitude. Even though the couple eventually left and we never saw them again, the message they unintentionally shared with us that day stayed with me—it is never too late to act like a kid again.

Recently, our city was "lucky" enough to receive 26 inches of snow in a two-week period. My daughter begged me to take her sledding day after day, so finally I relented on one of the balmiest mornings (it was zero). I bundled her up and drove her to a local hill. Normally, I would have sat in the warm car with a thermos of hot cocoa and waited for her to finish, but on this day, I decided things were going to be different. I slipped on a pair of waterproof gloves and a scarf as my daughter asked, “What are you doing, Mom?”

“I’m going sledding! I replied, purposely leaving out the important fact that it had been more than thirty years since I had even sat on a sled. She grinned and clapped her hands together. We trudged through knee-high drifts until we reached the top of the hill. She placed the orange saucer sled in the snow.

“You go first,” she said.

A Leather Skirt With Magic Powers

Long before Julia Roberts slipped one on with thigh-high boots in the movie Pretty Woman, I was wearing mine. My high-waisted, exceptionally short black leather skirt was the staple of my 1980s wardrobe, along with a multitude of off-the-shoulder sweatshirts, bustiers, and stirrup pants.

Recently, I found that tiny leather skirt buried in a trunk of clothes and the mere sight of it brought back memories of a time when my knees weren’t wrinkled, my breasts were six inches higher, and I thought a muffin top was just the top layer of a muffin. As I held the skirt in front of me and wondered how I ever managed to fit one thigh inside the skirt—let alone zip it up without breaking a blood vessel—the sweet smell of leather wafted up to my nose and the memories of a simpler time came flooding back.

When I pulled on that leather skirt many years ago, I was able to transform my innocent, good girl image to a rock ‘n roll bad girl image in five seconds flat. I’d always been the student who never got in trouble in school with the exception of sixth grade when I stuck my pencil up my nose and left it hanging there while the teacher lectured just two feet in front of me. At work, I had perfect attendance, a meticulously clean desk, and always met my deadlines. While driving, I courteously waved others in front of me, consistently drove the speed limit, and never screamed out the window, “Move it, Grandma!”

But when I put on that leather skirt, I became someone else. It was like magic. Suddenly, I loved Metallica instead of Michael Jackson, bad boys instead of good boys, and red lipstick instead of lip gloss. Miss Goody-Two-Shoes, the nickname that stuck to me from grade school through high school, no longer applied. My leather skirt clung tightly to my legs as I swirled around the dance floor at local clubs and for just a night here and there, I got to be that girl I’d always secretly admired from a distance. She lived her life with just an element of danger, a bit of calculated risk, and a whole lot of fun.  She was no better or worse than me—just a different kind of Spirited Woman.