My Mami :)

I always tell people "I'm soooooo conceited" and they look at me with this weird look on their face, like I just told them I can bench-press 300 pounds.  They laugh and say, “No you are not”!  You are too nice to be conceited.   I laugh and say wait until you get to know me better.

Now, when I say that I am conceited, maybe what I really mean is that I am just overly confident, sometimes to a fault.  Heidi Klum can be at a party but when I walk in, I think to myself,   “Yeah she’s hot, but I am way hotter!!”

But honestly, these feelings of confidence and sureness in myself all come from one place... my mother.

For as long as I can remember my mother has told me that I am the smartest, the prettiest, the nicest, the loveliest, the funniest child, girl, teen, and woman alive. Throughout the years I have come to believe all of these superlatives and even own them from time to time.  OK maybe ALL the time :)

I have my mother to thank for my obsession with reflective surfaces, because I cannot walk by a mirror, store window or stainless steel fridge without checking myself out.  This is not a joke; I honestly do this, A LOT.

Thanks to my mother I have the confidence to know that I can try my hand at anything and even if the outcome is not how I expected, still be proud that at least I gave it my best.  I of course have my own set of insecurities, but thanks to my mami, I know that I can always pick up the phone and call her and in two seconds she will have made my head so BIG, that I will go out there and try even harder than before.  There is not one phone conversation with my mom that does not end some way like this:

Me: bye mami, love youuuuuuu, muahhhh

Mami:  te quiero mami, God Bless you, I loveeee you sooooo much, I missssss youuu

Me: love you too mami, miss you too, muahhh

Mami: I love you

Me: I love you too, bye

Mami: bye, I love you

Me: bye, muahhh

And eventually one of us will hang up the phone.

What my mother does not realize is that to me, she is the smartest, the prettiest, the nicest, the loveliest, the funniest woman, wife and mother alive.  Everyday I want to be more like her.  I want to be as caring, as sassy and as stubborn as she is, because when I say, “ohh God, I am turning into my mother” to me that is actually a good thing.  I have huge shoes to fill and hope one day I will be lucky enough to have my future children feel the same way about me. 

Happy (American) Mothers day mami.  You are my friend, my confidant and my inspiration. 

Te Quiero!

Everything happens for a reason...

A couple of months ago I went through one of the hardest periods in my life. It was a moment in which many of us find ourselves from time to time. Situations where you ask yourself, why me? Why is this happening to me? What did I do to deserve this? I think it’s only natural to ask what you did wrong when life sucker punches you.

This got me to think about when bad things happen, your family and friends will try to console you with cliché phrases. In hindsight, I can look back at these moments and smile, because they were absolutely right, but back then this is what I thought :)

Everything happens for a reason...

THEN  What freaking possible reason can there be for me not wanting to eat, and cry all the time?

NOW  What was the reason? I lost those last annoying pounds :) Fabulous!!!

Time will tell...

THEN  Time will tell what? That everything I thought I knew wasn’t true?

NOW   Time did tell me that I never really knew anything.

When one door closes, another one opens...

THEN  I do not want the damn door to close! I have worked hard to keep that damn door propped open!

NOW   Now it is like OMG, I should have jumped out the damn window!

And my absolute favorite you are fabulous! It was good to hear it then and it’s still good to hear it now.

So what is the moral of this story?

Please do not smack your friend/cousin/co-worker upside the head when they are telling you something positive or rational in your moment of despair. Yes, it hurts! It hurts a lot, but always remember that everything happens for a reason, time will tell, when one door closes another one opens and you are absolutely fabulous :)

Finally, I would like to leave you with these words from Conan O’Brien from his last appearance on The Tonight Show. These lines get at the exact sentiment of what I am trying to convey.

"Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But, if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen”.

Be kind and work hard people, and the rest will follow :)

Never lose hope...

I have always been a big believer of hope, and of never losing hope.   But what do you do when you and those around you feel hopeless?  How do you help those who need help and most importantly how do you help yourself?

Even those that are not spiritual or religious will advise you to put your trust in God, the spirits, saints, or prayer.  Giving up control and relying on hope can give us a sense of relief as we wait for things to work out for the best.

At this point, when my family is going through one of the hardest things we have had to go through, I am going to place my hope back on them.  My family is like your typical family, we are far from perfect and there are a lot of holes and cracks in some of our relationships.  I want to believe that our collective strength will help us get through this.  I hope we can find comfort, strength and hope in each other.

I hope we use this time of grieving to come closer together and while the holes and cracks will not disappear, I hope that they at least become a little less noticeable.

Friends, please appreciate your family and those who are dear to you.  Say that kind word to someone in need, reach out and be good and just to one another. Hopefully when you find yourself in a moment of grief, you can be at peace with yourself and those you love.

I have said this before and will say it again… The power of love is amazing!  If we just take a moment and think about what is really important, we can come along way. 

And whatever you do, never lose hope.  In the end that’s all we ever really have.

All Fuzzy Inside

A couple of months ago during a staff meeting, we went around the room and did an ice breaker. The question was what is your favorite holiday? My colleagues answered mostly that their favorite holidays were Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years.

Then it was my turn and I like a total dork I said Valentine's Day :) Are you rolling your eyes yet?

No? Well keep reading...

I love the whole concept of love, being in love, passion, closeness, butterflies, intimacy, I am all over it. It makes me all fuzzy inside.

Yeah, I am that person, the hopeless romantic. You know at least someone like me or maybe I am the person you already know! The person that cries at weddings, moving speeches, toasts, you utter anything remotely heartfelt near me and I am reaching for the Kleenex.

Maybe it’s because I was born a Cancer or the fact that my mom babied me too much. But I just love all that corny stuff. A lot of people do, they just decide to hide it. What's the point of being a hopeless romantic when you can't genuinely express your sappiness? It kind of defeats the purpose.

I am a Hollywood writers dream! I am the person they are trying to reach with all those sappy love stories, the tear-jerkers, the moments that make girls go awwwwww. I am the sucker that keeps these people rich. They see people like me coming from a mile away.

Just to give you an idea of my absolute cheesiness. Here is a truncated list of Hollywood moments that have made me cry. Some are obvious, others not so much:

The Notebook
The Way We Were
Up
Carlito's Way
My Girl
Beaches
I Am Sam
Penny and Desmond (LOST)

My list is too long to list completely, so as to not embarrass myself any further, I will just stop here, but you get the point.

Now, this is just Hollywood stuff. In real life, I know that men like Noah (The Notebook) do not exist. I don't believe in Prince Charming, but I do believe in Prince Kinda Cute, who might not match all the time, but always puts you first, calls when he says he will, is not trying to sleep with your friends and stands up for you. I don't ask for much, just be funny, smart and have a job. No wait, please have a career. Yes, there is a difference. Is that too much to ask???

While there will be some of you that hate Valentine's Day and think that this is an artificial holiday made to sell cards and chocolate. You know what?  You are absolutely right!

But I don't care!!

Send me the flowers, give me the chocolate, the presents and the card. I will EAT IT UP!

For those of you that are lucky to have a significant others that do the sweet little things for you all the time, well good for you! But some of us are just not that lucky. Valentine's Day makes people sweeter, more romantic, the holiday and the pressure gives people a little push to buy that special someone something thoughtful. So in my book, it’s a win-win for all involved, no matter what the motivation. At the end of the night you might even get laid.

I'm just saying...

Most importantly, I am a sucker for the card. Men, let me give you a little bit of advice, when you get your girl/wife or that special someone a nice gift, DO NOT forget the card!! This is the most important part of the whole gift giving experience. Whatever you write here is what she will remember. She might not use that camera next year, but those words will stay with her forever and when you mess up, this is what she will think about when she decides to forgive you, not that cheap camera.

But enough about relationships! I believe in the love that exists in people. And no matter how situations in your past might make you jaded, at the end of the day the power of love is amazing. Not just romantic love, but also the love we have for ourselves, our neighbors and the communities we live in. So for all you cynics out there, Valentines Day is also about friendships and the connections we make with people. So smile and give your friend a hug, it might make you feel good too.

To all my family and friends and for those that read this blog (that I may not know yet), I hope you have a fabulous Valentine's Day!!

Now that you feel all good inside, go buy me some chocolate :)

Do you dare to dream?

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." - Excerpt from I Have A Dream Speech - August 28, 1963. Washington, D.C.








We should all have dreams that are as noble as this.  We should be able to dream those idealistic dreams even if the world around us sometimes proves us otherwise.  We should also be able to freely live out those dreams even if others oppose you. 

Forty-six years after Dr. King delivered the speech that almost every American (I hope) knows some of the important lines to, I still want to believe that what he preached will one day be reached in this country.  For all to be treated as equals, not on paper but through actions.  In this great country of ours that is a microcosm of the world, millions have come willingly or unwillingly, but in the end the dream is the same, to be free and to be treated as an equal. 

My own immigrant experience is not very different from others that have come to the United States looking for a better life.  My parents may not have fully understood at the time Dr. King's speech or how it would affect them, but I can assure you that they dreamed the same thing.  My brother and I dream the same dream and hopefully his children and my future children will still dream the same dream. 

If we begin to take the idea of equality for granted, then what was the point?  What was the point of so many risking their livelihoods to protest, what was the point in my parents bringing me to this country?

Like a true idealist, I still dream...

I have a dream that one day I will live in a world in which conformity will not beat out the creation of new ideas...

I have a dream that one day the color of my skin, the accent in my voice and the curls in my hair will not be factors in judging my character...

I have a dream that one day we can all really live in peace and love...

I sound like a hippie :) but... 

Do you dare to dream?  As you ponder this question, I leave you with this final quote from Dr. King.

"Man is man because he is free to operate within the framework of his destiny. He is free to deliberate, to make decisions, and to choose between alternatives. He is distinguished from animals by his freedom to do evil or to do good and to walk the high road of beauty or tread the low road of ugly degeneracy" - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., The Measures of Man, 1959.

Resolutions

I am going to try something a little different this year.  
 

I will NOT make any traditional resolutions for 2010.  Why you ask?  Like everyone else, most of my resolutions have been:
 

1. I will start exercising
2. I will eat healthy foods
3. I will not procrastinate
4. I will stop worrying

For the past twenty years I don't think that I have ever kept a resolution past Valentine's Day.
 

Think about it, you start the new year of right, or so you think.  You join the gym, you bring salads to work, you skip happy hour, but then February starts and its gets reallyyyyyy cold, so you might skip the gym once or twice and then you won't go for a week.  Valentine's Day comes around and if you have a date you most likely will go to a nice place and eat your surf and turf, have a bottle of wine and have dessert too, so there goes resolutions one, two and three.
 

After a couple of days, when the flowers die and you have eaten all of the Godiva, you start to worry that you won’t fit into those skinny jeans that cost you $125.  There goes resolution four and to be honest there goes the rest of the year and you think to yourself, you know what?  I will just get them next year.
 

In attempts to not be a total loser, I will be more practical. I will tweak my resolutions to look a little like this:
 

1. I will try to walk at least 30 minutes a day... when its not too hot, too cold, raining, snowing, or drizzling
2. I will not eat Big Macs... regularly
3. I will not watch a lot of TV... Unless its DVR, because that doesn't count, I am skipping commercials thus only watching quality television
4. I will try and not be so snarky... unless the comment is just so funny that I just have to say it

Now just typing that was liberating.  
 

We as people are way too hard on ourselves.  We live in a world were everyone is trying to outsmart the other, be hotter than the other and have more money than the other.  We make bad choices and then feel bad for ourselves and think that on the eve of the New Year we can erase all of those extra glasses of wine and that time you ate a whole pint of Haagen-Dazs with unattainable resolutions. 
 

Let’s face it, some of us are fat slobs that watch way too much TV and then worry about it.  Well, I will not be that person! If I will be a fat slob, I will at least enjoy myself and have that extra drink at happy hour.  You only live once!
 

But seriously, I will make resolutions for myself everyday I wake up.  I will make decisions that are good for me and those I love, but if I happen to wake up on the wrong side of the bed, and eat that Big Mac with large fries for lunch, I won’t worry about it.  I will just get them the next day.  I will not wait another year.
 

So, join me!  Throw out those old resolutions and ring in the New Year knowing that every day is a new day and every new day is new chance to get it right.
 

Happy New Year Everyone!