ASK GAY: Dream Job, Dream Big

The cards were stacked against me to get a post out yesterday. I surrendered when I looked down at my cookie sheet filled with chocolate chip cookie dough balls, anxiously awaiting a sprinkle of fleur de sel before being slid into the piping hot oven. At first glance, I thought something was off. At second glance, I knew something was off.  And then it finally dawned on my why... Not a single chocolate chip was to be found in the 16 perfectly shaped cookie dough balls. Someone forgot that last step of stirring chocolate chips into the dough...
But I'm not giving up. This will be a Saturday post. ASK GAY is a day late, but not a dollar short! Here we goes!

What is your dream job? If you could do anything- time, money, everything else aside- what would you do?
Oh well let me tell you, this question came at a very appropriate time as I have had a fire lit under me as of late! If I could have any job I wanted, I would be a public speaker. I would be a recognized writer. I would be in a position where my message would reach many hearts. You want to know the message I'm dying to share???

HOPE.

That's what I want to preach about.

Let me share a little something with you.

I love God.

I also love religion.

I think both God and religion offer a flame of hope.

I also think those two things, misinterpreted, kill hope.

It's an interesting conundrum.

Lately I've had unexpected conversations with people that fall in different places on the religious spectrum regarding different issues they're going through. But the ending concern seems to be similar-- they feel somewhat cut off from God because they're "messing up". And the deeds of messing up vary greatly. Like some things should hardly be termed as messing up.

This makes me so sad!

For awhile now I was just keeping my mouth shut under the assumption that I apparently see things so differently, and probably more "liberally" which isn't always acceptable. 

Well lately I've decided to stop keeping my mouth shut.

I think this life is a playing field to develop characteristics that collectively build solid character.

What are some of those characteristics?

Patience, sympathy, empathy, understanding, love.

There is a journey in gaining and strengthening these characteristics.

There is a huge learning curve.

And do you know what a learning curve entails?

Messing up.

Messing up is part of the journey.

It's part of the molding.

Messing up may always appear to be two-steps backwards, but I'm not completely convinced that's the case.

Sometimes messing up simply reveals a vulnerability or creates a space for more learning.

It's an opportunity!

Opportunity is a beautiful thing.

Opportunity is the opposite of standstill, opportunity is far from damming.

And yet I think a lot of our minds see messing up like that and therefore we're not open to learning the lesson and growing in the way that we could be.

Instead we take on guilt and cloud our minds with self-appointed negativity which then does act as a dam.

I remember being 19 years old attending Ricks College (before it took on the prestigious name of BYU-Idaho!). I was sitting in a religion class where the professor was talking about unpardonable sins. Sins that we couldn't repent from, sins that effectively stop our progress.

As a young 19 year old girl, I was scared to death that I fell into that category.

I remember timidly approaching the professor after class and being all, 

"Well tell me specifically...what are unpardonable sins?" 

I wanted specifics.

I remember him looking at me and saying,

"Believe me, nothing you have ever done qualifies as unpardonable." 

There was more in the conversation but the gist of that situation was that I- a recovering, out of control, rebellious teenager- was afraid that my chances at a God-pleasing life were already ruined. At a young 19 years old, I definitely thought there was a chance my fate was already doomed.

How sad!

Where is the hope, the motivation, the incentive to live a full life?

I feel lucky that I didn't get trapped in that mentality.

I feel thankful that my perspective on God and religion has evolved to where I no longer think of God as a dictator and His commandments as mere measures of success.

I'm glad that this evolution has lit a fire of HOPE that I want to spread,

to let others see that we just need to be moving forward, striving for good, extending our best by just a little each day. 

Forward movement, y'all!

That's what counts and that's something that each and every one of us can do.

It eliminates comparison as we each have our own starting line.

It eliminates guilt because we get that our paces will vary from day to day.

It allows for messing up because we understand that it's a journey rather than a race.

We start believing that we are creating something therefore allowing us to respect and accept the process.

Hope is beautiful!

Hope in the right things is freeing!

Living life at peace in priceless.

This what I want to share!

I want to share the different aspects of our lives that can be affected positively by appropriate hope- our relationships, our ambitions, our spirituality. I want to share how we can stop impeding our own growth.

I, in fact, want to tell anyone and everyone, through writing and public speaking. I want to use my story, my LIFE, my journey of messing up a million times, as an example of hope. Hence this is why it is now my dream job!

Do you have any ideas how I can start?!!

K, I'm now coming down from my soap box. But do share, what is YOUR dream job? If you could do anything- time, money, and everything else aside- what would you do? Do me a favor and please share in the comments section! Have a question for ASK GAY? Please email me at agirlnamedgay@gmail.com. Or if you just have a question or something you want to chat about but don't want it published, email me all the same.

ASK GAY: 2 pieces of Parenting Advice

Yay! Can I tell you how excited I am to be doing another "ASK GAY"??! It's been too long, and I must admit, these are some of my favorite posts to write. Kind of projects me into a completely made-up life that I sometimes like to pretend I live-- where people come to me for advice on a regular basis and in turn, we just get to chit chat! I'd be good at that in real life!
Ok, so allow me to bust out the ASK GAY button and make this sesh begin officially...

If you could only pass on two pieces of parenting advice, what would they be? 

Ah ha! I love this question because it really made me narrow down and prioritize what I think is both important and most effective when it comes to parenting.

(Disclaimer: Before I start, I have to admit what I think one of the absolute hardest things about parenting is. And that is that your rarely really know if what you are doing is effective. Meaning, often times we don't see the results of our work. (I'm assuming that will come years down the road.) And the results of our work don't always represent whether or not we were doing the right/best thing. Meaning, if a kid turns out awesome, it isn't necessarily because he had awesome parents that were doing everything "right". And on the contrary, a kid can grow up to be a tyrant in spite of awesome parents who made some solid parenting decisions.)

Okay, with that disclaimer out of the way, I'm going to share the two lines of thought that have really helped me as a Mom.

1) Remember we are teachers.

Our primary job as parents is to teach them: we're teaching them how to take care of themselves, how to function socially, how to solve problems, how to get along with others, how to stick up for themselves, etc, etc, ETC! I mean, for real, the list does not end! We are teachers! And most important in that role as teachers is not as much to teach them what NOT to do, but more importantly, teaching them what TO do. Human nature is that we want to be doing something. So that's what we should focus on when parenting.

There are numberless influences telling the kids what not to do:

"Don't touch that!"

"Stop jumping on the bed!"

"Don't hit your brother!"

"Stop talking like that!"

"Don't throw eggs at cars!"

There's no shortage of people defining the rules as what NOT to do.

We need to set ourselves apart from that group and in addition to telling them what not to do, we need to teach them what TO do.

For example, when I would see my littles starting to draw on the table or chair or wall, I would ask them, "Where do we color?.... Yes, we only color on paper," and then help them draw on the paper. This acknowledges the fact that they want to draw (again, they want to be doing something) and then shows them a positive way to accomplish their intention.

Instead of simply yelling, "Don't hit your brother!", I try to offer a positive, more effective way of dealing with his frustration... "Use your words. Tell him you're mad. He doesn't know what you're mad about if you just hit him. Give him a chance to work with you." This technique acknowledges their intentions and/or frustrations, and then teaches them how to channel those intentions in a positive/effective way.

Imagine if you're kid's teacher walked around the class during writing time and was all, "STOP making your b's like that." With no further explanation. With no acknowledgement that he is trying really, really hard to express something, to make a b....it's just that he often forgets what side that little circle goes on. Nope, none of that is offered, simply a demand to stop doing what he's doing. Obvious nonsense, right?!!

Food for thought!  

So #1- be a teacher.

2) Remember we're planting seeds.

This piece of advice came from my good friend, Anneli, and I've thought about it often. The idea of "planting seeds" has served as a great mediator when I'm faced with many a parenting situations. And let me tell you why.

Isn't parenting about telling your kid what to do and then they do it?

Success and failure is then very clearly lined out for you:

if they obey- success. If they don't- fail.

Fail as parents that is!

Well we'd all be failing parents if this were the measuring stick.

On this note, I think it is sometimes hard to determine what our expectations should be in relation to what we ask of our kids.

Do we have to be completely militant or a complete push over?

For instance, when you tell a kid to sit at the dinner table and don't move an inch, should our expectation be that they actually don't move for the rest of the meal? Do you struggle about what to do when they move all over and are up and running again?

I do.

I feel like I can be a military parent, or I can be a complete push over. 

And while neither of those titles are appealing to me, it used to feel like those were my options.

If I said, "Sit and don't move," I had to discipline if anything other than the specific demand was done. Or I felt like I had to completely ignore the fact that they didn't listen to a word I said-- in fact, did the exact OPPOSITE-- and we'd all continue on in our own little world.

Well, the idea of just planting seeds has merged the gap being militant and push over and helps in answering the question of appropriate expectations.

When I tell my kids something or ask them to do something, I am stating the ideal, thus planting a seed.

I don't have to expect them to right away achieve the ideal. (i.e.: use your words, don't hit, pick up your plate without me asking, be a good brother/sister, worry about yourself, etc.)  Each time, we can expect them to do a little better than they were doing before and that probably means not complying with 100% of what we asked them, but it means getting a little better than what we were getting before. 

That is improvement, which to me implies success! Moving in the right direction, baby!

 As they get older (think teenage years....), it might mean not complying at all. But we can still play a positive role by reiterating over and over the seed we're trying to plant. I hope that after repeating the ideal time and time again  that when the time comes when they're on their own, making their own decisions, the seed will have taken root and blossomed. 

What I love about both of these pieces of "advice" is that they are transferable to most situations- they aren't isolated to specific scenarios. Rather, they can be applied time and time again. The other thing I love is that they are both timeless principles. They can be applied to babies and teenagers alike.

So there they are!

And as a bonus, here's more good, simple advice!

• 

  Cali Pope Depend on and counsel with the person that knows your kids the best! And that's the man upstairs!

  Unlike · Reply · 1 · Yesterday at 7:42am via mobile
• 

  Vanessa Gordillo Wuehler To just love your kids.

  Unlike · Reply · 1 · 22 hours ago via mobile
• 

  Camille Prows Hickcox At the end of the day trust your gut...momma knows best

  Unlike · Reply · 1 · Yesterday at 8:13am via mobile
• 

  Kasey Merritt Laughlin just laugh 

  Unlike · Reply · 1 · Yesterday at 7:38am
• 

  Laura Robins Anderson To relax.

  Like · Reply · 18 hours ago via mobile
• 

  Kady Arnold Peterson They will probably grow out of it

What piece of advice would you pass on???

***if you have a question for ASK GAY, please email me at agirlnamedgay@gmail.com.

ASK GAY: body image

Well let me tell you, there's nothing like loudly announcing that you don't have writer's block to bring on a mad case of writer's block. I couldn't write about even my favorite color right now if you paid me. Which would be a toughy even if you were paying me because I've been in the habit of claiming blue and green as my favorites ever since I was little.  And truth be told, I'm not sure that holds true anymore but I always revert back to autopilot whenever anyone asks me. And by anyone, I obviously mean my kids since adults no longer have the common courtesy to ask such relevant getting-to-know you questions such as...What is your favorite color?
I could attack an ASK GAY question but here's the thing, is has to do with body image and having a hot body and what not after having a baby. Brilliant question because most of us wouldn't mind looking h.o.t. hot.
But amongst things I wanted to start getting real about, one of those things is body image. And well, holy smokes, I guess right now is as good as time as any to talk about some of these things. I was thinking about shredding the body. And i'm not talking about Jillian Michaels shred. I'm talking about pregnancy on the female body. As always, for those us you without kids yet, consider this birth control. Pregnancy tears your body apart. My booty looks like it got attacked by some cat claws, leaving little white scratch marks everywhere.  Don't be fooled. Ain't no cat touched my booty. These are known as stretch marks. Boobs shrink and sag. Nipples shrivel. In spite of me wondering if I had gone 24 1/2 years without noticing a particular body part, alas I was wrong. I grew a new body part at 24 1/2 years old. I distinctly remember yelling out of the shower to my sister, "HEY ROO." When she came within non-yelling ear shot, I was all, "So, do you have booty flaps?" She was a bit perplexed by the question and after further discussion settled on the answer, "Well, I'd have to think about that." While I still don't know her answer, let me offer you mine. NO I don't have booty flaps. YES I do have hemorrhoids. Extra inflamed while pregnant. I didn't even know what they were until that day. You all, I know this is disgusting, I know this is TMI but by golly, this is the truth. This is pregnancy at it's finest. The aftermath of pregnancy ain't always pretty and there is almost always an aftermath. Even if you cross every crossable body part that there isn't, aftermath is a brewin.
And I started thinking about us girls, us women, who already struggle with body image as is. How UNFAIR to give us pregnancy too, I mean for real!
  And then a thought hit me.  That maybe us women need this process. Like, we need our body to be ripped apart, our pretenses to be shattered, years of image formation to be destroyed.  That we need to break our old image of  our body. That us women, who put so much emphasis- whether conscious or subconscious- on looks and outward appearance,  need to have that body image destroyed in a hope to rebuild it. That maybe we can shift our focus and re-stack our priorities, redefine "pretty". Let the new, mature self overtake our teenage definition of body image, set up a sturdier foundation that allows us to see beauty in more  than just a completely physical lens.
Sometimes I think I've come so far in this arena. I'm over the fact that I don't have boobs, I accept that I'm a mere two inches short of being officially Amazon even though I still look it in heels. I'm over the saggy booty, the stretch marks, the saggy boobs.... oh wait, I don't have those. But I'm gonna hypothesize that I'd be so grateful to have any boobs that I might even take saggy ones.
Point being, just when I thought my BODY IMAGE is actually pretty good, I gained weight. It may only be in the 5-10 pound range, I may still be a thin girl, but all of a sudden I'm not feeling all "good in my own skin" or however the saying goes.
So what's the deal, do I have good body image ONLY when I'm super thin? That's what things are kind of appearing to me these days  and that's a pretty sobering realization. Especially since I'll be preaching about loving yourself no matter what and every other cliche. And if I only am ok with how I look when at my optimal weight, then do I really have good body image? This is something I'm trying to get into check right now. Not just the 5-10 pounds. The loving myself, thinking I'm beautiful, blah blah blah, even when I've put on a few.
So I don't know what to tell you, or all of us, about body image. Because I guess I'm struggling with it more than I admitted or thought I was. I think pregnancy is a perfect opportunity to redefine beauty, to let go of some of our juvenile ideals. I know that's when I let go of some vain pretenses I had. It's amazing to see what our body is capable of and to simply appreciate it in it's miraculous form. There's nothing like a little baby to put life into perspective and change our focus.
That being said, I already did my bootcamp. Times 4. And I learned a lot and my body image has shot up from pre-baby. But I'm not about to do that whole pregnancy thing again just to get over a 5-10 pound weight gain so I best pull my crap together and learn how to love myself asap even when I have a few extra LBs strapped to my booty!
Those are my body image thoughts! And now I get to tack on a little picture on here and call this an ASK GAY question. Holla!

What are your thoughts on pregnancy being a boot camp for rebuilding body image???

I really like thinking of it that way.

Is it just because I'm the originator of that idea???!!

I got thick skin, don't be afraid to hurt my feelings!

But more importantly, share your thoughts on body image.

 

ASK GAY: LA edition

In case you're looking for a laugh this morning...

Imagine my 7 year old coming downstairs, all dressed and ready for his baseball game. I instantly notice his bulging crotch. And by bulging, I mean sticking a good 6 inches out. 

He tried telling me all the boys on his team wear cups.

I, of course, thought this was ludicrous, but then again I'm a girl and really have no idea and this is my first born child, which takes me out of the running in the experience department. When Yosh didn't answer my phone call to confirm or deny whether or not Dallin should be wearing a cup, I went with my gut and made him take it out.

He was mad and I'll let you come up with the jokes of all the things he could have called me.... Or all the male jokes I'm currently making in my mind....

Onto the session:

I have some patients who are going to LA to celebrate the graduation of a daughter from culinary arts school.  I was wondering if you could give me a list of restaurants that are great and the price range, as well as fun stuff to go see.

Oh Los Angeles. The city of dreams. And the city of angels apparently. And the city of amazingness. So much so that it can be a lit overwhelming. Truth be told, you're never going to be able to eat everywhere, do everything, see every...one??? Trying to stick with the every theme. So here are some of my recommendations based on what I've experienced. Remember that my recommendations are definitely going to favor the west side since that's where I live. But Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Pasadena, the Valley....all these places are capable of making dreams come true.
Let's start with food. I broke it up into three categories. .  {click on the title for more info. they're all linked to a website} 
Fancy nights out $$$$ Boa Steakhouse amazing steak, fun hip atmosphere. Georgio Baldi Italian in the Santa Monica Canyon. The Bazaar great food experience. Located in Beverly Hills. Tapas with "bizarre" cooking methods. Fogo de Chao Brazilian Churrascaria. Located in Beverly Hills. Geoffrey's Every dish I've ever tried has been delectable. The setting is amazing. Located in Malibu overlooking the ocean.
Cafes $ Huckleberry Jack n Jill
Everyday Dining $$-$$$ Lula's- great Mexican in old Santa Monica. The chicken pechuga is amazing. But so is the carne asada. Sugarfish- great sushi. Order the "Trust me". Paradise Cove- perfect to go for lunch ONLY if the weather is nice. The food is only average but the ambiance has you feeling like you're in Hawaii.  R&D- Father's Office- is a bar, but not a trashy one! Has one of the best burgers ever. Fun location. C&O- fun atmosphere, great location. The Griddle- a MUST GO! for breakfast. Pancakes as big as your head with crazy good flavors. And don't forget to order the Peanut Butter Bubba french toast also.
Desserts Diddy Riese- ice cream sandwiches in Westwood, right by UCLA campus Sprinkles-  people go miles out of their way to get one of these cupcakes. And now they have their own ice cream as well...

What to do, what to do.. {click on link for more info!}
Dodger game The Grove Hiking  Griffith Observatory 3rd Street Promenade- good shopping, people watching, and street performers Getty Museum Beach Cruising- MUST DO!
And as a closing, I'll give you my perfect day itinerary:
Wake up Go on a hike. Grab breakfast at the Griddle.  Go to the Promenade and walk around. Go rent a beach cruiser. Ride all the way through Venice. People watch at Muscle Beach, and the roller skaters, and the hand ballers. Maybe walk through Freak Museum. Shower. Eat sunset dinner at Geoffrey's. Get dessert at Diddy Riese.
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What else can you add to the list??? What are your must do's or must eat's? Let's be honest, I'm always looking for new incredible places to eat also! Share share share your secrets!