Where’s Moxie Mona?!

Whoopsie-doodle!

If you’re visiting from any of the sites celebrating the launch of Moxie Media, you’ll have to VISIT THE NEW SELF-HOSTED TREE, ROOT, AND TWIG site to see all of Moxie Mona’s adventures here with my family in Texas!  (just click on that there link above!)

See you soon!

Go! Go NOW!

Everything is happening at the new site!  Deep thoughts, fun giveaways, cute pictures – you’ll find them all at

treerootandtwig.com

SEE YOU THERE!

Your Daily Sound Check

Testing….1,2,3….Testing.

Is this thing on?  Did you hear the announcement?  I HAVE MOVED.

Please come to my new home at http://treerootandtwig.com and see what’s going on. 

Since the move, I’ve re-posted an exciting giveaway, published my thoughts on the PR Blackout hubub, and I’m getting ready to put up some more great opportunities for you!

Please come by and update your feed!

My Major Magazine Debut

An email I received today from a blogging friend:

Hey I saw you in this month’s Redbook! I was at the Y and got all excited. It’s a good thing I was on the elliptical. Other than the bike, it was probably the safest. Congrats.

Picture me checking the email address…reading the email again…and again.  Wondering “Is this a joke?  Did someone hack her email address?  Am I being punked?”

And then I remember, and I wonder how close I came to never knowing that something I did FOREVER ago would be printed.  Not that anyone at the magazine was going to bother ever telling me!

But there I am, in all my glory – right there, in the middle.  Enjoy!

sorry it's so totally fuzzy!

Is Boring Better?

The only things I really like about the film The Devil Wears Prada are Anne Hathaway’s bangs.

I mean seriously – is she rocking those bangs, or what?

We rented the movie when it first came out, and I didn’t like it then; it was just on tv the other night, and I don’t like it now.

Anne’s character – Andy – goes from frumpy, intellectual elitist to posh, fluent-in-fashion, magazine employee during the course of the movie, and she gets completely punished for it.  Her friends tell her she’s sold out, her boyfriend doesn’t even recognize her anymore.  Andy only falls back into their good graces when she gives up the glitz, the glamour, and admittedly some of the FUN she’s having to revert back to the drab, Plain Jane girl they all love and accept.

You can argue that Andy had somehow given up a piece of herself to fit into her new life, and that her friends were just trying to “save” her, but I feel a totally different vibe from this movie.

Sometimes people want to break out, they want to mix things up, they want to CHANGE.  There are, after all, whole worlds out there in orbit around us – we are just impervious to their gravitational pull because we’re so wrapped up in our own little universe.  But sometimes it feels good to play the explorer, and sometimes even better to find that a new world is hospitable and might just be to your liking.

I hate that we sometimes get down on each other for trying out new things, for acting “out of character.”  Characters are for movies, people, even bad ones like The Devil Wears Prada.

I feel like I’m heading into a mid-life crisis soon.  I’m only 35, but putting everything on speed dial like I have – marrying young, having children young – makes me feel MUCH, MUCH OLDER some days.  I recently had the chance for tickets to see two musicians in a small little nightclub in downtown Houston, and my husband looked at me like, “Are we really those types of people?”  As in, do conservative, married parents of many children really drop everything to go see two up-and-coming artists in a trendy little nightclub?  I was so angry at myself, because even *I* had to wonder.

But it all just makes me want to scream, “When did I suddenly age 20 years?!”  I want to do certain things and try certain things and be certain places and not have people frown on me because I’m not doing or being what they expect.  That’s what drives me so nuts about this stupid movie, and that’s what hits such a nerve for me.

It’s not just my age or my stage in life, or even my religion (because NOTHING I am talking about wanting to do would ever compromise my standards) – I think it happens all the time, to people in all walks of life.  We’re just more comfortable with people when they act how we expect, and they give us what we’re used to.  As if all the world believed that boring really is better.

Fresh Starts

Thank you, Spring, for this rejuvenation of spirit and burst of optimism.  A few fresh starts to take note of around here:

• our mourning doves are gone.  I am praying that they’ve found a new home with no sad associations, and that they are working on a new nest.  We’ve kept their old nest as a reminder of them, and also a reminder that life is fragile – enjoy and appreciate it.
• our church’s General Conference.  Twice a year the general leadership of our church meets in Salt Lake City and broadcasts a world-wide conference to the 13.5 million members.  It’s an opportunity to hear truly inspired talks and reaffirm your faith and strengthen your testimony.  I had some awesome personal experiences during General Conference this past weekend, some of which perhaps I’ll share in the weeks ahead.  Overall, though, it really helped me to redirect some goals, and as one of the speakers said, let my actions follow my conscience.
• a very strange conversation with my husband, which began with him saying, “I dreamed last night that we had a baby girl.”  Having considered 2009 as the year I would not conceive, birth, or nurse a baby – perhaps for the rest of my years – I was surprised to hear him say this with such longing.  And then when my kids starting in on it, too, I just didn’t know what to say.  For some reason, I thought maybe the kids were done with Mommy being so totally overwhelmed with toddler Eli, but apparently they are game to do it all over again.  I’m not so sure I am, but time will tell.
• Full Nest Reviews, my new product review blog.  It has had a wonderfully healthy start, and the hard work is keeping me very busy.  I love this blog and will continue to update regularly, but I acknowledge the little cobwebs that are starting to form (mostly with design and link updates).  I will be out to dust soon, I promise.

I hope you are enjoying  Spring in your corner of the world.  I recently answered the question “What’s your favorite thing about Spring?” with the snarky answer, “Well, now that we’re in Texas, my favorite thing about Spring is that it’s not Summer!”  And while that might be true, it’s still good to enjoy this season, and the Easter season, too, for the fresh starts that seem to be ready for the taking.

a recent beautiful sunrise

from our front porch