blogger may I

The past is passed… but it still haunts us.

- Mel

I’m going to deviate a bit from today’s Blogger, May I? prompt of “This Time Last Year…” since there was something truly life-changing that happened to me two years ago this week.

I had MOHs surgery to remove skin cancer from my face.

Recently, a friend shared a story via Facebook about another girl who posted pictures of her skin cancer treatments online to promote “healthier” tanning habits in young women. I’m here to do the same thing. I actively blogged about this two years ago because it was traumatic. Two years ago, not only did I find out a flat, colorless, shiny spot on my face was skin cancer, but lost my two grandparents within three months of one another. A Basal Cell Carcinoma diagnosis happened in the middle of that. I endured another year of deep depression, only finding my way back to happiness a few months ago.

I was only 36-years-old then. Still, my dermatologist EVERY SINGLE VISIT tells me that I’m too young. It remains extremely difficult to hear that and know, for the most part, IT WAS PREVENTABLE. Every year around my birthday now I have to do a screening. Last week I had another biopsy, which thankfully was benign. But those old feelings still creep up. I still have the scars, both emotionally and physically. While my dermatologist compliments the surgeons for how well they stitched my face back up, I still have to look at it every day and be reminded of my ignorance.

You can't see it, but I can.
You can’t see it, but I can.

I’d be remiss to not mention its impact financially. While my screening appointments are covered, insurance does not pay for biopsies — each year I have at least one and each costs me about $250. The MOHs surgery cost SEVERAL THOUSAND DOLLARS. All of which had to be paid up-front, out-of-pocket. I was horribly and visibly bruised for several days, which meant not being able to go to work either (and meant unpaid personal days). And because I am admittedly vain about my face, I will also (soon) pay a couple hundred dollars to remove broken blood vessels that resulted from the surgery. Some people pay more for plastic surgery, so, yes, I know that I am “lucky” in that regard.

In any event, I will pontificate and remind you that getting an annual skin cancer screening — especially if you are fair skinned, sunburn easily or often, have a lot of moles or freckles — IS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. That link, by the way, will take you to the Skin Cancer Foundation’s website, which has a lot of helpful information about the different types of skin cancer, how to detect and/or the warning signs, and how or where to get screened.

And don’t forget the sunscreen.

4 Favorite Blogging Tools

- Mel

Today’s prompt from Blogger, May I? is a topic that I’ve never really blogged about: the more technical side of blogging.

Happy Mother's Day!

1. WordPress
I’ve mentioned in a previous post that I’ve been blogging for over a decade. For those years, I’ve primarily used WordPress, but I’ve published via Blogger, TypePad, and if you want to call it blogging, Tumblr. WordPress is far-and-beyond my platform of choice. I do have a little experience with design and coding, so its capabilities are natural for me. I got frustrated with some of the limitations of other platforms.

2. Diptic
I have some serious aggravation with iPhone pictures and WordPress and WHY DO THEY ALWAYS SHOW SIDEWAYS?! I have to fix all of my photos in the Diptic mobile app prior to uploading. This app has the capability of making collages, resizing, and adding borders or text to photos too.

3. P-metrics
I use Performancing P-metrics for my site tracking and blog stats, since it’s easy to understand, puts the important information up front, simple tabs to gain more insight about traffic, and is relatively inexpensive at $9.99/month. Google Analytics are overly-complicated; WordPress stats are inaccurate. I wish I could even remember how I came upon P-metrics, but it’s one of those things that just worked for me and I kept using it.

4. Related Posts plug-in
You want people to read your content, then stay and read some more right? This is why I love the Related Posts plug-in; it’s easy to install on your WordPress blog, and the thumbnails from similar entries are populated right from the posts (I know, I should post more pictures). There are different customizations and settings to fit the elements of your blog and its design.

I can’t wait to read everyone else’s blogging tools (I already learned something new today.) What are your favorite tools?

What I’m Learning

- Mel

I did a little skip-a-roo on my Blogger, May I? post yesterday, so that I could focus on (finally) getting my half marathon recap published. Yesterday’s prompt was “What are you learning?” which is my post topic today. And stay tuned for today’s actual post a little later.

If you want to talk about learning in the traditional sense, I have learned quite a bit since starting my applied psychology program last year. I’ve learned that books are even more expensive than 20 years ago when I first stepped foot in college! Among other things. In the, perhaps, non-traditional sense (for lack of a better way to reference), I have been learning a lot about myself lately — mostly that I have changed in many ways even in the last few months.

I have been learning how to live with purpose and intent. I have learned how to slow down. How not to procrastinate. How not procrastinating has somehow made my days feel longer and more fulfilled. Accomplished. I’ve learned how to tame my boredom and be OK with complacency and stillness. I love the quiet. I’ve learned the importance of forgiveness and forgetting — and most importantly, the difference between the two. I’ve learned how to communicate better with my partner (thanks, therapy!). I’ve learned that running changes my body shape. Heck, I’ve even learned that I look younger when I don’t wear eyeliner.

I’ve alluded to personal growth a few times on this blog, and I have made that a priority in my life: to be OK with who I am, who I’ve become, who I want to be. It’s that acceptance that you read about that comes with age. Wisdom with age, the wealth we all hope to accumulate.

SUNDAY LATELY: Updating, Reminding, Needing, Wearing, Being

- Mel

Today’s Blogger, May I? prompt follows the weekly Sunday Lately theme. This week is Updating, Reminding, Needing, Wearing, Being.

Happy Mother's Day! (1)

Updating:
Updating my workout schedule for the week, with a return to some light running (yay!) and CrossFit.

Reminding:
I don’t know that I particularly wanted the reminder, but after being thoughtfully forgotten this week, I have decided to stop fighting for people who so obviously do not want to be friends. I have too many GREAT friends in my life to expend my love and energy and loyalty to settle for anything less. Maybe we all need that reminder.

Needing:
After my last few nights (and days) of celebration, I am in need of a sobriety break… and a lot of water. Also, need to get back on track with my healthier eating habits after enjoying a few necessary (and wonderful!) cheat days.

Wearing:
Where my jorts-loving 30-somethings at? I swear, I cannot get rid of old jeans without first DIY’ing into jorts.

Being:
Absolutely, completely content. My sense of “being” this past week has been full of happiness. More, please!

Most Important Female Figure in Your Life.

- Mel

Today’s prompt for Blogger, May I? has a few different coincidences — first of which being its proximity to Mother’s Day. And with today being the day of my birth, this is going to be a little love letter to my mama.

Yes, I’m a Mother’s Day baby. I was my mom’s first, so it added an additional heavy importance. Like any relationship, ours was complicated. As an adult now — the age she was when she had her SEVENTH child — I totally get it. It took a lot of growth, and sometimes some distance to understand one another.

Mom, we need a new picture!
Mom, we need a new picture!

But I’m incredibly lucky to have had a mother who was human. I know, that might seem like a weird way to describe a mother-daughter relationship, but it was tailored perfectly to my personality. She wasn’t a disciplinarian, and that helped me to cultivate my independence. I wasn’t afraid of making mistakes, which helped me be more driven and adventurous. I could talk to her about nearly anything. And the things I didn’t talk to her about, she already knew. I had to move back once during a traumatic experience in my early 20s; without judgment of my life or lifestyle, she took me back in until I could get back on my feet. At times, when just a kid, I felt like a second mother in the house — something I didn’t appreciate through my turbulent teen and young adult years — but wholly value in how it shaped me to have the capacity to love and care deeply and to be loyal to others (even when I don’t want to). And that sometimes that real unconditional love you NEED can be found in animals. And that sometimes dinner can be a spoonful of peanut butter, dipped in powder sugar, and then rolled in chocolate chips. Or something.

There were a lot of terrible things that happened to me in high school, which took me decades to reconcile. A few years ago, I watched my mother go through an amazing transition of finding herself and true happiness — which by happenstance, was a time when I was doing a lot of soul searching. I found the true importance in forgiveness that has helped me heal — and likely, has helped our relationship heal. I have never seen her happier and more content than at this time in our lives, and that’s something that fills my heart.

We’re different in many ways, which go beyond the count of our children. And the same: we’re both procrastinators and struggle with worry and would save every animal off the street if we could.

And we both hate spiders.

<3 you, mom.

Share a Recipe, aka: I can’t cook, so you get someone else’s.

- Mel

Today’s Blogger, May I? prompt is Share a Recipe.

Blogger confession: guys, I really can’t cook. Most days I wonder how I survived being so independent so long. While one of those was cheese, the other was I ate crap, processed foods (and a lot off the value menu at Wendy’s). Thinking about that now makes me cringe.

I can honestly remember specific meals that turned out well enough to serve to other people, and I replicated them regularly: Brussels sprouts with balsamic and slivered almonds was a favorite side; a simple tossed pasta with olive oil, lemon, and peas was another. I always brought cheesy potatoes to holidays. Once I made my friend and I mushroom risotto, after having it in a restaurant and having NO CLUE what I was doing (and my friend, god bless her, for having dinner with me). Once I cut up bing cherries and tossed them in a cream sauce with asparagus — yes, I did that! (It was fucking delicious.) My stuffed peppers were amazing. My Mexican twist on stuffed peppers was even better.

But I only had myself to impress.

Twice I even made a moussaka which is really complicated and basically redeems my cooking skills once a decade. I know if I put my mind to it, I could probably make anything, but it will just take two hours longer than the recipe or anyone else on earth who cooks, and by then I’ve drank an entire bottle of wine and eaten a box of cereal in waiting. And I’m drunk now… so, what?

Cooking sucks, OK?

But Pinterest does not!

shared recipes

And this is where I share all my diet restrictions-friendly recipes with the boyfriend when we plan meals. The end.

But not really the end because you know what really sucks: The few meals that I did know how to cook? I can’t eat anymore because of my diet restrictions. This cooking thing will likely be what running was to me last year — pure seething hated madness — to what it is now — a developed passion THAT I HAD TO TRAIN FOR. I just need to get over my resistance to learn.

Is there mental training for cooking?

A 30-something and the Story Behind Her Blog Name

- Mel

Today’s post is The Story Behind My Blog Name, prompted by Blogger, May I?

O U R   E S C A P E

I’ve been able to call myself a blogger for over a decade. My first blog, dedicated to my single life and dating stories, was what some would call “popular” but for obvious reasons became dull and unexciting to readers when I got serious with my (still) boyfriend. As much as I tried to liven things up over there, I was growing further away from its initial fun and MISS INDEPENDENT purpose. Oh, see yesterday’s post to understand a little of why I pressed DELETE on that blog without remorse. In one word, it was an embarrassment.

In any event, I started this blog (on Tumblr, gross) as a vehicle for promoting a client’s designer jewelry e-commerce site (if you see any super early fashion posts, I’m wearing a lot of the pieces). What has developed from there (once I adopted the site as my own) are perspectives from a 30-something navigating her way through a psychology undergrad program, life and body changes, and the effects on well-being.

I always intended for this to be a place where 30-somethings commiserate about all the things that women don’t tell you about getting older… until you’re actually older. And while I do that a bit from my point of view, I’d really like to see that to fruition in the next couple years from different voices. Naturally, I got sidetracked by schoolwork and my new-found love of running recently, but I’m looking forward to reinvigorating this space to be for all 30-somethings to come together and talk about body changes, lifestyle changes, hormones, pre- or peri-menopause (seriously) and those thick black hairs that start growing out of your chin.

Never Have I Ever…

- Mel

I always lost this game. And by lost, I mean, got drunk first. It seemed in the days where a drinking game like “Never Have I Ever” was played, I was a little more carefree and took great pride in my stories. This too proper, classy portrayal of an aging lady who writes this now has a past where she played games like “Never Have I Ever”… and sometimes drunk twister. And yes, there was also strip poker on a couple of occasions (err, once in high school). I also created a kissing game in elementary school with the die from a Scattegories game (yes, I was very unsupervised as a minor). But that’s what I used to consider “winning.”

And I try SO HARD to remember who that person was. It doesn’t feel like me.

I wonder, as I’m ticking off another year on the 30-something calendar this week, if I’ve become SO uptight that I’m unable to have real fun. In effort to shed some perceptions of me as a Party Girl, I’ve gone so far to the other side that even I think I’m boring. Is this part of aging, in general, where we wistfully remember “the good old days” of our youth and have fond stories to embarrass your future children? And what if you don’t have children — who do you tell, the neighbors?

I had a pretty bad quarter-year crisis; I’m wondering if I should expect another one before I turn 40. A few months ago, I attended a local event hosted by a life coach, and all my self-analysis during her session led me to write in my notebook the words: HAVE MORE FUN.

My mid-year assessment says “no, I’m not having more fun.” For purposes of perfect metaphors, I’m running away from all of my problems. And if there’s anything that I fear more than getting older, it’s getting complacent.

This post is part of Blogger, May I? — and its 30 days of prompts.

Sunday Lately: Dwelling, Helping, Forgetting, Switching, Relying

- Mel

I do my own regular “thinking” recaps in my Weekly Therapy posts, so this Blogger, May I? post was a nice change of pace for today. Although, given I JUST RAN A HALF MARATHON (and finished a two-page paper for school soon after), my brain struggled through this a bit. But I like how the prompts can be reflective of different meanings, depending on the blogger.

Dwelling
It’s been six months since contractors wrecked my life in order to fix my house. They finally came back this week to touch up some “mistakes” and fix other issues — including changing the light in my entryway (which they ruined during the renovations).

The new light is beautiful!
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Helping
I’ve been thinking a lot about how I’d like to give back, since volunteering was something that had to take a backseat with school and work full-time and my full training schedule. I’ve been inspired by Project R.U.N., Kids of Steel, and Girls on the Run programs, and I hope that I can soon find my place to help make an impact about healthy lifestyle choices with kids in my community.

Forgetting
I’ve been consumed so much by this race that I keep forgetting that my birthday is next weekend (it’s also finals week, blech).

Switching
Time to switch gears: IT’S BIRTHDAY WEEK!

Relying
Relying on my group members this week to get me through this last week of projects and presentations! Have I mentioned how much I’m looking forward to Spring Break next week?

Flying Friends & Five Favorites

- Mel

I’m participating in a month-long series of posts for Blogger, May I. Today’s prompt is: Five Favorites

I mentioned in a previous post about my fundraising efforts for the National Aviary during my half marathon training. Today’s post is about THE BIRDS that make the Aviary one of my favorites places in Pittsburgh, focusing on my five cute little (and sometimes big) guys that keep me coming back. I stopped in today after the 5K to pay my feathered friends a visit — and tell them all about the goodies coming their way as result of my donations. *wink, wink*

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1. Bubba is a Palm Cockatoo located (most days) in the Tropical Rainforest exhibit. Many former visitors may remember him when he was in the atrium area. Unfortunately, he wasn’t visible today on my visit, but I got SO EXCITED when he returned my “Bubba, hi!” call from his holding area. He endured through many of my long shifts at the Aviary when I had no one else to talk to, so he’s my favorite-favorite.

2. Crested Wood Partridges, much like Bubba, brought me a lot of joy when I was working at the Aviary. I mean, how can you not smile at that cute little red Mohawk and their little round bodies?

3. Franklin, the Spectacled Owl, is not an exhibit bird, but you can get lucky and see him on occasion being walked through the halls during open hours. He’s probably my favorite bird to get a selfie with — and I lucked out seeing him today with a trainer, who let me take a selfie recap.

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4. Aleutia, one of the Steller’s Sea Eagles, and I love to have staring contests. Or, I love to stare and admire her, while she conspires up ways that she can have me for dinner. Either way, she’s a magnificent bird to see up close — and the Aviary has two of these eagles!

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5. The Aviary has private encounters that are an AMAZING way to get up-close-and-personal (or, “nose to beak”) to a bird. You can make reservations to meet a penguin, a bird of prey, or even go down to the beach and hang out with the flamingos. For my birthday last year, I treated myself to a bird of prey encounter and the trainer selected a Lanner Falcon for my half hour exerience. And, well, the picture speaks for itself how incredible the experience is and how the falcons moved up my list of favorites.

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If you haven’t been, you really should make a visit — it’s a somewhat-small place, so you don’t need an entire day to see everything (a couple hours to walk through the open exhibit areas, and see a live bird show or feeding is highly recommended for the whole experience!). And THANK YOU to those who have already donated — and many thanks in advance to YOU if you make a donation before tomorrow.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t include a bonus picture of the Roadrunner (Aviary just recently added two of these guys into their Cloud Forest exhibit):

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