A few months ago I joined this website called Influenster, which allows you to get free samples in exchange for your honest reviews of the products. You are ranked or graded (or something) based on your online presence, and you can qualify for different badges based on your interests and lifestyle. I have a friend who tried it and liked it, so I thought I'd give it a go, because who doesn't like free stuff!
This is actually my second VoxBox (what the product packages are called); my first one was from Sargento and gave me a coupon for free cheese and a very nice insulated lunchbox. I ate the cheese before I remembered I was supposed to review it...oops.
So onto my current VoxBox. When I got the email that I was being sent a new VoxBox, I had a good laugh over the theme of this box. It's called the VowVoxBox and is supposed to be "specially designed for brides-to-be, bridesmaids, wedding guests and wedding crashers." I guess Influester, like the rest of society, assumes that because I'm in my 20s I obviously must be either getting married or attending a bazillion weddings, as if I have nothing better to do with my time. On the contrary, the next wedding I'm set to attend is not until next May, and my friends and I are much more concerned with earning our PharmDs than our marriage licenses. But nevertheless, five out of the 6 products I received were actually quite useful (and not wedding themed)! So onto my free stuff!
Influenster VowVoxBox - aka Box o' Free Stuff
First up we have Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Nail Polish in Barracuda. It's no secret that I LOVE nail polish! I have over 100 polishes, but this one was surprisingly not a shade I already owned. I have one other light blue that is more purple toned, while Barracuda is a true sky blue. This is also my first experience with the CSM formula, which is supposed to be able to go without base coat or top coat.
It dried pretty glossy. The formula did require 3 coats to make it even though.
It held up pretty well over two long work days (pharmacy is very hard on the nails). My only problem with this polish was the dry time. It took FOREVER to dry on my nails, even with my Zoya quick dry drops.
Next up we have a Tide To Go pen. I don't think I need to say much about this product, since you've probably already used one. I have one that lives in my purse, one in my laundry room, and I'll be putting this one in my white coat on rotations. I love these for removing the inevitable coffee stains that end up on my white coat.
The third product I received was Pure Silk shave cream in raspberry mist scent. I normally use hair conditioner or lotion to shave instead of a dedicated shave cream. I used this to shave my legs this morning before going to the pool, and my legs are quite "silky," no irritation or dryness. The texture of this shave cream was not at all what I expected. Most of the shaving products I've used in the past were gels that turned foamy as you spread them on your legs. The Pure Silk shave cream comes out of the can as a very stiff, almost dry foam. So that was a surprise. Not sure how I feel about it.
Extra fluffy shave cream
Up next is the Ecotools Pure Complexion Facial Sponge. It is a natural fiber sponge made from the Konjac plant. I haven't actually used this yet, but it seems like it would be good for gentle exfoliation.
This next product was a huge surprise to find in my VoxBox. That there is a full size container of Olay Regenerist Luminous Moisturizer! Full. Size. Do you know how expensive this stuff normally is??? Because I do. And I can't afford it. And yet here I got some for free! Thanks Influenster!
$$$$
The claim to fame of this particular Olay product is to fade dark spots and tone the skin over 8 weeks. I've got enough product to last me that long so we will see how that goes. I don't have a lot of dark spots, but whatever. The moisturizer has a nice light scent and a really thick consistency. It goes on smoothly and seems to absorb pretty fast. It is a heavier moisturizer so I would use it at night rather than under makeup during the day.
And it's so pretty!
The last product isn't even really a product, and made me roll my eyes so hard they almost got stuck in the back of my head. It's a card with a coupon code on it for creating a wedding website on Riley and Grey. They seem to be a boutique wedding website company, in case you want your wedding site with a side of "extra fancy." No thanks, Influenster - I'll pass.
Overall, this VoxBox was a pretty good set of products. I am hoping my next box includes something edible - I really like free food. But free anything is good with me! Can't wait for my next one!
I made it to my off month alive!!! Woohoo!! I am so thankful to have some time to rest and decompress from rotations before going back at it in July. Once I got back from Knoxville, the first thing I wanted to do was kick of my off month by making a bit of a change.
And by a bit of a change, I mean a very drastic change
And now, some background music, courtesy of the one and only Bette Midler...
Ten points to Gryffindor for whoever knows how it is I know this song.
Answer at the bottom!
I've wanted to dye my hair for many years, but never actually got around to it until now. I went to my stylist, Melissa, and said something along the lines of "I want you to make my hair the most unnatural shade of red that is physically possible." Five hours, two attempts and a mix of every color red dye in the salon later, I achieved my own personal hair nirvana.
Attack of the selfies!
*insert hallelujah chorus here*
Melissa curled my hair so beautifully and I'll never ever be able to replicate it again.
*a light shines down from heaven to illuminate my new locks*
With my natural curl
Seriously though, I am IN LOVE with my new hair! IN. LOVE. And so is everyone else apparently - so many random strangers have stopped me to compliment my hair. I feel so glamourous, like I am a princess (Ariel, of course)! I want to dress up and put on make up all the time, which is very much different from how I normally am.
I wish I could keep this hair forever! But alas, I'm only going to have this for a month. It's not an especially "professional" hair color (although the pharmacists I work think it's within the realm of professional-ness), so I'll be dyeing it back to its normal brown at the end of the month. Even if I felt I could keep it, the upkeep would be more expensive and time consuming than I could afford. Someday when I have a real income, maybe I will be able to bring it back, or try another color. But for now, I will enjoy it immensely.
In other news, my parents and I tried out a new restaurant called Tart that opened in the Cooper-Young area last month. If you are in Memphis and have not been to Tart yet, you need to drop whatever you are doing and go there NOW! It is a French-bistro-style restaurant, bakery, and coffee shop that serves breakfast, lunch/dinner, pastries, and of course tartes.
Cherry tart, croissant, and cafe au lait
My mom's tuna nicoise salad
Everything we tried was beautiful and delicious. I had a piece of cherry tart, which was kind of like a flan, and a croissant, which were both fantastic. My mom got a nicoise salad that looked like something out of a gourmet magazine, and my dad got an heirloom tomato salad that I neglected to take a picture of. My parents also got a piece of apricot tart and a chocolate croissant.
Having a good hair day because it hadn't rained yet.
There's really no where in Memphis like Tart, and in the month that it has been open it has been getting a ton of well-earned good buzz. They are still adding things to the menu (the cherry tart I tried was new that day) and will begin hosting community classes in the future, so I can't wait to see what they do! I will definitely be back again!
It has been raining off and on for the past several days, which has been rather unpleasant, and will continue raining for the foreseeable future. Today at work we had a particularly big downpour, and when we left for the day, we walked out the front door and saw THIS:
I had to take a panorama to get the whole thing in. Everyone was outside taking pictures.
This picture doesn't even do the (double) rainbow justice. It glowed. It was brighter than any rainbow I have ever seen. You could clearly see every single color, even the usually elusive blues and purples. It was breath-taking, and such a blessing after a long, rainy day. The sunset was equally stunning.
What a beautiful creation God has made! Let us rejoice and be glad!
So here I am, coming up on the halfway point of my month in Knoxville, TN. I've gotten to explore the city quite a bit (translation: I am trying all the coffee shops), and I must say, it's a pretty cool place. There is way more garish orange assaulting my eyes than I care for, but overall I rather like Knoxville. My first weekend I decided to go find a place called Coffee and Chocolate and discovered a farmers market that was in the same area. I'm going to have to go back soon!
Tennessee Theatre - reminded me of the Orpheum in Memphis
Shiny gold thingy called the Sun Sphere. Apparently has an observation deck that has recently opened, so I'll probably go visit it sometime soon.
Market Square - even their outdoor art sculptures are orange
Stumbled upon a farmers market in Market Square - will be going back next weekend to see about some of the fresh cheese I saw someone selling
Clockwise from top left: olive oils from The Tree & Vine, Union Ave Books, iced amaretto latte from Coffee and Chocolate, an awesome sign that was sadly not for sale
This past Saturday, my friend Kelsey and I took a day trip to the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC. We are both in Knoxville just for the month for rotations, so we figured it would be fun to visit while we are on the other end of the state. The Biltmore Estate is the largest home in the US, and it's more of a manor than a house. It's probably the closest you can get to a castle without leaving the country. Naturally, it rained most of the day, but by the end of the trip, the sun had finally come out. So, we did not get to really explore the (very extensive) grounds and gardens.
I took about 20394 scenic vista pictures
Checking out the gardens during a respite from the rain
I was so sad that we couldn't take pictures inside, because the library was WONDERFUL AND PERFECT and had everything I've ever wanted in a library - dark wood shelves, spiral staircase, huge fireplace, secret doors, and thousands of books all hand-selected by George Vanderbilt himself. The rest of the estate was equally stunning and so much fun to explore. We paid for the audio guides, which I would highly recommend doing if you visit. The stories and history gave the tour so much more depth than just looking at the rooms on their own. I was highly amused that every room I loved (dark woods, jewel toned walls, leather furniture, etc.) was described as being in a masculine style. Apparently I have the design tastes of an early 1900s upper class man.
The clouds make this picture look a lot more ominous than it really is.
*Biltmore selfie*
After visiting the house, we went to the Antler Village, which is also on the property and has the Biltmore winery, the Cedric's brewery named after the Vanderbilts' St. Bernard, an ice cream shop (the Biltmore is known for their ice cream too), several restaurants and a couple historical buildings to explore. They had a grape stomping booth at the winery (which we totally did) and a free winery tour and tasting (which we also totally did). After eating a late lunch and having some ice cream for dessert, we headed back to Knoxville.
Squishing grapes with one's feet is a very weird feeling
Outside Cedric's Tavern - gotta love any family that loves their dog enough to have a statue of him
Kelsey: Hey look a maze for kids! Let's do it! Kristin: We are as tall as the bushes lol. Kelsey: Yeah there's no way we will get lost. *30 seconds later* Kristin: I think we are lost Kelsey: Yep we are definitely lost
You are probably wondering "Well what about the rotation you went to Knoxville for? How is that going?" I am happy to report that my rotation is fantastic! The drive to LaFollette is a bit far, but I am loving what I am doing every day. Infectious disease is one of my favorite areas of practice and I am learning so much! The hospital is very small, which I was unsure about at first but now I really like it. I am able to keep an eye on (almost) all of the patients who are on antibiotics, and I feel like I am making an actual difference in patient care. It's good to know I am comfortable in a small hospital as well as a large one, because that gives me more options in my future residency/job search. More options = better chance of landing a residency/job. The residency search is going to begin in full force next month when I am off of rotation!
After nearly a year of training, I finally - finally - ran my half marathon! So here we go, my first (and only) race day recap!
My parents and I drove up to Nashville Friday afternoon so I could pick up my packet and race number at the expo. The expo was crazy crowded, but I was able to meet up with my friends Ashley (who was also running the race) and Michelle. In order to properly carb load for the race, we went to dinner at a place called Back Alley Diner, which was literally down an alley and had fantastic fries. My parents, meanwhile, went to a different restaurant, only to discover it was closed. They then wandered all over downtown Nashville trying to find food and wound up at the same restaurant where we were eating. Then we were all due for an early bedtime since we had to wake up at the crack of dawn to get ready for the race.
A rare photo of me with a sunrise
Now I don't know whose idea it was to make half marathons start at ungodly hours of the morning, but this race started at 7:00AM. On a Saturday. So I had to wake up at 5:30 and I was not even remotely happy. Neither was my body. Especially my GI tract. Try as I might, I could barely eat my English muffin and peanut butter. Every bite was a struggle between knowing I had to fuel my body and trying very, very hard not to barf.
Still struggling to eat my breakfast
Ashley came up to our hotel room to finish getting ready for the race. We could actually see the starting corrals from the 24th floor window. It was quite chilly as we walked over to the start line. But the forecast predicted warm and sunny by race time, so there we stood with our shorts, tanks and goosebumps waiting for the race to start. And waiting. And waiting. Being in one of the last corrals does not make for a quick start.
Finally, we started moving forward. The race actually started on a downhill, which was deceptively friendly, because we soon discovered that the runners who had already started and disappeared around the corner were in fact now running back up the same hill we were standing on. Eww. We made it to the start line and off we went on our first half marathon!
My sparkly skirt made me easy to spot
All anyone ever said when I mentioned I was running the Country Music Half Marathon was "There are so many hills!" I got so tired of hearing that, to the point that I started snapping at people who said that, "Well what do you want me to do about it?? How does you telling me there are hills make having to run up them any better??" What I actually did was exactly what I had planned to do all along, just walk up the uphill parts and run on the flat/downhill parts. I was under no illusions that I could run all 13.1 miles, and I wasn't about to force my body to do so. Still, even with walking, it was a challenge. By about mile 7 I was so over it that I started running more just because it meant I would get to the finish line - and to sitting down - faster. The last 2 miles were straight up awful, walking through empty, hot urban streets with no spectators. I didn't start running again until I saw the bridge to the finish line, at which point I changed my song to "Vox Populi" by Thirty Seconds to Mars and forced my legs to run to the finish line.
I finished the Nashville Country Music Half Marathon in 3 hours and 8 minutes. My parents were there at the finish line, waiting to give me a hug and take my picture, just like they have always been at every one of my accomplishments since birth. The finish line had all kinds of hydration/food/stuff for us, but mostly I just wanted one of the towels soaked in ice water, which felt like heaven shining down on my poor, hot, sweaty body. We met up with Ashley, who had finished a while before I did, and made our way slowly, painfully, back to the hotel. I have never been so happy to see a shower and a bed.
I've never been so excited to sit down.
A week later, and I am still feeling the effects of it, although most of the soreness is gone. And just like I predicted (and against everyone else's predictions), I never ever want to run again. Ever. Although I am proud of myself for finishing a half marathon, it was not something I would call fun or enjoyable. Definitely not an experience I would ever want to repeat. I may still run a few miles here and there for the sake of fitness (although not while I'm here in Knoxville, because hills), but running is not going to stay a fixture in my life. This half marathon did not turn me into a runner, and I am totally ok with that.
Like many pivotal moments in my life, this one started with a
book. When I was a young teenager, a book was released called I Kissed Dating
Goodbye, by Joshua Harris. I never read it (hey look a book I haven’t
read!), because I was skeptical of the idea behind the title. Why would I want
to kiss dating goodbye if I had not even tried it yet? Nevertheless, this book and others like it became
wildly popular among Christians my age at a time when we were laying the
foundations of our concepts of dating and relationships. The ideas in that book
and others like it wove themselves into the way Christians of my generation
talked about and thought about dating, relationships, and marriage. This was
true not only of the ideas we formed ourselves, but also in the way we were
taught about these issues by our pastors, our youth leaders, and even our
Christian schools. And that is where my
problem started
Rule #1: A guy who wears a fedora is going to be full of crap. Fedoras = bad news. I wish I were joking, but I have experienced this phenomenon on so many occasions it stopped being funny.
Dating, sex, modesty, and relationships were the topic of countless sermons, chapels, and camp revivals I attended. The content was pretty much always the same: Dating had one purpose - find a good
Christian spouse and settle down ASAP. If you were a "good
Christian" and followed God's plan, you would only ever be in one relationship
and that would turn into marriage. You could - and should -
meet your spouse without ever dating multiple people. Dating was setting
yourself up for sin. The message was crystal clear and impossible to escape -
if you live the "right way" and don't go looking for someone to date,
the husband or wife of your dreams will fall in your lap, and you will be
happily married with a kid on the way by age 25. This message
was played over and over again, painting a picture of a life free of heartbreak and bad relationships. That may not be the message they meant to send, but it is the message I heard and the picture I internalized. I didn't really date in high school. I had no way of knowing how wrong that picture was.
So this was the standard to which I held my life and against
which my life - and my relationships – started falling horribly short almost
immediately. The older I got, the worse I felt about being single. By the time
I got to pharmacy school, there was a certain level of desperation to my
life-view. Where was my godly husband? Where was my marriage? I'm almost 25,
what did I do wrong? Did dating more than one guy in college totally derail my
chances of ever finding happiness? Am I totally screwed now? I became angry with God, and my perpetual singleness became a roadblock in my spiritual journey. I felt betrayed by God, not realizing that those standards were put in place not by Him, but by well-meaning but misguided humans. This became my spiritual Mount Everest. I knew in my heart that somewhere along the way I had missed something important. So I began praying. I began thinking. And I began climbing.
You'll need to listen to this for the next paragraph to make
sense. God used this song to start a change in my heart.
God met me in my searching when I was driving to school one morning in November. A new song came
on the radio: "6 foot 2" by Marie Miller. As I listened to the words of
that song, God spoke to me about my relationship with relationships. How many
times had I prayed a prayer just like that? How many times had I told God
"not my will but yours" the turned around and asked for the exact timing
and looks of the person I wanted to marry? As I cried in my car, I realized how tawdry those words sounded when said aloud. And I realized
that the way my generation of Christians was taught about relationships was
fundamentally flawed. We were taught that being a good Christian meant God
would bless you with a godly spouse - it was part of the deal. We were taught
to expect to receive a relationship as a direct result of having a good enough
walk with God. But God said to me that day in the car, “I never promised those things. There is so much more to your walk with Me than this! I can give you so much more!”
As I look back now, I see so many opportunities that were lost by
the people who taught us. Never once did anyone ever talk about relationships
going wrong, unless you were dating someone who wasn't Christian enough, then
anything that went wrong was obviously your own fault for dating a heathen. No youth pastor told us that sometimes relationships fall apart for no
reason.No chapel speaker told us that nice
Christian girls and guys can break your heart just the same as any nonbeliver. Not
once did a camp preacher talk about how to handle a painful breakup in a godly
way.It was never mentioned that maybe,
just maybe, God's will for your life might not include a happy marriage. Anyone whose relationship didn't work
out was clearly not following God's will.A good relationship failing was definitely never part of God's plan.
Even today, the singles ministry at my church focuses quite often
on these exact things, and we are in our 20s and 30s. The last two semester-long Wednesday night Bible studies
have been on relationships, sex, and preparing for marriage. The next series is on relationships, too. It is rare that
anyone speaks of the possibility of our lives not progressing to a married
state. It's always "when," not "if" we get married.
What if, instead of countless sermons on the “don’ts”–
don’t
wear this, don’t do that, don’t go to these places –
we were taught more about the foundations of our faith? What if, instead of
focusing on making us godly spouses, they spent more time teaching us to serve God regardless of our relationship status? I thank God that there were places where I was taught these things as a teenager, even if they were in the minority. My discipleship group leader, Karen, was, and still is, instrumental in laying
down the solid foundations of my faith that have withstood so much fear and
doubt. She spent her time teaching us girls to become strong women of faith, a
life-saving counterpoint to the many voices that put the emphasis on our
relationships alone. My discipleship group deserves its own blog post. It was that
important to the trajectory of my life and my faith.
Instead of reading superficial books about dating, we studied C. S. Lewis, we dug deep into the book of James. We asked hard questions and looked for answers in scripture.
In the car that November morning, I finally understood that I had
been misled. That the standard that had been set for us, the “I
kissed dating goodbye generation”, was not just unrealistic, but not
truly biblical.We see both good and bad
marriages in Scripture. Marriage is often used as a metaphor in the Bible, but
it is not spoken of as a promise. Christians are never promised a smooth
transition from single to relationship to marriage. God promises us joy in Him,
fulfillment in Him, redemption in Him. He does not promise an earthly wedding
day.
I am not broken or a lost cause because I am 25 and single. I am
not "off the path" because I dated guys and it didn't work out failed spectacularly. God's purpose for my life - for all our lives- is far greater
than just placing us all in "good" relationships. Even though some of
my dating adventures were probably not what God willed for me, He still used
those people and those relationships to teach me, to strengthen my faith, and
to show me His love. God has a plan for every one of His children. His plan is
bigger than who I will or won't marry someday. And if my relationships don't
work out, that's normal. That's ok. And having an ex (or five) does not make my
faith inferior.
Sometimes you look back and wonder how on earth you thought that would work. That's ok. Learning what a bad relationship looks like from the within is a very VERY important life lesson.
Some lucky few will marry the first person they date and live happily ever after. Others will marry the first person they date and get divorced a few years later. Some will eventually find their person, some will not. There will always be break-ups, disastrous relationships, and
ill-advised flings. We live in a fallen world - perfection is impossible.But
there will always, always be God in the midst of those moments, whether we feel
it or not.
With the weight of years of unrealistic expectations lifted
off my shoulders and my soul, I find that the grudge I was holding against God
for "keeping me single" is ebbing away.And as He continues to pick away at all those
well-intentioned but misleading teachings that are lodged in my heart, I can
finally say that, for the first time in a long time, I am able to learn to
trust God with all of my future. I will rejoice in the freedom I have found in Him. My prayer is that someone, somewhere, will read this and realize that their relationship status does not define their Christian walk. That God will use my story to repair a person's faith in Him. I pray that God will use my experience to speak truth into other people's lives.
Today in First World Problems, I developed a sudden and extreme craving for falafel and hummus, so I had to go find some (thanks Whole Foods!). I suppose that could also fall under Vegetarian Problems. First World Vegetarian Problems?
#firstworldproblems
Today was also a surprise day off between rotations. My medication safety rotation ended yesterday, and my advanced community rotation doesn't start until tomorrow. I was so sad to leave St. Jude yesterday. It was my favorite rotation (out of two so far...but still) and will be hard to top. I loved every second of it - even if I was exhausted for the majority of those seconds. To continue what I started with my nuclear rotations, here are some of the lessons I learned in March.....
Before I do that, let me give a quick overview of what medication safety is so those of you who aren't in pharmacy school don't get totally lost. Medication safety is exactly what it sounds like - making sure drugs are used safely in a hospital. It involves analyzing the whole medication use process and putting protocols in place that make sure patients get the drugs they need in the safest way possible. It also involves looking at how errors happen and and how we can prevent the same error from occurring again. While it is impossible to eliminate errors altogether (healthcare workers are human, after all, and humans are not perfect), medication safety pharmacists make sure that preventable errors are minimized. Now, onto this month's lessons!
Lesson #1: Meetings make the world go round
I probably spent 50% of this rotation in meetings. Some of them I could follow, some of them I had to ask my preceptor to explain afterwards. Some of them I went to multiple times and never understood anything that was going on. I guess I didn't realize that meetings happen everywhere, not just in the business world. It was interesting to see the dynamics in different meetings based on who was there and what the issues under discussion were. However, five meetings back to back in one day was a bit more than I had bargained for. Much coffee was had by all.
Meetings would be more fun if there were cats.
Lesson #2: Meet ALL the people.
While my first rotation was a sort of "closed system" where I only saw the same few people every day, at St. Jude I was meeting new people every day. I shadowed pharmacists in different areas of the hospital, so I quickly developed a set of questions to ask when we ran out of things to talk about. I think my favorite part of this rotation was meeting pharmacy students from around the country. Unlike most other places, St. Jude accepts students from all over, so in addition to myself and a few other UT students, there were girls (all the students were female except Thanh....lucky him!) from Kansas City, Rhode Island, Iowa, and Nashville. Getting to talk with each other about how our schools differ and learning about pharmacy in other places was so interesting. I hope I'll be able to keep up those relationships now that we have gone our separate ways.
Lesson #3: Before you go and blame the person, take a look at the system.
The heart and soul of medication safety is something called system level thinking. It means looking at all the parts of a process as a whole and seeing where errors have the potential to occur. And when errors do occur (because they will), you don't just focus at the person who caused the error. Witch hunts help no one and they don't fix the real problem, which is bigger than one person's mistake. You look at what led up to the error, look at all aspects of what happened, and more often than not, you'll find that something in the process didn't work the way it should. You can't fix an error that has already happened, but if you fix that gap in the process, you can prevent future errors. This doesn't just work for drugs in hospitals - it can be applied in many other areas too.
For example, if the doctors only write in hieroglyphics, make prescriptions computerize instead of handwritten.
Lesson #4: This is a thing that I could actually do.
Up until this point, I hadn't had any experiences where I thought "I could do this as a job and like it." After a long talk with my preceptor about my future, it became clear that medication safety is something that I am actually good at, something I enjoy doing, and a field where there are a growing number of jobs. That is pretty much the Holy Trinity when it comes to choosing a career. Antibiotic stewardship, which is a part of medication safety, has always been my first love and my May rotation has a stewardship component, so if I love that as much as I loved this, I might just have something that resembles a career plan! Of course, I could hop into another of my rotations (I still have 9 more to go) and fall in love with another area, but that would just give me more options to pursue, and when it comes to picking a career, options are always a good thing!
In other news, I'm joining the #HeatItUp April Instagram Challenge! Basically, it's a photo challenge with a new prompt each day and we post the pictures to IG using the hashtag #heatitup so other people who are participating can see our photos. Should be fun and will hopefully help get my creative juices flowing!
That soul-bearing post I mentioned recently is almost finished. I've spent almost a month editing it and trying to get the tone just right. Someone recently gave me the great advice of "your blog = your rules." I have to keep reminding myself that I am writing first and foremost for myself, that I want my words and thoughts to be heard by others. My ideas have value even if people don't like what I have to say. Hopefully it will be ready (and I will be ready) to post this weekend. Then I'll be sure to have my running shoes on in case the pitchforks come out.
