For all of you young girls out there.  Thinking about it.  Feeling pressured.  Wondering if it’s the only way to be loved…

My advice is that you wait.

There is no rush.

No emergency.

It is such a beautiful way of expressing your emotions and yet, it will bring responsibility, a big responsibility.

And though the act is performed by 2 people, if there are consequences they are carried by only one person.

Be the sensible one.

Wait until you know who you are, you own who you are, you love yourself and know you can walk away from the other person and be whole and functional without them.

If you don’t think you can be strong without them, it’s even more reason not to.

Or you will forever depend on them for your self-worth.

You can love without making love…

 

OK, ok.  Not as sexy as the little red dress.

But still something that every woman should own!

Have you ever noticed that your nice white or light colored spatulas are all tinted pink?

That’s because if you cook at all with any type of tomato product you will inevitably be staining your lovely collection of spatulas.

Not anymore!

Introducing….the red spatula!

You need one.  No, you need at least two!

As Martha Stewart says, “Having the right tools is essential to successful cooking and baking“!

1 out of 20 people are depressed.

Women are 2x more likely to be depressed than men.

Depression is most likely to happen in the 4th and 5th decades of your life.

Know that you are not alone.

It’s ok to be sad.

It’s ok to admit that you cannot handle it alone and to seek help.

It’s ok if you have to take medication to help alleviate some of your sadness, temporarily or permanently.

Don’t go it alone.  Reach out.

 

It’s what immigrants are taught when they come to America.  It’s what they teach their children.  It’s practiced in immigrant households throughout the nation.

And what a shame that is.

I grew up with 2 French parents.  Who spoke only French with us when we were born.  In America.  And slowly started speaking English with us as well.  When we got to school we stopped speaking French at home, choosing instead to increase our English vocabulary, grammar and syntax.  And slowly started losing the ability to think, speak and write in French.

Embrace language.  Teach whatever you know to your children and encourage them to use it, practice with others, read it, write it, etc.

Please, please, if you speak a 2nd language and are raising children in this blessed country, speak to them in your foreign tongue and make them respond to you in it, as well.  It’s not enough to hear you speak it.  Sure, they’ll understand but they won’t feel confidant enough to speak it themselves.

This is America.  And the language spoken here is English.  Make sure that you know how to speak English.  But don’t give up your native language.  Ever.

Speak English at school.  At work.  With friends.  Speak your native language at home…

 

No matter how tired you are…

hold it in….

you can do it!

Someone yawning while you are talking to them, regardless of them being legitimately exhausted, will make you believe that they are uninterested in what you are saying.

Translation:  Yawning while someone is speaking to you comes across as rude and inconsiderate!  Do whatever it takes to suppress it!

Imagine if the shoe were on the other foot…

my lad, a thistle cannot grow.

Much more surprising things can happen to any one who, when a disagreeable or discouraged thought comes into his mind, just has the sense to remember in time and push it out by putting in an agreeable determinedly courageous one.  Two things cannot be in one place.”

• Frances Hodgson Burnett

in life?  That’s ok…

 

 

Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I really enjoyed this novel.  It was meaty and long, without being boring or unoriginal.

There are parallel themes throughout the book; that of a great love and that of racism.  It’s about a young woman in love who leaves her love, family and country to study at University in America.  It chronicles the hardships of surviving in a foreign land despite being highly educated and young and capable.  The story lays bare the racism towards blacks and the differences between black Africans and black African-Americans.  The difference in skin tone, attitude towards race, and being a minority in America.  And it gives an honest portrayal of a love tested by the span of 2 continents and almost 2 decades.

Extremely well written.  Will make you ashamed to admit that you too are racist in ways that you were trying so very hard not to be.  A fantastic cultural study through the eyes of an immigrant in America.