The Sunday before Christmas and I am sitting here looking at all the cards that have been steadily coming in. I was a bad card sender this year but it has prompted me to sit here and write this holiday blog/letter to you all.

I am so thankful to all of you my friends and family and for all the new people in my community for being here and sharing your day to day with me.

This Christmas and holiday season has given me a lot to be thankful for and 2018 has been a shift from chugging along and coasting to going pedal to the metal full throttle professionally. I am just getting started all. The Spark Effect was launched this year, a new Mindset Course around emotional eating, and I started writing a book. I lost many pounds and for the first time in 39 years have kept it off without any big yo-yoing going on.

2018 was the year I outgrew an MLM and fully launched my own brand. I will say this about being a part of one - it taught me SO MUCH about what I really want to do with my life and what I really don’t. I am not and will never be a “recruiter” and dislike the culture around “building a business” that largely relies on getting others to do what I do, about (personally)not having any upline support, and about watching a rose tinted view. I am not in the business of convincing or bragging about salary. I’m in the business of changing the world and helping others. It put me on a path to moving on and opening up a real business of my own. 

My stepson Dan is in his sophomore year of college in Miami and still one of the best human beings I know. He is a good man and a patient teacher when walking his stepmom through guitar chords that come easily to him. This is an exciting time of his life and I want him to enjoy every second of it. My step-daughter…Sophie is 14 and a freshmen in high school. Somehow that tiny little girl is now a young gorgeous woman who shares her father’s dark humor and has a fire in her I can’t see anyone dimming.

Lou continues to make me laugh daily and remains the person I can’t wait to share my stories and life with. He is also extremely stubborn and can be a total grump that I love very much. He is also a good Lou, don’t tell him I told you. He has encouraged me from day one to do my own thing and continues to believe in me. He sees the vision I have and is my best editor, idea bouncer, and also knows how to pull me out of work mode. 

Dad has had a particularly rough year and landed in the hospital with a very bad knee infection. After a successful operation he is now on a long, rough road to recovery in an aftercare facility. He is strong and still so full of the warmth and delight in his family and life. My Mom is the strongest person I know. She is holding down the fort in California and being a total rockstar juggling all the things with Dad. Joe, my brother, totally stepped up and has been such a good support and strength to my family. My grandma is still my grandma, tiny, opinionated and someone I love very much.

I have watched my BFF Becca blossom this year into a happier, more confident, badass that she has always been. I miss you.

I have made it a practice this year to write out my big goals every day and actively work on them. If I can leave you with anything let it be this - fuck resolutions. stop waiting. If it is worth wanting, it’s worth going after and doing NOW.

Love you all and thank you for hanging out online with me. Merry Christmas. 

xoxo

It was said by an exhausted mom and it wasn’t meant to hurt me but hurt it did.

I do know how very important and special it is that I get to be step mom to Danny and Sophie. I do. They are…they are pure joy and life and I can’t express how much I love them. They are my world and my family.

But

There is that very open wound from not having children. I didn’t get to have that experience with my body. I do not know what it feels like to have a baby laying against me skin to skin. To watch all the marvels as they grow awareness and knowledge. To hold chubby limbs and see them take their first steps. To see what in their little face looks like you.

And you know… it hurts damnit. I know I am not alone in this feeling and I wanted to say to every single woman out there who has wanted to have children but has been unable to for whatever reason - I know. I know and I feel that pain.

I know the side comments not meant to hurt that do hurt.
I know playing the “what if” game when you lie awake at night.
I know watching other mamas and wondering what certain things are like.
I know.

Not all of us are meant to have babies. It’s bullshit but whether it’s medical or another reason some of us do not get that experience even if we have wanted it our entire lives.

But I have learned some stuff. We are miraculous, amazing women nonetheless. We can nurture and parent in other ways. We can inspire. We can teach. Some of us get to be Bonus mamas and some of us become CEOs.

Some of us do both.
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But I feel you. And I know.