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‘take a look at me now’ Category

  1. Don’t Stop Playing

    January 14, 2012 by Marissa

    George Bernard Shaw once said, “We don’t stop play­ing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”

    I took that to heart with the first snow­fall of 2012. A friend asked me to make a snow angel since he is with­out snow where he lives. A promise made is a promise kept!

    328949 10150526964494508 788529507 8377202 404911123 o 612x1024 Dont Stop Playing


    • Mom’s Birthday

      December 10, 2011 by Marissa

      I am ter­ri­ble with dates. If it wasn’t for mod­ern tech­nol­ogy birth­days, anniver­saries, hol­i­days would be for­got­ten. How­ever, there are cer­tain spe­cial occa­sions that are never shoved into the recesses of my mind. One being today: My mother’s birthday.

      My beau­ti­ful, curly haired, red-headed mom passed away when she was only 5 years older than I am now. With fair cer­tainty, I can say that each of my four older sis­ters have met age 50 with great trep­i­da­tion. My viva­cious mother with the gre­gar­i­ous and infec­tious laugh was taken quickly and too soon by the rav­ages of can­cer. You’d think after wit­ness­ing that at the age of 15 I would’ve taken my own health more seri­ously. Instead, for a long time, I accepted that my fate would be the same. It took me a long time to real­ize that I could fight what I had once assumed to be genet­ics. If you won­der why my verve for being health­ier and wish­ing to help oth­ers take charge of their health, just know that my mother’s death is at the core of my mis­sion. She lived on a steady diet of Pepsi and cig­a­rettes, but always fret­ted over her weight. She defined van­ity. Now you know where I got it, but I also gained a great sense of humil­ity from her. Mary Car­o­line Rapier taught me many amaz­ing lessons in our short 15 years together. Not through preach­ing but lead­ing by example.

      I miss my mother as much today as I did when she last held me in her arms and said “I love you.” The pain is man­age­able and it doesn’t crip­ple me. I spent many years liv­ing in anger toward her pass­ing. Envy for my older sib­lings was enor­mous as they got more time with her than I did. A day doesn’t go by that I do not feel her guid­ing me, rejoic­ing in my accom­plish­ments and embrac­ing me when low times strike. She’s the voice telling me,“you can do this.” I have no doubts that she looks after my beau­ti­ful, amaz­ing son.

      As a mother of EIGHT chil­dren — 3 boys and 5 girls — I can tell you she has had a hand in mak­ing this Earth a bet­ter place. Not to sound boast­ful, but my sib­lings are phe­nom­e­nal peo­ple and have left her legacy on their own children.

      I’d like to share a story my father wrote to honor my mom. Every year, regard­less of lack of money, Christ­mas arrived with joy and presents. This magic touch got the wheels turn­ing in my dad’s head and he sub­mit­ted it to our local news­pa­per, The Daily Jour­nal, where he was a fre­quent con­trib­u­tor to their Voice of the Peo­ple column.



      Will the Real Santa Claus Stand Up

      By Harold L. Rapier

      While watch­ing my beloved wife being trans­formed from a lovely bride to a lov­ing mother to a lov­able grand­mother as she went about doing her thing year-after-year and Christmas-after-Christmas, I became increas­ingly sus­pi­cious as to the true gen­der of Santa Claus.  Now, after exten­sive obser­va­tion, inves­ti­ga­tion and con­tem­pla­tion, I believe I can prove beyond a rea­son­able doubt that Jolly Ole Saint Nick is a Grand­mother in disguise.

      First, who is it – as soon as Christ­mas is passed – begins all over again, going on count­less sprees, tak­ing in every sale and com­ing home with hoards of pur­chases only to have them mys­te­ri­ously dis­ap­pear and never seen again until Christ­mas Eve?

      Sec­ond, who is it in every house­hold her­alds in the new Christ­mas Sea­son by going about in a state of eupho­ria, tire­lessly fill­ing every room with the sights and sounds and smells that are com­mon to this hol­i­day sea­son until it ignites the Christ­mas spirit in every mem­ber of the household?

      Third, Santa is com­monly described as being “small, round, warm, and jolly”.  Now, tell me, how many fathers and grand­fa­thers you know can fit that descrip­tion?  How­ever, it is my con­tention that, if you were to dress the typ­i­cal Grand­mother in a Santa cos­tume with padding, whiskers and all, you would pro­duce a sto­ry­book fac­sim­ile of Jolly Ole Saint Nick every time!

      Fur­ther­more, even though I have no tan­gi­ble proof nev­er­the­less, I believe that the Moth­ers and Grand­moth­ers pur­posely con­trived this Christ­mas Myth to mask their own self­less and undy­ing love for chil­dren, and to set a shin­ing exam­ple for we fathers and grand­fa­thers in hopes that we will endeavor to imi­tate it in the com­ing years.

      Now, if this be so, then we all owe a deep debt of grat­i­tude to that spe­cial woman in our lives who, every year, shares her joy­ful love with us man­i­fested in the image of Santa Claus to make our homes a blessed and happy place each and every Christmas!

      In con­clu­sion, I pray that God has reserved a spe­cial place in His King­dom for His Mis­sion­ar­ies of peace and love: Our Brides, Our Moth­ers, and Grandmothers.

      Merry Christ­mas,
      Harold L. Rapier                

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      Me with mom at my 8th Grade Grad­u­a­tion — ’79

      246706 10150194389669508 788529507 6590511 391861 n Moms Birthday

      Proof that Christ­mas was a happy time and, as you can see behind me, we weren’t aching for presents. I was 11 or 12 years old here. This also proves why I was mis­taken for a boy on more than a few occasions.


      • Happy Anniversary!

        August 21, 2011 by Marissa

        Had it not been for Facebook’s awe­some “On this Day .…” reminders I never would have real­ized  that one year ago today I cre­ated MARISSOLOGY on Face­book. A ‘like’ page for this blog and all its mus­ings. It didn’t catch on like wild­fire as I’d hoped, but to the 211 of those who clicked “LIKE” and con­tinue to sup­port the endeavor, I say THANK YOU!!! Tell your friends and feel free to com­ment and post your own suc­cesses and faux pas that life con­stantly hands us. My blog is ded­i­cated to liv­ing life and admit­ting when we’ve stum­bled or par­ty­ing like it’s 1999 for the tri­umphs. What I’m say­ing is that it is NOT all about weight loss. I know it seemed for awhile that my jour­ney to lose 100 pounds was all that my brain could spew out. You hung in there, though. You didn’t bail on me when I sounded like a bro­ken record or infomer­cial for Beachbody.

        samp31f361bc407aa509 Happy Anniversary!


        • Flutter By

          July 17, 2011 by Marissa

          On Thurs­day, June 14, I met with friends for din­ner after work. The unique thing about this is that the hus­band of the cou­ple and I hadn’t seen each other since high school. We’d been cross town rivals. How­ever, in the fine arts there seemed to be less ani­mos­ity than that of sports. Through the magic of Face­book, his wife and I have befriended each other. Get­ting together with this cou­ple who had come to town for his high school reunion week­end was, to put it mildly, a pure joy.

          Had this sit­u­a­tion arisen a year or so ago, I can hon­estly say I prob­a­bly would not have fol­lowed through or even enter­tained the idea.

          Shock­ing!

          Maybe it is the result of being burned numer­ous times in my life­time by fair weather friends (not to say I haven’t been one myself), but lit­tle by lit­tle becom­ing a shut in was becom­ing real­ity. Aside from hav­ing to work out­side the home and run­ning nec­es­sary errands, I was happy to con­duct my life from more than arms length of other people.

          The Inter­net afforded me the abil­ity to appear social — demented and sad, but social. What lie beneath the facade was fear of close­ness to peo­ple who were not already within my very tightly woven inner cir­cle. Read: my son and a sib­ling or two and long time friends. When­ever I revealed this fact to an online friend, it sur­prised them. One or two would express a sense of sad­ness for me that I’d allowed my life to take such an avenue. Appar­ently it seemed that I had a lot to offer oth­ers, but mostly it wasn’t fair for me to rob myself and oth­ers the expe­ri­ence of friendship.

          It didn’t hap­pen in the form of light­ning strik­ing or a Bib­li­cal epiphany to make me real­ize that I had noth­ing to gain by being shut off or putting up a front that I hated all peo­ple. Slow pro­gres­sion and encour­age­ment along with invi­ta­tions. Deep down I wanted to be a but­ter­fly of the social vari­ety. Even in early life I hadn’t sur­rounded myself with huge groups of friends. One or two close rela­tion­ships were devel­oped and I merely dealt with being involved with larger groups.

          As a result of being entwined with Beach­body, I have learned that we get in return what we put out in the uni­verse. Con­nect­ing with humans will  only improve my life. Break­ing out of the shell I’d encased myself in was the most dif­fi­cult part. Ignor­ing my fear of rejec­tion is not easy yet I forge through it. What is most remark­able is that I have watched my teen age son embrace per­sonal encoun­ters with­out hes­i­ta­tion. He says hello to peo­ple he may have met a year ago and hasn’t seen since. He will engage with total strangers as if they are best friends from a past life.

          As a par­ent, I have so much to learn from watch­ing my child.

          Sat­ur­day, July 16, 2011, I had to bring my car to the auto shop for a check up. Even talk­ing to the owner of the shop is tricky for me. The pos­si­bil­ity that he won’t remem­ber me from a year ago had been keep­ing me from call­ing to dis­cuss the issues my car was hav­ing. Stu­pid. But I’m not nor­mal. He remem­bered me. Maybe I’m not that for­get­table after all? Who knew I could be cute and social while doing busi­ness? Ha!!

          Once the inspec­tion was com­plete, I made my way to the Sat­ur­day Farmer’s Mar­ket in down­town Kanka­kee. Alone. All by my lone­some. A sur­prise to myself and with­out hes­i­ta­tion I spoke to the ven­dors and approached peo­ple I rec­og­nized. Say­ing hello and being received in a pos­i­tive man­ner gave me such an warm feel­ing. Remem­ber in BEAUTY AND THE BEAST at the end when Belle thinks she’s lost Beast to the curse and sud­denly beams of light lift him from the ground and he’s trans­formed? At the risk of sound­ing melo­dra­matic, that is how I felt on this day. What’s most sur­pris­ing is that it all came so nat­u­rally. The sen­sa­tion I felt trick­ling through my body was so for­eign, but wel­come. I think know it’s welcome.

          Usu­ally, when the ques­tion is posed if time travel was pos­si­ble what would I change, I say noth­ing since that isn’t even a pos­si­bil­ity and the present is based on the past. Now, I sor­takinda think that it would be a keen notion to believe how much richer my life might be had I made these real­iza­tions ten years ago. Alas, I can­not. I move for­ward with­out regret and embrace that which is at hand … and flut­ter by like a butterfly.


          • Radical toes

            May 22, 2011 by Marissa

            Once upon a time I treated myself to reg­u­lar man­i­cures and pedi­cures. It was reward for my hard work and dili­gence. Plus, it gave me an hour to unwind and for­get the week’s toil.

            Until yes­ter­day, May 21, 2011, I hadn’t had either for over seven years. It’s not as if I didn’t tend to my hands and feet, but there is NOTHING com­pared to hav­ing some­one else, a pro­fes­sional, take care of cuti­cles and roughness.

            Ahhhh and a foot massage!

            Typ­i­cally I choose col­ors that are muted for my toes. Seri­ously, with feet like mine I do not want to draw atten­tion to them. The mini-flippers need no help in being noticed. That was until yes­ter­day. Rather than choos­ing clear or nat­ural hues this girl went wild. BLACK! My fin­ger­nails are a deep red-almost pur­ple. But the toot­sies are glit­tery black.

            For the record, I am not a fan of feet. In fact, that was one of the many things the nail tech and I talked about. Addi­tion­ally, I extended my apolo­gies for hav­ing funky, ugly feet. She assured me my feet weren’t the worst she’s worked on nor the ugli­est. I have healthy nail beds!

            Now, I apol­o­gize to those of you who are gacked out by the sight of feet. It is almost as dif­fi­cult for me to post a shot of my toes as it is for me to share a pic­ture of a rear view of my body. Dig it? Just know I feel like a mil­lion bucks for hav­ing dropped $40.00 to receive an hour of pampering.

            After years of stand­ing for up to eight hours a day at work and pound­ing the liv­ing hell out of my feet doing intense Turbo Fire HIIT work­outs and P90X Ply­o­met­rics, it was time to let the dogs out! San­dal, or in my case, flip flop sea­son is here! These poor old feet have been cooped up for too long. Woohoo! I’m let­ting ‘em wig­gle as I delight in their purtification.

             

            black nails 300x180 Radical toes


            • I want to be alone…”

              May 1, 2011 by Marissa

              In her husky accent Greta Garbo declared, “I want to be alone.” After exten­sive (Wikipedia) research because I had always heard she was mis­quoted, I found this quote which best sums up how I feel when it comes to my time away from work.

              “I never said, ‘I want to be alone.’ I only said, ‘I want to be let alone.’ There is all the dif­fer­ence.

              “You can­not have a vaca­tion with­out peace and you can­not have peace unless left alone.“

              I put in my time 100% at ye olde grind. My pay comes hourly and not salary. Even if I was paid salary that doesn’t take away from the fact that time at home with my son or whomever else I choose to dally is my own. It’s not as if my role is so vital that my deci­sions will make or break a multi-billion dol­lar deal. I don’t need to be needed 24/7 to be assured that I’m appre­ci­ated in the work place. I trust that those who are on the clock will make deci­sions in the moment to get through the day. In the moment choices have to be made whether or not they are what I would have done in the same cir­cum­stance. Hun­dreds of skilled peo­ple are just a phone call away.  Peo­ple who are, at that point in time, being paid for their consult.

              I’m vent­ing. Yes, that is what it is and now I can move on with my day off. What peo­ple don’t under­stand about me is that it takes tremen­dous effort for me to relax. Emp­ty­ing my mind requires just as much effort men­tally as rock climb­ing requires physically.

              When I awaken in the mid­dle of the night because I had 24 ounces of water forty five min­utes before bed­time, going back to sleep is ardu­ous. My mind clicks on to what I need to accom­plish in the day; what con­ver­sa­tions need to be had.

              It is irri­tat­ing to an infi­nite degree.

              With that in mind, yesterday’s glo­ri­ous sun­shine and silly girl lit­er­a­ture helped take me away like the Cal­gon bath of the ‘70s.

              After a spell out­doors, I came back in to get my ear buds so I could fur­ther tune out the world. My son, who appar­ently knows me and my sit­u­a­tion very well, asked, “are you able to relax? Is work leav­ing you alone now?” He’d heard me on the phone ear­lier. He knew by my expres­sion that I had not escaped duty. It wasn’t any­thing imper­a­tive. Surely with a lit­tle patience the ques­tion would have answered itself.

              sunface4 30 180x300 I want to be alone...

              I enjoy com­pany. On my terms. Do I want to be alone?

              No, just leave me alone … unless you’re bring­ing a cheeky movie and margaritas.


              • March of Dimes — March for Babies

                April 18, 2011 by Marissa

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                WE DID IT! I walked 6.2 miles with a small group of co-workers to raise funds for the March of Dimes March for Babies. It was such a great time. The local chapter’s fam­ily ambas­sadors told us their story of tri­umph over heart­break of hav­ing twin girls pre­ma­turely. Heart wrench­ing yet so inspiring.

                The sun came out in full force by the time of the kick off. The wind had been cold and strong. It was at our backs most of the way. Hooray! Just like you’d wish for such an occasion.

                Over 20 years ago I had made the same walk (dif­fer­ent route) and it just about killed me!!  It’s weird that I was much younger yet I was left suf­fer­ing from leg cramp­ing and sore­ness for not only days after the walk, but weeks to months for the effect it had on my feet., knees and hips.

                Here I am at age 45. The after effects are com­pletely unlike that of my pre­vi­ous expe­ri­ence. Twenty four hours later and I can hardly tell I walked 6.2 miles at an aver­age rate of 3.2 mph. Instead of wish­ing a bus would come by and pick up or run me over to fin­ish the job, I was feel­ing the sen­sa­tion in my legs that I had a hearty work out.

                Prior to start­ing the walk the DJ played songs that were right up my guilty plea­sure dance lane: Toni Basil’s OH MICKEY came on and I danced like it was 1983! One day you might find it on YouTube com­pli­ments of an onlooker. Surely it was a sight to behold for any­one who didn’t know me. My co-walkers seemed to enjoy wit­ness­ing my play­ful side.

                Here are some pho­tos from my Face­book album. It’s open to the pub­lic. It should not require you to have a Face­book account to view them.  Since we were walk­ing for an opti­cal retailer I bought every­one a pair of nov­elty sun­glasses to wear. A lit­tle kitsch goes a long way!

                220604 10150162435439508 788529507 6308030 6419528 o1 180x300 March of Dimes   March for Babies


                • I Lost My Mojo — the video

                  April 6, 2011 by Marissa

                  Please watch it all the way through. Lis­ten to the vital mes­sage that comes at the end. Thank you in advance!