Writing Tour of Houston

For those of you who don't follow me on Facebook or on Twitter yesterday was a pretty busy day for me.

My original plan was to  go to Lake Livingston by myself on a writing retreat. It seemed like a very good idea at first. Here is a picture of the cabana where I was going to stay.

Then I realized that instead of having an afternoon lacrosse game on Sunday my daughter would have a morning game. I had to be there at 9:15 a.m, of course. Murphy's Law. The only weekend I actually decide to go do something like this and she has a morning game. So therefore it didn't make sense for me to actually spend the night on Saturday if I had to get up that early to drive back. I decided I would drive out in the morning on Saturday and I'd stay for the day and drive home when it started getting dark. I decided all of this on Thursday.

On Friday I started second guessing myself when one of the owners of the camping grounds called to ask me if I was willing on switching over to a kitchenette because the couple who was staying here on Friday wanted to stay on Saturday too. By now I was thinking it was too far to drive there and back in one day so I quickly told her No, to go ahead and to give them the cabana. I wasn't spending the night on Saturday anyway so it didn't seem fair if they wanted it.

After making that decision I sat there and doubted my decision. I kept searching for cabins or cabanas nearby but couldn't find anything. I thought that maybe I could just go to Lake Conroe.

Finally I got the brilliant idea of doing a writing retreat here in Houston. I started it downtown. At first I wanted to go to the old library but I remembered I hate the parking around there. I parked at work for free and wandered around the Rice Lofts when I saw that Shay McElroy's Irish Pub was open and that they were serving lunch. As soon as I walked in and saw this beautiful little room I knew this was where I wanted to write.

I fell in love with this little side room inside the pub and I definitely want to go back there. I got most of my writing done here. My second stop was the lobby of the Rice Lofts and my final stop was the new area in Washington Heights. In the end I wrote more than 2,000 words.

I still want to go back to the old library and the reading room at Discovery Green. I'll save those for my second Houston tour. I can think of other places in Houston where I can write. The Black Lab is one of the places where I thought of going too.

But in May I want to go to the little cabana on the lake for a weekend to myself. This time I'll plan ahead, drive out on a Friday, and I'll stay until Saturday evening.

Apparently writing retreats are good for me. As it turns out, I picked the best day for my writing retreat. April 13 was also a Nanowrimo Write-a-thon Day.

Writing Prompt: The New Yorker for Mothers

I responded to a writing prompt on literarymama.com but it wasn't chosen so I thought I'd share it on here. It's in response to this essay, The New Yorker for Mothers by Becki Melchione.

I was a journalism major and an English minor. My last semester of college I took 22 hours and three of my classes were literature classes. I was reading all the time and I actually loved it. It was insane, but I read some of the best books that I had ever read that year.  I realize now, that those were the best reading years of my life: pre-marriage and pre-children.

Five years after graduating with my undergraduate degree I was getting married while in my first year of graduate school. This time I had chosen an MA in Communication and the reading, although interesting, was not as much fun. This is actually where I saw my reading decline. Between being newly married, a full-time job, and graduate school reading, there was little time for fun reading.

Enter into the picture children and technology when I was 31 and my life was about to change forever. Yes, I definitely saw a change in the amount that I read and what I read. Instead of the wonderful long novels I was now just grasping at whatever I could read online in between breast feeding and changing diapers. 

So I read the internet like crazy, whenever I could. Like the author of “The New Yorker for Mothers,” Becki Melchione, I too found a new favorite read. First I read baby websites all the time . I’d read magazine articles online, short stories, literary sites, and more. Then I started blogging when my son was seven months old and still nursing. Blogging was my outlet and a way that I could read more online as “research” for my blog.

All of this online reading, then social media reading and the years passed me by. Soon I realized that I wasn’t reading the way I used to and I made a conscious effort to start reading again. Honestly I don’t think I really started reading books again until the baby was potty trained and doing more on his own and my daughter was six.

Those babies are twelve and nine now. My daughter is a voracious reader like me. She can go through a good sized chapter book in a matter of two days. She reminds me of me at her age.

My life has changed immensely. The children are older, I’m single again, and I can read whatever I want whenever I want. Well, at least I can when I’m not working or driving my daughter to lacrosse games and my son to football games.

At least now I can read in the car during their practices. I can read in the evenings after they’ve done their homework and they are playing their games or watching TV. I can read on my sacred weekends alone when I can do whatever I want and for just two days I’m not a mom. Yes, I missed reading and I am so glad to have it back.

Thoughts on Aging and How THESE Are the Best Years of My Life

I was at the beach these past two days with kids. As I sat there looking at the family next to me with small children I realized how I am at the perfect age and at the best time in my life right now.

From my Pinterest Board "Great Quotes."

This is the time to really live in the moment. Of course I do believe the quotes that say that every moment of our life should be cherished and we should always live in the moment. That is very true. But let's be honest... some moments in our lives are even better than others and we don't realize it until those years have passed. Like the period between 21-25. I wish I'd appreciated that time more.

But right now my kids aren't babies anymore. They can use the restroom by themselves, wash themselves, dress themselves and pretty much entertain themselves. They are also funny as hell and make me laugh out loud on many occasions. At the same time they aren't in their terrible teens yet either. My daughter just turned twelve and she's on the threshold of puberty, but not there yet. Thank goodness I haven't had to deal with her mood swings when she realizes what is happening to her body. My son is only nine and still years away from that madness.

I'm not an old woman yet either. I'm still young enough that a young man in his twenties would tell me that I look much better in person than on my Facebook picture and that I look younger than his uncle, who is probably around my same age. (That was a great compliment.)

The other great part is that I'm not very young. I'm not a young silly girl that doesn't know any better. I know better now (most of the time) and what I do at this age is my own doing that can't be blamed on age or inexperience.

Of course when I am an old woman and the kids are grown and gone and I'm all by myself again in my house, all quiet and peaceful, I will probably think that that is the best time in my life. We will see then.

Right now is almost perfect. I feel like I have finally embraced my new life and I'm so ready to move on to do the things that I want to do. It is so liberating to pretty much do whatever I want whenever I want, within reason of course. I am still a mom.

Just today I wrote a writing prompt for Literary Mama about how my reading changed after I had children and how I can finally read again now that they are older and I'm single. It's a glorious feeling. Funny how being single frees up so much of your time!

I feel like now in my 40s I am finally ridding myself of burdens in my life that I don't want to carry any more, slowly very slowly. I still have a long way to go but I'm moving in the right direction one goal at a time. Meanwhile I will carpe the hell out of this diem!

The "Leaning In" Movement

A few days ago I came across an article about Sheryl Sanberg's new book "Lean In" and I immediately took notice. I love books like this and more so when the writer is the COO of Facebook. My take on it was that I'd rather have someone who is really successful give me advice, than someone mediocre. Is that bad? I think it's the same reason we as a nation have flocked to Oprah, watched her show, read her magazine, took her advice, followed her money guru Suze Orman and followed the health advice of Dr. Oz.  As people we assume that someone more successful than us has the answers to success.

The big controversy about Sandberg's book and something that was pointed out by Anne-Marie Slaughter, once a senior adviser to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is that Sandberg is 1. blaming women for not "leaning in" enough and 2. that Sandberg really can't relate to the typical working woman with her huge salary and her house of servants.

Critics have said that Sandberg needs to make corporations and government agencies accountable too and that we need to provide more incentives to new moms to return back to the workforce.

First of all let me make it clear that I have not read the book so I am making this commentary based on my experience of working in Corporate America for the past 20 years and on others' commentary.

I thought long about this. I remember reading Slaughter's Atlantic article telling me that I can't have it all, but thinking that I still wanted it all. So yes, I am torn. I can relate to what both women are saying and yes, I have leaned out many times, especially when I was married and the children were young.

Thinking about Slaughter's point I know what she means because even though I was working and making a very good living, when I was married my husband was a blue collar worker that couldn't share in the responsibility as much as I would have liked. He went into work at some ungodly hour like 5 and worked until after 5 many times. He did not have the flexibility that I had, so it fell on me to take the kids to the sitter's and then to school. So how could I lean in? This advice wouldn't have been relevant to me then.

I posted the original article that I read in the New York Times on a Facebook group that I belong to called LLN, Latina Leadership Network. I received some interesting comments but one stuck with me especially. Mari Beck said that she feels "some frustration at the way society looks at successful women in leadership roles and tries to dictate which types of success are more acceptable. I don't see Donald Trump or Richard Branson measured by their household help roster or their ability to relate directly to the average man or whether they "get" them."

She has a really good point doesn't she? Why do we have to have these wars on what is good advice and what isn't? Do we say that Oprah can't relate to us because she's a billionaire? Or that she can because she didn't start out as one? Yes, Sandberg went to Harvard, but she wasn't as rich or successful back then. Why can't we just take Sandberg's advice without making excuses or passing judgment?

Today I read another opinion by Whitney Johnson on the Huffington Post that offered a different opinion. I loved her honest opinion because I could relate to so much that she said. I have been there so many times in the past 20 years. I have seen the different way that we are treated as women or even as a Hispanic woman. Some things are obvious and some things I see because I'm more aware of those things having studied the differences in gender and communication for my MA.

Now that my kids are older and that I'm divorced I'm trying very hard to lean in. Ironically I feel like I can lean in more now that I'm divorced than when I was married. But now I'm older and I can feel that difference too. I'm an older Hispanic woman now. Triple whammy! Yes, there's a chance that I may have lost my chance to lean in. Am I going to let that hold me back? No, I don't think so. My friend has a great quote posted on her wall on FB. "This is not how the story ends." In many ways I think this is where it will begin for me.

So yes, I plan to lean in some more. Yes, I will probably read the book and join in on the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Yes, I may even join a group. Why not? What can it hurt? I think it will help me more than hurt me.

Let's support each other as women. If someone wants to "lean out" and that makes them happy then don't criticize them for that. If they want to lean in, then support that decision. Especially if you're the spouse or a family member that is part of their "village." Because when it comes down to it that's the way we can all lean in, if we have a support network. And when a woman becomes more successful and she is happier then we as a community are better too. It's all part of an even bigger picture.

So I say yes, let's lean in and believe that we can have it all, if that's what we choose. I still believe.

More at skirt.com.

Viviendo Una Vida Bilingüe/Living a Bilingual Life

Warning: This special blog will be in Spanish today.

Crecí en una casa bilingüe. Desde el tiempo cuando nací mis padres me hablaban en español y mis hermanas mayores me hablaban en ingles. Mis primeras palabras eran en los dos idiomas a la misma vez. Cuando oigo historias de niños que se confunden o que se atrasaron el la escuela porque eran bilingüe no entiendo porque eso no me paso a mi. Posiblemente era porque pude hacer una separación de una edad muy pequeña- que hablaba español con mis padres y con mis hermanas en ingles. No se de seguro si esta es la razón pero mis hermanas y mi padre me dicen que de primero yo mezclaba los dos idiomas cuando hablaba. Tanto que mi propio papá no me entendía.

(Image borrowed from nrcbp.org )

Cuando comencé Kínder mi maestra vio que yo era una niña muy lista y pronto me puso en el grupo de estudiantes que iban a aprender a leer en ingles. Fui a casa muy contenta a platicarles a mis papás. Mi papá me dijo que si iba a aprender a leer en ingles también podía aprender a leer en español. Así comenzaron las lecciones de leer y escribir en español a la misma vez. Después, estudie el español en la secundaria y la preparatoria también.

Yo entiendo que mi situación fue muy especial. Mis padres hicieron un verdadero esfuerzo para asegurarse que yo aprendiera a hablar el español correcto. No todos los padres en los Estado Unidos hacen eso. Si, hay muchos que posiblemente lo hacen, pero no todos. Lo que es mas, asistíamos a una congregación de nuestra religión en español y mientras fui creciendo yo tenía que dar mis discursos en español. Los tenía que escribir y hacer la presentación en español. Era como una clase de dar oraciones porque el anciano nos daba critica en que podíamos desarrollarnos.

Otra cosa que es mas común es que crecí en Texas y creciendo en Texas no te puedes escapar de las expresiones Tejanas. Así que no importante que tanto mis padres trataron de inculcar un español correcto, también aprendí las palabras incorrectas y Tejanas pero aparentemente no las palabras que usaban las chicas cuando yo estaba de muchacha.

Cuando era una chica de unos catorce años estaba con unas chicas en un pueblo en el estado de Nuevo León llamado Montemorelos. Allí es donde creció mi mamá. Estaba en una sala de la casa de unas de las chicas cuando una de ellas ya no podía contener la risa y se rio de mi. Mi amiga Gabby le pregunto porque se reía y ella dijo que era porque yo hablaba de un modo muy correcto y chistoso. Mi amiga le dijo que era porque yo no era Mexicana de Mexico, que yo era Mexicana Americana.

Me acuerdo que en ese momento me sentí como que en verdad yo no hablaba el español normal. De allí en adelante me di cuenta que entre mis padres, mi congregación y la escuela, yo estaba aprendiendo un español muy cortes, que no era como el de la calle. Me dio un poco de tristeza, como que en verdad no sabia hablar el español en verdad. Como que era un español artificial y estéril.

Aquí estoy muchos anos después. Ayer me junte con una señora venezolana que es la dueña de una cuenta que tengo.  A ella le encanta que yo hablo español, que le puedo escribir correos electrónicos en español y que podemos comunicarnos con facilidad. Conocí ayer a su nuevo esposo y él también es venezolano. Solo tiene seis meses aquí y quedo impresionado que yo crecí aquí en Houston y que hablo el español tan bien. Le dije que en verdad creo que esto es porque cuando estoy hablando en español estoy pensando en español y así es como sé que si se hablar bien el español. Solamente pienso en ingles cuando me atoro y no puedo pensar en la palabra que necesito.

Pero no me di cuenta de esto hasta ahora que soy mucho mas mayor. Yo sé que mi español no es perfecto y hay algunas expresiones que no se bien o que he usado mal toda la vida, pero en general creo que lo hablo bien.

Me da tanto gusto que mis papas hicieron un esfuerzo tan serio en asegurarse que yo aprendiera bien el español. Cuando era joven lo daba por hecho y no pensé como me iba a ayudar en mi vida profesional en el futuro.  Como dijeron ayer mis clientes, cuando piensas en todos los países del mundo que hablan español e ingles, si uno habla los dos idiomas habla los idiomas que habla casi todo el mundo. Gracias Mamá y Papá por este don que me dieron.