Birthday with the girls
  As I was rushing to scratch out an old label on a box at the post office yesterday, quickly moving my arm
back and forth, I noticed a strange and shocking sensation on my upper right tricep, arm jiggle.
Flashback to third grade sitting in my Grandma's condo overlooking the golf course - playing with her arm flab as it swayed back and forth like a windshield wiper.  Ha!  It looks like Granny has the last laugh. Now,  God is punishing me for thinking it was fun to flap around Granny's flab like a toy.
 Yes, girls I turned one year older today, and I will tell you the truth: despite a little arm jiggle, women truly do get better with age,
  Looking back at my old pictures in my early 20's, my face looks smooth and young, my eyes wide and wrinkle-free with dreamy idealism.  The world was my oyster. The only sad part: I lacked the confidence have now to know just how damn good I looked back then!
  Instead I compared myself to others, to what society told me I needed to look like to be good enough,  and found fault with every little detail. One eyelid is bigger than the other!  (Does anyone else in the world notice this besides me?) Yes, youth is truly wasted on the young. If I knew then what I know now, I would have realized I was just fine just the way I was. Now, when beautiful young girls sit in my makeup chair and criticize themselves, faults so minute no one would notice: I tell them what turning 30 taught me: confidence; to embrace myself, thank God for the many good traits he gave me and to love myself as I am.  
  Girls if you can learn to appreciate yourself and what makes you unique when you are younger, as you will when you are older, you will save yourself lots of heartache and live your most precious years to the fullest. At to whoever doesn't love us the way we are:
Fongoo - I'm Amy Pl!
  Last night my best friends celebrated that with me. We laughed, cried, drank wine and bellydanced (something we love) in my dimly lit back deck and reflected  on the past 15 years. We met in college studying Journalism. Since then we have be through marriage, divorce, pregnancy, miscarriage, infertility, infidelity, career changes and my home girls always have my back, walking beside me down life's winding road. I love you, my sisters.
  I cried last night as I read the cards my girls gave me about my birthday being a chance to start a new, and to thank God for the many blessings in my life.  Elka, Marlen, Paola, Margarita, Shireen, Sky, & Anna dried my tears and soothed my pain this year. I am ready to let go of it. It is a new beginning, as I embark on a new journey, I do it with peace and calm and faith, knowing one day I will understand God's plan.
  With that pain and struggle comes wisdom, not to sweat the small stuff. To let go of what I thought my life would be like at this age and what I was supposed to have done by now. It's not what I thought being a grown up was back when I was in third grade. I still don't feel like a grown-up. When exactly does that happen?  But you know what? My life is even better!  I never would have imagined what my life would become, the path has had so many twists and turns but now I am finally learning to ENJOY THE RIDE.