The Logic of Fearlessness

Wine makes everyone hopeful. - Aristotle

 Hope is not a plan. - SGLF

But it's a start. - Lucy Adams

Clear Your Plate for 2012

After dinner, my husband turned to our 10 year-old daughter, who sat at his left elbow, and said, "Clear your plate and clear mine."

The child replied, "Yes, sir," and lifted her plate from the place-mat. She paused. Her brow furrowed and her nose crinkled. She looked at her father and asked, "Clear your plate, clear your mind? What?"

"Ooooh, I like that," I cooed.

"Clear your plate, clear mine," clarified my husband.

"Clear plate, clear mind," I repeated. "There's something to that. It's so true."

My beloved's brow furrowed. "We're talking about taking dishes off of the table," he firmly redirected.

Sweetly, our daughter, unscathed by the philosophical rumblings beneath the after dinner clean-up, said, "I'll yours next, Mama."

"Thank you," I said to her. Then to my soul mate, "I know exactly what we're talking about here."

It's time to get ready for 2012. Out with the old and in with the new. What's on your plate, or your entire table, that's holding you back from facing the new year with anticipation?

Clear it so you can start 2012 ready to accept its possibilities.

A Southern Girl Always Says Her Thank Yous

The Tuck Your Skirt 2011 Blog Tour for the advancement of Tuck Your Skirt in Your Panties and Run (which makes a very nice Christmas gift for all of the ladies on your list) was a wild success. It was thrilling and exhausting and exciting and now it's finished. Whew! I made it.

I could not have done it without the help of so many fabulous bloggers. Thank You! Please take a moment to visit some of them. Introduce yourself. Explore their sites. Make a few new friends. They'll make you laugh. They'll inspire you. They'll educate you. And many of them offer wonderful opportunities to win, win, win.

Quintessential Housewife

Mommalicious

Through the Eyes of a Tiger

Southern Protocol

My Crazy Life

Cubicle Sanity

Simply Southern Girl

Rebel Belle

Creative Madness

Queen of the Castle(s)

Momfog

The Geeky Blogger

Rita Reviews

Diminishing Gene Pool

Pocketful of Playdough

Marvelous Mommy

Rewiring the Soul

Future Fit Girl

Proper Southern Woman

Fearless Fridays

Coming in January to Southern Girls Living Fearlessly:

Fearless Fridays

Every Friday will feature a new product that a southern girl, especially a fearless southern girl, should try. You'll find out why the product is the perfect thing for southern girls to get, plus read reviews, enter to win giveaways, and get access to special coupon codes.

The Southern Girls Living Fearlessly FaceBook Page will host Fearless Fridays auctions of select products and services, too. Click on the link to Like Southern Girls Living Fearlessly on FaceBook so you won't miss out.

Do you have a product or service perfect for the southern girl, or, better yet, the fearless southern girl? Would you like to have it featured on an upcoming Fearless Friday? Email me for details.

More Than You Planned

We all have a grocery list for our lives; things we want to do, places we want to go, relationships we want to have, goals we desire to accomplish. Every day, we're filling our metaphorical shopping buggies from life's metaphorical shelves, tossing into our carts those things on our list while by-passing products we deemed too pricey, not good for us, or need for next time but not now.

My mother and my aunt, on a shopping jaunt for my widowed uncle, learned that sometimes, if you're open to it, the universe gives you more than you planned on your list:

The moral of the story is that sometimes we get very focused on what we think we need for ourselves, crossing off the items on our list:

graduate from college

get married

have a baby

have another baby

land the dream job

run a marathon

write a book

We fail to note all the rest that life has in store for us. We can have our buggy and another one, too, you know.

More Than You Planned

We all have a grocery list for our lives; things we want to do, places we want to go, relationships we want to have, goals we want to accomplish. Every day, we're filling our metaphorical shopping buggies from life's metaphorical shelves, tossing into our carts those things on our list while by-passing products we deem too pricey, unhealthy, or need next time but not now.

My mother and my aunt, on a shopping jaunt for my widowed uncle, learned that sometimes, if you're open to it, the universe gives you more than you planned on your list:

The moral of the story is that sometimes we get so focused on what we think we need for ourselves, crossing off the items on our list

graduate from college

get married

have a baby

have another baby

land the dream job

run a marathon

write a book

that we fail to note all the rest that life has in store for us. We can have our buggy and another one, too, you know.

Taking the Reins and Regaining My Reign

I had no sooner picked up that magazine, flipped open to the article and thought to myself, This is my best work ever. And this fabulous layout they did makes it all the better, than a neighbor from down the street popped in to say hi and that he'd seen the article. He took the opening to point out that of all the three thousand words of it what he noticed was that I misspelled the same word, twice.

Actually, it was, as he informed me, a confusion of homophones. I wrote the word reigns when I really meant reins. I missed it in my proofreading. My copy editor missed it in her proofreading. The magazine editor missed it in her proofreading. And now my swollen pride had been drained by a honed scalpel.

Once again, insecurity bubbled and roiled beneath the surface. I took it as proof that I am a fraud. All night I worried that by morning everyone would know that I am not a real writer, that I don't know what I'm doing. The scrutiny frustrated me. I thought, I should just give up this career. No real writer would make a glaring mistake like that.

But real writers do make mistakes. Eat, Pray, Love has an error or two in it. The House on First Street is riddled with them. Elizabeth Gilbert and Julia Reed, respectively, are still real writers, however, and their stories are no less engaging.

I suppose that's what it means to be fearless. Fearless has never meant "without flaws." Fearless means putting myself all out there (I was fearless when I wrote that magazine article. All of my skills with creative non-fiction were laid on the line. I put my heart into it.)  and accepting the increased risk of error. The other 2998 words of the article are not ruined because of two. My story is no less engaging.