Thanks to Trop50 for sponsoring my writing about fabulous bloggers. This year Trop50 is granting 50 Fabulous Wishes. Click here to enter for a chance to win $1,000 to celebrate a friend with a refreshing attitude about looking and feeling fabulous!
“The strength of women comes from the fact that psychology cannot explain us. Men can be analysed, women … merely adored.” OSCAR WILDE, The Ideal Husband
One of the gems of getting older and wiser is the joy of making your own friends. No longer are you subject to being frenemies with the girl down the street just because you ride the same bus and hey! you might as well deal since you’ll see everyday for 13 long and treacherous years. See also; no lingering affects like 15 years later when said girl befriends you on Facebook. Also, also, MOVE ON. As you find yourself you also find people and this case, women, who make the world around you better. Women whose mere presence makes you happier and in the case of these five women, people whose words make you think or make you want to do better and learn more. I star their posts and hug them harder in hopes that fabulousness comes via osmosis.
It does not but these are just five of the many women who I get to call friend and who allow us to read them.
Susan Wagner – We all know that Susan is one of my best friends. My confidante. The one I can call at any time to be like, dude, do you know what happens when you’ve had three vodka gimlets? As I’m staring at my ceiling trying to remember how I even got into bed. Susan is that friend who doesn’t judge and worries about me constantly. That kind of friendship where you get a little teary eyed as you pinch yourself because, damn, you are lucky. The other fabulous thing about Susan is that she is a fantastic fashion blogger who knows pretty much everything. She can tell you the proper way to wear a belt and how to care for your underthings. She’ll tell you exactly how you look or how the maxi dress you covet might be hard to pull off. She always looks her best and she wants the rest of us to look great too.
Joanne Bamberger – Not only has Joanne become a dear friend but she’s one of very few people that I would actually consider going into business with (HA! Wouldn’t you like to know!). When it comes to women in politics it is Joanne I go to first because she gets it and we compare notes nodding with each other because being The Girl in the Boy’s Club is difficult. I often find myself wrapped up in the politics of working in politics and it is Joanne who I turn to in order to remind me why I do what I do and the importance of it all. She’s a role model who knows that smart women need to make their voices heard.
Helen Jane Hearn – If you want to entertain but not do it all Martha Stewart style but regular people, I just got the kids to ballet and now I need to make a risotto for a Progressive Dinner, style then Helen Jane is your girl. First of all, she’s been blogging since 2000 back when typewriters, rotary phones and hand-coding a website were in style. So, she’s been around the block. She’s experienced and whip smart, yes, but what I absolutely love about this girl is that she wants you to enjoy entertaining. She makes fun look pretty. She’s a doll who hands out champagne at parties and when you’re with her you know that the party has arrived. She recently interviewed me for her Party People series on her new site HJ Entertains. She’s the girl who makes you want to go out and enjoy something instead of sitting home in your ratty pi’s.
Karen Walrond – When people ask me about her my first thought is that I love her. She is a woman who wants you – yes YOU – to not just know your beauty but to know your worth. I remember a conversation with her years ago where I did my typical shoulder shrug ‘I guess…’ thing when she complimented me on my work. She looked at me right in the eyes, touched my arm and said, “No, really. You’re the shit”. I grinned. Like many women I rarely think I’m doing anything special or am all that gorgeous but Karen knows how to bring it out of me. Hell, she brings the beauty out of all of us. Every time I leave her I find myself particularly upset not to be in her presence anymore. She’s the type of woman who you always want around to listen and to be your confidante and tell you that yes, you are amazing, now work it.
Allison Czarnecki – Allison is a new friend who sat next to during the last BlogHer at a fashion panel. We only chatted for a bit though. When I got home I started peeking around her site and reading her regularly. A few months later she posted her Life List and one of the items was to go to Martha’s Vineyard. And because I wanted her brilliance on how to perfect a smoky eye, I quickly sent her a DM to tell her that I HAVE A HOUSE ON MARTHA’S VINEYARD AND YOU SHOULD TOTALLY COME OVER OH PRETTY PRETTY PLEASE! Allison is a how-to guru whereas I would just buy new eyeshadow or use my hard earned money for a manicure, Allison will tell you how to do it yourself for much cheaper and probably better. While others might mock, she’s the person who will totally get your excitement when you tell her about your new blush brush.
So tell me, who are some of your favorite lady bloggers? I’m always looking for new reads. And I’m totally OK if you say, “Heather, I just read you all day, every day.”
Don’t forget to enter the 50 Fabulous Wishes contest for a chance to win $1,000 to celebrate a friend with a refreshing attitude about looking and feeling fabulous. I was selected for this Tropicana Trop50 sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do. I received compensation to use and facilitate my post.
Some Confidence to Go With That Swimsuit
“Sex appeal is fifty percent what you’ve got and fifty percent what people think you’ve got.” ~Sophia Loren
I am so embarrassed to admit that last week I lost my shit and sounded exactly someone’s hysterical parent as I threatened to ‘turn this God Damn car around’ and I did. After telling the person on the other end of the phone to fuck off of course. Because if anything when faced with mounting stress, I am one classy woman. So there I was on the side of the road in the middle of the Green Mountains of Vermont, clutching my pearls and saying ‘motherfucker’ between every breath. I survived the ordeal or I should say that we, the person who I offended and I both survived the ordeal to tell the tale but I have hit that crucial moment where people look at me and say “Damn, girl, you could use a break”. In a few weeks I will be taking that break on a Delaware beach sporting this:
Nice, right?
While I am the last woman to show off my swimsuit confidence courtesy of Lands’ End I knew that this was a project that I had to be a part of. You see, many years ago, like 17, I had no swimsuit confidence. I was a chubby 10 year old who constantly found herself in a t-shirt over her swimsuit. This was something I had actually put in the far away corners of my mind but at 27 to look back at my 10 year old self, a still forming little girl, and knowing how embarrassed that little girl was to be seen in a suit in front of her bikini clad friends…well…it’s sad. My heart breaks for that child knowing that eventually her baby fat would be less baby fat and would turn into hips and breasts and curves. Those beautiful things that make women, women. At the time I was also attending Girl Scout camp – for more years than I care to admit – but I was surrounded by these confident counselors and other girls. At first we tried to hide behind towels and to remove our suits from under our clothing. Hoping that no one caught even the slightest glimpse of our bodies. I’d hold a towel in my teeth, my backside in a corner, while maneuvering the straps practically dislocating a shoulder in the process. But at least no one saw my nipple!
And then I stopped caring. I can’t remember when exactly but it just happened. One minute I was giggling at the slightest view of some other campers ass and the next I was regularly changing while carrying out a conversation on the days activities. “We’re going to take the girls to lunch now”, I’d say, hands on my hips and bra less. It was a body and everyone has a body so let’s just roll with it.
That’s how I’ve been ever since. I know my flaws and openly discuss them but when it comes to wearing a bathing suit, I shrug. Yeah, I’ve got cellulite and my hips don’t lie but I never claimed to be Gisele. The beaches I frequent over the summer represent women of all shapes and sizes. Larger, older women, with little skirts do polar bear swims at 7 AM. They’re out there in the cold with the fog rolling across the Nantucket Sound but they look and feel so free. Then there’s brunch on the beach where they’re all out there doing their thing over a plate of quiche. It’s a sight to see but as I see it, they don’t care what they look like so why should I?
Every woman has their hang ups but being in a swimsuit isn’t one of mine. Now if I could get life/work/relationship confidence? That would be awesome. I wonder if Lands End sells any of that.
*Disclaimer: Lands End provided me with this swimsuit as part of their Swimsuit Confidence program. All words and obsession with how awesome my swimsuit looks on me are of my own. But seriously, the ruching makes me happy and they didn’t make me say that*