words, words, words

Last week at my latest doctors appointment, I had a moment of completeness. As I have written about previously, I have a lot of problems with my thyroid and after some frustrating conversations with my old doctor, I decided to switch doctors (well that and I have Obamacare which, well don't get me started). I am a big believer in not taking pills unless you absolutely have to and managing whatever condition you have with diet and exercise so when my old doctor immediately wanted to talk about ridding my thyroid gland via radioactive iodine, I knew it was time to get another opinion. She is an old school type of doctor - she's had her own practice for many years and is all about prescribing pills. She doesn't discuss eating or exercise habits and in fact is substantially overweight herself. I stayed with her initially because she treated my thyroid disease efficiently the first time around but when it returned after a year and a half of remission, she jumped way too quickly ...

This whole week I have been acting like a crazy person. I got so geared up to watch the season 6 finale of "The Walking Dead" that I was a nervous wreck on Sunday night. Let me just stop here for a second and explain a little bit about how I can be with shows sometimes. I get obsessed. Like, unnaturally obsessed. It has been this way since high school with "Beverly Hills 90210." My best friend and I used to call each other during commercials every Thursday night when the show aired live to talk about what just happened. When Dylan's wife was killed in season 6 we both sobbed and blubbered like we had lost our puppy. It was ridiculous. Then, when "American Idol" was in its heyday, I developed an infatuation with Chris Daughtry and when he was kicked off way too soon, my mother had to call me to make sure I wasn't suicidal. When Clay Aiken lost his season, I would't discuss it for days because I was seeing red. I went through an entire box of tis...

I'll be honest, I've been working on this one topic for almost 2 weeks now and I'm frustrated because I can't seem to get it right. I've been doing online research and having conversations about this because it is such a layered topic. I am attempting my fourth try at writing about this and it will not be perfect - it may not even be good but here is my attempt at defining what it means to be strong and more specifically a strong woman. What is so challenging about this topic is that the definition can be so broad and it has been skewed and colored by society and pop culture examples. I had to crack a lot of layers to get to the core of what I believe true strength is. I chipped away at the facade of the poster child for strong female: tough, outspoken, confident, well dressed or in some way physically imposing, bad-ass, don't take no crap from nobody, I can do it all super woman. I hammered through the lens of  brashness and boldness equating strength and the...