I’m finally done editing and posting Trollopalooza 2009 photos. It was a fabulous time – Janiece and her smart man are gracious and thoughtful hosts and Anne, Michelle and Michael were tremendous fun as well. I’m as always very grateful for the blessing of the awesome friends I share my life with.

I was greeted at the airport by laughing women bearing “Drunken Trollops” signs.

Jeri, Anne & Michelle at our fabulous sushi/Asian cuisine dinner the first night.

We pose in front of the Garden of the God(desse)s sign.

The three trollops, not unlike the three stooges, pose for a mug shot.

On the way out of Colorado springs, we stop for a brief field trip. Those of you who know us well understand the irony of this picture.

On the final night, Michelle and Anne baked for us! Yum, home-baked Oreos!

It was sad leaving these ladies and returning home to my mundane life. Thankfully, there’s twitter, Facebook, IM and everything else – because they are made of awesome. Thanks for the fabulous weekend – and again, thanks to my excellent hostess Janiece!

This weekend I read an interview that was very thought provoking – so I’m mostly stealing others’ words today for my blog post, because they resonated so strongly with me.

Marianne Schnall, creator of The Feminist website, interviewed Margaret Cho for the Huffington Post. The subjects covered were wide ranging, including beauty, eating disorders, gay/lesbian rights, politics, transforming pain into creativity, raising children, and more. You should go read it; I’ll wait.

In case you didn’t click through, here are a few excerpts:

Exclusive Interview with Margaret Cho

MC: “I always thought that people told you that you’re beautiful, that this was a title that was bestowed upon you – that it was other people’s responsibility to give you this title. And I’m sick of waiting, people! [laughs] Waiting around for people to tell me that I was! I’m tired of waiting. And I think that the world is pretty cruel to women, in what it considers beautiful and what it celebrates as beauty. And I think that it’s time to take into our own hands this power and to say, “You know what – I’m beautiful – I just am. And that’s my light – I’m just a beautiful woman.”

Cho continues to talk about calling yourself beautiful almost a political act, that the more women feel beautiful, the more inclined they are to use their voice:

MC: “And express their opinion and feel powerful. Like when you feel beauty – and beauty for women is definitely power. When you feel powerful, you are willing to stand up for your rights, you are willing to stand up for what you believe in, you’re more willing to stand up and be counted. I think it goes deeper than just something that’s about looks or something that’s about any kind of sexual power or whatever – it really has to do with pride. And pride and a sense of self, and a sense of worth.”

Sadly, although I’ve enjoyed her comedy, I’ve never known that Margaret Cho was such a deep and profound thinking on such a broad range of issues that are near and dear to my heart; I will be listening more closely to her in the future.

Her words made me think of one of my all time favorite quotes, this time from spiritual guru Marianne Williamson’s book A Woman’s Worth.

MW: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Interestingly enough, these resonated especially strongly with me right now because I had a friend recently tell me I am beautiful. My first response was to self-deprecate – and I was gently corrected. Thank you – you know who you are.

Note: I am not fishing for compliments, and indeed, may smack those who deliver such upside the head.

So, my friends, know that you are beautiful – I wouldn’t care for you if I didn’t think so! Go forth and let your light shine.

Today the family and I rented a sailboat and took an initial sailing lesson. We’ve always loved boating and being on the water but have long wanted to sail – and got the chance.

It was a lovely day on Liberty Bay and the sun on the water worked its stress relieving magic. I’ll definitely do this again.

This was NOT the boat we rented, but was easily the loveliest boat on the water today – a racing sailboat of some sort.

Zach and Cheri watch the windvane.

Zach the helmsman steers the boat.

Zach watches from the sail deck.

Apparently I was the captain since I signed the rental contract. Who knew?

Six weeks ago I made the decision to reset my wedding set into a new, custom piece of jewelry as a part of making peace with where I am now in life.

Here they are:

The 14K yellow gold ring on the left uses the gold from my wedding set, as well as my 1/2 ct princess cut diamond engagement stone. The ring on the right is new, using a 6mm trillian cut peridot and white gold.

They’re big and eye-catching and will take a bit of getting used to, but I really like them. The jeweler, Blue Heron Jewelry in downtown Poulsbo, did fabulous work.

I’m kinda OCD about escalating exercise. (Gee, there’s a surprise!) I feel like there always has to be progress, in amount of time spent, in speed, mileage, strength, whatever. One one hand it’s good; I’m goal oriented. On the other hand I can overdo it and have injured myself, by pushing too hard.

I’m at the point now where I think I need to stop the build-up, at least of duration. An hour of yoga (3-4x a week) and an hour of something cardio daily is probably sufficient and it’s working well for me. I can focus on technique, form, speed, or intervals, but I think continuing to push for more time is counterproductive.

Although I actually enjoy strength training, I don’t want to do it it – I’m one of those atypical females that bulks up a bit with weight training. Yoga (and Pilates as a first cousin) contain a significant strength element but the focus is different enough it doesn’t have the same effect.

I do enjoy cross training, not doing the same thing all the time. It’s fun to go on a bike ride instead of a walk, or kayaking instead of a swim – it keeps things interesting and works different muscles.

When I was young, dumb and at the peak of my physical conditioning, I was swimming 2 x 2hr workouts a day, plus lifting weights an hour a day. I also ran 2-3x a week for crosstraining, and played racquetball and took dance for fun. I was perpetually exhausted but in fabulous shape, 17% body fat.

I wonder if I didn’t sort of warp my metabolism back then, so that I’d require that kind of workout load to ever again be slim. I hope not, because that’s not happening! I have a life. I’ll see where I end up with current efforts.