For this month's issue of See Jane Write Magazine I interviewed author and poet TJ Beitelman about his writing process and his latest novel John the Revelator. TJ is one of my co-workers at the Alabama School of Fine Arts, one of my favorite writers and one of my favorite people. 

TJ (pictured above) also blogs and on his blog has a feature he calls 30 Things I Love Right Now. 

So I decided to give it a try. 

In addition to working with talented people like TJ, here are 30 things I love right now. 

(1) Tacos. | (2) My lunch bunch at work. | (3) Brach's marshmallow pumpkins. | (4) #GIRLBOSS by Sophia Amoruso.  | (5) Talking to other women about their dreams. | (6) Essie nail polish. | (7) See Jane Write's new website. |  (8) Birmingham. | (9) Almond tea at Urban Standard. | (10) Giggling with girlfriends in coffee shops. | (11) Brunch. | (12) Women Business Leaders. | (13) Running the Lakeshore Trail. | (14) Beyonce's latest album. Still. | (15) Goddess by Banks. | (17) Pretending to be a real professional by using my LinkedIn account.  | (18) Blogging. | (19) Reading other people's blogs.  | (20) Dreaming. | (21) Writing a column for B-Metro. | (22) Cooking salmon for husband every Sunday.| (23) My red shoes. | (24) Maxi dresses. | (25) Being a happy feminist. | (26) Finding other happy feminists on the Internet. | (27)  Fancy Love fragrance by Jessica Simpson. | (28) Being childfree. | (29) Being free. | (30) Being me. 

Happy Memorial Day!

Many folks consider today the unofficial start of summer and since I am a teacher that is certainly the case for me.

Summer break is on!

So I thought I'd celebrate with a list of my intentions and goals for this season.

Co-lead a bible study small group with my pal Jamie through the book Restless by Jennie Allen.
Attend Y'all Connect.
Go to Art on the Rocks.
Spend quality time with my mom, my cousins, my best friends and my husband.
Host a family game night at my place.
Rediscover the best of Birmingham.
Host See Jane Write's first mini-conference! (Wanna come? Get your tickets here.)
Exercise twice a day most days of the summer.
Get rid of my muffin top. (Yes, I know this goal is a bit anti-feminist. No, I don't care.)
Buy new running shoes and start training for my next half marathon.

See Beyonce and Jay-Z live at the On the Run Tour!
Take a romantic trip to New Orleans with hubster.
Take a spa trip to Atlanta with my bestie DeShaundra
Attend BlogHer '14 (and take a selfie with Kerry Washington).
Read 10 books.
Freelance more and work to see my byline on some of my favorite websites.
Redesign this blog.
Grow the readership for this blog.
Attend WordCamp.
Buy some stuff: a new phone, a Do You Boo tank, and a maxi dress for every day of the week. (I really like maxi dresses.)

What are your plans for summer?

On January 1, 2014 I announced via this blog and social media that I would exercise every day this year. It's mid-April and I haven't missed a day yet. 

For my workout on Saturday I walked 3.1 miles while people threw handfuls of brightly colored cornstarch at me. Yes, that's right, on Saturday I participated in the race known as Color Me Rad. 

Color Me Rad is a 5K that "fires off in a blaze of color bombs, color cannons, color mortars, and multi-toned courses." In each city Color Me Rad is held a portion of the proceeds from the race is donated to a local charity that partners with CMR. Birmingham's race benefitted the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Alabama. 

Despite the heat, the hills and the itchy cornstarch my cousin Tasha and I had a blast during our trek around the Hoover Met on Saturday. My cousin is still recovering from an ankle injury so we chose to walk, not run, the race, but we got in a great workout nonetheless and had a great time.

I'm always telling my friends that exercise should be fun and Saturday's race reminded me to practice what I preach. I wasn't concerned about how long it took me to complete the race. I wasn't checking my Polar fitness watch to see how many calories I'd burned. I was just having fun.

Here are more pictures from the race:

I think Big Foot came to the race too!

A conga line broke out at the after party!

Can you be happy 100 days in a row?

Ask me this question and the cynic in me wants to exclaim, "Did you just meet me? Of course I can't be happy 100 days in a row!"

But then I realize that the cynic in me is also a brat, a brat who often ignores all her blessings when one  thing doesn't go her way.

So tomorrow I'm beginning the 100 Happy Days challenge.

How does it work? Every day for 100 days you submit a picture via social media of something that made you happy. It's that simple.

Visit 100happydays.com to sign up.

And I leave you with this…

I'm a freelance writer and small business owner and this is all in addition to my full-time job as a teacher. In other words, my days have little to no downtime. There is always something I could or should be doing.

Yet, lately I've been spending (wasting?) way too much time on three things -- three things that are making me a bad blogger because I should be using this precious time producing blog posts. 

Netflix. About once a week you will hear me loudly declare "Netflix is ruining my life!" People who know me well know there was a time when I hardly ever watched television. I once went two years without even owning a TV. Netflix has changed everything. I watched the first season of The Following in a day and a half. I have a crush on nearly everyone on the show Arrow (including the girls) and 24's Jack Bauer regularly shows up in my dreams to help me fight bad guys. In fact, whenever my husband is watching anything on TV other than 24 I'm thinking to myself "We could be watching Jack Bauer right now." 

Buzzfeed. Oh Buzzfeed, I wish I knew how to quit you. But it's imperative that I take your quizzes to know what state I actually belong in or what woman from the Bible I would be. And when I read that article for people with unusual names it was like you had crawled into my soul. 

Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg, you are my pusherman. Facebook is feeding these additions of mine, alerting me to new Buzzfeed quizzes that I MUST TAKE RIGHT NOW and reminding me that 24: Live Another Day premieres on May 5 and thus I have exactly two months to finish all seasons of 24.

How are you wasting time these days? 

When I wrote about five things that made me a happy feminist last week, I didn't intend to make this a regular feature of the blog. But things keep bringing joy to my feminist heart. So here we go…

1. Gabby gets the  last laugh. 

When some Twitter trolls had some not-so-nice things to say about Gabourey Sidibe as she walked the red carpet at the Golden Globes on Sunday, Gabby's response via Twitter was perfect: 

"To people making mean comments about my GG pics, I mos def cried about it on that private jet on my way to my dream job last night. #JK," 

Love it!

Haters gon' hate. 

2. Beyonce wrote an essay. And since I too write essays I decided this must mean I am Beyonce. (Just let me roll with this.) 




3. A colleague of mine asked me to come to his class give a guest lecture… on Beyonce! 

4. On the same day I wrote a post on why I believe Christian men should want a feminist wife, Sarah Bessey, a.k.a. Jesus Feminist, wrote an acute post in response to Candace Cameron's comments on submission and "biblical marriage." Bessey and I both believe marriage is about mutual submission. As Bessey states in her post: 

My husband and I submit to one another as we both submit to Christ. We learned that from our Bibles.

5. An acquaintance of mine sent me a Facebook message that read: 

"I did not know I was a feminist until I met you…you have rocked my world."

And with that she most certainly made my week. 


What made you happy this week? 

Here are three things I'd like Santa to bring me this Christmas:

The Book of Jezebel: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Lady Things

This encyclopedic guide to pop culture, feminism, fashion and more is by the writers and other creatives of the popular website for women Jezebel.com. Reading this would be a great way to spend winter vacation.

Wonder Woman running socks

If these socks don't motivate me to keep running, nothing will.

My Body Is a Temple tee

This t-shirt by GirlTrek makes the fashion fitness statement I want the world to know.



What are you wishing for this holiday season?

Yesterday's list was so much fun, I decided to write another one. Today I'm sharing a few of my guilty pleasures.

Pitbull, the rapper. Yes, I confess. I love me some Mr. Worldwide. I recognize he's not the world's greatest lyricist and his songs aren't exactly woman-friendly either. But the Pitbull radio station on my Pandora app certainly does keep me pumped when I'm running and power walking through my neighborhood and on my favorite trail.

The Real Husbands of Hollywood. My three favorite television shows are Grey's Anatomy, Scandal and Covert Affairs. That means my sources of entertainment are full of dying, lying, and spying. So a girl needs a good laugh sometimes and that's why I love The Real Husbands of Hollywood. And there's a chance I have a crush on Nick Cannon too.

Chick flicks. I've been a sucker for chick flicks since the 1989 release of Shag, The Movie. And, yes, I did like the Sex and the City movies. Sue me.

But I also love...

Superhero movies. If you didn't like The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, or The Avengers I can no longer be your friend. Sorry.

I liked The Avengers so much I created this to be the cover photo for my Writeous Babe Facebook page. 

And speaking of superhero movies, another guilty pleasure of mine is...

admiring men with beards.  As much as I love superhero movies, I am not a fan of Super Man. At all. I thought Man of Steel would win me over. It did not. The movie was over for me once Clark Kent shaved. Yes, I love beards! Unfortunately, my hubs refuses to grow one. That's OK. He's still adorable.

What are some of your guilty pleasures? 

The Facebook game of sharing things about yourself your friends may not know is a fun one. Until now, however, I haven't participated. Because of all my blogging I feel like my life is an open book. I feel like there aren't many things my Facebook friends don't know about me. But I'm going to join in nonetheless. Instead of posting my list on Facebook, though, I'm sharing it here.

1. Nine is my favorite number.

2. My brother and I take the game Just Dance so seriously you'd think we were trying out for the next Step Up movie.

3. I once traveled out of the country without a passport.

4. My name has been legally changed four times.

5. I once knew French so well I could read an entire book in that language. Now I only remember curse words.

6.  When I was younger I wanted to be an archaeologist but only because I liked saying the word.

7. I used to be good friends with the Goth couple from The Amazing Race.

With Kynt & Vyxsin

8. I'm not afraid of bugs, Pitbulls, or snakes but if I see a mouse or a rat I will piss my pants.

9. I taught group fitness classes at the University of Alabama Student Recreational Center when I was in college and had plans to start a health magazine and my own gym after graduate school. Maybe one day I will!

I'm heading out of town in an hour or so and will be without Internet access for the next week. (I died a little inside just typing that). So Reverb11 will return when I'm back to civilization. 


In the meantime, I give you a slightly modified version of a fun little post I wrote last year for Georgia Mae. 


***


It should be no surprise that I hate cold weather. I was born and raised in Alabama and I lived in California during my early 20s. So I begin to dread winter pretty much as early as the first day of autumn. But in an effort to not be such a grump, this winter solstice I give to you 10 things I love about winter:


10. Conversation Hearts

Forget a box of chocolates, give me a pack of Necco Sweethearts for Valentine's Day and I will be your #1 FAN.

9. Hot chocolate

Why do the coffee house baristas ask if you want whipped cream? Of course I do! And I better not find out you have marshmallows back there that you're saving for your favorite customers. 

8. Snow Days


Now that I'm a teacher instead of a full-time journalist snow means I get a phone call telling me not to come to work instead of one telling me to come in early (and stay late). Furthermore, living in the Deep South instead of the Mid West means that even when it does snow I still have no use for our snow shovel. So no more of this:

7. The Snuggie!


Whether you sport the original Tibetan monk red, the breast cancer awareness pink, or a University of Alabama themed Snuggie like yours truly, do so with pride. Don't worry about haters like my husband. And get one for your dog too!

6. Cowgirl boots

Sure, some girls sport these even in summer with their favorite mini skirts but I think that's a bit weird and this girl lives in flip flops from March to October. So winter is the only time the boots get to make an appearance.


5. Layers

Really I don't need winter to dress in layers. I usually wear a camisole with everything but cold weather does mean even more layers. You'll usually find me sporting a cami under a quirky tee under a cardigan. And according to Family Guy, this makes me cool.

4. Scarves

The scarf is quite possibly life's greatest fashion accessory. Not only is it functional, keeping you warm on those chilly days, but it adds flair to any simple outfit. I'm currently on a mission to collect scarves in every hue imaginable. Feel free to contribute to the cause. 

3. Winter break


As a teacher I not only get snow days but also two weeks off every December. I guess they give us perks like this to make up for the low salary. 


2. My birthday

I love celebrating birthdays, especially my own! I hope you'll join me for whatever party I concoct this February. (And bring gifts...low salary, remember)

1. New Year's Eve


Winter may mean no flip flops but it also means my favorite holiday of the year - New Year's Eve, a night that for me is not about the parties, but the possibilities. It's about all the hopes for the year to come and the magical feeling I have on this night that I can make all my dreams come true.


Happy Winter Solstice!

If you've known me even for a short time and even if it's only through my other blog, GeorgiaMae.com, you probably know that I love Hello Kitty despite the fact that I'm 30 years old. 


Apparently Charlize Theron would say I have issues. 


US Weekly reports that during The New York Times' Times Talk panel the 36-year-old actress said she does not understand why so many women in their 30s wear Hello Kitty gear or why people seem to be OK with this. 

"I'm pretty amazed by Hello Kitty. I see so many women in their 30s walking around in Hello Kitty sh*t and nobody is concerned for them," Theron said. "It's the one iconic teenage symbol that seems okay for women in their 30s? The world seems to not have an issue with it."

She went on to say most women are "messed up."


Funny enough, the one rule I made for myself regarding my Hello Kitty mania when I hit the big 3-0 was that I would no longer wear Hello Kitty clothing (not counting my beloved Hello Kitty bathrobe). I'd keep the Hello Kitty key chains, notebooks, and rear windshield sticker, but no more T-shirts featuring the Sanrio superstar. (Although, I don't scoff at 30-something women who do still rock HK tees.) So perhaps Theron would say I'm just a bit messed up. 


I also won't decorate my apartment with Hello Kitty paraphernalia, but that's probably just because I'm married. If I were single my kitchen would certainly have this:

But I feel that as long as I'm taking care of adult responsibilities like going to work, paying my bills on time, and cleaning my apartment and I'm emotionally mature enough to be a great wife and a trustworthy friend, I should be allowed to be a kid at heart. So I will do just that even if Charlize Theron thinks I'm stupid. 

P.S. -- Dear friends, I need a new wallet. Hint. Hint. 

What do you think about women in their 30s sporting Hello Kitty gear?

Last weekend I crossed off the following item from my bucket list:


Dance in a flash mob


Don't believe me? Here's the proof. (I'm the extremely bouncy chick in the pink tank top in the middle of the center row.) 





Special thanks to Jamme Morginn of Crunk Fitness for organizing this (and to Brookwood Mall for not calling the cops on us)!