Guest Post: Karla C.

March is done, can you believe it? To close out this month I present to you my March guest blogger Karla C!! We go back to our Jr. High days... if only I could remember her. You see we reconnected a few years ago and I have no recollection of her. Either she's lying and desperately wanted to be my friend or I have a bad memory! I'm going with bad memory. So here's Karla C. Why the C, well cuz I have another Karla coming up soon...

Hi all!! I'm Karla .When Marisol asked me to be a guest blogger I was really honored. This is her baby and for anybody to wanna have me hold they’re baby is cause for worry. I was super excited and wondering what I could possibly write about. Then as the days passed by, the worrying set in. I had no effin clue what to write about. I'm a procrastinator to the core so like all things I just did it like Nike. I got on the computer and started writing or typing away ..whatever…

So lately I’ve been on a documentary watching mood. This partly in fault to me having way too much free time at work. I literally just sit in front of a computer and wait for the phone to ring. Don’t get me wrong it gets busy from time to time and I occasionally get that ghetto ass customer  smack in her lips at me and she’s probably rolling her neck but as I am on the phone I cant see it. Haha! Anyways yea, so I have an easy job with  Internet access. This means I am always looking up stuff from “how to” sites to recipes to why do we celebrate Halloween or Christmas  and so on and so forth. But most of my time is either spent on YouTube or on my co-workers NetFlix account. You can guess where I’ve been lately. So I would like to share with you guys and gals some movies I found very interesting. If u have already watched them, well just pretend you haven’t and I'm teaching you something new. OK =)

1^st up: Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price

I had never before shopped at a Wal-Mart mainly cause I found them inconveniently far and i find it very annoying when the ghetto masses stamped to the same water hole. But this movie made me see why they can afford to sell us a bunch of stuff you probably don’t need but want because of the low price. You hear testimonial from actual people who worked there on how they where overwork and underpay. How they have ignored environmental laws on more than one occasion. But what really did it for me was, when they show you the workers in China. We all know large companies outsource the work because its cheaper. There you see how the workers that make the products you are buying are pretty much kept as slaves. Oh, they pay them but they have to live on the lot and they take rent out of they’re checks …wtf? …you just gotta see it. I will never ever shop at a Wal-Mart, EVER! I'm sticking to Target, damn it!

2^nd up: Food Matters

This one is just as the title say, food matters. It talks about how if you feed your body the right things like raw veggies and vitamins and stuff you will be a very healthy person. I don’t mean supermodel thin and have a rocking body. I mean overall health. You wont be tired as much. You wont get sick as often if at all and you will probably live a longer life. What I liked is that it proved to me what I suspected long ago. The drug companies and doctors that endorse they’re drugs are no better than your street corner drug dealer. They are in the business of making money and keeping you sick. if you are healthy you have no need to buy the meds they have to sell. All the meds do is treat the symptoms. They don’t cure it. Think about that next time you have a headache and pop that Advil. Do you really need another drug in your body? Or should you just take more vitamins, which are probably cheaper and are beneficial to your body?    I know I should eating better and taking vitamins and stuff but how can I say no to a delicious McGriddle. It’s a pancake and a sausage in a sandwich. Genius! And as far as taking a multi-vitamin I have no excuse. If I can remember to take my birth control every morning there is no reason I can’t take a freaking vitamin too.

And last but not least and just for shits and giggles: 3^rd up: Space Balls

I know its not a docu, but its hilarious!! Its so stupid its fantastic! Some of you might not have the same sense of humor as I do but I challenge you not to laugh at the dorky “Darth Vader” with his over sized helmets or the scene where they “comb” the desert hahaha!

So I leave you now with a clip from  Space Balls. One of my fav scenes. Enjoy! And thanks for reading =)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mi7D9DAcKOg

(I wasn't able to embed this link...thanks a lot YouTube!! )

-Karla

Writing My Blog

 This post should really be called "Writing my blog...Procrastination!" For example, I should really be writing an actual post that is waiting to be edited or working on the photos... but instead I'm here writing about writing this blog.

So how does this little piece of genius literature come to be? Well, first of all, the genius part might just be in my head, second I swear I do actually have a real process...most of the time. OK, seriously here is how the magic happens:

My post fall into 4 types:
1. Impulsive posts, these get created on the spot, or because of something that happened to me recently. Sometimes there are no photos and it's just me writing away. For those post I usually use "Googled" photography to help enhance an other wise boring page. This current post for example falls under that category. So would these ones: New Year in Minnesota Don't Cha Know, Physically fit! Physically fit! You get the point. These are easy because, they just flow and I'm usually done in anywhere from 30 minutes (only happened once) to like 2 or 3 hours (most of the time).

2.Guest post, these appear once a month and are always different. Always. It's a serious mystery to me what will be handed in. My deadline is the month they are assigned to so the post can be published anytime within the 30/31 day period. Best part, all I do is edit for like 10 minutes and put it all together and done!

3. Planned post, these post have the most detail and take the most time. I have a list of post that I want/need to do. Sometimes they are a string of post like the never ending "Tiny Room Makeover:..." posts, or the last one I wrote Witnessing a Live Birth, that one was one I even said in a previous post that I would write about. I do that sometimes and therefore the list of "planned" posts keeps growing. I currently have 6 posts in this list. These can take a few hours a day over a few days or like 6 to 8 hours total, this includes photo editing.

4. Category post, these are are ones I always feature like "Over the weekend..." which are long and encompass my weekend activities, or "Family recipe:..." or even things like writing about a movie, or restaurant, these would be my "experience" posts. I like calling them experiences over reviews because, seriously, I'm not an expert so what I'm sharing is my experience. Here are some examples: I was ShoeDazzled!, The Town. In essence they are basically planned but easier to write because I already have a format of sorts.

So, that's the easy part. Once an idea comes to my head I know immediately which category of post it will fall in. But I actually do care how I sound and how I write so here are my 4 phases, i currently have posts in every single phase...

1. Idea! This stage is like when you have an assignment to do or a report to hand in. I keep an actual real paper journal of "ideas". It's like an initial outline of what a post will have. This pretty much only applies to Planned and Category posts. I'm one of those geeks that enjoyed making outlines in school.
2. Start! This phase is where I actually sit down on a computer and create a new post in blogger and start typing. Like just seriously just start typing. no pictures, no links, just words. Plus a working tittle and maybe some (notes) to myself that never get published cause that would be embarrassing.
3. Fill! This stage is where I decided what photos I will use, how to edit them, where to put them. Plus activate all links, remove (notes), preview layout. Add more or remove actual written content. Use a video, take more photos, or even scrap the entire post...It hurts when I have to do that...
4. Edit! This is a constant back and forth. And still I never, ever catch everything. I have yet to write a post where I don't go back after it has been published and smack my forehead at a very obvious typo or error in my grammar. Spelling is the funniest, you should see my creative spelling abilities...

So there you go...that's my process. It's a lot of work. Amazingly the writing is the easiest part. Specially since I like doing it. Writing a post is a piece of cake. Filling it in with stuff and editing...that takes time and patience and time and patience and time, and more time.

I enjoy doing this. It's a way for me to release some stress, even if I get new stress about not writing...sounds counter productive but I promise it's not. The "stress" I feel is more like a need to write because I feel happy once I do. It makes me smile when I finally hit publish for the and am satisfied with a post. I don't do this to get paid, to get famous or for attention so even though I feel bad I haven't written anything in about 3 weeks now, it doesn't really affect me in any way.

I don't considered myself a writer, and I never will. Ironically, it's what I get complimented on the most. The way I write, not what I did, say, wear, photograph, etc... just the way I write. So thank you. It means a lot to me. I'm of to prepare for my Pulitzer prize...bahahah

-Marisol

Witnessing a Live Birth

Did you know that today, March 8, 2011 is International Woman's Day?

Neither did I until I heard it on the radio. Not sure exactly what it's about other than what I imagine is to celebrate the awesomeness that it is to be a woman. Maybe to get awareness of the long way we have come and the long way we still have to go? Either way, I'm for it!! (metal note: do some research)

Some days I feel like a kid, a teenager at best. Not really an adult woman. But...the 29 candles I blew out recently tell me otherwise. So, to celebrate IWD I decided to write about a moment where being a woman became one of the most mind blowing moments of my life. I feel a bit like I'm disappointing IWD by writing about this and not something like getting the right to vote, or earning equal pay. I already know that we deserve those things and fought and will fight for that. This moment was something completely different. Witnessing a live birth is intense. Seeing my cousin give birth made me realize not only are we just as smart, just as capable and just ans awesome as men, on top of all that we can have babies. That beats peeing standing up any day!. 

A little over four years ago my cousin, Doris, was pregnant and anxious to give birth. It was December 20, and she did not want to have the baby during Christmas. She wanted things to go by much faster. She had witnessed a live birth before and we had spent countless hours watching birthing stories on the discovery channel (there was a time where we both didn't have a job). She felt confident and like most 9 month pregnant women, she was ready to have the baby already! 

Being the rookie she was at that time, she decided that I would be in the delivery room too. Pre-babies (she has two now!) and pre-hubby, Doris and I were very close. We still are but her life has taken her in the direction of wife and mother and they are her priority over me. As they should. But back to the "pre" time, there I was in the middle of the show. Now, my roll was to be supportive and just take pictures once the baby was born. You know...minimal stuff.

They had been at the hospital for a few hours when I showed up, I was rushing through a final to get there! Her epidural had been administered and it was just a waiting game now. We watched some TV, we talked, took some pictures. In between all this they would check her, things were moving very slowly. They broke her water and things started to move a little faster but still nothing to jump about. Clay and I put two big chairs together and slept on opposite sides for the night. Our backs were aching the next morning.

Around 9am (almost 24 hours later at this point and a few hours of pushing) Doris was very frustrated, there was a lot of commotion but nothing was happening. Everyone kept telling her you are doing good. We can see her head! You are almost there!! Here comes my favorite part of the story. Probably not hers but I'm sharing my perspective here. While everyone was saying all those positive things Doris seemed to just not believe it. At one point it was just me and her in the room and she turned to me, her cousin, her confidant, her best friends, the one person she knew had always and would always tell her the truth. "Marisol, can you look? Can you see her head?" Well, this was more that I expected to do but hey, why not. Be a good friend. So I took a look. Now, I could have said "Yeah, I can see her!" or "Oh my God, there she is!" or "Wow, Doris! You are progressing!" But no. I decided that I should tell the truth.

Marisol:"I don't see anything!"
DOris: "Seriously!?....Oh my God."


I should have lied.

Doris describes that moment like she felt all her hours of work just came under her and all her efforts were for nothing. It was very discouraging. I know I have said this before Doris, but I am really sorry. A few hours, massive pain due to epidural running out, getting more involved in the process that expected and lots of effort from my cousin, Savannah Michelle was finally born!

Like I said, I ended up being more "involved" than I expected but it was worth it. It really is beautiful and amazing... well, at least once they cleaned every thing up. She was so big, and so real and alive! It doesn't look natural to me though. It seriously looks crazy like "How is this possible? This should be in some alien movie!" But that is what a woman's body can do. We can do many, many, many other things...but seriously, growing a human and giving birth to it, awesome!

I got to take her first live photos and recently I took the ones below...


SAVANNAH MICHELLE :)

I love being your "Tia Maso!"

 Someday kiddo, I will embarrass you with this story. Specially the part about how HUGE of a baby you were, seriously Savi, you were like almost 10lbs.!


Oh and Doris, I probably would not be too happy with you showing my, I just gave birth photos someday so thank you for letting me share this. Oh and here is a very beautiful family photo were you look like you normally look...

 

So happy International Woman's day. We can do this and we can do anything else we want!