Glossed Over- For all those women who sense they are being lied to.

For all of the women who feel they are increasingly being lied to in the media. Glossed Over, a blog about the discontent with media's depiction of women.

Warning: There is a great deal of discussion about the sexual objectification of women and cites examples from popular women's magazines that show the pervasive effects on us individually and collectively as a culture.

Does anyone really know?

Confession: I haven't written a word of fiction in five months.

Ahem. I should clarify.  I haven't written a word of intentional fiction in five months. My journal is stuffed with pages where I blindly convince myself I have no desire whatsoever to write fiction and really want to be a butcher, baker, candlestick maker, landscape designer, dressmaker or hatter, anything less painful and more fruitful than plucking away at the computer every day.

My house has never been cleaner than it is now. My children are happier, my laundry is neatly folded and lately my meals are bordering on culinary masterpieces. You should see my yard! Even with all the adversity I've experienced lately, from the outside it still looks like I am doing very well.

But the truth is, and this is really painful to admit. I need writing.

There, I said it. Out loud. For the whole world to see. Well, at least the five people still reading this blog. (Thank you faithful followers. I'm sure you are still hanging on because I owe you money or a lunch date.)

So here is the REAL question (the gut wrenching question I do not have an easy answer to): How do I write and still be the mother I want to be?

My own mother wasn't around much when I was a kid and she walked out completely when I was a teen. Her absence has left a hole in me that I will never be able to fill. (We have since reconciled and now enjoy a very healthy adult relationship but you never get back those years.) I promised myself that no matter my personal sacrifice I would always be 100 percent there for my children.

I mean really be there not just in body but in spirit.

But I also need to express my creativity. Otherwise I feel like an auto-bot going through the motions, waiting for the cake to rise or the bleach to activate on the whites.

Unfortunately when I write, I fall into a kind of hypnotic state and I am largely unaware of what is going on around me. Perhaps my expectations are unrealistic, because I also need a clean house and daily exercise and garden time and time with my husband. But how can I make the life I need work with the life my family needs? Shouldn't it be the same thing? And if so, how in the world do I accomplish it?

If anyone out there has a REALISTIC* solution to my problem. I'm listening.

*I'm already waking at 5 a.m. to run so rising any earlier to write isn't realistic. And if I worked my children any harder on household chores I'm certain I'd be arrested for violating child labor laws. 

Good thing? Bad thing?

And my streak continues.

I am beginning to think I messed with karma and she is out to get me. :)

My luck has been something else lately. It's just one thing after another around here. Please forgive my sporadic blogging. I've been trying to stay above water.  I suppose I can look at the mounting medical bills, near misses, cancelled plans and life dream disappointments as some kind of losing streak. Or I can look at it as one miracle after another.

Beginning with my son's broken arm in December, I have said again and again "it could have been worse." The gas leak, the house fire, my daughters accident with a sheet of metal, they all could have been so much worse. And now I've had my own health stuff that forced me to back out of a much anticipated family vacation, canyoneering trip and spot on the Wasatch Back 2010 Long Distance Running Relay.

But in each case, a window has opened after a door closed and we've had the money to pay the medical bills, made alternate plans for equally as fun vacations, and had blessings fall into our lap that have strengthened my belief that there is a God and he is acutely aware of me and my struggles.

My great grandma Milli, a little Italian firecracker (4'10") who only knew a few snippets of broken English, used to have a saying. I don't know it in Italian but the rough translation is "Good thing? Bad thing?"

Basically she believed that in life we don't really know what we will get. Some of our biggest struggles come masked as successes and what can feel like a streak of very bad luck can turn into our greatest happiness'.

I'll keep my eyes on the horizon.