You know that saying that it's better to be fashionably late than to not show up at all? Well, "Back in Skinny Jeans: How this woman got back in her skinny jeans through tiny acts of healthiness and found inner peace along the way," the book, based on our witty and fun blog here, is now available on Amazon Kindle for $4.99.
Exciting times, indeed!
The book is a holistic perspective on dieting and weight loss that will spark your imagination and help you get back into your skinny jeans through tiny acts of healthiness around fitness, food, and feelings.
Enjoy this How-I story of how a former yo-yo dieter stopped chasing the illusion of happily skinny ever after, and created a life filled with healthiness back in her skinny jeans.
Note: This was the very first picture I used in the blog header when Back in Skinny Jeans launched in November 2005.
A while back, I was on one of those “let’s-meet-for-coffee-because-we-met-online-and-don’t-want-to-commit-to-anything-serious-like-potstickers-and-Kung Pao chicken” first dates. Here’s a snippet of our conversation:
Him: “So, you’re a writer?”
Me: “Well actually, I’m a blogger.”
Him: “Really? Well that’s cool. I think it’s fascinating that people can make a living blogging. So what do you blog about?”
Me: “I blog about healthy living, body image, weight loss…..stuff like that.”
My date then stares into my face with wide open eyes for a moment giving me a kinda deer in headlights look. Immediately I assume he’s thinking, “Oh gawd, are you one of those salad picking chicks who will constantly ask me “Does this make me look fat?”…and then blog about it.”
My first instinct…
Me: “Oh,oh, no…. I really focus more on holistic mind, body, spirit. It’s more about overall healthiness than just losing weight and looking like a hot chick. Really, I eat all the time. I like food, maybe too much. I even food blog too but not in an obsessive calorie counting way…no really….I have a much better relationship with food than I did when I was younger which yeah did include some salad picking only days. But, all that is past stuff. You know…me and food are good…like gin & tonic good.”
{I feel like I’m a rambling Bridget Jones during one of her “speeches”}
Him: “So, are you back in your skinny jeans?”
I cringe when he asks me that question, but politely smile. Although it may have come out a bit tacky, I can’t really be mad at the guy because it is a valid question since that is the name of my blog. But, I feel uptight.
...The skinny jeans is like the modern day glass slipper ...
I never saw the guy again. It was simply one of those pleasant nice to meet you coffee dates. But what stuck in my craw was, “Why was I explaining myself and feeling all awkward about my blog?” I can’t put my finger on it…yet. But I did figure it out, and the answer will affect the future of this blog.
The blogger pocket book
I pondered that question for weeks. During that time, I was also seriously reevaluating my blogging career because I’ve made no secret of this, making money in the healthy living blog niche has been really tough and I’m still not standing on my own two feet. And frankly, I’m really kinda done living like a “who-knows-where-money-is-going-to-come-from” frugalista.
I tried the 8-week Everyday Tweet blog experiment which turned out to be a blog fail because as much as I love Twitter and am doing very well on the platform, I don’t want to blog about Twitter all the time. The 8-week hiatus from blogging on Back in Skinny Jeans was terrific, and frankly towards the end, I woke up one morning very calm, and literally was like, “I’m done. I’m done blogging Back in Skinny Jeans.” Yes, that was very major, and even more so because I was still and peaceful.
But then I thought, "I just can't quit the blog. My online brand is built around Back in Skinny Jeans. What would I do?"
Asking one simple question can change everything
During my blog hiatus, I celebrated my birthday and it dawned on me, “How old do you have to be to stop obsessing about your body and your looks?”
It’s a good question to ask.
I have been obsessing about my body and looks ever since I was in Junior high school, and am now in my 40’s, and really, how much longer will I continue to obsess about my jeans size, wrinkles, flab, and crow’s feet? Do I want to be 45, 50 etc and still be fixated about being back in the skinny jeans? I've been blogging about this topic for 3 years and 8 months, how much longer do I want to continue?
At what age, do we women just stop focusing on the physical?
If you read the women’s magazines and sites, the answer would be never because entire industries are built around our constant insecurities about our looks and our continuous desire to be youthful and thin. We are taught to believe that female social currency is based on our physical beauty.
The true answer to when we stop focusing on the physical is this: It stops when YOU stop. That’s it.
A Buddhist principle is that all suffering is in the mind. I pondered this concept: beauty suffering is grounded in the mind. If I eliminate or change what I think about and focus on, then it follows that I can end my suffering and struggle with my body. My body is not the root of my suffering, my mind is. And equally, my body is not the root of my happiness, my mind is.
{Let that sink in a moment}
It's all within, and it is all about YOU
There is nothing outside of you that will make you stop obsessing about your body and your looks. YOU have to decide that you will no longer make your body and beauty the focus of your life. YOU have to stop attaching your self esteem, your self-worth, and your self-love to something external to you. YOU must become conscious that you are chasing an illusion and not a reality.YOU must ask for help and take responsibility for your healing if you find yourself dealing with anything that is causing harm to your health, life, and those around you.
The illusion is that being thin and beautiful (by society’s standards) will make your life perfect, happy, and fulfilled. The illusion is that once we can wear the skinny jeans again, we can be the person we always dreamed we could be, and have the glossy life we fantasize about.
The skinny jeans is like the modern day glass slipper, as we also expect Prince Charming and the prettiness kingdom to appear along with the jeans. The attachment to that beauty illusion is what drives us to our darker sides to desperate and dangerous measures and to superficiality. We are sometimes even willing to put our lives at risk for this illusion.
We buy into the illusion that things outside of us will bring us what we feel lacking on the inside. The reality is you already have everything you want on the inside. It’s always been there, and you will start to see it and appreciate it as soon as you just STOP putting all the emphasis on the external.
This principle is not new, and honestly, for years, I thought it was crap. But after experiencing myself being thin and adored for it, being a millionaire, having some level of fame, and of having “perfect-like” boyfriends, I can tell you that you can have all that and still be amazingly miserable and unfulfilled.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to look and feel your best. Having a vibrant body is fabulous. Makeup, clothes, shoes, and shopping are very much fun parts of being a girl. I love all that stuff myself. But, those things in of themselves are simply that, things. They are just things, not who we are, and that is where the illusion tricks us.
The gift to myself that made the difference
For my birthday this year, my gift to myself was the decision and feeling, “I am whole.”
And honestly, I think this is the best gift I have ever given myself. I've gotten myself cars, clothes, shoes, and trips and as fabulous as all those gifts were, they still pale to the gift of feeling whole, and living like a whole person.
Yes, I have damage, flaws, and imperfections, but I am whole. Yes, I still have a bit of a muffin top I’d like to drop and I don’t have a husband or sustainable income (yet), but I am still whole. I suffered an eating disorder and depression, I was raped by a boyfriend, I lost a million dollars, I failed even publicly in all kinds of business ventures, but I am still whole.
Our permission settings
Eleanor Roosevelt said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” Well, it’s the same thing for feeling whole. No one can make you feel lack without your agreement. No one can make you feel you’re not beautiful, talented, or worthy of love without your permission.
So, the question I ask of you today which I asked of myself is, why do you continue to give things outside of yourself the authorization to make you feel anything other than whole? What do you gain by continuing to believe that you are not whole as you are in this moment? What would your life look like the second you start living like a person who knows they are whole?
...I believe that even a pair of jeans can help make the world a better place. ...
I can tell you that ever since my birthday when I gave myself that gift of living like a whole person, the first thing I got was a sense of calm. Certain things that used to get under my skin or bugged me, just didn’t any more mainly because I realized what’s the point? Really. All I’m getting is more stress about things that I really have no control over. But what I can control are my perceptions and reactions, and I choose internal peace which again is something that we all have and no one can ever take away unless we let them.
It's time to grow up Dyer style
I love Wayne Dyer’s explanation of growing up. He says something to the affect:
Growing up is not about age, a number on a driver’s license. Growing up is about growing into your higher self.
I love Dyer's perspective because it's about evolving. The reason I reacted to my date’s salad eating chick look about Back in Skinny Jeans was because my subconscious was saying, “Hey Steph! It’s time for us to grow up. We want to grow into our higher self, and that woman no longer has a need to focus on her body or the subject of physical beauty every day.”
My higher self wants to do new things that will help me evolve as a person internally, and help me do more of my life purpose work which is to help people live more authentic lives. My higher self knows that even though our online brand was built around this blog, I am not this blog, and this blog has served us and others well. The spirit of this blog can live on and evolve, and the universe shows me how...you'll see.
Instead of being bikini-ready, I'd like to get higher self-ready
Before the 8-week hiatus, I tried to focus on health and beauty subjects outside of the physical body, and be that voice of reason in a weight loss and youth obsessed media culture. However, doing research for those stories and keeping on top of trends still required me to keep reading all these magazines, sites, blogs and books that constantly perpetuate the beauty myth.
Frankly, I just can’t stand to read it anymore…every day. I find that all that stuff really just leaves me feeling angry or somehow still pulls me back into the self bashing and feeling “not enough.” I no longer want to feed my soul and mind with beauty illusion every day of the year.
But I’m no saint. I admit to enjoying celeb gossip and women’s magazines and sites, but for a profession I no longer want to write about the travesty of things like celebrity cellulite watching, the never ending treadmill of getting “bikini ready”, or how to look hot so you can have a hot sex life.
That beauty myth stuff is what gets the big traffic and page views, and to make revenue with Back in Skinny Jeans, on a daily basis, I would have to keep writing about things I no longer want to have a conversation about.
I decide the future of Back in Skinny Jeans
I would like to pass the torch onto others in the healthy living blog niche, and feel that the higher purpose of Back in Skinny Jeans was really to pave the way for others and to open the doors for those who’d like to use blogging as a means to really challenge and even shatter the beauty myth in the media and our culture.
On that note, I want to retire Back in Skinny Jeans the blog while it is still on top. I will no longer be actively blogging here, but the site will still be alive as the platform for Back in Skinny Jeans the book which will make its debut one day…and soon hopefully. I’m working on it. When I can’t tell you exactly, but the book is coming, and it will be my final performance on the subject of weight loss.
I can tell you that the book has interesting twists on the weight loss subject based on my 3-1/2 years of blogging and personal growth, and there will be stories in the book that I have never shared on the blog, to give readers some new content to look forward to.
And even though Back in Skinny Jeans will no longer be an active blog, the voice of Stephanie Quilao is definitely not leaving the web. Oh no! Here are the details on where I will be on the web. There will be some new things too like me offering for a limited time one-on-one blogger coaching for those in the lifestyle categories who want to take their blog and personal brand to the next level.
And now, I have something I’m thrilled about that will help transition Back in Skinny Jeans into her higher blog self.
It's all good!
I’m pleased to announce Jeans For Good which is a mission for people to let go of their un-used jeans like the skinny and fat jeans, and donate, sell, or auction those jeans for a cause or charity close to your heart. On our favorite theme of how small actions still produce results, I believe that even a pair of jeans can help make the world a better place.
The first mission of Jeans For Good is I am auctioning a pair of my skinny jeans on eBay. 50% of the proceeds are going to Make-A-Wish, a place I spent a year doing volunteer work during my 2-year “mid-life retirement” back in 2002-2004. The other 50% is going to web hosting and maintenance fees for the Jeans For Good site.
At the Jeans For Good site, I have included web buttons and badges for those of you who want to start letting go of your un-used jeans, and to encourage others to do the same. I like to call it the, “get in my pants for a good cause” campaign. As you can see, I can even add zesty humor to do-gooding :-)
Jeans For Good was inspired from the notion that one way I could help people live more authentic lives was to help them let go of the skinny jeans illusion but do it in a way that is also helping to move people into their higher self, and feel good while doing it. And this is a mission that everyone can do and lead on their own. This isn’t about me, it’s about a higher good for all. I’m just getting the ball rolling.
At the same time, as you let go of those skinny jeans you can get yourself some new jeans that fit you in the present. Get jeans that make you feel and look hot as you are today, in this moment, not like in the past or someday, but in the now!
Thank YOU!
Thank you everyone for your readership, your kindness, love, and support through all the 3 years and 8 months here at Back in Skinny Jeans. I have cherished every moment here, and this blog has helped me grow as a person and into the kind of woman I want to be more of. I hope that the blog has helped do the same for you!
And as BISJ parting words, remember, you are whole :-)
xoxo,
Stephanie
I leave you with a song that sums it all up, "I Can See Clearly Now" by Jimmy Cliff here with footage from the move Cool Runnings about the Jamaican bobsled team at the winter Olympics. I love this story because it's more proof to never let the illusion of, "It's not possible" or "People will laugh at me" stop you from going for your dreams and passions.
Today is Easter, and I hope all of you had a fabulouso time with the fam, friends, and loved ones. As I mentioned last week, I was going to announce something new Friday, but then I thought it better to do my megaphone thing on Easter because the new thing I'm about to tell you about in a sec is about rebirth and in a sorts rising from the dead for my blog business which is currently in the red and the impetus for all these changes.
We got some bummer news and awesome news.
First the bummer
From a business perspective, I had to make some hard decisions which basically came down to change or perish. We're in tough times, and I had to make some tough choices which includes my dear readers putting my 3 blogs Noshtopia, The Everyday Blogger, and Back in Skinny Jeans on hiatus for at least 8 weeks.Yes, bummer.
The 8-week hiatus will be an experiment for the new thing I'll be focusing on. At the end of the 8 weeks, I will re-evaluate everything. I figure experimenting is better than putting blogs on the chopping block.
Noshtopia and The Everyday Blogger will be radio silent for those 8 weeks, but Back in Skinny Jeans will go on reruns much like TV on summer hiatus where twice a week I will publish, "Best of BISJ" posts.
Because of the incredible momentum I have going on Twitter with 41k+ Followers, the Subscriber list for BISJ has nearly tripled in the last 2 months which is fantastic, but made it really tough to make the hiatus decision. I think the decision to do reruns instead of go radio silence will be beneficial for everyone including my Google page rank as Google bots no likey silence.
The 8-weeks of reruns for you new readers will be cool, and for you long timers, it will be a refreshing reminder.
The awesome news
I am going to leverage my success on Twitter and now make my Twitter activity the focus of my business, and have created a new blog, Everyday Tweet to support that Twitter focus. The theme of Everyday Tweet is helping people live more authentic lives in small ways. The tagline, "Tiny Actions. Doable Results."
Here in the FAQs, I go into more detail on my outlook on authentic living which includes what Twitter is and what all the hooplah is about and what topics Everyday Tweet will focus on which will really be an elaboration of what I've been doing on all the previous 3 blogs. Better Than Nothin' Tuesdays where we applauded you for making tiny changes was really the structural inspiration for Everyday Tweet as Tuesdays was always BISJ biggest traffic day of the week consistently.
I really believe people like micro content because it is short, easy, and instant in our short attention span culture, and so far I'm proving that I am really good at creating compelling and impactful micro content.
My trip to the Philippines was far more altering than I imagined. I share how I discovered that blogging is not my true love. Yes, *yikes!* But not to worry, I do love blogging and will not stop doing it, but unraveling what my true love is has helped me see my business and my life too through a whole different lens.
In that post I also go into the some of the mixed feelings I was having about my 3 blogs and all the work I have been doing on them and feeling more like 20/80 than 80/20, a frustrating place. As much as I have grown and evolved with Back in Skinny Jeans, I now feel limited by the topic range here in terms of a full time profession.
As I mention in that post, I feel very honored and grateful that I got to be a leading blogger in the healthy living and positive body niche. I paved the way for many women to start blogging about their own journey and I helped open the doors to many of you who felt alone in your struggles and feelings.
There is a better way to live where we can love and accept the uniqueness that is in each of us. And perhaps, that is all BISJ or at least my role in this blog was meant to do, be a Columbus or Magellan and find new lands and open the horizons for others. We'll see what happens in 8 weeks.
So there we have it. As usual, I am open to hearing any suggestions, comments, and insights you may have. I am a bit sleep deprived at the moment because I've been in launch mode pumping out content since last week, but I am amped and excited about this Twitter and Everyday Tweet experiment.
Amazing things can happen when you follow your bliss and never give up!
Just a quick note to let ya know I haven't disappeared from all my blogs. Yes, there has been some laggage at Back in Skinny Jeans, Noshtopia, and The Everyday Blogger. I'm coming to the reality check that although in my mind I think I can be super woman who can do it all, um, no! And yes, it's okay, to step back, chill, and re-evaluate.
But I'm not gone from the interwebs, I'm on Twitter like all the time, so you can find me there @skinnyjeans.
Tomorrow, Friday, I'm going to share some new recipe I'm whipping up in the blog kitchen. It will be delicious :)
Update (3:16 a.m. 4/11): Ay caramba, I underestimated my time, so announcement is coming later today, Saturday. Yes, it's 3am and I'm still up. I'm on creative streak!
I have a small favor to ask if you plan on attending the BlogHer 09 conference this year in Chicago, could you vote for a Room of Your Own panel I'll be on along with some other fabulous body image bloggers called, Blogs & Body Image: What are we teaching our kids? (includes full bios of all speakers). You have to be logged into your BlogHer account to vote.
In this panel, we'll talk about how blogs in general and what we as bloggers talk about on our blogs affects and can affect how kids and young people start feeling and thinking about body image. Blogging has become a very powerful tool to help counter balance the ill affects that can be absorbed from the media bombardment of unrelenting and unrealistic images regarding youth and beauty.
In the lobby at the Clift Hotel in the Union Square area of San Francisco is a really Big Chair. It's like an Alice in Wonderland chair and if you are ever in the area you must come see the Big Chair which pal Kim and I are sitting on at 1:30am after the San Francisco Tweetup last Friday. (Tweetup = People on Twitter meet in person to eat, drink, and be merry.)
In the Clift is the Asia de Cuba restaurant which is way hip and swanky with awesome food, and if you are an event planner or need to host an event, the facilities up stairs are phenomenal. One room has a full view of the SF skyline. Gorgeous! The hotel is way cool if you like the W Hotel style.
Anyway, I need some time to hang out in a metaphoric Big Chair, so I'll be offline here at Back in Skinny Jeans. I'll be back Wednesday next week. If you miss me, I'm still tweeting at skinnyjeans on Twitter, and I'll be posting on Noshtopia. Ciao!
I'm cuddling with one of my nieces over the holidays. She's one in a set of triplet girls. What's interesting about this picture was at the time the picture was taken, I was feeling totally wrecked because I had just found out some ugly truths about my Ex and I was feeling like I was going through a second break-up except this time a messy one. To be honest, I was mentally in that mode, "I totally hate your guts you MFer!" Yeah, kinda ugly.
It's like my niece knew I was feeling sad and unloved, so she just jumped on my lap to cuddle with me, and my mom captured that moment. Let me tell you, any hate or anger feelings I had completely vanished, and I completely absorbed myself with my niece's loving energy, and just felt the love. I melted. It was incredibly healing, and was the best gift I could have gotten from anyone. Thank you sweetie!
Last year, I had the most amazing Valentine's Day with myself mainly I believe because I focused on what was wonderful and loving in my life. I focused on what I had not what I didn't have like a significant other. I could have easily gone done the path of feeling depressed and lonely because the Ex and I had just broken up (initially) 5 months earlier. That Valentine's day 2008, I decided, I chose, to just feel the love that was all around me.
Love without expectations
My point with these stories is that Valentine's day is tomorrow, and the day can get kinda messed up for lots of people because I think we can get too caught up in romanticized love, expectations of what love is supposed to look like, and how love is supposed to be packaged. The commercialization of Valentine's day to me has made us forget sometimes what the day is really about and that is feeling the love that is all around us whether it be from lover, family, child, friend, sibling, co-worker, next door neighbor, the nice check out girl/boy, or strangers on the interwebs.
There is a saying that goes something like, "You have all the love you need right inside you." When you tap into that, I believe that very cool unexpected things can happen, and you attract more love to yourself because you're being open without expectations or rules. Love is free and there is TONS of it everywhere. Seriously, love is everywhere!
Cuties watch out!
This Valentines day, I'm going to be hanging out with a girlfriend and there will be lipstick, high heels, champagne, and cute boys involved somehow. We'll figure it out as we go along, and I love the spontaneity of that. I'm just happy to be spending quality time with my friend who we actually have reunited after a long time of not being in each other's lives as we had our own issues to deal with. But now, I have her back in my life, and it is so awesome! I am just feeling all kinds of love.
I think focusing and remembering the love we do have all around us is going to be especially important this year because so many people have been cranky and feeling unloving because of the economic crunch that's put people in bad moods. Here's a nice homework assignment, the next time someone snaps back at you or behaves kinda testy, try seeing them as a person who is immersed in their own pain, and their attack is not personal but rather a misguided channel of their own frustration and what they need is some love rather than a counter attack. Try it and see what happens.
So, I wish all of you a very Happy and Wonderful Valentine's Day! And yes, absolutely, I extend my love to all of you. Good times! Group hug :-D
If I were to go pursue some kind of PhD, one subject I would pursue for my thesis is a theory I have on a link between body image issues and creative genius. Having experienced the gamut of mild to severe body image issues myself and meeting many people with similar or related experiences, the one common thing I have observed with all these people is some level of exceptional creativity that is being suppressed or stifled either intentionally or un-intentionally.
I'm not saying this is true of everyone, just those I've met, which again, I'd love to do field work to see if there is some validity to my theory. I can say the link has been true for myself and my personal friends. As part of our healing, when we engage or start expressing that creative side of ours more proactively and openly, the body image issues improve. Getting absorbed in our creative pursuits gives us an outlet and like for me it gives me the space to be heard and seen.
I have spent many a time with my therapists talking about how I often felt that no one "sees" or "hears" me like I'm invisible or something. Then, I would take that frustration out on my physical body instead of channeling that energy into something more positive like creating things. When I write a blog post, take a photograph, create a recipe, design a web page, help someone solve a problem, or film a video post than a big part of me feels seen and heard, and it gives me a better sense of meaning and happiness, again in a more constructive rather than destructive way.
Other notions I have on a link between creativity and body image issues is that the two types share similar traits like being emotional dominant, highly intuitive, perceptive, sensitive, and observant. On the flip side, there is stuff like self destructive, prone to depression, addictive like, and explosive. Like the archetype of the mad artist who engages in drugs, sex, or alcohol, our choice is food, exercise or beauty.
It's a theory....
If you have heard of any current studies or papers that have been done on this subject, please share because I find it utterly fascinating. In this video, at the recent TED 2009 conferencein Monterrey, CA, Elizabeth Gilbert author of the fabulous book Eat, Pray, Love does a 19 minute talk about creative genius and the unfair pressures that culture can put on its creative types to constantly perform especially when they have had huge successes like the one she has had with her best selling book.
This video is really a great presentation and worth the 19 minutes of your time. I enjoyed the whole thing, and could relate to so much of it. I most resonate with how she said something like, "Your job is to just show up and do what you do best."
Hey gang! I'm back from the Philippines and it was a blast. Again, thank you mom and dad for that fabulous time with you both. I will cherish those memories for years!
I need a day or two to recover from my trip mainly because I caught a nasty cold on my last day there. I think it was a combination of the all the smog and dust catching up to me plus the blasting cold air conditioning and yeah, other sick people on the plane. I totally forgot my sickness prevention kit.
And, what time is it anyway? My body clock is all jacked up. The Philippines is 16 hours ahead which means I was there just long enough to start getting adjusted to the time change but not totally long enough before I got back home yesterday. I lost a whole day going to the PI and coming back..on paper...my trip home was like 3 hours. So bizarre!
In the meantime, enjoy this picture of an albino Carabao sticking his tongue out at us tourists. I just cracked up. Frankly, I don't blame him. I'd be cranky too if my job was to pull a cart full of 20 tourists every 10 minutes. I do have to say though that those Carabaos are some pretty impressively strong animals, and I think they're very cool....something about the horns.
I'll be tweeting over at Twitter @skinnyjeans because it's much easier on the brain cuz you know, 140 characters is pretty low maintenance so come on over if you wanna chat. We'll be back to regular blog programming in a day or 2. And yes indeed, I have LOADS of pictures. I took over 700 in fact, so I need to get those sorted and uploaded. So much to tell, I can't wait to share with you all :)
As we speak sweeties, I'm on a jet plane this Monday morning heading to the beautiful Philippine islands with my parents and a big group of friends for a week of some rest and relaxation.
I'm going to attempt to blog while I'm in the Philippines but who knows mainly because one I'm not sure how Internet connection will be where we're going and two I just might say "Screw it!" and enjoy the beach and time with my loved ones. I'm more excited about this trip because it's quality "great memories" time with my parents. Seriously, my parents are the best people in the world and I feel like I won the parent lottery. BUT!
I'm not totally going MIA for the week. For the last week of the Skinny Debt Diet, I'm going to push that out to next week when I get back (mainly because I didn't plan so well last week...oops!) Every day this week on Back in Skinny Jeans there will be a quick "Stephism" on a topic for the day. This way, you can still drop by and get your Steph fix for the week :-D
Also, I will be dropping some tweets on Twitter to share some of the fun things I'm doing in the Philippines. I discovered that I can text tweets from my cell phone. I can still keep up with my twice daily water hydration reminders! You can follow me on Twitter @skinnyjeans.
I'll be back full time on February 3rd...unless the possibility I decide that being stranded on a gorgeous tropical island with fruity drinks with tiny umbrellas served by a bevy of pool boys is the life :-D
does a 19 minute talk about creative genius and the unfair pressures that culture can put on its creative types to constantly perform especially when they have had huge successes like the one she has had with her best selling book. 
