Resolution Solution

I was recently asked to speak to a group of women about marketing a new home based business. I was told I would be on at 12:30 for a roughly 30 minute talk. Somehow wires crossed (a nice way to say someone fucked up royally) and in actuality I was suppose to be speaking at 11:00. (I swear it was 12:00, I have the original phone notes…honest)!

I walked in a mere hour late to a silent room of 250 women with empty plates and clinking forks. Once spotted, I heard a gasp as if they saw the second coming of Christ. (Unless you re Jewish, in that case it would be the first)

Then a … “Oh thank God she’s here! Let’s give a warm round of applause for our key note speaker Lisa Wynn”! I hear a few lame claps among whispers.

There I stood in my winter coat holding a bag of literature blinking in the doorway of the County Convention Center, feeling as if I were in a bad naked dream where you can’t locate a classroom and your legs won’t move.

The only thing missing was that feeling of falling.

In dead silence I walked up to the podium as if walking to the gallows. It was so quiet I could hear my hair grow.

Where were my damn notes.. in my purse? I began to dig now. I unearth a pen with two TUMS stuck to the side of it and a dried up lip-gloss wand.

I did what I do best when befuddled or ready to cry.

I made some lame joke about embracing your inner Franklin Planner and how my speech was about becoming a successful business person, which included confirming things.

I was pitting out my new red shirt.

And here I thought I was running early and stopped at Wendy's to down a chicken sandwich and a Frosty in the parking lot, while singing to Sisters Sledge on the radio.

Thankfully I recovered quickly and had an hour long lineup of people wanting to talk gleaning 21 new members to my business group.

Somehow, I always fix stuff.

It's the nurse leftover in me. I cannot stop trying. Cannot fail. Nothing can die.

Not on my shift.

My friends and family say I "make them nervous". They ask how things always happen to me that:

A) Don't kill me and

B) I don't wind up in jail for.

Someone said to me today: "Why don't you make a list of New Years Resolutions..you know, be less spontaneous for once."

Ok, for those who really know me, and God help those who are just getting to, I have always been known as a fly-by-the-seat of my pants sorta gal. I don't like structure, or tight schedules. I was forever driving on fumes and getting tragically low in my check book through college and beyond.

Like to three cents.

I have been known to sleep in box cars in Greece, too tired to care that rats shared close quarters, went paddle boating naked in Austria (as a cruise ship strolled by honking its horn with 2000 passengers screaming off one side.) I was held as a prisoner by two mafia members all while refusing to pay extra for "water" at their hotel, I visited 16 countries on $600 and came home with 15 bucks leftover, 600 pictures and a killer tan.


I have held three jobs as a single mother, started six companies over the course of ten years, if I include the cleaning toilets gig, watched people be born and watched people die, navigated the Tokyo subway system at 3am drunk and smoking (I don't even smoke), spent three weeks on Patong Beach Thailand, missing the Tsunami that washed it away by five years,three days and two hours.... swam in a cave in Phi-Phi Island off the coast of Vietnam, and rode an elephant through the rain forest after a mud slide. (Don't ever scream while riding an elephant going up a hill...no traction on those big round feet)

I have successfully changed a tire in the dead of a Minnesota winter on a 79 Dodge Polara at 47 below windchill, broke into and stole blueberry muffins from a bakery after a night of binge drinking with my old roommate Cheryl, ran into Harrison Ford on the beach in La Holla Ca, literally, and almost crashed in a 747 en route to Hawaii in 1986. (Rocking and praying takes on a whole new meaning here...)

Every day is an adventure that I could never plan even if I planned it.... and with that, stuff magically happens to me, good stuff, good people, good times, incredible memories.

Maybe God feels sorry for me and is making up for lost time because he was really busy with other things when I was a kid. Perhaps due to the fact that I was raised by a sect of evangelical freaks who thought dumpster diving was Christmas shopping and powdered milk was good, or knocking the wind out of a kid was fair punishment for not hearing your name when called for dinner.

Whatever the case may be, just maybe he is blessing me now with rich life experiences and good friends.

My brother Jeff regularly mumbles “only you” and rolls his eyes every time I excitedly tell him another "Lisa" story as he likes to call them, which usually consists of how I happened to sit next to Oprah on a misconnect flight from Toledo to Chicago and how she wants me to do all her PR and then hands me the key to her house in case I happen to be in the hood…well not that, but close.

I get pretty lucky not trying, For 2007 will try not to try more. That's when life happens. When we don't plan, resolve, resolute, plot, schedule and make silly lists for ourselves.

I kinda like it that way.

Friends in Deed


The first time I met Brenda, three years ago, we were both standing in my entryway scolding our kids. I knew I liked her right away. She was tough but fair..not a typical mom, no Christmas sweaters, no craft hobbies. She was a personal trainer and coach she said..I was so impressed.

She had fire in her eyes, and a warm smile.

Our boys soon became inseparable. Their typical boyhood antics drove us both crazy. Running through the neighborhood, forgetting everything.... they were all over the board that year.

We were both exhausted.

We instantly bonded at her kitchen table that sweltering hot North Carolina summer.

I, flipping though the pages of her fitness magazines, her crazy running around doing nine things at once while frantically re-pushing the button on her damn Sensio coffee maker as if it were pods of heroin.

Within two years of our friendship, we began acting WORSE then our kids.

I now fully expect Brenda to pull down her jeans and press her white ass against her front door window each time she sees me pull up. She has shamelessly taken off her underware at a fine restaurant without anyone knowing, (skirt) and launched it across the outdoor patio over top of patrons heads. (The manager brought them back to her reminding her of the importance of keeping them on)

We have been known to hold hands in public just to shock, grab each others boobs in pictures, and tear through a store to remodel her entire house in 20 minutes while she was on break from work. (Yes its true, chairs, area rugs, pillows, artwork, plants and a complete Queen sized bedding ensemble)

We soon found out we both share the same passion for writing and escaping life at times, love the beach, NYC, and sometimes even share the same dreams for the future...

We concluded that we don't cook much (we heat) we have testosterone and should have been men minus the "unit" or back hair, working out is a must, and we will buy into any facial product because we are gullible and desperate. (dog shit? For wrinkles? OK I'll take three.)

We have traveled together, laughed together, drank together, told each other our deepest thoughts and biggest secrets and sobbed over hurts. She has read me a Dr. Seuss book as I lay my head in her lap...("oh the places you'll go"...I think I even sucked my thumb...)

I am miss "sassy pants..gotta know what the hell is on your mind".... and she puts up with me.

She looses everything.... and I put up with her..

We honestly share true joy, fun, honesty and gratitude for each others friendship. There is nothing I wouldn't do for her. (OK, I'd donate a kidney but draw the line my Sephora lip plumping lip gloss...she'd loose it in a heartbeat.)

This week we had a photo shoot together for some business promos we had, and a mini fashion shoot I did to send to a local agency who sees a need for a 42 year old women in a much to low-cut vintage dresss... dunno...a print ad for Geritol..? Fiber? (Look she is constipated and still wears polka-dots, walks, talks and smiles)!

We had a blast together that day,..messing around...being stupid... she...trying to make me laugh in the background...

The proofs popped into my email box tonight as I sat curled up in bed with a glass of wine....it brought tears to my eyes and made me smile to realize I had to move 1200 miles from MN just to find her....when I am an old woman I will look at these pictures and know that I lacked nothing in her selfless friendship and I am blessed.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Never ones to spend much time with their grandchildren, my now ex-in-laws were always notorious for the “drive- bys”, zipping past the house, slowing down only to toss birthday gifts out onto the lawn for my then small children.


This annual drive-by was to cover all past birthdays for three grandchildren with clearance rack gifts tied up in Wal-Mart bags.

Usually it was raining.

Sadly my kids would shriek with pleasure seeing the blur of their Grandparents van go by, then run outside to collect the bags littering the rain soaked lawn.

This year is the first year I never have to worry about spending time with my in-laws again, and I would be lying if I said I felt guilty about it. We were always polite to each other, but sometimes you just know when you see life out of a different window.

The holidays were a little odd...a picnic table in a living room for the occasion with several card tables attached, covered with food in bulk containers. A dog on the table surfing the butter, and nobody seems to notice. “Go ahead, pet him so he goes away” my MIL would yell, with chip dip dripping from the corners of her mouth and down her shirt while on her 4th beer.

I fantasized about stabbing her with a Tide Pen.

She is the only woman I know who sets off a smoke alarm before a stove timer.


A paper plate with an entire loaf of white bread is stacked into a teetering tower, exquisitely placed next to a tub of margarine donning a knife jammed into its center. Generic potato chips and a warm six- pack of Cream Soda add to the holiday sparkle. Expired and mutilated olives float lifelessly in a jar next to green Jell-O with shredded carrots, looking like someone’s aquarium froze up.

I am thankful for one thing, if it were a degree above freezing outside, we would be eating in the garage on her set of mismatched TV trays with space heaters. Minnesotans love to entertain in garages. It is actually considered an “outdoor” activity.

With her ever present cigarette dancing from side to side displaying it's amazing three inch ash; I actually witnessed this monstrous ash give up its fight and break off into a bowl of potatoe salad. I watched in horror as she whiped it and the last of the mayonnaise together in one fatal stir.

And all these years I thought it was pepper.


My anger jolted with each visit I always promised myself, “this is the last time I am spending the holidays with the Clampets....who think Chardonnay is a fabric.”

My FIL thought I was an elitist because I had been to a museum, and have 400 per square inch thread count sheets from T.J Maxx.

“Art is for queers, sheets are for sissy’s” he’d say.

He loved to inform me that he had just eaten dinner over the sink, farted in church, drank from the milk carton, and has a urine flow issue.

Because he was into wood work and furniture refinishing, I’d inform him back that I am painting “good wood”, pounding nails into sheet rock and planning to hang pictures without measuring all before getting my nails done.

I say this in jest (who me)? But looking back over the years,I always felt we were not worth the effort to them to make it a special day, wrap a gift, or share a visit with my kids.

I have never met a selfish person who is truly fulfilled with no regrets.

I have noticed something about relationship worthiness. As Antoine de Saint-Exupery said most eloquently ~“The one thing that matters most in a relationship is the effort put towards it.”

Yep, you can measure relationships by one thing: Effort

People may not remember what you do or say to hurt them, but they will always remember how you made them feel.

When someone feels insignificant, they feel undervalued and hurt. Be a giver of more than you take. (Why does "under promise and over deliver" lead to sales success)?Take time to connect with others and cultivate relationships. Relationships require a balanced amount of time and attention.Relationships need continuity.

My in-laws were so sporatic with efforts, they have no foundation with my kids. Everyone looses.

Effort in the dictionary says: An earnest self-less attempt.

The best gift you can give someone this new years season is time and effort.

Lisa ~

PS: Yes. That really IS a real photo of butter from her house and NO they dont read blogs and NO I don't care if they did (evil smile)!

Franny Got New Drapes

I think insanity runs in my family and I am frightened.

Many of my relatives, living or dead, I am starting to see.... are freaks.

My Grandmother, until her death several months ago insisted that "Franny," her next door neighbor for 30 years, would steal the tulip bulbs from her garden at night and replant them in her own. "Nobody has that shade of a Tiger Lily but me." She would scream.

She also insisted that Franny would systematically cut the buttons off my Grandfathers winter jackets in the back hallway when she came to borrow a cup of sugar. Grandma would disappear into the kitchen to fetch the "cover up condiment," and Franny would apparently be madly hacking off buttons with a scissors she brought just for the occasion.

"They were expensive brass buttons, and her son had a military uniform she could use them for....." Grandma would snap after she left.

She began hiding the jacket.

Franny was a red headed Lucille Ball look-a-like who was drunk 100% of the time and smoked three packs of Camels a day. She could hardly stand up let alone cut a button off a coat without amputating all of her fingers.

I clearly remember being about five- years- old sitting on the back stairs watching Franny teeter back and fourth against the door frame smiling at me through watery eyes with lipstick smashed on her teeth.

As a kid, when I would be telling my Grandma a story, thinking she was listening to me and that I had her undivided attention, she would look out the porch window and say "I see Franny got new drapes"...

I also remember sitting on the floor at Grandmas with my brother watching television only to hear my Grandma scream..”I know what you two are doing! Get those hands out of the cookies”!Not even near the kitchen..we would just stare at each other, shrug our shoulders and continue to watch Scooby-Do.

Grandma had many quirks. She used to insist I sleep with no underwear on (only loose PJ pants) because “a vagina needed to breathe..if you don't, you'll just tear that thing right up"

She also refused to leave the house until she had “a good healthy BM”. We would wait for hours playing games on her front porch until we heard her light a match. Then we could leave.

I often wondered what constituted a “healthy BM” in her eyes. A floater? A diver? A sinker? Did it go according to shape, size or color? Smell or length? Did she measure it? Weight it? Poke it with a stick? Photograph it? Chart it? Make a list of averages?

She was consumed with stools and GAVE my mother and her sisters caster oil enemas (key word here is GAVE) until they were 15 years-old. I asked my Mother why she never refused.

She blinked and said “I guess I never thought to”. (Twighlight Zone music playing here…)

I also have a cousin named Karen, whom back when I was about 19, thought that Satan spoke to her through the kitchen table and that her OBGYN was following her a week after giving birth to her son.

Did no one think to themselves… “Gee, maybe we should call a doctor? Maybe she has some postpartum depression, or that she is just frickin INSANE”?? Rumor has it that she ran away with her children and was never seen or heard from again. Did anyone call the police? Was there an ongoing investigation? Hell nooooooo…

Here’s my Mother on the phone with a relative: “So.. Karen never showed up at either of her parents funerals…ya…sure, no idea. Sort of rude donch know?? Ya alrighty, you betcha…bye-bye.”

God help me if I was ever kidnapped.

"Yeah did ya hear? Lisa never showed up after school??... geez...been three weeks now, sorta rude dontcha think? Teenagers..she's such a rebel”….

In the meantime I would be found 30 years later as a maggot infested bag of bones in a 6 foot hole at Black-Dog Park, found by some horrified jogger whose dog stumbled across my skeleton still sporting a plastic head-band and a monogrammed sweater from 1982.

As for Karen, personally I think her equally freaky family or illegal immigrant ass of a husband killed her and she is buried in her a yard in Vienna VA.

I may have been born into a freaky family tree, but thank God I grew my own branch.

Truth or Hair; Are You Pristine Down There?

If you are feeling "kinky" down there, "hair no evil" girlfriend.

I just learned of a new product today from another savvy sisters blog. Ok, when I first heard of "Betty hair Dye...for the hair down there, I have admit to laughing.

I guess The drapes should match the carpet..right?

Then I got to thinking about my own situation. Now I have always been a natural Blonde, with the last several years off admittedly highlighting my hair for some shine, golden highlights and added body...(somehow the extreme damage we pay big bucks for makes styling easier.) But just when I thought I was "up on things," I had an enlightening conversation with my "in the know" sister-in-law. Everything I know about any current trend, I glean from our 20 minute phone conversations griping about carpooling and our combined relatives. It went something like this:

SIL: Oh I have a landing strip now, did I tell you?

Me: A what?

SIL: A landing strip...ya know..down there??

Me: You shaved?

SIL: Noooooo, I had a wax, a semi-Brazilian done at the salon today...it's amazing! Everyone is doing it...sexy, clean, feels nummy in lace....your brother LOVES it!

Me: (Gagging at the visual of my brother even having sex...) "Did it hurt"?

SIL: I don't remember. They gave me lots of Chardonnay while I waited.

After hanging up I immediately raced to the bathroom and stripped naked from the waist down. God dang, is this even acceptable? I mean, I keep the garden trimmed but how much better can a wax job be for $35 plus tip?

I had an appointment within five minutes.

I had never given my pubes much thought with the exception of the regular "gray pube" check because apparently this is where they will spring up first, and when that happens I will simply shit.

The next day, while laying on the wax table I found myself with the same jitters of first time sex, not knowing what to expect, or if my parents would walk in.

I sat in a teeny pair of paper panties with bees imprinted on them, while listening to a vat of 200 degree wax bubble in the corner like a cauldron. The tech walked in, explained the procedure and with the ease and skill of a surgeon began twisting me into impossible positions while slathering me with hot honey wax with a wooden tongue depressor.

Watching this would be every guys dream I thought. I could put this on U-tube.

She next began pressing several (I'm taking like 30) strips of fabric over each tiny wax application, rubbing it and........ R-I-P-P-P....... tore it back. My eyes started to tear up when she moved towards the back end....geez!

I asked for a spinal block. They didn't have one. She gave me more wine.

Now with my new found partial wax jobs (Yes I have done it three times since) I am hooked and cannot imagine NOT doing it. She was right. Something about sliding on a Victoria Secrets lace panty afterwords is an amazing feeling.. even jeans feel great.

Now, apparently there is more work to be done....so I relented and ordered my very own "Blonde Betty" kit tonight. I am going to drink three glasses of wine, get a cab to my next wax job, treat myself to more underware and promptly come home and finish off the landscape myself.

I will blog about the results unless I damage myself beyond repair.

Here is what the owner of "Betty" had to say on her website at: http://bettybeauty.com/our_story.html


"...WOW! Thanks to everyone for your support. Betty is getting so much love and attention! From Vogue Magazine to Daily Candy, fans have been finding out about Betty and reaching out. We have heard from young and old, male and female, from New York to Sydney Australia! Once you try it, please let us know how you like Betty -- your feedback is important. Get your Betty ready!"

Back in New York, I told a salon-owner friend about it. She responded, "I'm sure my clients would love a product like this, and I'd use it myself!" Not only did she like the idea of matching her chestnut brown hair, but also - she confessed - she desperately needed to cover some grays she'd recently discovered down there!

My next stop was to ask a gynecologist friend to estimate the percentage of her clients whose hair down there didn't match the hair on their heads. As it turned out, almost no one matches!