Tag: advice

Advice and instructions

Posted in Humor

Lady, Wash Your Face!

Posted on by Kylie
Canva

I don’t know why I was so surprised, but after hearing all the praise surrounding the latest bestselling book from a well-known internet and inspiration guru, I expected to learn a few new tricks for dealing with my life.

I paid sixteen dollars and some change to learn absolutely nothing. Here’s a quick sarcastic summary of the book in question so you don’t have to spend any money. I didn’t learn anything that is not common sense.

Don’t apologize for being you. Don’t apologize for not being perfect. Don’t apologize when you mess up, it’s a sign of weakness. Just don’t apologize.

She has amazing sex because she stopped caring about her body’s flaws. She has four kids and has the most amazing sex life of anyone on the planet.

If you think you are not attractive, just tell yourself that you are. Then BOOM! You are attractive to yourself again. Also, force yourself to do the 30 day straight sex challenge. Just do it. She said so.

You can’t control the chaos of family so just learn to love it. Life is crazy and no one can control it. In other words, give up trying to clean. You can try again when they are eighteen.

Dirty pans rest on top of gas stove.
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

Washing your face will solve all of or most of your problems. Washing your face and brushing your teeth will cure any disease that you might have.

Said author admittedly had a vanilla crew, aka all caucasian friends, so she ventured out of her comfort zone, made new culturally diverse friends, and recommends everyone does the same. Note: see the above title that all of this should be common sense.

Several generic stories about how not apologizing and washing her face made her life so much better. Also, her son said something mortifying to an authority figure and she didn’t literally die because of it.

You literally can wear whatever you want anytime. It’s all about how you feel in it. Do you, girl.

Be fabulous all the time. Be fabulous every day. Wear a shirt that says fabulous on it. Get it, girl! But never forget, you can be fabulous in sweat pants wow while apologizing. And never, ever weigh yourself.

Look in the mirror every morning and tell yourself what an amazing basic girl you are! Then, put your Uggs on and go get a pumpkin spice latte!

Stop lying to and breaking promises to yourself. When you make yourself a promise, keep it so you don’t get mad at yourself. There is nothing worse than when you are giving yourself the silent treatment.

If you dare to say no to yourself, refuse to acknowledge it, and argue with yourself. Who are you to deny yourself? What the hell?

There you have it. A complete synopsis of a book that got someone famous. Look who’s laughing now (it’s not me).

Posted in Humor

Helping My Children Grieve

Posted on by Kylie
Father swinging his children
Jude Beck via Unsplash

The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do is to raise four kids while helping two of them deal with the loss of their father. Although we saw it coming, it was still not something they were prepared for mentally. And I was not prepared at all to help them deal with the raw emotions that grief brings. The people I loved most in the world had broken hearts and I couldn’t do anything to fix it this time. I felt helpless and didn’t know what to do.

I looked up ways to deal with it and read all about grief and its stages. I spent hours pouring over articles and requesting the advice of family and friends. At the end of the day, though, I just dealt with it as I went along and I’ve notated what seemed to work for me. Unfortunately, too many children have to grieve before they should.

Memories

Encourage children to talk about their memories and the good times that they had with the person in question. Also encourage them to talk about the bad memories. Encourage them to ask any questions they might have about the death and what led to it.

All memories are worth talking about. Talking and reliving those memories as a way to show them that keeping someone’s memory alive is one way of honoring them.

Emotions

Validate any emotions that they may have whether it be anger, apathy, or sadness. Make sure that they know that there’s no shame in crying. It’s also important to let them know that there’s no one way to grieve and everyone does it differently. As for crying, it is better to let it out than to let it build up. It’s a release that needs to happen and it will happen one way or another.

Let them help

Just like adults, children often feel helpless in the face of so much emotion and grief and don’t know what to do. Seeing so many grown people crying is terrifying for them. If the person that has passed away was an immediate family member, let them be a part of the funeral planning as much as they can be. Or at a minimum, let them do their own memorial that they can bring to the funeral or service such as a memory board or garden memory stone. It makes them feel like they are giving out a final gift and saying goodbye.

Whatever they need

Some will become extra clingy and need more time with you. Others may become distant and withdrawn and need time to themselves in an isolated environment. Neither way is wrong. Encourage whichever way your child or loved one wants to grieve.

Fears

Talk about death and dying and their fears even if they don’t bring it up. Death is scary for anyone but especially terrifying for children. When they lose a parent, or anyone they’re close to, it really brings death close to home.

Your child may become obsessed with death and finding out what happens in the afterlife. Others might not want to talk about it at all but gain a sudden interest in religion.

No matter what your religion or your beliefs are, explain to them how faith helps people deal with death. I think that is the most beautiful thing about religion. It is a light in the darkness and makes it possible for you to have faith in something that you cannot see. To believe without knowing.

Time

As with you and I, time is the best healer and it’s impossible to explain accurately that it will get better as each day goes by.

Just do the best you can each day and encourage them to do the same. Reach out to a professional if you feel at any time that your child is depressed or may need professional help. It’s especially important to teach them that there is no shame in asking for help when you need it.

Posted in Humor

Weird is the New Black

Posted on by Kylie
Pink haired lady holding a candy filled shoe and a cupcake.
Photo by Canva

I will be the first one to admit that I am weird as hell. I prefer to call it being a rare, limited edition. However you fluff it up, I love myself weird. There are enough vanilla people running the streets already! I’m so proud of how weird I am that I am going to break down all the ways that I am excessively weird. I hope somewhere a closet weirdo will read this and know they are not alone. Some of these items used to bother me but, the older I’ve gotten, the less f%^ks I have had to give.

I am not aware of how statistics work, but I can make things up just as easily as the next gal, so I’m going to state the fact that 10% of people are addicted to cocaine. I am in the 2% that are addicted to succulents. (Do you see what I did there? You can literally make up any statistics you want). Succulents are hard to kill, cacti like plants. I have a lot of them and continue to accrue them as often, or more often, as I kill them. I also talk to them. At one point, I tried to teach them Spanish. Actually, I was just practicing my skills. Not that they offered any insight.

I also have odd habits in regards to my clothing. I don’t like buying items I won’t use or get my money’s worth out of. Being extremely poor for a few years definitely helped me with money management. So, with that being said, I wear my clothes in the order that they are hung up in my closet. I start at the front. If a said item happens to be out of season (long sleeves in summer, etc.), I will hang in in the back and start the rotation again. I like to feel like I’m getting my money’s worth out of my clothing because I may or may not spend excessively in this category.

I absolutely hate the voice on my map app that I use to drive everywhere but I absolutely cannot live without it. I hate her/him/it so much that, when it tells me to take a left, I respond every time with, “No, YOU turn left! You piece of$&@?!’b ,?$& !” Or something to that effect.

I despise it when people name their dogs with a human name. I am not yelling, “Edward! Come here!” or “Jason, put that ball down!” It’s not right and I strongly feel that it should be made illegal immediately. Two good examples of perfect dog names are my dogs. The youngest mutt has the distinguished name of Baxter VonFerrell, III. My older gentleman pup is named Snoopy Donkey McDougal. We only yell out the middle name if they are in big trouble, which is the standard we all go by throughout the world, I believe.

Lastly, I would like to confess to you about my obsession with lists. I have hundreds of them on every subject you could ever imagine. I don’t remember exactly when I became a listoholic but it was within the last ten years or so. I plan to publish an article soon naming twenty or so of my favorite lists. I know I can’t be the only list obsessed person who is also, at the same time, a hugely disorganized wreck of a person. I consider all of my lists to be sacred. Reading, skimming, or even glancing at one could possibly earn you a throat punch.

So, yes, I am weird. I have the sense of humor of a twelve-year-old boy, I am obsessed with Will Ferrell, and I give out lectures like Oprah hands out everything. I am not only ok with my weirdness, but I love it. I used to try and imitate my friends and hide my weirdness by pretending to like golf and sweater vests. I got tired very quickly and stopped. They kept loving me anyway! I also gained new friends. It turned out, a lot more people accepted my personality than not. I did have a few look down at me but I think they were just hating me because I was free and they weren’t. It’s hard to feel bad for someone that is in the prison that they made for themselves.

My previous husband (current one is awesome) tried to stifle me. He succeeded for a while. He slowly robbed me of my friends and dulled my personality with verbal abuse and constant criticism. He tried to take me and turn me into a dull shell of a person. He didn’t succeed. I won then and I keep on winning.

Here is a link to another one of my life-altering, hard-hitting articles. Also, feel free to send an e-mail to kylie@kyliesells.com and I will add you to my random, unpredictable newsletters that will update you on my life and make you feel a whole lot better about yours!