Home

We often ask ourselves what home is. Don't deny it, you all sit and wonder about it sooner or later. It is in our natural to wonder about the ways of the world.

So what is home?

Is it four walls and a door?

Not necessarily, you see, home isn't the place where you land. It's the people you land there with. Each face you see around you, today, tomorrow, a week from now, they are your family. It could be that broken group on a TV show you watch religiously or the people you work with. Every day you see familiar faces and new ones, so why not make them part of your family too.

We are all lonely creatures, who see only 1% of the world in all the years we live. Some of us have never stepped out of our hometowns. That is not a bad thing, of course, but there is so much of the world out there. Billions of people, strange places, animals and countries. There are odd foods to eat and crazy songs to sing. So why not peek around the corner of your everyday life and try them out?

The entire world is our home, so lets treat it and our families that inhabit it, with some respect.


m.l.carista

Also, check in for Misha Collins amazing Scavenger Hunt! Registration is closed and the hunt has already begun, but there's always next year. In the mean time, enjoy all the wonder world changers!

GISHWHES

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Strut it like you mean it

Has it really been almost a month since I've written?

It feels like a few days, but perhaps that is because I have delved back into my writing thanks to the talents of J.R. Ward and Nora Roberts. Their books inspire me to pop open my laptop and write the night away. However, between Vampires and romance so thick and beautiful it makes you weep in bed, I have been very busy.

The last few weeks have been dedicated to SOFA practice and preparing for my husbands first visit in about a year. SOFA being the wonderful show my Pole Fitness class does twice a year to show off our skills in a three hour long performance. My husband being that sexy man I married last May.

I have been running myself ragged, and it is absolutely lovely. It has been a long time since I've immersed myself into something so completely that I can block out everything else around me. It has been both challenging and fun. My bones and muscles ache, but I have a feeling of accomplishment you just can't get at the gym.

And everyone's first reaction to my being a pole dancer is: Ew. You're a stripper or a slut or whatever other derogatory names you can come with with. No one stops to think how much EFFORT it takes. How much strength and agility, practice and time. They are so busy judging, that they don't see past the half naked women who probably can't even lift themselves to the top of that pole in a strip club.

We can.

We do it so well, it may not seem sexy anymore. Instead, it gives us our strength and our confidence, it feeds our soul with a special kind of love. Our bodies become this memory bank of tricks, spins and dance. We make new friends, we become this big dysfunctional family of women of all ages, races and religions. You walk through those doors and the entire outside world is gone. All you think of is mastering that next trick, and of looking sexy and fluid as you do it.

So I tend to ignore the naysayers and judgmental people. Because while they have arms like noodles and I can open that hard-to-open jar of garlic for a friend when she cooks me dinner. I can help lug a giant couch out of someones house and rearrange my furniture without breaking a sweat. I can dance in heels so high they reach the clouds.

And I look damn good while I do it.

m.l.carista

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Hangover Brunch

It has come to my last day in my hometown once again.

Two weeks of family and friends and adventures I miss while I am in California. I am physically and emotionally worked out and grudgingly ready to return to my tiny apartment in the big city.

I have had two wonderful weeks, that I desperately needed before I get ready for a wedding and six months of a husband who will be underway. I skipped my Friday post, because I wanted to post pictures and share my brunch with the handful of women who are always there in my life. Despite the distance.

My mother, my younger sister, and my best friend Sam. We asked the boys to vamoose, frowned because my other sister had to work and I woke up to start working on brunch.

Menu:

• Hash-brown Potato Cakes I paired mine with a few slices of Avocado, drizzled with garlic salt and olive oil.
• Egg-Top Biscuits
• Melted Ham and Cheese Pastry 
• Raspberry or Orange Juice Mimosa's
• Various fruits to add to the mimosa's and whip cream

The setting of the food. With Orange slice and banana garnish:)

Mimosa and Fruit Bar

You can follow the link to the hash brown cakes. Egg top biscuits require an egg cracked over a Pillsbury biscuit in a large muffin pan. Ham and cheese pastry are made with your choice of ham and cheese, the convenient pastry puffs found in your local freeze section and an oven. 

It was a brilliant Brunch, one I plan to do again in the future. Everything was delicious and dainty and not too heavy. 

The champagne used for the Mimosa's is called Verdi, the wonderful choice of my cousin-in-law who bought it for my wedding last May. It is one of the BEST Champagnes I have ever had and makes a marvelous mimosa. 

Enjoy your Saturday everyone!!

m.l. carista

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Lazy Fridays

I am currently visiting my hometown right now, so getting blog posts up are going to be quick and painless. My husband is going to be underway on and off for the next few weeks and it's driving me insane. (It's already driving me insane) I am still crossing my fingers that he can come visit me for a week or so before he goes underway for six months and can not talk to me at all. A visit home is just what I need to get ready and refreshed for the summer.

So today, I leave you with a story I wrote a year ago for a contest I didn't win.

Everyone, I give you: Forlorn.

Enjoy

m.l. carista

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Let's Get Dirty!

I'm a pole dancer. Not a runner.

I soon found this out last Saturday, when my pole class decided to put a team together and do the 5K Dirty Girl Mud Run. We had been planing it for a month, we had our team, our shirts and we were READY. The only downfall was, of course:

Cardio.

We would never survive the zombie apocalypse.

However, we went anyway. Dressed in Pink shirts, pink tutus and advertising our fitness logo in plain sight on our shirts. Of course, there were girls in all sorts of outfits. From green and orange antlers to Disney themed shirts and tights! 

In case anyone is wondering, the Dirty Girl Mud Run is a breast cancer run that raises a ton of money for research. We go out, run three miles and get really, really, MUDDY. 

This was our motivation run. Apparently, throwing your hands in the air and waving helps us run.

Obstacles. There were many like it, but this one was fun.

This was one of the muddiest ones. We raced each other under the nets and came out covered in ick.

The final jump into the mud at the second to last obstacle.

It was fun, we ruined our brand new clothes and tutus, donated our muddy shoes to charity and ate hamburgers in the grass. We showered with a cold water hose, attempted to get all the mud out of our hair and giggled all the way home.

We felt dirty, sore, out of breath but most of all, bonded and accomplished. I don't have many friends out in San Diego, side from the couple my husband introduced me to a few years ago. My pole class has been a big change, I have met so many women from different walks of life. We are powerful and fun and we never turn someone away because they are different. 

Everyone welcomes you into the circle with a smile and encouragement, because no one is a pro when they first start in pole. It takes friends and practice and never giving up. 

I will miss them when my time is SD is done, but I will be thankful in the long run when I've settled down with my husband and returned home. These people kept my sane and kept my occupied during the most stressful years of my life.

We plan on doing quite a few more runs this year. Some even dirtier than this one!

Have a Happy Valentines Day everyone.

m.l. carista

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Topsy Turvey Tuesdays

Do you ever get so frustrated, so anxious and so jittery that you just want to cook?

Cook and cook and cook until you can't cook no more. And I'm not talking about pulling a pre-made, frozen meal out of the oven or pouring something out of a can. I'm talking, from scratch biscuits, mashed potatoes and fried pork chops.

The only thing I didn't do from scratch is yank the potatoes out of the ground or butcher the pig.

After my husbands financial scare earlier this evening, I was so jittery from helping him fix it that I walked into my kitchen, yanked everything from it's hiding place:

And cooked.

Barefoot, singing at the top of my lungs.

It's a lovely feeling, actually. So many women now a day complain about men and their jokes in the kitchen. For me and my fellow navy wives, we quite enjoy it. It's something we enjoy doing. For me, it's that time away from the world where I make something with my hands. Sadly, I can not share it with my husband, as he is on deployment. However, that won't stop me from honing my skills. I'm still a young wife.

Our husbands have very stressful jobs, and to come home to a wife who has dinner cooked and a beer ready is probably the single greatest moment of the day.(If you don't consider what comes later;) )

So even living alone, waiting for him to come home, I enjoy the serenity of cooking. I also know that one day, cooking is going to involve tiny grabbing hands, tripping over toys and complaining about dishes not get rinsed. I look forward to those days.

So as I settle into my nightly routine, I leave you with these pictures of my meal tonight.

m.l. carista

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Forever and a day...

We wait all our lives for that one person. We dream about them as a child, how they will look, how they will speak, even how they will dress. We draw them in our notebooks at school and send them secret valentines during lunch.

Sometimes we find them right away, in that moment during that perfect dance at the senior prom. Where they look at you and you can't imagine being with anyone else. Sometimes, we find them during our wild years, during that party or across the hall at your local college. And sometimes we don't find them until much later, after you've built your life and you touch hands at the coffee counter or run over them with your shopping cart. And they laugh and apologize, or they cuss you out and you still look at them and know that you can't imagine spending your life with anyone else.

We could wait our entire lives and never even meet them.

Then you live happily every after, with a million bills and screaming kids and you smile at each other from across the kitchen counter. Because you wouldn't have it any other way.

And then...it doesn't go as planned. This person completes you, but you know deep down that they will destroy you. Every fight gets out of hand and every word is meant with the anger it was thrown out with. You want to regret what you said, but you know you meant every word of it. And then that person slips out of your life.

We spend our entire lives trying to find that person that completes us. Some of us find it, some of never do. However, even knowing that it will either be the greatest time of your life or the worst, it will always mean the most to you. You will always look back and know that you love that person, no matter how good or bad it got.

Not loved.

Love.

Because you never really stop loving them.

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Consistency

It has come to my attention, that this blog should probably have well organized posting dates.

You know, like, a post every Tuesday or Thursday. Something concrete and for everyone to look forward to. For the few people who do read my blog.

So my post days will be on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Of course, I will have random posts here and there, when I find an amazing recipe or a project that MUST be tried by everyone on the planet. However, it would do well to have certain posts on certain days to get this blog on a roll and find it some more followers!

So for today, my Friday post, I shall share with everyone the moment that had me giggling like a giddy girl a few months ago in Los Angeles.

Follow the stars beyond the Galaxy. Take Shore to Hope and stop on a stair. Look for a man with a map

From Charlie's Angel's Full Throttle. 

As my best friend Sam and I walked along the Hollywood walk of fame, pointing and gasping at famous names. I spotted this beauty right past the "Ripley's Believe it or Not" museum. (And guess what else was right by us?) 

A man with a map.

m.l.carista

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Moocher With The Moves

So it has come to my attention that some of my....'people'? Family? Friends? Are uncomfortable with my new hobby.

Firefighter Pole Dancer.

Yes, I am a bone-a-fied pole dancer. But I'm not a stripper, there is a very distinct difference.Strippers take their clothes off and get paid for men to see them naked. Most can't even get up on a pole, much less do what we do. Which is climb, spin, jump, hang upside down and do splits and tricks that would blow your mind. What we do takes skill, strength, and constant practice.

Now my hobby isn't without consequence. I pull muscles, strain my wrists and bruise the heck out of my thighs and legs. I also get both admiring and angry stares from people. My favorite, of course, is going to chick-fil-a. Since their 'I hate gay' incident, it hasn't waned my appetite for their scrumptious chicken. It has however, given my a challenge. I mean no disrespect to Christians, but I enjoy watching people judge the book by it's cover. It is one of my favorite things to do.

Some don't say anything, they just shrug and walk away. Other's give me a stare that even a blind man can see.

I honestly don't care what people think, but I do take it into consideration. Only in the sense that I am a writer, I live to observe. I could put your entire life story in a few paragraphs just from looking at you. Or I could build my own around your personality.

So back to pole dancing, it's fun, it's fitness. It keeps you in shape, I promise. The way you look depends on how advanced you want to be on the pole.

The point of this is to clear the air and the rumors I'm pretty sure are circulating. I'm NOT a stripper. That's a nasty word. I find it insulting to me. The only person allowed to see my entire body is my husband. I am a pole dancer. I wear clothes and do awesome stunts on the pole.

Voila. Explained. Grow up and look past it.

m.l. carista

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Fa La La La Tokyo

Okay, so I didn't really go TO Tokyo, I landed in the airport and took a train to Yokosuka, Japan, where my sexy husband is stationed.

You're thinking, it's not Christmas anymore, why post this? Well, because it was Christmas while I was there.

I have been dreaming about Japan since I was very, very young, and to have the chance to see it was beyond imagination. Even in tiny Yokosuka, it was busy and so very, very Japanese.

We stayed in a lovely hotel off-base, and it was within walking distance of EVERYTHING. It was exciting, wonderful and above all else: COLD.

Winter in Japan is not to be underestimated. I did not pack for the weather and I was freezing half the time.

This is me. Freezing my butt of in front of the awesome vending machines.

Me

Mah Husband

Onigiri, they come in many flavors, be careful what you choose.

The view from our 14th floor room.

Calpis water. The water that tastes like the milk after you eat a bowl of fruity pebbles.

There isn't much to see in Yokosuka, and money was tight. I was mostly there to see my husband, six months is a long time to be separated as newly weds. I got to bar-hop like I read in the manga's, use Japanese yen and walk through bustling shops. I even found a tiny tea cup shop that I plan to visit again!

My favorite thing though, would have to be the convenient stores in Japan. They are filled to the brim with unusual and amazing things! Rice balls, tiny meals, strange things in bags, hot foods, odd drinks and of course, MANGA.

My trip to Japan was a dream come true, I will be returning this Christmas, to visit Kyoto, a hot spring and stand in the middle of Tokyo. 

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year. 

Keep all your resolutions handy!

Much Love,

m.l. carista

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