M.J. Pullen's Blog, page 12

Hey, Remember That Whole Weight Loss Thing?

It’s been a while…

Recently, a couple of people have asked me about the 90 Day Fitness challenge I started at the beginning of August. How is it going? Why haven’t I blogged about it lately? How much weight have I lost?

My responses range from shouting “hey, is that a Stormtrooper riding a chipmunk?” and running away, to simply punching the person who asked directly in the mouth. To be fair, I only did that the once. (And it was the person who thought the Imperial scout trooper on the chipmunk was a “robot on a squirrel” so that’s okay.)

Okay, okay. The new year seems as good a time as any for a full confession. I pretty much abandoned the 90 Day Challenge the first hour of my new job at the beginning of October. Since then I’ve logged about three hours (total) in the gym and about zero meals (total) into LoseIt!

I’m kind of mad at myself, but there you have it. I clung to some of the healthier eating habits into November, with the help of Shakeology and a really great healthy eating challenge I did with a friend. Then like a FREAKING CLICHÉ, I lost myself in stress and convenience and holiday treats. I lost about 9 pounds in August and September, stayed pretty steady in October and the first half of November, and I’ve gained 8 pounds back since then. (It’s pretty awkward because I put my larger size jeans away in September and I absolutely refuse to put them back on. The lack of circulation to my lower extremities is just part of the process…)

It’s 2016, time to get back on the horse. Or, I guess, time to drop a few more pounds so the horse doesn’t run away when he sees me coming.

I’m not doing a gym challenge this time around. I put my Lifetime membership on hold because – great as that gym is – it’s the opposite direction of my commute and I wasn’t finding time to get there. Also: even though I signed up for their 90 day challenge and paid extra and told them I needed accountability and let them take pictures of me and showed up and weighed in for weeks, when I fell off the wagon no one called or emailed to see how I was doing or encourage me to come back in. Even when I missed the final weigh in… *Crickets.*

Okay, I wouldn’t have had time to get there even if someone did call me, but it would’ve been nice to be wanted. It’s like when the date was awful and you wouldn’t go out with this guy again for a million dollars, but when he doesn’t even call to ask by Day Three you’re sort of like, what the hell? Does he think he’s too good for me? Is he too good for me? Should I drive past his house just in case?

How are your health journeys going? Did the unstructured, butter-dipped holidays undermine your progress? Or did you muscle through like a FREAKING CHAMP?

xoxox,

m.j.

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Happy 2016! Now, where was I?

Happy New Year!

I hope you are all having a great start to 2016, or at least being comforted by endlessly watchable bad television. I’m tucked under a sherpa blanket and a boxer-shepherd mix watching Big Hero 6 with my family. Pretty sweet.

It’s been quite a year for me (and my family, who get dragged along on every adventure). In the world of books, I finished and published EVERY OTHER SATURDAY–a romantic comedy about second chances–in August. We had the re-launch of THE MARRIAGE PACT in November with St. Martins Press, my first time in hardback. I am so grateful to my whole publishing team (Beth Phelan, Nicole Sohl, and many others) for making the process incredibly easy and collaborative, and to FoxTale Book Shoppe for hosting my launch party.

In July, I did the Color Run 5K in Asheville with one of my best girlfriends. Way back in May, I attended my first big Readers Convention at Romantic Times in Dallas. In December, we had Hanukkah and a good friend’s wedding and THE FORCE AWAKENED. I even got a tattoo! Holy cow.

And, oh yeah, I turned 40. Which was awesome. (Not even kidding. I’ve decided to say “screw aging.” It’s going to be the best decade yet.)

I also started a new full-time job in October as a Communications Manager at a startup tech company. I love the job because it incorporates so many of my skill sets (writing, psychology, marketing, etc.) and is never the same from one day to the next. I like my coworkers a ton, and the company has an environmental mission I believe in.

So all that is really great; but it’s certainly been an adjustment for me and the boys. Hubs has been amazing – he helps with laundry and dinner and picks the boys up from school and is generally spectacular. Not that he was ever less than spectacular, but you know what I mean. We’ve had a little down time over the holiday break (thank goodness) and spent some of it enjoying Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain, Georgia, some of it celebrating with friends, and some trying to rein in the chaos at our house with some new shelving and a van-load of unnecessary clutter to Goodwill.

I’m hopeful that as the year turns over, I’ll be able to settle into a new, more purposeful routine in 2016. I hope that will allow me to add back two important elements I’ve been missing for the last couple of months: my physical health journey and my own, non-work-related writing (including this blog – I’ve missed you guys!).

So, welcome back to the blog. I’ve got some fun stuff planned for this year, including updates on those weight loss challenges I set myself to back in April and August. [Short version: some success, some setbacks, and it’s time for renewed focus on health and wellness]. The blog should also be getting a refresh this year, with a new look, some new themes and more frequent updates. (There may even be some flash fiction – eek!)

I hope you’ll join me by reading and commenting when posts strike your fancy (or don’t), and making suggestions when you’d like to hear more about something.

In the meantime, best wishes for a healthy and prosperous 2016!

xoxox,

m.j.

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Gratitude Giveaway Week 2: Sweet Rolls of Friendship

It’s the second week of my Gratitude Giveaway! Enter and comment below to win an autographed copy of THE MARRIAGE PACT.

It goes on and on… in the best way.

One of the favorite gifts I received for my birthday last month was a roll of toilet paper. No, it wasn’t a joke about getting old and never knowing when you might suddenly “have to go” (though I will say there have been moments of sitting in rush hour traffic when some sort of catheter system didn’t seem like a half-bad idea).

This, however, is a very special roll of toilet paper, from one of my oldest and weirdest friends, Nan. It’s also a love note. (And it came with a first edition copy of Love in the Ruins by Walker Percy, which is the best kind of love note).

In sixth or seventh grade, Nan and I started the silly tradition of writing long notes to one another on toilet paper. Sometimes we traded them back and forth, each adding a little until we reached the cardboard center. Other times they fell apart or got dropped in puddles before we made it to the end. Not the most practical form of communication. I remember being pretty devastated the year I cleaned out my old bedroom after college and had to throw the last fading roll away, along with countless other folded notes and mementos from middle and high school.

Fortunately for us, the friendship has endured, despite the fact that we haven’t lived in the same city since we were 17. It’s a pretty astonishing blessing to have people in your life who remember you when you were young and awkward and stupid, and still love you now that you’re old and awkward and more skilled at hiding your stupid. The people who have seen you at your worst and helped you to be your best (sort of like Marci and Suzanne).

I’m lucky to have more than one of these amazing friends – in fact, I am beyond fortunate to have several. They know who they are (and one of them has a birthday today herself – I love you, Kristal!). These are the friendships that go on and on, in the best way, with both surprises and reassuring sameness each time a year is unfurled. Jokes that start out as silly bond us together. They are passed back and forth so long, they become almost worn out. And then they are resurrected as the markers of longstanding love, of a mutual understanding that surpasses individual interactions or even years of distance.

To say I am grateful for my lifelong friends is a vast understatement. To express it fully would fill all the rolls in the bathroom cabinet and then some… Good thing I can always write more novels, and those will always be at least partly inspired by the incredible friendships in my life. Even when I chose my Hebrew name, I honored them: “Achava” means friendship, and to me it will always mean I am surrounded by love.

What lifelong friends are you grateful for this season? Do you have goofy inside jokes that have spanned years, like and Nan’s and my toilet paper? What makes a friendship last across time and distance?

Please comment on this blog and enter the giveaway below. Even better, tag a friend you’ve mentioned and ask her to comment too!

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope you have a wonderful, fulfilling (and filling) Thanksgiving however you celebrate. Here’s how we’re rolling at our house this year…

Yes, that is a giant Lego turkey leg chained up by a storm trooper and Luke. And, yes, Pilgrim Han Solo totally shot first.

If you haven’t already, please enter my Gratitude Giveaway — comment on the blog post (and/or the other stuff you are ordered to do by Rafflecopter) for a chance to win an autographed hardback of THE MARRIAGE PACT!

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Pictures from THE MARRIAGE PACT re-launch / 40th Birthday Shenanigans

For those who’ve been asking to see them (and those who haven’t!), here is the complete post of pictures from the Nov. 7th launch – slash – birthday party at FoxTale Books (and my favorite local brewery, Reformation). I am also including some pictures from the signing this past weekend at Barnes & Noble in Macon.

You should be able to view the full albums without a Facebook account. If you do have a Facebook account, please like my page while you’re there!

This month has been SO much fun, and I am incredibly grateful to everyone for their support and friendship.

xoxox,

MJ

PS I have always wanted to own a bar called “Shenanigans.”

PPS I have just been reminded that if I (we) ever own a bar, it will be called “Captain Sam’s Boozery.” Apparently I should’ve read the prenuptial agreement more closely.

Had the best time launching THE MARRIAGE PACT and celebrating my 40th birthday with wonderful friends and family. Thanks…

Posted by M.J. Pullen on Sunday, November 8, 2015

Posted by M.J. Pullen on Thursday, November 26, 2015

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Gratitude Giveaway: Week #1

Enter to win an autographed copy of THE MARRIAGE PACT by showing your gratitude!

Giving thanks…

It’s the season of gratitude, my favorite time of year. Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, the festive atmosphere of Christmas and the New Year… I love it all.

But Thanksgiving is especially important to me. Maybe it’s because – as a convert to Judaism – it’s really the only family holiday I celebrated as a child that I still get to share with my own children. This time of year makes me emotional and a little weepy: there is an ever-present ache of missing my parents and grandparents and brother.

Thanksgiving in my family usually meant a week-long trip to my grandparents’ houses in South Georgia (they lived five miles apart in a tiny farming town – my parents met in seventh grade). It meant two days of long, delicious meals that often consisted of three kinds of meat and vegetables grown within 10 miles of the dining room. We’d have field peas that I’d helped shell on my summer vacation and pecans my brother and I had spent hours gathering in buckets from the trees surrounding the Pullen farmhouse. Lest you think it was some sort of organic farming paradise, you should know that we also had dump salad that came from six cans of syrupy fruit and a box of pudding mix, and a green “congealed salad” my maternal grandmother always made with lime Jell-O.

Besides Christmas and Easter, Thanksgiving was the one time our family was always together and my parents rarely fought. It was also the only time of year no one told me to watch what I was eating or not-so-gently suggested “maybe you should skip dessert.” On Thanksgiving, you ate. And talked. And ate some more.

In Middle of Nowhere, Georgia, there wasn’t any hurry to do much of anything. This was before the days of Black Friday starting at midnight and 24-hour access to electronic entertainment. We had a Nintendo at home but my dad would’ve skinned us alive if we’d suggested bringing it to the farm. He wanted us to appreciate the world he grew up in — where kids were turned out of the house to do their chores at sunrise and came back hours later: dirty, hungry and happy. (By the way, this didn’t stop him from performing all kinds of contortions with the roof antenna to make sure he had access to the Georgia/Georgia Tech game on Thanksgiving Saturdays).

I remember sitting on the porch swing at Grandma B’s house for entire afternoons, or throwing a softball in the yard with Dad and my Aunt Linda. In later years we’d watch old movies on the satellite TV while we ate leftover turkey on white bread with Durkee’s, or take turns playing solitaire on the computer while the evening slipped away around us. As a teenager, I remember sitting around bored, listening to both sides of my family tell the same stories over and over. I had no idea then how important those stories were or how much I’d miss the rhythm of their telling when my parents and grandparents were gone. I also didn’t appreciate the gift my family (imperfect as they were) gave me when they set aside time for doing nothing.

These days, I find it almost impossible to give that gift to myself or my kids. Every minute of every day seems scheduled now, and my languorous holiday in South Georgia had disappeared even before my dad died. I can’t even take the kids to our family farm anymore, because it belongs to another family. It makes me sad that my boys will never pick up pecans under those trees or watch the sunrise over my grandparents’ pond from the breakfast table, eating a buttery homemade biscuit and feeling no need to fill the morning silence. It’s up to me to build a new tradition for them that honors the old. At least, every other year when we do Thanksgiving at our house and I’m (theoretically) in charge.

This year, I’m trying to be less of a perfectionist, and focus on what really matters. I’m working part of the week and doing my best to acknowledge my limitations and not stay up all night Wednesday cooking. Probably. Despite the fact that I am careening into this holiday on two wheels, I’m determined to make it an actual break. We are keeping our gathering intentionally small so we feel more like we are feasting and reflecting, and less like we are just entertaining. YES, I’m going to cook. NO we are not going to stress about having the perfect menu or getting the house totally clean.

YES to the Macy’s parade in our pajamas. NO to place cards and folding the napkins into interesting shapes (unless ‘kind of folded but slightly wrinkly, hey at least it’s clean’ is an interesting shape). NO to slaving over desserts instead of writing or hanging with the kids. YES to eating that store-bought pie straight from the tin if you want. With ice cream. And sweet potatoes. No judgement.

You probably won’t be seeing Instagram photos of my turkey or table this year. But we are going to take time out to relax and say out loud what we’re grateful for if it kills me. And if I can’t recapture my old Thanksgiving in my new life, there’s always the Virgin Islands. I feel pretty confident we could relax there.

[Hang on. Beach fantasy moment. *Sigh.* Okay, I’m good.]

Before I start trying to remember what you do with a 15 pound frozen turkey, I want to take a moment to say how grateful I am for all of you. THANK YOU for being amazing friends and readers all year long. You’ve showed up to virtual launches and live launches and made me laugh and said nice things. You’ve taken time out of your day to review the books on Amazon and Goodreads, as well as on your own blogs and websites. You’ve told me when you enjoyed my books and some of you have helped me make them better. You’ve been loyal friends, in a thousand different ways.

To thank you, for the next six weeks, I’ll be talking about gratitude and giving away a signed copy of THE MARRIAGE PACT every week. To enter, just comment on each week’s blog. You can get more entries by following the instructions on the Rafflecopter widget.

How are you celebrating Thanksgiving this year? How do you balance the pace of modern life with the need to slow things down sometimes? What are you grateful for? For me, it starts with the best guy in the world, the one whose support of me is ridiculously unfailing, and our two wild little boys.

Share your own gratitude, enter the giveaway, and may you feel lots and lots of love this season.

 

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Signing: Macon Barnes & Noble Nov. 21st

For all my Macon/Central Georgia friends, family and readers: please mark your calendars for 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, November 21st. I’ll be doing an author appearance at the Barnes & Noble on Riverside Drive and signing THE MARRIAGE PACT.

If you’re in the area, I hope you’ll drop by and say hello! Please also feel free to share this announcement with your social networks, book clubs, etc. I’m looking forward to hanging out with lots of Maconites!

If you’re planning to come, you can RSVP and share the event on Facebook here (or click the share buttons at the bottom of this post). Thanks for your support!

 

Come say hi!
5080 Riverside Drive
Macon, GA 31210

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Thank You! The Marriage Pact Book Launch

THE MARRIAGE PACT launch: FoxTale Book Shoppe, November 7 2015

Just a quick, slightly belated post to say “thank you” to everyone who helped make THE MARRIAGE PACT launch last week a ton of fun and (from my end, at least) a big success. I am so grateful to Nicole Sohl, Brendan Deneen, Jessica Preeg and Annie Hulkower at Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s Press/Macmillan Entertainment; as well as to Beth Phelan at The Bent Agency, for making this process painless and fun, and for making the hardcover So. Dang. Pretty.

Thanks also to FoxTale Book Shoppe for hosting the launch and selling every single book they had on hand. We had a blast and some delicious Ali’s Cookie Cake (my favorite) last weekend. I’m including a few pictures of the launch party at FoxTale Book Shoppe with this post. You can see lots more fun pictures here.

Huge thanks to everyone who came out to the Virtual Launch, too. We had a a great time talking about our favorite movies and love songs and I did everything I could to pretend I wasn’t turning 40 right before your VERY EYES. Want to see what you missed? Click here and scroll through the party posts.

Congratulations to Christie Hunt, who won the Wake Up and Read! coffee basket at the bookstore; and to Sharon McFeron, Tracy Cembor and Kimberly Vaughan Landry, who all won prizes at the virtual launch.

I really appreciate all the friends and family and readers who came out or signed on to celebrate with me, and the many more who sent good wishes for the launch last week.  You guys make it all worthwhile.

We decided to flip the whole autographed book thing a bit: I made friends and family sign MY copy too!

 

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THE MARRIAGE PACT launch + EVERY OTHER SATURDAY free for Kindle 11/3 – 11/6

November 3rd is a big day in M.J.’s little world!

It’s MARRIAGE PACT release day! And my birthday! And EVERY OTHER SATURDAY is free from today until Friday!

In other news, I have already used my allotment of exclamation points for the entire month of November.

Effusive punctuation aside, you can now get THE MARRIAGE PACT in hardback at your favorite local bookstore (please ask them to order it if they don’t already have it), or at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Want a signed copy? You can order it from FoxTale Book Shoppe in Woodstock, Georgia before the launch party this Saturday. They can ship to wherever you are. Please also check the happenings section of the blog for a few other upcoming appearances.

In celebration of the release (and my 40th birthday), I’m also excited to share that my digital romantic comedy EVERY OTHER SATURDAY is free for Kindle/Kindle app from Tuesday November 3rd until Friday November 6th!

Check it out here. You can read it on your Kindle, or use the Kindle app on iPad, iPhone, Android, or other smartphone/tablet.

LAUNCH PARTIES

If you live in the Atlanta area, please join me this Saturday, November 7th, at 4:00 p.m. for a special launch party at FoxTale Book Shoppe in Woodstock. We’ll have books, punch and the world’s best cookie cake. There is no charge, and you don’t have to RSVP to attend, but if you can do so on Facebook it will help us plan appropriately.

For those unable to attend the launch party in person, I’m also hosting a virtual launch party on Facbook this evening. Bring friends, comment frequently and get a chance to win prizes!

Please share this post with others, and if you’ve read one or both books, kindly leave a comment below and tell other readers what you liked about it.

Thanks so much and enjoy!

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Terrifying Milestone: My Life at (almost) 40

In just a few days, I’ll be turning 40. Like most everyone around my age I’ve talked to lately, I truly, truly believe age is just a number, that there is absolutely no reason a “milestone” birthday should hold more significance than others, blah, blah, blah.

And yet.

It’s hard not to stop and take stock at 40. Such a round, intimidating number: one that I’ve associated since childhood with black balloons, those horrifying “over the hill” gag gifts and the lighthearted passing of youth. I remember my dad’s 40th birthday party vividly (I was 13) and I can assure you, he was old then. Really old. Weird that I am the same age now but not old at all.

There is a sense that you’re supposed to know what you’re doing by 40. To have at least a vague understanding what life is all about, and where your own life is going. I may have gained some wisdom in the past couple of decades, but it’s a little surreal to me that in many ways I feel no different or smarter than I did at 24.

Still, there are a few things I’ve noticed about this time of my life that I thought I would share.

First: Hangovers, soreness from workouts and PMS all go on for DAYS now. What used to be cured with a single greasy meal, bad movie and a nap, now lingers unpleasantly for up to a week. Also I am no longer permitted to take naps.

So, you know what a young face looks like before wrinkles. And you know what a much older face looks like once the wrinkles are permanent. What you may not know about are the ante-wrinkles. These are the weird fissures that show up on your skin overnight in middle age, often in the shape of your pillow or in the place where your cheek mashes up against your eyes and nose. They aren’t permanent (yet) but they hang around for an hour or two, as though someone has drawn on your face while you were asleep. It’s as though the wrinkles are there, just under the skin, threatening to return in greater numbers. Very disconcerting.

I have finally, finally reached the point in my life where I seriously don’t care what my house looks like. I used to say I didn’t care, but then people would come over and I’d fly into a an embarrassed panic, shoving things in drawers and trying to confine guests to the foyer (which is awkward since there’s no place to sit there, and let’s be honest even that space manages to get messy). Lots of stuff has happened in the past few years to put cleanliness in perspective, and now I consider it a success when people come visit without a child or pet actually vomiting directly on them. A house is only as beautiful as the friends and family within its walls, and the memories you make there. Period.

Paradoxically, Year 40 has brought me to terms with my slight hoarding pack-rat tendencies. I recently read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Okay, I bought it and I’ve heard people talk about it. And I plan to read it. Eventually. Anyway, apparently there is some kind of fabulous Japanese osmosis thing going on because just having that book in the house, I feel much more at peace lately with letting go of STUFF. I come from a long line of pack rats (none of whom ever quite reached the level of serious hoarding but came close), and I was trained from an early age to hang on to everything sentimental or any item that could possibly ever be useful, somehow. “What? We can’t throw that away! What if the Braves win the World Series in the rain during the Zombie Apocalypse?”

In other paradoxes, I’ve stopped caring so much what people think of me (especially how I look). This is good because I’m reaching the age where young guys I once would’ve mooned over me now call me “ma’am.” But I actually think I look better than I have in a while, because I have started taking care of me for myself. Middle age is kind of freeing that way: even if I could keep up with fashion trends and fad diets, I wouldn’t want to. I like having my own style.

I like being active and eating well (when I can stay out of the Halloween candy) because it makes me feel better, not because I’m trying to meet some kind of glossy magazine standard. You know what I think when I see those magazines now, the ones I used to read obsessively in my twenties? Oh, darlings. Life is so much bigger and richer than you know. If your main concerns are cellulite and sex tips “to drive him crazy,” you’re doing something wrong.

I finally got a tattoo this year because I quit worrying about whether everyone in the world would like it or approve of my choice. I quit worrying about future regret and decided to own what I wanted in the present.

This year I also finally set down my half of a toxic relationship with my only sibling. It was miserably, tortuously hard. When I think of him now, it makes my heart ache for both of us and what we could’ve had, the relationship that would have benefited both of us in the absence of our parents. It took me a long time to realize that I couldn’t take responsibility for what isn’t mine, and that loving someone doesn’t always mean you can help them, or that they can be who you need them to be. Sometimes the trying just hurts you both.

I think of my brother every day. I still hold onto a tiny, flickering hope that our relationship might one day return from the ashes, the same way I still hold onto an almost maternal fear for his safety and well-being. I’ve had to learn to put both those feelings away for now, though. That energy is needed by my husband, our children, the life we have built, the passions I pursue. You can’t give endlessly of yourself to someone who can’t give back, and not lose something very important in the process.

At 20, I understood this concept in an arrogant, petulant way that allowed me to push people away and keep myself safe, with little thought for the emotional consequences. At 40, I come to it again with the weight of real losses and real loneliness on my heart. The decision is the same in some ways, but I choose it today with a reluctance and sadness I know will never fully heal.

My tattoo reads, “Fear no more, says the heart.” It’s a quote from Virginia Woolf in Mrs. Dalloway, a book I loved long before I could really understand it. The whole quote is:

Fear no more, says the heart, committing its burden to some sea, which sighs collectively for all sorrows, and renews, begins, collects, lets fall.

What I understand at 40 is this: if we are guided by fear of what might happen, how others could hurt us or themselves or both, our lives become shaky, tenuous things — where the world grows smaller each day and the power is always wielded by someone else. I’ve experienced enough tragedy in life to know that anticipating it doesn’t make it hurt less. Most of our control in life is an illusion: if we believe in it too much, it only sets us up to fail (or feel we have). I’ve lived with regret and I’ve lived in fear. At 40, I’d rather live in love. At least I’m going to try.

There’s lots more I could share about parenting and working and chasing that elusive balance thing as a working mom. “Balance,” by the way, is a complete misnomer: it’s less like gracefully walking across a tightrope carrying a nice bendy pole, and more like trying to navigate an EF-5 tornado in a minivan full of a drunk clowns and still trying to look like you’ve had a shower in the past three days.

Still, with all its complications and messiness, with the heartaches and frustrations: life at 40 is pretty damn amazing. Last night I snuggled on the sofa with my six-year-old (who I know won’t want to snuggle with me for much longer), drank a glass of cheap red wine poured up by my sweet husband, and watched Despicable Me 2 at the request of our four-year-old. Okay, it wasn’t a request so much as a twenty-minute tantrum-filled argument between the boys resolved only by a convoluted peace treaty and grilled cheese.

But still, as I lay there under a fluffy blanket with my family around me, doing our boring but wonderful Friday night ritual, I had the best thought any human being can have: “I am so happy. Life is really, really good.”

Happy Halloween!

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