Shoot for Crazytown. If you fall, you'll land among the stars.

If you've read this blog much at all, you're probably well aware of my disdain for inspirational quotes. You know those posters that hang in middle school hallways...the ones with beautifully-hued sunsets or ocean cliff sides in the background, the ones with stuff like "Be the change you want to see!" (it's the poster, not you Gandhi) plastered in white cursive font in the foreground? I hate those. It's not that the messages are necessarily bad, it's just the whole mix of generic graphic, generic rallying call geared toward unknown audience, generic font that if written out, would be written with one of those giant pencils (if "cussing" doesn't offend you and you consider yourself even remotely funny, please, please check out Lecher's post, "I'm Comic Sans, Asshole.") that bothers me. If you know this, then you likely also know that I don't claim to be super religious. No need for poster explanation here.

With these acknowledged, I have something to admit. ...

I get daily email reminders from The Brave Girls Club. Have you heard of this? I was introduced to the site by fellow FOLK writer and designer/decorator/crafter/stager/artist extraordinaire, Deb Kennedy, and I could just kiss her for it. The Brave Girls Club, a website run by two women and geared toward women, is basically a mash-up of inspirational quotes, messages of motivation, and religious-leaning "things will work out the way they're supposed to" rationales. It is the very thing that would typically make me roll my eyes and quickly go back to Nashville Needs More Metaphors.

Yet, it is not.

I encourage you to check out the site for yourself. After doing so, perhaps you will be able to better explain my affinity. For the time being, though, here's all I got: 1) I love the artistry of the site. The colors, graphics, and fonts "look like me."; 2) I like opening emails in the morning that start "Dear Miraculous Girl," or "Dear Lovely Girl," or "Dear Brave Girl."; 3) Although the gist of the emails is always more positive and fluffy than I'm usually drawn to, there are also always specific lines that make me laugh or that actually do inspire me. Example "Please do not decide that you are forever going to be a resident of crazytown."; 4) Maybe I'm not as cynical as I like to think.; 5) The masterminds behind the site like the "..." as much as me.

Here are excerpts from two of my favorites...

November 9, 2011
"Dear Miraculous Girl,
One of the most important choices we will ever make, and sometimes we have to make this choice over and over again...is that we will not set up camp in a place we don't want to end up...that we will not drop anchor because we are too tired to keep going...that we will not decide to live forever in misery because we have forgotten what it's like outside of it."

November 30, 2011
"Dear Doing-Your-Best Girl,
Because there are only so many hours in the day...and because we are all simply human...and because there is just no possible way that we can do everything we want to do, and especially do everything well...we must make choices. Some of the hardest, most difficult choices we will ever have to make are the choices between two things that both make us happy, things that both bring good and happiness into our lives. Sometimes we only have time for ONE of those things. This is one of the hardest parts of life."
Have a lovely day, beautiful girls.
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Just wanted to share with you some of my great grandmother's, Etta Brown Turner (Leon Jr.'s [Papa's] mother), pieces that I recently picked out. Thank you Aunts Ruby Jane, Betty Jo, and Carolyn for hanging onto these.