The Social Media Spiral

Social media can sometimes feel like a beast, can’t it? But I have come to realize, over the years, that its attacks… they’re more like a whisper than a roar. It doesn’t smack you on the face and make you grovel on your feet. Instead, it seeps into your everyday thinking, controlling your moves, thoughts, desires. The chess player and the chess piece. We have become the piece. Or at least I have.

Facebook. It’s weird. I know that an acquaintance is stuck in traffic at this very moment, at exactly what intersection. I’m aware of a college friend’s blatant opinion on politics these days (is politics the new icebreaker?). I have an image of my colleague and her husband and children’s morning look every single day. It’s intimate, but not really. Personal, but not really. And yet I scroll...

ConversationsDeanne BanaresFebruary 27, 2017Social Media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, OnlineComment

A Married Kind of Date

How Married People Plan Valentine's Day:

Do you want flowers? Too expensive on this day.

How about a special dinner? In the city? Along with every other couple?

Oh yeah, remember our second Valentine's? When that restaurant looked like a scene out of a chick flick?

A getaway? I'm pregnant.

Well, what else? Hmm, didn't I just clean the condo for you today? And didn't I just do the grocery?

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I'm not going to sugarcoat it. It's harder to plan Valentine's Day when you're married. Suddenly, the apparently romantic ways just won't do anymore. Maybe it's because you have every day to show your love, other more appropriate ways to express it...

MarriageDeanne BanaresFebruary 23, 2017Valentine's Day, Letters, Marriage, Antonio's, Romance Comment

Useful, Beautiful, Joyful

Most of the days, in the thick of the routine and ordinary, it's hard to find beauty... especially when you're toting around a bump so huge that limitations abound. It's harder to get around, to do things, to step out of your room.

I was getting tired of the same old, same old day. My creative reservoir was empty. I noticed I was in need of inspiration so I drank off the things closest to me - books, magazines, and blogs. As each chapter, each image and post filled me, the yearning to create consumed me. The desire to just make anything useful, beautiful, joyful. I had been parched for a long while and I decided it was about time to do something about it...

Life & StyleDeanne BanaresFebruary 13, 2017Flowers, Cake, Beauty, Styling, TablescapeComment

The Truth Behind The Bump

I was in my bed, crying out of frustration. It was almost 9 p.m. and my husband wasn't home yet and I hadn't had dinner yet and I had not thrown out the trash yet. I wanted to but I couldn't. Pregnancy. There's just something about the first trimester that makes you helpless and weak and - dare I say it? - useless.

It was a bleak time, a bad time, an unforgiving time... for me.

I didn't want any of it. I didn't want go through it anymore, the underbelly of the bump.

My days became nights. Most mornings were lost since I would wake up close to noon. My husband would kiss me goodbye as he would leave for work and I would only faintly remember that. I stood up to eat and then went back to lying down again. Loneliness loomed. I had no more time to spend as sleep became my ally. Closing my eyes seemed like the best solution to the endless nausea and fatigue and loss of appetite. Perhaps it would all go away? When it always seemed like night, they did...

MotherhoodDeanne BanaresFebruary 2, 2017Motherhood, Pregnancy, First Trimester, Life, Baby Comments

Marriage Bytes: For Better or For Worse

Slammed doors, raised voices, silent treatments. Morning cuddles, sweet nothings, date nights.

Pesky habits, heavy sobs, unsolved resentments. Planned surprises, silly laughter, unending conversations.

Images of love and sounds of pain - the cacophony of marriage.

Remember the vow 'for better or for worse'?

It's lived every day, in the flesh, in the ordinariness and the humdrum. There are days when it's better. There are nights when it's worse...

MarriageDeanne BanaresJanuary 12, 2017Marriage, Husband, Wife, Spouse, Promises, VoewComment