Some songs I like to keep on constant iPod rotation:

"R.E.S.P.E.C.T." (find out what it means to me!)

"I Will Survive" (first I was alone...I was petrified!)

As I sit here I have blistered and bloody hands from getting all the yardwork done. Mowing (with the cheapest damn mower known to mankind!), weeding, trimming, clipping, cleaning... As I was about to pass out, ha-ha, I was singing in my head, "I can bring home the bacon! Fry it up in a pan! And never never let you forget your a man, cuz I'm a Wooooooo-man!"

I'm from Pioneer Stock MoFo. Watch out. I'm from sturdy people who tilled the ground, birthed babies and then buried them soon after, crossed the plains, starved...but survived. Survived, then flourished. (all without therapists fyi!)

My maternal Grandmother lost her first husband (to a first, poisonous swig of moonshine) when she was young and had 4 little children at home. She lost her second husband when she had 8 children. She went blind... but still cleaned and cooked and sewed and married a third husband.

My father went from a hayseed plow boy without indoor plumbing to a college-educated Executive Mechanical Engineer...traveling the world. Putting himself through college scraping wax off floors and selling chocolates door to door to make ends meet.

Nothing about my heritage is weak.

I am strong.

I will survive.

Yeah... I rock.

Word.