SweetGirlSmirk

When your stress is up, you're left with a giant post it pad, highlighters, and sharpees...  you get to work on a visual representation of the the chaotic solitude that is social anxiety. Enjoy and share, you are not alone! How would you describe how it feels? Show us your work! KimmayJ  is all about that car dancing life. Music is the constant companion that makes it all just a bit easier. She is open about her mental health struggles and finding her balance. She also has a degree in psychology and counseling.  You can also follow her on  facebook ,  instagram ,  tumblr ,  pinterest , and  twitter !

Welcome to my new column, Mental Realness. Here I will be sharing my experiences of living with mental illness. I do this in hoping to reach someone so they know they are not alone or might gain some insight. I also hope to help break the stigma among those who aren't personally suffering. Together we can all get through this! So who am I? Basically, I am a 30-something mother of 3, with a Bachelor's degree in Psychology and a Masters in School Counseling. I love, hockey, baseball, nature, painting, writing, and most people agree that I straddle the hipster and basic life. I like to re-purpose objects for art or simply for use. Halloween is my happy place and I consider tacos a personality trait. I have a pet turtle and hope to adopt a cat very soon. Me! I also have schizophrenia.  After 18 years of not feeling "right" I finally was diagnosed. I will expand on this more along the way. I'm still coming to terms with grasping all this diagnosis entails and t

Hey, guys, big news! I am officially moving forward with "Mental Realness" a column for the blog that will be featuring a weekly post (or more if the mood is right) about my personal struggle with mental illness. I hope this spreads love and light and encourages people to reach out for help and break the stigma! Love and light!

We here at sweetgirlsmirk were supposed to go camping this week. Mother nature had different ideas, and rain and flooding took over Pennsylvania and Delaware. So what did we do? Brought the beach to the apartment! Yes, if we can do this on a second floor apartment, you can anywhere. Gear: ~Kiddie pool ~Sand ~Buckets ~Party lights ~Sparklers ~Crabs ~Snow crab legs ~Beach fries ~Chili dogs ~Shrimp ~Fruit cocktail pudding ~Any tropical decor on hand ~Outdoor games (we had washers) ~Daiquiris in fun glasses ~Beach playlist on spotify ~A huge sense of humor We had such a fun time that a nap had to be included! The playlist set the tone from the start.  You can subscribe here on spotify! Start off with a cocktail hour on the beach, or just relax in the sand and water. Grill some dogs, set the table and dig in! Fruit cocktail pudding recipe: a large can of fruit cocktail and two boxes of prepared instant vani

"The Death of the Electric Guitar" pops up on the Washington Post feed.  "Kids are just into beeps and boops" "Punk is dead" "Worse, punk is DAD" "Why don't kids do something constructive?" "Music was better back in my day" You can't go a day without hearing about {or saying yourself} one of these things. Teens are simply not into rock. First, that is the parents' fault. I'm a mother of a teenager who knows more about punk than I do, because she grew up with it and stretched out on her own while I was busy working and keeping kids clothed and fed. Play some Anti-Flag for your kid once in a while, or at least New Found Glory. Start them young! But most importantly, where did the rock music go? Every single time I see a band- in different regions, mind you (I straddle DE, Philly, Lancaster, DC)- that I would love to take her to, it is 18+ or 21+. Local bands play bars, venues d

Yes, you read the title correctly. Up until June of 2018, I had never seen The Godfather. I am 34. I love film. LOVE film. But I have been so busy watching David Lynch movies on IFC that it never occured to me to watch The Godfather. At one point I bought the DVDs to encourage myself to finally watch what many consider the greatest film franchise of all time. They sat on the shelf for nearly ten years. Thanks to a nudge from people who had me watch a random 20 minutes, and its availability on Netflix right now (cool, I don't own 3.... seriously Netflix, we appreciate you), I finally dove in. I fell asleep the first time (it's 3 hours!!! That is 2 movies!!!) but I took 3 nights to bring my ADD brain through it and took notes. Here are all 199 of them, in chronological order: thoughts, questions, and a pretty brutal drinking game that seems to emerge. Warning, if you have not seen the movie this post will spoil it for you and will probably not make any sense anyway. But,

I have been working on a bunch of new stuff! All of these and more are available at my  Etsy shop! KimmayJ  is a writer at heart who also loves to take color to canvas and see where it leads. You can also follow her on  facebook ,  instagram ,  tumblr ,  pinterest , and  twitter !

5 years ago (!!!!) I first ran a poll asking you, my lovely readers, what your favorite summertime song is. You can listen here!   Because so much changes over time, I decided to run part 2! You all did not disappoint! Here it is, your quintessential summer songs... as voted by you! To celebrate summer and July 4th and all things happy, I am sharing some additional love and light with a 20 percent off sale in my etsy shop, www.etsy.com/shop/sweetgirlsmirk from July 3-5! So sit by the pool, grill up some goodness, and dance the night away! Mungo Jerry- In the Summertime (Cover because it isn't on spotify)- Friends in Low Places The Ataris- Boys of Summer Counting Crows- Accidentally in Love Fall Out Boy- This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race The Bouncing Souls- Kate is Great The Beach Boys- Wouldn't it Be Nice All Time Low- A Love Like War Weezer- Say it Ain't So Seals and Croft- Summer Breeze Jason Mraz- I'm Yours Ray Lewis - Under the Boardw

I have decided to share my art with the world for two reasons. 1- the noble reason- I want to make people smile. 2-the not as noble but just as important reason- I am flat broke.  I don't want to ask people for money, so I am selling my wares. Honesty, it is a rare thing in this world today. So, as of now there are two designs on my zazzle page and more on my etsy page. The link below is for my Zazzle shop. Love and light! SweetGirlSmirk Zazzle designs: These prints, original paintings, plus others are available on Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/shop/sweetgirlsmirk

As you know, my goal in 2018 is to write every day. This may be a short haiku to a short story, to a ranting essay. I just want to write something. I am posting them in various places online daily (more on that later) but I will recap every week here. Sorry if it is still slightly disorganized, I decided on 1/1 to start this and I am getting into the flow of it as I go along. So, without further ado, here is week 1 of 52. Note: weekends I may often post an earlier done piece to give myself a break, rework old writings, and because Saturdays I am often quite busy. I will note if it is not a truly new piece. Day 1 All night I felt an energy, I was calm and finding a mental happy place despite having every reason not to. I read and soaked my feet, watched a great football win, took a trip to Stars Hollow. No setbacks or pain mattered. I then realized in these early hours of the morning, it was a new years day full moon. I couldn't ask for a better energy to start the year. Now

#KimmayJWritesEveryDay #Day4 "Writing Prompt: Unpacking A Suitcase Enjoy the first draft of the first short story that I have written in a very long time! Tonight, I broke through a major writers block. I actually found the writing prompt "unpacking a suitcase" on Pinterest, of all places, and ran with it. I first thought of a vacation, but what does that really entail? Cool, you maxed out your credit card to play pretend in Jamaica for 4 days, we still have no sense of who you are. I wanted to tell the story of a woman who is just starting to sniff independence. We don't know why she left her marriage for the solitude of a one room apartment, but we know that she is confident in her unknown.      That drive was finally over. From the time the ugly house full of ugly memories began to shrink in the distance, Lily did not know how to feel. Relief. Freedom. Joy. Grief. A disrespectful end to the past. They were in love once, truly in love. But she was stagnant, m

As the title says, KimmayJ is writing every day. I have decided, that starting January 1st, I will write a poem, essay, short story, musing.... whatever, something.... every day. I must begin and end it in one day, so typically we are talking first drafts here. I may later rewrite an earlier piece, but as for now it is early in the year (Day 4 to be exact) and I am still overly ambitious. Some days it will be that I have horrible writers block, and on those days I will be using fun writing prompts. I mean, I can't expect 365 days straight of having anything to say. As much as I would like to say otherwise, I don't have *that* exciting a life. Every day, there will be a Facebook post, something on twitter, and on Instagram. All of these will be tagged #KimmayJEveryDay, so you can find posts easily through that. Yay! Also, once a week I will post everything from that week prior on the blog. So if you want to subscribe, please do!!!! So far the first post is on Instagram and I p