31/52

Maybe you noticed that my blog has a new title.  I think it better reflects the goal of my blog, don't you?


A couple months ago, I let Abbi know that she needed to sign up for an activity.  We had taken a bit of a break once she started high school because she wanted to make sure that she could handle her homework and projects.  And while I can understand the anxiety, she's done just fine.  

Abbi has done lots of activities (usually involving water because we are convinced that she is part fish).  I'll admit, I was surprised at her choice.  Ice skating.  We've only ice skated maybe twice ever in her life.  It can be difficult to be a fifteen year old beginner skating with kids half your age.  There were so many tiny people sliding and falling on the ice around her.  But she did it and she did it with a smile. 

Waiting to get on the ice.

When was the last time you tried something new? Learned a new skill?  Developed a positive habit?  Tried a new food?

I'm trying something new.  Well maybe its a few things.  And I'm telling you all about it.  I'm learning to trust myself more, turning negative thoughts into positive thoughts, and not letting outside things affect me so much. 

I've always been indecisive.  And while I haven't exactly pinpointed why, it's likely that it comes from not being able to trust myself to make a good decision.  What ifs loom in my mind.  Consequences of the decision swirl around my head.  It brings to light all kinds of questions.  Do I have all the information?   Is there something else I haven't considered?  Could there be something else going on here?  It's enough to paralyze you into doing nothing.  Or better yet, have someone else make the decision for you.  At some point, though, I must learn to make my own decisions.  Trust that I have all the information, trust that I've considered all the options, and be willing to deal with what happens next. 

It can be easy to listen to all those negative thoughts in your head.  Or even outside your head.  We are bombarded with images of size 0 celebrities with salon perfect hair and makeup.  Who are wearing designer outfits and coordinating boots.  Or even closer to home (and reality), the women who look all put together - who have handsome, attentive husbands with their well dressed and well mannered children.  Driving their luxury SUV and living in their custom built McMansion. Don't get me wrong, I have no judgment here.  I only say this because I live in a neighborhood where this is what you see all around you.  You feel like you have to live up to this.  You have to be this version of perfect on the outside.  And oh, I'm so not.  But instead of feeling defeated by this or feeling like I'm not _____ enough, I'm learning to be okay with it.  I'm real.  I actually had three people tell me that last week.  It was kind of bizarre considering I don't know that anyone has ever said that to me before, but I'm thankful.  I don't want to be fake or pretend I'm something I'm not.  I've never been good at that, and I suppose that's a good thing.

Remember last week I told you about carrying your own weather?  I saw something my friend Cindy posted on Facebook this week.  I loved it.   It's a new word: Unf*ckwithable.  It's an adjective and here's the definition: when you're truly at peace and in touch with yourself, and nothing anyone says or does bothers you, and no negativity or drama can touch you.  This is what I want to be. 


So grab a friend and try something new!!  Friends will always support you, listen to you and be there for you - whether you are learning to turn negative thoughts into positive ones or your falling all over the place on the ice.  I'm pretty lucky to have some absolutely wonderful and fantabulous friends. 

And speaking of fantabulous friends, I want to introduce you to one of Isaac's very best friends.  Her name is Katie.  She is one of the non-family kids I adore the most on the planet.  She and Isaac have been friends since kindergarten.  They are great and silly together.  I've heard of stories of Katie helping Isaac clean out his desk and Isaac helping Katie carry her books.  For the last three years, Katie has made it on Isaac's birthday party invite list.  I even recently had a long-term substitute teacher ask me "what's the deal with Katie and Isaac?" I'm not sure that this kind of friendship, loyalty and craziness is typically seen in third grade.  This week, it's Katie's birthday.  So happy birthday Katie!

This is what happens when you tell them to lean in together and you lean to the right to show them. 

So a few of you got on me a little bit today about not having my blog post up sooner.  I'm sorry it's late.  I played a couple quick games of Jenga with the kids tonight after dinner.  I'll try to get back to posting on Sundays! 

I'd love for you to leave a comment.  What new thing are you going to try?  Do you like the new blog title?

30/52

Sunday morning, Isaac and I made breakfast.  We made the bacon first.  While we were waiting, we noticed that the sun was shining into the kitchen.  Because there is a bit of smoke from the bacon, you could see the sun rays so very clearly.   Once the bacon was done, Isaac wanted to help me with the sunny-side-up eggs.  He wanted to break the eggs into the pan.  We were making three eggs.  He broke the first egg perfectly.  He broke the second egg right on top of the first egg and the yolk breaks.  Same thing happened with the third.

Sun rays and breakfast make me happy.  Well the bacon makes me happy.

We sat at the table and he looks at my broken yolked eggs.  Here was how the conversation went.

Isaac: "Next time I will do it better."
Me: "It just takes more practice."
Isaac: "Practice makes perfect.  Well, perfect-ish. Nobody can be perfect.  Except for being yourself.  You can be perfect at being yourself."

I think about this.  It makes me remember what a VP I used to work with told me once "There is only one you... everyone else is already taken."

Oh my goodness.  She's right.  Isaac's right.  I'm perfectly imperfect.

Sounds tidy, doesn't it?  Almost something to be celebrated?  Well, yes and no.

So let's embrace this thought.  I am perfectly imperfect. I'm human and I make mistakes, I say stupid stuff and I feel things that maybe I shouldn't.  But all with the intention of being the best version of me I can be.  Essentially doing my best to be perfect.  Aren't I the plumb line?  Because I'll be honest, I judge others based on what I would do.  Ugh. That sounds terrible, doesn't it?  It's not like I think I AM perfect.  But I judge my actions by my intentions (and I think everyone else should too - LOL). Because I know what my intentions are.  And I know they're pure - where they are coming from.  And I understand them.  But you don't get this benefit.  Because you can't see my intentions or my complicated emotions for that matter.  You rely on me to communicate my intentions and those complicated emotions.  Something I'm not very good at.   

And what if you flip it around?  I don't know your intentions.  So I can only judge by your actions and words.  I came across this quote recently, "You'll end up really disappointed if you go through life thinking people will do for you as you do for them.  Not everyone has the same heart as yours." You can't expect that everyone follows your plumb line or the Golden Rule. 

And because I'm not the only one that's imperfect, and feeling all this, there are all kinds of things that can go wrong.  So what do we do about it?

Well you do have to remember that there is only one you.  And you are special (oh my gosh, do I sound like your mom yet?).  You have to take time to just be you.  To find what brings you joy and happiness.  You cannot rely on anyone else to give that to you.  Not your significant other, not your kids, not your friends, and no one in your family.

In my former life, I taught a class based on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.  It was amazing.  I loved it and incorporated a lot of the ideas into my life.  I haven't taught the class in several years, so these great ideas have slipped a bit.  But there is a concept that Stephen Covey talks about - called Carry Your Own Weather.  The idea is that regardless of what is happening around you, you get to choose how you respond.  The sun doesn't always shine.  

Seems like it could be, should be, easy.  And maybe sometimes it is; it sort of falls in your lap.  And other times you have to look harder or make your own "sunshine."  Sunday, it was bitterly cold.  So I made Isaac and I hot chocolate after we went to church.  The amount of whip cream in our hot chocolate definitely made us both happy.

Hot chocolate makes me happy!

I also had half of a slice of Portillo's chocolate cake.  That made me happy too.  I would've taken a picture, but.... I ate it before I thought of that.

Then we made chocolate chip cookies.  I finally found the dairy-free chocolate chips so I could make some for Brian too.  They were actually really good!

We made chocolate chip cookies.  Spending time in the kitchen makes me happy too!

So it sure sounds like food - chocolate, namely, makes me happy.  This is true.  Good thing I'm teaching Pound class five times a week.  LOL

So this week, find your joy.  Give yourself permission to do it.  Shine your way.   And if all else fails, eat chocolate.  ;)

29/52

For the longest time, we were saying that Winter is coming (any other Game of Thrones geeks out there excited that Season 6 starts April 24??!!).  Well, it's here.  Really here.  Snow, frigid temperatures, missing gloves, salted driveways and sidewalks - it's all here.

I try to love Winter.  Really I do.  I don't mind the snow (as long as I don't have to drive in it).  I think the snow is pretty - especially when it covers the tree branches.  My neighbor asked me a very important question this morning as we were waiting at the end of my driveway, aka the bus stop, "Why do we live here?" I don't know, man, I don't know.

My kids love Winter for the sledding.  Zoey loves the snow because it's another source of cold liquid refreshment.

Sunday morning Isaac, Zoey and I went for a Winter hike on my favorite trail.   Was it cold? Yes.  Did I really feel like going outside with the wind chill? Nope.  But we did it.  All for this photo. 

My favorite dog, my favorite boy and my favorite bridge

Kids will happily go out in this weather to go sledding.  Even though it's cold. And they have to walk up the hill after every trip down.  They place a lot of value on the exhilaration of that few-second ride down a hill.  It's worth it to them.

Unlike the gratification that kids get when sledding, we probably don't see such immediate results with our goals.  But we need to place more value on getting there and the results we want!  I want to encourage you today.  Believe in yourself.  Don't give up.  Give yourself permission to do this for you.  Fight the excuses.  There will always be something else you could be doing.  And you'll probably never FEEL like doing it.

The company I work for recently had a Women in Leadership event and Mel Robbins was the keynote speaker.  She has a 5 second rule.  We aren't talking about the "if you drop food on the floor and pick it up within 5 seconds, you can eat it" rule.  Ew. Gross.  Just no.  This is the "DO something before your brain talks you out of it" rule. 

Here she is on YouTube.

Now she's not saying, "hey, if you have the idea that you should work out today, you should drop everything in 5 seconds and make it happen." That's not it at all.  She is saying take a step in that direction. And that's key because the first step can be the hardest.

I am reminded of when I was in high school and was part of the Boy Scout Explorer Program to explore a career in firefighting.  We took a trip to Devil's Head State Park and went repelling. Repelling is like the opposite of rock climbing - you are going down.  We learned how to tie our own knots and then used that rope to repel over the edge.  I don't think the fall from the top of the rocks would've killed us, but we would've broken a lot of things.  I was super excited for this trip.  We planned out the details and made sure that we thought of everything.  My nerves didn't set in until we hiked to the top of the cliff.  I watched the others go over.  I let a few more people go ahead of me.  It was finally my turn.  All of a sudden that was the last place I wanted to be.  I wanted to crawl under rock.  If I had been the only one there, I would've gone back.  I'm sure I thought of a million other things I could've been doing instead.  But my troop encouraged me.  I saw that others survived just fine.  I had a friend help me in the harness and double check my knots.  I was all set.  But the rest was up to me.  All I had to do was walk to the edge, lean back and take that first step.  I walked to the edge and peered over.  The others that had already done it waved to me from the bottom.  Well that's a good sign.  They all survived.  It took me a long time to lean back over the edge (oh, geez, that makes me think of those trust exercises where you close your eyes and lean back and someone is supposed to catch you??).  Millimeter by millimeter, I moved my hands further down the rope until I was finally (barely) leaning over the edge.  You are balancing all your weight over the edge of the cliff and everything in your brain is telling you that you can't take that step because you are going to fall over the edge, but of course you won't because you have a harness and ropes in place.  But it took me FOREVER to take that first step.  My heart felt like it was beating outside of my chest.  My hands were trembling around the ropes.  My feet felt paralyzed.  Everyone there was encouraging me, telling me to just do it.  And finally I did it - when everyone rallied "on the count of three!"  That's all I needed.  Three seconds to get myself ready and set to do it.  Any more than that and I know I would've talked myself out of it.  Who knew there was something magical about the count of three?  Mel Robbins.  She apparently knew. 

After that first frightening step, I loved it.  And afterwards, I felt silly for taking so long to get over the edge. 

So what's holding you back?  What are you afraid of?  Let's do this  - on the count of three!

28/52

To be...

Faster, Stronger, Healthier, Happier

Don't be fooled.  To get to my goal (and yours for that matter), there is no "easy" button.  There is no magic pill.  There is no genie in a bottle.  If you want to be faster, stronger, healthier, happier (or fill in the blank with what you want) - you have to DO something to make that happen.  You have to shift your paradigm - you have to think differently.  You will have to commit to making it a priority and work hard.  You will have to make sacrifices and convince yourself it's worth it.  You may have to be creative with your time and let some things go.  And only YOU can make it happen. Procrastinating or ignoring it will not change anything.  Wishing on a star isn't going to make your goals and dreams come true.  Making excuses or complaining about it won't change anything.  And a pity party is not going to help either.

Will it be easy?  No.  Will I want to give up?  Probably.  Will I fall off the bandwagon?  It's likely.
But I won't quit - and you shouldn't either.  I have an army of supporters.  My family, my friends, my Pound girls.  They are all encouraging.  They are inspiring.  They show up.  They care and they'll pull me back onto the bandwagon.

So here's what I'm saying.  Do a few things for yourself:

1. Set a goal - your resolution for the new year - but make it realistic.  One you think you can stick with.  Small beginnings are still beginnings.  You'll build momentum as you go along.  And then you can dream bigger.
2. Put it on your calendar.  Block time out to make this happen.
3.  Find someone that can help you stay accountable and be a cheerleader.  That's a big piece of this puzzle.  Someone that won't be afraid to razz you a little bit if you start to make excuses.  If you can find someone that has a similar goal, that's even better, but it's definitely not required.
4. And if you're like me, if it's out of sight, it can be out of mind.  So put things around you that will remind you of your goal - something on your lock screen on your phone, something on your fridge, or on a post it note on your computer monitor.

And I'll make this offer to you - if you need someone to help you stay accountable or to be a cheerleader for you - I'm here.  I want to help.  No matter what your goal is, I am happy to cheer you on (or razz you if necessary)!


I still don't necessarily know what I want to be when I grow up, but I know what I want to be for 2016.

As I was helping Abbi clean out some old stuff in her room yesterday, we came across a notebook with this quote on it: At any given moment, you have the power to say "This is NOT how the story is going to end."

What's your story and how do you want it to end?