2018

2018 goals...

~SLEEP MORE, because NO other aspect of my life will go smoothly if I don't get enough sleep. I will be irritable and cranky, won't make healthy food choices, won't feel well, won't exercise, and won't be productive or be who I was created to be.

LAUGH MORE, because life is tough, and if I can't laugh, then I am in trouble. Sometimes laughing is the life preserver in the rough undercurrent.

PAUSE MORE, because pausing before I act is never a mistake. If I want to confront a situation, waiting to respond is never regretted but impulsively acting almost always is.

SAY "NO" MORE, because life is too short to waste time doing things I don't really care about. I should spend my spare time doing things that mean something to me and fulfill my  purpose. If I say yes to things I really don't want to do, I will be resentful and unhappy. People who truly care about me will understand this.

FOLLOW MY PASSION MORE, because those things that excite me and inspire me are my calling. Not only that, but pursuing them will make me truly happy. I am never truly happy unless I am using my creativity. Not being creative, in my own unique way, will cause me anxiety. 

GIVE MORE, because the older I get the more I feel my heartstrings being tugged at the most random times. So many times I feel almost frantic because there are so many things I could be doing that I'm not. It's time to start doing some of those things.

CONNECT WITH GOD MORE, because being still and spending time with God will sustain me through the bad days, the normal days, and the great days. My happiness will be enhanced with God, and my sadness will be tolerable with God. 

GIVE GRACE MORE, because people aren't perfect and neither am I. People will say and do things that hurt my feelings. When this happens, I have two choices- I can be offended and stew over it and become resentful or angry. Or I can let it go and realize that we all fall short and I can choose to forgive because I hope that I am forgiven when I fall short as well. 

APPRECIATE MOMENTS MORE, because there are no perfect days. Never, ever, has there been an entirely perfect day. But there have been perfect moments. So when they happen, I need to be undistracted and "all in." Life is too fleeting to let the gift of a perfect moment go unnoticed.

CELEBRATE MORE, because small things or even nothing special can be celebrated. Birthdays and New Years and such should be celebrated, but so can any day. I can take the family to a movie on a school night, a fancy dinner with fancy dishes and candles can be on a regular old Tuesday, and a party can be thrown for a silly, made up reason. Our time here is limited, so why on Earth not?

And last but not least, may 2018 be the most authentic and inspiring year yet, full of wonder and many perfect moments!!!~

Gym Mirrors and Petunia Pig

So, sometimes peer pressure works out in a positive way- like coercing you to go to a gym class.

I rolled in on two wheels, completely oblivious as to how long it would actually take me to arrive to the gym. At this time I'm normally curled up on the couch with the dog drinking my morning fuel of an ice cold Coca-Cola, and I wasn't sure what to expect.

When I walked in I saw a lot of perky pony tails. Don't get me wrong, I had a pony tail too, but my pony tail looked sort of sad and apprehensive and a bit frizzy. The pony tails surrounding me were sleek and confident. These ponytails could do non-knee push-ups.

As the class started, I knew I was in trouble when I was extremely winded during the "warm-up." There is no bigger lie then the words "warm up." Truth be told, I have never in my life attended ANY class, of ANY type, in ANY state where I wasn't completely ready to go home after the warm up. And not only go home after that, but feel accomplished.

Well, halfway through the workout, they did this exercise where you jump in the air like you are extremely excited. Of course there is always the modified version, or what I would prefer to call, the exercise for people who do not, in fact, feel like they have just won the lottery.

I tended to stick with that on more than one occasion.

In this particular gym class, like most, the entire wall you face is a big mirror. 

I looked at my legs in this mirror and two words unexpectedly popped into my mind...

Petunia Pig.

Normally, I would think that the image I was seeing was skewed in some way.

Sort of like when you see your reflection in store mirrors and your legs look shorter and stubbier than they really are. However, to my knowledge, there has yet to be a mirror invented which makes me look like Petunia while making everyone else look like Beyoncé, so there goes that theory.

And let me be clear. This class was ONLY THIRTY MINUTES.

Not sure why, but I just needed you to know that.

As the class drew to a close, we ended with *several* rounds of burpees. 

Yes, the words -*several* and *burpees* in the same sentence. The most hated exercise in existence. I can't even tell you how many I managed to knock out. I just wanted out of there.

I was supposed to stay and do a Body Pump class, but since I want to live to see my grandchildren someday, I told my friends adios, I would see them tomorrow (this may be a blatant lie), and slunk to my car...or so I thought.

Yes, I was so out of sorts I walked to the wrong car. Luckily, I corrected myself before I physically tried to get in it. However, once I was sitting in my car, I began to felt that lump you get in your throat right before you throw up.

I proceeded to call my mom, because even in your 40s, that's what you always want to do when you feel sick. Unfortunately while talking to her, I burped very loudly in her ear, but began to feel better.

And do not think that the irony of burping after burpees escapes me.

Truth be told, I am typing this right now on my phone in the gym parking lot. I'm still getting my bearings. In the same vein as the people with the half marathon stickers on their vehicles, 13.1, there may need to be a new sticker.

"Past the warmup"

I would exhibit it proudly today.

45 is ...

1. Your plan to have lunch and a massage on your birthday quickly morphs into cleaning up vomit and looking for a two-inch missing wolf spider.

2. You seriously contemplate if the amount of effort it is going to take to lose those stubborn pounds is really worth giving up golden brown fries dipped in ranch.

3. You decide that a Spandex black tennis skirt is perfectly acceptable as a bathing suit bottom.

4. You instantly fall hopelessly in love with anyone who even bothers to card you.

5. You want to yell from the mountaintops to all the teachers at your child's school, and to all of their parents, that once you were really an AWESOME, energetic, top-notch Pinterest-loving room mom. You really were. Now you are more a Publix-made cupcake, and "Oh, it was picture day?" kind of mom.

6. Sometimes when you are taking a picture on your phone and you accidentally flip the camera the other way, you actually scare yourself.

7. You think the filters on Snapchat are the best thing invented since electricity.

8. Your number one shopping question changes from, "Am I thin enough to wear this?" to, "Am I young enough to wear this?"

9. Your girls' beach trips graduate from dancing at the Florabama and morph into decadent dinners and chatting over cocktails in PJs back at the condo.

10. You suddenly begin researching skincare as intently as Jonas Salk trying to crack the code for the polio vaccine.

11. You find yourself wanting to tell some of these younger sports parents that their kids aren't going to play for the Red Sox so calm down and enjoy the ride.

12. You find yourself walking more and more into rooms and wondering why you did...

13. Your days of chasing toddlers and arranging play dates have turned into driving around older kids with jam packed social schedules like you are an Uber driver burning up the streets in New York City.

14. You embrace laugh lines over many of the frozen-faced people you see walking around like live wax museum exhibits. 

15. An organized closet makes you happy. Really happy.

16. In a lot of ways, you still feel exactly the same inside as when you were 25.

17. A smell or a song can still trigger a memory of a college party, or a laugh with friends, or a high school dance so vividly that it can take your breath away.

18. Sometimes you wonder when you are going to feel grown up.

19. When you have on JUST the right pair of reading glasses, you feel a little bit hot...in a mysterious librarian sort of way.

20. Now that you are a parent of tweens and teens, you don't think that on the old sitcom "Roseanne" that she was as bad a parent as you once thought she was.

21.  You wonder how on earth you are going to make the next 45 years as awesome as the first have been.

And last but not least...

22. When it comes to this crazy, precious life you have been given, sometimes you feel like you are just getting started.