All posts tagged: Relatable

Resolutions

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Resolution #1 Stop hitting the snooze button  The alarm goes off and I immediately hit snooze. I usually set it for 5:25 AM to give me time to slowly rise before 6:15 AM yoga, but I inevitably snooze until 6:05 and miss my class altogether. I did remedy this the other night: showered and ready for bed, I slipped into leggings, a yoga tank, and bra instead of my light flannel PJs. At 6:05 AM Tuesday morning after “snoozing” for 40 minutes I turned off my heating pad (yes, I sleep with one) rolled out of bed, brushed, rinsed, and ran out the door. I made it to the studio in a respectable 13 minutes only slightly late and ready to roll, but started wilting at the 40 minute mark in class, leading to my next resolution … Resolution #2  Keep swimming  My yoga instructor is tight in body, instruction, mindset, and in discipline. Girlfriend also uses a heck of a lot of metaphors and motivational lines during each class. “If you let go of the toe, …

Exiled 

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This morning I need downtime.  A day in would be great, especially when on vacation. If I were back home, this is one of those days that I would stay inside cooking, doing laundry, and likely listening to podcasts in the background.  I was hoping to spend my early afternoon the same way out here in the apartment.  There was a slight hitch though.  The binder instructions for using the washing machine are in English, but the machine itself is not.      After a slight struggle figuring it out using an inventive google app that scans foreign text on a smart phone and translates it for you, it was easier to approach the housekeeper to help out, but even with her “magic touch,” the machine got stuck after she left. About an hour later she was back with her partner armed with buckets of water ready for the morning cleanup and was surprised to see me still in the room with the machine blinking an indecipherable warning code.  I felt it best to leave them to …

You Win Some You Lose Some

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Welcome to my 5 5 5 series. The objective of this exercise is to write five lines five times a week for five weeks, to get me back into a regular post writing habit.  Habits don’t create themselves, after all. The parameters of frequency & amount of sentences/ lines will remain throughout this series, while the topics and format can be varied. Read my introduction here while all of the series entries so far are tagged: Five Five Five.  Wk 2 Post 1 Early this morning after barre class, a gym buddy and I ended up spending an extra hour in the studio having one of those  unexpectedly great conversations that can happen between two semi-strangers. She just went from gym buddy to regular buddy. Late this afternoon I didn’t bother looking in the mirror before leaving for the post office. En route home I saw my reflection in a shop window. I should have bothered.

Today is Her Birthday

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Welcome to my 5, 5, 5 series. The objective of this exercise is to write five lines five times a week for five weeks about anything at all.  Habits don’t create themselves, after all. The frequency & length remains from post to post, but the topics will be varied. Read my introduction here.  Wk 1 Post 2 I was in sheer disbelief when I found out she was gone. When someone you love decides to privately fight an illness for several months & die in absolute secrecy you feel confused. You scramble trying to heal and to piece things together, seeking company to share in the devastation you feel. I remember her dry wit, her Strawberry Shortcake bedspread & our hand written letters when she moved away after college. It’s one thing when your friend is far away, but it’s quite another when she is gone.  

It Started Out Promising

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The day started out promising and though it is only 2:00pm, I am already feeling like the day has swallowed me up logistically.  Had my things to do list all set.  All easy.  All attainable.  And then a phone call from my ticket agent has yet to be returned, a piece of paper with important info has gone missing, my breakfast frittata had some weird oily gunk in it (and I made it myself, go figure!). My in-case-of-emergency-anti-anxiety-flight-meds which I carry as a security blanket and haven’t used in a very long time has expired and I have a trip in a few days… my vitamins this morning made me puke, and I woke up at 3am and didn’t fall back asleep til 5:30 for no good reason. When I DID wake up, I was on my face – pillow case lines, numb hands, bad mood.  Good Morning. Just now I found out that the security installation team for the building locked their box of individual spare apartment access keys in one of the apartments.  Really?  What …

Three Shots Are Better Than One

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There is the ideal recipe for a night or day out with different friends.  Depending on the cooks and what is on the menu, the ingredients are varied.  For example, a giant donut, old jokes and divulging new secrets are necessary for an annual Sleepover Tradition.  Throat chakra exercises, sun salutations under a clear sky, and uninhibited ‘festival girl’ dancing made  A Girls’ Day Inward one worth repeating.  The walk and talk on a brisk evening bring to mind My Favorite Kind of Date. The menu for an evening with Salty Sweet and Dynamo Dish last week had to include our shared passion for cocktails, food and delicious conversation. Our night entailed confessions of our sad dependence on peak hour Uber rides, lively discussions on passionate career pursuits, the importance of House of Cards, and some brow-raising conversation. The kind of conversation between women where the tones are typically as hushed as the laughs are loud. Throwing a surly male server our way subconsciously begging to be won over made the night complete.  His veiled indifference was no …

The Prodigal Pal

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So here’s the thing… Monday on my day off, I had a list of things I wanted and needed to do: 1.  Look into tickets to go visit my mom. 2.  Start planning a fun getaway for my husband’s 40th birthday. 3.  Buy a better pot for our newest indoor tree, Lucas (I hope Bertie likes him). 4.  Plan a menu for the week. 5.  Determine whether or not to attend ALT Summit, SLC. Instead, I ended up chatting with an old friend who you could consider part of the long-lost variety.   Even though we are “friends” on Facebook, we hadn’t spoken in years. It isn’t because we became enemies, we just stopped being friends.  There was not a huge fight that ended the relationship, though there may have been a tense encounter or two at the finish line to ensure the completion of it.  This friend had less time for me and wasn’t afraid to show it, saying, “Nah,” with no alternative suggestions to any of our typical plan making for the weekends became the …

Finding My People

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Today as I was heading home, I had the great fortune of running into Ms. Mint. She is someone I have always liked and known for three years through work, but more recently became friends with after a casual instance of small talk one evening revealed we had an important interest in common.  I mean, is there really any other way to make an instant connection than that?  Since we hadn’t seen each other in several weeks, we caught up as quickly as five minutes would allow this afternoon, and talked about getting together next week before parting ways.  I immediately felt really really happy.  I remembered meeting certain other friends for the first time, and how some needed a definite warming up period before hand, while others were straight up laughter, confetti, and banana splits from day one (mutually felt of course).  It’s that synergy that occurs when we find our ‘people’.  So I dedicate today’s Be Happy blog hop to the power of instant connection. As I am writing, editing and rewriting this …

Taking the time to not be so crazy

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Something occurred to me.  I decided to cut back at work, from full time to heavy part time two years ago, and now from heavy to light part time starting this week.  I can’t explain to you what is meant by heavy part time, if only to say, imagine being in the same place you meant to leave in order to get some head space and to make room for big changes in your life, only to still be there, two years later, not doing your old job at 40 hours, but doing bits and pieces of six other ones instead, with the same emotional and mental intensity that burns out your adrenals 30 hours a week.  Imagine self inflicting guilt on yourself to stay.  Imagine a trusted ivy league educated therapist who has worked with you once a week for three years reflecting back to you your own words describing an unconscious desire to move on from this job… but still staying.  Yeah…. crazy. So this week I am giving myself a break and …

There’s Strength in Numbers

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Wrapping up what was a fulfilling, but tiring week, one thing keeps coming to mind, “There’s Strength in Numbers” I was able to spend some varied quality moments with different friends this week:  Wading in a Japanese hot pool, writing a short catch up international email, walking in cold fog to pick up dinner, braving the twilight glare outside of Starbucks, sneaking in a chance phone call mid morning,  prying a coworker away from her computer for lunch, and taking a pair of screaming toddlers out of a weary teacher’s hands.  All of these separate times with different female peers this week, reminded me how much we can use each other, and how figuratively, and in the case of Teacher K, even literally, you need someone now and then to take your hand too. We’re all pretty independent.  Confident.  Self reliant,  Blah blah blah….  but really, during those blah days, even when you love where you are in your life or are going down the road less travelled by choice, it helps to know you …