Why I Love Getting Older: 7 Reasons Getting Older is Pretty Great “I can’t die before learning French!” – me, five years ago, in a full-on panic mode, and going through a quarter-life crisis. Despite my panic, I didn’t actually miss being younger. I think that it was the number itself, that freaked me out a bit. More than the number 30, which would seem odd, if it wasn’t for the fact that by 30, I’d learned an important lesson from a very stylish, older gentleman. Whom I’ve never actually talked to. “I am not going to lie; that old man scratching his butt for the past five minutes is kind of distracting.”– I said to my husband while waiting in line with him during one of his regular trips to a completely-out-of-the-way, as in four-towns-over, deli. “Who?”– he turns around as if my gentle whisper wasn’t enough of an implication to not do just that. “Oh, that guy?”- he goes– “Well stop looking then, you perv. He’s here every Saturday. I’m pretty sure he does that every time he tries to remember something.” “Uhh…okay????”– me “Oh, come on now. He’s old. He ran out of fucks to give a […]

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Winter Self-Care Ideas Officially, it might have just begun, but I’m already so over Winter. You know, juuuust a little bit. I was driving home from work the other day and couldn’t help but think to myself “holy shit this looks so beautiful!” The freezing rain from the night before transformed all the trees into these enormous, fairytale-like crystals that sparkled in the Sun. Then I got home, got out my car and thought “holy shit it’s freezing I can’t take this!!” It’s not that I don’t like Winter. I’m probably not alone in saying that I don’t always love cold weather though. Most days are all good, but there are times when being buried underneath all kinds of layers of clothing drives me a little crazy. It’s freezing cold outside, then you walk into a supermarket or a drugstore and it’s like 100 degrees. You walk around and start getting hot, only to walk out in the cold again a few minutes later. If you have dry skin, that’s another thing you need to pay extra attention to. Otherwise, the dry, cold air makes you feel like your skin is yet another layer of clothing. One that kind of […]

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50 Things That Make Me Happy + What Are Yours? It’s no secret that the last two, nearly three years of my life have been tough. I went through difficult, trying times. There were many “firsts” that I experienced during that time- most of which I wish I hadn’t. Being in a “rut” is definitely not as I’d describe it. More like “having the rug pulled from under your feet time and time AND TIME again.” Funny enough, those life-changing (or life-ruining, as I thought about them at the time) moments have a tendency to happen at a point just as everything is falling into place. Then boom. Here’s a giant shit sandwich, I hope you enjoy. Love, the Universe. I kind of gave up on many things during that time. Some of them because I had no choice, others I just had no strength or motivation to go after. All I kept thinking about, was how much I wanted things to go back to “normal” and how badly I wanted to feel (and act) like myself again. The problem is that when you do go through tough times and change, you’re not really the same person you once were. […]

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How to Stop Negative Self-Talk Would you tell one of your friends that they’re “stupid?” “Not good enough?” That it’s “too late” for them to go after their goals? That you “don’t like” their body, nose, skin, fill-in-the-blank? That you “hate” them? (and not in the “omg-I-hate-you-why-would-you-do-this” kind of way, when they do something silly) Well, if you’re a good friend (and I do hope that you are :) ) you wouldn’t say those things to another person, let alone someone you love. But you don’t always have a problem with being unkind or mean to yourself, do you? We say all those things to ourselves without hesitation. The way you talk to yourself can help you stay motivated, driven and inspired. Sometimes, it can be a source of solutions to your problems. It can, however, also be a source of a lot of excessive negativity- that’s when it becomes harmful. I spent years struggling with this and it wasn’t just me telling myself that “I’m so stupid” when I did something… well, stupid. It was a constant, ongoing battle. I would tell myself things that made me doubt myself, things that made me feel bad about myself, things I […]

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Once a very clean and healthy eater, you’ve forgotten what a vegetable tastes like. Your plans to switch jobs, which you were once very excited about, have taken a back seat while you try to tell yourself that “things aren’t that bad” and maybe leaving isn’t such a good idea after all. Or, maybe, it’s been so long since you’ve been to the gym that you totally missed the fact that your favorite (and most convenient) location has been closed for months. Oops. That last one was an actual, real-life example. Slip-ups. Pitfalls. Mess-ups. They happen to all of us, and they happen for many different reasons. Sudden illness, loss, a broken relationship, a big move. Sometimes these things are very short-lived; other times they throw some long-term difficulties our way. Whenever things go sideways and our lives get derailed, we often also lose focus. Our goals or plans for the future all of a sudden don’t seem all that important. Then, as some time goes by, you’re beginning to think about revisiting some of those once–very-important ideas, but somehow, you can’t find your way back. What do you do? Where and how do you start? Is “starting over” even […]

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