Month: October 2018

Its been about five weeks since I have become more active. Every day I am either riding my bicycle or doing yoga. My shoulders are sore from the excessive down dogs and thanks to cycling my calf muscles feel more defined even under my layer of squishy. I should be happy with the progress made but I expected more. A noticeable visible change like looser fitting clothing or an obvious deficit on the scale. I got neither. I weigh exactly the same and my clothing fits about the same most days. At the moment I weigh 147.3 that is what I weighed on September 17. Of course, I keep repeating to myself that it is not about the weight and that I should focus on how I feel. I feel disappointed. The scale I have measured body fat and muscle mass. There should be an obvious change there, right? NOPE. Read more…

At the end of last year, I made this I have been updating it as I go along and now that some goals have been completed I have to make new ones.  Writing down some goals can provide direction and purpose to your decisions and behavior, especially if you feel like your floating along in life.  The most efficient way as stated by both Steven Covey and Jeff Haden is to work backward. Steven Covey called it “Begin with the end in Mind” and Jeff Haden would say “set the goal and forget it.” Both want readers to work backward from the end state. I have even heard Gary Vaynerchuk mention it, “Look at where do you want to be and reverse engineer the process.” This is a paraphrase, he uses more colorful language.  I always ask myself (and clients) the miracle question. What you would you be doing if you didn’t Read more…

Before digital When it comes to photography, I tend to overwhelm myself quite easily. I always had a point and shoot camera around before digital was big. Most of my pictures were of people and places, friends and random strangers. In my attic there are bags of 4×6 pictures that never made it into books. I was gifted a digital camera and was moved into a new world.  Buy all the gear I took a digital class in undergrad and IMMEDIATELY became obsessed. We owned a point and shoot digital that was used for snap shots. After that class I bought my first DSLR. It was a Pentax K10D. I took that super heavy camera everywhere. Then I left it on a plane by mistake. After returning from my study abroad trip, I replace my K10D with a K20D. I tried to learn as much as possible but there was Read more…

Second in the avocation series is yoga. A physical practice that was more necessity than hobby but when I was practicing I wanted nothing else.  Yoga was a game changer for me. Everyone in my life knew if I hadn’t been to the studio. Despite my profession, a yoga practice transformed me into a nicer human. A humble beginner I already told you how I found yoga. You can read that story in a past post. According to my studio account, I started my current “yoga journey” August 2012. I went regularly for about a year before I started purchasing unlimited passes. I continued to go steadily. That lasted until I found out I was pregnant in June of 2015, then I fell off of the map. I went to a pregnancy yoga class for most of my pregnancy. I wasn’t too interested in prenatal yoga. The last time I Read more…

Hobbies keep life interesting and people out of trouble. Try anything that you find remotely interesting. Leisure time is important to your overall well-being.  Leisure activities include physical, social, intellectual, volunteer, and creative, have a positive effect on self-esteem and perceived wellness and increase one’s sense of emotional well-being p.25 Jane E. Meyers & Thomas J. Sweeney. Counseling for Wellness: Theory, Research, and Practice  After trying a lot of things over the years, I have ending up going back to a few time and again: reading, writing, photography, yoga, and cycling. I have a feeling this is going to be long so I will cover it in series. We need things to do that we do not consider work. The process of obtaining an avocation can be fun and necessary for your sanity. You may also find that you are only working in order to enjoy your leisure. If this Read more…

You have found yourself between jobs. Here are some things you could be doing while searching for your next endeavor. Individuals tend to site a lack of time as deciding factor as to why they don’t do a variety of things. Now you have time. Make the most of it.  This is most likely a very stressful time for you. By taking some of these suggestions you can set yourself up to deal with all of the chaos. Exercise Work out. Go for a walk. Move your body! This needs to be done to keep you alive. But just so you know, job loss can lead to depression. Who we are is uniquely tied to what we do. If you don’t do X are you still X? A great way to keep the depression monster off of your back is to exercise. Could be a simple as walking or as Read more…