I am like everyone else right now: the only good thing about the pandemic is not having to figure out my daily outfit as I am pretty much wearing the same thing week after week.
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Every morning I wake early
Busy dreams and nightmares fill my night
The last nine weeks have shown up like an eager child tapping me on the shoulder to get up
If I don’t obey, my mind punishes me
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Eighteen years ago this weekend I became a mother of a girl. Because I have a wonderful relationship with my own mom, I was eager to recreate a similar bond with my little one. It didn’t hurt that I adored large bows, fluffy stuffed animals, and wearing frilly tutus (not that any girl should be told she must enjoy such things).
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When I started blogging I never envisioned that I would be a go-to authority on any health subject. While I love reading, researching, and studying nutrition and fitness, especially as it relates to human behavior, I knew that the world already had its share of health experts that were better educated, more experienced, and smarter than me.
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At one point or another almost every parent has to get creative when it comes to forcing (I mean encouraging) their young child to eat healthy food that isn’t smothered in sugar, salt, or fat. Some parents are crafty at hiding vegetables baked into desserts or blended into tasty smoothies, proudly exclaiming, “Little One couldn’t even taste the kale that I snuck into their brownie.”
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I never fully appreciated spring until I moved to Portland. An abundance of flowers blooming, colorful trees budding, and new growth sprouting up announce to the world that winter is finally over. When I lived in Wales, the daffodils would emerge just in time to celebrate St. David’s Day (March 1st) and where I grew up in Texas, even the brown landscape would turn green around this time of the year.
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For as long as I can remember I have had a fascination with marshmallow Peeps. These marshmallow chicks taste good, but what I am really smitten with is their clever design. The simplicity of their soft shape makes Peeps modern, with a touch of whimsy, like a work of art. The way that they come connected together when you pull them out of their wrapper is genius.
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In every home there is a space where the door remains closed, where no one peaks their head on a tour, and where pictures are not taken. Dear reader, this is my place that very few know - my unfinished basement. Doubling as a laundry room, a storage area, and a home gym, it is not pretty, nor is it decorated, but it is real life.
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Almost one week into Oregon’s stay at home executive order, life as we knew it seems so far away. I’ve quickly adjusted to wearing the same clothes day after day, altering only my lipstick color when I’m on camera with my clients (bright red, dark red, or sparkly red). Some routines in my daily schedule have stayed the same, but many things have changed.
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Yesterday evening at 7:30 p.m. my husband and I drove around downtown Portland. Any other week on a Friday night you would have had to circle the block multiple times in order to find parking, but tonight one could park anywhere. Restaurants dark with chairs turned atop tables, stores closed, buses empty with the exception of a few riders; it was something I have never seen in all of my life.
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Several years ago I accompanied my husband to his co-worker’s child’s birthday party. I don’t recall where this party was located, how old the child was, or what the child even looked like. However, years later I can still vividly remember the birthday cake: a glorious, fluffy, double-layered vanilla cake, filled with raspberry compote and slathered lavishly with thick, sugary whipped cream.
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There are a lot of gyms that I think are ugly. Mine is not one of them. The paint color, the plants, the light; all of this comes together in harmony to create the perfect backdrop to rather boring looking metal equipment. I presume it takes a lot for a workout space to remain beautiful through the many years that she trains.
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This past year I wore more green eye shadow and red lipstick than I ever have before. Most likely I also applied the same amount of face glitter. Hey, I’m still a Texas girl, and life is simply too short not to be bold and sparkle from a distance. When a young teen came up to pay me a compliment about my eyeshadow, I felt I had finally become cool.
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I recently finished listening to Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain which was read aloud by the author himself. This wildly successful memoir was written in 2000 and recounts "twenty-five years of sex, drugs, bad behavior and haute cuisine" in, as he so cleverly pens, “the culinary underbelly.”
Read MoreI found intermittent fasting three years ago. Or maybe it found me. A former colleague who was always one step ahead of me on the experimentation journey recommended it after she lost a good amount of fat from a medical condition that had caused her to gain weight.
Read MoreYour mission should you choose to accept it….
Before I had kids of my own, I had a limited view of teens and fitness. Either I experienced teenagers taking part in school athletics, watched Mark Van Dyke jogging around my hot Texas cul-de-sac in a sweatsuit trying to burn calories, or saw my brother go to the gym every day over summer break transforming himself into an Abercrombie and Fitch lookalike model. Seeing teens workout in organized sports or alone was my only framework. Never did I envision a parent, much less a mother, going to the gym with her teenager to lift weights.
Read MoreI must confess: I am an Anglophile. The mere sight of the Union Jack flag makes me smile. My fondness for all things British caused me to insist that my children call me “mummy” long after moving back to the United States from Cardiff, Wales. (Much to my delight they have never uttered “mommy.”) A large British flag hangs proudly in my house, and when people inquire about my thick Texas drawl, I extraneously mention that I once lived in the U.K. Living in another culture has so heavily influenced my life that I can’t help but let people know that there’s more to this Texas-born Portlander than meets the eye.
Read MoreIt was love at first sight. Or at least I told myself that every time I encountered a new way of eating. This new diet, “backed by science” promised results like none other before. Yes, it had strange restrictions, but maybe this would be the one that would stick. Kind of like that new relationship you desperately want to work out so you ignore all of the red flags.
Read MoreMy two kids went from being toddlers to teenagers overnight. They were the children that were welcomed by name into the “kid’s club” at the gym like celebrities because of their frequent visiting. We were the family who would rush to stand in line hoping they had room so that mom could get her much needed uninterrupted workout time. I might’ve been the person you rolled your eyes at.
Read MoreI’d like to think the above quote embodies most of my life. Rarely, does a day provide me the exact same activities in the same order. I don’t have a designated day or time to clean my house or do my laundry. I am constantly changing up my yard full of plants, moving some here and there, adding others. If you knew me in high school you would know that I never liked wearing the same outfit more than once. Heck, before moving to Portland, my husband and I uprooted our family and moved to the United Kingdom for five years. And if you ask me to watch a movie that I have seen before, I will roll my eyes as I don’t like watching things more than once. Most of my life is full of variety, experiencing new things at every turn. I love it. It is exhilarating.
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