The Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics started last night and I couldn’t think of a better way to commemorate the event than by sharing this amazing video of 1000’s of Kentucky State High School Choir singers singing the American Anthem on the Balcony of the Hyatt Louisville. I only wish I could have seen it in person. As it is, my heart swelled with patriotism and for a few short minutes I forgot about all the bad in the world this week. This is super cool.
In case you missed it earlier this week, I tackled the #SpeakAmerican debacle. If you are in the mood for something less controversial, I gave you the low down on how to make some mommy friends ( because Lord knows, we all need them) and if you want a giggle ( because we all do) I wrote about Old Wives Tales of Pregnancy like wearing red panties during an eclipse to protect your unborn baby or if you are in the mood for a good cry, I wrote this about loss on HuffPo.
Disclosure: This post was sponsored by FiberOne through their partnership with POPSUGAR Select. While I was compensated to write a post about FiberOne Streusel Bars, all opinions are my own.
It’s been a crazy few weeks. The summer was spent busily planning for my sister’s wedding, traveling and meeting deadlines. It was chock-full of some of life’s great things, but sometimes even the best things in life can leave you exhausted and overwhelmed, whether it is planning a wedding, bringing home a new baby or taking your dream vacation. Sometimes, you just have to stop and breathe to fully enjoy everything. A moment of quiet “me” time to regroup and rejuvenate can make the world of difference in the midst of all the chaos.
I wasted this Summer looking forward to the finish line instead of enjoying the moments as they were happening. I had so much to do that instead of just enjoying all the great adventures and life changing milestones, I found myself just trying to get through them. I wanted to survive until the next chance for down time. I think all of us do this from time to time. Life is hectic and it’s hard to fully enjoy the moments when it all begins to feel like a chore.
A week ago, I was counting the days until I got to finally rest. Honestly, it was one day until my sister’s wedding and all of our scheduled plans for the Summer would be complete. After the rehearsal dinner, after all the commotion and stress of the day were washing over us and every one else had gone to bed, my baby sister and I sat there in her living room, lit by twinkling lights, and just talked about nothing in particular. This was one of the best moments of my entire Summer.
Right in the middle of the monsoon of wedding chaos, the biggest day of her life, we just took a moment to sit still and talk about everything and nothing all at the same time. It was the perfect act of combined “me” time. She had been stressing for months with planning and wedding details. I haven’t had the chance to catch my breath all Summer. This shared moment of quiet sisterhood was something we both really needed. Alone time allows me to regroup, but sister time has always allowed me to recharge because I know I have my sister to lean on, to share with and to understand and listen as does she with me. It’s different than “me” time but, for me, it is equally as important.
We sat on that couch beneath the twinkling lights, listening to ‘80s love songs that we used to include on our “sleep tapes” when we were in high school, and reminisced. We got hungry, so we ate strawberry streusel Fiber One® Bars while we sipped on wine and laughed about all the crazy, great times we had and those which are still to come. It was the perfect marriage of the sweet things in life and an unforgettable “we” moment. It was one of those perfect sister moments that mean nothing and everything, all at the same time.
After an hour or so of talking about everything that flew into our minds and out of our souls, we crawled into bed together, like we did when we were children, and talked some more until one of us fell asleep from exhaustion. The last thing I remember hearing as I drifted off to sleep was my little sister’s laugh, as we giddily discussed her wedding day and made plans for our happily ever afters. My heart is still full just thinking about it.
The next morning, I woke her up by serenading her with “Going to the Chapel of Love” by the Shirelles. We both started our day in a great mood and then we grabbed a couple more Strawberry Streusel Fiber One® Bars to take with us on our errands, and even though it was pouring rain out, we were transported back to sitting beneath those twinkle lights and everything was perfect.
Disclosure: This is a compensated campaign in collaboration with National Dairy Council Fuel Up To Play 60 en español and Latina Bloggers Connect.
How can we motivate our children to stay active as the winter months are fast approaching? In the summer it’s easy because who doesn’t love to be outside? We live for spending summer days riding bikes, jumping on trampolines, swimming at the pool, riding the zip line and doing flips in the back yard. But winter is something different entirely.
Once the temperatures start to drop, the outside just doesn’t seem as appealing. In autumn it’s great because you still can go for bike rides, walks and jump in the leaves. You can do everything you would do in the summer months, only more comfortably because the weather is better. I don’t know about you, but my family prefers being active when the air is a little crisper and there are fewer bugs to contend with. What can I say, I have girls and bugs are not our favorite of God’s creatures.
But once it starts snowing and hitting below freezing temps, we all prefer the comfort of the indoors. Truth be told, we like to gather around the fire inside and play board games. I like to think of these as the mental acuity months. December through February, those are the months we like to pump up our brains and give our bodies the winter off, but that’s not really sensible.
I mean, sure snuggling by the fire while sipping on hot coco with your favorite people sounds like the perfect afternoon while the snow is falling all around you, but is it really good for your body? No.
There are certainly things you can do during the cold weather months to keep yourself and your children active. Believe me when spring and summer creep back up on you, you’ll all be glad that you kept the physical momentum of the summer going. Your body will thank you.
That’s where programs like Fuel Up to Play 60 come in. It’s the largest in-school health and wellness program founded by the National Dairy Council and the NFL, in collaboration with the USDA, which empowers today’s youth to lead healthier lives. It encourages all students to live healthier lifestyles through good nutrition and physical activity. Fuel Up to Play 60 knows that one in four children in the U.S. is Latino and they want to ensure that this dynamic and fast‐growing group receives the best tools to help them succeed.
Fuel Up to Play 60 playbook offers several tools for families to make healthy changes in both the way they eat and how they can add activity into their lives liek smarter snacking or joining the 100-mile club. It also provides online resources and hosts events with NFL players to inspire kids. Even better, the recently launched Fuel Up to Play 60 en español extension made possible with the help of PepsiCo.Foundation, now offers Spanish language resources, aimed at getting Hispanic parents and communities involved in health, nutrition and fitness inside and outside of the classroom.The Spanish-language Fuel Up to Play 60 playbook can inspire parents with ways to lead an active lifestyle at home
Here are some other things you can do with your kids to keep you both healthy this fall and winter:
Rake the leaves all into a giant leaf pile and take turns jumping into it. Rake. Repeat. This can go on for hours.
Go to a pumpkin patch/ corn maze and walk all the mazes. Walking a pumpkin patch looking for the perfect pumpkin and exploring the corn mazes can easily and almost unnoticeably eat up 2 hours of activity time.
Once the snow starts coming down is when the real fun begins. Here are a few of our family favorites:
Get dressed in all of your snow gear and head to the neighborhood golf course and tube down the hills. Getting dressed and walking around in 10 pounds of snow gear will burn a lot of calories on its own, but the walking up and down the hills will definitely put a dent in your daily caloric burn.
A family snowball fight or snowman building session will definitely burn some calories while making great memories.
Another great family activity is cross-country skiing throughout the neighborhood or ice-skating.
And if the kids are complaining of being bored, there is always the tried and true, no fail calorie burner…shoveling snow, but I think if given the choice, the kids would much rather build snowmen.
Just because there is snow outside doesn’t mean you need to stay inside and not move. If you are inside, why not try roller skating, indoor swimming or just really fun family game of Just Dance?
The point is that it doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you do something with your children so you’re all around for a long time to keep on making all of those awesome memories. In fact, you can have unforgettable ones by going on a skiing trip to gorgeous resorts like the Tamarck Resort close to McCall.
This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of National Dairy Council and Latina Bloggers Connect. The opinions and text are all mine.
He went on to say that punishment should be on the rapist and not the child.
How about the punishment be on the rapist and NOT on the victim of his rape? How about that Mr. Akin?
‘But I believe deeply in the protection of all life and I do not believe that harming another innocent victim is the right course of action.’
“Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan disagree with Mr. Akin’s statement,” the campaign said. “A Romney-Ryan administration would not oppose abortion in instances of rape.”
You know what I hear? Blah, blah, blah let’s backpedal ourselves away from this one as fast as we can. Are we changing our way of thinking? Hell no! Are we stupid enough to say we support this now? Hell no! We’ll put those bitches in their place after we are elected.
What gives a politician the right to pass judgment and decide when a woman can or cannot get an abortion? It’s legal. We don’t need your fucking permission. Good for you that you don’t openly oppose it but it’s not your business to oppose. I think it’s ridiculous that a bunch of old, fat, white men get the power to determine what all the women of the country get to do with their bodies.
When did it become government’s business to differentiate whether or not a rape is “legitimate” or not? “Forcible” or not? What the fuck does that even mean? Rape is rape, you asshole.
A criminal offense defined in most states as forcible sexual relations with a person against that person’s will.
That means someone had sex with a woman (I know it happens to men too but for the sake of this argument, I am going to refer to the victim as a woman) and she didn’t consent. She could have screamed bloody murder and yelled no as loud as her voice would allow. She could have fought and scratched and gouged his eyes out. Or she could have been on a date with a cute boy that she liked and said no but her date decided to go on any ways. She could be married and told her drunk husband no and he forcibly had sex with her. She could have been at a frat party for the first time, drank too much and been left behind by her friends, passed out and been taken advantage of. Or she could have been with her boyfriend of 5 years and said she didn’t want to have sex and he tied her up and did it anyways. She could have been in her home, minding her own business when an intruder broke in, grabbed her walking up the stairs, walking to the university library or on her way to class and forcibly had sexual relations with her. She could be a little girl who has a perverted uncle. If a man forces a woman to have sex against her will…that is rape.
Rape is not love. Rape is not sex. Rape is not something that she asked for. Rape is not something that she deserves. Rape is a weak person doing an angry thing to hurt an innocent person. I don’t give a shit if she was dancing on tables, walking around with her vagina hanging out of the bottom of her skirt, her breasts exposed and she was flirting with you. If we say no, it means no and if you have sex with us anyways, you have just committed rape.
Apparently, the male politicians in this country have taken it upon themselves to declare war on women’s reproductive rights.
Do they really believe that women can will their bodies to not be pregnant or be pregnant? What are we sorcerers? This isn’t a movie. Take a damn biology class boys. If that were a true statement, then we would not have so many women who desperately want children but can’t have them and we certainly wouldn’t have the multitudes of women who are destroyed by the loss of their babies. But apparently if it’s a “Legitimate” rape our body knows to shut it down. Fuck you Mr. Akin!
I know Romney and Ryan are distancing themselves from Akin but the problem is that his opinion is not the minority in the Republican house. He just happens to be the moron who said it out loud in an interview. The government, democrat and republicans alike, have made it their mission to tell us women what we can and cannot do with our bodies.
Now, they are going so far to try to tell women whether or not the rape they survived was actually rape at all.
Let me tell you what, I don’t even go to a male gynecologist because I believe that unless your legs have been in those cold stirrups and you’ve had the experience of a speculum being shoved uncomfortably into your cervix then you have no idea what that feels like. I don’t care how many damn books you’ve read about giving birth or how many babies you’ve delivered, if you have not pushed a 15-inch head from your uterus through the birth canal and out of your vagina then you don’t know what it feels like. Stop pretending you do. I don’t know what it feels like to be kicked in the balls and I don’t pretend to. I would never pass legislation that required men to suck it up, rub some dirt on it and carry on. Why? Because I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about because I don’t have a penis and balls.
It seems the United States government is making it’s disdain for abortions and those women who get them, for whatever reason, very clear. I am in no way pro-abortion. I could never get one myself, especially since having children but I am pro-choice. Every woman has the right to choose what is best for her and her body. We are not animals. We are not children. We don’t need your advice. We don’t need your punishment and we certainly do not need your permission.
Where does this stop? Today it’s abortions in the case of rape, next they will take D & C’s and D & E’s off the table. These are medically necessary extractions of fetal tissue from women who have lost their pregnancies but what’s to stop some random male politician who isn’t a doctor from deeming it unethical or immoral? Then what happens? Then women start dying in droves because contrary to Akin we can not dictate what our uterus will do with a pregnancy.
Women, this is your call to action. We have to vote to preserve our rights over our own bodies. We deserve the right to choose what happens with our own reproduction. Stand up and vote in November. Get up early before you take the kids to school. Do it while they are there. Do it on your lunch hour. Hire a babysitter. Do whatever you need to but vote because the alternative is to give your reproductive rights over to the Akin’s of the world. To not vote is to allow rape to be quantified.
Rape is Rape
Also, I am guest posting at Scary Mommy today and would love if you would go check out Some Things Change Your Forever. You will understand why women’s reproductive rights are so very close to my heart. Photo
“She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.”
Senator Elizabeth Warren was attempting to read a letter that Coretta Scott King, the widow of Martin Luther King Jr., had written 30 years ago opposing the nomination of Jeff Sessions for a federal judgeship. However, Republicans accused Warren of violating Senate rules against impugning another senator and voted down party line to bar her from participating any further. They wanted Warren to be seen and not heard; to be silent. It was mansplaining at its finest.
Rosa Parks. Harriet Tubman. Angela Davis. Malala Yousafzi. Gloria Steinem. Dorothy Height. Joan Baez. Dolores Huerta. Marian Wright Edelman. Lucretia Mott. Kate Sheppard. Carrie Chapman Catt. Nina Simone. Audra Lorde. Ruby Bridges. Myrlie Evers-Williams. Eleanor Roosevelt. Coretta Scott King. Maya Angelou. Sherly Sandberg. Hillary Clinton. Susan B.Anthony. From the suffragettes to all the grabbing back p*ssies of the 2017 Women’s March on Washington and so man more.
She was warned. Nevertheless, she persisted!
What woman among us has not been warned? I’ve been warned my entire life to be quiet; to stop telling my truth because it would only serve to offend others and get me in trouble. The world likes women to be seen and preferably not speak. I don’t agree. I am more of the, I am woman, hear me roar type. What makes what I have to say less important or more volatile than what a man has to say?
I’ve even been warned by other women to censor myself; to watch what I say because a girl who doesn’t play nice all the time, a strong woman with opinions, might not be a woman that people/companies want to work with. My political outspokenness, my opinions and right to voice them, might make me less desirable to work with.
I thought about it for a minute and while I appreciate my friend’s warning because it’s good to know these things, I can’t be that person who says nothing. I have to speak up for those who can’t.
Yes, I work with big brands and I need to continue to work with these brands to pay for my kids’ private school so that they are not left behind in the inexperienced DeVos era public schools but what kind of example would I be for my daughters, if I rolled over and shut up for money? What would I be teaching them?
I can’t do that. As much as I want to keep working, I can’t be silenced. I must persist. My site might not be huge but my voice counts, every voice counts. We cannot be silenced. It’s not like I’m talking negatively about anyone or anything, I’m simply being pro-woman. I am being pro-immigration. I’m being pro-children, pro-education and pro-human. I’m being pro-American.
I understand that some women keep their views to themselves because maybe they don’t want to be targeted for speaking out against the patriarchy, maybe it makes better business sense for them or maybe their political views are just very private to them. I’m just not one of those women. I don’t believe there is a woman alive who is not pro-woman, some of us are just more vocal about it.
The Future is Female. Without females, there is no future. There is no species. The Big Guy, my husband for those of you who are new here, said back in November, “If women want to send a message loud and clear to the world that they deserve unequivocal equality, you all need to stop being women. Boycott all of your womanly duties and you will make men realize how important, absolutely vital, you are to the world!” He gets me, he really does.
I think he may be on to something. We need to quit. We need to boycott our expectations and rise up. We need to speak our truth and refuse to be silenced. Is it going to be hard? Yes. Will there be ramifications? Yes. But if not now, when? If we don’t do this now, our daughters will be doing it for the rest of their lives. In 100 years, our great, great granddaughters will still be fighting to be seen as equal.
We’ve been warned all throughout history to stay silent or suffer the consequences but if we do not persist now, then when? If history has taught us anything, our silence does not save us it only pacifies the patriarchy. They carry on as usual and so do we; bruised, battered and humiliated under the thumb of a society that values a penis more than a vagina.
We have to stand together now, for our mothers, for our sisters, for ourselves and most importantly, for our daughters. We must show them that…
She was warned, but nevertheless, she persisted.
This is our legacy. This is our battle cry. To hell with warnings. I want to raise my girls to be resilient, strong and tolerant. I want them to know that even when you are warned that what you are doing is hard, you keep going. In the end, I want my girls to know…she persisted.
As you might remember, for about a month and especially the week prior to my first ever BlogHer, I was quite the hot mess mentally. I was overthinking everything. I wasn’t necessarily nervous about going to the conference and being a newbie because I am not a newbie. I have been blogging for over 4 years and I was mostly having some anxiety about whether or not I would live up to what people were expecting. I know it sounds so high schoolish when I say it out loud. It is. High school is exactly what the anticipation of my first BlogHer felt like. Luckily, it was nothing like that.
[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”]This is me, the first night of BlogHer13!
I am lucky because I have the good fortune of knowing a lot of people online and even more fortunate that they extended invitations to me to hang out in person. I will always be forever grateful for Tracy Beckerman for inviting me to a dinner on Wednesday night with a wonderful group of men and women that are not only funny, they are some of the most wickedly down-to-earth, awesomely humble rock stars I have ever met.
I was afraid that even though we’ve “known” one another “forever” online, they were going to take one good look at me and ask “Who the fuck are you?” Surprisingly, they did not. Each one grabbed my neck and hugged my genuinely and pulled back with a knowing smile and instead of feeling like an overwhelmed newbie, I felt like I was at a reunion, returning to my blogging home. I mean these people GET.ME! They.Really.Get.Me and let’s be honest, they know more about me than most people who I see everyday. I don’t give people I know the url to my diary. It doesn’t happen. That set the tone for my entire experience. It only took one hug.
Then my roomie showed up; the phenomenon that is Jenni Chiu; Vlogger Extraordinaire and wickedly awesome wordsmith. She got in late Wednesday night. I was asleep but promptly woke up when she walked in. The first thing I saw was her smiling face (now that I think of it, she was probably laughing because I was most likely snoring like a boss). She hugged me like a long lost sister and we talked into the wee hours of the night. We were instant best friends and it only took one hug.
Sure, there were parties, events, dinners and meetings but it all boiled down to one thing for me; being myself and leaving myself open to getting to know a whole lot of amazing women. Putting faces to voices, seeing the knowing in their eyes, people who know all your secrets and still read you and want to meet you is a beautiful thing.
There were a lot of awesome people and amazing things. I won’t name them all because honestly, I don’t want you to be jealous of all the fucking amazing women I got to spend 5 days in Chicago with. My experience is not your experience and yours is not mine and I am sure you had your own amazing women you spent your 5 days with.
But I did learn a few things:
Don’t over pack! Dear Lord, did I ever. Seriously, you don’t need to take 15 outfits for 5 days. And don’t pack more than 3 pairs of shoes but pack loads of undies because these are some funny people.
Unless you are photography blogger, leave your ginormous DSLR at home.
You do not need your laptop. I am a pen and paper kind of gal.
Bring lots of water.Lots.Of.Water!!!
Take more photos! I got so wrapped up in meeting people that I completely forgot to capture the moment in photos, which is good because they had my full attention but bad because now, I have no photos of their gorgeous faces.
Do not attend everything you are invited to. Honestly, I was triple booked every day all day long. I had to miss a lot. Pick what is a good fit for you and your blog and then focus on a few more intimate gatherings. Believe me the conversations that I had with women in the middle of the night in hallways and lobbies were awesome.
Swag is nice but it is NOT the reason to attend a conference. I prefer hugs and smiles, long conversations with new old friends over anything else.
Don’t drink too much. There were a lot of people trying to summons their liquid courage; it ended with dancing like Elaine from Seinfeld, slurring to complete strangers that you love them and crying in the bathroom. I don’t recommend it. I hear the morning after hangovers were epic.
Go to VOTY! It is the most important part of BlogHer. It is what we are all about; the writing. I hope.
Wear comfortable shoes!!! 5-inch heels have no place on the expo floor. Well, unless you are one of those awesome broads who has no feeling in her feet and can do that sort of thing. I, myself, have a tendency for my feet to mutiny and hyper-extend. Even in wedges, I wake up with punishing Charlie Horses in the middle of the night.
Give feedback! Don’t be a complainer, give BlogHer constructive feedback. For instance, I feel there should be an even more advanced track for bloggers who have been doing this for a long time. I also feel that a couple of my sessions that I really looked forward to, fell flat and were disappointing because the speaker didn’t focus on her topic. That was frustrating after a paid all that money to learn something particular and the speaker failed to share her knowledge in a helpful way.
Don’t be afraid to join the conversation. Say hi! None of us bite. I think by nature most of us are a little bit introverted (we work online from home, we are not the most outgoing people) but I swear, I will hug the shit out of you if you come up to me and tell me it’s nice to meet me, you read me or you follow me. Just ask Nicole.
Embrace the fan girl. We all have one and we all are one, on some level. We write online. For me, I write completely openly and honestly because, in my mind, I am alone on my computer but that actually creates a connection with my readers (your readers) as I found out this past weekend. So when a fan of your work comes up to you and squeals and squees about how great you are…grab that girl and hug her out do.not.give.her.the.blank.stare. If you do, you are the asshole in this scenario, not her.
Take time to make people connections, it is NOT all about the swag, or how many “famous” bloggers you can meet and cross off your list (even though FULL DISCLOSURE, I did go completely FAN.GIRL. on Ree Drummond. It’s embarrassing but I may or may not have completely body checked her when we were going into VOTY. Sorry Ree!)
Be yourself!!! OMG, the best thing said to me at the entire conference was a blogger who told me that I was completely the same person online as I am offline. I hope that was a compliment. Either way, I am taking it as one. Of course, she may think I am a complete asshole online:)
Bottom line is BlogHer is for connecting; faces and voices with blogs was the connection I wanted to make and I did. I tried to see everyone I promised to hug and if I missed you, I am sorry. I honestly, loved meeting each and every one of you, even the woman who said hello, threw a card at us and ran away. Come back! I don’t bite. I might hug you hard and kiss your cheeks but I do not bite.
Thank all of you who I met for making BlogHer an unbelievably amazing experience. I feel renewed in my blogging. I don’t feel like I am alone in a room anymore because I know there are people out there, connecting with me and to my story and they care. All this started from one hug.
What was your greatest take away from BlogHer13 or any blogging conference you have attended?[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
Need some tips for surviving summer camp? I’ve got you covered. Camps are hard on everyone involved. On paper, they look great. You think 2 weeks to a month of kids who aren’t “bored” and it gives parents a nice mental health break. We always seem to forget how hard it really is; emotionally, physically and mentally. That which doesn’t break us makes us stronger, right?
We are in week 2 of ballet camp. It’s not like a regular camp where you swim, ride horses and eat s’mores with your friends in the woods and miss your parents. That would be awesome, right? No, it’s a lot more like boot camp. 8-hours a day of pushing your body to the limit. It’s basically football camp without the pads. No sleeping away, just grouchy parents and kids who have to get up way too early during the summer and are perpetually tired for 14 days.
The girls have blisters, leg cramps and blissful exhaustion to show for it. But they’ve stopped complaining and started embracing the challenges. In fact, I think they are actually starting to feel some pride in the hard work even if they do want to rip their feet off and beat everyone with them. I’m proud of them.
Epsom salt, rest, and repeat. That’s the drill. But when you’re pushing your body that hard, some things are unavoidable. Cramps and exhaustion are coming whether you want it or not. Your body can only be pushed so hard before it gives you the middle finger.
Here are our tips for surviving summer camp
1. High protein Snacks
Snacks help to keep you going when you are working out hard. Our favorites are whole almonds that can be tossed into the mouth during classes. Starkist tear and go tuna pouches because you just tear. Eat. Go. no can opener needed. Each pouch has at least 13+ gm of lean protein and only 110 calories, or less.
It’s perfect for starving ballerinas for lunch or after camp. They can just eat it right out of the pouch but sometimes waiting for dinner is not an option. My girls love the New Tuna Creations Thai Chili Style tuna on a sundried tomato cracker and topped with sliced avocado. It is delicious! And we never get bored because there are so many different flavors. Available in 21 varieties, including 13 deliciously seasoned Tuna & Salmon Creations, tuna & salmon in water or oil, as well as low sodium options.
2. Water and more water
Dehydration is no joke and nothing will make your legs cramp up more than overworking dehydrated legs. The recommended daily amount of water is 64 ounces so when dancing you should strive for at least that amount.
3. Epsom salt baths
Pushing your body hard can cause your muscles to ache and revolt. It’s the price you pay for being awesome. So if you are an athlete, just starting back to working out or a ballerina dancing her toes off, a 20-minute soak in an Epsom salt bath will help tremendously. Bonus points for achy ballerina feet if you use peppermint oil in your Epsom salt bath.
4. Sleep
You know how your mom always told you that you need at least 8-hours of sleep to feel rested. Mom was onto something. When you are working your body out, you need to give it time to heal and replenish. It’s like driving a car. You’ve got to put gas in that baby to get it going. Well, for the human body you need to feed it plenty of good foods and let it rest so it can go hard again the next day. If not, you’ll burn out and won’t be able to meet your goals.
5. Blister Band-Aids
New shoes, old shoes that or too small or just pointe shoes in general if you are going to be dancing for long amounts of time, you need to invest in blister Band-Aids. They are some sort of magical little Band-Aids that are silicon not latex and are very tiny (made just to cover the blister) and helps to speed up the healing process. I used these on my daughter’s toes last week and after one day, she was fine. These would also be great for anyone who has gotten a blister from breaking in new shoes, in general. I wish I had these when I was breaking in all those flats in middle school!
I know these all sound simple and like no brainers but they are still great tips for any athlete this summer; from the soccer field to the pool and even in the dance studio, these tips will help keep your little one (and yourself) upright and healthy so that they can do their best.
What are your best tips for surviving summer camp?
Disclosure: This is a sponsored collaboration with Starkist but all opinions and tips for surviving summer camp are my own.
Talk about your bodyimage being crushed. My daughter thinks I’m ugly. She told me that I’m prettier on the “inside” than I am on the outside. She even qualified it by saying, “Mommy, I’ve lived on the inside, so I should know.” She told me this last week.
I won’t lie; I wasn’t looking particularly pretty on that day. If I remember correctly, I was wearing yoga pants, a tank top and my hair was pulled back in a disheveled ponytail. You know, the same thing I wore yesterday and the day before and probably today. Isn’t that the standard new Mommy uniform? It is in my house. Or maybe I’m just too tired to care lately. It’s been a hectic summer with lots of changes and little sleep.
I’ve been moving and trying not to die. I’ve disappeared off the face of the earth once again. Seems like I’ve been doing that a lot lately. I told you all awhile back that our house sold and that we were closing on a house. It’s all been a cluster, as everything we ever do always is. Long story short, there were foundation issues. So on to the next house. We found another house, made an offer and closed last Friday. We are ecstatic, except for the fact that I have a tradition that I’d love to quit.
This is so sad but true. Just one more verse to what seems like the longest summer and saddest country song ever. I thought “and my dog died” was the end. I mean, isn’t that the punch line? But no, there is more. We do everything the hard way around here, apparently. On the day of closing, I woke up so sick that I, quite seriously, thought I would cry. Mind you, this was after a week of a raging case of the stomach flu.
It felt like I had swallowed razor blades. I had gotten no sleep and the pressure and pain in my head was only second to the unrelenting snot that was blocking every possible air passage that I have. I couldn’t breathe people. Just to add an element of surprise, I began randomly vomiting pure foaming snot. Yes, beautiful visual. Think morning sickness with quadruplets and a tequila hangover. It was not pretty folks. This is not conducive to moving weekend. Did I mention that the last time we moved, I had to do it in the rain, by myself (my husband was out of town) and in the rain? I did.
Moving is hazardous to my health
This time, thank God, I hired long distance movers that will provide professionalmoving services on Friday, but we didn’t close until 6 pm on Friday night and by the time we got the truck (because it was the last truck available in the history of the universe) it was almost 8 pm and pouring rain. The truck had to be back by 9 am. You can guess what happened next? Yes, we moved in the rain (again) into the wee hours of the night.
By this point, I couldn’t breathe and I look like a drowned rat. My eyes were sore; my head was aching. I was sure that I had west Nile, the Ebola virus or the freaking bubonic plague. You all know that I seem to catch the most outrageous diseases; whooping cough, herpangina and scarlet fever…all kids diseases, and I have caught them all as an adult since having children. So, it would be perfectly normal for me to assume that I had caught the plague from one of my carrier children via the elementary school aka cootie central. Damn it.
I just knew I was going to die. There was one point Saturday where I was so dizzy and my fever was so high that I swore I saw Jesus, right there in my living room. I’d assumed he’d come to take me and put me out of my misery. No such luck, it was just the appliance deliveryman. Too bad there was nowhere to deliver the appliances, as the kitchen has to be redone. But they are beautiful and shiny, stainless steel. I just wanted to lie against the appliances to cool down before I had a febrile seizure. But I couldn’t because on Saturday, I had to unload two pallets of wood flooring into the house. Never mind, that I was so sick that I could pass out at any moment and my eyes were rolling back into my head. Who cares if I were hacking and yakking on everything in sight? The house has no flooring right now so that took priority.
Just let me say it, moving is hard
I received no sympathy from anyone while moving, until Sunday when I could barely get mobile. Then I was told to stay home (because home is still my in laws because we couldn’t move into a house with no functioning kitchen or floors with small children) but it was said with the definite look of “you should stay home if you are too much of a pussy to work. No problem, we will all work at YOUR house while you sleep in a plague-induced coma”. So, I did what any self –respecting woman would do, I got up, rubbed some dirt on it and took my daughter to the Nutcracker auditions, then picked up lunch for everyone helping with the moving and worked until I literally couldn’t breathe anymore. So for those who’s thinking of moving to a new house or thinking of an office relocation (kontorflytting Oslo), you should leave the tedious workload of packing and moving to the professionals, if you are having trouble storing your stuff in your new home, learn more about One Stop Self Storage.
Monday, I woke up determined to go to the doctor, the emergency room, anywhere that could prevent my untimely demise. My plan was to go get meds and then sleep until pick up. No such luck. The Big Guy woke up and said he too was sick. I made him go to the doctor. We’re both sick. He has Strep throat (but you’d think he was dying) and I have acute sinusitis with a side of ear infections because I am special. His comment to me on our half-dead ride home, “Man, you really were sick. I don’t feel like moving, just sleeping.”
“Yeah, me too asshole. All three days that I had to move in the rain while trying not to vomit on myself from the snot in my belly and the excruciating pain in my head.”
Next time we move, he’s paying professional movers or doing it himself. It’s too hard on my health. But as soon as these antibiotics kick in, I’m moving into my new old house and finally, after 3 years, we will be a normal family again. The kids are ecstatic.
I just finished binge-watching the new Netflix series, 13 Reasons Why and it was truly thought-provoking and intensely engaging. Without giving too much away because I hate to ruin a great Netflix binge for anyone, it is the perfect watch for teens and early twenty-somethings and anyone who loves them.
13 Reasons Why, in short, is about the things we do (and don’t do) and how it ripples and effects everyone around us. Contrary to how alone or self-centered life may feel, our choices and our actions (or lack thereof) can mean the difference between life or death.
You see, I do not say this as a judgment. I own the fact and freely admit that in my teens and early twenties, I was one of the most narcissistic, egocentric and selfish people I knew. Of course, I didn’t realize it at the time. At the time, I thought I was great. Only in retrospect do I realize how truly self-absorbed I was. I was kind of an a-hole and honestly, I wouldn’t have been my friend.
But that’s the nature of the beast at that age. We all are this way. We don’t realize it. I was a good kid but my entire perspective shifted only around me. In a lot of ways, I was still a child only I was dealing with adult issues. That’s a hard time in life. I try to keep that in mind with my own children.
13 Reasons Why is centered around Hannah Baker, a typical teen girl, who commits suicide.
Based on the best-selling books by Jay Asher, 13 Reasons Whyfollows teenager Clay Jensen as he returns home from school to find a mysterious box with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker—his classmate and crush—who tragically committed suicide two weeks earlier. On tape, Hannah explains that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Will Clay be one of them? If he listens, he’ll find out how he made the list. Through Hannah and Clay’s dual narratives, 13 Reasons Why weaves an intricate and heart-wrenching story of teenage life that will deeply affect viewers.
13 Reasons Why stars Dylan Minnette as Clay Jensen (Goosebumps),Katherine Langford as Hannah Baker, Kate Walsh as Mrs. Baker (Private Practice), Brian D’Arcy James as Mr. Baker (Smash) , Derek Luke as Mr. Porter (Empire), Brandon Flynn as Justin Foley, Justin Prentice as Bryce Walker,Alisha Boe as Jessica Davis, Christian Navarro as Tony Padilla, Miles Heizer as Alex Standall (Parenthood) and Tommy Dorfman as Ryan Shaver.
Everyone left behind is wondering why Hannah killed herself. Her suicide leads to mass speculation because no obvious note was left. But before her death, Hannah recorded seven audio cassettes explaining the 13 reasons why she killed herself; each side of the tape tells a story of how 13 individuals did something or did nothing at all, contributing to her last moment of utter despair and loneliness.
Per Hannah’s last request, the tapes are to be passed on to people until everyone has figured out why she did what she did. By the time the tapes mysteriously appear on Clay’s doorstep, two weeks have passed since Hannah’s suicide.
Clay listens to what is on those tapes to understand why Hannah ended her life but while listening to the tapes, he learns the truth behind what was really happening. He learns that even when you think what you’re doing is insignificant, it could mean everything to someone else. He learns that sometimes culpability is not just about what you did but about what you didn’t do and should have.
Hannah exposes not only her truth but the secrets of her classmates who are, in her mind, responsible for her death. Each tape addresses a specific person who hurt her emotionally and physically. As a result, the students featured on the tapes become afraid for themselves and try to hide their secrets by any means necessary.
I thought 13 Reasons Why was very well-written and addressed a topic that needs to be addressed.
It is a fantastic series for parents to watch to remind us to stay in touch and keep checking in on our children, even when nothing seems wrong and a must-see for teens and anyone in their twenties because it reminds them that they are not alone and we all have these moments in our life.
The thing is that if you are lucky enough to survive, you will see that in the grand scheme of your life, a series of small moments are just that. I know when they are compiling, especially on a young mind, they are heavy and all-consuming. But in 20 years, you will barely remember they ever happened.
I think it’s also a great reminder to all that during moments of personal crisis, we need to be able to have someone to turn to; to talk to so we don’t feel so completely alone. Most importantly, it reminds us that our actions directly affect others, whether we want to believe it or not and when we see something happening that doesn’t sit well with us or that we feel we need to speak up about, we need to do what’s right and not just what’s easy because someone’s life may depend on our one second of courage.
I highly recommend that everyone watch this show and that’s saying a lot as I am a Netflix stream team member and watch a lot of shows.
Have you seen 13 Reasons Why and what are your thoughts?
The thing is that if you are lucky enough to survive, you will see that in the grand scheme of your life, a series of small moments are just that. I know when they are compiling, especially on a young mind, they are heavy and all-consuming. But in 20 years, you will barely remember they ever happened.
