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All it Takes is A Clear Head

It’s been a long month.  Longer than expected, and yet, felt like a sprint.  How did it become November?  October was a month filled with busy work, job hunting, and soul searching.

The 22yo left on the first, that seems like eternity.  We haven’t talked much, just enough to keep a conversation going.  I launched our website for my husband and his partners new business.  What an experience, teaching myself Google Ad Words, Google Search, Facebook Ads, Photoshop, and so much more.  Every day has been a lesson, literally, and figuratively.

How fortunate I am to have a tolerant husband. I spend 12 hours a day on the computer, learning, re-learning, researching, trying to do too much at one time. Not appearing organized at all, and yet, feeling quite satisfied with my daily “busy work”.

Focus takes a clear head.  And at the same time, when you’re filling your day with busy work, it seems impossible.  I’m a list person.  I have papers all around me full of lists.  I’ll keep a list until everything on that list is completed. Needless to say, there are a lot of pieces of paper around me.  Keeping a list for the website, the building,  social media, and another for future needs after we open the new business sit by my side day in and day out.

Meditation is the second.  Nothing fancy.  Just 5 minutes sitting still, feeling every breath.  Letting each breath rush in and slowly release – calms me.  Calm.

Put these two together, mix in a little music, and I’ve got a clear head in which I can focus.  (Until of course the dogs need to go out).

A clear head comes in handy when you start to reflect on where you are going next with your career. I love to write.  I relish in a good day of being creative, or even planning on being creative. Hence, I’ll make a list.  I often think that list making actually calms me as much as the meditation.  Writing doesn’t become a process, but a means to the ends.  Satisfaction.  Delivered.  One thing is for certain, the next career move needs to satisfy my creative side.

Looking deep within my creative soul, I have so much I want to do, yet fail to start. Project after project begins and ends on a list.  Scattered about my desk. Is it time? Am I taking on too much at once? Do I not have the drive, the initiative, the “gumption” as my father would have called it? Or, am I simply, afraid to fail.

After all this writing of lists, blogs, social media posts, and content, the month of October brought me to my reality.  I can’t fail unless I start. It’s a new month.  It’s time to start.

What do you use to clear your head?  I’d love to know.

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Almost the end

At about the half-way point I wasn’t sure I could make it.  Could I really keep up with the 30 day cleanse?  Is it feasibly possible not to drink for 30 days? Me “I keep wine in my system for 24 hours” kinda gal? But I made it, and still doing it.  One cheat moment when we went apple picking – had to taste Cider Hill Farm’s new Hard Cider. It was fun, the sugar gave me the worst headache later, but the regret was minimal.

Now, with 6 days left we’re hitting a wall. I’ve created all kinds of recipes, merging one vegan free to the next, searching for taste.  I’ve under-flavored things for the fear of over-flavoring, however, last night’s dinner hit the jackpot! And all because I let a mistake, be a risk I was willing to move forward with.

Planning our meals for the week, kids on the left, mom and dad to the right, I made my list of grocery items to support the next week.  (They had enough of my attempt to get them to eat what we ate).

Off to Trader Joe’s to unlock the mysteries of the vegan life (with a twist, we haven’t gone completely vegan, just dairy and soy free). Scanning each shelf wondering what new foods could I find?  What blend of spices could I mix to create the perfect meal?  I never found it.  Keeping to my list, I made my way home, menu and grocery list in hand. Then it hit me, my spice shelf! What a revelation.  (Sad, but true).

Having grabbed turkey tips and steak tips to make shish kabob I reached into the spice shelf and grabbed the usual suspects to make a nice marinade.  Only, this time I used Grape seed Oil rather than Olive Oil.  Onion Salt, Thyme, Basil, Oregano, and a splash of balsamic vinegar. Opening each bottle of spice, as I always do, I didn’t realize the top to the shaker was off of the thyme, and down it went, flying into the bag of marinade.  Had I ruined it, would my family kill me?

Fearing the worst, however, hoping for the best, I added the meats and went off to take the dogs for a walk while the meat sat in the marinade.  We came home, started the grill, and threw the meats on a low temperature.  Now the veggies.  Reaching into the drawer full of vegetables, I grabbed one red pepper, cherry tomatoes, the mushrooms, and then I found banana peppers.  Why not?

I threw those on the grill, nothing between them and the flame, other than a little cooking spray.  20 minutes later, everything was done, and there I was, a grill master.

The thyme made the turkey taste so much better, the flavor was off the charts.  And the grilled banana peppers, well, they spoke for themselves bringing the greatest combination of flavor anyone could ask for at the dinner table that night.

Lesson learned.  It’s ok to take a risk on something, it just might work in your favor.  But if it doesn’t, try another one, because eventually something will work out. And maybe, just maybe, two risks will work to your benefit.  Happy bellies made happy family, who joined in doing all the clean up and dishes.  Wonder what tonight’s risk will bring?

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30 Days to Healthy Living

You know it’s time to clear your body of toxins when your kitchen has been clean for over a week now.  I’ve cleared my kitchen, cleared my head, now it’s time to clear my system.  I suppose its a result of the end of Summer, new beginnings with Fall approaching, back to school, or even the end of a great year coming to a close.

My husband and I started the 30 Day Challenge to Healthy Living with Arbonne. My best friend did this cleanse over the summer and I was so taken by how much she glowed.  Really glowing.  From her skin to her smile, to her everyday personality, she glowed.  (I also want to note, this is not a paid endorsement, other than the fact that my husband paid for the product!) I wanted that same feeling.  Most of all I wanted it for my family.

So the two of us, my husband and I, started on our Detox, our cleanse, our move to healthy living.  Right now you’re asking me, “but you eat so healthy, how is this different?”  It’s different in the sense that I’m not going to drink any alcohol for 30 days.  That’s the honest truth.  I’m using this cleanse as a vehicle to clear up my insatiable need to have that glass of wine or margarita every night. That’s not how I wanted to define myself.

With Day 1 behind me I start Day 2 with a heavy sigh, knowing I have 29 more days to go.

 

 

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Who is the Boston Sports Woman?

Writing is in my head 99% of the day.  Ideas of stories parade through my brain like kids on a kickball field all arguing over the rules.  I can’t keep it straight so I ignore it.  I push it away.  I peruse the internet to clear my head, only to find another idea pop in and battle all the others.  Sitting in front of the computer, offering all those keys that put words together somehow has haunted me the last couple of years. What was I afraid of? Why can’t I move forward?

For two years I have paid to have this site still going, although it took you nowhere. I was nowhere.  Working, living, breathing, working out, mothering…while all the while still feeling a little empty.  My Instagram feed reminds me everyday that the Boston Sports Woman was around.  But was she?  Who is she now that she had no website? Just another nickname to hide my true identity?  Is that what this has been all along?

It all started with an old colleague who asked me what I was doing after I was laid off during the Great Recession.  Nothing really.  My job search was a joke, and I found myself consumed by blogs.  Health and Fitness blogs caught my eye.  He then asked me to lead a Sports Website written from a woman’s perspective.  So I took on the persona, recruited great bloggers who shared amazing posts about their lives, their interests in fitness, food, sports and family. Uncovering like-minded women who shared passions and wanted to share them with the world.

That was nearly 10 years ago.  I’m still The Boston Sports Woman. But, who is she? What is her mission? What are her guiding principles? I actually never had any idea who she is other than a name. Until today.

Do you ever notice that we’re consumed by statistics to paint a picture of successes and failures?  Failing is good.  Success is great.  But what about the in between? Maintaining.  I’ve been in maintenance mode for the last two years, yet all along, I have been creating this persona, developing her mission, her principles, and finding her path.

I am the Boston Sports Woman.  I am a passionate writer of stories tying my life to sports, making analogies that sometimes only I can understand. My guiding principle is simple – give each story a purpose, share pieces of your life and maintain who you are. Although you may not have been writing those stories down all this time, you were holding them in your head, you just needed the playing field.

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Living a Life that Matters

My HeavenI just came across this poem, and needed to share.

What Will Matter
By Michael Josephson

Ready or not, some day it will all come to an end.
There will be no more sunrises, no days, no hours, or minutes.
All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten will pass on to someone else.
Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevant.
It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed.
Your grudges, resentments, frustrations, and jealousies will finally disappear.
So, too, your hopes, ambitions, plans, and to-do lists will all expire.
The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away.
It won’t matter where you come from, or on what side of the tracks you lived.
It won’t matter whether you are beautiful or brilliant.
Your gender, skin color, ethnicity will be irrelevant.
So, what will matter?
How will the value of your days be measured?
What will matter is not what you bought, but what you built. Not what you got, but what you gave.
What will matter is not your success, but your significance.
What will matter is not what you learned, but what you taught.
What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage and sacrifice that enriched, empowered or encouraged others to emulate your example.
What will matter is not your competence, but your character.
What will matter is not how many people knew you, but how many will feel a lasting loss when you’re gone.
What will matter is not your memories, but the memories of those who loved you.
What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom and for what.
Living a life that matters doesn’t happen by accident. It’s not a matter of circumstance but of choice.

Choose to live a life that matters.

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Take a Shot

There are very few times I’m willing to take a “shot”, and then there are those times when I love to “take a shot”.  Yes, there’s Fireball.  At one time there were Kamikaze’s, limoncello, and pickle shots.  But there is no shot in this world I love to take than the shot.Fireball

I’m talking about taking risks that you really enjoy and bring great pleasure.  Just like that little glass of Fireball, so is every chance you take when you put yourself out on a limb.  This past year proved my ability to take a shot.  I changed jobs from corporate America, and jumped back to the advertising agency world.  Some days it can be trying, and other days, tedious. But most days it brings extreme self-gratification.

Can you honestly say that work brings you self-gratification?  For the first time in my life I’m surrounded by people like me.  We’re people pleasers, honestly we want everyone to like us.  Should something go wrong, we fix it.  Should someone be unhappy, we try everything in our arsenal to make them happy.

But it was this past week that delivered great satisfaction.  I could see it in everyone’s faces.  As though they had all taken that proverbial shot, their faces went from absolute fear to complete pleasure.  This was the week each of us had to stand up in front of all our peers, present the status of each of our clients, answer key questions from the management team, breathe a sigh of relief, then finally sit down and support the next victim.

I watched as each of us faced that 15 minutes of fear.  Climbing out on that limb. Waiting for your turn, running over your notes, your thoughts, and hardly listening to those before you.

In my case, I love to talk in front of a group of people.  Especially my peers.  It’s far more relaxing for me to stand up in front of people than it is to chit-chat with a group of playground mommies gossiping after school.  Seriously.

No nervous stomach.  No butterflies.  Just excitement.  When it was my turn to “take my shot” and it felt good.  First and foremost, I was myself.  A little silly, a little off-color, extremely direct, and most of all, quick.

When it’s your turn to take your shot, be yourself.  No one else can please you more, than you.

 

 

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Banged up List

The last couple of weeks have been physically challenging.  Whether its a shoulder, lower back, hamstring, tooth, you name it, one of us in our workout group has it.  And on top of that, I feel as though I’m falling apart. Now it’s my thumb.  Really? How’s a girl supposed to dead lift with a bad thumb?thumb

My thumb hurts so much my shoulder pain is nothing now.  But it doesn’t stop there.  My head hasn’t been clear, my stomach has been gurgling, and my calf continues to shoot little pangs of tightness from time to time.  Am I truly falling apart?  What have I done differently in the last two weeks to feel this way?

  • Tried to climb a tree and crashed – leg first – fell onto back
  • Carrying a new 23 lb puppy around
  • Emergency room with 20yo
  • Out-patient surgery with 20yo
  • Broken fridge – ate the food anyway
  • Diarrhea for 10 days, and still going strong!
  • Can’t eat anything but the BRAT diet for a week (me eating white bread!)
  • Head-butt
  • 3 Work proposals in 4 days
  • Doctor visit/X-ray
  • Torn ligament in thumb

Well, now that I made a list it provides much more context.  Throw in an angry pre-teen and you’ve got yourself a one-way ticket to lala land.

I could use a day of reckoning.  Just one day to stop. Believe me I attempted to make small adjustments:

  • I tried meditating last week, but I just couldn’t clear my head.
  • I tried relaxing by my friend’s pool, but I went home to do work.
  • I slept in one day until 11:45, but I felt like I wasted the day.
  • I tried not to drink any wine.
  • I tried to drink more wine.

That’s a lot of bullets.  I’m exhausted now just looking at all of them.  And what will tonight bring?

Who knows.

One thing is for sure, the sun’s shining, I have an amazing family, friends, and most of all, life.

 

But, note to self, keep taking your vitamins just in case!

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Sunday Night Dinner

loyaltyfamilyOne summer night I looked around at our group of friends and realized they had become my “family”. Some I have known for several years, some just recently.  We have a common bond that very few can understand.  All that matters is that we understand it, we are dysfunction-ally functional.

Starting with three families of four, one boy and one girl each.  Ages 18 – 6 at the time. We have the “Big Kids” and the “Little Kids”.  They are all “our kids”.  Age doesn’t matter.  Size doesn’t matter.  It’s the laughter and love for one another that’s what’s apparent. I casually mentioned that we should do a dinner every Sunday Night, rotating families to “host”.  This way we all got a chance to check in with one another, not dread our Sundays, but actually look forward to them.

Of course the “little kids” were thrilled, the dads, eh, not so much, the “big kids” didn’t really care, and the moms, well, getting out of cooking every Sunday was a win in its own regard.  What we didn’t realize was that our simple idea became something much greater than a Sunday Night Dinner.

We started to include other “family members” who share in our dysfunction. More big kids. Some sundaynightdinnerbirthday2015nights its a competition of which Mom makes the dinner everyone likes the most.  Can you please the 8 year old? Will he eat your dinner? And some nights we moms have epic fails that we are reminded about week in and week out.  The two 12 year olds make the desserts.  A big kid goes off to college.  College kids come home for Sunday Night Dinner.  Dads work late, moms drink wine.

We’ve been eating dinner on Sunday Nights now for almost two years.  Very few times have we skipped.  When we do, we genuinely feel like we’ve lost something. Like we can’t start our week.  When only a handful of people understand you for you, and accepts you for the way you are, hold on to those people closely.  Cherish them.

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Friday Eve

DeSimone Fitness chicks

We don’t mess around on Tuesday and Thursday.  Tuesday is “leg day” and, well, Thursday, is “Friday Eve”.  Mind you, we get after it pretty good on Thursdays.  I’m definitely sore for at least two days, and we all commiserate at Sunday Night Dinner about the time when we finally felt better over the weekend.  We work in two groups – the younger girls go right before us, and then we “older” girls are the hour after.

DeSimone Fitness chicks

The younger girls started about two months ago. And they love it. What’s great is that my 12yo is learning about proper workout techniques from the best trainer in the area. My trainer.  Joe. Not to be too corny, but he’s no average Joe.  It took me two years of watching the other “older” girls working out before I finally stopped making excuses why I couldn’t work out with them.  Time. Work. Kids. Money.  Where there’s a will there’s a way.  I found the way. In 2015 my New Year’s Resolution was to “not put myself last”.  And on January 2nd, 2015 I started working out two days a week with the “older girls”.

My first day was a disaster.  I nearly passed out during the warm up.  REALLY?  That’s just pathetic.  I blamed it on my sugar level being too low. (Husband corrected me to advise it was the blood flowing, and heart pumping, at a speed greater than stagnant to cause my light-headedness.)  So, if you come across this when you first start to work out, it’s not the exercise, it’s you. Don’t give up. Drink some water, eat better next time, maybe take it a little easier on yourself.  But don’t give up. I think they all took bets on how long I would last.  Believe me, I think of that every time I do a squat, or a sit-up throw, or a bench press.

The beauty in working out with other women, in what I call, a “man’s gym”, is that everyone in there is equal.  Sure, it was intimidating at first to work out in Joe’s gym.  After all, the 20yo had been working with him for nearly 4 years with all his buddies, now it was my turn. We push each other.  We support one another.  We make fun, tease, entice, bad-mouth, fart (yes, fart), laugh, and most of all, love each other for working out together.  We have become one with the gym.

Tuesday – Leg Day.  This is truly my favorite day of the week.  Don’t tell anyone. I love to push myself on squats. If my legs aren’t shaking by the end of the workout, it wasn’t that it wasn’t a good workout, it’s that I didn’t work hard enough.  The only person you cheat on by not doing that full set is you.  For a while I wasn’t able to run.  I didn’t quit, I adjusted, with Joe’s help.  He monitors everything we do.  He knows how each of us lift, squat, etc.  When we look out of sorts, he’ll mention it.  He won’t tell us to stop. He’ll modify your workout or correct you. Until you get it right.

Thursday is, well, yes, Friday-Eve.  Not just in the gym, but all day.  I can’t wait to get in the gym and workout.  I feel like a caged animal in my cubicle. Leaving work by 4 has become a habit so I can get to the gym that much sooner.  As like all preworkouts, we roll.  It feels so incredible, and at the same time, so painful. Self-infliction.  A good kind of pain.  I look forward to the Thursday roll.  My legs get much-needed extra time to loosen up from Tuesday.  On the floor, we all catch up on Tuesday’s workout and what hurts more, who hurts the most, and of course, what we think Joe will throw at us.  60 minutes later, we’re done.

We all thank Joe for our workout. Pay him. And then, we talk about where we’re going to go for dinner.

That’s right.  After workout we all go out to eat, and (drink) to celebrate our week.  We celebrate our win of working out.  We relish in the pain, again. Our families join us when they can.  It becomes a bit of Sunday Night Dinner, without anyone having to host. It’s Friday Eve. And we’ll do it all over again the next week.

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Keep Your Chin Up!

Strike Three!

Strike Three!

“Strike three, your out!” That phrase has so many connotations. Clearly, in baseball, your out, but that’s just one at bat.  In life, it could land you prison for life in some states.  And in friendships, like life, it can mean the time has come to end a long friendship.  But does it really?

Is it that we only have the patience for three? “Good things come in threes.” My mother always told me.  She always took the positive approach. So why is it that we look at three strikes as a negative?  Baseball players adjust for the next time they’re at bat.  Why can’t we do that in life?  Adjust? Look at the positive?

Baseball players who are able to put their last strike out behind them can move on, adjust, and prepare to get that next hit.  Focus. Determination. Concentration.  Apply these things to life and those “strikes” become lessons learned.  A strike in life is not a bad thing, it’s just another point in time in which things didn’t go your way.

Just get ready for your next at bat.  Your next opportunity to adjust.  But always remember, you can always strike out again.