Life

So Thankful…Relationships Make Me Stronger

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Time with my girlfriends is what my soul needed this weekend.  I was able to sneak away from Park City to Denver to meet my sister (Hilary) and one of my best friends (Laurian).  It had been about 18 months since our last girls weekend and probably months since I had time for longer than a 5 minute conversation with either of these ladies.  Life just seems to get in the way on a daily basis.  That said, it is amazing that despite this, girlfriends just pick up where we left off.  There is a lot of life to catch up on, but it always feels like it was just yesterday that we did this on a regular basis.

So, after a weekend of food, drink, dance, spa, catching up and as much sleep as we could squeeze in, I head home thankful.

First, thankful for my dear friend and my sister.  These are amazing women who take on life’s daily challenges with confidence.  Time together makes me realize how lucky I am to have kind, strong women around me.  By no means do we have it all figured out, but we get along so well because we aren’t ever scared to try to figure it out.  The other thing I realize when I am with these strong ladies is how infrequently I let my guard down whether on purpose, or by accident.

Second, thankful for my husband and my kids.  All weekend, I got updates from them and they seemed truly happy.  In one conversation with them, Katharine said “we have an action-packed day planned.”  Jon is a remarkable person, husband and father.  He truly went all-in with our kids this weekend to help them have fun and to help me not worry.  It takes so much effort to entertain a feisty 2 and 4 year old for a weekend, and he does it with grace and true care.  The reason I have these wonderful kids is because I found a partner who is truly a partner.

Finally, thankful for this life of mine.  Although it feels sometimes like I am just hanging on for dear life, dear it certainly is.  I often wonder how this all happened.  How did this shy girl from small-town Ohio, who didn’t seem to know what she wanted, get what she wanted?  I still truly don’t have an answer for that, but after a weekend like this I realize that much of it comes from the relationships that I have with amazing people who help create strength.   I am thankful for this strength around me.

Little Miss Magic

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Tonight while putting Katharine to bed she wanted to listen to music.  My phone was in my pocket and I decided this would be a nice relaxing way to spend the next ten minutes despite my dread for “Let It Go”, “Do You Want to be a Snowman” and other Frozen songs I was certain she would select.  Jon is gone traveling and after a long day, even these tunes provide a welcome quiet moment while snuggling one of my favorite little people.

I turned my phone over to her and let her navigate through the music selection to pick what she wants.  These little four-year old fingers are amazingly agile at navigating through the iPhone music selection so I drifted into thought of my day and what else I still needed to do tonight before I could retire to bed myself.  Before I knew it, Little Miss Magic by Jimmy Buffett was playing and Katharine snuggled up tight to sing.

Momentarily, I forgot everything but the journey I have been on with this precious little one.  How her 4 1/2 years of life have helped me to realize how important things like the warm breeze on my not so gentle skin are things not to take for granted.  Katharine kept singing through the whole song, to my amazement, and as the song closed let me know that she picked it because she is daddy’s “Little Miss Magic” and that she knows while he is on his trip that he is thinking of her.

A moment I won’t forget.  Goodnight, Little Miss Magic.

Gaining Perspective

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Does everything need to have a goal, a purpose, a schedule or a way it “should” happen? I would love to say it doesn’t in my life, but it wouldn’t be true.  It seems that in order to accomplish everything that I do these days, everything is scheduled and analyzed. Starting at 6am with a workout through 9pm once two kids are in bed, there is a purpose and schedule for almost every minute of my life.  After 9pm, I try to catch up on everything that didn’t meet the daytime cut which can include chilling with Jon, reading a book, blogging, cleaning up email from work, or just brainless television.  Occasionally, a girls night trumps the evening routine.

This last weekend started with me leaving work at noon on Friday – a rare treat.   Jon and I had scheduled an anniversary two night getaway at the Montage in Deer Valley Friday and Saturday night.  So, I drove up from work and we had a late lunch.  Before departing for Deer Valley, I decided to squeeze in my workout since I had missed it Friday morning.  So, I took off from our house on my mountain bike with a plan and a schedule.  I had to be back within an hour so we could take off for our relaxing weekend.  Mid-trail ride, while I stressed about the pace I was on, and whether I would make it back by our scheduled departure time while getting an adequate workout in, I stopped and took the picture above….and took a deep breath.

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Who was I racing?  Why did I feel like I had a scheduled departure time for our “relaxing” staycation that had no start time?  Why did I feel like if I didn’t ride the trail I set out to ride, I wasn’t getting “enough” exercise?  Wow.  Perspective needed.

It all worked out.  I took a left-turn on my ride, where I was supposed to go straight.  I looked up while I was riding my bike and took in the early fall leaves instead of focusing on my handlebars.  Ultimately, I went “late” to my relaxing anniversary weekend and everything was fine.  My daily reality is that I put undue stress and pressure on myself because I think the only way to accomplish my schedule is through perfection.  Not true.  Releasing the pressure made me enjoy things more.

Tonight I am as relaxed as I have been in a long time.  After living through a weekend with no schedule and a lot of fun, I have realized I need to let go more.  I need to live with less rules, and less expectations of myself.  From here, my challenge is to continue this perspective by trying my best not to have a schedule that makes me lose this perspective.

The Pieces of My Life

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Sometimes I wonder if there is anyone out there who has been a part of all of the pieces of my life….from my Ohio upbringing as a girl trying to find a comfort in her own skin, to my journey to independence in college and beyond, to the girl who found her best friend in Jon, to the professional, to the mom of two living in a mountain town…it has been a good life.  I feel lucky to have had the experiences that I have had as they have shaped who I am today. 

I am hoping that this blog can help to bring together two key pieces of my life:  my life as a marketer and my life as a mom.  Each day that goes by, I realize how these seemingly two different pieces of my life intersect so much more frequently than I had every imagined. 

So, expect stories and information here from these two pieces of my life.  My hope is that something here is helpful to you, or at a minimum that writing it becomes a way for me to bring the pieces together for myself.