Breaking the rules: How social media changed my life

Once upon a time, I made some social-media rules for my young son that I promised I would follow myself. Rule #1: Never arrange to meet someone in person if you only know online. Rule #2) Never become “friends” with someone online if you don’t already know them in person. While cyber-safety common sense suggests that these are important rules to follow, I’ve managed to break them both. To be honest, I’ve broken a lot of rules in my lifetime. Sometimes things worked out okay, other times not so much. But breaking these two social media rules turned out to be among the best decisions I’ve ever made. For my health. For my sanity. For my life.

Paper & Pen Journaling in an App Infused World

I grew up in a paper and pen world, and as an adult I learned to embrace the world of digital writing. My life today is organized by Outlook and iPhone calendars. My to-do lists (and shopping lists and packing lists and loads of other lists) are created and updated in an app that seamlessly syncs to all my various devices. And it practically goes without saying that when I have writing to do, it happens in MS Word. Yet I still take great comfort in the world of paper & pen, at least sometimes. At the start of every workweek I refer to my to-do app, and then proceed to write out the specific list for that week in a notebook. It may not seem logical, or even efficient, but in a professional world that is often defined by chaos, it helps to keep me a bit more in control and accountable.

Celebrating the NSVs: When Losing Weight Isn’t About The Weight

I’ve been trying to lose weight since forever. It is literally a lifelong journey for me. I’ve known success and I’ve known failure. I am currently in success mode, with a slow but steady weight-loss that’s been steady for over a year (25 lbs down from 1 year ago today; 63.4 lbs down from my highest weight a few years ago). I’ve learned a lot along the way. Perhaps the biggest thing I’ve learned is that losing weight is, more often than not, not about the weight at all. Um, really?

Losing weight is as easy as 1-2-3. Sort of.

I’ve been losing weight, slowly and steadily. I’m down about 30 lbs in the past 6 months. Not breaking any weight-loss records, but a healthy loss of 1-2 lbs week.  I’m still fat, but not as fat as I was 6 months ago, and fatter than I’ll be in another 6 months. And here’s the thing – it’s been easy. Really easy. As easy as 1-2-3. Really.

Are you KIDDING me?!

Um, really?

I find myself saying that (or thinking it) way too much of the time. It’s my “clean” way of saying ARE YOU F*CKING KIDDING ME? which I find myself saying (or thinking) even more of the time.