I’ve been thinking a lot lately about life and expectations.
As little kids, we have these fantasies of what we will “be” when we grow up. I, for one, wanted to be a pop singer. (It was short-lived … I am completely tone-deaf).
I never said, “I want to be a PR manager at a digital agency.” (Digital was not even part of our vocabulary then!) Continue reading “Are You Where You “Expected” to Be?”
This is one of the first lessons I’ve learned. Truly, it is. Flexibility is a must when it comes to motherhood.
Unfortunately, “go with the flow” is one euphemism that has never, does not, and will never describe me. Yet it’s something I’m learning every day as a mom.
A planner, a plotter, a ten-steps-ahead thinker … I’ve always handled changes to the plan (be it shopping plans with a friend, a weekend date with my husband, or a work plan gone awry) with discomfort. In my mind, if I set out to do something, it ought to happen. Right?
WRONG. Continue reading “Motherhood 101: Bend like the willow or break like the oak”
1) I do not need to exercise every single day to stay physically fit. Any amount of activity is better than none, and cutting my workouts in half did not change much about my physique … nor did it make me gain an obscene amount of weight. I literally gained what my doctor recommended and nothing more.
Why this matters: As a new mom, especially one who has a C-section, I will be unable to exercise for 6-8 weeks … and even if I can find the time to do it afterward (and I’m hoping I can) it will not be without its challenges. Continue reading “Five Truths I’ve Learned Through Pregnancy to Carry Me Into Motherhood”
I fully admit that I have never watched Jon & Kate Plus 8 … but just from following their fall from grace in the tabloids and in the blogosphere over the past year or so (how could you miss it?!), I feel like she and I are (dare I say it?) soul sisters in a sense.
You see, while our life stories are completely different (and I don’t have 8 children/a reality show/book deals, or make my husband feel like he’s 2 and therefore needs to rebel and hook up with 21-yr old girls to sow his oats…) …
We have similar personality DNA, in that she and I are both Type-A control-freaks with super-high expectations for ourselves and those we surround ourselves with … who needed to be brought down to reality.
And over the past year, while she has navigated a separation and divorce in the public eye, I’ve put my recovery journey out there in the public (albeit a niche public!) eye.
One could argue taboo things like divorce or recovery belong behind closed doors (and full disclosure here–I still question her desire to continue the show with her children while going through her divorce), but I also think there is some truth to transparency being a (surprising) healer. Continue reading “Kate & Me”
It’s not everyday a Hollywood hottie says something that actually resonates with me and is relevant to my blog, but upon Googling my new celeb crush (Ryan Reynolds) I found this awesome quote he said in Men’s Health not too long ago.
Here’s the context from the article, Ryan Reynold’s Purposeful Life:
“Whether he’s talking about inhabiting characters or running races, there’s a theme that arises frequently in Reynolds’s conversations: goals versus expectations. He has plenty of goals, both professional and personal, but as much as he can, he tries to avoid having expectations — simply assuming that something is going to happen without doing the work.”
“When you have expectations, you are setting yourself up for disappointment,” Reynolds says. “I didn’t expect to finish the marathon; I trained to finish it.”
“I didn’t expect to finish the marathon; I trained to finish it.”
How I love that quote, and I’m going to take it a little further. All too often, I feel my expectations (whether worked for or not) are unmet and that I’ve “failed” as a result. Continue reading “Goals vs. Expectations”
Let There Be Light 