On this very day in 2020

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(copied from Facebook – not my writing)

Just so I NEVER forget….. April 2, 2020
Gas price a mile from home was $1.76
School cancelled – yes cancelled
Self-distancing measures on the rise.
Tape on the floors at grocery stores and others to help distance shoppers (6ft) from each other.
Limited number of people inside stores, therefore, lineups outside the store doors.
Non-essential stores and businesses mandated closed.
Parks, trails, entire cities locked up.
Entire sports seasons cancelled.
Concerts, tours, festivals, entertainment events – cancelled.
Weddings, family celebrations, holiday gatherings – cancelled.
No masses, Churches are closed.
No gatherings of 50 or more, then 20 or more, now 10 or less.
Don’t socialize with anyone outside of your home.
Children’s outdoor play parks are closed.
We are to distance from each other.
Shortage of masks, gowns, gloves for our front-line workers.
Shortage of ventilators for the critically ill.
Panic buying sets in and we have no toilet paper, no disinfecting supplies, no paper towel no laundry soap, no hand sanitizer.
Shelves are bare.
Manufacturers, distilleries and other businesses switch their lines to help make visors, masks, hand sanitizer and PPE.
Government closes the border to all non-essential travel.
Fines are established for breaking the rules.
Stadiums and recreation facilities open up for the overflow of Covid-19 patients.
Press conferences daily from the President.
Daily updates on new cases, recoveries, and deaths.
Government incentives to stay home.
Barely anyone on the roads.
People wearing masks and gloves outside.
Essential service workers are terrified to go to work.
Medical field workers are afraid to go home to their families.
This is the Novel Coronavirus (Covid-19) Pandemic, declared March 11th, 2020.
Why, you ask, do I write this status?
One day it will show up in my memory feed, and it will be a yearly reminder that life is precious and not to take the things we dearly love for granted.
We have so much!
Be thankful.
Be grateful.Be kind to each other – love one another – support everyone.
We are all one!

On my personal development READS

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Not all therapy happens in a therapist’s office…..I have relied on reading for personal development, self-awareness, and reflection during my morning routines for the past 2 years – all leading to what I hope turns into a better version of myself. It’s been amazing and I have learned sometimes a little and sometimes a lot from the books I’ve read. In case you’re wanting to read a bit more this 2020, I’m going to leave one line from what I remember/took away from each book here.

So much enlightenment in one STACK!!!

White Fragility – My own privilege and racism is here whether I like it or not.
The Path Made Clear – So many seasons of life and so many different reflections and guidance needed at each one.
Becoming – Inspired by her boss-ness, independence, and drive.
Blind Spot – Haven’t read it yet but always trying to fill in the blanks of what I might not know about myself and others.
No Fail Meetings – Stop having sucky meetings. The end.
Leadershift – New leadership requires serving, not dragging along behind you.
The 5 Second Rule – Stop waiting….5-4-3-2-1 do it.
Scoot Over and Make Some Room – Everything in my family will be figured out, including how many kiddos come in and out of our doors and hearts, no matter their needs.
The Body Keeps the Score – Trauma IS a diagnosis, IS NOT being treated the way it should be, AND explains so much of our mental health, education, and general system dysfunctions. *If you have been anywhere around me this year, I’m sure I’ve recommended this one….MUST READ trauma mamas and papas and educators and doctors and social workers and therapists, ETC.
The Moment of Lift – Get me around powerful and passionate women and let’s change the world together (inspired one of my 2020 goals to do this)!!
Quantum Wellness – Intentional eating, intentional everything having to do with my body – but it doesn’t take a grandiose plans…..multiple tiny steps creates massive impact.
What Happened to My Child – Opened my eyes and brain to PANS/PANDAS and cemented my love and inspiration I find constantly in my friend Heather, the author.

  • Still inspired by flipping through this!!!
  • Enneagram nerds unite!!!

What other inspirational reads do I need to add to my list?? Let me know in the comments!

On our 2020 snow days

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In my opinion, these snow days were pretty perfect. The snow didn’t last all that long. People could still (for the most part) get out and get to work/appointments as needed. And from what I saw/read on social media, many mamas and families were taking some needed time to SLOW down, breathe and just be together. This reminder of forced “downtime” always reminds me to intentionally schedule it in when not forced by the weather….

Got some family photos in during a nice walk with the sunshine shining!!!

There were a few life habits that I started during Winter break that I was a bit worried about keeping going during the work week and honestly, having some of these snow days really helped me cement in a few things like:
1. drinking 1/2 my body weight in water ounces
2. started a 30-day cleanse
3. moving my body daily for at least 30 minutes
4. more board games/card games with my kiddos/Scott
5. all diffusers running with essential oils to calm our home

Loved seeing the snow contrasted with a few Christmas decorations still up!
My “grand central station” of coziness, reading, and personal development during the snow days (and my daily morning routine).

What about you? Any lessons you learned from snow days that you’re hoping to transfer to real life?

On my 2020 word

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My goal this year is to get one blog post published every 10 days….when I printed last years blog book and it was very thin compared to others, I reignited my passion for documenting our stories, using my creative juices, and journaling more often to capture my thoughts.

Each year, I choose a word to guide my year….last year was value and (when I remembered it), was a good tool for me to assess my choices, my time and energy and people around me and whether they truly did match up with my values.

This year my word is vision – with a new position at work that is still being crafted, some side projects that I’m excited about and my WonderGIRL turning 18 this year….looking at the future, being clear about my goals and wishes, and making tangible steps toward those goals is really important to me.

My other thought in choosing this word is to be very clear and have boundaries around things that might be “blocking” my vision or getting in the way of reaching my goals…..energy draining meetings or people, distraction of social media/Netflix, physical health and energy, just to name a few that pop up right now.

Both Scott and I are loving our Start Today journals, along with my Miracle Morning coloring book and Bob Goff devotional – our days are getting off to a kick ass, take names kind of start in 2020!

Life update….still obsessed with the Enneagram – learning others’ types and diving deeper into what mine says about my motivations and ways of interacting with others is still making me geek out big time. So I apologize in advance, for all the enneagram statements and jokes I will say in your presence in 2020….feel free to let me know your “opting out” at any point this year.

On my new toy

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As some of you know, me and fitness/exercise have somewhat of a complicated history. Because of some history with disordered eating and exercise, I have to be careful with this element of my wellness. What that has looked like in the past couple of years is a complete lack of motivation and any energy around my physical fitness, which has been nagging at me as I strive to be my best self.

While I do keep myself healthy with essential oils and moderation in eating habits, I have only actually sweat from physical activity less than 5 times this entire year (kind of embarrassing to admit as a COACH, but real all the same).

After some research and talking to trusted friends and loved ones that own a Peloton, I decided to save my oil gig paychecks for this beauty to grace our household and help me change this narrative of fitness in my world.

Even though I am posting this in the cloud of New Years’ Resolutions and what not, I am actually 3 weeks in and I am already quite in love and obsessed. The instructors are inspiring, funny, entertaining (makes me forget how hard I’m working). Everyone in my family can use it and enjoy the rides. I also love that I can throw on Netflix and take a scenic ride at the same time, which really appeals to my love of multi-tasking.

The Peloton company and app of course have everything dialed in as far as keeping you accountable and giving people with a competitive edge (me, enneagram 3 in full force here) goals, achievements and personal records to go after.

A lot of people have messaged me and asked how I like it so far and if you have any specific questions, just message me and I’d love to answer them. I really haven’t heard one negative thing about it (besides some not using it enough for whatever reasons….) from people that have had theirs much longer than me.

And of course, I have a referral code for $100 in free accessories if you’re interested in saving a bit of money when ready to jump to the dark side!!!

I am ready to take on some major fitness goals in 2020 (major, as in, break a sweat more than 5 times in a calendar year) with this tool….and will hopefully document that journey here when I can!!!

Team HB 2019 annual review

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This morning, our little crew took a trip to our local coffee shop to reflect together on our year and make big plans for 2020! We called it our annual review business meeting and even snagged the important meeting room to make it official.

For Scott and I, we reflected on this blog post to determine how far we made it on our goals. Turns out, we still have a lot of items still to check off and make more of so we’ll be continuing these efforts into 2020 (and maybe beyond that depending on the goal):

(From blog post)
“Some missing pieces that we’d like to change next year:
– being more intentional with how we’re showing love to our children (love languages, quality time, etc.)
– accept where they’re at
– commit to a trip together without kiddos
– attend a personal development conference together
– more transparency about mental health struggles in hopes that stigma goes down in families around us
– host more things at our house….we love our space and want more people in it with us!!!”

I also downloaded an awesome packet for both wonders from Big Life Journal and had them work on it together. The prompts and questions were easy for them to navigate while still digging deeper than a surface level conversation starter like “how was your year”? Plus it’s 25% off through Thursday the 2nd if you’re interested in doing this activity with your kiddos also!! Once they are finished, I will share some of their thoughts and writing to check back on later this year.

A little coloring action to highlight my 2019 word – VALUE.

My one little word this year was VALUE – although it didn’t resonate with me big time, when I took the time to reflect on the word and compare my daily actions or behaviors it really helped me stick to boundaries and priorities in my life. Read more about my 2019 word HERE. I can confidently say that my values of connection and growth were lived out on the daily in my life both personally and professionally this year – even when that connection or growth felt HARD and HEAVY.

We decided as a team this morning to keep checking in on these goals by having a “business meeting” each month to bring up our goals and reflect on our growth towards them. This is where having older kiddos has been so great for me – teaching goal-setting, growth mindset, and self-care to two kiddos who will NEED those things big time in their adult lives (plus how it helps the hubby and I right along with them).

Holiday highlights 2019

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3/4 of our big celebrations are complete – some favorite photos and few words to capture the memories.

WB and I trying to recreate my Aunts famous Chex mix.

Santa takes care of adults too.

My 17 turned 40 year old wanted knee high black heels and a high office chair.

Boy and screens.

Organizing her pile for the 28th time.

Red and green cheese plate while we played games on Christmas Day.

On a sustainable holiday…

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I love the act of buying (mostly online) gifts for people but really DONT love the crazy amount of packaging and waste that comes from that process. And then the whole wrapping piece – even more waste!!! Also, I love wrapping so this has always been a tension to manage for me during the holiday.

A few years ago I decided to do something about this – saving up my huge calendar pages and using them as wrapping was just what I needed to start feeling better about this process and making it slightly more sustainable than it was before.

Way back when I worked at a local scrapbook store, one of my regular series classes was on using recycle bits to create beautiful mini-books full of thoughts and memories. This was my favorite class to teach and even though I don’t scrapbook anymore, creating mini books out of our Christmas cards each year still gets me excited to use scraps from our recycle bin in the process.

Pictured above is last years book full of cards and photos from our loved ones. We know have 6 books and wow I love watching families grow and change!!

What do you do to inspire and encourage sustainable habits during the holidays????

December already?!?!

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Oh my goodness this Fall season always seems to get away from me. Between volleyball and back to school and general life craziness, my commitment to blogging always goes away. But I do miss the posting and the chance to write out my thoughts so here’s the usual re-up in December of pictures and random musings by yours truly.

  • My one solid contribution – the cheese platter.
  • Aren’t they adorable????
  • Apple cup fun!
  • Some blazing rounds of Dutch Blitz – we are a tad competitive.

Thanksgiving was a great weekend where I got to see all of my brothers and spend a little down time watching football and eating lots of good food. I am beyond grateful for this crew in their flexibility this year…..they all dropped much of their schedule to help us with WonderGIRL’s spinal fusion surgery down at Children’s Hospital in Seattle and when that got delayed, we flipped the plans up to Ferndale without a hitch.

Now onto December and the holidays!!! In all honesty, I started decorating two weeks ago in anticipation of the surgery delaying things and I’m so glad I did. The cozy factor is in full effect in our house and I (and the cats) love it!

The cutest tree corner I ever did see.
WB found our tree this year!
Kitties approve.

We are still anxiously awaiting a phone call from Children’s to reschedule WG’s big surgery…..please send along prayers and good thoughts as she battles the constant anxiety and dread of when it will happen. It’s been a long time coming so the wait for the date (ha! new tagline) is a wee bit painful. Thank you to all of you who have reached out to check on her…..stay tuned for more details soon!

On our 2019 #szn

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Excerpt from Instagram:

I said it at the beginning of our season and it was every bit of truth at the finish – this group of players and seniors were SO ready for their moment to shine and show off their skills, their heart and their joy for this sport this season. A season filled with adversity, young and veteran players figuring out new roles and new traditions, and a LOT Of hard earned success. To top it off with two huge wins on Saturday in front of one of the biggest state crowds I can remember is a moment they and I will treasure forever. So grateful to be their coach and so very blessed with an amazing coaching staff by my side. ??? #ferndalevolleyball #fifthplace #noexcuses #saidalittle #didalot #flyinggeese @ Ferndale, Washington