Staying Between the Lines

“Someone will love you, someone will love you, someone will love you. But someone isn’t me.”

I’m teaching my child not to accept mistreatment. She is loved and joyful. First time, shame on you. Second time, shame on me. How difficult is it really to acknowledge another’s feelings? Perhaps acknowledging your own was the problem. For those who claim communication is the most important part of any relationship, you really suck at it! Well…more the giving end than the receiving end. But then again, you suck so what did I expect.

You’re enough.

If only people would communicate their intentions. Or be honest when there’s no expectations. Did you think I wouldn’t notice? Surely there’s a fancy list of all my indiscretions again. Remember? Nothing is ever your fault.

So you just stop, like that? Seemed so easy. No work, no cares, no…nothing. Silence can be unbearably loud. But I couldn’t hold it together, keep going on like it didn’t hurt. Blessed numbness. Whatever you’re searching for yet haven’t found – I hope the best. I still care. Let’s make it about you. Because it always has been.

Kel, life will continue without you. So don’t let it. You are strong and capable.

OY3, out.

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I ask you –

Cryptic or no?

How’s your self-talk game going? Great, why thank you for asking!

Tell me about your day!

Wk 3, HM Training

Outside run early in the week = small mistake 🥵

What Matters Most / Prioritizing

Making Priorities

Faith/Family

Forgiveness. Redemption. Grace. Kindness. Among many others, these are words that mean much to me. Being responsible for a family unit is quite a burden to bear which is why I believe the next few points are incredibly important. Responsibility weighs heavily on the shoulders of those who choose to accept the load. (and sometimes there’s no choice)

It has been said that ‘the two greatest days of your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why’. God created you with a purpose in mind (2 Corinthians 5:5). Indeed there are big plans for me.

Sleep

My body has an internal alarm clock prompting me to go to bed at 8:30pm. Every. Single. Night. Like my dad, I’ve always been a morning person. It has served me well! 9 hours is my optimal, pre-programmed amount of sleep necessary for a fully functioning day. I’m a light sleeper and have little trouble falling asleep, but find difficulty in staying asleep.

This may sound like I put way too much priority on knowing about my own sleep patterns. However, recognizing the importance of sleep and how it affects your body is something I think many take for granted. Sleep – or lack thereof – is attributed to weight, outlook on life, stress, and disease. When we sleep, our bodies recuperate from innumerable daily encounters with germs, people, and events, as well as prepare us for days ahead. Personally I think consistent sleep schedules are one of the most important ways to set up children for success.

Running

As I’ve probably mentioned before, streaking is such a confidence booster. Even when it’s only 1 mile a day, the proof is tangible. Typically I notice a difference 2 weeks into it – I’m lighter on my feet, stamina is high, and the urge to keep running is overwhelming. Although I despise treadmill running, the routine (aka priority) of running at lunch (aka runch) is much needed. My lunch hour at work is nearly sacred. Soon enough, you can find me back on the roads near the office happily making the rounds.

It’s important mini sees me doing what I love. Running helps in many ways: decreases anxiety, increases the feel-good hormones, and recharges my people’ing batteries. We all need an outlet, if you will. Mine is found inside a pair of running shoes.

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I ask you –

How many hours of sleep do you average nightly?

What is your outlet?

Share a priority I may have missed here!

Wk 2, HM Training

Is this the…Tipping Point?

Podcast debut! The Modern Idiot (affectionately acronym’ed TMI) graciously invited me as a guest onto their pod. What a fun night! Spoiler alert: one half of the dynamic duo who hosts this podcast was a US Navy classmate. We have history, you could say.

In the same weekend, an old article I wrote for a different blog, Pregnant and Perfect, was reposted by a surgeon in Beverly Hills, California. This may not sound like a celebratory moment for anyone else, but the fact it’s still relevant information is astounding. When I mentioned this article to my sister, even she said she didn’t remember anyone using or sharing info on maternity belts when she was pregnant with her children, 16 and 14 years ago, respectively. Don’t ask me how I they’re so old. I don’t know. Granted it may not help with all pregnancy-related issues, but my personal belief is using a maternity belt regularly during the workday and when I expected to be on my feet for prolonged periods of time was key to a lack of stretch marks and ligament pain during my own pregnancy because it lifted my belly up and back which helps with posture and pain. Much like a girdle, it’s not sexy by any means but it gets the job done!

“It was not the perspective of the painting that had been wrong all these years, it was the perspective of the people looking at it.” I fully realize this post is behind in the publishing process because the above events happened nearly a month ago. For those that don’t know, I make it a practice to wait a few weeks to post, if possible, to protect mine and my family’s privacy. And it helps me to disconnect. So I waited on this post for one reason: I needed to step back in order to not get consumed with doing too much at once. Granted, it took me how many weeks to get a merchandise page going (nearly 2 years of weeks). But anyway…

About the painting? I don’t know. I don’t paint. I can barely walk and chew gum. You get the idea.

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I ask you –

Have you listened to my podcast episode yet? Your thoughts?

Do you paint? Draw? Chew gum?

Other bloggers: tell me how much time typically passes between writing and publishing your posts.

How to Vacation and Why People Suck at it

Alternative title option: How to try to vacation and why most people generally suck at it. But, I once read something about how concise titles draw more attention.

Briefly I considered the 1,000+ emails that were surely awaiting me upon return from my beach vacation. So I drowned out the thought with ice cream sandwiches and the like.

Circa 2020, when I took a similar beach vacation, I fielded no less than 4 phone calls and did some “telework”. I’d like to think it was because my job really needed me, but it was probably more like I didn’t set any boundaries. Lesson learned.

This year I ensured work was where I left it, approximately 12 hours away. With the instructions: don’t call me, I’ll call you. And I never called. If my coworker can go away for 2 weeks and leave incompetent me to hold down the fort, then she definitely doesn’t need me to help her. As my sister chatted away on another work call, I rolled my eyes and packed for another day oceanside.

(I’m only sort of sorry these posts sometimes seem out of order because I jump around a lot.) I write like I talk – with many ideas swirling around at once. You should see what I deal with at work. Geez.

Anyway…people suck. I mean…suck at vacationing, getting away, unplugging, being around people. I love to fly. Because airplane mode is expected. Turning my phone off was my favorite part of being out to sea. And the battery lasts forever when only used as an alarm clock! Occasionally we’d get computer access to check email but optimal hours were midnight to 2am so choices had to be made. Sleep / no sleep.

Focus, Kel. How many cups of coffee have I had today? I can’t remember. Must be the lack of blood in my sugar stream. We found the cutest coffee shop, Cafe Karma, on the island. Apparently they got the memo for a book nook meets ice cream shop meets coffee house. And the chai tea latte was amazing! Good thing my small, local town also has a great coffee shop. And they’re super inexpensive!

Really, I don’t know “how” to vacation; I just wing it. Eat all the food, drink all the drinks, and avoid any work-related thoughts. It can be tough to step away, but we all need time and space to recharge.

Next time, I’m leaving my phone at home.

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I ask you –

Do you think you know how to unplug?

On average, how much coffee do you drink daily?

Name one coffee shop requirement (not coffee)!

Day in Photos, pt 8

While I bask in the post-vacation glow and sort through approximately 1.2 million photos and baskets of laundry, pleas feel free to live vicariously through the phone photos I took prior to vacation. When I was sick and on death’s door.

We played lots of games.

We painted for about 3 mins.

We took fancy photos. Would totally be ok with my head being cut off here.

Credit: Instagram

And somehow we survived nearly 2 weeks of sinus everything. But we made it!

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I ask you –

What’s your favorite childhood game?

Have you been feeling under the weather, too?

I Love Lucy is iconic. That’s all.

24 hrs Post-Island Life

Something about run streaking is so much fun to me. Maybe it’s the confidence builder qualities or the satisfaction of having a daily goal? Maybe all of it. I feel accomplished! Running is a huge leap of faith for me. Day 1 is tough – getting restarted, developing a habit, and believing somehow I’ll go from a nearly 12 min/mile to a 9:30 min/mile. This body is pretty amazing.

Photo credit: my sister

After my unscheduled running hiatus – thanks a lot – I’d only missed three weeks of the Garmin 10k training plan. So I’ve put it back on rotation and decided to start an August streak…which means I will (at the time of this posting) be running and “training” at the same time.

Granted it’s only a 10k but if you’ll recall there are hills in there. Cringe. Then I remembered the new DoD guidance concerning indoor mask wear and it’s still summer in Texas. Double cringe. You’d think after the super high humidity I’d be acclimated by now…alas, my trusty home treadmill is always available until it begins to cool down.

I did loosely plan to run while on the island. Instead I drank. And swam daily. Vacation, after all. Watched some Olympics, too, so that definitely counts as inspiration! Then I ate more fish, dessert, and attempted to sleep in. Damn internal alarm clock.

Back to work, I guess. And by work I really mean eating donuts with my office peoples.

dead battery = watch still on

Before I forget, I have a watch rave. The Garmin Forerunner battery life could be the best in its class: 8 days without charging. When I got home, it showed 0% but the watch face was still on. Check out my full review here.

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I ask you –

Am I the only one who keeps getting confused when I see Tokyo 2020? What year is this? Oh yeahhhhh.

How often do you take a vacation? Yearly? I would prefer quarterly!

Time to dust off my running shoes again!

It’s My Anniversaries!

Credit: Patrick Tomasso via unsplash

Part 1 – Blog

Bloggiversary! 2 whole years of twice weekly, often times random, definitely funny blog posts. I’d like to thank you all. Seriously. Thank you for following, commenting, liking, sharing, and encouraging me.

And, on that note, with everyone’s advice considered, I will soon be moving past the IG handle “mindbodyshameless”. If I had to guess, she’s who I am when I write in italics. She’s the fun one! But this small change is necessary to keep growing and I’m looking forward to the next 2, 5, 10 years of sharing everything with you all here.

Credit: Finn via unsplash

Part 2 – Therapy

I’ve been in a happy relationship with my therapist/counselor/muse/life coach for 2 wild years! It took a very long time, but I’m no longer afraid to disclose I work with an amazing person who has opened my eyes and mind to the poor state of my mental health. Thank you!

What a world we live in when we can’t (or don’t) feel comfortable enough to share something is wrong. I don’t have it together; I doubt I ever will. But I’m the strongest, most capable me I’ve ever been. She’s amazing, if I do say so myself.

Keeping it short and sweet this week due to vacationing! Hopefully – surely? – I can come back with more interesting topics to discuss, as well as a renewed mind. Hope you all are having a great day!

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I ask you –

For other bloggers, how long have you been doing this?

Do you think society is embracing counselor culture more so now than before?

Tell me about a previous or upcoming vacation!

Buckets of Lists!

(pt 2 of my bucket series)

I could have my very own Cool Runnings experience. Check it out!

Always wanted to learn how to curl. Curling is like shuffleboard meets bowling. Since I’m not too bad at bowling and shuffleboard is fun, too, then I think I’d be a natural. Who knows. Maybe I missed my Olympic calling!

Volleyball season is….errrr, was…upon us; specifically, mud volleyball. In true Texas fashion. But I kind of got my feelings hurt when I went to sign up and the lady I’ve been communicating with for over a year suddenly forgot who I was and told me if a team was looking for a player, she’d call me. Rather dismissively. I was supposed to be her teammate. Sigh. What can you do? Spectatorship is my new position.

Winner, winner!

Spoiler alert…I killed the first game. The second game killed me. Way to be humble, Kel. I also golfed a few days prior to the bowling excursion! It did not go well at all. And the bugs kept attacking us. I don’t like bugs. The good news is I didn’t break any clubs, windows, or body parts. Never mind that one time my golf ball hit the golf cart. Minor.

Then I found myself at a change of command ceremony humming “Anchors Aweigh”. Whoopsies! What do you mean the Air Force doesn’t sing Anchors Aweigh?! Couldn’t have been as bad as everyone looking at each other, lips moving, no sound coming forth. Pretty sure they didn’t know the words. Calamity of errors!

Weirdly, I haven’t heard one Navy song yet on this base. Troubling. And where’s the reveille tunes? What about Sailors in their dress whites? You know, the little things. P.S. while you’re reading this, I am on vacation enjoying the sun and sounds of the ocean. Scheduling programs really are lifesavers!

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I ask you –

Have you seen the movie Cool Runnings? If not, why not?

Have you been bowling lately?

Tell me your favorite winter sport! Drinking coffee haHA