Category Archives: life

#napnapbaby

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I started taking a daily power nap in 2003, the best I can remember. Since I have been working for myself, nap time is always at 2:00 p.m. and it lasts 20 minutes. I set a timer.

Taking this 20 minutes to lay down and close my eyes, is just the pick-up I need to get through the second half of the day at top productivity.

I hear people who say, “I could never only nap for 20 minutes”. “That wouldn’t do me any good, I’d never get to sleep in such a short time.” I’m not sure I really sleep during my nap but I most definitely recharge. I know that if I were to lay down for hours every afternoon, it would ruin my ability to sleep that night and probably also make me feel sluggish for the rest of the day.

But at 2:00 p.m. every day it’s time for #napnapbaby. Even the dog knows what that means and heads for the bedroom. 🙂

A great how-to for power napping can be found here. A quick google search will turn up many articles about why napping each day is good for you.

Even when I worked outside of the home, I was able to fit my power nap into my hour long lunch break. It’s really worth it and I encourage you to give it a try! 🙂

Happy As You Want to Be

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For about six months or so, my friend, Chickee, and I have been talking about how important your words and thoughts are to how you feel each day.

Abraham Lincoln said,

“Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be”

And I believe that. Your mind is pretty powerful and I believe that if you focus on the positive, the outcome will be positive.

I love the following quote. I’ve seen it attributed to Ghandi, Lao Tse and even Margaret Thatcher’s dad. But I’ll go ahead and give it to Ghandi.

destiny

Think about that. Then put it into practice.

Every morning on social media, I see people starting their day with a status or tweet that begins with “Ugh”. Anything else could follow. It’s Monday, I’m getting sick. Why can’t I stay in my nice warm bed. You know what I’m talking about. You’ve seen it, too.

I firmly believe that if you begin your day like that, you are setting yourself up for a day that could have gone better if you’d have just started it with a few different words. Words that are positive.

I challenge you to give it a try. Don’t complain for, say, even a week. Everything time you think or say something negative about yourself or your world, be cognizant and rethink it. I guarantee that at the end of that time, you will be a happier person for your effort. 🙂

Blasphemy!

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Friday night, I looked at my twitter stream and saw:

I LOVE Point Break! I am not a movie person. I would rather read a book any day but Point Break is one of my favorite movies of all time. I even own it.

Point Break has three things in it that I love: Keanu Reeves, Ronald Reagan and my favorite song by RATT.

I hustled into “January in Soldier Field” (what I call our front room where the TV is) and turned VH1 on and watched the rest of the movie that I love.

Later on, Diane told me that a remake of Point Break was in the works. My response to her? “Blasphemy!”

She sent me the link to the article about the remake and said, “I only wish I were kidding.”

So how do you make a movie like Point Break better? Answer: you can’t. It’s awesome as it is. They should leave it alone.

“I know, bra” Diane said.

So how about you? Is there a movie remake you feel this way about?

 

Creative Writing Contest

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If you read my blog yesterday, you will know how much I love the library. The other day, I went to the Tulsa Public Library website and saw this:

Creative Writing ContestI had actually seen the same notice last year but it was too late in January when I saw it and I was too busy. But this year, I still have over half a month to prepare my entry.

I’ve written about my list of 100 Goals. Number 85 on that list is: Enter a creative writing contest.

So…

I am polishing up my entry. It’s the same one I would have entered last year so I already knew what I was going to write.

There are four categories:

  • Short Story
  • Children’s Fiction
  • Informal Essay
  • Poetry

Mine entry will be in the Informal Essay category and I will submit it next time I go to the library.

Judging will take place and then there will be an awards ceremony on April 12. I’m excited to actually enter a contest and to be able to cross number 85 off of my list. If I should get a prize, that will just be the cherry on top. 🙂

Buzzed Walking

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I’m sure if you listen to the radio or watch TV at all you’ve heard the commercials about Buzzed Driving. Well, now I’m going to tell you about buzzed walking.

I’ve been living UP since June 24, 2013. That’s when, after hearing about it from my twitter friend @ginidietrich, I got my own UP band.

livingup

The UP band can record all kinds of things but I mainly use it to record my daily steps and my sleep. I’ve set a goal of 10,000 steps per day and eight hours of sleep. And I’m incredibly fascinated by the sleep data over everything else. I really love it when it shows a larger amount of time in deep sleep over light sleep. I really like it when I reach my goal. But I digress.

sleep

The sleep goal is tough to achieve consistently and I feel like I have more control over the steps. Especially since my UP teammate and friend @sallyray5 introduced me to “house walking”. This is where you do your steps walking in your house. Some days it’s super easy to get in those 10,000 steps but on days when it’s icy or I just haven’t been as active, house walking it is. 

Buzzed walking is an extension of house walking. 🙂

You are able to set your UP band to buzz you (you feel the buzz on your wrist) when you’ve been sedentary for a certain portion of time which you can choose. I have mine set for 30 minutes.

idle

Now, when I’m inactive and am “buzzed”, I proceed to do buzzed walking. I go downstairs, turn on the radio, put four minutes on the kitchen timer and start walking laps around the downstairs. Easy peasy. After I’m done with the walk, I’ll drink a glass of water to add to my eight glasses of water a day goal and go back to what I’m doing.

I really like this easy way of meeting my walking and water goals. If only sleep were as easy although I think I’m close to the answer for that, too! I’ll let you know. 😉

Happy New Year and a Blog Challenge

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Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! I don’t know about you, but I’m really excited for what 2014 will bring to our lives. When I think of how 2013 went, it’s kind of amazing to me.

It was a great year full of love and success and I don’t expect this year to be any less.

Yesterday, I was searching around the internet for a blog challenge. I don’t know if you’re like me, but sometimes a challenge just helps you get where you’re going more easily. I came across the year long blog challenge at Another Girly Blog. But I saw that the entry to be a part of the challenge had closed way earlier in the month.

I emailed Gaby anyway, just on the off chance I could be added to the challenge, and she did reply saying it wouldn’t be fair to add me when the deadline had passed. I get that. As a Libran, fair is super de duper important to me. And it was awesome of her to respond.

Still… my blog has turned into a book review site. That’s not what I intended to do with it but it’s been the easy way out for the past couple of months while we moved and life was busy.

I became a professional reader for Net Galley last year and am pleased to have an outlet to review the terrific books I’ve been reading (and so they’ll approve me to read more!) but I feel like my blog has lost its identity.

Ultimate Blog Challenge

So I found the 31 day Ultimate Blog Challenge and joined it. Realistically, it makes more sense to try a month of steady blogging before jumping into a whole year of daily blogging. So I’m happy with this and my mind has been tossing around different ideas for blog posts for the month.

Excited for the new year, excited to get my blog on track, and I wish you the very BEST 2014! 🙂

C is For Cookie, That’s Good Enough For Me

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Back when we were eight or nine years old and before my Aunt JR had kids of her own, she used to do a Christmas cookie baking extravaganza with my sisters, cousins and me.  She would give us each our own ball of sugar cookie dough and provide all kinds of frosting and sprinkles choices.

cookie

We each got to take home all of the cookies we made. It is one of my favorite childhood memories.

When my kids were small, I attempted to recreate this awesome event with the boys and my niece and nephew. They were 5, 4, 3 and 2 and it was a disaster. My sister and I were pretty close to pulling our hair out and I vowed that I would never, ever do that again. And I didn’t.

But today, I thought it would be really fun to let the Glambaby make cookies. I have a great small batch sugar cookie recipe and I figured it would be just enough for her to have some fun rolling and patting and marking with a B. 🙂

IMG_3045So I told her all the deep dark cookie baking secrets she needed.

wisdomAnd then we got started.

getting started

 And then we cut out some shapes.

cutting

I offered her some dough to eat early on and she said, “No”. Then at some point, she decided that eating the unbaked cookie was a good idea. And David was thrilled because “Rottmayers eat cookie dough”. LOL! 😉

tasting

Yes, Grandpops, I really like the dough. 🙂

like

All in all, we had a great time.

goodtimes

I think that remembering that she is still really little and not putting any great expectations on the activity helped to make it fun for all of us. She did a great job and she totally got the concept of what were were doing. I loved it! 🙂

Over reaction?

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So we’ve been in our new house for around two weeks now. Maybe one. The time always gets warped when David is away.

Anyway, this house has gas. And it terrifies me (maybe you’ll remember my propane blog). I’ve smelled it outside on the back patio every single time I’ve been out there.  I asked David about it and he said it’s normal to smell some gas. Hmmm. Doesnt’ seem safe to me but what do I know?

This morning, as I was trying to find a key that would open the front door (we had 10 keys made, none of them work) I actually smelled gas in the front of the house. So I called the gas company. While I fear sounding like a crazy over reactor, I fear blowing up more.

The lady asked if I had a gas emergency. I told her I wasn’t really sure, that it’s possible I was over reacting. I told her I smelled gas outside and she said I shouldn’t be able to smell any gas. Just what I thought. So she sent a guy out.

I feared I was over reacting and tweeted about it. My twitter friends were supportive.

friends

Before he even crossed the street the gas guy yells, “That is not gas you’re smelling”. Oh great. Something about the street crews, construction smell but he did proceed to check everything out.

When we got around to the back of the house, he told me that there wasn’t any gas that his instruments could tell. I asked him if he could smell it. At this point, I knew he wanted to stuff a sock in my mouth. I could see it in his eyes. He patiently explained he was still testing everything inside and outside of the house. Okay.

When he got finished he told me there was no gas leak. That his super sonic ultra high powered gauge detected no gas and it can detect even the smallest amount.

Perhaps the gas company should rent my nose. 😉

 

Cold Front!

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It has been a long, hot summer here. Granted, it hasn’t been as hot as it can be but it just seems never ending now that we’re in the middle of September and I really don’t want a 96 degree birthday in October.

Yesterday, I believe the cold front arrived. It was cool when we headed out to walk.

sunrise

The clouds looked cool. Sort of like fire.

fire

And I took one of the coolest photos ever of The Price Tower.

Price Tower - Bartlesville

This morning, it’s 54 degrees. It was forecast to be 45 but I’ll take it. The cold front arrived and it’s a little bit cooler. Not quite fall but we’re getting there. 🙂