OK, the title “NOTHING Makes You Feel Better than a BODY PUMP™ Workout” may’ve been a tiny bit misleading – because I can actually think of one thing that feels better… But the feeling you have after you’ve lifted weights for an hour in a BODY PUMP™ class and worked all your major muscles is simply incredible. Continue reading
I’ve done more laughing in the past 2 1/2 days that I have in the whole last year. My best old friend (we met 24 years ago) drove from Virginia and has been visiting for three days. She just rode away in her cute convertible with a smile on her face and we both had stomach aches from laughing so hard.
MEK has got the quickest wit and absolutely the best sense of humor. She can truly find something funny out of almost any situation. (And obviously I share her sense of humor, because we once had fun going to a funeral together.) Continue reading
Chances are you could use some stress relief and relaxation.
If you have a partner, you could ask him or her to rub your shoulders, neck, back, feet or other point where your body holds stress. While that’s fine, in my experience it isn’t all that relaxing, because you keep thinking things like, “He’s getting tired,” “He doesn’t want to do this,”or, “Do I have to massage him now?”
Also consider that your partner (99+ percent of the time) isn’t a trained, certified massage therapist, and may have no idea what he or she is doing. Your loved one may expend energy doing nothing useful or may even accidentally hurt you.
Massages are not cheap; that’s a fact of life. But they’re SO worth it if you’ve had a headache for weeks, your shoulders are in a knot or your neck muscles are constantly tensed. I’m super-thrifty, but it’s one of the few things I’m willing to splurge on.
Before comparing prices and pulling out your credit card, call your health insurance company. Some companies pay for therapeutic massages when a chiropractor or doctor certifies a need for them. (Mine did for several years and then stopped. Darn.)
If insurance doesn’t work out, put away $20 a week and ask friends to recommend a great massage therapist. Get a once-a-month massage to treat yourself and enhance your health. The first time you get a satisfying massage and walk away feeling incredibly good, you’ll be hooked!
A lot of people write extended rants on their blogs about products or services that they find to be less than satisfactory. I’ve had my share of those unfortunate experiences, and have been tempted more than once to create an “I Hate XX” blog. When I calmed down I realized doing that would just spin me up again, and decided against it.
For something different — and in a spirit of admiration — let me tell you about some products and services that I truly love. (I am an Amazon affiliate and can receive compensation if you purchase a product from them through a link on this site — but I’d never endorse anything I didn’t think was the best.) Continue reading
I’ve been divorced a long time and have done online dating for about 12 years. Had two great five-year relationships (met them both on match.com), but before and in-between them, online dating seemed like the only viable way to find “the man of my dreams” — since I don’t feel comfortable in bars (and refuse to drink and drive) and I’ve been a single mom since my son turned four.
Over the years, I think I’ve met nearly every strange single man within 50 miles. My married girlfriends always loved to hear my dating stories, so I’ll share a few of them with you here. Continue reading
During certain stages of life, you may look around and realize that the number of girlfriends you hang out with has dwindled over the years. Some moved away, some have lives that are so incredibly busy there’s virtually no time to get together, some may travel constantly and some have significant others that they spent lots of time with. Or you may move to a new town.
Making new friends is fairly easy when you’re a schoolgirl or the mother of a young child (and you’re craving adult companionship as well as play dates for your child). But after that, it gets really hard! Where do you start? Continue reading
I started this personal blog a little more than a month ago primarily for fun, since I write business-related articles at work all day. Figured that deciding what to write on a blog post every day and gathering graphics to go along with it would give me something entertaining to think about and do.
Today (Mon., June 16) I got home from a rather mundane day at work and checked my email to find a message from an editor at BlogHer that read:
“I’ll be featuring your post, http://www.blogher.com/confessions-adult-learning-swim, as a featured member post in the Work/Life and Health topics and on the homepage of BlogHer.com today.
We’ll be promoting your post in various ways, which includes Twitter — we also may discuss it on Facebook and/or placement within the BlogHer network. Follow @BlogHer and like us on Facebook so you can jump in any discussions we may have! Please help us promote this post on your Facebook and Twitter accounts and @BlogHer when you do! We’d love to see you in the comments on your post, as well.
Thanks for publishing such a fantastic post on BlogHer.com. Please let me know if you have any questions.“
My blog post about learning to swim as an adult has been front and center on the home page of BlogHer (an extremely well-known blog site for women bloggers) as a featured post all day today! Is that cool or what?!
Isn’t the idea of taking something no longer wanted and turning it into something new fascinating? It’s kind of like magic.
I’ve been into recycling for about 20 years, but the beauty of the concept was never clearer than the time I took a tour and saw how recycled tires were converted into carpeting for the trunk of a car. Amazing.
And when you buy a package of recycled paper in a store, it looks virtually the same as any other paper. How do they do that?
For years, we had to save and sort newspapers, bottles, cans and other recyclable items and pack them in the the car and drive them to a local recycling station. To make collecting and sorting items easier, my former boyfriend installed several large brackets on the wall in the garage just outside my kitchen door. We put the recycling bins there, and all we had to do was open the kitchen door and toss the items into the proper containers (one for newspapers, one for cans and bottles, and one for other paper).
Later, the county began to pick up recycling and everyone could just deposit containers on the street on recycling day for pickup. The recycling center provided signs that volunteers could put up to remind residents in subdivisions or sections of town “Recycling Day is Monday.” (I’ve stuck the sign in the ground at the entrance/exit of my subdivision every two weeks for about ten years now — and, amazingly, our area has the highest recycling rate in the county! And someone even thanked me the other day when they saw me putting it out, saying they always forgot about it until they saw the sign.)
Now, the county has distributed all-in-one recycling bins that look like garbage cans on wheels. The great thing about them is that you can toss any kind of recyclable item in, without having to sort first. It’s a real timesaver!
Statistics have shown that the recycling rate increases dramatically when citizens are provided with containers like these – and garbage collected decreases significantly.
Regardless how recycling is done where you live, please check it out and consider participating, if you don’t already. It takes only a few minutes, and it’s something everyone can do to help the environment — and feel good about.
Saving money doesn’t have to be hard, and it doesn’t require a major sacrifice. Try some of the following techniques: Continue reading
