Year of Keanu

So this is a very sad time for many of us, but it is also an enraging time for those of us that kinda skip over the sadness straight to the rage. Here's the thing. My whole obsession with Keanu started from watching John Wick - and there's a good reason for that. He's a complete fantasy. In addition to being an incredible action movie with awesome stunts, well choreographed fights you can follow, and a thin plot that apparently every animal lover can get behind, it's really just a story about a guy - just a guy - who is ridiculously overpowered and can take on pretty much anybody in the world. Who DOESN'T want to be that guy? I'm sure there are plenty of pacifists who might not want to be that guy. But I'm not one of them. In theory, I am not a physically aggressive person. I will always want to take the peaceful way out of any problem if it can be taken. But here's the thing. When it comes to the fight, flight, or freeze reaction - I'm very firm

During this time of being stuck inside I have tried to find ways to stay motivated and on task. Clearly, based purely on the fact that I have not been consistent with my weekly blog, I have not been doing a great job of this. However, I am still doing things. At the beginning of this time I was encouraged by a friend of mine to take on a 28 Day Workout challenge. So I did it. And it was awesome. And for the first time in a long time I actually did it pretty much every day (save for maybe 2 workouts that I made up for on the break days). It was quite the accomplishment. But then the isolation continued and so another 28 Day Challenge was born.  I was pretty good at the beginning but the last couple of weeks is when I fell of the bandwagon. The beauty is I'm still working out about 3 times a week, which is what I had tried to create as a habit for myself. And while it might not seem like much, it's a big difference for me. I've never been a gym rat. Phys Ed was fairly con

Last week was hard. Last Tuesday in particular. This time of isolation has been hard on all of us. We've all been grieving something. Our social lives, our jobs in many cases, our sense of 'normalcy' and 'freedom.' When your life is filled with inconvenience from change, it's easy to internalize the impact of that change and those inconveniences while forgetting the bigger context. I used to look at the numbers on the daily and be sad knowing the monumental impact this disease is having all over the world. But it hit close to home when someone I attended high school with posted that their mother had passed from Covid-19. That made it real. Even though I haven't talked with this person in about 20 years, my degree of separation from the detrimental impact of this pandemic was closing in. Then it happened! I got a text saying my Gramma was in the hospital. My Gramma was 95 and has always been a social and lively person. Unfortunately with all the changes,

I like a lot of people have taken this time in isolation to try new things. There's not a whole lot that can be done right now while we are stuck at home, and yet there are still infinite opportunities to create. To create something from nothing. I remember our first week when our kids were sick and we were stuck with just the groceries we had as we weren't allowed to leave at all for fear of spreading what might have been coronavirus. We ran out of bread but our preschooler really wanted sandwiches. My husband decided he was going to finally put the yeast we had in our pantry to use, and made his own fresh bread. It was about a week later that we realized both flour and yeast were two grocery items that were no where to be found on the shelves, because apparently bread making was the quarantine activity of choice. Who knew? Still - the act of creating that one loaf was awesome and inspired a whole lot more experimenting, creation, and developing new skills. I decided to work