The Good Life

Jonah and I have been having a lot of good conversations on our drive to the gym in the morning lately, since he’s been out of school and I’m doing my mom-duty of dragging him out of his teenage boy hibernation to contribute something productive to the free world. The last couple, though, have begun with Jonah asking me if I’ve heard about some racially controversial thing some politician said to another politician in a…

    I got the chance to lift with one of our awesomest members yesterday, Becca, during Morgan’s 9:30 class at CFNE. We were given 15 minutes to build up to a heavy 2-rep deadlift. It was great because it was fun, but we were taking the lifts seriously.  We were efficient, but not so fast that we were rushing it.  And, we lifted heavy weights, but didn’t push it so hard that we got…

    I was listening to one of Ben’s podcasts on Chasing Excellence, The Secret To A Good Life, when he got to talking about what his secret is.  Part of his answer had to do with what you’ll be thinking about the life you’ve lived when you’re on your death bed. When you have time to reflect back on your life, will you be proud of and satisfied with the choices you made and what…

        Ben spoke to something in his post-workout speech during his 8:30 class today that is going straight onto my list of things that I cycle through in my head when things get hard, regardless of what the situation is: “I AM STRONGER BECAUSE I HAVE SUFFERED.” I’m not “suffering” from anything at the moment, but this is a good one to tuck in your tool belt for “emergencies”. He talked to…

I will never forget all of the times I was told, “You’ll see.  Someday when you have kids, you’ll understand.  You’ll do the same thing we’re doing.”  Because those words echo in my head every time I spend time with my kids and I am dealing with situations similar to what I remember dealing with my parents on when I was their age. I remember reconnecting with an older college friend after I graduated who…

  At one of the many graduation parties we were lucky enough to be invited to this weekend, I noticed an older couple sitting at a table with a man named Jeff that I had just met that morning.  I had never seen or met the couple before, but it was pretty obvious they were likely the grandparents of the graduate we were there to celebrate. I made my way over just in time to…

If anyone out there has had a senior in high school that is involved in, basically, anything at all, you know what our next week or two looks like. Layer on the standard end-of-the-school year events for 3 additional children and the fact that we’re super social people that, apparently, want to be the frat house for our multiple circles of friends, and you can imagine where we land on the ‘busyness scale’.  Because on…

I was talking with Ben last night about how I’m sort of in this place right now where I can’t imagine being a competitive athlete again anytime soon. This last year or so has been such a different experience for me than the 10 or so leading up to now when competing was one of my top priorities on a daily basis.  Being a wife and mom were definitely still the most important things to…

  I never really dug into quite how cool Jonah’s solar car race the other day, but it was super-duper cool.  And, I’m not just saying that because I’m a 100% biased proud mother having gotten to witness him and his partner win the entire thing…but, I suppose that is a piece of the puzzle that I should include to maintain at least a bottom level of reader trust. What was so cool about the…

  I listened to a great podcast on Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu when he interviewed a Christian pastor, Judah Smith. There were SO many great takeaways for me from this one, but the one that I’ve been thinking about the most had to do with something he said was so unique and special about the way his father impacted him. He said that his father was the sort of person that, upon entering a…