July 2013

I don’t know what’s come over me, but I am nesting like tomorrow’s my due date.  Every free moment, I’m organizing, sorting, pulling items for donation, cleaning, and decorating.  It’s weird.  I feel like I’ve been possessed by a strange combination of Young House Love and Mr. Clean.  First of all:  I’m really into farm [...]

Remember how last week, Vacation Mode and Training Mode were waging an epic battle for my time and energy?  Well, this week, I made it work! On Friday morning, I drove five hours to Charlottesville to see my friends Kath and Matt and their son, Mazen, who is a few months younger than Henry. Mazen [...]

Back in 2008, I watched Tri Delta’s Fat Talk Free Week YouTube video and was moved to tears. The message stayed with me for a long, long time, and it helped lay the framework for Operation Beautiful.   The 2008 video   For the past three years, Operation Beautiful has been a big supporter of [...]

National Public Radio is running a contest for the best summer ‘found recipe.’  What’s a found recipe? Well, it’s one that the cook came about in an unusual way.  There are three finalist in the competition: Strawberry Trifle Ensenada Slaw Diane’s Dad’s Sandwich I loved the Strawberry Trifle story, and the Ensenada Slaw story was [...]

I found myself spinning on my indoor trainer until 9:30 PM last night, and then I woke up and did a 6 mile run with Henry before I took him to swim school.  And I’m due to get back on the bike tonight.  Oh my.   My new motto is “STRONGER WITH EVERY WORKOUT” because [...]

It’s a beautiful day out there! Yesterday was Swim + Yoga day.  I did a really fun and challenging swim workout that was created by Coach Marni.  I wanted to share it because it made my time in the pool absolutely fly by!  Here it is: I mentioned yesterday that this is “testing” week for [...]

I confess. After blogging creative(ish) meals everyday for over five years, my ability to be fun in the kitchen has tanked considerately.  Part of this is because I no longer have a really good reason to create an adorable dish, but it’s also because of Henry.  I’m usually wrangling the baby and his meal while [...]

On balancing training and vacation. Last week was a doozy.  Okay – so Week 2 of Half Ironman training was basically a repeat of Week 1 (preparation weeks).  However, we traveled to Philadelphia (by car) on Tuesday night and returned on Saturday, so my plans for an epic workout week got thrown out the car [...]

We’re in Philadelphia!  I spoke at a Women In Cable Telecommunications event at the Comcast building on Thursday, and the entire family ventured up to Pennsylvania with me so we could visit some friends before and after.   Here’s what we’ve been up to!   We left Charlotte on Tuesday night and drove to Durham, [...]

I’ve gotten a lot of e-mails recently about the swim portion of the triathlon.  I used to be so scared of swimming and had a major panic attack during my first triathlon, resulting in me needing lifeguard assistance and my one and only DQ (disqualification).  It took me a handful of races before I was [...]

First week of Half Ironman training! Week 1 of training is an “intro” week so I can get used to the structure of training. Coach Marni says that more experienced triathletes could probably skip this week, but I wanted to complete it.  My plan is 12 weeks long and – trust me – I want [...]

This weekend is Ramblin’ Rose Rock Hill – our third event out of six!  Rock Hill is a small town about 35 minutes south of Charlotte. Since this event is so close to my house, I’m working the triathlon all weekend long.  Today was packet pick up. Ramblin’ Rose is really designed as a beginner’s [...]

My friend Kendra approached me last month about creating an opportunity for us all to be more self-loving.  She said, “I feel like allowing ourselves to share with the world why we are special, unique, beautiful, strong, etc., can start to diminish any bits of self-loathing and hopefully give us permission to love ourselves the [...]