Be Grateful Everyday

I have always been hard on myself. (If you know me well, this will come as no surprise to you.) I have a habit of overthinking essentially everything. Somedays I beat myself up so much, I turn into Eeyore. On the flip side, I am also extremely determined and failure is not an option. (Don’t get me wrong, I have definitely failed at things, but if you know deep in your heart that you gave everything you got is it really a failure?) 

About a year and a half ago, I was feeling down. I felt like nothing was going my way. In reality, it wasn’t that bad. I was just being hard on myself and overthinking things, so it felt much worse than it was. I hated feeling that way and focused on getting out of that slump. 

I started doing something everyday, and before I knew it, I was feeling better, happier. It was simple too. At the end of each day, I was grateful for at least one thing. 

Trust me, it really is that simple. If you are grateful for something every day, you will always have at least one reason to smile every single day. Everyday you’ll have something to be grateful for, something to smile about, and bit by bit that happiness will stick around. 

Don’t overthink it. You can be grateful for the smallest things. Some days, I was just grateful to have ice cream in my freezer. That first year, I decided to post my daily gratitude on Instagram, and I’ve shared a couple of my posts below. 

Here is what I recommend, starting today be grateful for at least one thing. Write it down - in a journal, in the notes on your phone, on your computer, post it on social media, or do what I did - take a photo everyday and state what you’re grateful for - at the end of the year you can use the photos to create a fun, unique one year in photos video. Just make sure before you go to bed each night you are grateful for at least one thing. As time goes on, I promise you will start to feel happier.

“The more you are in a state of gratitude, the more you will attract things to be grateful for.” - Walt Disney

Day 1: One of the things on my bucket list was to take a photo everyday. I want to add to that challenge to be grateful for at least one thing everyday. As someone once told me, it’s impossible to be angry or sad if you’re filled with gratitude. Having spent a lot of time in the car today, I am grateful for Amazon Music because I can’t drive without music because #musicismylife. I am also grateful for Excedrin for saving the day when a migraine knocked me off my game.

Day 44: It was a rainy day in Florida, so I’m grateful for my umbrella keeping me dry while I was on my way to work and singing in the rain. ☔️ 🎶 

Day 72: The face you make when your car won’t start after an open house. Grateful for my parents, my brother, AAA, and the neighbor next door to the open house who all came to my rescue in some form or another today. 🚙 ⭐️

Day 101: The London trip has begun! I’m so grateful to be traveling with some of my best pals!

Day 187: I may have needed to start 2019 double fisting coffee, but I am excited to see what this year has in store for me. I am grateful for #DunkinRewards and the freebie coffee. 

Day 201: I needed to complete a training run today. However, I really didn’t want to go because it was a cold, cloudy, windy day and not my ideal running weather. It was not my best time, but I got out there. I’m grateful for my determination to just do it, for Steve giving me false hope that it “wasn’t that bad” outside, and for Kadi who is training for this #PrincessHalf too and is a great accountability run partner.

Day 241: I am definitely sore after this morning’s race, but I am so grateful to have completed another half marathon. 🏃🏻‍♀️ Now to relax and get some sleep. 😴 #rundisney #princesshalf

Day 286: When you’re feeling less than practically perfect, it’s time to relax with peppermint tea from your #MaryPoppins mug while watching #MaryPoppinsReturns. I’m grateful for Excedrin, chocolate, and some time to rest. There’s nowhere to go but up!

Home Buyer Tips - Getting Started

Let’s face it. Whether you’ve done it 15 times or never at all, buying a home is stressful. It is the biggest purchase of your life, with so many steps in the process, it is daunting and overwhelming. The questions you have about the process are likely endless, and if you try searching for information on the internet, you’re hit with so much information it’s like trying to drink from a firehose. 

As much as you want to research and know everything now, you should start out slow, taking it step by step. If you try to research everything all at once, you’ll find yourself in a deep rabbit hole surrounded by more information than you know what to do with which will lead to information overload. When you’re getting started with your search, avoid falling into the rabbit hole and follow these tips.

Tip #1 - Determine Your Price Range. If you’re paying cash, it’s easy to think, “I have X amount of cash, so this is the price of the house I can afford”. Just be sure to factor in closing costs which typically range from 3%-7% of the purchase price. Most likely though, you will be financing your home, in which case you will want to meet with a lender who will provide a pre-approval and help you determine your price range, down payment (if any), and closing costs. If you don’t know any lenders, great resources for recommendations are friends, family, and real estate agents.

Tip #2 - Where Do You Want to Move? - Take some time to narrow down possible areas. Research the things that are important to you in those areas, i.e. commute to work, schools, night life, nearby shopping, beaches, etc. You also want to be sure the average price of homes in that area are within your price range. If you are able, take some time to drive through them since the internet cannot tell you everything.

Tip #3 - Visit Open Houses - Visit open houses within your chosen areas and your price range. At this point, don’t stress too much about your particular needs and wants for a house, but rather use this time to explore the areas more and get a good idea of what type of homes fit your price range. Take note of square footage, bedrooms, bathrooms, updates, etc. Take this time to talk to real estate agents and ask them a lot of questions about the home and neighborhood.

Tip #4 - Start a Wishlist - Odds are you have already started a wishlist; however, after visiting some open houses take time to reevaluate your wishlist and make sure the things you want fit in your price range. Limit yourself to only five “Must Haves” and have a second list of “Nice to Haves".

Tip #5 - Hire a Real Estate Agent - When you are the Buyer, it costs you nothing to hire a real estate agent. Nothing. The Seller pays your agent. With the biggest purchase of your life, hire an agent to help you through all the steps and reduce your stress. Interview a few agents, and pick the one you like best and understands your needs and wants.

If you follow these tips, you will begin your search on strong footing, and you will be ready to put in an offer as soon as you find the one. Stay tuned in the future for tips during your home search!

As always, have a magical day!

Ditch the Travel Itinerary!

I love to travel. I love exploring and discovering new places, new cultures, new customs. 

In my day to day life, I am a planner. When you work two jobs, it’s hard not to be. With limited free time, I have to be a planner to make the most of each day.

When I travel, I am less planner and more let’s see where the day takes me. Don’t get me wrong, I make some plans, but you also won’t find me traveling with a “Clipboard of Fun”. Sorry, Danny Tanner.

I understand the desire to plan every minute of the day when you’re traveling, especially to some place new. You want to try and see everything. You’re spending a lot of money, and you don’t know when you’ll be back. I have traveled like this in the past. Did I enjoy my trip? Yes, but I usually came back needing a vacation from my vacation. Also, I’d sometimes start my trip exhausted and overwhelmed solely from all the planning. 

The first time I traveled and loosened up my desire to do it all, I enjoyed it, and I didn’t feel bummed that I missed some things. Now, I travel with a loosely planned itinerary. I know where I am sleeping each night, have a list of a few must do’s and things I’d like to do if possible, and maybe some restaurant ideas. I’ll also research ways to get around the area and what to pack. Other than that, I just enjoy, explore, and see where the day takes me.

In all honesty, some of my favorite memories of past trips are the things that weren’t plan. The areas we stumbled upon, the nights spent just having a couple pints at a pub we passed on our way somewhere, sitting around a champagne and pizza bar and being entertained, and just wandering around and taking photos.

In October, I traveled to Scotland, and on our last day in Edinburgh, we ventured over to Dean Village and the Water of Leith Walkway. An area we discovered when looking at Google Maps in the morning. We spent the next hour or so exploring the area, taking photos, and chatting with some locals. It ended up being one of my favorite parts of my vacation, and I got some great photos too.

The views when walking around Edinburgh never ceased to amaze me.

Dean Village was a successful grain milling area for over 800 years

The plants and old buildings throughout the area created stunning views.

Given its history, you are likely to stumble upon an old mill stone while exploring Dean Village.

I couldn't stop myself from taking countless photos showing off the plant life and timeless buildings.

St. Bernard's Well along the Water of Leith Walkway

So, here are my travel tips today:

1. Stop planning every hour, every minute of each day of your trip - some of the best memories cannot be planned, and you'll have time to sit back, relax, and enjoy.

2. Don’t be afraid to just explore - you never know what you may stumble upon.

3. Talk to locals - no one knows the area better than they do.

What are some of your travel tips? What’s one of your favorite vacation memories that happened because you just stumbled upon it? Comment below.

Until next time, have a magical day!

No Gym Membership? No Problem!

It’s the start of a new year and new decade which means many of you came into the year with goals to eat right, exercise, and get healthy. It’s also halfway through the month, which means many of you have probably already dropped the ball on your goals. 

I understand how you are feeling. Eat right, exercise, get healthy. It all sounds simple enough. It’s not easy. If it was, everyone would do it. It can be so overwhelming. My first piece of advice: stop trying to do everything at the same time. When you try to do everything, it’s overwhelming, and after the first setback, you feel like you failed, think “what’s the point?”, and give up. Keep it simple, pick one thing first. Do that one thing for a while and then add in the second thing. The results will follow, and you’ll be motivated to keep going.

Today’s focus is on exercising outside the gym. There are people that love the gym. There are people that tolerate the gym. There are people who hate the gym. I am somewhere between #2 and #3. By no means, do I love the gym though. It’s smelly and stuffy, this time of the year it's crowded, and after running 45 minutes on a treadmill, I’m always a little bit let down that I am still in the same place. For this reason, I cancelled my gym membership years ago and took my workout outside. 

One of the reasons I moved to Florida was to be able to enjoy the outdoors all year round. I know there are people out there who like the cold. I am not one of those people. Although, on those brutally hot summer days of Florida, running outside is not at all appealing - there is still the pool though. 

One of my favorite workout locations is the Dunedin Causeway. It’s nearby, and the views are always amazing. Those ocean views never get old and are way more appealing when compared to staring at a TV above a treadmill every day of the week. It’s a great place to walk, run, or ride a bike. The views, the salty breezes, the people all around - it rarely even feels like working out. 

Another great place to get in a workout is the Fred Marquis Pinellas Trail. The trail covers a distance of 38.2 miles and runs between Tarpon Springs and St. Petersburg. It’s a great place to take your bike, walk, run, or even inline skate. It’ll take you through some great areas such as Downtown Dunedin where you can stop and explore the town after your workout. 

The trail does take you through some urban areas and busier intersections, so proceed with caution. Thankfully towns are continually enhancing those crossings to keep bikers and walkers safe. In September 2019, the City of Dunedin in a cooperative project with FDOT, Forward Pinellas, and Pinellas County added a thermal traffic sensor to the trail crossing on SR-580. The thermal imaging detects pedestrians and automatically activates the flashing lights. This location is one of three in Florida, and if successful, I am sure more will come in the future. 

As you begin your journey to a healthier lifestyle, start by doing what your mom always yelled when you were a kid - Go Outside! Enjoy the fresh air, the views, and more while exercising, and the best part of all? It’s free. No contracts. No monthly payments. 

Here in Florida there are countless places to get outside and workout. What are some the great places near you? Share in the comments!

As always, have a magical day!

Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Elementary School

In retrospect, deciding to start a blog right before the start of the busiest time of the year was probably a bit over ambitious. Clearly, I failed to make the time to create new posts or to even plan ahead and have posts ready to go ahead of time. Lesson learned. Memo to me, future blog post: Time Management Tips. Second memo to me: Learn Time Management Tips.

This holiday season was busier than ever, exhausting, and I crawled my way to the finish line with more bumps and bruises. I survived, though, and that’s all that matters. As usual, it was a fun roller coaster with many ups and downs. However, even those downs had amusing moments because I was so delirious by that point. As stated on an episode of one of my all time favorite TV shows, there were times when I definitely had “gone round the bend”.

As I stumbled my way through life from Thanksgiving through the start of 2020, I could not help but notice a common theme: people seem to have forgotten some of those lessons we all learned as children. Maybe it’s because of the stress of adulting, maybe it’s a result of the increasing dependency on technology, maybe it’s just because we forget things as we get older. Whatever the reason, I thought the start of a new year was a perfect time for a gentle reminder. We are constantly telling our children these things but not practicing them ourselves. Let’s always be the example.

Lesson 1: Put things back where you found them. Don’t just leave it on an empty shelf - especially when you’re in a grocery store. If you change your mind about that chicken you picked up, don’t leave it on a shelf in the cereal aisle - #1 that’s gross; and #2 when an employee finds it, it now needs to be thrown out. Next time just take those extra steps and put it back. Less food is wasted, and you’ll get a little exercise. #WinWin

Lesson 2: Be polite. Say please and thank you. If you walk into a store and an employee greets you, say hello back. Don’t just ignore them because you’re worried they're just trying to sell you something. Be polite.

Lesson 3. Be kind to one another. Always be kind. No one likes a bully.

Lesson 4. Don’t judge a book by it’s cover. Don’t make assumptions about a person based on where they work or their position. The janitor to a CEO all deserve the same amount respect. 

Lesson 5. Don’t throw things at others. Self explanatory. I didn’t think I would need to include this lesson, but it turns out I do.

Lesson 6. Don’t kill the messenger. When you’re unhappy with a policy, remember that the person standing in front of you likely did not write it, but it is their job to follow it. Yelling at a person for something they have no control over is only going to result in one thing: you ruined someone’s day for doing their job.

Lesson 7. Clean up! Clean up! Everybody clean up! Is the item you want hanging at the back and you have to take off five items to get to it? It happens. When you get what you want, hang the others back up. Tried on a jacket? Turn it right side out and hang it back up. Unfolded a shirt to see the image? Fold it back up and put it on the pile. This is not just about being courteous to the employees, but also being courteous to your fellow shoppers. Ever walk into a store and feel overwhelmed by the mess, so you walk out? Clean up, it only takes a moment.

Lesson 8. Pay attention and listen to the person speaking to you. A pet peeve I have had for years is people talking on a cell phone when at the checkout counter. First of all, that’s disrespectful to the person currently assisting you, and second, half the time that person slows down the line because they’re so engrossed in their phone conversation that the cashier has to repeat themselves. It really only takes a couple minutes, put the phone down. You’ll survive. I promise.

Lesson 9. Smile. It’ll cheer you up and brighten someone’s day. See a worker without a smile, don’t call them out on it, smile at them. They could be having a rough day, and your smile will cheer them up.

Lesson 10. Never forget the Golden Rule. Treat others how you would want to be treated. 

Bonus Lesson. Just Dance.

I strive everyday to live by these lessons and be this person. Some days I’m better at it than others. I always try, though. Believe me, if everyone tries, this crazy world we are all living in will shine brighter. 

Let me know your thoughts below. Any lessons you would add? 

Thanks for reading! Make it a great day!

***The thoughts and opinions in this post are only the thoughts and opinions of me. They are not to represent to the thoughts and opinions of anyone who may be associated with me.***