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Friday, August 19, 2011

Best Friend Birthday

Today is Denise's birthday and I celebrate her.  We have been friends for ten years and she has helped shaped who I am as a grown woman and mother.  We met when our daughters were six months old in a "mommy and me" class.  I had signed up with another great friend from my neighborhood and soon we evolved into a group of six or seven moms and kids who rotated play groups from house to house. 

As the years went on, at least four of us moved away- that being the nature of life in LA it seems, but Denise and I were still here and still got together even as I added a second daughter to the mix and Denise's eldest went from middle school to high school (and has now graduated college and is heading for grad school).  Our girls are still friends and we get them together from time to time.  They pick up right where they left off, as kids do, even as they each sprout wings and progress toward who they will become as the years pass.  Denise and I, though, seem to manage to get together despite how busy we both are.  It is important to us to maintain this great bond and it helps to keep us grounded. 

She listens and advises, and has even let me cry on her shoulder when it felt like my world was crashing down around me.  We celebrate each other's victories and curse the defeats.  She walks with me for exercise and slows her pace to match mine when needed.  She is strong in her faith and loyal to the end.  She keeps my confidences and buoys me up when I am sinking.  We laugh together and have grown older together.  We accept each other.

 She is my true friend, and I need her in my life.  I wish her the happiest birthday today and send all my love.  I look forward to celebrating so many more years of her life entwined with mine. 


Saturday, June 11, 2011

Jenny Craig Mention on Twitter

Thanks so much for the double-mention on Twitter @Jenny Craig!  Both yesterday and today, mommybizblog got a Tweet.  I appreciate it.

Friday, June 10, 2011

Weighing In

What is it about women that we measure our milestones by what we weighed at the time?  I know what I weighed when I got married, at the end of my pregnancy, at my heaviest and in college.  I centered my world around that specific goal; how many pounds I gained or lost on the scale and I felt good or bad depending on what it told me.  I look back on my honeymoon photos from 13 years ago and think, "I was fat" knowing that I weighed 14 pounds less than I do right now.  I'm not going to think this way anymore.  I am not "fat", I am getting "fit" and healthy and that is the new description for how I look and feel.  I'm not sure I can say yet that I am "fit", but that is now the goal.  It's nice to put a positive spin on something that I have been a slave to as long as I can remember.

I think many women can relate to this.  Being on Jenny Craig, I do weigh myself  periodically but not daily.  I also do my weekly weigh-in at the center and get measured every four weeks.  How great it was this week to see that 10.5 inches are gone - I wish we had measured my arms and thighs as well as it would have been even more. 

It doesn't help that I love to cook.  We keep mostly healthy foods in our house, but I was eating way too much and would eat without even thinking about it.  Now I know how much I can eat, how much I need to move my body and what my new jeans feel like when I put them on.  I'm hoping to buy the next size down within the month - and then I will be the weight I was at 25 years old.  I remember that one because I was working on the TV show "Picket Fences" and know that I wore a size 10 (but still used the "f" word to describe myself).

I feel good and I actually think about working out and then DO it!  I may not be running marathons, but I do some sort of activity every day, have lost half of the weight that I want to lose and I bought skinny jeans for the first time ever.  I'm still overweight, but I will never be "fat" again.  I am still trying to get in shape, but "fit" is my goal.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Off to the Doc

I trust our pediatrician more than I trust almost anyone else.  She is calm and sure when she explains how well or how sick our child is.  She has never failed me when it came to parenting advice, how to get an active baby back to sleep at night or how to just let go a little when I'm stressing about an illness.

It is very hard to put your child into someone else's hands, especially when they are very young.  As they've gotten older, I've been able to let go a little; still remembering the day I sent them out into the yard to play while I stayed in the house, doors open so I could hear every whimper or cry.  As the years have gone on, I've come to trust our pediatrician more than I ever thought I'd trust anyone with my girls.  Her advice has never failed, her heart is sure and strong and she listens when we talk or answer a question.  Doctors like her are few and far between and I feel so grateful with each visit, knowing that as puberty approaches and boys come into the picture, temptation and peer pressure will be there, but so will our Dr. B.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Love this. Let's all be grateful every day for small miracles.

Small Miracles

Louis CK has a great take on how grateful we should be for everyday miracles.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Small Business Journey

The trip has not come to an end, but things have changed dramatically over the past year.  I still call myself an entrepreneur, even though we were forced to close our small business in October of last year. 

I think I have inherited the spirit of "continuing on" in business from my Dad, who is never without an idea for a new business and/or way to provide.  He started at 13 when he manned a radio station from his bedroom closet in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and never looked back. 

I was a kid in the 70's when huge gas guzzlers lined up around the block for gas, the economy was as bad as it has been these past three years and money was tight.  We never felt it in our house, though I know there were times when my parents were worried about how to pay the bills.  My Dad always had an idea for a new start.

When I was really young, he worked at a radio station in Ocean City as its General Manager.  We had the big red VW van parked out in front of our house each night after he came home and he worked with names I still remember Anne Fitzick, Tony Blum, Ed Rosenfeld, Vinny Dee.   Their names and likenesses forever etched in my mind; the guys with sideburns and bell bottoms and Anne with her big blond hairdo.  Under his watch, the station grew from AM to AM/FM Stereo and also had a small TV studio upstairs.  I can still smell the teletype ink and the smell of actual "carts"  and electricity in the fish bowl radio studio.

My Dad also took advantage of our locale.  When the Miss America pageant was one of the biggest events of the year, he became the local "on the scene" reporter for radio stations all over the country as he interviewed their local state pageant winners throughout Miss America Week leading up to the crowning of Miss America on national TV.  My sister and I would watch with excitement on pageant night to see our Dad with his press credentials sitting along the runway as the girls paraded by.

When I was in 1st grade, my Dad started the local paper in our area.  When I say started, I mean from scratch.  He set up an office nearby, wrote copy, sold ads and built it from the ground up.  I was so incredibly proud the day the "Township Times" first arrived in our school.  It was a free paper with all of the local news and was supported by ad revenue.   Later, he expanded to another seasonal paper called "Le Cap Canadien" which catered to the French Canadian population who came to the Jersey Shore each summer.  The paper was entirely in French and made our visitors feel welcome and appreciated.

The paper was later sold while Dad started his next project, literally from the ground up.  He partnered with some other entrepreneurs and they built a radio station in Cape May County.  It was a thrill to visit "the station" while it was being built and see the progress of my father's dream as the radio tower rose out of the trees on the wooded lot.  I later worked at the station on the night shift and helped with the traffic logs as needed.  My Dad had his own office as General Manager and Owner and he sat in a big leather chair behind a large, dark wood desk. 

Since he sold the station, he has worked for a couple of other companies, still holding true to his radio roots all the way.  And, when he was laid off as he approached retirement age he "continued on" and started a trade association for those in radio who schedule commercials for the stations all across the country and around the world. 

He never strayed far from his radio roots, but always would "continue on" to the next thing and I know it is what keeps him going each day, helps him live his dream and makes me so incredibly proud to be like him in this way.  I don't know yet what my next project will be, but I know that I have a great example to follow and I hope I can do it half as well as he always has.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Learning to Run Again

Learning to run again
I've been resting too long

Ocean waves my metronome
Chasing the scent of the sea

I'm learning to run again
Racing forward to strong

Breathing in and out in waves
Feet pound and fly

I'm learning to run again
Finding a way back to me

Heart races and beats
Breath ragged, lungs filled

I'm learning to run again 
to find where I'm free


Joanne Hall, March 17, 2011