Things I Learned This Weekend

August 24, 2015August 24, 2015 / ktbuchs87

Good Monday morning my friends! I hope that you had a great weekend and are ready for this week. I don’t know where you are in the world right now, but the weather here in Chicago today is AMAZING!! Fall is definitely in the air and while I am still clinging to my last few days of summer, I am just about ready for my absolute favorite season. And the food that comes with it. Mmmmm food….

Moving on. This past weekend was my sister’s bachelorette party and despite some less than favorable circumstances, I think that everyone had a fairly good time. I’m not a great party planner, and as the MOH I’ve put together her shower and this party. I was really worried that I would throw the worst shower and bachelorette party ever and Jodie would fire me as her sister and MOH. I promise I’m not dramatic at all. But with the help of my mom, sister, and tons of other people, both parties have gone fairly smoothly.

So this weekend was spent with friends and bridesmaids doing things to honor and celebrate the bride-to-be and her upcoming wedding! Here are a few things that I learned this weekend:

Plans can and will change

I mentioned before that we had a few bumps in the road with planning and executing this party. Without going into extreme detail, my sister wasn’t feeling 100% this weekend but didn’t want to totally cancel her party because it was one of the only weekends before the wedding that we could do things. So in about the span of a few hours we worked to totally restructure the weekend to work a little better for her. While we might not have done what she originally wanted/planned, we still managed to have a good time. I was very surprised at my ability to remain fairly calm and collected while all this plan changing was going on because I am a big control freak. Maybe I’m finally maturing. Hahaha yeah right.

Chickens and how they reproduce

Bet you didn’t think that this would come up at a bachelorette party! But hey, we didn’t have a stripper so why not talk about chicken sex. We were playing a game and how chicken’s reproduce came up, don’t ask how. One of my sister’s bridesmaids explained it to the group and we were both intrigued and disgusted. There are some things that might be left to the imagination. If you really want to know, you can check out these charts, but I warn you. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Also, there is a dark and seedy underworld of black market chicken porn…. you had to be there.

I can do art…. sort of

Things I Learned This Weekend | Life Healthfully Lived

I made this!

One of the things that we did this weekend was a wine and art event. You’ve probably heard/seen of these things. Basically, you go to this art studio, bring along some wine, and then an art teacher will teach you how to paint a picture. We went to Bottle & Bottega in Evanston and it was really fun. I highly recommend if you’re looking for a fun activity to check it out. Some of the girls (me included) were a little worried because we aren’t the strongest artists. I regularly mess up stick figures, but we were assured that the instructor really helps you make a good painting. It was fun to do something different and we walked away with some pretty art that we had made with our own little hands… and a few glasses of wine.

P.S. There might have been a pterodactyl in one of the paintings….

There is a lot of love for my sister and her fiance

I have to say that my sister has some amazing friends. People never thought twice about having to change plans at the last second and were always putting my sister and her needs first this weekend. As her big sister, it really touched my heart to see these girls surround her with love and support. Not only do they love her, they really love Andy her fiance and can’t wait to see them get married and start their life together. Plus these ladies can make me laugh until my sides hurt and tears are streaming down my face. I can’t thank them enough for coming and celebrating with Jodie and making this the best bachelorette party I have ever put together (ok, ok it’s the only one I’ve put together!)

We love you Jodie and Andy and can’t wait for your wedding in October!!

Put Down The Phone And Step Away: Try Unplugging

July 13, 2015July 13, 2015 / ktbuchs87

Raise your hand if you feel uncomfortable when you can’t check your phone every five minutes? How about if you have to turn it off? If you go a day without checking Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/whatever social media site?

Don’t worry if you raised your hand and kept it up there, you’re in good company. Most of us have a hard time getting away from our TV, phone, or computer screens for longer than a few minutes. I’m just as guilty as the rest of you. As a blogger, I spend an inordinate amount of time writing and researching posts, putting things up on all of my social media accounts and browsing the enormous amount of cat pictures online. Ok, that last one really doesn’t have anything to do with blogging but you get the idea.

As a culture, we are enamored with the instant gratuity that social media provides us. It feels good to post a picture on Instagram and have 20 likes in the first 5 minutes. I love hearing my phone ping with a notification that someone favorited my last tweet. It makes me feel important worthy, like I’m doing my job as a health blogger right.

While that’s somewhat true, if no one liked or read my stuff I would be pretty ineffective, it’s also a little counterintuitive. Being healthy doesn’t mean spending all my time trapped behind a screen and in the online world. We need to get away from the glow of our phones and laptops and televisions and out into the world of people and natural light.

I recently noticed that some of my best work for my blog came when I was actually away from it. Every day I try to take an afternoon walk. It helps break up my day of sitting and gives me a chance to not be working. While out on these walks I don’t have my phone to tell me there is a new notification on Facebook or my laptop refreshing with new emails.

It’s just me and the great outdoors.

It clears my head and I can actually come up with some awesome ideas for the blog. Sometimes I compose whole posts while out on my morning run or solve a problem that I have been struggling with for the past few hours while I’m strolling by the lake.

Technology is great, don’t get me wrong. I love being able to reach a big audience and have my words and thoughts make an impact all while I’m sitting in my pajamas. But don’t forget there is so much more out there than getting more followers or retweets. Try unplugging yourself for just a few minutes each day. Just 20 minutes where you don’t look at any technology.

Go outside

Take a walk

Read a book

Get coffee with a friend

And don’t post one picture of you doing it on Instagram. You’ll be more productive for taking a short media break and the internet and slew of cat memes will be waiting for you when you get back.

There is a whole world waiting for you to find it, all you have to do is put down the phone and look around.

What’s Fun and What’s Not Fun

June 15, 2015June 15, 2015 / ktbuchs87

This weekend can pretty much be broken down into what was fun and what was not fun. Luckily the fun stuff outweighed the not fun stuff and I enjoyed one of my very few free weekends this summer.

What was not fun:

Taking two cats on a 30-minute bus ride to the vet. It was time for Olaf to get his one-year wellness check-up and update his vaccinations and since Dot hadn’t been to the vet since before we moved to Chicago we decided to take her too. Bad choices all around. Since we don’t have our car we had to ride the bus to the vet. Neither cat was pleased with the loud bus and Olaf yowled as loud as possible for the first 15 or so minutes. Cue me freaking out that we’re bothering all the passengers and would get thrown off the bus. When we finally did get to the vet it was time for Dot to freak out. She would not sit on the table, would NOT let the vet tech take her temperature, hid under the chair in the room, and growled/hissed/scratched at everyone that came near her. The vet did manage to give her the vaccinations and Adam has a nice big scratch to prove show for it. Olaf was just fine and barely even noticed that he was getting an exam. As an extra special bonus, the bus ride back home was packed to the brim with Cubs fans because of course we chose a game day to go to the vet. One bright spot of this whole ordeal was that the bus driver on the way back was super nice to us and made sure that our cats were comfortable and safe. Overall, I never want to do that again and I’m pretty sure Dot is still angry at us for subjecting her to all of that.

Olaf has forgiven all and wants to be held. Now

Poor girl is pooped from her trauma

Trying to get good food pictures with minimal space and light. We have two windows in our apartment and because of the way our apartment is situated, we get very little natural light. This makes taking pictures for my blog slightly difficult. At first I thought it was impossible but I’ve gotten creative and learned how to make what I do have work for me. It does lead to some interesting positions though. Good thing I do yoga!

What was fun:

Going to the farmers market. We finally got to go to our favorite farmers market. Because we have been busy pretty much every weekend since the Green City Market opened up, we haven’t gotten a chance to go. This weekend though we finally made it and it was of course awesome. All the fresh fruit and vegetables make me happy and I could wander around the market all morning if I could. Adam was happy to get his first Donut Vault donut of the season and even more excited that they had his favorite, lemon poppyseed. It’s the only way I can get him to come with me!

He’s trying not to stuff the whole thing in his mouth

Purple asparagus. I’ve seen green asparagus and I’ve seen white asparagus, but I had never seen purple asparagus. While we were at the market we saw these and of course I had to get them because they were purple. Best. Decision. Ever. They were so delicious and simple to prepare. All I did was drizzle them with a little olive oil, sprinkle them with salt, pepper, and garlic powder, squeeze a little lemon juice over it all and roast at 400 for 15 minutes. They were a little sweeter than green asparagus and I could have eaten like 5 more bunches. Too bad I discovered them at the end of asapargus season.

I’ll try any purple fruit/vegetable

Fruit crisp. The farmers market pretty much just led to all sorts of good things this weekend. This fruit crisp is proof that you should go to the market more often! I made Adam a strawberry rhubarb crisp with fruit we got from the market. He deemed it delicious and probably would have eaten the whole thing in one sitting. Which is quite the compliment.

Overall, it was a great weekend and I really loved having the free time to do some fun things and spend time with Adam. Here’s to another great week!

What did you do this weekend?

What If…

June 1, 2015June 1, 2015 / ktbuchs87

You might have been asked the question, “What if you knew you couldn’t fail?” What would you do? What risks would you take? I’ve asked myself this but when I think about it, I think it’s a fairly easy question.

I’d do anything.

If I couldn’t fail, why not do anything? Invest all my money in one stock? Sure, I’m not going to fail. Go skydiving? Why not? I’m guaranteed to make it to the ground. Talk to a room full of thousands? You got it. I think there is a better question we need to ask ourselves.

What if we weren’t afraid to fail?

That’s the tougher question because the chance of failure is still there. This also makes it a more realistic question. I am going to fail. You are going to fail. Maybe not today or in a horrible way but the truth is that failure is going to happen. We all work so hard to avoid failure, it’s not a fun thing to go through.

I hate failure. I try to avoid it so much that sometimes I won’t even start something if I know there is a fair chance that I will fail. The thing I am starting to learn though is that each failure is making me stronger.

I have been trying to grow this blog and share my message with a wider audience. A lot of the things that I have done to try and make that happen have failed. At first, I let it get me down. I felt like a loser and thought that maybe I just wasn’t suppose to be a blogger. I kept trying but nothing was happening. While I was wallowing I realized that each failure taught me something. It made me think in a different way to find something that would work. I was growing and getting better even though it felt like I was one giant failure.

Working on your health can feel a lot like that. You try something new and it doesn’t work out. You don’t lose the weight you wanted or you can’t change your eating habits or exercise still feels like torture. Failure happens a lot when you work on your health and a lot of the time we let failure win. We quit and go back to our old habits because we obviously don’t have what it takes.

Don’t quit.

Let that failure teach you something. Maybe that strategy didn’t work but there is one that will work. Keep trying and realize that those failures are making you stronger. Each time you fail but keep going you are making yourself better and making progress toward your goals even if it doesn’t feel like it.

Don’t ask yourself what you would do if you couldn’t fail, ask yourself what you’re going to do when failure happens. If the answer is get back up and try again, you are already winning.

Ode To My Body

May 18, 2015May 18, 2015 / ktbuchs87

Thank you for allowing me to run as many miles as you have. They have made me realize I can endure anything both on the trail and in life.

Thank you for allowing me to try new poses in yoga. They have made me realize I am flexible, both on the mat and in my day to day routine.

Thank you for allowing me to lift heavy weights. They have made me realize I am strong, both under the bar and under pressure.

Thank you for allowing me to walk everywhere. They have made me realize I can use my own to feet to go anywhere, both in my neighborhood and with my goals.

I’m sorry for all the harsh things I have said to you over the years. You were doing the best you could in each situation and I couldn’t see that at the time.

I’m sorry for comparing you to other bodies out there. You aren’t meant to be like any other bodies and to compare made you feel unworthy of all the unique talents you have.

I’m sorry for punishing you when you did nothing wrong. It was my insecurities and skewed views that thought I should fix things that weren’t even wrong.

I’m sorry for the years of hating you and wishing you would change just to fit what I thought was perfect. I missed so much of what was good by focusing only on the bad.

I can’t say that I will always be good to you. There will probably be some times that I struggle to be kind but know that I’m working on it. I’m trying to change my stubborn ways because you deserve that.

I promise to praise you for all that you can do, encourage you to work towards what you are trying to do, and not criticize you for what you can’t do.

You’ve carried me through a lot of tough times and I promise that I will reward you for all the hard work you’ve accomplished.