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Thank Goodness

Well, thank goodness I’m not fasting today because it was a hump day for the record book. And not the good kind of record books, the shitty make you pull your hair out kind of day. Otherwise known as every day at my old job. So maybe I’m exaggerating a little bit, but today truly did suck balls.

I have been in my new job since September and helping clients since October. Thank goodness, I have had a wonderful experience with clients who are nice and respectful whether they bought or not. Unfortunately, today was the day for all the assholes of the geriatric world to coalesce and make my day miserable. To be fair, if they had bought I wouldn’t have minded the Cruella De Vil impressions. However, when they’re total dicks and they don’t buy, it’s an energy sucker.

Thank goodness there was still ice team left over from the batch I made Monday. Honestly, it is super tasty and super easy to make. In fact, there are only five ingredients in the ice cream, which is incredible. My next ice cream adventure, obviously on a non-fasting day, is going to be chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.

well, at least there’s an upside to look forward to!

Here’s a list of our day’s activities:

*I read the Norse Queen by Johanna Wittenberg.  It is so good that it’s keeping me up at night! 

*I skipped my run tonight to have dinner with the Hubby and our friends. We needed to finalize the grocery list for our Keys trip

*The family and I are watching the Seattle kraken’s NHL expansion draft. Sadly, the announcers are super cringey making it hard to watch.

*After dinner, I successfully ate ice cream! As if there was a doubt.

*My favorite surprise on the underwater cams, I watch during work, is seeing an octopus. Today I watched the safari cam, which never disappoints.

*Today’s word of the day is fractures. Knock on wold for a hockey season free of fractures.

*I took my puppies including sweet Anakin for a walk. Today he didn’t pull my arm off or anything like that. I put on his harness, so I’d have more control over him outside. Also, the flies are still here. Did I mention I hate gnats, flies, and mosquitos? I was finally able to hang the fly traps. Nobody loves flies.

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Disappointment

Today I left work full disappointment for no real good reason. Truly, I had a magnificent and super successful day at work. However, I came up just short of my stretch goal for the day. Normally, I would have stayed late to take more calls, but I had to bring The Mayor to hockey practice.

The Hubby is at a hardwood trade show in Orlando, so it’s just me and the boys the next two days. Hopefully, he’ll get sometime to relax without the constant harassment from the boys or dogs. As soon as he gets home at night, the dogs are all over him. In fact, he can rarely sit without being interrupted or harassed by someone or something. He definitely deserves some time away and some peace and quiet.


Last night the Lightning won the Stanley Cup finals. Im happy to keep the cup in Florida, but not happy that hockey season is officially over. However, unlike Habs fans, I’m not nursing the disappointment of defeat. Also, Kucherov’s presser was the stuff off legends. Although, the Habs fans are nursing hurt feelings because of it. As for hockey’s fortunately, we shouldn’t have to wait too long for the regular season. Hopefully, it’s back to normal with minimal restrictions. I’m definitely looking forward to attending more games next year.

Here’s a list of our day’s activities:

*I read Demons, by Dostoevsky. I am really enjoying this book so far.

*I thought about running, but decided to rest my knee again. Instead I looked for great photos of us.

* I ate the rest of the peach crisp today. This time I mixed in one white peach for a little of variety. Honestly, I didn’t notice a difference.

*The family and I are watching the Stanley Cup Finals in lieu of continuing our Thirty Rock binge. Thankfully, our power is flickering now that the storm has passed. Consequently, it knocked out the wifi too. Apparently, technology is my nemesistonight.

*I spent my day with the puppies. This evening I worked with Anakin on some training skills. He did a great job. Of course, I rewarded him with kielbasa, which is his favorite. 

*My favorite surprise on the underwater cams, I watch during work, is seeing an octopus. Today I watched the safari cam, which never disappoints.

*I’m back to work and Elsa is long gone, but we had some strong storm this afternoon. Thankfully, the tropics are quiet. 

*Today’s word of the day is destiny. It was definitely the Lightning’s destiny to win the Cup.

*I took my puppies including sweet Anakin for a walk. Did I mention I hate gnats, flies, and mosquitos? It’s definitely much worse in the morning and am. Fortunately, it’s not too bad at lunch.

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Not too Shabby

I have to admit today was not too shabby. Since it was the first day back after a long weekend, my expectations for the day were quite low. I mean, it always sucks coming back from a long weekend of vacation. Of course, the gloomy and windy weather courtesy of Elsa wasn’t helping my outlook. Nevertheless, today was a success.

After the turtle’s pace that was work Friday and Saturday, my expectations were that today would be a boring and unprofitable day. Thankfully, the opposite proved to be true. I was slammed all day, which made the day fly by. Moreover, everyone was a buyer today. Obviously, these are the best kind of days in sales.

Elsa had stayed far too the west, so our weather was not too shabby today. The morning was nice albeit extremely humid. This afternoon brought some rain squalls courtesy of now Hurricane Elsa. These storms are so unpredictable. They expected it to weaken, but here we are Tuesday night and it’s a hurricane again. It just proves that you always need to be prepared whether it’s a tropical storm or hurricane approaching.

This evening the Hubby grilled some great steaks form Butcher Box. We had the top sirloins and ribeyes, which were mighty tasty. With the steaks, we served grilled potatoes and corn on the cob. Usually the sweet corn here is abysmal at best, but this corn was not only not too shabby; it was good. We bought the corn at the Farmer’s Market after our walk in the Glades Monday morning.

Here’s a list of our day’s activities:

*I read Demons, by Dostoevsky. I am really enjoying this book so far.

*I walked 2 miles with the puppies and it was great!

* I made another peach crisp. This time mixed in one white peach for a little of variety. I’ll let you know how it tastes. 

*The family and I have been binge-watching Thirty Rock. It is such a good show. We’re two days in to our binge and man is this show good.

*I spent my day with the puppies.

*My favorite surprise on the underwater cams, I watch during work, is seeing an octopus.

*I’m back to work and still tracking Elsa.

*Today’s word of the day is upheaval. Our neighbor Kirk was setting off fireworks at a frenetic pace.

*I took my puppies including sweet Anakin for a walk. Did I mention I hate gnats, flies, and mosquitos?

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Mid-Week Slump

I don’t know if it’s the weather, but I’m kind of feeling l like today represented a mid-week slump. After crushing it the last two days at work, today I hit a brick wall. I gotta be honest with you. I don’t understand how people could function using only money orders and cash. Honestly, I just don’t get it. I was hopeful that today would have been a continuation of the momentum from Monday and Tuesday, but it wasn’t in the card.

It didn’t help that I skipped my run and the weather was blah today. I got dressed for the run, but my knee is still achy. The last time I pushed through this knee issue, I tore the tendon in my foot. I know what you’re thinking: how does that even make sense? Well, the problem is when your knee locks up or you have pain in your leg, you start to adjust your gait to compensate and take pressure off the hurt area. Unfortunately, when you change from your proper gait to some weird variation of it, you end up hurting yourself, which is exactly what I did. Nevertheless, I’m going to try running tomorrow. If it doesn’t feel good on the knee, I’ll walk two miles instead. At least then I’ll get some steps and adrenaline going.

While I excelled at mediocrity at work, Goalielocks and his friends took advantage of breaks in the storms to fish our lakes. Despite their relatively small size, the lakes in our neighborhood provide really good fishing. While the fish weren’t biting a lot for the boys, they did manage to pull in a big bass while out in the kayak. Unfortunately, the rainy weather seemed to dampen the fish’s appetites and they saw little action. Hopefully, they’re able to come back and fish when the weather is good.

The Mayor spends his days chilling with the dogs. He went with Coach Matias to work out at Wolf Pack fitness in Boca. His coaches just opened a new gym that focuses on training athletes. It’s an amazing place and they’re amazing coaches. Sadly, he inherited his mother’s lack of coordination and he sprained his ankle on the drill. Consequently, he’s been icing it on the couch since he got home. He did, of course, make an exception for making dinner. I promised him he could make chili tonight, which he did (it was amazing) in spite of his injury.

As for the rest of the night, it’s the Stanley Cup finals baby. I can’t believe I didn’t mention it, because this is a hockey mom blog, but there were two huge developments for MN Wild hockey this week. First, it was announced that the Wild will be hosting the Winter Classic at Target Field. Obviously, the boys are already begging for tickets. Secondly, Kirill Kaprizov won the Calder Memorial trophy last night. The trophy goes to the rookie that has made the biggest impact. Kaprizov has certainly made an immediate impact for the MN Wild and he’s fun to watch.

Here’s a list of our day’s activities:

*I read Demons, by Dostoevsky. I am really enjoying this book so far.

*I thought about running, but my knee said no. Instead, I ran to get my morning coffee and hung out with the dogs.

* Zachary made dinner for the family tonight. We enjoyed home made chili and Brazil bites.

*I played with the puppies before, during and after work. I was hoping they could lift me out of my mid week slump!

*We checked in with Jacob to see how furnishing his new apartment was going. Tonight my folks ordered him a desk/coffee table to help furnish his living room.

* The dogs started a new dental treat this week. They seem to like the treats, but it makes all of their poops green and extremely smelly.

*Today’s word of the day is erogenous. I’m not sure even a big word like that would alleviate my mid week slump.

*I took my puppies including sweet Anakin for a walk. Did I mention I hate gnats, flies and mosquitos?

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Don’t Call It a Streak

Don’t call it a streak, but seriously I’ve managed to blog four days in a row. Woohoo! It’s not easy to get back into the habit of blogging (or working out for that matter,) but once you get rolling it becomes habitual and part of your daily routine. While I’ve got back on the blogging bus, I’ve fallen off the workout bus. My knee has locked up on my last couple of runs, so I rested it yesterday and today. Hopefully, I will be able to run on it tomorrow.

I had thought about running tonight, but there was dinner to make and Stanley Cup Finals to watch. A girl has to have priorities and obviously watching the Stanley Cup Finals is a major priority. Admittedly, I’m not super thrilled to see either team in the cup. Either way, it’s a lose-lose situation for us as both Habs fans and Lightning fans can be insufferable. Yeah, I said it. Nonetheless, it should be a great series. Carey Price has been red hot and Vasilevsky is the best tendy in the league. In fact, I am pretty excited to watch the goaltender match up this series.

In other news, Jake moved into his first apartment today. He just gave us a brief tour via Facetime. The place looks great and gives him a lot more room than his dorm room. Also, he may sleep better now that the fighter jets won’t be taking off over his building anymore. Fortunately, it’s also located in a great part of town, so he can walk to a lot of neat restaurants and stores in his neighborhood. Fortunately, his apartment complex also has a great gym, so he can easily keep up his PT.

Not anymore!!! Thank God!

Work went well considering it was a Monday. You never know what you’re going to get in the insurance business, but today everyone was a buyer. Consequently, I hit the monthly sales goal I set for myself early. Now every additional sale will be gravy. Hopefully, the remainder of the week, including the start of July, continues to be profitable like today. Have I mentioned that I love my job yet? If not, I love my job. I worry only about myself, talk to great people all day, am appreciated by leadership, and make more money than in my old job. It’s nice when “life’s lemons” sometimes turn into tasty lemonade with a splash of Tito’s.

Grocery Shopping with Jake

Here’s a list of our day’s activities:

*I read Demons, by Dostoevsky. I am really enjoying this book so far. I don’t always enjoy Dostoevsky’s writing, so this book has been a nice surprise.

*I thought about running, but my knee said no. Instead, I ran to get my morning coffee and fill up the car with gas. Don’t call it a streak, but it’s now three days in a row that I’ve driven to pick up my coffee instead of ordering via Uber Eats.

* I made a delicious pork tenderloin courtesy of HelloFresh this evening. The meal was easy to prepare and super tasty!

*I played with the puppies before work after finishing my errands.

* The dogs started a new dental treat this week. In order to avoid controversy and Anakin losing his mind, I give them the dental treat at bedtime. Anakin is super possessive and afraid that everyone is going to steal his stuff.

*I went grocery shopping with Jake via FaceTime for his new apartment including picking out all the ingredients for his favorite home cook meals.

*I watched the Stanley Cup Finalsm, which is the best event in the history of sports!

*Today’s word of the day is nuance. Anakin has a nuance to his bark when he’s afraid something of his is going to be taken.

*I took my puppies including sweet Anakin for a walk. Did I mention I hate gnats, flies and mosquitos?

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Reality Bites

Reality bites isn’t just the name of a great 90s video, it’s also the universe’s way of balancing our existence. Naturally, I had high hopes for Tuesday after such a great Monday. However, reality kicked back it and reality bites. It started off innocuously enough with Goalielocks assuring me he was awake and attending class. Meanwhile, the Mayor was ready to go well in advance of the first bell.

My day was a bit stressful because I had to take the health insurance licensing exam this evening. Consequently, I dedicated the vast majority of my day to balancing work and studying. In fact, I only left my office for lunch and coffee. While I toiled away in my room, the boys were busy attending school.

I asked the Mayor to do the dishes on lunch break since Goalielocks has been down for the count with a back injury. You can imagine my dismay when I open the running dishwasher to find it half full. You can contrast that with the view off full sink and countertop. Needless to say, I was not impressed. Fortunately for him, I was consumed with trying to work and study, so he got off easy.

Tonight I passed the exam in about 25 minutes. I’ve crammed the last few weeks for the test. I knew, despite my nerves, that I was well prepared. It was also a good preview of what the real estate exam will will be like. Obviously, as soon as I passed a weight was lifted from my shoulders. All my hard work paid off. Afterward, I had a nice dinner cooked by my hubby.

Lastly, I worked through some stretching with Goalielocks, who has had severe lower back pain the last two days. Hopefully, the stretching we did will alleviate his pain. Now we’re watching hockey waiting to see if Tampa Bay will seal the deal tonight. Oh and in case you were wondering, Goalielocks didn’t make it to first period.

Here’s a list of our day’s activities:

*I read A Room With A View by E.M Forster

*It turns out their are unique challenges to managing a U18 team. Thus it seems we may have a caravan to the Carolinas in our future.

*I ran two miles and walked a mile today.

*While I took my exam, my hubby stayed home and cooked a wonderful meal.


*After today, my running streak stands at 7days.

*I learned a new word today: ichthyophagous, which means to eat seafood.

*BBG 3.0 week 2 day 2: cardio and yoga! Today’s run was two miles! It sucked!

*I took my puppies including sweet Anakin for a walk. Today Anakin is wearing his bow tie and it doesn’t seem to be bothering him.

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Save $100 A Month

If you use shopping cart or affiliate software for your business, you’ll want to pay close attention to this article. It can save you hundreds of dollars in overhead expenses for your business.   Especially if you’re using software or services just a ThriveCart, SamCart, PayKickStart, Clickbank or JV Zoo. You’ll want to pay attention…because what I’m sharing with you today is making marketing history.

GrooveDigital software development company, owned by marketing legend Mike Filsaime, is focused on creating the most powerful, affordable and simple to use all-in-one software service that you can use to build, grow and manage an online business.  Well, they just seriously disrupted the business software market by carving off a major portion of their flagship product, GrooveFunnels, and making it completely free (at least for now).  Introducing GrooveSell.. a powerful sales and affiliate platform for digital marketers and infopreneurs to sell their products.  The software at it’s core helps you take payments and manage customers for physical products, digital product and services. It comes with a full-featured affiliate system too (GrooveAffiliate) which lets you amass an army of commission-only salespeople to help you promote and get paid for your products!

 

This easy-to-use software creates checkout pages that are designed to convert more visitors into buyers, more clicks into sales, and manage the process from beginning to end.  This is no “basic” software version either. It allows you to do some pretty ninja tactics to increase your dollar per sale. Not only can you do the usual up-sells and down-sells in your product funnel, but the software adds order bumps before purchase, and true 1-click up-sells (with and without confirmation) to your funnels. This allows you to make point of purchase impulse sales of related items, increasing your dollar per transaction of just pure profit.

 

GrooveSell also features a powerful set of tools that lets you set flexible pricing structures that are unheard of on other platforms. Need a free trial product? No problem! You can set any trial length or price you’d like. If you have an one time onboarding charge followed by a monthly maintenance fee.. GrooveSell can do that too. Want to offer two annual payments that recur every year at the same time? It can do that too.

 

You even have eight different options for recurring billing. The system will automatically charge your customers at their regular billing interval (weekly, every 2 weeks, monthly, every two months, quarterly, bi-annually, annually and every two years).  It integrates with all of the major payment processors, like Stripe, PayPal, and Authorize.net and if you don’t have a merchant account, they are releasing GroovePayments very shortly, where they will process payments for you for a very competitive percentage.  Plus, it grows with you. For bigger businesses doing high volume there’s merchant account warming and load balancing built into the system, so you can avoid getting your credit card or PayPal account shut down during major promotions.

 

With your free account you get:

 

-Unlimited products

-Unlimited product funnels

-Unlimited checkout loads (bandwidth)

-Unlimited affiliates

-Unlimited customers

-Unlimited support

-Unlimited payment gateways

 

And all of this is free. That’s right, free for life.

-no credit card required- ever

-no monthly fees

-no surprise bills

-full feature set

-every upgrade they ever do

 

Plus, there’s an incredible bonus of GroovePages Basic, which lets you build pages for up to three product funnels. So you can create a sales page, checkout page, and thank you page to deliver your product to your buyer.  The bottom line is: You can do anything with GrooveSell that you can do with any digital marketing shopping cart out there.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

 

How much does grabbing your free GrooveSell account save you?

 

Well let’s compare GrooveSell to the other major players in this space

ThriveCart (one time $495.00 payment)

SamCart ($49.00 per/month)

PayKickStart ($99.00 per/month)

JV Zoo (5% commission on all sales, +2.5% additional for some sales)

Clickbank ($49.95 activation fee, $1+7.5% transaction fee for each sale, and a whopping $2.50 fee each time you want to withdraw your money!)

 

Which brings us to these questions… What’s the catch? Why is it free?

 

There’s zero catch. In fact, when you get your free account, you won’t even get an immediate promotion to try and upsell you.  The software is in beta at the time of this writing, so there are some features (like support for worldwide currency) that is not yet available. Moreover, the company has assured me that all features will be ready by their launch in July 2020. Until then, the platform is still fully functional and useable.

 

GrooveDigital stated that the company wanted to give back to the community, and provide real value to people… not just a flimsy ebook or lame set of templates to entice you to join their list… but REAL value in the form of a useable product that never requires a purchase.

 

And they’ve done just that. You could build a pretty decent business using nothing but the free product you get with GrooveSell, plus your social media pages.

 

While the folks at GrooveDigital hope that one day you’ll decide to upgrade to the full suite of tools that comes with GrooveFunnels (which includes an email service, membership sites, video marketing, a helpdesk, calendar, and all the tools you need to manage and grow a robust business), GrooveSell and GrooveAffiliate are yours to keep for free, forever.

 

All you need is your name and best email address.

 

Oh, there’s also an active Facebook group. The company keeps out the spam and off topic posts, and instead ensures a community of users that share ideas and information. We are all learning and growing there together.

 

Whether you already have a shopping cart service and looking to reduce your monthly bills, or your just getting started with your online business and your budget it tight… you’ll want to check out GrooveSell. Do it today while it’s still free.

 

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One Week

It’s been one week since I left the office for the last time.  So many emotions and so much fun has been had over the past seven days.  It’s not that I’m not sad to move on or anything like that, but I choose to embrace the madness and the excitement of moving forward. That isn’t to say I don’t have tough moments, but by and large I’m feeling good!  I started my first week off with a brilliant session at the salon with my girl Daniela and Jenja.  Nothing makes a girl feel better than a fresh hair cut and a nice brow wax.

Sometimes I’m Sweet
And Sometimes I’m Sour

During the intervening days, I had the occasion to meet several former colleagues and friends for lunch and drinks.   A fantastic time was had by all.  As an aside, I went to Farmer’s Table for the first time for lunch.  The food and service were absolutely brilliant.  Fortunately, Farmer’s Table’s menu had several amazing gluten free options.   I quite enjoyed the spasta with meatballs – spaghetti squash with marinara and chicken meatballs.  It was absolutely amazing.  I can’t wait to go back.  The next day, I had an amazing meal at Taverna Trela in Delray.  This meal was equally amazing.  I thoroughly enjoyed my steak, mushroom and onion rice bowl.   Another menu with some great gluten free options.  I look forward to going back there as well.

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Friday also brought a doctor’s appointment, where my doctor noted how much happier and relaxed I looked.  My blood pressure was pretty freaking phenomenal too.  They see me all the time there on account of the regular bloodwork I need to get down for the thyroid, so it was encouraging they noted the change.  It was also encouraging that my thyroid is starting to approach the normal range!  Yes – victory is in site my friends.

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The weekend brought happy hours, another massage and some mini golf.  I thoroughly enjoyed my blueberry martinis at Burt & Max’s.  The lettuce wraps were pretty freaking good too.   Of course, the Chipotle at the end of the night was pretty good.  Admittedly, it was the first time I’ve had Chipotle in years.  I enjoyed the steak tacos on a hard shell.  It brought back memories of driving across the University of Minnesota on game nights to get to the only Chipotle close to our house because it was the best thing since sliced bread. Now that Chipotle is on every corner and they’ve had a couple e-coli scares, the novelty has worn off a bit.

Sunday night we hit the mini golf course with J&M2 also known as Jake and Mel.  .  Even though we went in the evening, it was still hot as hades on the course.  By the time we finished, I felt like I had been sitting in the sauna for an hour in my jeans.  Fortunately, the club house had the same temperature as the Baltic Sea.  In 5 seconds flat, I went from near heat stroke to hyperthermia.   If I’m being honest, mini golf isn’t my sport, but we had a blast.  I’m also declaring victory having ended a mere 13 above par.  Over previous efforts, this represented a serious improvement in performance

Meanwhile in Minnesota, the boys are living their best lives with their cousins.  They’re having a blast hanging out with their cousins and chilling on the boat with their Uncle J.  The Mayor loves tubing with his cousins, while Goalielocks is enjoying fishing the Minnesota lakes.  He caught a nice sized large mouth bass on Lake Minnetonka Sunday.  Last week, their cousin X and his soccer team were playing in the USA Cup in Blaine.  Needless to say, given the heat indices in Minny last week, I’m thrilled my boys play hockey.  I’ll never be sitting by a sideline in an 115 head index.  Suffice to say, if you asked the boys, they would tell you there’s no better passage of summer than one spent in Minnesota.

Goalielocks is also enjoying lessons with his former goalie coach from the Hawks, Coach Ryan, who is now coaching with MEGA Goaltending in Minnesota.  It’s fun for the boys to reconnect with Coach Ryan and to get back on the ice.  Since Goalielocks went on a growth spurt, we’ll need to buy him a full set of gear upon his return to Florida.  Oh the expensive joys of the hockey mom life.

Today is my father’s 66th birthday please join me in wishing him the happiest of birthdays!

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Transitions

Life is full of transitions, but when you’re a parent of teens they seem to come non-stop.  The youngest two seemingly look, sound and appear older each and everyday.  I can’t wait to see how much they’ve grown since heading to Minnesota earlier this month.  They won’t be back in town until right before school starts in early August.  Yeah, early August.  I know what you’re thinking (and you’re right) Palm Beach County Schools start schools entirely too early.  Each day I call to speak to the boys, their voices seem to have shifted another octave lower.  I’ve resorted to asking discrete identifying questions to ensure I know which one I’m talking to on the phone.

The Boys
Now and Then: 2012 and 2019

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Meanwhile, Jake is deep in preparations to join the Air Force.  We met with the recruiter as a family late June to discuss the Air Force as a possibility.  Consequently, we’re pretty excited for Jake and the future the Air Force will bring him.  As a mom, it’s brought many mixed emotions as I’m excited that he’s got a solid road map for his future.  On the other hand, my boy is leaving the nest for good and joining the military (a bit scary.)   All in all, this fall promises to bring a major transition.

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Today marks the start of new beginnings as I close out my ten year career at KHE.  It is with mixed emotions that I move forward.  I will miss the work family that I have cultivated over the last ten years, but am very excited for what the future holds.  To all of my colleagues both current and former, thank you!  To keep in touch, hit the follow button on the blog. After all, everything maybe changing, but relationships don’t have to change.

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Given this week’s transitions, I’ll be fundraising much more aggressively for the Mayor’s trip to Europe next summer.   You can find the link to donate here: fundraising link

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Corporate Run

Last Thursday was the annual Mercedes Benz Corporate Run in Fort Lauderdale. I was excited to participate for my third running. This year was a bit different though since I haven’t run a 5k in over a year. Unfortunately, after tearing a tendon and a subsequent diagnosis of Graves’ disease, I was sidelined for what feels like forever!

Thankfully, my doctor was able to clear me for exercise once my thyroid finally stopped functioning in February. Yay! Nonetheless, a 5k was a tall order. I trained as much as I could, but with a hypoactive thyroid my energy is nonexistent. Meaning, instead of a normal, rigorous training schedule, my body needed 2-3 day breaks in between workouts. This itself represented a massive departure from my grandiose expectations for my recovery.

I was back at my doctor’s office early last week for my six-week check-in. She made some adjustments to my medication, which should help immensely. Honestly, the effortless weight gain, the absolutely no energy, the absolute exhaustion and the absolute inability to sleep properly have gotten old. On a positive note, my blood work supports my symptoms, which in my doc’s words “means we can fix it!”  My doc is a rock star and is taking good care of me through out my treatment. Unfortunately, it’s just part of the process as we figure out the right Synthroid dosing.

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She did reiterate my ability to work out, but added a caveat about common sense. Clearly, she doesn’t know me. I did ask about the 5k, to which she responded “I hope you lose – meaning I hope you walk.” As I got up to leave, we compromised on a solid effort in the first mile with common sense dictating mile two and three.

In the end, I was nervous and excited for my first 5K in over a year. I went into the race with reasonable expectations and the hope that I’d finish somewhat respectably. As the race neared, we entered the start corral, which was huge. The corporate run had over 9,000 participants this race. Fortunately, it was a chip to chip race.  Consequently, my time was not negatively impacted by being encumbered by mobs of people behind the start line. img_0615

It felt amazing to be racing again! The first mile went pretty smooth and I felt pretty good. As I promised my doctor, I was conservative over the remainder of my race. In the end, with my foot asleep and pride swelling in my heart, I crossed the finish line. While my heart was swelling with pride, my right foot was coming back to life, after falling asleep on mile 2, as I waited patiently for my post race free beer.

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My time this race was the slowest I’ve ever logged at a 5k, but it will forever be the one that gives me the most pride. After a torn tendon, a diagnosis of Graves’ disease, subsequent treatment and no exercise for nine months, my time of 37:23 is pretty damn good! Moral of the story, winning isn’t always about getting a PR every race. Sometimes winning is not being afraid to show up and do your best no matter what cards you’ve been dealt. 

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Lastly, I had to share this photo from last year’s race as it included Paul.   My associate director Paul was someone who embodied perseverance.  While he wasn’t with us this year physically, he was definitely therein spirit.  We miss you Paul!