Live Joy

  It's hard to believe we're already approaching the end of 2026. It feels like just yesterday we were setting our goals, choosing our words for the year, creating vision boards, and thinking about all the things we wanted to accomplish. And now, here we are, with less than two months left in the year. If you're anything like me, you're probably already starting to think about 2027. What do you want to accomplish? What changes do you want to make? What experiences do you want to have? What will your word of the year be? I love this time of year because there's something exciting about the possibility of a fresh start. I've been creating vision boards and setting intentional goals for more than 15 years, and it's a tradition I genuinely look forward to every December. But before we get caught up in planning everything we want for next year, I think there's something really important we should do first. We need to take a look back at the year we...

  Every year, around the end of October, the great Christmas decorating debate begins. When is the appropriate time to put up your Christmas tree? Some people are firmly in the November 1st camp. Others insist you must wait until after Thanksgiving. Some believe December 1st is the only acceptable answer. And believe it or not, there are people who wait until the actual week of Christmas. People have some pretty strong opinions about this, and I've always found it a little funny how worked up someone can get over when another person decides to decorate their own home. I mean, when you really think about it, how does my Christmas tree being up on November 1st affect your daily life?   For me, decorating for Christmas has never really been about the date on the calendar. It's about the feeling it brings me, and that feeling is pure joy.   For years, I decorated the weekend before Thanksgiving. When you share custody of your children and only have them every other we...

  I was talking to my friend the other day, and she was saying how she can’t stick to diet if it’s too strict and short term. And I said “it has to be a lifestyle.” There are so many diets that eliminate complete food groups, or ingrediencies and it puts so many limitations on what you tell yourself you can and can’t eat. Think about the no-carb diet. And then you want pizza because you are going to some great pizza restaurant or traveling to a city (Boston) that has great pizza. So you eat it, then you feel bloated, but now you have the taste so now you go off your diet for weeks and it’s so hard to get back on. That’s because you body doesn’t need you to eliminate carbs it needs you to choose good carbs 80-90% of the time. If this sounds like you, no diet or meal plan seems to work. Try this till the end of the year. Find a breakfast that is healthy has at least 30g of protein that you love enough to eat every day. I have eaten the same breakfast for almost a year and a half ...

  Think about the trees. The leaves begin to change, turning beautiful shades of red, orange, and yellow before eventually falling to the ground. Then the trees stand bare for months. And just when it feels like they have nothing left, spring comes and slowly, they become full again. There is something about fall that has always felt like transformation to me. When things start changing in my life, I tend to look back at all the other seasons of change I’ve already lived through. And believe it or not, fall seems to bring more change into my life than any other season. I have bought four houses, and every single time I moved between September and November. I got married for the first time in October. I have started four different jobs in October. I got engaged to and later filed for divorced my second husband in October. Even my hormones seem to get the memo, because every time I retest them around October or November, my body seems to be thrown into some weird loop. And pr...

  1. The number on the scale tells you how healthy you are. We have used our weight as the measuring stick for “healthy” for far too long. But the number on the scale doesn’t tell you how much muscle you have versus body fat. It doesn’t tell you how strong you are, how much energy you have, how healthy your heart is, or what your bloodwork looks like. Your weight is simply one number, and it doesn’t define your health. 2. Carbs are bad for you. Oh, I cannot wait for this one to go away. Carbs are not bad for you. Your body needs carbohydrates for energy, and they’re especially important when you’re active and strength training. Carbs help fuel your workouts and replenish the glycogen your muscles use during exercise. The goal isn’t to eliminate carbs, it’s to choose quality sources most of the time and eat an amount that supports your activity and goals. 3. Lifting weights will make you bulky. This one makes me laugh because building muscle is not easy. It takes a lot of tim...

  Parenting is hard. I am incredibly blessed to have two great kids. Even as teenagers, they are respectful, kind, and rule followers. Their dad and I actually laugh sometimes that maybe we did too good of a job teaching them to follow the rules, because now we are trying to teach them something that feels almost opposite: You are allowed to speak up. You are allowed to ask questions. You are allowed to disagree. You can question something and still be respectful. At 14 and 15—almost 16—my boys rarely want to question an adult or speak up when they disagree with something. Unless, of course, that adult is me or their dad. They have no problem finding their voices at home. But we want them to understand that their voices matter outside of our house, too. As adults, we know that if you don't ask for what you want, you'll never know if you could have gotten it. If you don't ask the question, you may never get the explanation. And if you disagree but never say anyth...