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hellojessicabrown · 6 years

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Getting Back into the Swing of Things

This recap is going to seem a little disjointed. I know that and I’m acknowledging it but I want to start these weekly again. Think of this as your weekend food recap if you will.

We arrived back in St. Louis about 7pm on Thursday night. When we were close enough we ordered salads and wings from the pizza place near our house. After unpacking the car we sat down to eat and watch Archer. We ended up going to bed pretty early and woke up the next morning by 8am.

I started the water kettle so that we could make coffee but we ended up deciding to get the grocery shopping out of the way and grab Starbucks on the way. We both decided on cold brews with vanilla cream.

We were going to buy herbs for some recipes we had coming up but decided it might be time to get the plants so that we could continue using them. We are waiting for the Basil to pop up because we are growing that from seeds. We have Thyme, Rosemary, Chives, Cilantro and Dill. Until it gets warmer we are keeping them inside.

We got home just in time for lunch so I threw together a chicken sandwich.

Our sandwiches had Chicken Breast, Bacon, Colby Jack Cheese, Onions, Tomatoes and Avocado on toasted Seed Bread from Aldi topped with Everything seasoning from Fresh Thyme.

After lunch Jeremy got to working on a side project we hope to have coming up while I worked on getting videos edited and the blog back to itself.

For dinner we went for Surf ‘n Turf. Jeremy marinated steaks and prepped crab cakes so all I had to make was the vegetable. I choose asparagus. He even made a lemon dill aoili that was amazing!

After dinner we watched some tv but I ended up asleep by 10:30 pm.

On Saturday morning I woke up to the smell of coffee and Ke$ha trying to get into the room. When I rolled over I realized that Jeremy wasn’t in bed anymore which is an extremely rare occurrence. He came in a few minutes later with coffee and was surprised I hadn’t woken up sooner. It was after 8 am!

He left the room and I thought it was to grab his own coffee but instead he came back with this beauty.

Breakfast in bed, and french toast at that! It was the perfect way to start the weekend. It’s never bad with this cutie cuddled up close either!

Early Saturday morning my books from Amazon arrived and I was really excited to dive in. I was about 150 pages into The Girl on the Train but I had read some amazing things about 100 Days to Brave. It’s really nice to read a couple of pages and just be done for the day. It sets your mind right though and I’m going to incorporate it into my mornings.

For lunch I made a big salad with fajita mix on the side. Our salads had Butter Lettuce, Tomatoes, Black Beans, Corn, Taco Cheese, Avocados, Chicken Breast, Green Peppers and Onions with a little Bolthouse Honey Mustard on top.

I spent the afternoon lounging, reading The Girl on the Train and icing my back. I was trying to get back into working out this week so I practiced a ton of self care.

We had plans with friends at 7 pm and I was feeling like pizza. I made a homemade dough first and let it proof on the counter while I made the buffalo chicken.

Our pizza had homemade Buffalo Chicken, Red Onion, Mozzarella and Ranch. I will share the recipe later on the blog.

We stayed out until about midnight on Saturday so that meant a late wake up call on Sunday. I didn’t get out of bed until 9:30!

I’d love to tell you that we had a fun interesting day but we didn’t. We spent a ton of time being boring and then made dinner together.

Our dinner was a copycat from our fancy anniversary dinner. Swordfish Steaks, Quinoa and Roasted Carrots. Jeremy even made a homemade Black Bean & Corn Salsa.

I tried to go to bed early, I really did but that didn’t happen. Monday I got up at 5:30 and did A Little Obsessed - Cardio Core. My back didn’t hurt like it had been so my hopes are high for restarting 80 Day Obsession. I could just pick back up at Phase 3 or day 65 but I feel like I can do even better this round if I restart.

The Sullivan’s Island post will be live on Friday! Starting next week the recap posts will be a little more structured and fun.

#backtoroutine #healthyeats #myhealthylifestyle #nutrition #nutrientdense #breakgastinbed #husbandandwifeyadventures #thegirlonthetrain #100daystobrave #siberianhusky #happyhealthylife #happyhealthy #stlouisblogger #stlblogger #newblogpost #recap #recappost

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missnevainc · 5 years

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E! LIVE FROM THE RED CARPET EXCLUSIVE: Claire Foy Reveals Back-Up Plan to Get Into 2019 Golden Globes After Parties E! LIVE FROM THE RED CARPET http://eonline.com/news/1002179/claire-foy-reveals-back-up-plan-to-get-into-2019-golden-globes-after-parties #ClaireFoy is determined to get into the Golden Globes after parties this year! After last year's struggle to get into the after parties, the First Man star has a back-up plan in place. She exclusively told E! News' @RyanSeacrest that she has nearly all forms of identification at the ready, in case she is once again denied entrance to the fabulous A-list parties. "I put my passport, I got everything I can possibly bring," she joked. And funnily enough, they didn't even let her in last year despite the fact that she had "the Emmy in my hand" at the doors. So this year she is bringing reinforcements, which Ryan agrees is a good move. Claire shared, "I have my sister." In response, Ryan agreed that the Crown star's sister will be able to "vouch" for the actress' fame. This year the actress is up for a Golden Globe for her role as Neil Armstrong's wife #JanetShearon in the film First Man. She is going up against stars like Amy Adams and #EmmaStone for the Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in any Motion Picture category. To see a full list of the nominees for the 2019 Golden Globe awards, check out the list scroll left And last, but not least, good luck to the all the nominees! #recappost #awardseason #redcarpetdress #awardsfashion @goldenglobes via @eentertainment checkout @stylecollective #estyle #sundayrecap #afterparty https://www.instagram.com/p/BsVAn9IHViL/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1jbagj2gwmtyr

#clairefoy #janetshearon #emmastone #recappost #awardseason #redcarpetdress #awardsfashion #estyle #sundayrecap #afterparty

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derektam · 5 years

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The start of anew

Timestamp: April 23rd, 2019

I have always tried to walk away from writing about my day, feelings, achievements and failures, but when I look back at it right now, I actually did write about how it during my dark times in a secret blog. It is not like I don’t like writing, but I chose to run away from it because I felt like it was unnecessary because it isn’t anything worth writing about. Don’t get me wrong, I still take notes whenever I learn something new or something that catches my attention, but I decided to ignore it. Overall, I have finally decided to start anew and begin doing a mini journal to document my journey.

As a recap, I graduated back in June of 2018, and since then it has felt very unfulfilling up to this point, and I do not plan on having that hinder me during the present or future. It is undeniable, but time is just disappearing very quickly, and every decision I make feels supercritical. I know people tell me age is only a number, but it stands out a lot to me personally because I don't feel like I have succeeded in anything astonishing to myself. As a human, I do desire affirmation for my success so with all the failures it has taken a considerable toll on me, and there have been days where I am in a slump, but I do know that I MUST pick myself up. Recently, a close friend of mine started making vlogs, and he mentioned a quote from Albert Einstein. He says "You Never Fail, Until You Stop Trying" and that is something that I hold very dear to because I know once I stop everything will just feel dark and gloomy, and I know that it is something that I will regret. I am just rambling on at the moment, but this is for myself to keep a note of.

Recently, a friend of mine tagged me on Helen Tran's article about Note-Taking and Accountability, and it referred to a lot of gym-goers. I am personally one of those people who go to the gym 3x a week and always trying to achieve a higher weight and keep track of all my sets and failures. Once I fail and know that my form is wrong, I will adjust and try again. From her article, it reminded me that it is identical to my journey because by keeping track of it, it holds myself accountable plus wanting to reach a higher peak every time. This should be reflected in my daily routine, by having an objective and getting the outcome. If the result isn't satisfying enough, iterate again, similar to when I have a non-satisfying workout and failed on my reps, I will do it again until I can do it then I will seek for another objective. This is such a simple concept, but it seems like I've been clouded. I did have a very vague way of doing this before, but I never hold myself as accountable as I should have compared to when I workout, so starting now I will take this more seriously.

Like I said before, I am going to start anew and just soak up everything from past learnings and future learnings. Since I am going to do this, I wanted a place where I can just write, so I decided to use Tumblr again.

#RecapPost Anew

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amy1heartbeat · 4 years

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That's a Wrap: MozCon Virtual 2020 Day Two Recap

Posted by cheryldraper

Wow! What a crazy ride MozCon has been this year. In case you missed it, we were able to double the number of attendees and include over 2,800 people.

Not only were we able to include them, we were also able to see their families, pets, and home offices. It was an unusual experience for sure, but one we won’t be forgetting any time soon.

As always, the speakers served up some flaming hot content (including an actual movie). We can’t wait to share some of these takeaways with you!

Britney Muller — Accessible Machine Learning Workflows for SEOs

Britney started off by assuring everyone that they absolutely can use machine learning. She knows this because she was able to teach her dad how to use it!

Let’s jump right in.

Basically, machine learning can be used for a lot of things.

There's endless possibilities w/ #machinelearning: Some cool things: - AI-generated faces - Auto-excuse generator (need that) Leveraging for SEO: - Keyword research - Forecasting time series - Extracting entities and categories from URLs - Internal link analysis #mozcon

— Seer Interactive (@SeerInteractive) July 15, 2020

Britney suggests starting with a notebook in Colaboratory for increased accessibility. She showed us to do the basics like upload, import, and download data before jumping into the fun stuff:

Using Google NLP API to extract entities and their categories from URL

Using Facebook’s Prophet data for time-series predictions

Keyword research using Search Console Data and a filtering function

Honestly, we were surprised at how easy she made machine learning look. Can’t wait to try it ourselves!

Izzi Smith — How to Be Ahead of the (CTR) Curve

Not all clicks are created equal! While you may want as many clicks as possible from the SERP, there’s a specific type of click you should be striving for — the almighty long click.

“What is a click without the intent to be there?”

Google’s patent clearly states that reactions to search results are gauged, and short interactions (clicks) can lower rankings while longer interactions (clicks) can lead to higher rankings.

Great point by the wonderful @izzionfire - focus on the "long clicks" - the ones where users spend a long time on your page after clicking your result. Google tends to show answers for the "short clicks" within the SERP - if it doesn't now, it will soon.#MozCon pic.twitter.com/mCvWUpDTKQ

— Lily Ray ???? (@lilyraynyc) July 15, 2020

Are you ready to track your clicks and get to work? Good! Izzi broke it all down for you:

Pull your data from Google Search Console, specifically by using their API.

Know what you are looking for BEFORE getting into the data.

Look for these patterns:

Performance-based core update impacts — decrease in positions and impressions

Identifying Irrelevant rankings — large impression spike (with low CTR) then a sharp decline in impressions

Losing SERP feature — a sharp decrease in CTR and a decrease in impressions

Izzi, you’re a rockstar! We can’t wait to go play with all of our data later.

Flavilla Fongang — How to Go Beyond Marketing for Clients: The Value of a Thriving Brand Ecosystem

Flavilla is a true gem. Instead of focusing on the top of the funnel, she focused on how we can keep customers coming back.

She told us that “business is like love”. You don’t want to move too fast. You don’t want to move too slow. You have to add value. You have to keep things exciting.

"Your clients don't continue buying from you because you meet their expectations. They do it because you EXCEED them." It's like falling in love. -- @FlavillaFongang #MozCon pic.twitter.com/S4RwlkC6pp

— Sarah Bird (@SarahBird) July 15, 2020

Flavilla challenged us to find what makes us remarkable:

Can you offer a unique experience?

Can you create a community?

Can you offer integrations?

Can you partner with people to bring something new?

Really sit down and think about why you started your brand and reflect on it. If you build a brand people come back to, you’ll have far less to worry about.

Brian Dean — How to Promote Your Content Like a Boss

We finally did it! We got Brian Dean to speak at an SEO conference.

If you don’t know him by now, you haven’t been searching hard enough. Brian is a master of content creation and marketing.

It wasn’t always that way, though. Brian’s first blog never took off because he spent more time creating content than he did promoting it. Once he realized just how important promotion was, he went all-in and ended up reaping the benefits.

This year, he finally shared with us some of his Jedi-like promotion tactics.

7 promotional strategies 1. Create for the linkerati (bloggers+journalists) 2. Expanded social posts 3. Avoid JarJar outreach 4. The Jedi mind trick 5. Hyperdrive-boosted Facebook posts 6. Infiltrate scarif: subreddits 7. Hack the Halonet: click to tweet links@backlinko #mozcon

— James Wirth (@jameswirth) July 15, 2020

He shared multiple tips for each of these strategies, but here is a quick summary:

Social sites hate it when you post links. Instead, tease the content with a “hook, lead, summary, link, call-to-action”.

Ask journalists or bloggers if they’d be interested in reading your pieces, but do so before you publish it to take some pressure off.

Actually personalize your outreach by mentioning something on the contact’s site.

Boost Facebook posts with ample engagement to audiences who have interacted with previous posts.

Just implementing one of these tactics could change the way your content is received by the internet. Who knows what could happen if you implemented all of them?

Joy Hawkins — Google My Business: Battling Bad Info & Safeguarding Your Search Strategy

Not everyone does local SEO, but if you do (or if it ties into what you do at all) you’re going to want to buckle your seatbelt.

Joy showed us some of the insights she was able to pull from a large study she did with her team. They had noticed a major discrepancy in the data between Google My Business and Google Search Console, and wanted to get to the root of it.

TL;DR version of @JoyanneHawkins presentation at #mozcon Don't trust Search Console impressions, y'all

— Greg Gifford (@GregGifford) July 15, 2020

Joy shared some major findings:

Google My Business “views” are a lot of different things (not just the traditional impressions we’re used to tracking).

Mobile searches don’t show website icons in the local pack.

The search queries that show up in GMB are different from the ones that are shown in Search Console.

Explicit intent does not always mean higher intent than implicit intent

If you work in local search, Joy wants to challenge you to move away from views and Search Console impressions. Instead, focus on the search data that GMB provides for keywords and on click data in Search Console.

Michael King — Runtime: The 3-Ring Circus of Technical SEO

In true Michael King style (with a ton of flare), he showed us just what’s possible at a virtual conference and blew our minds with technical SEO awesomeness.

That moment you think you kinda know technical SEO and then you see @iPullRank at #MozCon. Mind. BLOWN.

— Lauren Turner (@laurentracy_) July 15, 2020

We watched “Jamie” get through the three rings using slick techniques.

How do you identify which keyword on a site owns a URL? -Position -Traffic -Linking authority metrics Use on all ranking pages to determine best URL for each keyword on the site, then adjust anchor text as needed@iPullRank #MozCon

— Jennifer Slegg (@jenstar) July 15, 2020

All Google products have services you can connect to via ABScript - you can create a full data ecosystem, all via basic JavaScript@iPullRank #MozCon

— Ruth Burr Reedy (@ruthburr) July 15, 2020

@ipullrank #seo #mozcon #techseo holy fizzle Ebay builds internal links programatically to boost rankings from page 2 to page 1.

— Noah Learner (@noahlearner) July 15, 2020

There were so many of these, friends!

The thing is, all of this has been out there and accessible, but as Mike says in Runtime, “Doing things the same way everyone else does them is going to get you everyone else's results. Do things your own way."

Dana DiTomaso — Red Flags: Use a Discovery Process to Go from Red Flags to Green Lights

The idea of discovery is not a new one, but Dana came ready to shine a new light on an old tactic. Most of us do minimal research before agreeing to do a project — or at least minimal compared to Dana and her team!

These are just a few questions from Kick Point’s discovery process:

If there were no limitations, what would you want to be able to say at the end of this project?

Which of these metrics affects your performance report?

What does your best day ever look like?

What didn’t work last time?

The discovery process isn’t just about talking to the client, though, it’s about doing your own research to see if you can find the pain points.

Actually testing your client's transaction process. I only do that when setting up eCommerce tracking and test the purchasing journey for customers. Go beyond what data implies and see for yourself how you stack up to your competitors. Brilliant @danaditomaso #MozCon pic.twitter.com/dkz21fK1kd

— nikrangerseo (@nikrangerseo) July 15, 2020

As always, Dana shared some true gems that are sure to make our industry better.

David Sottimano — Everyday Automation for Marketers

David brought us automation greatness all the way from Colombia! There were so many practical applications and all of them required little to no coding:

Wit.ai for search intent classification

Using cron for scheduling things like scraping

Webhooks for passing data

Creating your own IFTTT-like automation using n8n.io on Heroku

We got to see live demonstrations of David doing each of these things as he explained them. They all seemed super user-friendly and we can’t wait to try some of them.

#mozcon @dsottimano dropping a ton of automation knowledge and showcasing @bigmlcom power pic.twitter.com/p3gWVBbWX5

— John Murch (@johnmurch) July 15, 2020

Oh yeah, David also helped us build and release the Moz API for Sheets!

Russ Jones — I Wanna Be Rich: Making Your Consultancy Profitable

Most businesses fail within their first five years, and that failure often comes down to business decisions. Now, Russ doesn’t enjoy all of this decision-making, but he has learned a few things from doing it and then seeing how those decisions affect a business’s bottom line.

The number one way to become more profitable is to cut costs. Russ looked at cutting costs by having fewer full-time employees, renting/owning less space, making leadership changes, and cutting lines of service.

When it comes to actually bringing in more money though, Russ suggests:

Adding new service lines

Raising prices

Automating tasks

Acquiring new business

At the end of the day, Russ boiled it down to two things: Don’t be afraid to change, and experiment when you can — not when you must.

If you experiment only when you have to, you're going to fail. If you experiment now, when you can and don't wait until you must, chances are you're going to grow, succeed and beat out your competitors. @rjonesx #MozCon

— Amy merrill (@MissAmyMerrill) July 15, 2020

Heather Physioc — Competitive Advantage in a Commoditized Industry

SEO is not dead, it’s commoditized. A strong line to start off a presentation! We can always count on Heather to bring forth some real business-minded takeaways.

First, she helped us understand what a competitive advantage actually is.

Competitive advantages should be: - Unique - Defensible - Sustainable - Valuable Consistent@HeatherPhysioc #MozCon

— Melina Beeston (@mkbeesto) July 15, 2020

Then, it was time to go through her competitive advantage framework.

Steps to having a competitive advantage (not just linear though - it's a cyclical process) via @HeatherPhysioc #Mozcon pic.twitter.com/W0ZBAduKHP

— Alan Bleiweiss (@AlanBleiweiss) July 15, 2020

As we went through this framework, Heather assigned A LOT of homework:

Examine your brand: What do you do? Who do you serve? Why? Find the patterns within the answers.

Write a brand statement.

Activate your advantage: How can you live it fully? What things can’t you do in support of your purpose? How will you know you’re putting it to work?

She mentioned a lot of great tools throughout her presentation. Get a list of those tools and access to her slides here.

Wil Reynolds — The CMO Role Has Been Disrupted: Are You Ready for Your New Boss?

Have you ever thought about who holds the fate of the CMO in their hands? Wil started out by explaining that the CEO, CFO, and CIO actually have far more power over marketing than we give them credit for. While they all know that data is what will make their businesses successful, they also hold keys to our success: budget, IT teams/implementations, veto authority.

The issue we face isn’t that we don’t know what we are doing, but more so that we don’t know how to communicate it.

"I don't know a whole lot of CEOs that read Search Engine Land, but they're the ones that write our checks." - @wilreynolds So instead of throwing shade at our least-favorite phrases the c-suite uses, we may want to make sure non-SEOs understand our value.#MozCon pic.twitter.com/S6fClFevZo

— James Wirth (@jameswirth) July 15, 2020

How can you show up to talk the talk and walk the walk? Use your data, and use it to give the customers a voice at the table (something all executive teams are attempting to achieve).

SEO + PPC + Analytics + CRM = magic@wilreynolds #mozcon pic.twitter.com/JICfWiOB3X

— Jason Dodge (@dodgejd) July 15, 2020

Wil’s team has done an amazing job simplifying and documenting this process for all of us in search. If you haven’t yet, we highly suggest checking out their blog.

That’s a wrap

Folks, this was fun. We’re so happy that we could bring people together from all over the world for two days during this crazy time.

While there weren’t any Roger hugs or fist pumps, there were still lessons learned and friendships made. It doesn’t get any better than that. We hope you feel the same.

If you were able to attend the live conference, we would love to hear your thoughts and takeaways! Be sure to take time to reflect on what you’ve learned and start plans for implementation — we want to see you make a difference with your new knowledge.

Until next year, Moz fans!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

cheryldraper

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stenoodie · 7 years

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Media Tasting at Lone Star Texas Grill (Etobicoke)

Media Tasting at Lone Star Texas Grill (Etobicoke). @lonestar_tg #mediatasting #recappost #texmex

Lone Star Texas Grill located at 930 Dixon Rd in Etobicoke

The first and only time I had stepped into a Lone Star Texas Grill was all the way back in university, which is really about ten years ago. I remember that visit as fairly lackluster and since then haven’t had a strong affinity towards Lone Star Texas Grill and their many (more…)

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thelandofiolaea · 9 years

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From the pen of Zanna

Today was, extraordinary. We finally managed to open the portal, after so many failed attempts. Not all the souls we had called out to arrived, but that's okay! There were some slipping through the cracks after we’d opened it, so I’m hoping the others aren't too far behind. Well, these new people were rowdy, I had to yell a lot to get them to focus.

Anyways! I told them the story of the war, which goes something a little like this - even though Alaris, my sister doesn’t agree with this version - Everything was peaceful, well as peaceful as it could be. The was started by Aeiole and Zeiole, it was a very gruesome war, and nearly no one survived. Apart from myself, the priests, the wizard, and possibly a few survivors? I'm not sure.

Well, after the ritual, Tobi snuck off, and Alaris and I were left with the task of calming down the newbies. It was okay? I had to show them which faction they belonged too, which was a tiring process. But eventually i got to show Fiola’s and Aeiole’s new followers around! I showed them the temples, but sadly I couldn't find any of the other locations! So after a few more stories, I left them to the business of building houses for themselves!

I really hope that they can help us, its been so long since any of us had hope. I really hope they can pull off the task laid out ahead of them.

Oh! I nearly forgot! Sometime in the commotion, Ziph made an appearence! I was so so happy! They’re such a good friend. I missed them dearly

Signed,

Your dear friend Zanna Crimson

~ Mod Tylah

#iolaea #thelandofiolaea #i dont think i missed anything #yeah #recappost #text

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missnevainc · 5 years

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#recappost #via On this morning’s AM to DM by @buzzfeednews , designer #christiansiriano talks about the upcoming awards season, styling @@arianagrande , and his political expression through fashion. Styling Ariana Grande: “I work with her stylist a lot...I posted a sneak peek and he texted me like ‘I need this for Ariana. She’s wearing it to Billboard.’ And I’m like, ‘are you sure? It’s not even a thing yet.’...I sent it to him that night. We made that dress for her probably in like 5 hours. Ariana is so busy. She is literally is one of the busiest people in the world. There was no time for fittings. If it doesn’t fit, it’s out!” Politics in fashion: “As a designer, we only have one voice and that’s the clothes we put out for the world to see. Those clothes actually represent a lot. People live their life in these pieces. Who we #dress has a lot to say about the brand that we are. If you don’t dress #diversewomen , how do you celebrate diverse women? And that’s the same with politics. If you don’t celebrate all these different types of people, then you’re not for the people.” Diversity in #fashion : “The #businessin general is very stuck in their ways. They have a hard time changing, which is so funny because we change every season. It is a big undertaking to take on this idea that we can dress everyone, because you can’t really dress everyone, but we try our best. I wish more brands did because there are awesome people out there that are different.” Portion of video interview @am2dm #am2dm full video on @youtube https://youtu.be/Q1Rcbwve_5s checkout @csiriano one-on-one #sitdown #glasses #visioncare #eyewear #photocaption #communication #conversation #designer #fashionblogger https://www.instagram.com/p/BrmzdH8nyOC/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1k04po0s49skb

#recappost #via #christiansiriano #dress #diversewomen #fashion #businessin #am2dm #sitdown #glasses #visioncare #eyewear #photocaption #communication #conversation #designer #fashionblogger

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hellojessicabrown · 6 years

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Back to Work + Getting Derailed Again

Good Morning Friends! Another week has come and gone so it’s time for a recap.

Let’s go back to last Monday which was my first day back to work. It had been almost 2 weeks since the last time I had worked out with any kind of weights and direction so I set my alarm for the normal 5:30am and got to it. I was a little worried about my back so I opted for a 30 minutes A Little Obsessed core workout. To my surprise I was feeling much better! I had some time to foam roll and then I hopped in the shower.

I know you probably think I’m crazy but I was ready to get back into a routine and there is nothing like a 9-5 to keep you on track. It also doesn’t hurt that I love my job. I spend the day helping people from all over with their missions to do good and there is never a time I don’t enjoy that.

Jeremy was asked to sub for a volleyball league so the moment I got home I threw together dinner so that he could fuel up before playing. I made some easy tacos fajita style. When he left Ke$ha and I set off for a walk.

My new goal, especially after getting hurt, is to make sure every day I reach 10,000 steps. Even if that means running a circle in my house to hit it I’m going to do so!

On Tuesday morning I work up with a headache so instead of working out I prepped dinner so that I could do a booty workout when I got home from work. I chopped a whole orange pepper, 1/2 a yellow onion, 1/2 a red onion, 1 head of broccoli, 1 container of while mushrooms and two carrots. I also diced up two chicken breasts and popped them back into the refrigerator for dinner.

When I got home I really did not want to work out but I pressed play anyway and didn’t regret it. With dinner being prepped it took no time at all to throw together. As you may have seen on my Insta stories I forgot to make rice... I put everything else together and started on rice. Good thing brown Basmati doesn’t take that long to cook.

Jeremy had plans with one of his friends so I got Ke$ha into her harness and we set out on another walk. I couldn’t pass up the chance to hit my steps in 50 degree weather. That’s more like it St. Louis!

Wednesday morning rolled around and I could tell my back was starting to get sore. Instead of an arm workout I took a shower, cleaned up the kitchen a bit and started some laundry. I am still working on listening to my body. I made it my goal to hit an extra 5,000 steps if I wasn’t going to work out. I felt doomed by 1pm because I was only at about 2,000. It was time to kick it into gear! I ended up only getting in my original goal of 10,000 because that is when the week got derailed.

I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle this part of the week. Would I want to talk about it? Would it be okay to talk about? I’ve decided it is all part of my journey so I am going to do what I can with it.

While at work Wednesday I got word that Jeremy’s grandpa had been put in hospice. We were not sure the severity of it but had plans to go grocery shopping when I got home. We got through the list of random things we needed and then ended up back at home with a pizza and some chicken.

After eating we got settled in for the night right before receiving a phone call that we needed to come say our goodbyes to his grandpa. It was like it happened so fast. One minute I was eating dinner and the next I was focusing on changing into clothes and driving to the hospice center.

I only managed about 6 hours of sleep before getting up for work on Thursday. I spent the morning so sick to my stomach. A workout was also out of the question. Around 11:15 am I got the call that Jeremy’s grandfather had passed and that they couldn’t get a hold of him to tell him. I kicked into crisis mode and made the phone call I never wanted to be responsible for. I still cringe at how unprepared I was to deliver this horrible news.

Thursday seemed to fly by in a whirl. I stayed at work until 4 pm and then went to have dinner with Jeremy and our friends Dan and Katie. These two. The real MVP’s in my life this last week. Just picking up all of our broken pieces. I cannot thank them enough for their friendship. Jeremy and I ended up playing volleyball for another team before our playoffs game. We lost but at that point, we were over that day.

Friday I decided to work because there was already people gone that day and I didn’t think I could stay home and do nothing. I posted that this was my lunch and then Jeremy ended up coming to have lunch with me.

The yogurt ended up expiring and my granola bar I had as a snack the following Tuesday. It happens. That night Jeremy helped me put together a really nice memorial for the funeral the next day.

For a 3rd night in a row I running on less than 6 hours of sleep. The alarm went off at 6:30 am on Saturday and I was dreading the day. I got up and did my hair and took Ke$ha to daycare. She spent the day playing while we were out of town. I got back to the house by 7:10 am, got dressed and packed up all the things we would need for the funeral. We picked up Jeremy’s sister, hit the drive through at Starbucks and got on the highway.

Again, the day was a whirlwind. We made it home by 7pm. Thank goodness my mom is amazing and picked up Ke$ha from daycare for us. She was asleep in her bed when we got there.

I finally got some quality sleep from Saturday into Sunday, 10 1/2 hours actually! Jeremy and I decided to go looking for a ceiling fan for the bedroom and picked up coffee at Starbucks along the way. We also went to get his dad’s birthday gift and copy pictures from the memorial the day before. For lunch we stopped at Pieology for the first time. Our pizza had: Pineapple, Jalapenos, Chicken, Bacon and Garlic.

We also tried a Alta Palla Sparkling Lemonade.

When we got back to the house Jeremy’s cousin came over. That ended up being most of what we did Sunday night. He ended up spending about 8 hours with us.

While this weekend wasn’t our best I didn’t want to leave it out of the blog just because it might be easier. This is a very real sadness we are dealing with and I am so thankful to everyone who has helped us breath through the hard days. Hopefully I will have a sunnier recap for next week and starting this Friday I’ll be getting back to vacation posts starting with our trip to the beach with Ke$ha.

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