If you want to get fit, you have to give away only one thing. Your excuses.
-unknown
My dad…Just saying those two words bring tears to my eyes. His 69th birthday would have been October 17. As you read in “About Me“, he’s been gone for over eight years now. Most days, I smile when I think of him. I know he’s looking down on me, happy for me, and even proud of me.
But then there are days, where out of nowhere, it hits you like a ton of bricks. It takes your breath away. And some days you have tears rolling down your face, and you can’t stop. You want him back. You want a hug, a smile, a laugh, or to smell the coffee on his breath when he kisses your cheek.
When you lose a loved one, it leaves such a huge hole in your heart. I haven’t cried over losing my dad in a long time, but for some reason these past few days, I can’t stop. I have tried to figure out why. Maybe it was his birthday. Maybe it was missing being a little kid on Halloween and going trick-or-treating around our town. Maybe it was because he used to rake huge piles of leaves for us to jump in around this time. It doesn’t really matter why because it can sneak up on you out of nowhere.
Jeff was away at work so it was just me in the Kitchen with Gram working on dinner. We always have music on through our Sonos system, which we love! My dad loved music, too. I remember one Christmas my mom bought him a Bose stereo, and he was so excited. Well, actually I think he knew he was getting it, and maybe my sister and I were more excited than he was! I wish I had a picture of it. He was so happy and cute. (Of course, I HAVE a picture of it in a photo album in Pennsylvania 🙁 which does me absolutely no good right now). Anyway, we couldn’t believe he finally got a Bose! He had wanted one for so long. He always loved music and could tell you the name of the song and the artist of almost any tune. Whenever I listen to Bob FM, I always think of him and the old Bose 🙂
Needless to say, I had country music playing through the speakers and a song came on called”Love ya Son, Go Dawgs“. It’s about a dad calling his son and leaving a voicemail. The son plays the voicemail whenever he wants to hear his dad’s message. It reminded me of a voicemail I have from my dad, although right now, I have no idea where it is, but I know I have a saved voicemail on an old phone somewhere.
Listening to that song makes me miss him so much. It makes me think about all the things he has missed out on since he’s been gone such as meeting his grandchildren and my husband. It also makes me miss all of the future things I won’t get to do with him. I won’t get another voicemail from him. I won’t get to hear his voice telling me to check the oil or telling me the weather is too bad to come home. I won’t hear him saying, “love ya and miss ya, talk to you later” on the other end of the phone, and it hurts so badly.
If you’ve lost a loved one, please remember it’s ok to let it go sometimes. No, you can’t hide away forever and you can’t stop living and enjoying your life. Remember, life is so short, you need to live and be happy.
But don’t be surprised when out of nowhere, grief hits you. I found this blog post about dealing with grief when it sneaks up on you. We are all different, and there is no set timeline and standard or manual. You need to lean on your friends and family. And maybe try to figure out why your body is grieving before your mind even puts it together. I hope this post helps finds you well and offers you some comfort if you are having a hard time right now.
Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.
-unknown
In the end, only three things matter how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you can let go of things not meant for you.
-Buddha
For our wedding, I asked a few of my girlfriends to make cookies for us. One of my friends made “healthy” cookies for those at our wedding who might be Vegan or need Gluten-free. Well, my husband and I ended up eating most of them and even tried to hide them away from everyone else. They were sooooooo good! She got the recipe online, and I have copied the link below. I have tried the recipe myself a few times, and each time they are getting better (the food processor really helps!). They don’t necessarily LOOK great, but they taste amazing!
Ingredients and Suggestions
Click here
I tried to make these cookies a couple of times without a food processor, but eventually gave in and bought one. This one works really well for us. We have made them with raisins and without. Both options were great!
You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.
-Buddha
The number of reps may be intimidating at first, but the movements won’t take you long at all, and each rep counts. Today, you will do 50-40-30-20-10 reps of the following:
- punches
- stutter steps
- shoulder to overhead with band
- lateral band side to side
In this workout, you do 50 punches (alternating arms), 50 stutter steps (count as best you can), 50 shoulder to overhead with a band (each arm counts), and 50 side to side squats with a band. Then do 40 of each, and then 30 of each and so on. Email me or comment if you need modifications or more challenging movements. Don’t forget to warm-up!
Enjoy your own life without comparing it with that of another.
-unknown
If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.
-Wayne Dyer
If you know me, then you know I LOVE taking pictures. Although I used to switch between Samsung and Apple, I am now all iPhone. Since September 2015, I have taken almost 27,000 pictures! I really need to clean out my iCloud and every other place where I back them up. Needless to say, I was out with my girlfriends one night, and we were taking pictures. They always want to approve them before I post them to social media because I usually get them up right away!
Anyway, one of my friends closed her eyes during the picture. Everyone else looked great. So, she says, “Can you open my eyes?” I said, “Sure.” I picked up my iPhone, went to edit, clicked on the live photo edit button, found a frame where her eyes were open, made it the key photo, and hit done. Everyone was in awe! They said, “How did you do that?” and “You need to do a blog post about this.”
So, here you go ladies! For more advanced explanations, click here. That site is very helpful if you want to experiment with more photo options. This post is just about a few simple tricks that I have learned that may help you. There are a few slight differences between my iPhone 7 Plus and my husband’s iPhone XR. I will give directions from both because I am not sure where the switch occurred.
iPhone 7 Plus
Go to your camera app. Open it. Across the top, there are five buttons. The flash, HDR (which turns it on or off), a circular bursting kind of button (Live photos), the clock which allows you to turn on the self-timer, and the three circles where you can change the filter of pictures.
Personally, I set the flash to auto, the HDR to auto. The burst is where you want to click to turn on Live photos. If it is white then Live photos are off. If it is yellow, Live photos are on. You need Live photos on in order to open people’s eyes. If you are interested in setting the self-timer you can set your camera up from the front or back-facing camera, and you can set the time for 3 or 10 seconds. When you click the last three circles you can set the filter of the pictures. You can always change these after you take the picture, but I like to keep mine sent in VIVID WARM. It just gives everyone a nice color right from the start without having to go in and edit them all.
Our picture with closed eyes
After you take your picture in the Live mode. Click on the picture you want to edit. At the bottom, click on Edit. There are auto enhancements as well as other edits for brightness, etc. I usually don’t mess with these edits very much.
Click above if you want more help with using these edit buttons. But at the bottom, there is Cancel, the Live burst, the three circles where you can change the filter, and a square where you can Crop, straighten or flip the photo.
In order to open the eyes, you want to click on the Live button. About 12 little snippets of your picture will come up. There is a white dot above the one that is currently automatically picked. You can then go from one end to the other to see which picture you like the best. Then you click on Make Key Photo. Then click Done in the bottom right-hand corner. You can always Revert it to the original and/or cancel any changes you made.
iPhone XR
For the iPhone XR, open your camera app. At the top, is the flash and the Live button. You would need to click it to take Live Photos. There is also an arrow in the middle. If you click on that, buttons will pop up at the bottom of the screen. There, you can turn the flash on and off, turn the Live photos on and off, you can change the picture to 4:3, Square, or 16:9, you can set the self-timer or set the Filter. Once you take your picture, the process is the same as above.
There you have it. My tech lesson for the day 🙂 I hope this helps when you have pictures that you love, but that may be blurred or someone blinked their eyes or moved their hands. Many of these things can be fixed!