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General Health

How to Get Over a Weight Loss Plateau | A new weight loss program such as a low carb keto diet usually produces great results at first. You may even lose 10 pounds in a week! But eventually, your weight loss will stall and it can be difficult to figure out what to do. If you're looking for weight loss tips to help you get back on track, we're sharing common reasons for a weight loss plateau and 9 weight loss hacks to help correct them!

How to Get Over a Weight Loss Plateau: 9 Effective Tips For Women

8 Ways to Move Forward When You're Feeling Stuck | If you're stuck in a rut and looking for tips to help you find your motivation and transform your life for the better, the post is for you! Whether you've been passed up for a promotion at work and now you're questioning your career path, you're struggling with feelings of failure, sadness, regret, or fear, or you're a mom who has lost her way, we're sharing 8 strategies to help you figure out your purpose and passion and get UN-stuck!

Transform Your Life: 8 Ways to Move Forward When You’re Feeling Stuck

11 Positive Habits that Will Change Your Life | If you've ever wondered what the daily habits of successful people look like, this post has 11 ideas you can start TODAY to find happiness, joy, and success. From effective daily routines, to tips for finding your motivation, to productivity and time management hacks we swear by, the tips and strategies in this post will teach you how to be the best version of yourself in every single thing you do!

Self-Improvement 101: 11 Positive Habits that Will Change Your Life

How To Stop Feeling Sorry For Yourself | If you're looking for a little inspiration to help you get out of a funk and stop feeling sorry for yourself, we're sharing 7 tips to help you drop those feelings of self-pity and self-blame once and for all. These tips and truths will give you the motivation, wisdom, and strength to overcome the victim mentality, set new goals, and adopt an attitude of gratitude every single day.

7 Ways to Stop Feeling Sorry For Yourself and Improve Your Life

40 Anxiety Tattoos | If you're looking for meaningful tattoo ideas to raise mental health awareness and help you cope with the symptoms of anxiety, we've curated 40 beautiful designs to inspire you. Whether you're considering a semicolon tattoo, a 'breathe' or 'inhale exhale' tattoo, word tattoos like 'courage', 'fearless', and 'warrior', or mantras and quote tattoos, you can make each of these unique to you! Perfect for women and men, tattoo these on your wrist or forearm!

40 Anxiety Tattoos to Give You Strength and Help You Cope

7 Tips for Socially Awkward People | If you want to know how not to be socially awkward, we're sharing 7 tips and truths to help. While we can't promise to turn you into an extrovert, there are lots of strategies you can use to improve the way you communicate with others, develop your social skills, make friends, and improve your social life. If you have problems with friendships and dating, these tips are for you!

How Not To Be Socially Awkward: 7 Tips to Improve Your Social Life

30 Days of Cholesterol Diet Recipes | If you're looking for cholesterol lowering meals, we're sharing 30 days of breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack recipes made with cholesterol lowering foods to boost your heart health! Creating a weekly healthy eating menu has never been easier - we've got ideas you can make in your slow cooker or crock pot, chicken and ground beef options, and vegetarian recipes the whole family will love! #cholesteroldiet #cholesterolloweringfoods #lowcholesterolrecipes

30 Days of Cholesterol Diet Recipes You’ll Actually Enjoy

5 Postpartum Pelvic Floor Exercises for New Moms | If you're looking for exercises you can do post-baby to help strengthen your pelvic floor muscles, treat incontinence, and close a diastasis recti, we're sharing 5 workout videos you can do at home. There are tons of benefits of doing pelvic floor exercises after natural childbirth, a c-section, and a hysterectomy, and these are helpful for prolapse as well. From kegels, to postpartum yoga, to exercises with weights, give these a try!

5 Strengthening Postpartum Pelvic Floor Exercises for New Moms

7 Lifestyle Changes to Lower Your Blood Pressure | If you're looking for ideas to help you lower your blood pressure risk quickly and naturally, we're sharing 7 tips you can start implementing TODAY to reduce your risk for hypertension and improve your heart health. Knowing the causes of high blood pressure and making small changes to your diet and lifestyle can make a world of difference in the prevention and management of heart disease! #bloodpressure #highbloodpressure #hearthealth

Heart Health 101: 7 Lifestyle Changes to Lower Your Blood Pressure

How to Get Rid of Psoriasis | If you're looking for more information about the types of psoriasis, symptoms, treatment options, and natural remedies to help treat and prevent a flare-up, this post is a great place to start. Whether you have psoriasis on your scalp, hands, feet, or face, or it affects larger parts of your skin, we're sharing natural treatments to calm your skin and relieve pain and redness! #psoriasis #psoriasistreatment #psoriasisremedies

How to Get Rid of Psoriasis: 9 Tips and Remedies to Try

8 Gas and Bloating Remedies I Swear By | If you want to know how to get rid of gas and bloating fast, we're sharing 8 bloating relief remedies that work. Whether you have smelly, stinky, trapped gas after eating the wrong foods, PMS or period pain, or suffer from IBS, these natural remedies offer overnight relief. The secret to a flat belly isn't always stomach crunches and ab exercises - these lifestyle and diet changes can help! #bloating #bloatingrelief #bloatingremedies

8 Gas and Bloating Remedies For Fast and Effective Relief

11 Pelvic Organ Prolapse Treatments and Exercises | If you suffer from pelvic floor prolapse and dysfunction due to pregnancy, childbirth, menopause, or age, and you're looking tips to help you strengthen and tighten your pelvic floor muscles, this post has all the facts, natural treatment options, stretches, and exercises you need. From knowing the symptoms, to figuring out how to repair prolapse without surgery, this is a must read for women! #pelvicfloor #prolapse #pelvicfloorexercises

Pelvic Organ Prolapse: 11 Treatments and Exercises that Help

60 Inspirational Quotes That Make You Think | If you're looking for a little motivation, inspiration, and encouragement, we're sharing our favorite positive quotes for women and for men about strength, about love, about relationships, about happiness, about change, about dreams, about life, and everything in between. These are great daily mantras, and some of the short ones make great tattoos! #inspirationalquotes #motivationalquotes #selfhelp #quotesforwomen

60 Inspirational and Motivational Quotes That Make You Think

How to Stop Overthinking | If you're looking for practical tips to help you stop overthinking about everything - particularly the things you can't control - this post is for you! We're sharing 9 helpful strategies to help you stop worrying about what could go wrong, start focusing on what can go right, and begin living your life to the fullest each and everyday. If you're a chronic over-thinker, these tips will help! #stopoverthinking #selfhelp #selfimprovement #stopworrying

How to Stop Overthinking and Worrying: 9 Tips that Help

How to Get Rid of Bad Breath | If you're looking for an effective remedy to help cure chronic bad breath, this post is for you! We're sharing common causes of bad breath and how to fix it, including simple DIY natural remedies that work, and store bought products we swear by. These tips will help you figure out how to tell if you have bad breath, the reasons it's persisting, and how to stop it once and for all! #badbreath #badbreathremedies #badbreathremedies #naturalremedies

How to Get Rid of Bad Breath: 25 Causes and Remedies

How to Calm Down When Angry | Perfect for adults, children, teens, and especially overwhelmed parents, these anger management tips will teach you how to deal with anger in the moment, and will provide you with coping skills and exercises you can use to develop a plan that promotes better temper control to avoid feelings of anger and frustration from occurring in the first place. #calmdown #angermanagement #selfhelp #copingskills

How to Calm Down When Angry: 11 Tips that Work

25 Almond Milk Recipes | Whether you're lactose intolerant, on the keto diet, or in search of healthy recipes for weight loss, we're teaching you how to make homemade almond milk as well as our favorite almond milk recipes! From a killer berry breakfast smoothie, to tons of baking dessert recipes, to delicious dinner recipes (zucchini mac and cheese, anyone?!), there are tons of delicious ways you can incorporate almond milk into your diet! #almondmilk #almondmilkrecipes #howtomakealmondmilk

25 Healthy and Delicious Almond Milk Recipes For Weight Loss

Foam Rolling for Runners | There are so many benefits of foam rolling. Whether you're looking for running stretches for beginners, or need a pre- and post- running recovery routine to help heal and prevent injuries, we're sharing 5 exercises to help you warm up and cool down, and that offer relief for sore muscles on rest days. Give those quads, calves, hamstrings, glutes, and hip flexors some TLC with our foam rolling routine for runners! #foamrolling #runningrecovery #runningstretches

Foam Rolling for Runners: 5 Moves You Should Be Doing

8 Morning Hacks to Start Your Day Off Right | Perfect for teens, for college students, for moms getting small kids up and ready for school, and for lazy people with a long hair and beauty routine who can't seem to wake up early no matter how hard they try, we're sharing 8 life hacks to streamline your mornings and kick off your day with a bang! If you hate Mondays, this post is for you! #morninghacks #morningroutine #morningtips

Life Hacks 101: 8 Morning Hacks to Start Your Day Off Right

6 Tips to Find Balance During the Holiday Season | If you're trying to find balance in life, but constantly feel pulled in a million different directions, we're sharing 6 life hacks to help you set boundaries at work, with family, and with friends so you can unplug, rest, and recharge. We're also sharing 2 tools we use in our house to set healthy boundaries with technology so we can spend quality time together! #digitalwellbeing #android #findbalance #lifebalance #worklifebalance

6 Tips to Find Balance During the Holiday Season (and Beyond)

4 Intermittent Fasting Tips for Women | If losing weight feels more challenging now that you're over 40 (or over 50), intermittent fasting is a great option to consider. This is a great post for beginners as it explains the different plans (16/8, 5/2, Eat-Stop-Eat, The Warrior Diet, etc.) so you can figure out the best fat-burning plan for your schedule, along with helpful tips to get started and get the most out of your workout! #intermittentfasting #weightlossafter40 #loseweightfast

Losing Weight Over 40: 4 Intermittent Fasting Tips for Women

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‘HOW YOU DO ANYTHING IS HOW YOU DO EVERYTHING.’ —Jess Sims
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While some people love reading self-help books or listening to inspiring podcasts, quotes, mantras, and song lyrics are my jam. I spend hours upon hours scrolling through my social media feeds each week searching for motivational quotes and sayings, and I copy the ones I love most to the notes app on my phone so I never forget them. 
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I have a quote and lyric for pretty much every feeling and occasion, and if you follow me on stories, you know that I try to share something motivating and inspiring every morning. 
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I’ve recently been using short quotes/mantras to help me stay focused. Mantras are typically used in meditation, but they are also a fabulous tool to help you stay grounded. The idea is to pick a word or phrase with meaning to you, and each time your mind starts to wander, you repeat the mantra over and over to bring yourself back to the present moment.
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I use mantras to help me stay productive with work, to keep me motivated when I want to push myself during my workouts, to stay present when I’m overwhelmed and trying to do too many things at once, and to stop me from ruminating about the things that make me stressed and anxious. 
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If you’re looking for inspiring quotes and mantras to help you stay focused, present, and calm, here are some of my favorites!
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‘Be present where your feet are.’
—Unknown
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You don’t have to. You get to.
—Jess Sims
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Easy is bullshit.
—Christine D’Ercole
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Feel the burn, step closer to the fire.
—Emma Lovewell
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A setback is an avenue for a comeback.
—Alex Toussaint 
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Hold the vision, trust the process.
—Unknown
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No challenge, no change.
—Robin Arzon
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Acknowledge the fear and do it anyway.
—Emma Lovewell
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Impossible is just an opinion.
—Paulo Coelho
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Treat your body like it belongs to someone you love. 
—Hannah Marie Corbin
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Fix your ponytail and try again.
—Unknown
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👇🏻 What quotes and mantras keep you focused and present when you’re overwhelmed or anxious?
‘ALL GREAT CHANGES ARE PRECEDED BY CHAOS.’ — ‘ALL GREAT CHANGES ARE PRECEDED BY CHAOS.’ —Unknown
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f you’ve been following me on stories, you know we moved to a new house a couple of weeks ago. I was going to document the whole thing, but moving during a global pandemic in a city that is completely locked down with a child in virtual school is… 🤪
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This was the biggest move I’ve ever undertaken, and my Type A personality really struggled with how little control I had over everything. Lists and schedules are my jam, but it seemed the harder I tried to keep things on track, the quicker they fell apart.
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I eventually decided to just embrace the chaos. I allowed myself to let go and just enjoy the excitement of it all and it ended up being the smoothest, most enjoyable move I’ve ever experienced. We’re still waiting on furniture deliveries and have lots of painting to do, but since no one will be visiting us for months (years?!) on end given the state of the world right now, there is absolutely no pressure.
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And that feels great.
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If you’re struggling, here are 4 things that helped me find order in the chaos that has been our lives for the last several weeks:
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✔️ EXERCISE. I start every single day with a hard workout to get those feel-good endorphins flowing. It makes me feel accomplished, helps me work through whatever is on my mind, and sets the tone for the rest of my day.
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✔️ ENERGY MANAGEMENT. I do all of my most pressing tasks when my energy is high and my mind is clear, and save all of the monotonous, mindless stuff (think: responding to emails, meal prep, folding laundry) for the evening.
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✔️ NEVER TOUCH SOMETHING TWICE. Once I ‘touch’ a task, I deal with it then and there so it’s taken off of my plate, rather than ’touching’ it multiple times and allowing it to take up extra energy and mental space. This is one of the best productivity tips I’ve ever read and it’s been a life-saver for me lately! 
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✔️ DONE IS BETTER THAN PERFECT. I struggle the most with this, but the last few weeks have been a great exercise in challenging a lot of my Type A tendencies.
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👇🏻 How do YOU stay on track when you feel overwhelmed?
‘SELF-CARE ISN’T SELFISH.’ . If you met me I ‘SELF-CARE ISN’T SELFISH.’
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If you met me IRL, you’d probably [hopefully?] never know I suffer from anxiety, and would likely assume I’m just a high maintenance, high strung, Type A personality. All of those things are in fact true, LOL, but what you may not realize is that each of those traits of mine are the result of years of feeling anxious and worried and stressed.
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I grew up at a time when we were taught to keep our struggles to ourselves, and when I think back to grades 3 and 4 when my anxiety was at it’s absolute worst, it pains me to remember how much I suffered in silence. I feel proud that I was able to overcome some pretty tough stuff on my own, but I refuse to let history repeat itself.
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I will not raise my daughter in a world that stigmatizes mental illness.
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According to the Canadian Mental Health Association, 38% of Canadians say their mental health has declined since the start of the pandemic, and people already struggling with their mental health were 2 times more likely to say their mental health has declined further. 
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One of the biggest hurdles for anyone suffering from mental illness is overcoming the stigma. It is the number one reason why people living with mental illness do not seek help.
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Today is #BellLetsTalk day and Bell will donate 5 cents to Canadian mental health programs for every applicable text, local or long distance call, tweet or TikTok video using #BellLetsTalk - all at no cost to participants beyond what they would normally pay their service provider for online or phone access. 
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MENTAL HEALTH MATTERS.
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Let’s end the stigma.
‘STOP TRYING TO CALM THE STORM. CALM YOURSELF, T ‘STOP TRYING TO CALM THE STORM. CALM YOURSELF, THE STORM WILL PASS.’ —Unknown
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My daughter went back to school virtually today, and while the Type A in me is excited we’re back in some kind of routine, I had forgotten just how chaotic and impractical distance learning is. A province-wide internet outage took down her teacher within 2 hours, shattering any hopes I had of grabbing a little time to myself to get caught up on all of the work stuff I’ve been putting off for the last 3 weeks. I’ve dried tears, prepared snacks, provided new Zoom logins, helped with grade 4 math, and I even made paper plates out of construction paper for a last minute craft.
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Wash, rinse, repeat.
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All is good in our world again, and soon we’ll dive back into those math problems and whatever else is on tap for homework before I retreat to my office to print off tomorrow’s agenda and worksheets. We’ll all play Roblox before dinner to help us unwind after a crazy day, and I’ll stay up later than I want to tonight trying to get caught up because I know tomorrow will bring more unforeseen challenges, and I hate starting my day feeling behind schedule.
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Parenting in a pandemic is extra messy, and if this sh*t storm has taught me anything, it’s that we need to give ourselves a hell of a lot of grace right now. There will be days where we’re super productive and get through everything on our never-ending ‘to do’ lists, but there will be many more days where we feel like we’ve accomplished absolute nothing.
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It’s on these difficult days that we need to remind ourselves that our most important job right now is making sure our kids are healthy and happy, and that they feel safe and loved. When they look back on this time, they won’t remember if the house was clean and the laundry was folded, how often we ordered takeout, or if we gained weight. All they will remember is how we showed up for them - even on the days we were struggling to show up for ourselves.
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If the return to reality has you feeling overwhelmed today, stop trying to calm the storm. Take a deep breath, get present in this moment, remind yourself what’s important, and focus on that instead.
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We’ve got this. 💙
BACK TO REALITY… . Are you ready to get back at BACK TO REALITY…
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Are you ready to get back at it?
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While we’ve certainly been busy organizing, packing, and getting our new home ready and didn’t really relax as much as we’d hoped to over the holidays, I’ve enjoyed operating at a slower pace the last couple of weeks. We’ve stayed up late, slept in a little bit each morning, had too much to eat and drink, and enjoyed a break from routines and schedules. 
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Toronto is currently under lockdown, so my daughter is going back to school virtually tomorrow while my husband and I continue to work from home. It’s not ideal, but we’ll make it work and I’m excited to get back into a routine. The time away from my computer helped me reset and recharge, and I feel like I’m starting 2021 with more realistic expectations of myself. And that feels good.
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2020 was definitely not my favorite year, but when I look back at the last 12 months, a lot of really great things came from it. It gave me more time with my husband and daughter and brought us much closer than our busy, pre-2020 lives would’ve ever allowed. It helped me reconnect with friends I had lost contact with due to the craziness that is being a working mom. And it helped me form amazing new friendships that I will cherish forever.
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I know 2021 is likely going to be just as challenging - if not more so - as 2020 was, but for the first time since becoming a mom, I finally feel like I have a tribe of people around me. I feel less lonely than I’ve ever felt in my life, which is hilarious since we have been holed up in our house for ~10 months, but it feels pretty amazing.
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I’m not sure where I was going with this post, but suffice it to say I’m ready to caffeine and conquer! ☕️
‘ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR LIFE. KNOW THAT ‘ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR LIFE. KNOW THAT IT IS YOU WHO WILL GET YOU WHERE YOU WANT TO GO, NO ONE ELSE.’ —Les Brown
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I think we can all agree that 2020 was the absolute shits, and I know we’re all looking forward to a chance to start fresh in hopes that the universe will be a little kinder to us in 2021. 
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Of course, our lives aren’t going to magically go back to the way they were at 12:01 am. It’s not easy to be positive right now, but instead of getting stuck in the suck, remember that the only thing you have control over is your attitude.  You can continue to feel sorry for yourself and mourn all the ways your life has changed, or you can straighten your crown and focus on all of the good things happening in your life.
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If you dig deep enough, you’ll see that there is so much to be grateful right now.
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And if you can’t think of anything that you feel proud of or that brings you joy, then it’s up to you to create it. Accept responsibility for your life. Stop making excuses and be the change you want to see. 
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Instead of thinking of 2021 as another year of lockdowns and restrictions while we wait for vaccinations to take place and herd immunity to take hold, look at it as an open book. 
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12 new chapters. 365 new chances. 🥂
‘BE PRESENT WHERE YOUR FEET ARE.’ —Unknown . ‘BE PRESENT WHERE YOUR FEET ARE.’ —Unknown
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What do you do when you have downtime?
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I haven’t had time off since last Christmas. We hit the ground running in January as we were planning a 2-week family vacay in March and wanted to do ALL THE THINGS beforehand so we could unplug and enjoy the trip. Our vacation obviously got cancelled, and we’ve been on autopilot ever since. I feel like the pandemic has either made people really busy, or extremely bored. There’s no in-between!
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My team and I have been busy working ahead over the past couple of months as I really wanted to unplug and unwind for a few weeks over the holidays and now that the craziness of Christmas is over, I don’t know what to do with myself!
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I’m caught up on This Is Us, we finally watched The Undoing, I’m almost done Open Book, I’ve done a lot of drawing on my iPad, I’ve had a lot of wine, I’ve eaten a ton of chocolate, we’ve played games, I’ve done my nails…and I’m bored, lol. But unless I find something else to do, I have to face packing up this house (we’re moving, ya’ll!) and I can’t face that just yet.
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👇🏻how do you unwind?
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