Tag: Life

Under Pressure

I’m a very different person than I was at 20 and even 30. I love how we constantly evolve and change through the years. I’ve been “tightly wound” for most of my life. I don’t know if it was due to pressure going through school to do my best or being an only child and pretty selfish, but I have kept things in their respective boxes – and only in their respective boxes – for years. The last few years I have started to let go of a little of that anal retentiveness and tried to learn to let go. Daniel has been monumental in those exercises. He is most definitely the ying to my yang and meeting him is one of those pivotal moments where positive change started to happen. He is an easy going, laid back, all around funny guy while I am a detail oriented, neurotic, crazy-at-home, all around funny gal. It always makes me laugh to see people’s faces when I tell them what a monster I am at home. Or was. I want things picked up, clean (mostly), back in their original places (do NOT move my toothpaste), and wherever you found them. Daniel has a nickname for me – “CSI Sherri” – because I can walk into a room in our house and immediately tell if something is amiss or different. I used to go bonkers if something was not the way I left it or in the same place or if there were things of his sitting on the table or a coat not hung up. In the year+ that we’ve been together I have learned, the hard way, that those things aren’t worth fighting about and aren’t important in the grand scheme of things and life. My stress level, just from learning this behavior change, has dramatically reduced. Couple that with working out and I’m *almost* as relaxed as a normal person. (Actually, are normal people relaxed? I don’t know that I know any. Lol) All that to say this: coming from a self-diagnosed neurotic, OCD love bunny – Don’t sweat the small stuff. In the end, worrying does no good, doesn’t change anything, and can affect your health. It comes down to picking your battles and lemme tell ya, toothpaste ain’t worth fighting over. 🙂

Love yourself.
Find peace inside.
Share happiness.

I’m late! I’m late!

In retrospect (all of 5 seconds ago), I probably should have chosen a different title for this blog post. I realize some of you are going to immediately click on it to find out if I’m pregnant. I’m not (but thank you for caring enough to check right away). This title is referring to the White Rabbit in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

From Wikipedia:

The Rabbit was perhaps most famous for the little ditty he sang at the beginning – “I’m late! I’m late!
For a very important date! No time to say hello, goodbye! I’m late! I’m late! I’m late!”

Some believe the rabbit was late for the announcement of the Queen to the royal garden. The panic the
rabbit showed was his fear of losing his head. Upon her arrival (where Alice has been helping to paint
the roses red) the cards finish their song and the rabbit blows his trumpet (which he had been carrying
for most of his lines) royally introducing the king and queen.

Do you ever have those days (or weeks or months) where you feel constantly hurried and harried? Do you ever feel like you’re going to lose your head? This year and gotten increasingly busy and everything is moving at warp speed. Gone are the days when I would take the weekends to relax and rejuvenate. They are now as jam-packed as my work-filled week and I don’t even have 2-legged kids! I have enormous respect for those of you who manage to run a household, work a job, and raise a family, among all your other responsibilities.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. I lead a very fulfilling life – my work is challenging and I work with some of the most talented (and friendly) people on the planet, my boyfriend is amazing and shows me everyday that he cares, is ambitious and inspires me to be a better person, and God, my family and friends are the center of my world. I often comment on Facebook how lucky I am to have the most amazing friends and it’s true. I’ve evolved from a pair of extremely close girlfriends all through school to a wider circle of close confidantes and an enormous stretch of beautifully talented friends and family. Many have been with me for years and have seen me through marriage, divorce, beginnings, endings, moves across the city, state, and even the country, animals, a million hair colors, styles, and transformations inside and out. Even when time or distance us separates us – sometimes for years – I know I will always have my gals. I can never repay them for the love and support they’ve always shown me through the years, but I hope they know how special they are to me. That being said, I don’t see them nearly enough anymore. Life has gotten in the way and I’m not sure how. I love to be with my gals and nurture those relationship, yet somehow I only see them a few times a year, if that. What is so important that I can’t take a night or weekend here and there to make time for all these women who have become such an integral part of my life and helped me becoming the woman I am today? Nothing, that’s what. Same goes for my dad – I don’t see him as much as I would like. Nothing is more important than these people, these relationships, these memories we are making. I tend to forget and take each day for granted. There are still a million things I want to do with my life and I’m working on some of those “goals” already. But one short and long-term goal should be making more time for the very important people in my life who have influenced and supported me for years. You know who you are….I’m coming for you.

Love yourself.
Find peace inside.
Share happiness.

P.S. I also have a few pretty amazing guy friends, but I’m going to save them for another post. 😉

P.S.S. I know it’s election day, but I could get mired down in that for hours and you still need to finish work and get dinner taken care of. 🙂 I got out and voted today. I hope you did too. It is such an honor and privilege that we have the freedom to choose our next leader. Thank you to all those who have served, are serving, and will serve so that we can exercise that freedom. I salute you.

Bad Sherri

Bad, bad Sherri for not writing in a month. You have no excuse. Yes, you did a million things in the last month, but you should always find time to write at lease a few sentences at lease ONCE a week. Bad, bad Sherri. You should be ashamed!

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, how the heck are YOU? Long time, no talk, eh? By the way, I just got back from Wisconsin. Can you tell, eh? I have the cheese curd to prove it. I’m pretty sure I brought all the cheese curd back from the entire state. 😉

I got back late Friday night and am currently sitting in Crestwood Coffee enjoying brunch while it rains outside. I couldn’t be happier. I love this time of year. And it’s so nice to be home, though I had a wonderful time (yet again) visiting my sister and her family this year. I don’t mind the 12 hour drive to Wisconsin when I think about seeing those cute, little faces upon arrival. And spending quality time with my sister, now that she’s mature enough to reciprocate the love. 🙂 We get along so well now and spend a lot of our time together laughing, either at ourselves or the kids (much to their chagrin). I posted a few pictures to Instagram during the trip and will be posting the rest to my Facebook page this week.

So much has happened in the past few weeks in Birmingham and life that I’m sure I will forget something or someone, but I would be remiss if I didn’t try. So, in a nonsensical fashion, I’m going to list some of the fun things that I have done the past month. Watch out:

Fabulous dinner at Rogue with Shira and Jennifer
Birmingham Barons last home game at Regions Field
The Color Run in the rain (fabulous)
Went to shooting range and finally shot my pistol using my Living Social deals
Artwalk!
Artwalk after party!
Supper Club
Saw Train in concert
Sidewalk Film Festival volunteer thank you party
Nashville for a weekend to see Christopher Titus (stand-up) at Zanies
Went to Wisconsin for 8 days to see family
Dinner with Sara, Paul, family and friends for his birthday.

There was a lot more goodness in there and many memory-making moments, but those are some of the highlights. I’m so very lucky to live in such an amazing city with some of the greatest, most civic-minded and active people ever. And I love where I live. I drove through many towns on my way to and from WI that I knew were not for me. One day, I would like to move to Milwaukee to be closer to my sis and her family. I would love to be a regular part of their lives more than once a year.

Iron Tribe is going well. I just finished month 2 of regular workouts. I surprised myself by going yesterday morning after driving 12 hours straight the day before. I also went to work out at a gym while on vacation (words I never thought I would say). I still haven’t seen a lot of movement on the scale, BUT I can definitely see muscles where I never had (or saw) them before. It’s a little freaky and amazing to watch your body transform bit by bit and see definition taking shape. I know I’m getting stronger as my previous dead lift record (one of our exercises) was 65 lbs. and I lifted 175 lbs. while I was in WI. #achievementunlocked

I have a busy few weeks and months coming up including Theatre Downtown’s Hobo Awards tonight, comedy shows, Park in the Park, Crestwood Crawl, Cornhole Tournament, “Doc” Adams Book Release, DISCO grand opening, more dinners with friends, Magic City Post’s Zombie Walk, Supper Club, Warrior Dash (supporting friends), Tribe Quest, Race for the Cure (you can donate here if you like: http://www.info-komen.org/goto/yougotrossed), birthday parties, Halloween parties, birthday Halloween parties, Rebecca Loebe concert, Fall Festivale, lots of local theatre shows, VOTING!, planning the next Birmingham Dance Walk, and celebrating life. Comment or message me if you would like more info on any of those things or want to join me!

Signing off for now. A more meaningful post to come, but definitely wanted to say Hi and let you know that I’m still here.

Love yourself.
Find peace inside.
Share happiness.