Richly Scheduled

My voice is gone. That’s always my ‘tell’ that I’ve been too on-the-go without enough downtime or self-care. It has been a richly scheduled few weeks. One of the highlights is that I went to Mexico to take a class from the co-author of The Five Languages of Workplace Appreciation. It was an incredible class with just 15 people in it. I came away with a greater understanding of how to best say ‘thank you’ to the team that works at Bramble Berry.

Everyone has a different way of needing to hear appreciation. Those five categories are: quality time, acts of service, physical touch (pats on the back or fist bumps), gifts or words of affirmation. So, for example, if I’m consistently giving gifts as "thank yous" but really, the team member just needs my uninterrupted time (quality time) to feel appreciated, then that’s a miss. The class went into clues on how to figure out how to best show appreciation, and we played out various scenarios. It was a worthwhile investment of professional development.

From there, I flew straight to Los Angeles to be on Home and Family. You can see that clip here if you missed it. That was a whirlwind of good things but equally rushed and overscheduled. I got home from the trip at 11:30 at night and got to drop the little ones off at school the next morning. I crave time with them when I’m back from a trip. I miss them when I travel and even though we Facetime daily, often multiple times a day, it’s just not the same as being there in person.

After I dropped them off, I spoke to 300+ high schoolers about the power of persistence, failure and setting small goals. It was a wonderful program that I was proud to be a part of, but coming off of a 7-day trip, I definitely was feeling the energy wane.

As everyone who has ever traveled knows, the second that you walk in the door at work every single phone call that came in, every piece of mail, every meeting that didn’t happen … it’s all waiting for you. So Thursday and Friday were a blur of activity where I was ruled by the calendar in 15 minute increments until it was time to film Soap Queen TV. That was such a fun series of projects. Expect to see them soon!

Ever since I founded Bramble Berry, we’ve always been philanthropic, donating as much as we could responsibly to make our community and the world we live in a better place for all of us. One of the organizations we’ve supported for over a decade is Lydia Place, a homeless housing option for women with children who find themselves on the streets with no place to go.

Bramble Berry has a room inside of their house that we sponsored and decorated, in addition to financially supporting them. We help with the upkeep of the room (provide the beds, the bedding, the window coverings, design the paint scheme and basically Bramble Berry-ize it).

It was an honor to put together a table at their biggest fundraiser of the year, their auction. Putting together a table meant that we competed for the dessert dash (we got our choice of carrot cake … yum!) and bid things up for a good cause. I came away feeling energized, lucky and fortunate. I also (eh hem), came away with a pair of Hamilton tickets, so it was a win-win for everyone. I’m so thankful that they are doing this important work (as well as other local organizations all over America working to help end homelessness for our vulnerable populations). It was especially fun to have the chance to dress up with my sweetie too. He cleans up good! 

I’ve got a plan to clear up my throat issues. It involves saying ‘no’ to staying up reading too late, being gentle with the exercise, forcing myself to focus on learning to hand-lettering and drinking copious amounts of Throat Coat tea and megadosing Vitamin C and Vitamin D.