Be active

February 3, 2018 In Be active, BLR365, Books to read, California, Freedom, grow, Inspiration, Links, Live the life you want to live, People, play, Projects & Organizations I dig, Today Is The Day, Travel, Travel Tips and Tricks, Uncategorized

man, that girl parties a lot

2.1.18

Hi there. If you haven’t been here before, welcome to the celebration. This is day 32. For the year 2018, anyway.

I’m Diane. This is me goofing around at Domaine Carneros a couple of weeks ago:

I love the bubbles there. They’re extra special with good company, too. Life is about celebrating everyday, right? And the people. Yes. The ones you love and those who make you laugh.

I don’t think we celebrate enough. I think we wait until it’s often too late. I think we’ve made a bad habit out of “saving up” for the perfect time or chance to live like we are actually alive.

The clock is ticking. When will we learn?

I do my best to work and practice what I preach by getting all fired up and excited about small, silly, insignificant things everyday, and taking anyone who let’s me, along for the ride. Kid in a candy store baby, it’s the only way to be while all the sweetness is there for the taking. When we practice having more gratitude, we have less attitude, and a helluva lot more fun.

So about this whole “celebration” thing?

Since meeting Noah Scalin years ago at an event where he shared his Skull-A-Day art project, I’ve been a little obsessed with doing my own 365 project. I attempted one in 2014 and it lasted for a bit over two months. This year I’m determined to go all the way for 2018, filling your inboxes with funny, strange, head-scratching things each day that I’m having a little party (celebration) about. I hope you will continue to follow along, and think a little more about feeling the thrill of at least one little ridiculous awesome thing everyday, too. (Scroll down to the bottom of my webpage and sign up for daily email notifications if you haven’t already.)

When we do things that make us happy, we stay unstuck, when we are not stuck, we are more badass, when we are badass, we take life by the you know what’s and don’t wait for damn permission from anyone to do whatever the heck we want.

Did you know you have the choice to do whatever the heck you want?

Bingo!

CELEBRATE! DO IT UP! TIME WAITS FOR NO ONE.

This Blue Lollipop Road was inspired by a couple of crazy joyful girls who didn’t care what day it was, they lived like they meant it. I will always be inspired to do the same. Today I celebrate making the choice to celebrate. Staying happy is a practice. Lace up, buttercup, and get in the game. The whistle just blew and it’s go time…

How are you going to start celebrating more?

#StartDriving #LifeUnstuck #TodayIsTheDay

*Feeling stuck as a pig in a pit? Call me! (804.339.6514) I can help.

January 28, 2018 In Be active, Cool companies, Deals & Steals, Freedom, Great companies, grow, Links, Photography, Photos, Projects & Organizations I dig, Travel, Travel Tips and Tricks, Uncategorized

celebrate everyday: day 27

1.27.18

Today I celebrate friends who start their own travel companies:

Check out this trip to Ireland in May! A great deal and opportunity for off the beaten path adventure with a couple of experienced and talented hosts. It’s pretty awesome when people find their super passions and want to share them with others.

Maybe it’s time for you to fly away, little birdie?

#Wanderlust #LifeOutsideTheDroneZone #ExperiencesNotThings

*Ready to take a trip but don’t know where to start? Call me! (804.339.6514) I can help.

January 25, 2018 In Be active, Business, Cool companies, Great companies, grow, Inspiration, Links, Live the life you want to live, North Carolina, Operation Charlotte, People, Photos, Projects & Organizations I dig, Today Is The Day

celebrate everyday: day 24

1.24.18

Today I celebrate entrepreneurs, because it takes a lot to keep the hustle going when you work for yourself:

I went to F*ck Up Night a Advent Coworking tonight. F*ck Up Night is, you guessed it…an event where a panel of entrepreneurs share their stories about how they got to where they are, and all their f*ck ups along the way.

The kind of passion, drive, and hustle it takes to work for yourself is not for the weak or tired, to say the least. There’s a whole lot of regular “Why don’t you just go get a real job?” and other ridiculous opinions we’ve all heard, as we scrape the last penny out of the bank account, put in another late night, and wake up early to pound the pavement again. Those things would make most people break down and cry like babies. (And we have at times.) But! Figuring out ways to navigate this crazy world and make a living doing what you love and believe in so hard core, even your hero couldn’t talk you out of doing it? That, is pretty f*cking awesome. And totally worth the expenditure of those blood, sweat, and tears days.

NEVER GIVE UP!

Does something you overhear in a conversation at a cocktail party make you want to jump over the appetizer table, knocking over the hostess as you spill your martini, just so you can be talking about it, too? I think you’ve found your thing, baby. Go for it.

You know what you love to do. It’s ok to feel like you want to punch someone in the face next time they tell you you’re nuts to chase the life you want. You don’t have to punch them, just keep looking straight ahead, and let all that bs outside noise fall far behind you.

What lights your fire?

#LoveYourWork #StartDriving #LifeOutsideTheDroneZone

*Ready to join the hustler club, but don’t know where to start? Call me! (804.339.6514) I can help.

January 22, 2018 In Be active, California, Freedom, Funny signs, Inspiration, Live the life you want to live, play, Today Is The Day, Travel

celebrate everyday: day 21

1.21.18

Today I celebrate being goofy:

Just because you’re a grown up, doesn’t mean you can’t be chock-full of joy and ridiculousness.

This life is not a practice session. What are you waiting for? JUST JUMP! (Pants not required.)

#TodayIsTheDay #ExperiencesNotThings #LiveOutsideTheDroneZone

*Feeling stuck in the gerbil wheel? Call me! (804.339.6514) I can help.

January 2, 2018 In Be active, blue lollipops, grow, North Carolina, Operation Charlotte, Photos, play, Today Is The Day

celebrate everyday: day 2

1.2.18

I just got back from a 5 mile run. It was 14 degrees with a “feels like 7” according to my phone. According to me, it felt like my ears could’ve frozen off. Holy moly, that was about the coldest run I have ever done in the state of North Carolina. I’m from Vermont, but to me 65 degrees is cold, and if I never saw a snowflake again it would probably be to soon. I like frigid temperatures about as much as I like Trump, but let’s stay on track here- we’re supposed to be talking about celebrating, not hate…

Today I celebrate that I have feet. Two that are healthy and work:

I’ve been a runner since high school, and put in miles all over the globe, on beaches, in cities, on back country dirt roads- you name it. There have been treadmills along the way (including at the “free” gym downstairs in my building, and at the YMCA I pay to be a member at, a mile away from where I live), but running outside is so much better. I think the only time I have ever run on a treadmill was in my building gym in Chicago a few years back, and only because Dwayne my doorman saw me heading outside to pound the negative temperature Windy City pavement and he yelled at me. (Good thing someone takes care of us stubborn people over here.)

If one of my least favorite things is the cold, why would I go outside to run on a day like today? Because I want to feel alive, strong, and celebrate the fact that I’m lucky enough to have a 39 year old body that can. No excuses.

If you’re snuggled up all warm & cozy next to your lover, or with a book the next time Siri tells you it’s as cold as a you know what making you feel unmotivated to move your body, just jump. Jump out of bed, and get out the door to do whatever it is that makes you feel alive and strong. I promise you will feel totally badass after you’re done.

Get moving! I know you can do it. Consider this a stinky feet high-five from me.

What moves you?

#StepOutside #LifeOutsideTheDroneZone #Run

*Feeling stuck? Need to get moving? Call me! (804.339.6514) I can help.

June 11, 2017 In Be active, Links, Nicaragua, Photos

pivot or get pivoted

“I left my life and found my calling.”

~ Pivot

This is how I stay on my toes.

What are you doing to stay outside the drone zone?

(Thanks for the read, S! Perfect for salt air learning time:)

#Nicaragua #LeadershipDevelopment #Adventure

February 24, 2017 In Be active, Colorado, Florida, Freedom, grow, Inspiration, Links, Live the life you want to live, People, Photos, play, Today Is The Day, Travel, Uncategorized, Virginia

get a life! (outside.)

Bright and early this morning and just after writing this last night, I heard something VERY disturbing as I was grabbing a coffee. The TV was on in this public place with me paying no attention until my ears caught a designer on a home show who was being interviewed; “The average American spends 23 hours a day inside…”

Twenty three hours out of twenty four a day, INSIDE?!

What are we doing to ourselves, people?!

This fact is almost as disturbing as a couple others I’ve learned, such as the average American home built in 2016 was something close to 4,000 square feet, and there are an average of 300,000 items in American homes.

I’m about to cry over here.

Holy mother lode guys and gals, these facts and figures are so NOT cool. Are you in Target right now? The mall? Hiding at home with all the windows closed? Please take your hands off the cart, hanger, or remote, and walk outside for a minute. Do me a favor and think of why you are in Target, at the mall, or on your couch. Do you actually need what you’re shopping for? Do you have any bills you could pay where your money could be more effectively used rather than that “I can never seem to get out of Target for less than $200” that I hear all the time? Are you just bored?

Please put me out of business! Remember we declared together (by that I mean I’m pretending like you all agreed) that 2017 is THE YEAR OF LESS CRAP? How about now we add that this year can be the year of more fresh air? The year of more adventure out of four walls with your bestie exploring a new neighborhood, more time to kick the ball around at the park with your kid, extra hours losing yourself on a road trip alone, more fun gettin’ frisky under a tree at the top of a mountain with your shmoopster….oh the possibilities!

Here’s a teeny sampling of my past few months:

I don’t know about you, but this girl sure isn’t staying inside for a minute longer than she ever has to.

Consumerism and isolation are forceful breeding grounds for fear, hate, obesity, misery and all those other things that sound just awful, sad, and not fun.

Life is WAY TOO SHORT to be awful, sad, and not fun…don’tcha think? Yahoo! The bell just rang for recess! It’s time for all of us to go play. Get up, open the doors, walk outside, hug a tree, a person, or both, and find a little more health and happiness on this crazy ride.

#LessStuffMoreFreedomHappyLife #MoveIt #TheGreatOutdoors

May 9, 2016 In Be active, BLR Memorial Travel Scholarship Fund, BLR Play It Forward 2016, Blue Lollipop Road Memorial Scholarship, Do good, Inspiration, Links, Strong Mojo, Today Is The Day, Travel, Vermont

get your give on

Hello, Monday!

Today is May 9th. This means exactly 2 months until our 5th Annual BLR Play It Forward Event & BLR Memorial Travel Scholarship award, July 9 2016 weekend. (FIVE years!)

We’ve been doing good on our Remember, Celebrate, Live promise since 2012 and couldn’t be more proud. We love playing forward to give back.

Inspired by us? Well thank you…but we wouldn’t be able to do it without YOU! So how do you get involved?

1.) If you’re MAU Women’s Soccer Alumni, you can register here for just a $35 donation to play in the game, Saturday July 9th at Willow Park in Bennington, VT. 100% of registration fees go to the scholarship fund.

2.) Get an event shirt for yourself or your kiddos here. Shirts come in blue and pink, youth and adult sizes. Just 20 buckaroos donation! 100% of that loot goes straight to the scholarship fund.

3.) Rally your friends, family, neighbors, former teachers, coaches, strangers on the street, or anyone else you like, to come join/hang out/socialize for our Friday night (July 8th) open Welcome Back Party, and Saturday day and night (July 9th) Alumni game, scholarship announcement, and Celebration Cocktails.

4.) Sponsor! We’d love any sponsorships, and promise if you do, we will give shout-outs and love on all print & social media, along with on the BLR website here and more. (We’d especially like to to find a jersey & t-shirt sponsor this year to cover that huge cost. Please call 804.339.6514 or Diane(@)BlueLollipopRoad.com if you’d like to sponsor.)

5.) Donate! 100% of all donations go straight to the Blue Lollipop Road Memorial Travel Scholarship Fund. This fund supports deserving high school students to travel and do community service work. (Wha?! Yep, students doing good while getting a chance to see outside their everyday world. Exposure! Service! Character building! Building a badass next generation! Super awesomeness:)

If you’re a regular reader or BLR follower, you obviously know this Blue Lollipop Road is my life, my passion, my everything, and Play It Forward is by far the work I’m most proud of. I can’t do it alone, so I present a challenge to you readers who I know and strangers I don’t:

Donate $5 now!

I figure $5 for 5 years of playing forward so we can give back is not too much to ask. Everyone can afford 5 big ones. Won’t you support what we are doing? Click here to donate through PayPal, it is secure, easy, (and dare I say, fun?), or send a check made payable to:
Blue Lollipop Road Memorial Scholarship Fund
PO Box 34661
Charlotte, NC 28234

…or

…simply pass this post on! My Christmas wish is that some one, some where, some day, who’s big time, will notice what we are doing and say “Hey! You are spectacular BLR Play It Forward! Here’s some ginormous media and/or a million bucks for your scholarship fund! What you’re doing with your event & scholarship fund is like…totally awesome!”

(Hey- it could happen. It WILL happen.)

So won’t you send some love and spread the love? Oh how important it is, to…

Remember where you came from.

Celebrate the memories and time you have have together.

Live like today is the day.

Boom-chicka-boom!

Together we can do so much good.

#RememberCelebrateLive #GetInspired #TodayIsTheDay

February 19, 2016 In Be active, Inspiration, Live the life you want to live, Today Is The Day

addiction

My name is Diane and I too often break promises to myself.

Insert the way people introduce themselves at the start of and Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. (I think, anyway- based on movies and TV shows.)

I’m not announcing my problem with boozing here, just standing up in front of you all to admit my problem out loud, and start to hold myself accountable for a most unhealthy habit.

If you ask me what I love love love to do first thing in the morning that makes me feel high as a kite, joyful, hopeful, healthy, balanced, thankful, badass, and overall as happy as a 7 year old swimming in a mountain of gummy worms- it never changes; writing and/or exercising. I know this, many people around me know this, I talk about this, yet I epically fail at doing either of these things during much of my Monday – Friday lately. Especially the writing part, which is super sucky-poo because I’ve got great stories, a lot to say, and anytime I finish, I feel like I’ve exorcised all the worlds demons or just returned from some kind of life altering detox cleanse.

So here I am, Friday February 19th, 2016 proclaiming my addiction (the healthy kind; moving my body and sharing my words) in a huge attempt to hold myself accountable just like I hold my clients accountable for what they need to do…to just do more of what drives my days straight down that Blue Lollipop Road I know is out there.

What’s got me all off track and breaking promises to myself? Lot’s of little things that I could use as excuses of course, but really It’s simple; not taking the time I know I need and want, to be the best version of Diggidydi. (That’s me, high school nickname. Shout out to the MAU boys for coming up with that one back in 1995:)

As I talked to a single Mommy friend this morning who is just burned, like extra crispy bacon exhausted burned, I advised on my high horse; Take more time for you! You deserve better and more! Draw the line! You are going to run yourself into the ground if you don’t recharge! – I have to laugh. Aren’t we all so good at giving advice to ourselves by giving it to someone else?

If you’re reading this now and you don’t see a post again from me within the next 3 to 5 days, I hope you will write to me and call me out. If you’re reading this right now and running around multitasking like a freak show (I can relate), just stop it. If you’re reading this right now and don’t even have the faintest idea what fuels you to start your day with that I’m going to kick ass and take names, today! feeling, take some time to start figuring that out. (It is Friday after all, everyone takes an extra long lunch on Fridays. Your boss won’t notice. He’s probably golfing anyway.)

Let’s all get less addicted to email and other work day time wasters, and more addicted to becoming an expert at exactly what were passionate about, so we can share that awesomeness with the people around us.

What’s your healthy addiction that’s been collecting dust lately?

#GetAfterIt #DontForgetYourself #TodayIsTheDay

November 23, 2015 In Be active, grow, Inspiration, North Carolina, Photos

circus frenzy fun

(Originally written Thursday 11/19)

This week has been 150 miles an hour with work. Actually, the past several weeks have been at that speed. I dig it. In fact, I thrive in it. I’m loving my work more than I ever have before. It’s pretty awesome. I’m flying high on work life happiness and keeping the chaos for my clients to a minimum even though days end up being like a 3-ring circus sometimes…out of everyone’s control. I can understand why people hate the whole moving process, but that of course makes me more and more determined to not only throw the curveballs back during this stressful time for my clients, but make it fun along the way, too.

How do I recharge after corralling all the monkeys and managing the circus?

At the end of a long day, not much feels better than being outside in the air (especially when It’s 71 degrees at 6pm in late November) running, then coming and sitting here with my balcony door open to just breathe and reflect for a few minutes:

*(No filter, thankyouverymuch:)

Having a body healthy enough to go for that run, even though I’m exhausted makes me feel motivated to do more, and having a clean, safe, clutter-free space to live makes me feel grateful. Combine that with that fact I’m about to go on a huge road trip to feast for Thanksgiving to see people I love and who love me…what more could anyone ask for?

The next time you feel like you’re smack dab in the middle of a Barnum & Bailey show, just step outside and move your body to keep your sanity, sweat out the stress, and get a little perspective. That, or grab someone you love and give them a big fat hug. The circus will somehow leave town peacefully on It’s own, and you’ll be left standing there remembering the things that really matter.

#LessStuffMoreFreshAirHappyLife #GetMoving #Sunset