• Amazing People,  Confessions,  Do I Really Want My Readers To Know This?,  Friends,  My Friends Have Mad Skillz

    Friends First.

    September 3, 2015

    Momo and I met online seven years ago, at some point in 2008. (In Internet time that’s virtually 575 years ago.) We met in real life in June of 2009, when I helped bring a van full of meat to her house. (The Momo’s Meat Wagon story is here.) We’ve been close friends ever since. I became her contractor at BlogHer three years ago, and for every day of those three years I have been one half of a total Dream Team. I don’t think every pair of friends could have a successful work relationship, but we do. We have worked together seamlessly, with excellent communication and just the right…

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  • Confessions,  Do I Really Want My Readers To Know This?,  Roxie,  Working On My Fitness

    Thoughts From This Morning’s Walk

    June 24, 2015

    I hope I don’t get rained on. Why does Roxie have to bark at EVERYTHING? I need someone to walk a block ahead of me, warning everyone that she’s a loud barker but harmless. I love that I can listen to music on my iPhone while walking. So grateful for Steve Jobs as well as those who invented the Sony Walkman before him. Walking with a boom box would’ve been way harder than this. I really need to make time to file the 1500 read emails that are sitting in my inbox. I’ll feel better after I do that. Maybe tomorrow. It just occurred to me that I take really…

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  • Music

    On Sad Songs That Make Me Very Happy

    March 18, 2015

    I was on the phone with Liz yesterday and we were talking about my upcoming visit, during which we’ll take a side trip to Atlantic City. I’ve always wanted to see it even though it’s not the same as it was in its heyday, and Liz says that it’s pretty much the only big stretch of New Jersey beach we haven’t checked out, so I’m in. As we were talking, I said, “I was listening to my ‘Wanderlust’ playlist on Spotify yesterday and Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Atlantic City’ came on! I LOVE THAT SONG. It’s so beautiful!” Then I thought for a second, and said, “Wait, well, I love it but…

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  • Best Thing Ever,  Confessions,  Working On My Fitness

    If You Give A Melisa A Fitness Tracker…

    March 13, 2015

    I started wearing a fitness tracker on Sunday. I never had plans to get one, even though approximately 7.6 out of every 10 of my friends are using them to track their daily steps. Then Jim, who uses one himself, ordered one (the not-technically-released-yet Garmin Vivofit 2) for me. Note: This post is not sponsored. Jim used real money to pay for my fitness tracker; I just assumed that if I didn’t mention which one I got, somebody would ask. I adore it. I adore my husband for many reasons too but in this case it’s because he’s a genius, and here’s why: He knows that I am extremely competitive…

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  • Confessions,  Do I Really Want My Readers To Know This?

    The Stages of a Cold, Melisa-Style

    February 19, 2015

    One Day Pre-cold Uh-oh. I think I’m getting sick. I can’t get sick. I don’t have time to get sick. I’m going to lay down for a little while to see if I feel better. I can’t get sick. I will not get sick. I should start drinking lots more water. Cold, Day One Oh gosh, I am. I AM getting sick. I feel it in my chest. My chest is SOOOOO congested. Ugh, the congestion. It’s so tight. And right on schedule, the cough. Fantastic. I’m not going to workout today. But just today. OMG I HATE SKIPPING WORKOUTS. I am drinking a ton of water. I should just…

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  • Confessions,  My Friends Have Mad Skillz,  Something That Could Change Your Life,  Working On My Fitness

    Rebalancing.

    January 26, 2015

    Making it through last week felt like a huge victory for me because, well, you probably read all about it already. Besides the moving parts of my life over which I have no control that I ever-so-vaguely mentioned, the other main source of my internal crisis was a repeat offender: hormones. THANKS, MOM. KIDDING, MOM. I took some action over the weekend and reached out to a friend who is a wellness coach and so smart about and active in treating things holistically that one of her nicknames is “Witch Doctor”. This is NOT my thing. I’ve always been skeptical of the healing properties of oils and other natural—what shall…

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  • Blessings,  Confessions,  UGH.

    This Week: 1 Melisa: 1/2

    January 23, 2015

    This week has Kicked. My. Butt. I’m not talking about your average, run-of-the-mill, short-term butt-kicking. I’m talking about nearly a week’s worth of stress-induced, anxiety-laden, sleep-deprived, frustrating, often tearful minutes that crawled by as if they were hours instead of sixty-second increments. To say out loud that it’s “been a tough week” seems ridiculous to me because it’s such a massive understatement. The cause: too many moving parts in my life, many of which are currently out of my control. At my lowest point earlier in the week, I sobbed heavily into Jim’s arms, stating rather dramatically that I just don’t know why I can’t be a “normal person who…

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  • Fun in Chicago,  My Friends Have Mad Skillz,  UGH.

    Survival Skills

    November 18, 2014

    There’s a saying about how Chicago has only two seasons, winter and construction*. My little corner of my western suburb has been experiencing construction year-round for nearly two years now (even through the winter months), thanks to a gutting and extensive reconstruction of a major state route that happens to be one of the few roads that runs through my entire town from all the way north to all the way south. By the way, that state route happens to border my subdivision. The city planners back in the day had absolutely no idea that eventually Naperville would be the fifth largest (by population) city in Illinois and naturally, didn’t…

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  • Best Thing Ever,  Childhood Memories,  My Friends Have Mad Skillz,  Something That Could Change Your Life

    It’s A Very Brady Birthday

    November 6, 2014

    It’s my birthday today, and over the past couple of days I’ve put some thought into what I might want to write about this year…and came up completely empty. This is my eighth birthday blog post, and I feel like I’ve covered all of the angles already. I mean, how much can a person really write about her own birthday? Then a friend, Erica, who I will now call “the Amazingly Wonderful and Hugely Tremendous Erica” whenever her name crosses my lips to infinity and beyond, did something really nice last night and unknowingly gave me the perfect gift. Make that two gifts; she gave me a gift AND the…

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  • Confessions,  Roxie

    The Waiting Is The Hardest Part

    November 4, 2014

    This girl. Sigh. At the time this post goes up, I’ll be delivering her to our vet for another procedure: today she’s having a cyst removed from her front leg. We’ve visited our vet more frequently in the past eighteen months; that happens as a dog (or anything, really) gets older. It’s hard. She’s ten and a half. My other beagle (the late, great Bijoux) lived to be thirteen. She was my first baby: we brought her home two years before D was born. I spent the last three years of her life panicking over each and every health incident (and in between them!) because I was worried that, each…

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