Owning a dog seemed impossible to a girl with severe asthma, allergies, eczema — and not just a little anxiety. After all, I’d almost died several times from asthma attacks and anaphylaxis from food allergies. Doctors joked that I should live in a bubble or on a sterile boat in the middle of the ocean,…
While I don’t claim to be a fitness guru and I don’t have an extreme weight loss story fit for TLC, I have learned something very valuable in the past two years: how to enjoy exercising. Two years ago, my definition of exercise was taking the stairs at work instead of the elevator- that was…
Isaac and I lounged on opposite couches in our living room, tears rolling down our faces from laughing so hard. It was near midnight, way past my bedtime, but we couldn’t stop reading, it was just too good. It felt like someone had spent a year studying my husband in his natural habitat and wrote…
I’ve had a post sitting in my drafts section for about two weeks now and just haven’t managed to finish it. It’s about blog followers and readership, so when I saw today’s WordPress Daily Prompt, I had to laugh and just finish the darn thing. To what extent is your blog a place for your…
Last week, Isaac and I deep cleaned our house and I found an important letter stuffed in an old desk drawer. When I received it from my therapist, Ken, two years ago, it was a lifeline when I was drowning in a sea of worry and anxiety. Finding it was a good reminder of where…
True life: I got married and let myself go. Immediately. It wasn’t a gradual slip into slices of pizza, eating cookies by the box, and drinking Coke nonstop, it happened literally the night of my wedding. Isaac and I got into our honeymoon suite, showered, and crawled into bed with a bag of Oreos and…
As the wheels of our plane touched down in North Carolina at the end of our honeymoon, I gave myself a mental high-five and said “you did it!!!!” I didn’t learn to surf. I didn’t learn to hula dance. I didn’t even go snorkeling in the tropical freezing cold Hawaiian waters. No, I was proud…
Today I had every intention of getting off of work and going to two gym classes: abs and kickboxing. I was going to bust my ass at the gym, come home to eat a salad, and pat myself on the back for still being healthy even after saying “I do.” Not letting myself go, no…
Last night, I doused my hands in moisturizer, slid a pair of cotton socks over them, and went downstairs to watch a movie with my fiance. It wasn’t until I was comfortably snuggled on the couch and resting my face on one of my sock-puppet hands that I realized how normal this was to me/us.…
Mark Nepo: The Book of Awakening If peace comes from seeing the whole, then misery stems from a loss of perspective. We begin so aware and grateful. The sun somehow hangs there in the sky. The little bird sings. The miracle of life just happens. Then we stub our toe, and in that moment of…
The Other Courtney 