WELCOME TO BROKEN CHAIRS, DIETS & HABITS

I have been blessed to have many friends throughout my life - both men and women. High school friends, college and graduate school friends, single friends, married friends, professional friends, work friends, Pgh friends, Boston friends, NJ friends, Colorado friends, neighbor friends, husband friends, parent friends, crazy friends, cycling friends and tennis friends. Some of these friends got me thru tough times while others celebrated life with me so much that being prison roommates was a real possibility. I have known this particular group of crazy ladies for 18 years. Robin, Susan and I had just moved to Colorado while Eve and Steph were Colorado natives. Four of us were taking our first

About 10 years ago, I went to CU Sports Medicine for a tennis injury. When the Physical Therapist came in, she asked me to stand up. After eyeing me up and down, she diagnosed me with: * You are overweight (Check) * You are flat footed (Check) * You are severely pronated (because I am flat footed) * Bunions on both feet (yep) * Knock Knee (my poor daughter is as well) First of all, she was simply restating the obvious and secondly, I was there for a shoulder impingement. Saturday morning I went to tennis drills for 1.5 hours then came home to shower because we were going to watch our friend's son, David Kocher, golf in the Colorado Open Tournament. I have never played golf nor did I know the

Brad's company's 20th anniversary party was yesterday which meant another round of chafing dishes and endless beer and wine. Never - I repeat Never - decide to cut your calories during the summer and holidays. The best time is February, March and October. Well now that I think about it, maybe just February since we never celebrate Valentine's Day while March is my bday month and St. Paddy's day while October is Halloween and I cannot help myself when there is a bag of kit kats sitting in front of me. The BBQ had chafing dishes full of pulled chicken and pork ... can I tell you how tired I am of eating pulled anything so much that I am going to pull my teeth out. However that does not stop me

Yesterday was the day from hell and I think I lost many sanity. I did not have 10 minutes to even write my blog, but I am back!! This whole blog is a one day at a time thing. I really need to take web design class, but who has time. I think I finally got a comment section at the bottom of my home page. I also took care of the mobile site viewing that was driving my son crazy. Who knew he was addicted to my site and viewed on his mobile ... Hi Jake. I have no idea how to add comments to the other pages so that will just have to wait because I am old, tech challenged and too busy drinking. You will notice my fashion section has not been updated. Fear not because it is not from a lack of shop

I love weekends, but they are like the friends who dare you to do bad things. This is how I break down my weekends: Friday = Free for all Saturday = Sanctioned for fun Sunday = Show penitence Friday night started out innocent enough, Brad and I met some people at a micro brewery for some beers. One of the couples invited us over their house for dinner. They served beer, wine, cheese, crackers and salami. Those are pretty much my achilles' heels. Then we sat down for pasta with a mushroom sauce along with wine. I think she was trying to find my breaking point and she found it with tequila! Saturday was tennis drills where my team wanted to know if I drank a lot. Then our tennis coach asked me

Starting in May with graduation parties till the end of summer when parties and weddings start to slow down, it is BUFFET time. Those darn Swedes who invented buffets are responsible for my buffet glutony! These are the strategies when there is a buffet - Face away from buffet ... WHAT? I need to know what food is available at all times. Plus sometimes I see someone eating something that looks much better than seeing it on the table. Strategic seating for me is pulling a chair up to the buffet. A 5 star event is having the buffet and bar side by side. Start with soup and/or salad - Ya I am right on that as long as there is potato salad, macaroni salad, antipasto salad ... Fill up on veggies

It is that time of year - There are certain times in your life when wedding invitations load your mailbox and that is when you graduate high school/college and when your children graduate high school/college. I realized in my staff meeting today that Brad and I are at the gift registry part of our life and I could not be happier. I embrace every thing about a wedding. I remember when I was a little girl and weddings were held at the Sons of Italy Club, Fire Hall and other types of social clubs. There would be banquet tables with food and of course the cookie table all made by the Italian, Polish, Syrian mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters and pretty much any female relative who could bake

We celebrated Brad's birthday at one of our favorite restaurants in Boulder. I have to tell you that I get so excited when we are going somewhere fancy because it feels so exciting, delicious, civilized and well fancy. I study the food and cocktail menu online for days and I dream about what I will be eating. I am absolutely consumed with what is going to be my next meal as if I live in a third world country or walking death row. My administrator who is young, thin and fit told me she loves food, but does not think about food and well she is just not hungry. We all know that is crazy talk. I am guessing people who do not obsess about their next meal are mindful eaters and occupy their mind w

When it is all said and done, good friends are what life is all about. I am always amazed that I continue to learn. Seriously I am 57 years old and I keep thinking I know it all or at least I let everyone know that I think I know it all (I guess that makes me a know-it-all). I realized I am wound tighter than my bra and I need to relax and enjoy what today has to offer and take advantage of my blessings. Spending time with friends this weekend was a reminder we are all on a journey of learning and new experiences. Friends had us over for an Al fresco dinner Friday night and it was majestic. The night was comfortable, relaxing and effortless. I loved hearing their plans to enjoy life with no

We all know commitment is being dedicated to a cause, activity, etc.; however, it is a funny word which I think we do not always take seriously. There seems to be degrees of commitment so even if someone commits, they may relegate that commitment as a lesser dedication than something else. I have friends who will not commit while others commit to everything. Commitment like everything else in life takes mindfulness. When I lose my mind and sometimes it happens more often than not, life is actually so much easier. They key word in the definition is dedication. I am a pretty good committer - I commit to ringing my children's necks, I commit to driving Brad crazy, I commit to going from zero to

I was very busy shopping the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale, but my attention is totally on all of you. During this week, I have been asked questions that I will try and answer: 1. Do you feeling pressure? Not really or at least not pressure to post, but maybe a little pressure to lose weight; however, that is one of the reasons I did this blog. For the record I probably will not post on weekends. I know you all will be sad and will miss me, but just think how funny Monday will be. 2. I must be in a lot of pain? The only real pain I have is my feet and hips. My soul is relatively pain free - 3. Was I scared to do a blog? Hell ya - I was putting my pain free soul out there. I am looking for guest

OMG I have no idea the temps around the world, but I know it was flipping hot in Colorado!! Mother Nature is really good at reminding you of your life status. I had a tennis match at Devil's Thumb which is a very fancy neighborhood last night. As we got out of our cars, my partner, Kristin, let me know her car says it is 102 degrees outside. WTF. No one must have told our opponents because they had been out for for 30 minutes warming up as if it was 70 degrees outside in their tiny tennis skirts. The courts were smack next to community swimming pool which was tortuous since I could hear people splashing in the cool water and clicking their drinks. All I wanted was a fucking tequila snow

I have been asked by many people why I did a blog - Selfishly I am writing this blog for accountability. However, I was not ready to be accountable at the time the post hit my personal facebook page. I was writing and tweaking my blog and decided to connect to FB, Pinterest, and Instagram. I wanted to test the blog and instead of posting to my Broken Chairs, Diets and Habits FB page, I posted to my personal FB page. When I realized I had done this, it was too late and I just burst out crying. As life has a way of doing ... serendipity was my friend. I want to thank each and every one of you for the amazing support and of course subscribing to my blog. Each and every one of you are now my per

My husband and I promised each other we would never discuss our ailments. We understood part of the aging process meant the ligaments and tendons that hold your joints together become stiff and leathery and osteoarthritis can cause the cartilage in a joint to wear away. All of which lead to aching, soreness and pain. My husband keeps telling me to use it or lose it. I was at a party last 4th of July (somethings about the 4th) chatting with some other people discussing our aches and pains and here I was contributing and trying to out ache the next person. Funny how easy and effortless this type of conversation can be. Because I am competitive by nature, I was determined to be the oldest with

I love living in Colorado! The biggest surprise to me when I moved here was the climate. The arid conditions with only 8-15” of annual precipitation and more than 300 days of sunshine a year. Winters are mild and snow doesn’t stay on the ground long unless you live in a north facing house like we do. Our neighbor’s yard looks like the tropics while we look as if we live in the north pole. Summer has low relative humidity with sun-filled days and cool, comfortable evenings. Because of these beautiful conditions Colorado ranks among the healthiest states in the nation. Colorado is the leanest state with some of the lowest rates of obesity, diabetes, and hypertension in the country. I play tenn

Reality is the raw picture of a situation. Perception is the way in which we analyze and interpret the situation. Although the reality is same, the perception differs from person to person. Perception is largely based on an individual's outlook and the prior knowledge possessed by a person on that situation. I had a great morning playing tennis in 90 degree heat. I was noticing how the women with less caboose were able to set up their shots. The pro kept reminding me to keep my elbow up when hitting my forehand ... if only he knew the effort it took to keep that arm up when I go to hit plus I was concerned this move would hamper my ability to lift a cocktail - after all, that is a lot of ar

I love numbers and rule my life by numbers whether it is the scale, size, test score, job performance, IQ - you name it and I own it. 2014 was a tough year for our family. My father was diagnosed with esophageal cancer and our beautiful daughter was failing college. I was taken off guard by both. My dad was always so healthy and was my mother's caregiver. Our daughter was an AP Scholar in HS and a competitive swimmer so college was a no brainer. Well that all came to crashing down her first semester sophomore year when she was rocking 2 Ds and 3 Fs. These events put me in a spiral and at the same time I felt the only control I had was over my body and specifically my weight. So I called a

I just do not get it - Pictures do not reflect the person I see in the mirror. Seriously what is up with that? Do you think Gisele Bündchen (Kendall Jenner for the young readers) has this problem? I am completely delusional about my size and appearance. I honestly think a beautiful leather purse or blonde, straight hair will present me as a svelte person. All it took was me breaking a chair at a wedding and then someone taking a picture of me to realize I need to come back to reality. I am not looking at being a skinny minny - because what would I do with all the excess skin - keeping it real. My goal is to be a solid size 16. I mean at my age a full face and curvy figure equals young. Yo