An Awesome Anacostia Riverwalk Walk

(Updated Sept. 23, 2017)

Can you believe the winter we're having? Or aren't having? Last weekend, I dusted off my Evernote folder of outdoor to-dos in DC and decided to finally take this 2.9-mile walk along the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail and into Navy Yard that the Washingtonian suggested a couple of years ago.

It was awesome. Empty pathways, pretty boardwalks, naval ships, outdoor art, ice cream, fountains, ping pong, and at the end of our yellow brick road, a beer garden. All with a view of the Anacostia River.

We parked on the Anacostia side of the river, in a little National Park parking lot just to the east of the South Capital Street bridge. Parking was easy when we got there around 11 a.m.; by the time we left at 3 p.m., people were waiting for spaces.

It's an easy walk east to the 11th Street Bridge, which has a lovely pedestrian walkway and peninsulas for stopping and taking pictures. You'll cross over the river to the Navy Yard side. 

Walking west along the Navy Yard side, you'll find a million things to do. You can stroll along the boardwalk, visit the Naval Museum of the U.S. Navy, enjoy a wine tasting at District Winery (D.C.'s first winery), grab a snack at the fantastic Ice Cream Jubilee, get a meal at Bluejacket, TaKorean, or Osteria Morini (the garlic smell coming out of there was KILLER!!) or play some ping pong in front of National Park.

Or you can just hang. With lots of green spaces and outdoor tables surrounding interesting outdoor architecture, there's plenty of cool stuff to stare at.

After successfully dragging what could have been a 40-minute walk into three hours, we found a surprising jewel in the shadows of the Nationals Stadium and the South Capital Street bridge: an outdoor brewery. 

Bardo Beer

Through an open gate in a fence, down a mulch trail lined with logs, and over a varnished wooden slab with beer tanks behind it, we ordered two beers from the gang at Bardo Beer, a beer garden once on Bladensburg Road that has relocated to this jewel-in-the-rough spot. Taking advantage of the awesome weather, they had their soft opening the day before we arrived, on Feb. 18. Their grand opening won't be until the Nationals' first game -- but it looks like they're going to continue to be open. The dogs, riverside views, and awesome beer made it really difficult to continue our walk.

Bardo Beer is planning on adding a second bar and a dog park to the space.

But after one beer, we did continue, across the South Capital Street bridge on a mildly harrowing pedestrian walkway high above the lovely river.

- Thanks to The Washington for the article "Things to Do By the Anacostia Riverwalk" and inspiring this amazing day.

learn more about district winery, dc's first winery, Also located in Navy Yard with a beautiful view of the anacostia river

Accepting Change in the Storm

"Turbulence is life force. It is opportunity. Let's love turbulence and use it for change." - Ramsey Clark

Embrace change. Ride the wave. I'm clinging to these words right now because, honestly, if I don't ride the wave, it's going to drown me. At this particular life stage (calling all Gen-Xers!!) change feels more poignant and harder to bear -- our children are growing up, our parents are aging, our jobs feel more fragile and more necessary, our bones have begun strange creaking. Decisions have more weight, change feels more fraught. "Turbulence is life force. It is opportunity," said Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General. I'm trying to believe it and I'll chant "Let's love turbulence!!" like a cheerleader as I ride its ups and downs.

How to Create a Monthly Social Media Calendar

You've hit that mid-year lull, haven't you? That time when, instead of creating social media posts with an objective, you're posting a lot of cat videos. Instead of planning goal-oriented posts that express your personality, appeal to your fans, and move you closer to your business goals, you're re-sharing the tired memes from your friend's feed.

It's all right. The annual social media calendar we created in January can get a little dusty midway through the year. Today, we'll clean that calendar off and give it new life in your monthly social media calendar. A monthly social media calendar allows you to know what you're going to post EVERY DAY!! It helps you balance promotional posts with fun and personal ones, it insures you're talking about themes and topics important to you and your audience, and it focuses you so that your social media posts are moving you toward your goals.

And the time investment for this ease and focus? Only about two hours at the end of each month. Here's how to build your own monthly social media calendar:

Step 1: Write down your list of topics from your annual social media calendar.

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If you created an annual social media calendar, then you already have a list of business goals, content topics, and personal events that you want to focus on in your blog writing, Facebook posts, Instagram photos, and other social media content this month. If you didn't create an annual social media calendar, then make a quick list now of those items.

Should writing this list give you ideas for specific posts, go ahead and write those down now, too. For example, I have "summer entertaining on deck" as one of my topics. I need new outdoor pillows, and I figured it would be a fun Facebook post to quiz my lifestyle-and-home-focused followers about what color scheme they prefer for the deck.

Step 2: List the dates of any business, personal, family, holiday, or fun events you having coming up.

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Use these events to inspire posts. I have a professional organizing client whose college-age son came home for summer break. We used his homecoming to inspire a Facebook post about how to help your almost adult get and stay organized over the summer.

Step 3: Determine the topics and dates of your blog posts for the month.

Your blog post can be the foundation of a week's worth of social media posts. By creating posts that direct traffic to your blog, you are directing eyes to your website, which is property that YOU control. It's great to get Facebook and Twitter love, but traffic that stops there is ultimately benefitting Facebook and Twitter most.

Step 4: For each weekday, decide which social media channel you're going to post to and the overall theme of your social media posts.

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I don't post to every social media channel every day, and I don't require it of my small business clients. Who has the time? Determine which social media channels you're going to post to on which days.

Also, you can insure your social media streams are both useful and entertaining by balancing your business-related and personal/fun posts. Choose now which days you will post "business" posts and which day you will post "entertaining" posts. You don't have rigidly hold to this, but it does help you to remember in case all of your posts are listing to one side.

Step 5: Now, begin to fill in your calendar.

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Fill in your blogs first. As I mentioned, your blog posts can be the inspiration for many of your social media posts that week. The days before you publish your blog, you can build interest by posting a photo or tip as a "teaser." After the blog is published, you can continue promoting it by listing a new fact, thanking the sources mentioned in the blog, or giving a shout out to sites where readers can get more info.

Step 6: Fill in date-specific events.

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Use those book signings, holidays, and special events in your life to create posts that give your audience greater insight into you or connect you with your audience on a larger scale. Post a picture of your Mom on Mother's Day, post a picture of a fan from a book signing, show off your spangly gala dress, and give a thank you to that organization that invited you to speak. Your followers love the peek into your life, and they also love it when you show appreciation!

Step 7: Fill in the rest of the calendar using unused ideas on your list.

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Now that you have the "must-haves" filled in, you can use the rest of your calendar to discuss the "like-to-haves," the topics that are important to you and help define your message. Promoting my wonderful clients, providing tips on social media best practices, and highlighting fun things to do in the D.C.-area are all topics that are important to me and that I'll make sure to include now. Other go-tos to fill in your monthly social media calendar include:

• Ask people to follow you on other social media channel
• Promote other people or services in your community
• Share an article that might appeal to your fans
• Use an easy app like Recite.com to create and post a quote you enjoy
• Post a pic of your pet
• Re-share older blog posts from your website
• Ask your audience a question

Happy calendar building! And feel free to contact me if you need any help!

What's one topic or theme that you're interested in that could make your social media stream distinctive this month? How could you use that topic or theme creatively in a post?

Re-starting Your Goals Once You've Stopped

I started 2016 like the president of the student body-head cheerleader-valedictorian, that girl that we all love to hate. I was focused and goal-oriented and ready to kick some ass. I even wrote a totally obnoxious blog about it.

This is what my goal planning calendar regularly looked like.

This is what my social media calendar looked like.

And then life kicked in.

In the six weeks between spring break and now, I traveled six times. That's six hotels. Four car trips. Two plane trips. I toured four separate college campuses. I ate so many burgers. I had A LOT of cocktails.

During that time, this is what my goal planning calendar looked like.

And this is what my social media calendar looked like.

So now it's the beginning of May and I've finally gotten to unpack my toiletries and do some laundry and wake up in my own bed on a Saturday. And I've looked down the pathway of May and realized that those goal posts and milestones I'd set up for myself earlier this year...they're gone. Obliterated by reality. Shadowed by the goals of March and April glaring back at me with disapproval and disappointment.

Sorry. I anthropomorphize.

When our goals have slipped away from us, it's easy to beat ourselves up. It's easy to pull up the anchor of goal planning -- of setting our sights on a more meaningful objective and working toward it -- and instead get carried away in the tide of the day to day. And it's exhausting to goal plan when you're just trying to play catch up.

Don't let the negative voice get in your head. Even if it's Beyonce's.

But I gotta believe that those larger goals -- for our careers, our families, our relationships, our personal health -- are worth putting down stakes for. I gotta believe that the hoped-for results are worth the planning.

So I'm doing a few things this month to get my goals back in place. First, and I think most importantly, instead of beating myself up for what I didn't accomplish, I'm acknowledging what I did. I helped my kid choose a college. I helped raise some money for my writing chapter. Seldom are we just sitting on the couch eating bonbons and lazily watching the opportunities to fulfill our goals pass us by.

Secondly, I'm letting go of what I couldn't accomplish. As my dear friend Paige Trevor said today, "the world doesn't stop spinning because a few things were shoved under the bed." I may not be using the quote in the best way (sorry, Paige!), but it is valuable for me to remember how few of the things that I get worked up about will make the world stop spinning if they don't happen. Like, none. 

Third, and this is the hardest part, I'm going to put one foot in front of the other and begin again. Re-starting -- making those lists, writing out those calendars, confronting the to-dos that I thought would be completed already -- always feels like the most daunting and frustrating task. But even daunted and frustrated, I can start. I can do. I can be powerful in my ability to overcome my own inertia. 

In my office. Ready to begin again.

What is a goal that you've let slide that you would like to begin again?

How To Throw A Lip Sync Party

Lip Sync Fever 2016

The art of miming a vocal performance has risen like a phoenix from the ashes of Milli Vanilli's lip-sync scandal to become a badge of honor for celebrities who win lip-sync competitions on Jimmy Fallon and Lip Sync Battle (and no, Channing Tatum is not going too far in this video).

You are invited to a winner-take-all lip sync battle party on Sat., Feb. 27. Doors open at 7. Performances start at 8.

So began the phenomenal invite from my husband that lured all of our friends to our house three weeks ago -- and saved me from having to write a blog intro.

There was a lot of work that went into making this party a success -- and every second was worth it! Here's a how-to list that I hope will make it a little easier for you to get your Milli Vanilli on. 

1. Get Inspired

Watch this:

2. Vet your friends

It's hard to "perform" in front of people. And I had no interest in throwing a party that none of our friends wanted to attend. So before we sent out the invites, we asked close friends if a lip sync party -- where every attendee had to perform -- was a party they were interested in. We were shocked that 95 percent of our friends said yes. 

3. Decide on "the rules"

The loosy-gooseyness of most parties doesn't work for a lip sync party. It's only fun if your guests are committed and engaged. So we made it mandatory that everyone:

• Perform
• Contribute $5 for a winner-take-all grand prize.
• Show up in time for the first performance. 

We were very demanding. People loved it. Click below to get a handy-dandy copy of the rest of my husband's rules.

4. Send your invite with lots of lead time

Make sure to give your friends lots of time to choose a song and practice their routines. And keep your invite list relatively small. With about 35 guests and only 14 performances, it still took us three hours to get through all of them. 

5. Start practicing your routine

Expectations of the host's performance will be high. Start practicing early. Here's a snippet of mine. The song is "Velcro" by Clairity. And I post this with a trembling finger and nervous sweat. Be kind:

Some tips to make your routine a success:

1. Know the words. People can tell when you don't.
2. Dress up. Whether it's a costume or just an out-of-the-ordinary look for you, wearing something different makes it easier to play your goofy role.
3. Bring a friend. It is MUCH easier to perform with a friend or friends acting as backup dancers, taking over some of the lyrics, or playing air guitar. My husband jumped on stage for the last chorus of my song and did my dance routine with me. I had so much respect for the people who went up there by themselves.
4. Use props. Our entire backroom was filled with tubs of stuff people had brought to make their performances shine.
5. Up the ante. Regardless whether you use costumes, props, or a surprise guest (Beyoncé!!), do something to up the ante as you perform the song. 

6. Decide on a stage. 

We rented a 8-by-12 foot stage from a local party store, who dropped off the stage the day of the party and picked it up on Monday. Those eights inches off the floor did make a difference -- it felt like a true performance. But there's no need to go quite so big. Just make sure to delineate a space large enough for groups to perform and performers to dance.

7. Figure out the sound system.

It's ideal if people can send you their song ahead of time so you can just cue it up in Apple Music, Spotify, or a similar subscription music service. But some people will want to keep their songs close to the vest, so make sure to have a jack where people can plug in their phone or computer. Also make sure your speaker system is loud enough to be heard over the hooting, hollering, and the fact that some people confuse it with karaoke.

8. Buy the booze, beer, and food. Buy tequila.

Liquid courage is the name of the game, so buy alcohols -- like tequila -- that people can get down quickly. We bought six large bottles of wine, four red and two white, and no one touched them. Beer and booze. Food. Tequila. Don't forget the limes.

9. Gather money and performance times.

As guests arrive, gather their $5, ask when they'd like to perform and, if you don't already know, get their song. Some want to go first. Some want to close out the night. First come, first served in this scenario. Create a list of everyone's name and song, which will become the emcees cheat sheet for calling performers to the stage and the ballot at the end of the night. 

And then invite everyone to grab a drink, grab their courage, and get ready for some magic.

Like this: 

Shakira "Hips Don't Lie"

Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off" as Bernie Sanders

And this:

My favorite part of the night was when guests thanked me and my husband by sitting us in front of the stage and performing "We Are The World" to us.

What song are you going to lip sync at your next lip sync party? 

How to Find the Story of Your Business

What makes YOU special? This is the most important thing to know when communicating to attract customers because YOUR STORY is what distinguishes your business from others. Knowing your story will allow you to authentically communicate with your clients. How? When you know and embrace your story, you speak the truth in everything you say. 

Don’t believe me? Try this out:

A. I’m a professional organizer

B. I’m a professional organizer who loves to cook and has tons of gadgets and has spent years coming up with ways to wrangle my gadgets so I specialize in organizing kitchens and I’m REALLY good at getting your kitchen organized and anyone who doesn’t have their kitchen organized by me is really missing out. 

See?

Clarifying your story allows you to understand and embrace:

1. the value of what you have to offer
2. the fact that no one else can offer it (because no one else is YOU)
3. that customers need what you’re providing

Finding their story is the first step I take when small business owners want my help with social media and marketing. When I was a newspaper reporter, I had to practice the skills of uncovering someone’s story quickly and then re-telling that story in a compact, compelling way. How do I discover their story? I ask questions.

My Social Media Plan Questionnaire breaks down the difficult “What is your story?” question into four manageable pieces that explore the business owner, her business, her customers and her goals. Instead of asking for a person’s autobiography, I ask a person — metaphorically — where he grew up and who he played with. In this way, we uncover the good stuff that makes a business interesting and indispensable.

First in my Social Media Plan Questionnaire, we explore a person’s business, the reason they’ve called me in the first place. They need to market their business. I ask a lot of questions but listed below are the most powerful in each category. 

Next, I ask about a business' customers. We have our own goals and dreams, but we don't build our business in a vacuum. The need we fulfill for someone else is a HUGE part of our story. Who are the people you’re selling to? They define your story as much as your parents and siblings define your autobiography.

Then we investigate you. You're the person who woke up one morning and decided it would be a great idea to open a store or start a solopreneur business or write a book (if you'd only decided to sleep in that morning, amiright?). Why? Explore what dreams, gifts and problem-solving efforts you bring to your enterprise, and you'll be one step closer to finding your story.

Finally, we look at your goals. Our goals tell our stories like nothing else. "What do you want to be when you grow up?" was one of the first questions we were asked as kids. What do you want your business to be when it grows up?

Now take a step back and look at your answers. In repeated themes, in items you got excited about as you answered a question, and in realizations you only had in the process of the exercise, is your story. Embrace your story, include it in your messaging, and your customers-turned-fans will come flocking.

Want to find your story? Discover it on your own -- or contact me for more help -- by filling out this social media plan questionnaire.

WONDER at Hyper-sized Art at Renwick Gallery

From the Renwick Gallery website

Renwick Gallery -- a newly renovated Smithsonian art gallery across the street from the White House -- has opened its beautifully restored rooms to a WONDER of an exhibit.

WONDER honors this historic building, the first in the country to be built exclusively as an art museum, with room-filling pieces created specifically for the Renwick by nine contemporary artists.

The gigantic art -- a rainbow made of thread, a pieced-together cast of a 150-year-old tree, a gorgeous wallpaper made of bugs and Bryce Canyon-like hoodoos made of paper, tape and toothpicks -- invite the viewer to peer closer, to see the tiny bits and figure out how it works. Some of the work asks you to interact with it; others -- like the rainbow and the bug wallpaper -- require the poor security guards to work overtime to keep the crowds back from it. It's a wonderful exhibit for children and my husband -- you know, the people who aren't huge fans of art museums. And, because we're spoiled rotten here in D.C., it's also free!

I could keep typing, but why. Click on the pictures to take your own virtual tour of the Renwick Gallery, then come soon to see the real thing. The second floor, with its amazing bug wallpaper and deconstructed tree, will close May 8. The first floor closes July 10.

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Tara Donovan, "Untitled", 2014

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Gabriel Dawe, "Plexus A1", 2015

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Patrick Dougherty, "Shindig", 2015

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Janet Echelman, "1.8", 2015

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John Grade, "Middle Fork", 2015

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Maya Lin, "Folding the Chesapeake", 2015

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Chakaia Booker, "ANONYMOUS DONOR", 2015

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Jennifer Angus, "In the Midnight Garden", 2015

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Renwick Gallery

Pennsylvania Avenue at 17th Street NW

Washington, DC 20006

Open Daily, 10 a.m.–5:30 p.m., free admission

Explore other amazing D.C. art museums:

• A Stroll Through the Hirshhorn
• A Date With a Glamorous Woman at the Hillwood Museum
• Immersive Experience aof the American Indian Museum

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7 Tips for Keeping the Fun in Your Marriage

In honor of Valentine's Day, I thought I'd re-run this blog I posted a couple of year ago. The lovely couple featured below, Abby and Casey, are married and happy and could now write their own how-to article about keeping the fun in their marriage, if the ridiculous videos they make together while they work out are any indication. Enjoy!

This weekend I’m going to a wedding.

My phenomenal cousin Casey is marrying the woman of any man’s dreams, Abby. He’s a brilliant, funny, artistic, smartass of a guy who’s chosen to remain in his small hometown and teach art to elementary school children. Abby is a kind, patient, peace-filled nurse who loves Casey just the way he is, smartassness and all.

Abby and Casey

These are the kind of people that give you hope in the future of mankind when they come together; the kind of couple that should be required to bring children into the world for the betterment of all humanity.

Yeah, I like this couple. Of course, I want them to stay together forever, but more than that, I want them to have fun together forever.

My blog is about finding fun for GenXers in the DMV, but it’s also about having fun as a partner to someone, when you no longer have the drama and exhilaration that comes with dating. Let’s be honest, it’s not effortless to have a ball with someone you see every night at dinner. It’s much easier to take them for granted.

But what I’ve learned over 16 years of really enjoying the company of the guy I sit across from at dinner – what I hope to give Casey and Abby as they start on this grand adventure together – are a few tricks to maintain the fun with the person you need be having the most fun with. To love, honor and make him obey are indeed important (snicker), but to promise to enjoy each other, to laugh and to explore, those are the things that make marriages the happily-ever-after tales we dream of.

Casey and Abby, I hope for happily ever after for you.

7 TIPS FOR KEEPING THE FUN IN YOUR MARRIAGE

1. Pick a regularly scheduled “date time,” and maintain it on your calendars

You can choose to go out every other Saturday night or enjoy a coffee together every Tuesday morning if that’s all your busy schedules allow. It doesn’t matter when you do it, as long as you prioritize time in your schedule for you to be together as a couple, enjoying each other’s company.

2. Talk about stupid stuff

Every now and then at the dinner table, during a car ride and definitely during your dates, place a moratorium on discussing the mortgage, the dog and who’s driving to soccer practice on Wednesday. Sharing duties on the home front make for great marriages, but sometimes you need to look at your spouse not as your co-chair but as the hot guy or girl you’re lucky to be with. Talk about your excitement for the Star Wars release, reminisce about that one trip you took to Quebec or try to figure out why that apple after your first kiss was the best apple ever created.

3. Embrace what the other person is into

Photo credit: CarbonNYC [in SF!] via Visualhunt / CC BY

You don’t have to LOVE your partner’s interests and you don’t have to adopt them as your own. But you have to give them a try, you have to be supportive of the fact that your partner is into them, and under no circumstances whatsoever can you malign them. Occasionally, people who find football boring should go to the sports bar with their spouse and watch the Sunday game. Every now and then, the person with two left feet should agree to take a salsa lesson with their partner. We think we know ourselves, but one of the advantages of getting married is the chance to see the world through another’s eyes.

4. Take down time

One thing I feel is lost in our competitive, self-guilt-inflicted, go-go-go culture is the benefits of relaxing. It’s hard to have fun and appreciate your partner when you’re totally wiped out. Take time to do nothing; allow your spouse the same.

5. Ask about their day

This sounds so simplistic, but I believe what we want most as humans is to be seen and acknowledged. It’s very easy to take the person you go to bed with every night for granted; it’s also relatively easy to make them know you care. Ask about their day – regardless of whether it’s date night or not – and sincerely listen to their response.

6. Balance the amount of date time spent with friends

Inviting friends along on your date night is highly entertaining and adds the spark of new conversations and insights. However, balance how often your precious couple time is spent in a group. Friends sometimes can be the unknowing bandaid over issues that need to be dealt with in your marriage.

7. Deal with the non-fun stuff

One of the best ways to insure fun in your marriage is to deal with the hard stuff as it comes along. It’s impossible to have fun with someone you resent, and resentfulness – or disdain – only builds when issues are allowed to fester. Deal with the hard stuff as soon as you can; be brave enough to have those hard conversations. This person chose to build a life with you; trust that they accept you – warts and all – and that they want to deal with the hard stuff so that only good intentions, hopeful hearts and fun times remain.

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Happy Valentine's Day from me and my muse! -- Angelina

How to Love Your Twitter Feed

The doom and gloom stories about how Twitter growth is flat-lining has definitely been reflected in the conversations I’ve been having with new small business clients coming to me for social media help. They don’t get Twitter, they say, and more ominously, they don’t see why they should.

“I’m trying to help people filter out the junk,” said a professional organizing client. “I’m not going to hang onto it on Twitter.”

And yet, except for rare exceptions, I insist on a Twitter component to my clients’ social media strategies. Why? Because Twitter has been the single-best way for me to learn from my peers, connect with people who have something worthwhile to say and establish that I have something worthwhile to say, too. 

How have I lifted my Twitter feed from the junk? I treat it like gold. Here’s how you can, too.

Keep your feed sacrosanct

We don’t let just anyone into our front door. So why would we let them onto our Twitter feed? Twitter can be your window onto the virtual world, so be judicious about what you’re going to see. Only follow people and companies that are useful to you, people and companies that have something meaningful to say about your profession, location, clients, hobbies, politics, entertainment, whatever floats your boat. Unfollow them immediately if they are no longer useful (constant sales pitches, abusive tendencies, waaaaay too much snark) and never, ever, ever blindly follow back. Look through the peephole at every Twitter feed and, if they’re not for you, don’t open the door.

Use Twitter Lists

Twitter Lists are a great way to take your feed full of useful information about your profession, location, hobbies, etc., and break them into individual streams of info about each topic. I have lists focusing on social media, D.C-metro area restaurants and Virginia wine (as well as 21 others). So, with a couple of taps, I can instantly discover the latest news in my industry, a place to eat out on Friday night, and where we should go wine tasting on Saturday. Unfortunately, creating lists aren’t as easy as they could be. If you’re new to Twitter, you can download this guide to creating a Twitter list. If you already have an established Twitter feed, the app Listomatic takes some of the finger work out of creating your lists. Making the Twitter lists easier to create and manage would be one way Twitter might be able to get some of its enthusiasm back.

Be true to your voice

I owe my first social media client to my Twitter feed. He said my posts made him laugh; that he liked the way I put things. I use too much hyperbole and too many exclamation points, but it’s who I am. Allow your Twitter posts to reflect who you are. Don’t believe that a too-cool-for-school snark is the only way to be successful. Let your Twitter posts sound like you, let them offer up your goals for your business, your good intentions toward your customers, and your honest motivation to be a contributor to a positive virtual community.

Engage

Liking, re-tweeting, commenting on, and clicking on good content in your Twitter feed is the number one way to insure good content keeps appearing. Let people saying things that you like know it. Those are human beings on the other side of that screen and they are looking for the same validation you are. Don’t be afraid to tell them that you like their message.

Focus on the quality, not quantity, of your Twitter followers

I have a vineyard client in the Russian River Valley wine-growing region of California who only has 622 followers and is only following 595 feeds. But they are connected to every winegrower, winemaker, wine writer and wine organization in their area, and are followed back by many of them as well. Nothing wine related happens in their area that doesn’t pop up on their Twitter feed. This took time, it took patience, and it took repeatedly saying, “Hey, we like what you have to say! Hey we have something to say, too!”

It also took restraint to not blindly chase after followers. Instead, we focused on only distributing posts that are useful to our followers and only taking in posts that say something we need to know. In this way, this client has a Twitter feed that provides a golden, clear view into their industry, instead of a view crowded by a bunch of junk. 

Do you love twitter? Hate it? Why? Please comment below. And Include your Twitter handle (@Twitterhandle)

Need help creating Twitter lists?

Six Tricks and Tools for a Lifetime Of Good Health

I will stand up and admit that Snowpocalypse or Snowmegeddon or whatever we’re calling the Great East Coast Blizzard of 2016 has DESTROYED my New Year’s health resolutions. The days of being stuck inside, the vacation-like atmosphere created by everyone being home, and the primal imperative to layer on the fat have vastly overwhelmed the call of my Fitbit or my WeightWatchers points tracker. 

But it’s one week in a lifetime. Rather than looking at the past week as a crater sinking my health goals, I have to look at it as a minor divot in a lifetime of healthy-choice opportunities. I’m beyond the age when I can look at my health as a diet or an exercise class or a jeans size.

My father was plagued with ill-health connected to food, weight and inactivity for the last 25 years of his life, and last year I started dealing with some of the back issues that affected him. It was a chilling wake-up call. To have a life without pain, a life where my body is empowered and not restricted, I have to view healthy habits as a lifestyle, not as something I do for a month. Or just after the new year. With that in mind, here are six simple steps and tools I use for a lifetime of good health.

1. Plan meals.

It’s so much easier for me to eat healthy when I know what I’m making that evening, and I have all the ingredients in the fridge. I grocery shop once a week using Peapod grocery delivery service, and I keep a consistent theme to make planning meals easy -- Meatless Monday, crockpot or salads on Tuesday and Thursday, Mexican on Fridays, we eat out on Saturday, and I double whatever I make on Sunday for lunches and leftovers. My friend and client, parenting coach Paige Trevor, has an awesome blog about making meal planning easy.

2. Be mindful of what I eat.

I’ve been a member of Weight Watchers online since I turned 30. Weight Watchers works under a simple premise -- you can eat whatever you want. You just have to "track your points." Be accountable for it. Woman up. And when you realize that the cookie has the same amount of points as an entire healthy meal, it changes your opinion about how often you need that cookie. Weight Watchers offers me a simple, painless, common-sense way to be mindful and responsible for what I'm eating. 

3. Do something active every day.

The dog wondering when he's going to get his walk

Everyday, I try to walk the dog, weight lift at my gym or go to my kickboxing class. These are not heroic acts; the dog is used to getting gyped, the 5-pound weight gets a lot of use at the gym, and I often hear "Hey, you're back!" when I show up at kickboxing. But when I cannot push myself to leave the house -- say, during a blizzard -- I have Daily Burn. Daily Burn is an app that provides one gazillion workout videos featuring knowledgeable trainers leading every workout style you could want. From dance to high intensity tabata to weight lifting to yoga to prenatal exercise, Daily Burn offers a workout that meets every interest and ability.

4. Be mindful of my activity.

Weight Watchers helps me keep track of what’s going in. Fitbit helps me keep track of what’s going out. When I first got the step-tracking device, I was astonished how far away from the recommended 10,000 steps-per-day I was. The average American only gets 2,000-2,500 steps-per-day. And I, like many Americans, spend a lot of time sitting on my butt typing. I don’t always hit the magic number, but my Fitbit makes me mindful of how much I'm moving, of the necessity to take a quick walk around the block or to park at the back of the parking lot.

5. Get help with healthy meals.

This Tuscan Ribollita Soup was a Blue Apron success!

So when I get too busy or the after-school chauffeuring gets out of control, Step 1's meal planning and cooking goes out the window. This is when I turn to Blue Apron for help. For about $10/meal, which is less than we spend when we eat out, a Blue Apron box shows up at my door with the recipe and all of the ingredients for two healthy meals for my family of four. I'm still cooking, but all of the thinking, deciding and buying has been taken care of for me. Sometimes, the simple relief of not having to make a decision is all I need to stay on a healthy course.

6. Partake in the occasional cleanse. 

For me, a cleanse doesn't mean cayenne water or juicing — those are unrealistic for my lifestyle and family. But there are times when I need to right the ship, in terms of my food intake. I found the 17-Day Diet several years ago, and it's my go-to source whenever I need to enforce some healthy eating. Essentially, the 17-Day Diet focuses on lean proteins (chicken, turkey and fish), vegetables, two servings of fruit and probiotics for 17 days. No bready carbs, no sugar, no alcohol. I always lose weight and I always see quick results, which makes me continue with healthy habits. 

What are some of your favorite tools and tricks for maintaining a healthy lifestyle?

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