time – Personal Euphoria: Pilates & Fitness Classes in CT

Kill them with kindness

Christmas brings extra cooking, cleaning, decoration, wrapping and visits with friends. All good stuff, but all fit into a short period.

December is always a stressful month. As much as I love Christmas, it adds a lot of extras that all have to fit into one month of the year. Much of this past December I felt like I was constantly fumbling a football. I couldn’t get anything right. Overall, I laughed it off and saw it as comical, but I have no doubt some people I work with may have been frustrated when I was making mistakes or not responding to emails.

The Monday before Christmas I decided to get my act together. I was going to make a master grocery list and go to the grocery store one time for the following two weeks. With calendar and recipe book in hand, I recorded everything I could possibly need for baking, house guests, and cold winter days. It was a fail. I ended up going to the grocery store every day that week for something I’d forgotten.

In addition to groceries, I was trying to get a copy of the Wall Street […]

Kill them with kindnessMaggie Downie2018-02-14T15:55:44-05:00

Busy Bee No More

We hate getting a busy signal. We talk about someone being a busy bee, and we often claim we are too busy. Keeping up with the Joneses no longer feels like striving for the McMansion with a white picket fence, two kids, and a dog. Whatever your family or housing situation, lately, I feel like keeping up is about being busier than your neighbor. No one is forcing anyone to be busy, but there is this unspoken expectation that every minute must be filled or…or…or who knows, but it will probably be catastrophic.

Perhaps I’m the only one with the issue and I just revealed a personal complex, but I don’t think so. I don’t want to be busy anymore. When I was in my teens and twenties I loved having a full schedule that hopped from one activity to another. Now I require rest, but I still fill my schedule to an unmanageable capacity. I want a full life. I just no longer want to be constantly watching the clock and rushing from activity to activity.

The other night I sat outside with a neighbor who I’ve met a few times and we chatted for hours, uninterrupted, unworried about where we […]

Busy Bee No MoreMaggie Downie2018-01-13T15:57:56-05:00

Exercise All Around The House

If in our busy worlds you are going to make time to fit exercise in, one thing to do is to put reminders around and make it easy. Of course scheduling time for workouts (and then doing them) is important, but in addition sneaking in fitness throughout the day is beneficial. I live in a house where I have a full studio downstairs, but sometimes, quite pathetically, that is just too far away. If I’m really going to do a stretch that I know my body needs every day I need it to be even easier. So I have items to remind me at my desk, in the bedroom and in the living room.

I keep foam rollers and yoga blocks in my bedroom so I can stretch easily or foam before or after I hop in the shower. And I keep a ball at my desk so that I can stand up and do some occasional exercises when the mood hits me. I also have a smaller ball for self massage. I have a yoga mat, flexband, and stability ball in my living room. I will admit, I use these the least. When I go to the […]

Exercise All Around The HouseMaggie Downie2017-09-12T19:31:30-04:00

Final Word On the Maggie Downie Challenge

So it’s been a full year since I started my challenge to get in the best shape of my life. And I have to admit I don’t feel like I was successful. Technically I only completed three out of four original challenges and I didn’t really change the way I eat, which I think will be key in my ultimate goal of getting into the best shape of my life. (I may not have been successful, but I’m not giving up.)

If you asked me in the fall if I had succeeded my answer would have been yes. I felt strong, my body felt good. I was five pounds lighter than I am now. I wasn’t eating great, but I was willing to excuse it because I was exercising so much, doing a lot of cross training and felt good about my health.

Final Word On the Maggie Downie ChallengeMaggie Downie2017-09-12T19:31:33-04:00

Grateful on Thanksgiving and Every Day

I may have dreamt it, but I’m pretty sure last year my Dad asked us all to say what we were grateful for before we dug into Thanksgiving dinner. And I’ll admit, while it feels a little cheesy, it is a nice concept, and I liked it. So here are just a couple of the things that I am so lucky to have in my life in 2011:

· Matt
· My family
· My clients (who make me laugh and ensure that my job so much fun)
· The people I work with
· Classes that I look forward to going to teach
· The Old Wethersfield Boot Campers who have become my running buddies
· Bees that are alive (so far)
· Neighbors who have been really friendly and helpful since we moved in, especially during Irene and Alfred
· Sunny days
· Kurt Vonnegut who is a genius and I’d never read him until this year
· Having the means and health to be able to travel and go on adventures

I’m […]

Grateful on Thanksgiving and Every DayMaggie Downie2017-10-25T14:26:04-04:00