Category: Life/Advice

How to keep a Marriage Hot

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Many of you may have seen my plea to vote for us on Facebook for the B-Metro/Levy’s Fine Jewelry Valentine’s Day giveaway.  We were selected to be one of 35 couples in the running for an amazing romantic date night package.

I saw the call for entries a couple of weeks ago and applied on a whim.  I didn’t think too hard or long about what to say, nor did I necessarily pay attention to grammar, so I apologize in advance for the snippet you read as part of our entry!!  In the application, I were asked to describe how we met.  I go describe the following:

My hubby and I happened to be a the same Mexican restaurant in DC the night we met.  It was Cinco de Mayo.  He was at a table with at least 6 other women, making them laugh by sucking helium out of a ballon and then talking in a high pitched voice.  Novel, I know. Somehow, it was working and he had them all laughing their tails off.  I kept looking over because their table was SO loud.  We were maybe 10 feet away from each other.  I am certain that my now-hubby thought I kept looking over at HIM, haha, because not long after, he asked the waiter to offer me a drink on his behalf.  At the time, an acquaintance (female, so don’t get it twisted, lol) and I were having dinner.  It was Cinco de Mayo and neither one of us had plans that night, so we decided to go out for an uneventful dinner.

So, the waiter comes to the table with the drink.  I wasn’t accustomed to strangers sending drinks to my table, so I rejected the drink and sent it back!  Haha.  Hubby said he thought to himself, “Who does this chick think she is?!” LOL! His group did look like it was having a great time, so I said to my friend, “Let’s join their party!”.  She agreed and I went over to inquire whether, instead of accepting a drink, he would accept our company instead.  He did and we had a good time with the group.  Turns out they were all co workers and out for the same reason we were:  To have a low-key night out on Cinco De Mayo.

Cut to the end of the night.  My now-hubby asks me to go out to his car with him.  Of course, I’m thinking, ‘oh no, here comes the part of the night where he reveals his serial killer tendencies’!  Of course, he insisted, so I convince my friend to come out with me.   Two of us have a better shot at surviving than one of us alone! He opens his car and reaches into the back.  Here we go, the axe or gun are about to come out!!  But no, instead, he pulls out a Big Bertha golf bag!!  Sigh of relief.  And comic relief at that, for, what are the odds that anyone would have a Big Bertha bag in their car and their name is BERTHA!? Well, and so it was.  So, yes, I gave him my number, haha. My real number too!  We went out on a date about a week later and voila, 15 years later, still going strong.

How to keep yourSO, where’s the part about keeping your marriage ‘chic’ and ‘hot’ you ask??  Gosh, well, I honestly don’t know exactly what advice to give here to be honest.  All of the articles I read talk about ways to keep it ‘hot’ and ‘sexy’ and usually they are suggestions that seem rather lame or that don’t apply to our family dynamic.  For many years, going away for the weekend, for example, was not an option.  We don’t have any immediate family around and I’m one of those people that has a really hard time asking for help from others, so I hate to inconvenience friends with keeping our two crazies overnight.  Side note:  Although our 6 and 2 year olds drive us crazy, we love them unabashedly!

But, I realize now that when kids are in the picture, one has to make marriage a priority, even if only sporadically – because often that is all that kids will allow.  SO, an overnight date night is often the way to do that!  I therefore applied to put our name in the hat for this giveaway and part of the giveaway involves an overnight at a local, hip hotel!  Score! At this point, we don’t seem to be in the running (and likely will not win), but it was the thought that counts, right??  Anyhow, it was my attempt to make our marriage a priority. I am often consumed with life as an academic, as a mother, and as a multi-hyphenate woman aiming to find ‘me-time’ to keep her sanity.  As my husband often reminds me, that usually means that our marriage – and he – come last.  Not on purpose, obviously, but last nonetheless.  He once said to me, “I’m last on your totem pole.”  To which I retorted, “…but at least you’re ON the totem pole!”  Right???  Haha, all goofiness aside, this giveaway entry was my attempt to bring our marriage to the forefront and make it a priority.

I will say, the one thing that has kept our marriage sane, if nothing short of alive, is communication.  Good, bag, ugly: communication – in my opinion – has been the number one reason we continue to chug along to this day.  We both express grievances to each other on a very frequent basis.  Early on, he encouraged me to share what I was feeling, rather than bottling it up and letting it all spill out in the form of a breakdown.  You see, we spent the first four years of our marriage in a long distance relationship.  Shortly after we married, he was deployed to Iraq.  He spent 18 months there and then was deployed to the southeast, while I remained on the west coast trying to finish up my degree.  We had no choice but to talk things out because communication was all we had to keep our marriage alive.

So we talk about things, rather regularly.  Mind you, some of our communication happens over text.  You got that right!  Likely as a consequence of our long-distance relationship status for so many years.  That said, I think it’s somewhat neutral territory if you ask me. There’s no shouting involved (unless you use all caps, in which case, it’s game on, lol!), and both parties get a chance to fully express themselves without having the other interrupt.  I find that settling the hardest parts over text has worked well for us…for years!  As I mentioned in the giveaway entry, we are going on 12 years of marriage this May.  This may not be a good solution for all, but definitely a tactic that has worked well for us.

We are trailing behind at least three other couples (equally if not more deserving than us), but if you want to help our cause and keep us in the running for the overnight date, please vote for us here: on.fb.me/1QRx2fA.

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Until next time! Stay ‘Chic’!

Chic’s Weight Loss Journey

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Screen Shot 2016-01-20 at 3.25.37 PMYou may or may not know that I have struggled with my weight all of my life.  I was born a chunkster and remained a chunkster throughout childhood.  Mind you, I was not obese, just always slightly overweight.  You might be thinking, “Well, slightly overweight does not a chunkster make”, but in my mind, I was a chunkster.

In high school, for whatever reason, I decided I needed to do something about it.  Likely transitioning to wanting to be noticed by boys is what did it.  Anyway, not knowing anything about exercise or nutrition, I committed to living off rice cakes and Twizzlers.  Yup.  Every day.  That’s all I would eat.  The ONLY thing I would eat. I cannot recall how long this lasted, but it could not have lasted long.  I imagine I must have been starving!  At which point, I started to eat food and likely gain weight.

So, the next step in my search for skinny-hood was bulimia. Yes, you read that correctly. Everything I ate would come right back out.  This went on for at least a year.  My mom got me to stop.  In fact, to this day, I remember having just closed the door to the bathroom and laid in bed — red-faced from forcing myself to throw up — and watery-eyed.  She came in the room and said, “I know what you’re doing.  It hurts me that you would do this to me.  I want you to stop and I need you to tell me how I can help you.”  Although I stopped cold-turkey then, I would continue to use this method for weight loss for years to come.

I gained about 20 lbs while in college.  Most college kids do.  Freshman 15 and 20 are common descriptions for what happened to college-aged students.  In that respect, my weight gain was normal.  No efforts to lose weight or eat healthy were made during that time.  After college however, when I actually took the time to research ways to lose weight with diet and exercise, some things changed. I met a boy I really liked and was prompted to lose weight.  25 lbs to be exact.  This too, was not healthy.  I worked out about 2 hours per day and ate few to no carbs.  This too was not sustainable.  Darn that boy!  Lol.

Over the years, my weight fluctuated.  When I got pregnant with both boys, I gained weight and slowly lost it over time.   Over time meaning nearly two years after giving birth is when I would return to my pre-pregnancy weight.  I’ve always had low blood pressure, cholesterol and other biological metrics have been within range.  I learned to dress for my fluctuating body weight.  Stretchy pencil skirts and loose-fitting tops became staples in my wardrobe.  Overall, things were fine.

Cut to early 2015 when I started to not feel so well.  I was waking up at all hours of the night, when usually I am one to hit the pillow and pass out.  I don’t wake until the alarm or my kids wake me.  Well, things were different.  2am, 4am every night.  Like clockwork.  In addition to a disrupted sleep pattern, I was experiencing lower back pain.  Odd, dull discomfort that was hard to pin point.  I was having headaches, which were also highly unusual for me.  Now get ready for the TMI part of this post: I felt like my bowel movements were out of wack.  Normally a 1X day person, I would now go days without a bowel movement, and when I did, they were different.  A sign of constipation, perhaps?  Well, it turns out I was.  Constipated that is.  But that was only the beginning.  A combination of stress from not knowing what was wrong with me and the doctors not able to identify a disease or cause, I convinced myself I had colon cancer or something of the like.  The stress of thinking I was dying combined with experiencing my first year of faculty, two kids under 6, and a hubby in retail with a schedule involving nights and weekends, apparently took its toll.  The final diagnosis?  Stress.  Between February 2015 and July 2015 I lost 22 lbs, without really trying.  Stress.

Does stress do all that to a person?????  I had no idea it did.  But it did to me.  SO.  I changed some things.  Among them, my eating and exercising habits.  Because I lost my appetite for a long time, when my appetite came back, I was only consuming about 1000 calories per day.  Mainly in the form of salads and soups.  I have slowly increased my intake, but it still remains under 1300-1500 calories a day for the most part.  Still lots of salad and soups, but I have managed to work in more carbs and yummy desserts. 🙂

As far as exercise, I decided my body needed to move.  So I would make it a point to move at least 10 minutes a day.  Sometimes that meant getting up from my desk at work and walking to buy my lunch.  Other days, I meant going to the gym and walking on the treadmill.  Other days, it meant running up and down the stairs that lead to the basement while the kids played.  I did whatever it took to work in some physical exercise.  I’ve actually become quite complacent in my efforts to work in physical activity daily, but have managed to keep up some aspects of it and have supplemented with the 7-minute workout and the 4-minute workout.  I also vowed to do pushups and at least a 1-minute plank before every shower and also do squats while in the shower.  A mini workout at least once a day.

Many of you know that I post daily outfit pics on Instagram and now Facebook.  Over time, people started to notice that I was losing weight.  After some time, some asked how I had lost the weight and whether I would considering sharing my weight loss story.  So, here you have it!  My weight loss journey.

I recently spoke to someone who said that recovering drug and alcohol addicts sometimes have dreams that they have relapsed.  Interestingly, that is how I feel about my weight loss.  I do not feel in control.  I feel like at any moment, I may regain all the weight.  It’s a real fear, oddly enough.  For example, this morning, I went to put on a pair of cotton trousers.  You know, the kind that have little-to-no stretch?  Yup, that kind.  And, I was SO fearful that I would put them on and they would not fit…again.  Well, they fit and they were loose.  I guess I have managed to maintain my weight for now.  But I am not sure at this time whether that will be the case 1 month or 1 year from now.  So for now, I take it day by day.  I try to decrease my stress triggers, eat healthy, and exercise.  I’m aiming to be healthy.  And, that for now, is good enough. 🙂

Wishing You a ‘Chic’ New Year

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“The secret to getting ahead is getting started.” – Mark Twain

On the last day of 2015, I am reflecting and planning for the upcoming year. Chic in Academia has grown in ways I never imagined and I have you all to thank for that!  Your insurmountable support is unequaled, and I am forever grateful to you for that.  An added special thanks to all my sponsors this year.  You have made blogging such a fun-filled adventure!!

Personally, I also learned a great deal about myself.  I learned that my body breaks down when I take on too much and that the elusive work-life balance is something that I had not managed to attain this year.  2016 will be different, I hope!  That’s where the planning and goal-setting comes in.

This past week, I made time to plan for 2016.  Uncharted waters are ahead both professionally as well as for CIA (you know, Chic in Academia).  As such – and in an effort to ensure some form of success – I endeavored to plan by setting goals.  Part of that included creating a mission statement. A couple of friends of mine shared this with me, so in turn I am sharing this with you!  One of them happens to also blog and pens the blog Olivia Adventures.  To begin to set goals, one must first decide on a personal mission statement.  The following comes from the Leadership Development Institute at Kent State:

A personal mission statement answers questions like these:

        -What do I want from my life?
        -What do I value?
        -What are my talents?
        -At the end of my life, what do I want to have accomplished?

A personal mission statement is the beginning of personal leadership. It sets guidelines for life. By referring to it and internalizing its meaning, we make choices that serve values and reject the things that oppose them.

Once I had a personal mission statement in mind, I began my goal-setting.  My goals are divided into the following categories: 1) Family, 2) Academia, 3) Blog, 4) Me.  Not in that order, and not all carrying the same weight.  Most importantly, I remembered to include myself in this plan.  This is something I had forgotten to do in the past.

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I bought the planner pictured above to help me keep things organized.  It has a page per day for to-do lists and note-taking, which is ideal for me.  I do use my Gmail calendar to keep track of day-to-day meetings and events, though.

The planner is a Day Designer.  I had one last year and really helped me stay organized.  Or, you know, more so than I would have been otherwise, haha.  It is not only aesthetically pleasing, but also well-constructed!  Although a ring binder, the rings held up all year despite daily use and wear!  It comes in two sizes, though I opted for the largest size.  Additional details and pricing can be found here: The Day Designer.  If you cannot commit to the planner, but want to take advantage of some of the planning tools they offer, be sure to download their free planning printables.  I plan to use them as well!

One of my goals for 2016 is to read.  Read anything and everything.  I think it will help me become a better writer, which is the goal of many academics, I believe.  So, I started with Amy Cuddy’s “Presence”.  It follows her über successful Ted Talk, “Your body language shapes who you are”.  Have you seen it?  If not, watch below:

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I was super inspired when I watched the talk, but the book is even BETTER.  Many of the pages include text that I swear I could have written myself.  It’s as if she is speaking to me in many of her anecdotes!  I posted the picture below on Instagram and guess what??  We’re Instagram buddies now.  That’s right, we’re insta-besties. 😉  Seriously though, she followed me back and I had a little happy dance moment.

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In closing, I hope that you will stick around and watch what 2016 has in store for CIA!  I would also love to know more about what you would like me to write/post about.  Though a lover of surveys, I thought instead I would ask you to leave comments below with some of the things you would like to see on the blog/Instagram/Facebook/Pinterest/Twitter.  I very curious to read what you have in mind!

Finally, I wish you all a fruitful, productive, healthy 2016!!  May you achieve every goal you set and may you be even more ‘Chic’ than you already are!

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Until next year!  Stay ‘Chic’!