I used to have standards for music. I wasn’t a music snob, but I wasn’t into Disney kid music. It started with Britney and Justin. Then Miley and Selena. Now, the unthinkable has happened. 

I like this Justin Bieber song. I only know that I like this one song, so I don’t think I qualify as a full blown Bielieber yet, but I’m fearful for the future. I feel that he’s turning into a Justin Timberlake for the young people. Now that JT is an actor and he has stopped making the awesome music.

Let’s reflect on when he brought sexy back, just for a second.

(Bieber, you’ll get there. He was a lot older than you. Also, there was no mention of fondue in this song.)

While I was thinking of Boyfriend and watching the cars in the video, I started thinking of my boyfriend, the 2013 Ford Fusion. Like any proper stalker, I went looking for videos. I found this one.

Want to know why this is the best video of my boyfriend that exists in the world?

1. The obvious part: it is about my boyfriend, the Fusion.
2. Shiny and pretty.
3. It’s the official Ford video, so I don’t have to listen to potentially made up nonsense.
4. The back of my head is in the video. Yup. You can see this head for approximately 1/10 of one second.

How do I know it was my head? Please don’t doubt my own abilities to recognize my own head, first of all. Also, I know where I was standing when I was at NAIAS. I was also standing next to someone who was a lot taller than me, so I look like I’m the height of a child. (It’s for that reason that I’m not pinpointing the exact moment when you can see the back of my head.)

1. Bieber’s new song. Love it or hate it? I really hope that I am not the only adult who likes it.

2. Any boyfriends that you want to take a moment to talk about? I understand that you might not have a video of the back of your head with your boyfriend. Not everyone is as lucky as me.

Disclaimer: In January, I went to NAIAS as part of a badass program that Ford did with online influencers. Ford paid for my travel and accommodations at the Innovation and Design Fantasy Camp and you can read about it here, if you’d like. That’s where I met the Fusion. This is not a paid post. Ford doesn’t know that this is happening and they probably wish that I would stop referring to the car as my boyfriend because some people find that sort of behavior weird. But we can’t help where we find love… I think it would be awesome if SexyBack was the Fusion’s theme song, if you’re listening Ford. “The Fusion’s bringing SexyBack. Those other cars don’t know how to act…” No?

My occupation is based in social media. I spend a significant amount of time reviewing blogs. In addition, I spend more time than the average person on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Pinterest. It is based on this experience that I offer you the following advice:

• Stop it with these: { } You don’t just put random words into brackets for fun. What you are doing makes absolutely no grammatical sense. You think it is cute; it looks ridiculous and twee.
• Cease referring to yourself as a Maven. Or a Guru. Or an Expert. Unless you actually have some street cred and can back it up. Words have meaning. Having a Twitter account does not make you a social media maven, a marketing guru or any type of expert. Reading Blogging for Dummies does not make you a consultant. It’s okay to not always have a title.
• Do not make things fly across my screen. I counter-attack by making my arrow fly across the screen to close your blog. I win.
• Stop stealing stuff from other people. Watermarks mean that it belongs to someone else. Same thing with the word proof. If it doesn’t have a creative commons license, don’t copy it. Don’t publish it. Get your finger off of the right click or whatever it is that Apple people do. Just because something is on the internet doesn’t mean it is in the public domain. Let me repeat: copyright applies on the internet. Buy your photos. Make your own photos. Stop stealing your content. If you are properly using something under fair use, bravo. But if you don’t know what fair use is, stop trying to make a losing argument.
• Don’t cheat and don’t lie. The internet knows and it is watching. Someone will figure out and you are going to get busted. Usually, when that happens, shit gets awkward. It’s a lot easier for all involved if you don’t do it in the first place.
• You do not need to break Facebook’s Terms of Service to be popular. Don’t do it because everyone else does. Bloggers would be better served if everyone stopped.
• Learn how to use an apostrophe. Mom’s are awesome. That’s not right. If you are staring at a word and thinking, I do not know if this gets an apostrophe or not, please think, do I mean that there is more than one of this thing. If that’s what you mean, you do not want an apostrophe. Apostrophes are not how you make words plural. It’s how you make contractions and possessives.
• Please stop misspelling judgment. (This one is a stretch, I know.)
• Do not publish blurry photos. You don’t need photographic content so badly that you should post bad pictures.  Also, do not post 19 photos of the same thing. If you are going to do that, I recommend a video. A series of moving pictures. They have great impact.
• Disclose. If you are working with a brand, disclose it. Be transparent. There is no need to hide it.
• If you are criticized, accept it with grace and humility. Your blog is your domain, but if your audience gives you respectful feedback, listen. Do not call people “jealous haters” simply because they disagree with something you’ve done. (First of all, they aren’t jealous. They’re envious.) Dissent is not always a sign of envy. Sometimes people are simply not into what you are doing and they will tell you about it.
• Be true to yourself. Why are you posting things about products that you would never use simply because a brand sent them to you for free? It is exciting when you get attention from brands, but you should only accept campaigns that are true to your personal brand.
• Verbiage doesn’t mean what you think it does. And verbage? Oh boy.
• Your content is why people are visiting your blog in the first place. Content comes first. Treat it with respect.
• Stop stabbing me in the eyes when I look at your blog. When you make poor design choices, I will not visit your blog again. It might seem like a good idea at the time, but just like reviving acid washed jeans, it’s not. You don’t have to pay a dime to have an attractive blog. Check out this site for practical tips on how to make your site more user-friendly and less cringe-worthy.

Please consider these points and we can discuss more at a later date.

Thank you,
Danielle

I’ve been working out with Daily Burn. So far, so good. Today’s recommended workout popped up. Metabolic Hip Hop. Fun, right?

In less than 10 minutes, I injured myself. Doing something that I should have known better than to try. I believe the technical name of the exercise was criss-cross jumpy things. First jump – ow. Second jump – OW. Third jump – GAH. Fourth jump – I WILL DO THIS. Fifth jump – Crap, what did I just do?

Then, because I’m stubborn, I kept going. My ankle still hurt. Then, I noticed a really weird feeling in my hip. That was new. I tried to stand still. Not good. Workout definitely over.

I turned off my HRM. I turned on the shower. As I waited for the water to get warmer, I started to cry.

I WANT to work out. I WANT to be strong. I WANT to be able to do what other people do. But I’m stuck with this body and its many quirks.

I don’t know what else to do.

As I climbed into the shower, I still had tears rolling down my face. I felt guilty for my limitations. For my inability to improve my health. For repeating this same mistake over and over and over.

In that selfish moment, my thoughts turned to how blessed I am. To how lucky I am that these are the extent of my problems. To the amazing friends and family that support me.

I thought of Stef. Over the weekend, she knew what I needed before I needed it. This.

I’ve watched it a number of times since she sent it. But, as I was frustrated and thinking that I didn’t know what to do, I specifically thought of this video.

I’ll figure it out. I’ll make it happen.

I’m not going to do it by myself or in one day. I’m going to do it by building my strength each day. I want this. I’m going to make it happen.

I’m accepting my body as it is. Screwy ankles and all. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t improve my health, get stronger and be healthy. I will find what works for me. (Like the other workouts on Daily Burn that have been fine. We’ll talk about those. They just didn’t spark a hysterical fit.)

Watch the video. I’ve shared it on a few of my social streams. I’m watching it every morning as I start my day to remind me of why I am doing everything with purpose, drive and passion. Little did I know someone could put it into one minute and forty-seven seconds…

I’ll figure it out. I’ll make it happen.

Disclaimer: As I’ve said 932 times, I am the CMO of FitFluential, so I want to be transparent regarding brand relationships. Daily Burn is not a FF client; however, I am receiving a complimentary trial. This is not meant to be an official review. I just happened to be doing one of their workouts when I did something I should have known not to do and jacked up my ankle. AGAIN. I will talk about them in more detail in another post.

My steamy love affair with Danielle LaPorte is also not related to FitFluential. Stef forwarded the video to me and I fell deeply in love. Although, technically, Robin has been forwarding me her stuff for a while, so I should mention that too. I mean, if we’re giving credit. I don’t want to misguide the FTC about where I get the thoughts in my head.

• Before starting Escape Routes, Iris was driving a car with 250,000 miles on it! Amazing.
• Brett and Ross met in Las Vegas at a conference when they were … (can you guess????) … interns!
• Ross was an intern for The Colbert Report.
• Brett and Ross were also super cool and made a video that will be awesome for everyone at FitFluential. (Thanks so much guys, if you see this.) Talk about naturals in front of the camera. Wow.
• Iris is ZEN. She encountered a rattlesnake during a challenge and was all, don’t pay attention to the snake. (Dude. Rattlesnakes are scary.) Terrence said she took no crap from alligators and snakes in Miami. Isis said she grew up in a rural area. I sort of did too, but I still don’t play well with snakes. Iris = badass.
• Drew and Derek and really nice. I mean, really nice. They are siblings and they like each other. After six weeks on the road together. And they are Eagle Scouts.
• Sharon said that Wilson will talk to anyone all night. Complete strangers. Child. It doesn’t matter. We were at opposite ends of the table, so I didn’t get to talk to him much. But I believe Sharon.
• Tara and Bre introduced me to Planet Unicorn. (May/will be mildly offensive. But so awesome.)
• I almost saw Rossi get attacked by a giant orb falling from the sky. I’ve probably said too much.
• Everyone’s favorite house seemed to be in Atlanta. Based on what we saw on TV, I have to agree. That pool was the stuff of dreams. (I just thought to myself, man, I wish I had a picture so that I could pin it. Signs of addiction.)
• Chekesha and Tiffany. Damn, they are pretty. We didn’t get to spend a lot of time together, but they are very nice and funny.
• Terrence could totally be my BFF. Except he seemed disturbed by the idea that I have two hairless cats. (Iris, on the other hand, seemed much more accepting of my mutant feline friends.)
• Bre has a make-up line that I am so going to try. Alchemy Mineral Blends.
• Everyone truly loves the Escape. Even if you pull the, stop it, the cameras aren’t on, just tell me, they gush about the car. Particularly the features. My Ford Touch. The magical parallel parking assistant. (Which Iris used on the hills of San Francisco.) Rave reviews all around. [I got to see the My Ford Touch in action when I went to the auto show in January with Ford. I want all of those features on my boyfriend, the Ford Fusion. Yes, I know that this is Escape Routes, and I like the Escape, but my heart belongs to the 2013 Fusion.]

I did get to briefly meet Rossi and Justine, and they seem awesome. We didn’t have dinner together, so I didn’t have a chance to interview them. (Happy Belated Birthday, Rossi!) The finale airs on Saturday night with an absolutely insane Las Vegas challenge. Make sure you check it out. You can follow along on Twitter with #EscapeRoutes.

This post has no photos because my blog is being a jerk and has decided that it doesn’t publish photos right now. Sorry.

Disclosure: I was compensated by Escape Routes for time and efforts. All opinions are my own.

Brett and Ross were the first team that I interviewed. They are great friends and have collaborated on many projects.

Later, I met Tara and Bre. When you meet these girls, you know how close they are. They are the kinds of friends who can finish each other’s sentences and they are a perfectly matched pair.

Each team said that the six weeks on the road was hard. Little privacy. Isolated from friends and family. Sometimes in a small living space. And, maybe, sometimes, you didn’t get along with all of the other cast members.

It made me wonder about myself. Would I ever be able to handle a reality tv show? If so, who would my partner be? (Brian is not being considered because he wants no part of my internet shenanigans.)

First, of course, there’s Kelly. Kelly and I have already done a pretty substantial road trip when we drove from Chicago to Austin and back. We learned that we don’t fight. We bought a creepy doll as a mascot passenger in Arkansas. It was a lot of fun. So, based on experience, Kelly and I could totally do it.

Next, I fully believe Robin and I could survive a road trip. We share certain portions of our brain, so it would be nice to have certain memories there with me. (Like, what happened in bio sophomore year?)

Robin and I aren’t road-trip tested yet, but that day should come soon. She’s been a bestie since high school and I talk to her just about every day. Since I live 2500 miles away from her, we rarely get to see each other. I could see us being a Tara and Bre team, for sure. And, well, if the cameras were rolling, I can only hope that “Groove Is in the Heart” doesn’t come on on the radio. It would be concert time.

So I’ve got two potential partners. What would our reality show be about? If Kelly and I were doing a road-trip reality show, I’m pretty sure it has to be a tour of the nation’s luxury hotels and spas. We’ll take trivia and challenges, sure. We’d push ourselves to try cool new things in the challenges. I SO want to try flying after the Escape Routes episode.

Now, Robin is a whole different story. She might make me camp. (Gah.) We’re both pretty into green-living, so I think we’d want a competition that involves making the earth a better place. Eco-friendly vehicles. Challenges that educate and have a fun edge. It should also involve very random mid-90s trivia. (I’ll take mid-90s supermodels for $200, Alex.) We’d push ourselves by trying new things, staying out of our comfort zone.

If these were potential shows, I’d be your perfect candidate. What would your ideal road-trip reality show involve? First, who would be your partner? What type of road trip? What sort of challenges? How would you push your boundaries? Tell me about your ideal road-trip reality show!

Disclosure: Escape Routes compensated me for my time and efforts. All opinions are my own.

Work right now… It’s like we’re in this garden and we thought, cool, this rose bush will look bitchin’ when it blooms. Then when we went to get rose food, that thing went all don’t feed the Gremlins after midnight and now there are hundreds of rose bushes. We are surrounded by something so beautiful and amazing, but tending a garden that grew so fast can still get overwhelming at times. But it is so beautiful that I wouldn’t want it any other way.

But time… I had to take my time back. More specifically, I had to start managing my time properly. First, I had to figure out how to do it and what to do. Whenever I feel the time management crunch, I always go back to the method that I’ve written about before. I need to handle things in easy chunks. Because I can make 15 minute chunks.

I had two things that were major projects on the task list; Finish Jenny Lawson’s book, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened: (A Mostly True Memoir).

The second task to complete was cleaning the garage.

So each night, I took fifteen minutes to read until I finished the book on Friday night. Saturday, I planned to take at least fifteen minutes to start going through some of the boxes in the garage. But those fifteen minutes were pretty productive. So I kept going. With Brian’s help, we finished cleaning the garage in one chunk. There was a tiny bit to be done on Sunday, but that didn’t even take fifteen minutes.

Here is the list of the other things that I want to make sure that I spend fifteen minutes per day doing:

• Playing with the cats. Full on play time. Exercise the kitties.
• Talk to Brian about his day. So many days, couples are tired and it is easy to sit together and watch tv without saying a lot. I want to make sure that we get at least fifteen minutes of good conversation in.
• Reading for pleasure. I got a bunch of books from the library that were topics related to time management and work-related. I don’t want to read them. I really want to read Probiotics For Dummies.

• Cleaning different areas so things don’t get overwhelmed.

These are the little things. I’m also working on other bigger things that take a longer block of time. Fitness is being reintroduced to my life. (That’s a separate post.) So far, no injuries. I’m doing some interesting freelance work. I want to blog more consistently because I’ve got a ton of posts in draft that I need to flesh out and finish. I’ve got some other really exciting projects coming up.

All it takes is fifteen minutes.

On Saturday, I flew to Utah to attend Snap! This is the first year for Snap!, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. Some conferences can have rough spots during their first year. Snap! is a conference for creative bloggers. If you are thinking, oh, all bloggers are creative, no, you’re not. We’re talking some of the crafty DIY types. While I was there, there was a session on texturizing cream. Guess what? It’s not for your hair. I still don’t know what it’s for, but it’s not for hair.

I spoke about legal matters to an amazing crowd. As always, I’m shocked when anyone voluntarily shows up for the legal session. Because, well, I know I’m funny, but other people don’t and the law certainly isn’t (most of the time). I made many new best friends and I may have threatened (via Twitter) to steal someone’s purse. (It was really pretty.)

These are things I learned during my Snap! adventure:

• Craft bloggers are better dressed than you. (Unless you are a craft blogger too. Then you are better dressed than the rest of us.)
• This conference was well-organized and awesome. Kudos to the organizers. This seems like a conference that has been going on for years. There was great variety in the sessions.
• The location was awesome. It was a hotel, but this cool little area in Utah called Thanksgiving Point.
• Salt Lake City is pretty. Like, really pretty.
• When I went through the airport to leave, there was literally no one else in the security line. That is the only time that has ever happened to me.

If you are a creative blogger, I highly recommend you put Snap on your conference list for next year. It’s a good one.

“I believe in growing old and looking natural.”

“Wrinkles are beautiful.”

“Botox is poison.”

“I’m never getting something injected into my face.”

“Botox isn’t how you live a green lifestyle.”

“I need night cream.”

“This wrinkle is pissing me off.”

“Night cream isn’t cutting it. I need something with Retinol.”

“Retinol is giving me zits.”

“Now I can see two wrinkles.”

To doctor, “So you guys have do Botox at Derma Bella?…Does it hurt?…Really, like little pin pricks?…”

“Oh, you have specials right now on Botox?”

“Does it make me a bad person if I get Botox?”

”Am I going to die if I get Botox?”

“Will any of my weird illnesses be pissed off by Botox?…It helps migraines? Huh.”

“Hi. I’d like to make an appointment for Botox.”

“I’m totally going to blog this, so can you take a picture of me with my phone so people can see what I looked like immediately before?”

“It’s stupid that I got a zit right before I had this appointment. I’m not going to be able to edit that out because people need to see my forehead. [Regardless of the shitty quality of the phone pic because of the glare on my giant forehead.]”

“So, just keep the pressure on it and these little bumps will go away?”

“I don’t see any difference. I got duped. That was an expensive lesson.”

“Yes, it takes 7-10 days to kick in…Yes, I know it’s only been a day. I’m impatient.”

“Ow ow ow. My face feels funny.”

“Look, I think I’m moving my forehead, BUT I’M NOT.”

“Yeah, I like it a lot. Everything is smoothed out. I can still kind of see the one wrinkle, but I am starting to wonder if that is a scar or something. I totally want Juvaderm now.”

“My forehead has stopped breaking out since I got Botox.”

“Remember how the muscle under my eye used to twitch because of my meds. It totally stopped. It’s either from Botox or because I stopped practicing law. We’ll figure out when the Botox wears off.”

“Yeah, no headaches since I got it.”

“Babe, can you take my picture so that I can show people my Botox? Since I’ve actually got most of my makeup on and stuff.”

“Is it starting to wear off? I can move my forehead a little again…”

“If you think about how much I spend on facials, the cost of Botox totally balances itself out.”

“Can you tell people that I want Botox for my birthday? From Derma Bella. No rogue people with needles and vials, please.”

“I’m going to need more Botox before I get headshots done. Or someone who uses Photoshop with a heavy hand.”

“I need a boob lift.”