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The Downtown Kid

Blogging Challenge

A valuable mentor and advisor, Linda, has proffered up a 31-Day Blogging Challenge for the month of January. As best I can, I want to be able to relate these challenges to my areas of focus in my own material and content, so I hope you'll check out my daily challenges for things that are useful to you in your own life and that make downtown Memphis so awesome. Wish me luck!

  • Day 8: Doing Life Better

    For many, the new year is all about trying to live better, fuller, happier, whatever-er. We pretend we can reset the system. And as much as I wish we could just start some things over, we can’t. So we’ve got to be real about where we are and create tangible plans for where we want to go. Today’s blogging challenge is to make a list of five ways we can take care of ourselves. While most people are focused on how to improve the physical around this time of year, I’d like to take a look at how to improve the mental. 1. Be in the Moment Anxiety is no…

  • Day 7: Lessons from 2018

    Today’s blogging challenge is to take a look at lessons learned from 2018 through a course, book, social media, article, or website. And that’s hard. I feel like I learned so much from last year. So how can I pick one thing? There are books and experiences galore, but one of the most impactful things I did was for a presentation in group therapy. I worked with another woman to share the enneagram, and if you’ve never heard of the Riso-Hudson Enneagram Type Indicator (RHETI), it’s kind of like a more scientific Myers-Briggs. Tons of corporations use this tool to manage their people and projects more efficiently. On a personal…

  • Day 6: Movie Review

    Today’s blogging challenge is to review a favorite movie from 2018. My choice was released just before the new year, and it hit home hard. You’ve probably heard of a little Netflix gem called Birdbox, yeah? I mean, in the first 7 days it was out, some 45 million people watched it. So I’m chilling at the a-p-t when the BFF messages me and tells me he’s watching Bird Box. He wants to see what all the fuss is about. That, and get all the memes. Well, hell. Now I gotta watch it too so we can chat about it. Confession: I’d seen articles about how the movie addressed the…

  • Day 5: Letter to Myself

    Today’s challenge is to write a letter to myself explaining to future me where I’ll be in a year. It’s kinda like a written vision board. What’s cool about today’s challenge is that I actually do a similar assignment like this with my students every year. They have certain prompts that they respond to, but the letter is a composition all their own. We seal them in envelopes and I lock them in a filing cabinet. They basically forget about them, and then I give them back out on the last day of school. The kids will leave themselves all kinds of neat things in these letters, too. Sometimes, they’ll…

  • Day 4: Share a Healthy Recipe

    Today’s blogging challenge is to share a healthy recipe. It could be one of mine or one of my faves. But instead of sharing my favorite salmon dish — because, let’s face it, you can find a million recipes out there — I thought I’d share a recipe you can’t get just anywhere. This is a recipe for a healthy you. In order to be a healthy you, there’s a lot of things that need to happen. But don’t let that scare you! The kitchen is a beautiful place. Magic happens here. Please keep in mind that all of these measurements are to taste and you really can’t have too…