christmas

Fitness Holiday Gift Ideas

Buying a loved one a fitness gift provides more than just the surface level gift. It shows you really care about their health and wellness, which is key to a quality life. Here are some of my favorite fitness holiday gift ideas for all types of friends this year:

For the Fun Fitness Type:

How about going a little retro with a pogo stick? Sure you can get this gift for a child, but you can also find one for your silly, fun loving, Tigger-impersonating friends. If you opt for this just make sure it’s weighted for an adult. I’ve seen them weighted up to 180 pounds.

If you have a group of friends that workout together or you know a sports team that exercises together, consider HIIT the game. It is a card game where you draw high intensity exercises, but along the way you can swap cards with players or make someone do an exercise you don’t want to do. You get points for each move you can complete.

For the Practical Fitness Type:

A fun water bottle is a good reminder for anyone in your life to stay hydrated. This is especially important when we exercise.

Gaiam now makes foldable yoga mats. While […]

Fitness Holiday Gift IdeasMaggie Downie2021-12-20T14:56:44-05:00

Slow down to go fast

It’s the most wonderful and most busy time of year. Once Thanksgiving hits it can feel like a mad dash to the New Year. There can be so many wonderful, generous, magical moments if we stop to notice them whizzing by in a blur.

Slow Down to Go Fast

Lately, I keep hearing different variations of the same sentiment: slow down to go fast. Personally, I’m not sure I’m good at following that motto, but I believe it is important to consider. In a rush I often create more work for myself. This time of year can be especially hard with the added tasks of cooking, baking, getting presents, wrapping presents, and forcing your friends to go caroling with you in the freezing cold—all the usual stuff.

During the holiday season, one of my favorite things to do is to stop, sit wrapped in a blanket, turn off all the normal lights, and look at the white lights on the tree or in my Christmas village. It’s possible I’m really an 80-year-old woman. I gaze at all the ornaments and remember the people who gave them to me and the stories they conjure.

It’s a […]

Slow down to go fastMaggie Downie2019-12-20T11:03:25-05:00

Practice Makes Perfect…or does it?

Every Christmas I make our neighbors suffer while listening to me carol. Good thing I have friends who can carry a tune and nice neighbors!

The saying “practice makes perfect” is an expression that dates back to the 1550’s when the phrase was actually “use makes perfect.” John Adams may have been the first to express the idea in the United States.

While we have been using the term for nearly 500 years, it couldn’t be more wrong. I’ve heard “perfect practice makes perfect,” which gets a little closer to reality, but would be impossible. Then I saw “practice makes progress” on a meme recently. How brilliant. Now that’s an accurate expression.

We never reach perfection. It’s an unattainable goal. I see it in Pilates all the time. In fact, it is my inability to perfect my Pilates skills in this ever changing world and my constantly changing body that, in part, keeps me interested in the style of movement. I prefer the idea of constantly progressing. Not only does the concept take some pressure off, but the idea reflects that […]

Practice Makes Perfect…or does it?Maggie Downie2018-05-04T10:23:02-04:00

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

Ornament history

The tree on the corner of Church and Main in Old Wethersfield.

I love Christmas time. My family is fun to spend time with. Tradition is comforting. Getting gifts for family, though a bit overwhelming, is mostly fun. My favorite part of the season is taking moments to just stop and observe. I love to sit in my living room with a hot cup of tea or hot chocolate or hot tea with chocolate and stare at the tree. I love to turn off all the lights and stare at anyone’s tree. Which sounds a little creepy, but normally only people who know me let me in their house to stare. Seeing all the houses aglow and the lights in yards and along streets makes the cold days better. I wish people left their lights on until mid-March. This from a girl who doesn’t put any Christmas lights up, but once someone has, they really should let them linger longer.

The Ornament:

This year as we decorated our tree, a tradition I love, I thought about how ornaments began. The Christmas tree came from Germany, and not surprisingly so did the ornament. If […]

Ornament historyMaggie Downie2018-02-14T16:03:51-05:00