What Yoga and a relaxing weekend can do for a Monday...

...it can kick its ass, that's what it can do!!! :-)

I had a great day at work today. It was busy, sure, but not overwhelmingly chaotic like it has been the past few days, and what rush projects did come in were at least manageable and not completely unreasonable (i.e., a request to turn around a 40-slide Powerpoint presentation in an hour), and so I took it in stride. I remained calm, cool, collected, and happy... I tell you, keeping a positive attitude and not letting little things or other people get to you really does wonders for your soul! I'm really going to try to maintain this positive energy and feeling of calm/tranquility as often daily as I can, and not let negativity/toxicity impact me so much. I know I won't achieve this goal every day. I am WAY too Irish for that. I'll be lucky if I achieve it tomorrow. Haha. But I really am going to try. I think that trying to stay calm and not overstress and overreact over everything is really a healthier and happier way to live your life, and after all, I do strive for that (as the name of my blog suggests). And you know what? Life really IS too short to get worked up over the little things. This is such an obvi statement, but by God, if I've learned anything over the past few weeks, it's that life truly is short. And I don't want to spend mine getting all worked up over things like work deadlines and working with difficult people.

Oh, and I slept like a rock last night. God bless Suzanne Deason and her P.M. Yoga, and the EO Essentials Company that produces the Stress Less Calming Room Spray. :-)

Now, onto book news! So I'm about halfway through the Natalie Wood autobiography so far. This is a very interesting read. And as I mentioned earlier, extraordinarily detailed. I'm having a hard time keeping track of all the people, because there's a bajillion Hollywood people- execs, actors, friends, acquaintances, etc. It's a little hard to keep up with who everyone is and who's saying what! But I'm liking it. Poor Natalie Wood... so far in the book, she's only eighteen years old, and she had a pretty tough life. Her mother was a narcisstic, pushy, relentless stage mother, who cared more about her child's career than her actual child or her well-being. In one part of the book, when she is a teenager, Natalie is brutally raped by another actor (the book declines to name the actor; I get the impression that Natalie never publicly named her attacker), and that her mother was actually happy about this, as the actor was apparently a well-known, established actor with important connections. What a sick and cruel monster, to express any emotion other than murderous hatred towards the person who brutally rapes your teenager daughter. This woman is beyond mentally ill. This is just one of the many sad, sad stories behind Natalie Wood's personal life, all while she had to act like a sunny, carefree teenager to keep up with her "public" persona. Although she does rebel quite a bit in her teenage years, gets a little reckless with the boys and the booze, etc. Who can blame her, really? Such a sad story... I certainly hope the second half of her life gets better. I'd hate to get to the end of this book and find out that she led a miserable, tortured life only to meet an early, unfortunate demise.

Let's move on to a more cheerful topic. Check out my dinner... look, ma, no sweet potato!

This was lovely. I opened up a can of black beans this weekend and wanted to use them up, so I put the rest of 'em in a pretty bowl, and added frozen precooked shrimp, Asian stir-fry veggies, extra broccoli for extra veggie love, chili pepper sauce, and some spices. Yum! Definitely will be a repeat dish! Speaking of black beans and veggies and other tasty morsels, did anyone watch Cristin's news segment on her blog today? She was on TV! She was great!

Oh, and speaking of awesome gals named Cristin (although this one's Kristin-with-a-K!), don't forget to hit up Kristin's blog for the chance to win a Quaker Simple Harvest gift bag. Good luck to you all, but I won't lie... I WANT THIS!!!! This is the third time I'll be entering this giveaway from someone's blog for this particular gift, and I never win. :-( Hopefully the third time's the charm! Pick me, Kristin! Pick me!!!!!!!!!!!

So is anyone reading Naturally Thin, by Bethenny Frankel? This is generating a lot of buzz, and I'm seeing it pop up on a few blogs. I've read a few excerpts and it doesn't sound there's anything groundbreaking in there that I don't already know, but I liked the excerpts and thought they were interesting and well-written, and wanted to know what people's thoughts on it were.

All right, time for this little clock to unwind and recharge her battery... have a good night! :-)