The Full Moxie:: Celebrity, Entertainment, DIY, Fashion & Beauty, Fitness & Health, Love & Family,Food,

Lisa

Lisa Maria Boyles is a mother, a writer and a runner who loves all things food and news related. She is probably running, eating and mothering at a place near you now. You can e-mail her at lisa@thefullmoxie.com.

How you can help improve libraries’ digital offerings

Feb 152013

February 15, 2013 Posted by Lisa No Responses »

How you can help improve libraries' digital offerings

A great step forward for library collections in recent years has been the addition of digital offerings, in the form of ebooks and digital audiobooks. Patrons can check out titles and load them on ereaders or smart phones. When the loan period is up, the titles expire and become available to other patrons. But those who use these resources may be frustrated by limited choices. As CBS Channel 47 anchor Zara Arboleda tweeted yesterday, “@FCPL: What’s with all the witchcraft and harlequin books in your eLibrary? Plan to get newer NYT bestsellers?” I’ve noticed the same thing myself. Few newer bestsellers, and lots of quirky series that don’t necessarily interest me. The Fresno County Public Library was quick to respond to Zara: “We wish we could! Here’s why we can’t and what you can do about it http://fresnolibrary.org/eshortage.html.” It turns out that book publishers treat digital versions of their publications differently than [...]

Goals: Each step adds up

Feb 122013

February 12, 2013 Posted by Lisa No Responses »

Yesterday, I had no interest in going running. It was gray, cloudy and cold. All day. I just wasn’t feeling it. I didn’t go in the morning, or early afternoon. But I couldn’t NOT run yesterday. Or today either, for that matter. I was too close. So after I picked up my daughters from school, I changed, and got out there. Today was my 100th consecutive day running. This all started back in October, right before Halloween. I decided that I wanted to exceed my previous running streak — 40 days — which I completed during the summer. If I ran every day between Halloween and New Year’s Day, that would be a little more than 60 days, quite a significant improvement. So beginning on Oct. 31, I started running every day, at least a mile, but usually more than that. I ran on my birthday. I ran the day [...]

Apolitical gun talk

Jan 252013

January 25, 2013 Posted by Lisa No Responses »

I don’t see the recent talk about gun control and limiting access to automatic weapons as political. I realize that to many people, that’s all it is. But not to me. To me, it’s about the slaughter that is happening far too frequently in our nation, in our workplaces, in our schools, in our homes. On the day when a young man killed 20 elementary school children and six adults — after first killing his mother in their home — I sat stunned in my car listening to news coverage of the event. So many lives ended so suddenly — 15 of 16 students in one of the first-grade classes. Will those small children who survived, who watched their classmates murdered around them, ever feel safety again? Since that day last month, even as our nation debates the politics of the second amendment, it seems like the number of gun [...]

Documenting life events in the social media age

Jan 202013

January 20, 2013 Posted by Lisa No Responses »

Documenting life events in the social media age

The other day, as I was waiting for the first photos of my grandbaby to show up on my Facebook, I thought about how differently we announce life events compared to just 10 years ago, when I was pregnant with my youngest daughter. Before I went into the hospital, I had prepared a special list of email contacts who I wanted to get the news about Katie’s birth as soon as it happened. Back then, text messages weren’t quite as prevalent, Facebook didn’t exist and we didn’t own a laptop. So while I was in the hospital, my husband was able to log into my email and send out a bulk email to my pre-arranged list of Baby News people. These days, I’ve seen people announce their pregnancy by posting photos on Facebook of their sonogram images. Just a few minutes before my son and daughter-in-law went into surgery for [...]

Don’t over-think things!

Jan 142013

January 14, 2013 Posted by Lisa No Responses »

“Don’t over-think things.” I can say that, and intellectually, I understand what it means. But it’s not so easy for me to put it into practice. Never has been. I have been a worrier and a chronic over-thinker for my much of life. But a new study published in the American Journal of Cardiology says that perceived stress, or how much you think you’re stressed, is associated with a higher risk of coronary heart disease. An article on Today.com about the study’s findings says this: Researchers analyzed six studies to see how perceived stress affects your ticker. Each of the studies asked participants to self-report intense or frequent feelings of stress and then followed each participant for about 14 years to see if they were diagnosed with, hospitalized, or died from coronary heart disease. What they found: Participants who reported high levels of stress had a 27 percent higher risk [...]

Time seems to roll by faster every year

Jan 092013

January 9, 2013 Posted by Lisa 1 Response »

At the end of every year (or the beginning of a new year, if I’m running behind, which I usually am), I archive my photos from the previous year, saving the best ones in one folder, so I can back them up to safety, and putting the rest in another folder, which is not such a high priority. My photographs are the most visual, vivid reminder I have of how each year seems to fly by, faster and faster than the year before. When we were little, didn’t it seem like EONS between holidays? Years between Christmases? Yet, with each passing year, I swear the clock, and the calendar speed up, compressing time into some kind of cruel time warp. Looking over a year’s worth of family photos and memories, surely it can’t be almost a year since Katie and I went to that ballet version of “A Secret Garden”? [...]

What to do with an unscheduled day?

Dec 282012

December 28, 2012 Posted by Lisa No Responses »

Driving home from my third appointment of today, I pondered my schedule for tomorrow. I couldn’t remember anything on the agenda ― other than running, which I’ve been doing every day lately. When I got to a stopping point, I checked my calendar on my phone. It was true. Not one appointment, interview, deadline or to-do. A free day. Considering that I’m not working a regular job at the moment, you’d think that those would crop up more often. But they don’t. I think it’s time for what my daughter declared yesterday to be for her ― a pajama day. After I do my run, I’m going to shower, then get back into pajamas for most of the rest of the day. I told Katie, and her face lit up. “There are so many things we can do!” Yes, there are. We can read, take relaxing baths, do each other’s [...]

Bringing in the New Year with kiddos!

Dec 282012

December 28, 2012 Posted by Lisa No Responses »

When we’re young and romantic (or foolish), New Year’s Eve is for dreamers, dancers and lovers. We partied till dawn (or at least until after midnight), filled pages with lofty resolutions for next year’s improvements, kissed passionately at the stroke of midnight and fell into bed, exhausted from all the revelry. These days, with kids of various ages filling the empty spaces in our lives, falling into bed exhausted from an average day’s efforts is more likely the case. But if you do want a festive celebration marking the beginning of the New Year with your children, it’s still possible. One of my ex-husband’s sisters used to host big New Year’s Eve parties where the kids as much as outnumbered the adults. Thinking back to those recall memories of Pictionary games, cake decorating contests and karaoke into the early morning hours of the new year. Little ones delighted at midnight [...]

Holiday decorations: 3D scrapbooks

Dec 212012

December 21, 2012 Posted by Lisa No Responses »

On our Christmas tree, the ornaments aren’t just static decorations that never change from year to year — the tree is an evolving scrapbook of moments and memories from our lives. These two ornaments pictured — the needlepoint Raggedy Ann and the tiny angel cut from the lid of a tin can — are two that were handmade by my Great Aunt Betty in Ohio. She died just over a year ago, but her creations that have decorated my trees since I was a child keep her memory alive. Since my youngest daughter was born, I have picked out a Hallmark ornament for her each year. Usually I do it by myself, but sometimes she helps me. This year, she picked a miniature replica of Ralphie tentatively stroking the fishnet stocking lamp from “A Christmas Story,” one of our favorite Christmas movies. The year she dressed as Ariel from “The Little [...]

Process your emotions

Dec 202012

December 20, 2012 Posted by Lisa No Responses »

This month can be a hard time of year emotionally. Sure, there are lots of holiday events and family gatherings going on. But it’s those very events that can make December hectic. Rampant commercialism (and nonstop commercials) can make us feel like we have to keep buying more and more, spending money that we can’t afford or that just isn’t necessary. Busy schedules can make household routines go out the window. And family functions or holiday get-togethers where we must interact with people we don’t see all the time, even (or especially) loved ones, can be stressful. And then there’s the news. Devastating tragedy becomes incomprehensible so close to the holidays. It’s easier to focus on keeping busy, crossing things off our to-do list, maintaining our break-neck social calendars. But the tough emotions don’t go away. If we ignore them, refuse to deal with them, they simmer and fester beneath [...]