Me embracing my free Jim Palmer jersey on my visit to Camden Yards three years ago. I love baseball so much that I’m making my way around all of the MLB ballparks, one year at a time.

I’ve been a baseball fan for as long as I can remember.

I had posters of Ted Williams, Hank Aaron, and Babe Ruth hanging on the lavender walls of my bedroom when I was eight years old.

I listened to my hometown Pittsburgh Pirates on the yellow Mickey Mouse radio that sounded more of static than the play-by-play announcers, and I saved my box tops to order that Wheaties’ collector’s edition Pete Rose poster when he broke the all-time hits record. 

(That was before he broke my heart by getting thrown out of baseball…)

In 2013, just two weeks after my wedding, I made a quick 24 hour round trip to Pittsburgh to watch my team play in, and win, the Wild Card game, making the playoffs for the first time since I was 15.

To this day, it’s the coolest baseball experience I’ve ever had.

I struggle to explain to a non-baseball fan what it is that I love so much about the game. I love the pace - I love the strategy - I love the quiet rhythm of the crowd and the announcers on a summer’s evening drive home from the gym. I don’t know where I learned to love the game so much - but baseball is as much a part of my blood as my Irish and Welsh heritage. 

Tonight, as I watch my guys battle the Milwaukee Brewers to get back to a .500 record, I’m struck by the one thing that keeps me tuning in for every pitch of every game, even when my team is, as they often are, losing.

I tune in for the possibility.

The possibility that my team, however long they’ve gone without a World Series win or appearance (40 years), might string together some amazing moments.

Like the time the Pirates scored six runs in the bottom of the ninth, with two outs, to defeat the Houston Astros in a game that didn’t mean anything to anyone.

Except some of us fans.

So yeah, I tune in for the possibility.

What I love about baseball, and just about any sport really, is the fact that the momentum of the game can turn on a dime. That one great defensive play can spark an offensive outburst the next inning - that one player can foul off nine pitches, find a way to get on base, and change the energy of his (or her if you’re watching softball right now) team.

The funny thing about baseball, is that those momentum and energy shifts are almost always the small things. The worst thing that could happen right now when my team is down by three? A home run.  

Sounds strange right? I mean how can a home run be a bad thing? Because there is a different energy and feel to the game when the bases are empty. And if you’re down by three in the ninth, it’s hard to build a rally on a home run. But a bunt single? A hustle double? A batter working her way back from an 0-2 count to draw a walk? 

Those are the moments that change the energy and momentum and ultimately, the outcome of a game. 

I’m writing this tonight as a reminder, not just to you, but to myself as well, that it doesn’t always have to be the big thing that gets you going in the right direction. You can stack one small habit on top of another small habit and before you know it, you are making changes to your life that feel good for you.

But the one thing you do need?

Optimism. You need to be optimistic that you can change - that your life can be different - that, no matter what life has dealt you recently - that you can put together that one great at bat that will help steer you in the right direction.

And if that’s not something you can believe in for yourself right now, well, I’ll tell you what I tell everyone else - I will be optimistic for you until you can be optimistic for yourself.

In the meantime, the Pirates are losing 2-0. But I’ll watch the game to it’s end tonight, and I’ll tune in again to watch them tomorrow. Because tomorrow’s a new day, filled with new possibilities - and you never know when the momentum is going to shift.

But I believe it will. And I’ll be watching and supporting them when it does.

“If I don’t see you in the spring, I’ll see you in the mattress.”

That was one of my Uncle Jimmy’s one-liners.

One of the many groan-worthy, yet funny, expressions that my Dad and his brothers are notorious for.

My dad is also famous for telling us that between he and his brothers, they know everything. Anytime I had them all together and stumped them, they didn’t miss a beat.

“That’s the one our sister knows.”

As we get ready to lay my Uncle Jimmy to rest – as I watch my dad bury his second sibling in less than six months – I find myself squeezing even harder to the present. It’s almost as though I’m trying to steal moments with my parents and other aunts and uncles – moments that are already mine.

Rest in peace Uncle Jimmy.

But I’m trying to lock these memories in a box - to hang them onto the walls of my mind so that I can visit them whenever I want.

I’ve written before that with the privilege of aging comes the burden of loss. Since my I found out that my Uncle Jimmy was sick, I’ve been battling that sinking feeling that comes in late August, as summer is winding down and you realize that all of the moments and trips and picnics you had looked forward to are already past.

You wonder where the time went. You wonder how many of those sacred moments you spent mindlessly flipping through Facebook on your smart phone, or texting with people and neglecting the people actually in the moment with you.

As hard as it is to lose someone we love, death stops us in our tracks and forces us to reconcile with our present. It forces us to face our own mortality and to remember that this life, however hard it can feel sometimes, is finite. To remind us that we don’t have forever. That someday isn’t actually a day of the week, but the day we actually do something.

Someday is today.

The day we take that trip to Hawaii.

The day we pull that screen play out of our desk drawer and share it with someone.

The day we call up that long lost friend that we’ve been meaning to call for the past two years.

So today when I get to Pennsylvania – I will keep my phone in my bag. I will absorb every last bit of my dad’s giggle and be in the moment when he plays his guitar. I’ll listen to the stories that my Uncle Jerry and Aunt Louise will tell about my grandparents. I’ll listen to my mom think out loud and I’ll pay attention to what she is saying.

I’ll collect as many memories and moments as I can.

And hey, if I don’t see you in the spring, I’ll see you in the mattress.

In the past few weeks I’ve started to track how I spend my time. Not to the minute, but every hour or so during the day, I jot down what I’ve done during the past 60 minutes. Like many of us, I’d like to be more productive, so I thought a time tracker might be a good place to start.

I feel like I’ve learned some important lessons during this process and I want to share those with you today.

You’re welcome in advance (and I apologize for the implied profanity. But poop show doesn’t sound the same…)

1. TRY NOT TO BE A SH*T SHOW

I’m not sure if sh*t show is a technically a personality trait, but if so, that’s my strongest one, behind introversion.

Anyone who has ever witnessed me trying to leave the gym at the end of the night has seen this in person, with my five bags, one coffee mug, one blender bottle, and keys? Where are my keys?

This morning, it took me an hour to get ready for work. I work at a gym, don’t fix my hair, and I’m not really required to do anything but smell better than a sweaty gym sock. Reflecting on the hour it took me to actually get pants on (sweat pants, yes), this is what happened:

*I spent ten minutes in the shower trying to get the pump to work on the new giant bottle of shampoo. That was after I got in the shower, realized the old bottle was empty, and then got out of the shower to get the new bottle. Eventually, I gave up on getting the new pump to work and took the whole damn lid off. That’s when a quarter of the new bottle fell out into the shower. I rubbed my hands in the glob of shampoo on the floor of the tub and lathered what I could manage into my hair.

Then I reached for the razor that conveniently hangs on the shower wall, because Sheila (who is not a sh*t show). The razor fell out of my hands, still slippery from the shampoo excursion, and came apart. My hands pruned as I tried to get the razor blade back on to the razor handle, and then it fell off three more times before I finally cut myself shaving my legs.

Because of course I did.

And I still missed the spot on the back of my legs that I always miss and I now have a Rapunzel like growth of leg hair.

You’re welcome for the image.

*I plucked a gray chin hair and then freaked out because it was A GRAY CHIN HAIR.

So tip number one - don’t be like me.

At all.

2. KEEP YOUR LIDS WITH THE COFFEE MUGS

I spent another 15 minutes trying to find the lid to my Yeti mug. Yes, I have 7 other mugs in the cabinet and I could find lids to go with them. But IT HAD TO BE THE YETI MUG BECAUSE YETI.

This tip also applies to Tupperware and storage containers for food. Matching lids to containers is the bane of my existence.

Side note - when I was a kid, my mom used Country Crock bowls as Tupperware and finding the butter was a sh*t show. Maybe I learned to be a sh*t show from my mom. If you’re reading this mom, I’m sorry I said sh*t…

3. MAYBE TAKE YOUR CLOTHES OUT OF THE DRIER BEFORE YOU ACTUALLY NEED TO FIND THEM.

After my 45 minute adventure in the shower, I had to find clothes. Which I’d washed. On Sunday. And put in the drier. And that was as far as I got because my laundry cycle includes putting clothes into the washer and then into the drier and then onto my person. 

Which, if you’re curious, is how I finally got pants on.

So I think my advice here is to also not be like me. Put your clothes in a drawer. Maybe fold them too.

Nah….just put them in a drawer.

BONUS TIP

Have bacon and a hair dryer ready to get your 11-year old basset hound out of the yard where he’s been eating dirt and grass in the pouring rain and is pretending that he doesn’t know his name for 25 minutes while you also periodically come out and stand in the pouring rain yelling at him.

Those are just a couple of tips that are not really tips but things you should never, ever do if you’d like to be more productive with your life.

And if you’re tempted to have me watch some Marie Kondo Netflix show, I’d offer this in all honesty:

I wrote this post so that you, reading it, will know that you’re not alone. If you walked out the door with your pants on backwards (I did this Saturday night), forgot to pack socks in your gym bag (at least once a week) or spent 20 minutes looking for the pants that you had in your hand five minutes ago (that was last Thursday for me), it’s ok.

Chances are, if organization isn’t your strong suit, there are so many other things you bring to the table. Creativity, the ability to adapt to any situation, and you probably have a lot of empathy for other people. It’s easy to feel like if we are not more organized we are wrong. That if we don’t plan more, we’re wrong. That if we don’t do things the way we are supposed to, we are wrong.

Well, as I like to tell clients who ask me if they are doing exercises wrong in my classes, my answer is the same.

You’re not doing it wrong.

Just different.