Check out today’s 30 Days post! Only 10 more days left in the series, which amazes me.

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Shall I continue with my crazy busy Saturday now? I think yes! I like looking back on the weekend. It helps make Monday a little more bearable. Especially when you have numerous things to do, but no motivation to actually do them. I need a day of nothing. Yea. Like that will ever happen. 😉

So after spending a day among toddler lovebirds and birthday cake, we did something I have looked forward to since spring. A hike! I love visiting the many various mountains and trails in our area for family hikes. I hated that the heat this summer combined with pregnancy made it very difficult to get out for any. Even though the fall weather has recently taken a backseat to more summer temperatures, I was not willing to give up on our planned hike.

We visited Kennesaw Mountain for a short 3 mile trail hike. I loved every grueling, 90 degree temperature, steep and rocky uphill moment of that climb.

Hiking is one of my favorite fall activities! I can’t wait for more…which hopefully we will have the time to fit in with our steadily filling calendar.

After the hike, we picked up our friend’s wife who couldn’t go with us and headed out to dinner. After last week’s lesson, my only request was “not a chain”. Our friends picked out Elevation Chophouse, a restaurant situated on the hangar of a small, local airport.

We got to dine while watching planes taking off and landing. Extra perk? It entertained M better than her little backpack of books. Always a good thing.

For my dinner, I split the hummus plate with my friend and also ordered one of the jumbo all meat crab cakes with hot pepper jelly.

These were good! The hummus had the perfect creamy consistency with a slight lemony undertone. The veggies were on the pitiful side, but the black pepper lavash bread made up for them. The crab cake tasted better than some I’ve had at the beach. It truly was all meat. And I loved the kick from the pepper jelly.

The second half of Saturday was a huge success. Good food, good friends, a favorite activity? What more could I ask for.

• What was the best part of your weekend?
• What is your favorite fall activity? I love visiting the pumpkin patch, corn maze, Helen, and other places in the fall but overall hiking is #1. Well, it could be behind eating pumpkin inspired foods. 😀

I hope you all had fabulous weekends! If you need to play catch up you can visit the posts below. 🙂 And did you know that we only have 10 more days of this month left? Wow!

• Love Others to Love Yourself More
• Stop Fat Talk Now!

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Please don’t take what I’m about to say in a depressing manner. We only have one shot at life. One. Then we die and can no longer be a part of this world.

That is the cold, hard truth. We like to pretend we can avoid it or that second chances abound. When it boils down to it, though, they don’t. Second chances don’t truly exist because we can never go back to reclaim any lost time or change the past. We can only strive to make the best decisions from this moment forward.

How exactly does this fit in with self love? Well, if we want to live the most fulfilling and satisfied lives as possible we need to love ourselves. We can waste our lives away with worry, regret, doubt, and negativity. We can spend too much time concerned with trivial matters of what size pants we wear or what other people think of our hopes and dreams. Instead of taking the reins and making life the best possible, we float along lost and broken.

Each day we choose what to focus our energy on – relationships that mean the most to us, how we look in the mirror, working hard at a personal goal, the fight we had with a friend, and on and on. We decide whether to end our days feeling like we experienced life or like it slipped by. I always try to keep the perspective that at the end of my life I won’t care about how flat my stomach was or awards I received. I will care if I lived with joy and surrounded myself with love.

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Fortunately, I don’t know when the end of my life will come. And that means I have to start making my life something I’m happy with right now. Why waste a single moment? We need to keep what truly provides a fulfilling life in perspective. Live that way today.

What can you focus on today so you end your day knowing you cultivated your best life? What should you ignore that tries to rob you of joy? I will focus on spending time with my family. I will ignore the frustration and doubt I initially felt this morning when I did my weekly check-up on some blog related stuff. It doesn’t matter and its one week.