Welcome to the Frenzied SLPs!

I’m so excited to be part of the Frenzied SLP collaborative group.

It’s the same group of speech language pathologists who put on the SLP frenzies.  Each month will feature a different theme and some of your favorite SLP bloggers will be providing their favorite hints, ideas, shortcuts and maybe even a recipe or too.  All designed to help make YOUR life a little easier.  This month, I’m taking some time to introduce myself.  Scroll down to find out how I try to separate my work from home life-and an awesome shortcut for lunches!

Gourmet Gal:  I almost never make the same recipe twice.  Instead I make my up my meal plans (instead of my lesson plans) based on the last cooking magazine I purchased.  It started in college when I started making food for kegger parties.  Would you like some spanakopita to go with that red solo cup?  I try to make up freezer meals to use during the week-and the weekend I take some time to cook a special dish.

Silly & Absurd:  If you have read my blog-you know that I love humor.  I love to be silly and ridiculous in therapy.  I rarely get embarrassed and enjoy sharing stories of my mishaps with others.  For instance, I once got locked in a dumpster enclosure at work.   I know that I am a pretty big dork-but it’s fun to be dorky.

New to Yoga:  I have been working out for years.  I try to get up at 4:30 before work and head to the gym to take a class before work.  I find that it really helps my stress level.  Recently I started taking yoga and I really like it.  It’s a great time to try to forget about all of the other things going on in your life and the stretching has really helped my plantar fasciitis.  

Sings in the Car:  I love to sing-mostly in secret.  I sing in the shower.  When I am home alone, I pretend I am singing on one of those reality vocal competitions.  (I’m probably on the Voice-and I think Blake is my coach.)  I had a Glee karaoke app on my phone that I had to take off because it was eating up most of my phone storage with old recordings.  And I sing in the car-but I try to make it look like I am not singing.  I try to look like I am having a serious conversation with my broker on one of those hands-free devices.  Totally secret-until I come home and realize that my son had opened the back car window and everyone’s probably just been listening to me at all of the stop lights.  

BRAIN DUMP:

No matter our setting, We are all busy professionals.  I love speech language pathology and could probably talk and think about it all day long.  I sometimes wish that I could hide away for a month-and just think and plan awesome therapy activities and progressions for my clients.  I wish for it-but in reality, I wish more for a tropical vacation where I don’t have to think about work.  I am fortunate to have a short commute-but I don’t always have enough time to decompress from the days events to start my other life as wife, mother, friend, daughter, dog owner, crafter etc.  Sometimes you have to bring work home-but when you don’t, how do you stop thinking about all the things you need to do tomorrow?  David Allen of “Getting Things Done®” has a technique called Mind Sweep.  You can hear about the technique by listening to  his podcast “Guided GTD Mind Sweep” HERE.  

Here’s what I do.  I try to take 5 minutes at the end of my work day or work week.  I write down everything that I am thinking about.   It helps to get everything on paper so I don’t HAVE to keep thinking about it.  I can go back through the list the next day and organize what needs to happen right away, what I can put off and what I probably don’t need to think about at all.  I really like this technique-it’s great to use right before bed if you have a lot of stress.  Just writing the things out seems to help calm your mind-you know you aren’t going to forget that anymore because you’ve got it written down.  Mine often seems like a “To do” list but sometimes I need to write out my emotions or thoughts that I am having about a particular situation.

SHORTCUT GRAPE HACK:

I love timesaving hints and hacks.  I posted this on my Facebook page but have since had the chance to try it.  Have you even needed to cut grapes in half?  Here’s my time saving hint:

I use this to make quick preparations in feeding therapy, to make snacks or salads.  It also works with cherry tomatoes and would probably work with olives.  Blech, I hate olives.  I feel like I should like them but even the smell of them on my fingers makes me want to gag.  

1.  Place washed grapes on a plate.  It works best if the plate has a flat edge-the plate in the picture make it a little tricky to get to all of the grapes because the lip of the plate was raised.

2.  Place another plate on top.

3.  Press down on the top plate and you cut through your grapes with a sharp knife.

4.  Enjoy your freshly cut grapes.

Hope you have enjoyed this post.  Make sure to stop by our Frenzied SLP page often so you don’t miss an awesome tip, trick or Hack.