I’m freaking out a little that the year is already 1/12th over. I mean, January — you couldn’t have gone a little more slowly?

All in all, it was a great month! I helped launch a project I’m extremely proud of at work — a new book and supporting website called Rock Stars of Aging: 50 Ways to Live to 100. I rode some roller coasters. I got to watch my Patriots make it to the Superbowl (and I’ll be watching them WIN this weekend!). I had sangria and conversation with my best girlfriends.

February and March seem like they’ll fly by, so I’m trying to remind myself to take a moment and enjoy every single day. Any advice?

1. What the FAQ?

2. Storify Plugin for WordPress

3. Who’s Your Doorman?

4. I Came to Dance, Dance, Dance, Dance

5. How I Motivate Myself to Work Out AFTER Work

1. Words With Friends: A Metaphor for Life (via Yuppie Yogini)

2. How to See Who Visits Your Blog (via Kevin and Amanda)

3. How Bad Do You Want It? (via Mile Posts)

4. How Ford Wowed Me (via Kitten a Go-Go)

5. Kristen Bell’s Sloth Meltdown (via The Ellen Show)

1.

@thesupersana @kwidrick bananas make me happy. (cc: @klout. Can I be influential in bananas, please?)

February 1, 2012 12:14 pm via HootSuiteReplyRetweetFavorite

@tblanchfield

Theodora Blanchfield

2.

@kwidrick love this post... I think I am obsessed with dance trance. And I love your dancing in public story too! :)

about 23 hours ago via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@megcline

Meg Cline

3.

just finished "Catching Fire", now I feel the urge to go to Barnes & Noble... Thanks @kwidrick & @momjoviblog for the HG addiction!

February 1, 2012 10:24 pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@marielys2k

Marie Kulikowsky

4.

@RotoloClass let's talk about @kwidrick, who is an SU alumni and a magician basically. #RotoloClass

February 1, 2012 9:41 pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@ChefKatelyn

Katelyn Block

5.

Loved this post @kwidrick! http://t.co/Lx2b6HVK Crazy seeing that burlesque dance class a yr later - it was a huge step for me. Loved it!)

about 19 hours ago via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@livingthebefore

Kelly

1. Banana phone

2. Me and Ryan Hall...no big thang...(!!!)

3. Braid of the week (model: Jackie)

4. Crazy Miami crowds

5. Yuca relleno...yum...

1. eating animals summary

2. coffee detox

3. short little skirts

4. where does blog money come from

5. fat, food and nearly dead

Those who know me, know my love for the dance.

Cases in point:

• Dance Like Everyone’s Watching
• 5 Ways Pole Dancing is Like Social Media

I’m not the most talented dancer — my favorite move is the shimmy shake, in which I move my shoulders up and down and side to side while bobbing my head.

But man do I love it.

And I found myself waiting for a Dance Trance Orlando class to start…and decided to capture my love for dance in a vlog. No, I don’t actually bust out any moves here (but I do have some video that I’ll link to below).

But I do share some of the goofy reasons that dancing is so important to me. Embedded below or watch here.

If you’re just dying to see me in action, you can check out:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyZU6KFL0lw (I’m in the boots and purple shirt)
• http://youtu.be/R2LogXhGGe0 (I’m in the black fishnets and off-shoulder purple shirt)

What is your favorite non-exercise exercise? What makes you deliriously happy?

I’m a pretty superstitious person.

I put my left shoe on first every day, try not to step on cracks, touch the ceiling of my car when I go through a yellow light or see a car with only one working headlight (“padiddle!”) and am a big believer in routine.

And so, I have two people that I think of as my daily doormen — the greeters that I look forward to seeing every day.

The first is a crossing guard at an intersection between my house and the office. He’s a waver. He tries to make eye contact with every driver that goes by, and if you wave to him, he’ll wave back.

I only get about two seconds with him each day. I’ll probably never know his name or tell him how much he affects my life. But when I don’t see him, or he doesn’t wave, I spend a chunk of my commute being pretty bummed out and hoping it’s not an omen for a bad day.

As soon as I arrive at work, I see the person that may be the hardest working man in America, and my second doorman. He’s the property manager for our office, and he’s usually halfway through a major project by the time I arrive — pressure washing windows, oiling door hingers, etc.

He always smiles, grabs the door for me and wishes me a great day. The crazy thing is that after I put in a full day at the office, he’s usually still around — watering plants or sweeping the floor.

When I see him, I smile. I think of how much pleasure he seems to get out of his job. I try and appreciate the work that he does, both seen and unseen.

I recently finished Gretchen Rubin’s “The Happiness Project” (you can listen to a Growing Bolder interview with her here) and was struck by how some small changes really did make her happier. Smiling. Singing. Letting go of anger and embracing the positive. Taking time to feed off of other people’s happiness.

I don’t know if I’m anyone’s doorman, but I hope someday to have the same positive impact on others that these two have had on my life.

I’ve talked about Storify before — I think it’s a really great way to aggregate the stories being told around an event or topic.

But now, it’s even better, because there’s a brand new Storify plugin for WordPress!

With the plugin, you can either build a story on Storify.com or from the Storify tab on your WordPress menu.

There are a few dialogs to help you build your story:

And there’s even a bookmark you can add to your browser toolbar to easily add things into a story as you scan the Web:

And once you build the story, there’s an icon in your visual editor on WordPress that lets you easily drop the story in. Now, when I do it, the link drops in — not the embed code:

http://storify.com/kwidrick/isn-t-this-plugin-cool

But I’m pretty sure it’s user error, so I’ve asked them for help. In the meantime, you can still embed using the code from the website OR from the embed button that appears once you publis a story via your Storify tab on the WordPress menu.

I think this is a great tool, especially for people who work in social media or marketing. It’s easy to control and edit the stories that people are telling about your brands!

I have been getting a lot of email questions from people, and almost all fall into one of three categories:

**how to use general or specific social media tools

**how to get started with running or triathlon

So I have decided to add a long overdue FAQ page to my website.

I will include all of the questions I have gotten by email, but if you have something you’d like me to add — on any topic! — please leave me a comment or send me an email (kwidrick@gmail.com).

Thanks!

Two words.

GO. PATRIOTS.

Well, I’m sure I’ll have more words next week as we get closer to the game, but that should suffice for today.

1. Things I Learned This Weekend

2. New Tool Tuesday: WP Touch Plugin

3. How I Motivate Myself to Work AFTER Work

4. Willpower is a Muscle?

5. What Paula Deen SHOULD Have Said

1. Find Virtual Workout Buddies Via Twitter (via Outdoors NW and featuring #Fitblog!)

2. Cancer Sucks (via MomJovi)

3. You and I Just Don’t Get Along (via Tina Reale)

4. How Blogging Saved My Life (via Chef Katelyn)

5. Marriage is Way Harder Than it Looks on TV (via The Barefoot Foodie)

1.

You know, I'm kinda really into this healthy living thing. I never thought I'd care so much about what I put into my body. #fitblog

January 24, 2012 3:17 pm via HootSuiteReplyRetweetFavorite

@AliciaGetsFit

Alicia (@leximaven)

2.

@kwidrick thanks for ur post abt reading google reader with a plugin so I can comment right from my rss feed #awesome

January 21, 2012 6:04 pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@dawnro1101

Dawn Robinson

3.

just signed up for a personal training course at UNC! hoping to be certified at the end of the semester. #fitfluential

January 19, 2012 3:42 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@nutritionella

nutritionella

4.

GO #RAVENS! http://t.co/GFfBtNnK

January 22, 2012 3:48 pm via Twitter for AndroidReplyRetweetFavorite

@RShutts

Rob Shutts

**just check out the picture…

5.

@FitChickNYC I literally just told my trainer that I can't wait for today's nap on the train!

January 26, 2012 7:31 am via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@healthyhappier

Ashley

1. Dinner with the girls (picture stolen from ???)

2. Honeybells!

3. Work webinar

4. BOOM! Crushed my poor mama...

5. Pretty birds

1. unfriending bad friends

2. face broke out more than normal

3. weight watchers made me obsessive

4. Cat.Locks.Com.

5. how to use jack llama juicer

I know what and where my muscles are.

Believe me. I’ve been to the new Body Pump release twice this week. (Jumping lunges? Dang!)

So I was surprised to learn, via a Splendid Table podcast, that scientists say willpower is a muscle that can be strengthened through exercise, just like biceps and glutes.

(source: Pinterest)

Hmmm.

The author of the book that sparked the discussion also shared that:

Willpower is fueled by glucose, and it can be bolstered simply by replenishing the brain’s store of fuel. That’s why eating and sleeping- and especially failing to do either of those-have such dramatic effects on self-control (and why dieters have such a hard time resisting temptation).

Baumeister’s latest research shows that we typically spend four hours every day resisting temptation. No wonder people around the world rank a lack of self-control as their biggest weakness.

That’s fascinating!

Apparently, the science of willpower goes back to a study in which kids were asked to make a choice. They could get one marshmallow immediately. OR, they could wait 15 minutes and have two marshmallows.

The study found (at the time) that kids who waited were healthier decades later.

But the same study did not correlate overweight or unhealthy adults with a lack of willpower.

IN SHORT: willpower is a key piece of health, but can’t be to blame as the only factor. Overweight people (duh) aren’t overweight because they don’t say no to things. Just like healthy people don’t have 100% success at overcoming temptation.

This was a really interesting topic, and it made me think that willpower needs to be exercised in conjunction with everything else we do. Go to the gym AND work on your posture. Eat whole foods AND remember to floss.

It all adds up.

I’m a busy girl. I have a 9-5(ish) job, a social calendar and a part-time blogging gig (you know it!) that demand almost every second of my time.

Like so many of you, I have to make decisions — I won’t call them sacrifices. I have to choose to do one thing over another, and it’s not always easy.

I think that makes me relatable. Because it’s not easy for me to commit to healthy living.

On a whim, I decided to tape a quickie vlog for you, with two of my secrets. Here are the things I do to set myself up for success.

If, after watching, you have a tip to add, let me know in the comments: How do you work working out into your schedule?

Hey WordPress.com users — rejoice! Normally, I start my posts by telling you that a particular tool is for self-hosted blogs only. But this is the exception — you don’t need what I’m about to show you.

If you are NOT self-hosted but are on WordPress, your site is mobile friendly. You can thank WP for that. (BTW, if you do want to go self-hosted, I have a how-to guide here!)

If you ARE self-hosted…how does your website look on your smartphone?

I know I spend about as much time reading on my iPhone as I do on the laptop. And navigating blogs that have complication navigation, lots of photos and widgets, etc. can be really tough.

Example:

Imagine trying to read that?

So, I use the WP Touch plugin for WordPress.

And when you look at my site via phone, it looks like this:

And posts look like this:

Much better, no?

The plugin itself is easy to customize:

And while you can set it to default to the mobile view, there’s a button that users can click if they want to switch from one look to another.

When your site is mobile-friendly, it loads faster, is much easier to navigate and I promise, your readers will thank you.

Now, because the mobile-version gets rid of ads and most widgets, I don’t get credit for page views with my ad network, and my social bookmarks are a little more difficult to find. Readers can still comment and share easily, but it’s not the same.

But I don’t think mobile sites will replace full versions — at least not now. So I’d rather give readers a good experience on their phones, so they’ll pull up the page on their laptop later.

I had a great weekend — it went by much too quickly! But I learned some lessons. Maybe you’ll be able to take advantage.

For example:

You can remove glitter nail polish using cotton and tin foil.

It’s super easy to get words — WORDS!!! — on your nails.

Going out is fun. Heading home before the shots? A brilliant idea.

(Thanks for the picture, Paula!)

I’m not a baby about giving blood, but four vials? That makes me a little queasy.

Riding the roller coasters at Universal is awesome. But you do reach a point of diminishing returns. For me, that’s four in a row. Hulk made me see green — and not just because the ride is that color.

However, the best deal at the park is the popcorn tub. $4.99 with .89 refills? Yes please!

There is apparently a sport in which people wear hockey skates and navigate a steep, twisty, ice-covered course. It’s like roller derby on a ski jump. Crazy and addictive. I watched an hour of it!

My dogs are motivated by food. Offer them a treat and they’ll do just about anything.

It is good luck to drink Boston beer from a Vermont glass when cheering on the New England Patriots. SUPERBOWL, BABY!