My name is (not) Matt Foley and I am a motivational speaker.

I have been on the go, go, go since I got home yesterday morning. We flew home from a wonderful twelve days in Maui, on the red-eye, and I’ve basically been in a whirl of somewhat dull but very necessary activity since then. Well, not counting last night after the kitchen had been cleaned up, when I watched two episodes of House of Cards and ermagerrrrd what is going on in that show? I have to keep reminding myself that it is not real, but now I’m eyeing everything political with even more suspicion than I did before.

It’s funny; no matter how incredibly prepared and organized I am – and I’m very prepared and organized – the first day or two back from vacation are a whirlwind of chores and errands and catching up on work even though I still worked a bit throughout my vacation. It’s been productive 36 hours though, although I almost got derailed by uploading my photos. They’re so pretty; I just want to photo edit and do nothing else for the rest of the day. Alas.

Every day on my vacation I took long, long walks in the morning. Part of the motivation was fitness-related – I didn’t want to repeat last year’s Post Vacation Inability To Fit Into Pants Syndrome – but mostly it was just wonderful to walk in the soft, floral-scented air and take in my surroundings. I found myself daydreaming about using this little space on the Internet for good – Motivational sayings! Spreading joy and happiness! – but my tune changed a bit when I got back to reality so you’re welcome, dear readers. You will not be subjected to motivational sayings from me, unless it’s something like Hang In There with a picture of the 1970s kitten stuck on a tree branch.

Slight disclaimer: I do think it’s important to find beauty everywhere, and to bring the sunshine with you wherever you go. Invincible summers in the depth of winter, etcetera. If you follow me on Instagram you will notice that I have the goal of posting one beautiful photo every day – although beauty may be in the eye of the beholder some days, unless you really like banana muffins. Hey, sometimes banana muffins are the best we can do!

For example, this is what my view looks like today:

Which, you know, is fine. It’s March and there’s no snow and things are starting to green up, which is ridiculously early for Calgary. Barkley got his spring haircut and isn’t dragging dead leaves and grass into the house anymore. It’s nice. But it’s not this:

or this

or this

or even this, the plumeria graveyard

Ah well, it’s good to be home. Cocktail hour at 4 pm daily was nice, but my body is probably happier with green smoothies. My long walks were wonderful but getting on the yoga mat today, I felt exactly like C-3PO, or possibly the Tin Man. Time to get back on track with everything!

I have lots and lots of things to say about beach fashion – thongs seemed to be a big thing this year, as well as athletic-style halter tops – and how my own beach fashion drastically changed this year (read: no more string bikinis). I also have lots to say about travel in general, and a great way to save your hair from sun damage, and some awesome books I read, and my opinion about this douchebag who preferred to send nasty tweets about the woman on the plane in front of him, rather than simply asking her to move her ponytail. Wait, I think I just gave away my opinion on that. The point is I have so much to tell you, but no more time today. Shall I leave you with a motivational saying? No, I shall not. But I’ll leave you with this photo of me with a whole lot of these gorgeous yellow flowers that were everywhere. xo