Stories from Kristina + Breanne

  Shared by Kristina Smedley “Never alone…” I recently joined a prenatal yoga class a couple miles from my house; one of the best decisions I’ve made over the last few months! Being pregnant is an odd experience, everyone is happy and excited for you but not many can actually relate to what you’re going through in the moment. Have they been pregnant before? Sorry husbands, this one counts you out; although we still appreciate and need your support! Were they recently pregnant? It seems like post-baby moms have new things to think and worry about than remembering their pregnancy experiences. It’s a wonderful thing to have friends and family to chat with about what’s coming next on this journey, but sometimes it’s nice to chat with someone who’s traveling a similar journey in the moment! Surprisingly it seems the norm is to not talk about the difficulties, challenges, fears moms experience when pregnant and after having their baby. I guess we want to focus on the positive and miracle...

  Shared by Breanne Smedley I had a vision this summer of how I wanted to transform our home office into a cozy, clean, productive workspace. It came through scrolling multiple Pinterest pages and blog posts with titles like, “Easy DIY office built-ins for less than $200!” “How to Ikea hack your office.” And the kicker that made me think it could all be possible… “How a (very) novice (female) builder achieved office built-ins for less than $300. And how you can too!” Sold! How do I do it? “Apparently all you need are these things,” I told Brett. Circular saw Miter saw Table saw Dremel Multi-Max  Hand sander Hole saw  Screwdriver K5 Kreg Jig  Nail gun  Paint sprayer  Caulk gun Plus some bookcases, cabinets, and plywood. “…do we have those things?” I asked. Brett informed me that we don’t even have half the things on that list. Ok, so buying all those things would cost way more than $300, and take way longer than the 3 nights we had available to work on this....

  Shared by Breanne Smedley I’m a head coach. And I’m a female. I hadn’t really considered that these two things made myself a minority among coaches. Until I started to look around. In my previous role, I was the only female head coach in the entire athletic department. In my current position, out of the 22 sports offered at the high school, four are led by women head coaches. Gymnastics.  Swimming.  Track and Field.  Volleyball. The cheerleading coach is also female, although cheerleading isn’t listed as a sport in our league. I’ve thought a lot about the significance of this. That most people don’t think twice about a male head coach of a girls team, but find it significant when (if) a woman coaches a boys team. Does it really matter what the gender of a coach is, as long as they are a “good” coach? “I don’t care if they’re a man, woman, white, black, asian, hispanic, etc. As long as they are the most qualified for the position.” An Athletic Director told me recen...

  Shared by Breanne Smedley This past week vacationing with my family on Whidbey Island has been a perfect combination of relaxation, productivity, reconnection with friends, adventure, good food, and fitness. And of course a touch of the bickering that comes with adjusting to vacation life and being around each other 24/7. It wouldn’t be a vacation without it, right?! Brett and I used to live on Whidbey Island, which makes it a really special place for us to visit every year. It’s the first place we lived together after we got married. It was where I got my first teaching and head coaching job. It’s where we met lifelong friends that we still keep in contact with. Where Brett really fell in love with fishing. Whenever we come back, a flood of memories comes back as well. We drive past the first house we lived in together. A 540 square foot bungalow right on the beach. As we drive by, memories of fishing and crabbing out of our kayak and watching the sun set over the water every ni...

  Shared by Breanne Smedley Usually August marks one of the most stressful times of the year for me. It’s the ramping up of the volleyball season. This entails a lot of planning, preparation, and communication to ensure things are in place for the whirlwind of tryouts, practices, and matches that are about to hit us. There’s logistics of it all, and the realization that no matter how much I plan, there will still be things that will go sideways. Like last year when the main basketball hoop in the gym was broken and stuck in the down position on the first day of tryouts, deeming that court unusable. Or the year before when the gym floor somehow “floated,” making it so the poles no longer fit into the holes. Can’t make this stuff up…! Things like this are bound to happen, so I do my best to prepare (and check the gym before tryouts, now!), and just accept that there will be things out of my control. But then there’s the added stress of Brett also being a head coach in the same season...

  Shared by Breanne Smedley Every summer, a couple of our friends organize an event at their house called the Pigtathalon. It’s an all-afternoon event of intense competition in classic and invented lawn games, followed by a feast of a pig that has been roasting in a cinder block pit all day. I’m not exactly sure how many years running it’s been going on, but judging by their registration system, flow of event, and carefully calculated lawn games, they’ve spent years perfecting it. The annual event brings in 25-35 people each year, ready to harness their competitiveness and let it all out in the best way possible. Through a game of corn hole, of course. This year, I competed in a group that rotated through flip cup, ladder ball, horseshoes, corn hole, and beersbee. (Beersbee-a fun combination of frisbee and horseshoes where players alternate throwing a frisbee to a pole with a bottle on top. The goal is to hit the pole or knock the bottle off without the opposing player catching the...

  Shared by Breanne Smedley I enjoy working out and being productive in the morning. It feels really good to get one of the items that ranks the highest on my priority list out of the way early, even if that means attending the 5am CrossFit, Orangetheory, Spin, Bootcamp, etc class. Over the past 9 months, I’ve also developed a morning routine that reflects the type of person I want to become. I value health, learning, and desire to be impactful in my role as a wife, mom, teacher, coach, and entrepreneur. And I know that the habits associated with these goals and values don’t just form themselves. In order to ensure these things don’t get lost in the chaos of the day, I choose to wake up at a “crazy” hour most days of the week. Meditate. Read. Write.  Workout. Even on vacation, I found a way to make it to the 5am CrossFit class nearby. “That’s crazy!” Some have said. “It’s vacation, just let yourself sleep in.” “You don’t even need to work out, you’re skinny already.” I’ve been...

  Shared by Breanne Smedley One of my greatest fears as a parent is that I will somehow ruin my future relationship with my daughter. That what I intentionally or unintentionally do now will cause long-term resentment or a broken relationship. That if I only knew now, that I could change something. It causes me to second guess myself. “Am I doing it right?” “Should I have responded to her that way when she threw her broccoli on the floor?” “Put your phone away, she shouldn’t see you on your phone.” “Or maybe she should, so she can see how to have a healthy relationship with a phone.” “Am I telling her ‘no’ too often? I should start saying ‘yes’ every once in a while.” It can feel exhausting. Charlee is only one, yet I’m already looking towards the teenage years with fear. I want to raise her to know she is strong, capable, brave, and loved. I want to develop curiosity and empathy in her. I want her to feel empowered to use her voice and influence to do what brings her joy and creat...

  Shared by Breanne Smedley “1 second…” At the beginning of each season, my team goes through a series of challenges to earn their practice shirts, jerseys, and gear. It’s adapted from similar pre-season challenges my college team would go through called “Earn the Right.” The challenges build on each other, starting with individual skills, then moving to small group, and finishing with the entire team. They are designed to work on skills essential to volleyball, obviously. More importantly, they are designed to put our team in frustrating situations. To challenge them and force them to face failure and decide how to respond. To overcome adversity together as a team. To signify that nothing is given, everything is earned. The first two challenges in a series of six are three minutes of individual forearm passing and two minutes of setting. This earns the girls two practice shirts. Each player on the team is to forearm pass to herself the entire time without dropping or catching the ...

  Shared by Breanne Smedley On the semi-rare occasions that Brett and I haven’t planned dinner, or are too tired to follow through with what we scheduled, we look to each other and ask the question that almost always ends in an argument. “What do you want?” Or… “Where do you want to go?” It’s a simple question, right? Usually, one of us answers, “It doesn’t matter to me.” Or… “I have no preference.” Or… “I’m good with whatever you want.” Which sounds helpful. But really it isn’t helpful at all. In fact, I get a little angry when I hear it. It would actually help if you had a preference. Because now the decision is all on me. “How about Thai…?” One of us will throw out. “No, I’m not feeling that.” I thought you were ‘good with whatever’?! It goes both ways. Both of us listing off ideas and shooting them down, despite the fact that we just told each other some version of “I don’t care where we go.” What gives? Are we afraid to tell each other what we really want? Are we trying to gue...

  Shared by Breanne Smedley The word has a negative connotation. It reminds me of college, frantically racing to turn in an assignment by the deadline, only to find the printer in Bond Hall jammed up. Panic ensues and the feeling that my life will be over if I can’t get it turned in by the deadline. Nowadays, it’s the only thing that allows me to get anything done. Deadlines put me on the hook and hold me accountable. In fact, if a task is not on the calendar to be completed by a specific date or time, history tells me it won’t be completed at all. Which is why Kristina and I, after weeks of knowing we wanted to launch another beta round of the ConfidenceFactor™ Challenge, didn’t do it until we sat down and put a deadline on it. “August 4th is when we’ll start.” We worked backwards from there.  Launched the challenge on July 30th. Full by July 31st. Boom-the power of a deadline brought it to life. Knowing this, there are still a surprising number of items on my list that have ...

  Shared by Breanne Smedley One of the biggest changes to the dynamic of Brett and I’s relationship with the addition of Charlee has been time management. More like, “who’s going to watch Charlee while I [fill in the blank]…” Work on football or volleyball.  Plan for school.  Go to practice. Work on Mindfluent Leadership. Clean the house. Workout. Take a shower.  Have a fricken moment to myself… Our life B.C. (Before Charlee) seemed to flow effortlessly between these things. We would check-in with each other, but for the most part, we did what we needed or wanted without much hesitation. That was stripped away really fast. At this stage, there’s no way we can both be occupied something at the same time while Charlee is awake. Well, I guess we could. But there would also be toys in the toilet and a bunch of crying. It’s during these times that my selfishness gets exposed. “I didn’t used to be selfish!” I’d think. But what was once covered up by the ability to do prett...

  Shared by Breanne Smedley Yesterday, I had the idea to take Charlee on a quick run in her stroller before dinner. “Just 15-20 minutes,” I told Brett. I wouldn’t say that I LOVE running. But the thought of pushing Charlee along in the stroller while taking in the beautiful scenery of Penn Cove with the backdrop of the Cascade Mountain range sounded like something we would both be in to. We are staying at a rental house in an area of Whidbey Island that has a ton of hills. But you never really understand just how hilly a place is until you start running. What seems like just a slight incline in the car quickly turns into burning booty and calves when trying to huff up a hill on a “run.” Add to that a 25-pound stroller/toddler combo and I soon realized that I had my work cut out for me! I started on a downhill portion of the neighborhood, making my way towards the water. I found I actually couldn’t run this portion as the stroller was moving too fast and occasionally getting caught ...