The 1,000,000th Reader

August 14th, 2012. The first blog post ever published on Hungry & Fit back when it was a wordpress.com site. Now, or rather for quite some time we’ve been wordpress.org; it was a requirement when we started to monetize the blog. As some of you may know, we thought of the blog on our cross-country trip from New York to Boulder, Colorado. We stopped in Mason City, Iowa for a week or so along the way. At the time, it was just the two of us, but the pack, or pride, has grown since then. Hungry & Fit has also grown.

Mar132017

Our Weekend in Pics

Celebrating women worldwide

Jul272016

The Path to Success

I found this to be an extremely interesting list for a few reasons. First, it’s Forbes, so you assume it has more legitimacy than what you’d find peppered all over your feed on Facebook. Obviously, there is some accuracy to these figures, not that they’re entirely accurate or rather, not that they tell you the whole story. Second, the title states this list contains “The World’s Highest-Paid Celebrities.” While I can really break that down and talk about what they might mean by both the world’s and highest-paid, the most intriguing part is the word, “celebrity.”

I’ve always been confused by that word. Webster defines it as ‘a famous person,’ but this list clearly does not contain the highest-paid famous people in the world. At a quick glance, it contains very few, if any, billionaires. Bill Gates is certainly a celebrity by that definition and he definitely qualifies by the monetary standard, but they don’t seem to be including anyone in that specific industry. In fact, I decided to break this down to figure out who is on the list.

One path to success

Jun112016

A Book to Inspire You: Big Magic

I forget where I first heard of Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, but I’m very grateful to that unknown source. I’ve been writing my whole life–I’m no master, but I have always enjoyed creating stories. It’s a hobby of mine I hope to focus on now that the big wedding is done and that I have a little bit more time on my hands. But writing, or being creative in general, isn’t as easy as putting pen to paper (or brush to canvas or hands to flowers)–though, technically that’s what you need. Sometimes, you need a little bit of inspiration. This book more than does that.

Dec292014

How Movies Inspire Us

Hungry and I are creative people. We use our creative juices and energy to create ideas, stories, concepts, and so on. With creativity, comes the need for inspiration. Lately, I haven’t been as creative as I’ve once been. I’m not writing much (besides blogging) and I don’t feel that pull to create, even though I know it would be wonderful once I start. Sometimes the best way to do it is just to start, period. However, there are other ways as well.

This past weekend, we FINALLY saw the last installment of The Hobbit movie series. We were a little late on seeing it because of conflicting busy schedules and whatnot. The Lord of the Rings trilogy on both paper and screen holds an incredibly special place in our hearts and minds. Even though The Hobbit movie series isn’t as good as the book (duh) or doesn’t come close to the Lord of the Rings movies, we still appreciate and enjoy Peter Jackson’s heart and humor. How pure Bilbo can be in the face of greed, danger, and death and how brave and understanding Gandalf can be after all things.

Image source

As I watched, I got a twang of inspiration from the whole thing as a picture. The backdrop, the setting, the story, the characters, the heart, the battles–everything. Someone had thought of all this, someone had created this entire world, this entire story. You become inspired by a hobbit’s willing to risk the worst in order to help others, to watch good triumph evil, to see what really lies beneath people’s actions. It was a wonderful stroke of inspiration that made me want to go create my own stories and my own characters.

We don’t just watch movies because we enjoy them. We don’t just go to the movies for the popcorn, candy, and drinks. We go to the movies because they inspire us. They make us appeal to greater things and strive higher to become who we want to be. This may not apply to Love Actually (though, love can be a wonderful muse) or comedies, but next time you’re at the movies, really think about it. Let yourself become open to the experience and try to draw some inspiration from the story, the characters, the setting and see what happens. And as always, stay hungry and fit!