A loss...

Hearing about the world's tragic loss of Anthony Bourdain today reminded me that fear and worry, doubt and the demons that run rampant in our minds can quite literally extinguish our desire to move on.

I don't have photos with Bourdain, nor did I ever meet him, but I met him in his books, watching his shows and living for his Twitter feed that always kept things interesting. He was one of the "food gods" that I truly felt touched the lives of those who admired him. He was personable, inspiring, real.

Anthony Bourdain was one of the food writers I wanted to be like. He was unapologetically himself, unaffected by how many stars were on the wall, how many "notes" and "hints", "whispers" and "subtleties" lied in a dish, rather he dove in head-first and gave his own opinion, sparing no one. 

The world will miss everything about him. I will miss him. 

In the coming weeks, a new journey will begin for me. Motherhood. I was inspired the other day to write about this journey, and to encourage others to create community about their experiences. No one should feel alone, and while we can "should" our way through life and walk down the road paved with the sad realities that "should" still leaves behind; we can start within ourselves. 

My heart goes out to Bourdain's family and friends, and to the others like myself who "knew" his spirit. We won't forget. 

Houston's Worst Blogger Award....

Who is Houston's worst blogger? Read on to find out...

It's no secret that TheSizzle has... fizzled. 2016 kicked us real hard in the nether regions. I lost my fire, my spark and my motivation and hustle. Is it just me, or did almost everyone have a pretty shoddy 2016? 

I am awarding myself the award for Houston's worst blogger for 2016. But guess what? 2016 is O-V-E-R. As I was leaving Soul Cycle last night, I was chatting with one of the front desk gentlemen and we bonded over the fact that we need/crave someone to kind of get in our faces during a workout. We want the person next to us to be crushing it, thereby motivating us to out-crush the competition. Yes, I'm a wildly competitive animal, and with that wildly competitive motivation comes a crippling fear of not being the best. It gets discouraging, you feel downtrodden and you freeze up. 2016 was my year in the cryo-chamber. I was frozen and unable to see how I could move forward. 

2017 is here. I'm not promising magical, hilarious, witty and regular posts, but I always promise to keep it real. I love Houston, I love this city a lot. It's truly worth writing about. Even Anthony Bourdain showed us some love. But I also love myself. A lot, and embracing that was hard for me. 2017 is the year I will thaw out, un-freeze and move forward. I will crush it, slowly. More of an anaconda-like, slow but deadly crushing... I took that way too far, didn't I?

This year, I encourage all of you who feel frozen, scared, self-conscious and generally "meh" to join me and move forward, even if it's a teeny baby step. Baby steps count, it's how you start walking and eventually running. 

So here's to you, to me, to our big, bad-ass city and to making 2017 the year where we all out-crush the competition. 

Yours with lots of love, 

THESIZZLEHOUSTON

crushing it in 2017.