The other morning, I was walking up the stairs in my house when I noticed a ball of fuzz on a step. It wasn't big -- about the size of a quarter -- and probably came out of a dog toy that Moose dismembered (those of you with dogs probably know exactly that I mean). I noticed it but did not bend over and pick up it. 'Cause I didn't feel like it. My mind was on other things. But I noticed. And then I noticed it the next time I walked up the stairs and that time I thought "I'll grab that later." I probably walked up and down those stairs four or five more times before I finally bent over and picked up the ball of fuzz, walked into the bathroom, and dropped it in the trash can. What's my point?

I'm determined to stop adding caveats to my dreams, my goals and my gratitude.

• "It's a beautiful morning, but it is supposed to rain later."

• "99 Walks is on a mission to get a million women walking, but we are just starting."

• "I'm grateful for my good health and the health of my family, but I'm afraid of what the future will bring."

Why? Why do I add “but”? I can think of five possible reasons.

Since March of this year, we have all faced a lot of uncertainty, change, and upheaval. For many of us, the rhythm of our lives has been disrupted. We have struggled to get comfortable with uncertainty. We have wrestled with fear, worry, and anxiety. During the early days of quarantine, we retreated into our own, personal bubbles. We drew our families close. We avoided contact with the outside world as much as possible. A trip to the grocery store was an epic feat of planning and worry.

“I think I’ve ruined my brain.” Eric, my husband, and I were sitting outside on the deck late one afternoon.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“It’s so hard to hold a single thought, to focus on one thing. It’s like my brain is constantly bouncing in different directions all the time.”

And then, like he was being paid to do it, a squirrel ran across the yard in front of us. Our dog, Moose, who had been laying quietly at my feet, bolted to action and sprinted across the yard.

“Squirrel,” I said, following him with my eyes. No matter what Moose is doing, a squirrel cannot be ignored. It must be chased. And that is how my brain is these days.

I remember the day we added our puppy, Moose, to our family. He was eight pounds of puppy love. The exuberance, energy, and joy that that little bundle of fur invested in each day is a marvel. Puppies play all the time. At least, when they aren’t sleeping. Or eating

As parents, we recognize the importance of play for our kids. It is how they learn, have fun, blow off steam and develop skills.

As adults, we don’t play enough.

The company I founded and helped build was doing great. Growing every year and staying true to its core mission: we were empowering more than 500 local moms to build hyper-local media empires in their own communities and sharing content each and every week that genuinely made families’ lives better. Our advertisers, who were the clients who kept the lights on and the engine going, were happy.

Things were good. But they weren’t good enough.

Compare and despair is not new. It wasn’t created by social media or Leave it to Beaver. In fact, the expression “keeping up with the Joneses” -- our impulse to want what our neighbor has -- came from a comic strip that debuted in 1913. And I suspect that the tendency began long, long before then, perhaps when Grog looked at Zog and realized he had more food and a warmer blanket. Now that’s not to say that social media hasn’t amplified our compare and despair culture.

The past few months have been hard. Uncertain, unsettling, confusing, and sometimes frightening. But they have also forced us to slow down and to take stock. To begin to realize what’s important and to have the time and space to begin to prioritize those priorities. We are walking more. We are talking more. We are cooking more.

This month, as we begin to emerge back into regular life, let’s savor more.

Last week, I created a word by accident: MORK. I sent a colleague an email in which I intended to say "is this something we should do or is it just creating more work?" But in my rush, I condensed those two words into MORK. She responded, "by mork, you mean 'more work'?"

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting a little bit tired of being told that this is the perfect time to bond with my family and learn to speak Mandarin. My son is a college freshman who was just hitting his stride when he was ejected from the dorm that had become his home, the classes that were challenging him in all the right ways, the friends who were becoming his family, and the girlfriend he adored. My daughter is a high school freshman whose lacrosse season was obliterated, whose first summer job is on hold, and who misses her routine and her friends.

Before, and you all know what I mean by “before,” most of my days went like this: Wake up at 5:00. Flip coffee pot to “on.” Let dog out. Empty dishwasher. Sit for a 10-minute meditation. Move to the kitchen table, make an entry in my gratitude journal, read five pages of whatever book I am reading. Write 600 words. Text my dad. Make my daughter’s lunch for school, blend up a morning smoothie, wake the kids, and see them off. Work until 8:30, head to the gym. Go to the office, eat a protein bar, answer emails, and meet with my team. Eat lunch. Hop on the afternoon’s calls. Go home at 3:30 to get the kids off the bus. Head out for an afternoon walk. Make dinner. Help with homework. Answer more emails. Eat dinner, clean kitchen, walk dog, set up coffee for the next morning, shower, check social and go to bed.

Wake up. Repeat.

Ah, FOMO. The “Fear of Missing Out.” The nagging sense that everyone else is having more fun and doing more cool stuff than you are.

I don’t suffer from FOMO (well, not often, anyway) but I do suffer from FOMO’s next-of-kin … FONDE: “Fear of Not Doing Enough.”

Normally, we encounter moments throughout our days that deliver little jolts of the four so-called “happiness hormones.” We arrive at our office and warmly greet a co-worker: thank you, oxytocin. We drop our kids at school and hear from their teachers how well they are doing: hello, serotonin. We complete a work task and check it off our list: ahh, dopamine. We go to the gym and work out with our usual 5:30 p.m. crew: bring on the endorphins. These days, we need to manufacture our own moments.

In Northern California, two little boys charge purposefully down the sidewalk in front of their mother. “We have 15 minutes left of PE,” mom Erin Stolle says. “And we’re getting it in with family walks.”

In my work with women, I remain shocked by the sheer number of times I hear women say “I’m not good at X.” Interestingly, it is not something you hear from men, though I suppose that’s a topic for another day. Anyway, every time you say “I’m not good at X” you are cutting yourself off from possibility. But there’s a simple way to begin to develop a growth mindset and it starts with the word “yet.”

We write about, talk about, and preach about big goals. Dream big. Live large. Seek happiness. Choose joy. Sometimes, that thinking can feel overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to. Because the truth is that elevating your life comes as the result of a million small decisions, baby steps and modest actions.

So here’s a simple way to commit and move forward.

Occasionally, fear is awesome. Occasionally, it keeps us from doing really, really stupid things. But more often, fear keeps us from doing really, really awesome things.

I was afraid to quit my lawyer job, move to the beach and start a business (what if the business failed which, by the way, the first business did, spectacularly). I was afraid to have a baby (I can’t even begin to list my becoming-a-mom fears). I was afraid to speak on stage in front of 500 people (because, well, public speaking). Oh, and I’m afraid to fly and afraid to grow old and don’t even get me started on my fear of death.

I am not a nutritionist. Or a doctor. Or a chemist, biologist or diet expert. But I am a student of nutrition and, after decades of reading everything I can and tinkering with my own nutrition and wellness, I know what works for me. And I’ve learned that much of what works for me also works for others.

So here are my nine nutrition hacks. Nine things that work for me. They won’t all work for you. But some will.

I love dark chocolate. And I believe, based on everything I've read, that dark chocolate is good for you. So usually, when I want a piece of dark chocolate, I eat a piece of dark chocolate.

But.

There is a downside. Here's what happened this past Friday.

I suck at meditating. For years, I tried different ideas, everything from walking meditation to meditation classes to simply taking five slow, mindful breathes while sitting on the floor of my closet.

Nothing worked. I didn't have the time or money to go to meditation classes, walking meditations were really just walks and if I managed three breathes on my closet floor before either thinking "this is stupid" or noticing the pile of laundry in the corner, well, that was a miracle.