Friday Round-Up: Baltimore Edition

Yesterday, my faith in people was restored. I took an early train from New York to Baltimore. Needless to say, I was tired and groggy and uncaffeinated. The train started filling up, so I moved my bags to the floor and under my legs where they shifted around. Upon arriving in Baltimore, I grabbed my stuff, got off the train and into a cab to my hotel. I went to get my wallet and realized that it wasn’t in my bag. I had no cash, no credit cards, no ID. My heart sank and I started to panic.

Luckily, I have my credit card memorized – for occasions like this, not for online shopping of course – and the cab driver let me charge my fare. I called Amtrak who put an alert down the line in case my wallet was turned in. But my real savior was Elliott, an Amtrak employee who works at the New Carrollton, MD station. My train was pulling into the station shortly and he went and searched the car I was sitting in for my wallet. And found it. Not only that but he called me a few times to give me updates and sent my wallet back to me in Baltimore on the next train.

In other news, Kelly Slater won the Hurley Pro at Trestles for this 50th World Tour win (above). Here’s what else is going on around the interwebs.

Have you ever thought about the definition of the word FREE
I saw that this post from Jenny on the Spot was shared in many places online this week. Jenny hits on a dilemma and predicament that many bloggers encounter and comes up with a pretty damn good equation for what equals FREE.

Make Money Online: Bloggers Share How They Do It
Speaking of making money through blogging, The SITS Girls share various ways that bloggers make money online aside from just monetizing their blog. There are some interesting ideas here, some that I wouldn’t necessarily have thought of.

In the Interest of Community
In this post, Tracy at Sellabitmum brings up some tough questions. What’s our role as parents when we’re not their parent? “What are my boundaries and what responsibility do we have to raise good kids as a community?” It’s a question that I often wonder about. What do you think?

The Dip
Jenna’s blog, Sweet Fine Day, was probably one of the first blogs that I started reading. She’s a freelance designer and one half of Whimsy & Spice, a distinctive line of handmade sweets (which is delicious by the way and you really should try their goods). In this post, she talks about some questions and issues that I feel like I’ve been struggling with as well – “the things we spent so long building in our lives to create this stable life for ourselves and our family can be the very things that make you feel trapped sometimes. We’ve arrived! But where are we?” PS – she’s also an incredible photographer.

Living in the Moment
I shared this post from Gigi at Kludgy Mom on my Facebook page the other day about how worrying too much can paralyze you and how, in the words of Jason Mraz, “I will not waste my days making up all kinds of ways to worry about all the things that will not happen to me.”

OK, I realize that most of those posts are heavy but I guess that’s kind of where my head has been this week. But they are great posts and you should go read them.

Happy Friday! I’m super excited for Fitbloggin’ to officially start today and for my first Crossfit WOD (yes, I will modify). Follow me on Twitter and Instagram for updates!