What's on Lydia's Mind?

This week I did my first Podcast! My podcast is called “Above and Beyond”.   It is about how to make it to the next level in professional sports and the mentality it takes to get there.   I interviewed Art Warren, who is a pitcher with the Seattle Mariners Baseball team.   I did a short interview and discussed the following questions with him: When did you know you wanted to go to the major leagues? Can you walk me through how you got to the major leagues? How did you keep a good mindset through challenges and hardships? Do you have any advice for someone that wants to go to the next level in sports? If you want some advice or to find out what it takes to become a professional athlete the click the link below to listen to “Above and Beyond”. Here is the link to my podcast: https://lydiaherrnstein.podbean.com/e/above-and-beyond-the-beginning/

Being in college is tough! You are constantly juggling homework and extracurricular activities.   I recently started meal prepping and it saved me a lot more time during the week now that I have my meals made for me.   Below are a few tips I have learned along the way, on how to make meal prepping flow better. Keep it simple. At first, I wanted to make the most complicated recipes and it just made things difficult.   Meal prepping is simple if you keep it simple. You do not have to go crazy on spices to make a good tasting dish. If you really want to make it simple at first, buy precut vegetable or fruits. Although, if you are on a budget, I would recommend buying whole vegetable to save money. Lists are important. Always plan out the recipes you want to meal prep before you go to the grocery store. I also always double check my grocery list before I go shopping. I do this so that I make sure I get everything I need from the store. Multitasking will be your best friend. You wil

After reading “The Art of Social Media” this week, I discovered something I never knew about Twitter.   Twitter chats are a thing! If you are like me and do not use twitter often, then you may also be thinking “what is a Twitter chat?”. So, after reading the book and exploring Twitter a little more, this is what I concluded about a Twitter Chat. A Twitter Chat is scheduled and hosted by company or individual.   In order to be part of the Twitter Chat, you must use the hashtag that was created for the chat. In the chat the host posts questions to lead the discussion.   These chats normally only last an hour and have less than ten questions during it. So, if I were the host of a Twitter Chat about dogs, one of my tweets might look like this, “Q1.) What is keeping you from adopting a dog? #AdoptaDog”. Then someone could reply, “A1) Dogs from the pound can be viscous and you do not know what they have been through previously. #AdoptaDog”. People do not have to reply to every ques

Are you obsessed with everything true crime? True crime shows like, “Making a Murder” and “The Staircase” on Netflix, have gained a lot of attention since being released. If you truly love true crime and want to learn about some of the most notorious crimes, consider listening to some of the following podcasts.   I know what your thinking. “A podcast? That sounds boring!”, I would have completely agreed with you a little over a year ago, but after getting curious and indulging in my first podcast, I can’t get enough! Podcasts are especially great when you are driving! So, if you want to get hooked on true crime podcasts like I have then check out the following podcasts! The first true crime podcast you should check  out is “Crime Junkie”. “Crime Junkie” is my absolute favorite true crime podcast. Every Monday they release a new episode. “Crime Junkie” is a little different than most true crime podcasts. Each of their podcast are about 40 minutes and cover an entire crime in one

While reading, “The Art of Social Media”, I found it was interesting that commenting on someone else’s blog post can have such a large impact.   There are so many technical aspects which go with commenting.   I found it even more intriguing that you should reply to all comments on your post even the bad ones. In, “The Art of Social Media”, it is also said you should try to stay positive even when you disagree about something.   A disagreement might be one of the most difficult things to deal with on social media because both sides have arguments as to why they believe they are right.   Like “The Art of Social Media” says, it is best to ‘agree to disagree’.   Another topic that was interesting in, “The Art of Social Media”, is about LinkedIn.   The book says that LinkedIn is a powerful too.   I normally always write LinkedIn off as only a way to find jobs and that is about it.   I would not really consider it that much of a social media platform because of its focus towards findin

Before I get to far in my blog, I thought I should tell you a little about myself.   My name is Lydia Herrnstein, but I used to be Lydia Shealy.   In August I married the literal LOVE OF MY LIFE.   His name is Jordan and I will probably talk about him a lot.   We have been together for 6 years and have even endured the struggles of a long-distance relationship.   Together we have the spunkiest golden retriever, named Sadie.   She is basically my child and wish I could take her everywhere with me. I am a middle child to my two sisters, Lauren and Paige.   This means that I was always the middleman when it came to fights or even sitting in the car. Unfortunately, I could not convince my little sister, Paige, to go to ONU.   Instead she picked, Ashland University, where Lauren went.   Personally, I think she did this, so she didn’t have to see me on campus every day. I am in my last semester of my senior year at ONU and I still am not sure how I feel about it.   I still feel l

Autoimmune diseases are often misunderstood.   I found out I was allergic to gluten when I was 13.   Finding out I had celiac disease and could not eat things like pizza, donuts or bread was a huge shock, which came with many questions.   What exactly could I eat? How bad of a reaction would I have to gluten? How can I live with this? Over the years I have found people do not understand autoimmune diseases.   I feel like this might be because no one can see them from the outside.   This may make them underestimate the impact the autoimmune disease has on someone. Celiac disease creates an autoimmune response when I ingest something with gluten. My body then reacts and attacks my small intestine.   This can cause a range of symptoms from nausea and diarrhea to joint pain and extreme fatigue.     There is no cure for celiac disease, so instead, I must stick to a strict diet.   The grains I must avoid are wheat, rye, barley, and malt.   When I first was diagnosed I went through

Dogs have been my favorite animal since I was little.  Growing up I have always had golden retrievers.  One of the Golden Retrievers my family had when I was growing up was a stocky, golden retriever.  Golden retrievers can have a wide range of hair color.  Their coat can range from almost white to a dark red color.  Winston was right in the middle of the spectrum, with a long silky golden coat.  I was about five when my family got Winston.  My family and I always joked that he was the discount puppy since he was the last in his litter to go.  Winston was a happy puppy, but I would not say he was the brightest puppy.  He was supposed to be an indoor dog, but every time my mom would bring him in the house, he would get so excited and pee all over the rugs and floor. There is one memory I always remember when I think of Winston.   I was about eight and it was wintertime.   I lived in Ohio, so we would have lots of snow in the winter.   When it would snow a lot, my two sisters a