Denise Murray: Life, Health & Wellness Coach, PLLC

09/05/2026

☀️🍁LIMINAL SPACE…

Some call it a threshold or living in-between.

I love seasons & the changing of them. The dying of one & the cusp of birth of another.

Here in HTX we are all wanting Summer to die a quicker death than maybe that which is even healthy while we are over high temps & humidity & yet we endure & me? I look for the joy & peace in it all.

Today is all about our dog walk outside, therapy, changing the house decor from Summer to Fall, connecting with self & Loves, reading, a strength session & an errand then date day & night with My One True Partner & Love in this life.

How about you? How are you feeling about the changing of seasons? What are you doing to honor this weekend before many celebrate our collective hard labor Monday (hence the Americana hand towel mixed in)?

08/24/2026

Choices for playing in the sandbox together…

7 years I have been coaching full-time on a big box gym floor & some may be surprised how often members walk up to me to report their grievances about needing to wait on another or work or walk around another, whether I am with a client or preparing for the next. No emergency, no crisis or injury. Simply inconvenience.

The wait time…refer to my video. Resting between sets is scientific for building muscle & what makes heavy lifting different than cardio or HIIT training. Do not believe me. Look it up.

Someone setting up & dominating the floor we use to walk laps or perform our workouts on the turf, etc.
- Consider the consequences of confrontation before doing so. Trust me, there are few to none who will say, “OMG. I am sorry. I did not think about how inconvenienced any one else may be. Let me move for you.” Hey, I hope this occurs if you choose confrontation.

Please note: whether it be you or a coach like me, typically scolding another adult goes nowhere. We have many viral “Karen-like” videos to prove such, right?

For me as a coach without any administrative authority, I will intervene ONLY if a manger is not present AND a LACK of SAFETY are being shown, otherwise, I have zero authority to socially police civic matters between variable levels of gym morality & etiquette: what each thinks is right & wrong.

Lastly, one adult tattling to another is uncool for you, me, & the adult you are not choosing to speak directly with.

08/23/2026

Judge or Do…

I have spent years judging my efforts or lack there of. I have not created anything outside of cooking & athletic physicality (dance & exercise) out of perfectionist fear.

However, I come from & married into a line of creative doers. Women & men who work with all kinds of mediums: from fabrics, threads, yarn, floss, canvas & paints, & water colors.

I joined a local women’s group after being asked to be an opening speaker on our soul journey about 3 years ago & have enjoyed many varied activities. The most challenging for me were the artistic ones. I did not want to artistically create so I showed up to connect.

Well, I have a lovely client who loves whimsy & she invited me into think about it.

Enters the opportunity to do a soul collage & my imaginative juices unleashed & it was the best night. I posted that first piece last Fall I believe.

Earlier this year I accepted the invite to do another collage. We all bought the “Cut Up This Book” & showed up with any other supplies we chose. I had more than I imagined.

We cut & pasted away. And true to my rebellious self, I started both sides simultaneously when the plan was to do one.

And true to me, I put it down, picked it back up a few times & tonight after meal prep & before dinner, decided to put the final touches on my creations with crystals & water colors. The feathers I found after reading Theo of Golden & had to add them. IYKYK.

Anyhow, vulnerably sharing my humble pieces as offerings to myself & an invite to test & try to anyone who identifies with me the struggles I lay out freely. You know I do not hide both the of life, . It is easy to put life into boxes of black & white.

Lastly, I have issue what to actually do with any of my creations. Wasted money? Materials? Then I reflect on the journey vs just the destination & all that working with my mind, heart, hands, & time gives me. So who knows? I may good them one day. In the meantime, I will decide whether to display or tuck away. They may mean nothing to any other human while they mean something to me for now.

08/22/2026

Friday Night Date Night…

When you decide to explore your town’s growing old town square as a progressive dinner, so fun!

Thanks RichmondTXGov for growing a fun place to be!

08/21/2026

Thursday night Lasso leftover buffet😝

How’s it working out with our roomie the past 3 months? Fabulous!! We love watching our weekly heart hug in Ted Lasso.

Weekends we plan, shop, prep, cook, bake & set-up for a week of mostly re-heat & we love it! Last Sunday we 3 got the prep & cook done in about 1.5 hours. Each week we improve. We play music, chat it up, laugh, & celebrate another successful Sunday.

I tell ya, there is NOTHING like having a home cooked meal every lunch & weeknight with very little effort & clean-up, getting to Thursday, & emptying out the fridge! In the dishwasher went a bunch of meal prep containers to be filled again this weekend.

There is also nothing like knowing good meals are waiting & will be wasted if we eat out. Money saved & waistline growth spared.

Pick a protein (this week pork tenderloin, salmon, chicken), pick lots of frozen or fresh veggies from the safe ones (can be peeled, cooked, &/or baked - we miss salads for now), pick a starch (a reasonable potato) or whole grain if you wish.

The big bowl of rice we made was finished off earlier in the week with pork fried rice one night & Spanish rice another with pre-stuffed & rolled enchiladas served to our Tuesday night guest. These meals provided lots of lunches too.

And one nightly mocktail is fun to mix in a pretty glass & sip.

Missing here is breakfast. We loved the chicken sausage cottage cheese veggie egg bake re-heated every morning!

Do you have a favorite meal you prep? Share here or DM. We are always looking for creative & easy ideas.

Lastly, it has been a helluva month in my heart for me & all those I love. From two different health crises of two different Loves with hospitalizations, to a sudden & expected death of a 58 year old friend leaving our friend a widow, & the continual recovery work…life can be heavy & beautiful all at once & meal prep just makes that all a bit easier somehow. There is very little we can control so we control for what we can.

P.S. And last night I heated & ate right out of the glass prep container, sparing another dish to wash, lol. Glass is best.

08/19/2026

Happy Hump Day!

This past month has seen some really uncontrollable challenges for me & those I love that include sudden death way too young, arterial dissections with stroke symptoms way too young, surgery that led to sepsis & hospitalization, MVA, etc.

Listen, own your outcomes where you can. Do not be victim to any system if you are blessed with any health benefits at all.

Control what you can because there is much uncontrollable:

Food & drink that enters the hole in your face (the impoverished in food deserts do what they can).
- outsource if you have the finances with pre-chopped or prepared balanced meals with local fresh services.

Your amount & type of movement daily. Hops, skips, jumps, squats, any type of push up, jacks, walks, crunches or planks are absolutely free. Plenty of free body weight workout routines on YouTube.

Brush your teeth, flossing is great too.

Drink your water.

Control your bedtime & wake-up & routine around it.

Connect with your safe people regularly.

Have a hobby, do not just work, all work & no play makes a human dull.

Do not live a life through social media or television only. Live the adventures.

Spend a little, save a little, share a little.

Smile at yourself in the mirror just cuz.

Deep breathe, sigh, hum, cough.

Make rhythms & routines around this & see how doable it is.

Fly free!

08/17/2026

As a coach I have a great need & desire to be lead vs lead myself & Insight Timer is one tool I use.

Join me for the next 8 days for free?

https://insig.ht/Uc4oLb0JG5b

Insight Timer

✨8-Day Women's Hormonal Health Challenge, August 17–24, 2026✨ There are times when your body changes, and suddenly nothing feels quite right. You can’t sleep properly, you're exhausted all the time and emotions feel bigger than usual. You lose your train of thought halfway through a sentence...

08/17/2026

Another successful Sunday weekly meal prep…

Recipes? HMU.

Weekly hard boiled eggs done in the pressure cooker & easy high protein banana oat muffins.

This week a chicken Parmesan peppercorn sausage + veggie breakfast cottage cheese egg bake to serve alongside toasted sourdough because we are out of keto tortillas after prepping the Tuesday pressure cooker chicken enchiladas with frozen fajita veggies x16. We have a VIP guest we cannot wait to share space with. All we have to do is throw on the enchilada sauce & a bit of cheese & bake & serve alongside cilantro lime rice & maybe more veggies.

Tonight with leftovers for lunches was Traeger Grills smoked salmon, roasted mixed potatoes & Murray fresh farm to table peppers with sautéed frozen mixed veggies.

We have leftover Southern dry rubbed smoked pork tenderloins being added to leftover rice to be mixed with ginger, garlic, sesame oil, soy sauce, scrambled eggs with mirin & soy sauce, & frozen peas & carrots for Monday’s easy meal.

By Thursday likely it is leftover rotisserie chicken made into Ree’s chicken salad on Hawaiian sweet rolls.



A successful week begins in the previous week with planning, shopping, & prepping.

08/16/2026

What a weekend!

Love the “Hot Blooded” name for the lantana to add color to front yard around trees.

I finally started my fairy garden with plans to grow it & change it by seasons. Added color to front lawn with the marketplace used chairs & table, back pillow moved out front, & a potted floral.

This morning a dog walk that revealed these birds seen in the tree for the first time, then more gardening this time produce: muskmelon aka cantaloupe (reminds me of Daddy), new varietal of a large heat loving tomato called Thunderbird, & burpees cucumbers all while finding “wild” tomato vines around my yard. Look at our passion flower vine & the caterpillar I have to identify but we have lots of pretty butterflies &/or moths.

Check out the pepper plants that keep producing & the gifted Hawaiian plumeria that keeps gifting!

Homemade Southern crowd-pleasing dinner at home with roomie & friends, including their amazing homemade PB frozen pie & late backyard time.

No pix but a late birthday brunch with friends & whew, I re-group before doing weekly meal prep with the fellas of proteins, veggies, rice, hard boiled eggs, oat protein muffins, breakfasts, maybe chicken enchiladas again this week…between the oven, stove, grills, rice cooker, & multi-purpose Ninja Foodi with our manual labor we got this! 💪🏻

I have left to plant my seedlings in my gifted hydroponic indoor planter because well, it is looking like buying local &/or planting our own food is a necessity when scientific public health protections get pulled back. 🌿 😘

08/15/2026

Blooming again with adding color & joy just ‘cuz….

Oh my parched soul….

It started sometime this Summer when we visited a traveling Matisse exhibit at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston in which florals came back to me after leaving them in the 90s when a friend lovingly said, “Time to rid the Victorian era.” I had the shower curtain & bed coverings, lol.

The new flag says, “Be Nice.” A great reminder for us in these times.

The cross stitch I did in 1989 for my Aunt Fifi as a gift for her new Lake MI beachfront home because she loved bunnies and of course so do I. I have a handwritten note in the back. She displayed it until@hear death in 2016 & I just hung this in our primary bath just cuz without concern if it matched because it simply makes me smile.

The Matisse prints with our favorite artist, VanGogh, just to add color to our once black, grey, tan bedroom which now has muted & earthy terracotta bedding. I am in my Terra firma era.

The sunny canvas bought from 50% rack today on my trip to the lovely Enchanted Gardens | Richmond , my little slice of heaven.

Next I plant a new variety of large tomatoes called Thunderbird because they blossom & produce in this wicked heat, along with a musk melon aka cantaloupe & okra because the competent & helpful staff of EG affirmed a good choice for now.

Lastly trying some lantana for color in our front yard.

☀️