It's been a year, How'd I do?

30 While 30

Healthier Me (6/12):

 1. PR a 5k  38:03 Ringing in Hope 5k, December 31
 2. PR a 10k 1:19:27 Step Sister's Ribbon Run, April 5
 3. PR a 10 Miler 2:14.50 Broad Street Run, May 4
 4. Run 1/2 Marathon Rock&Roll USA, March 15
 5. Complete a Triathlon Tri for Love, September 15
 6. Complete a mud run Lozilu Women's Mud Run, June 17
 7. Try every class on the schedule at my gym (21/62) I only went to 21 classes on the schedule, but I did 7 of the 15 different classes offered. The biggest ones missing were Zumba (which I'm not a huge fan of), and the 4 different Yoga classes (I'm not a huge fan of the instructors at my gym)
 8. Ride entire W&OD Trail from Purcellville to Shirlington - I REALLY wanted to do this one. Putting it on the back burner for another day.
 9. Try CrossFit - Kept my eye out for a Groupon to buy a month pass, never saw it, never got motivate otherwise to plop down the money for a trial class/month.
10. Lose 30lbs - NOPE. Down several lbs, but pretty much plateaued for a year. At least I didn't gain, right?
11. 30 consecutive days off from drinking - Nope, could be a reason I plateaued on the scale.
12. 30 days of Paleo - Nope, lost interest in the Paleo idea, just tried to eat better in general.

Financial Me (1/7):
13. Pay off one car - Cars have been such drama this year. Back to having two car payments....
14. No credit card debt - Nope
15. Follow all cash plan for one month - Nope
16. Make $300 outside of my day job - Maybe? I've made some cash from DietBets, EBates, and GymPact. Didn't track totals.
17. Have 3 month emergency fund - Nope
18. Build a wardrobe of 30 essential pieces - Nope
19. Donate 30 items of clothing - YES!!!! Three huge shopping bags got donated but you can't even tell anything is missing from my closet...

Experiences (3/6):
20. Travel to a new country London, September 2013
21. Take a spur of the moment out of town trip  Nags Head in March, planned it less than 10 days out.
22. Attend an outdoor concert Darius Rucker at Wolf Trap, it was an awesome show and YES, he played 3 or 4 Hootie songs.
23. Volunteer for 30 hours (10/30) Hubs and I got involved with a couple of Dachshund rescue groups and provided transportation for 2 separate pups to make it to their forever homes. I totally fell in love with each of the pups and wanted to keep them both.
24. Have professional pics taken - Nope
25. Read 30 books (17/30) Not quite 30, but I did read some good books in the past year.

Around the house (3/5):
26. Try 30 new recipes - I honestly forgot to track this one. I tried a lot of new stuff, but don't know if it was 30.
27. Get all recipes and magazine tear sheets pinned - Didn't finish, but I got STACKS of pages pinned and am pretty happy with the progress.
28. Paint powder room - LOVE LOVE LOVE IT -> PICS
29. Hang pictures in living room and fill empty frames around the house YUP, see deets here.
30. Minimum of 30 blog posts I think this is #30 in the last 365 days!!! Woot woot!

GRAND TOTAL: 13/30

So I didn't get to everything, but I'm super stoked with what I did get to cross off. I PRed every. single. race. I ran this year. I am getting a bit quicker with each passing year, which is only to say I'm now more of a turtle than a snail, but it's progress.

I got a lot done around the house that wasn't even on the list and LOVE the progress that's been made over the past year. A couple of more rooms are still the original colors from when we moved in, but I'm getting to everything slowly but surely.

All in all, 30 was a pretty kick ass year. With another year under my belt and the wisdom that comes with age, I'm ready to tackle anything 31 throws at me.

Stay tuned for what I'm hoping to accomplish next year.....

Put a Ring (of Stripes) On It

My other recent project has been to put horizontal stripes in our powder room on the main level. This is another project inspired by Young House Love. I pinned their powder room a while back and after creating chevron stripes in my craft room, I was ready to tackle a more public spot in the house, it just took me 18 months later to tackle the project.

I started in July by painting the base cream color. The room started as a dull blueish grey.

Photo from the house listing in 2012

Not a huge difference yet, hard to tell the color difference in this lighting

It took me about 8 weeks (I'm sensing a theme of procrastination here...) to finally get to the contrasting color. 

I had sketched out measurements to fit in 11 equal sized stripes and allowed me to have the top and bottom stripes to be the original color so I wouldn't have to tape the baseboards or ceiling as well. 

The first (and smallest wall) took almost an hour to tape thanks to slightly bowed drywall. Each stripe was 10 1/4 inches wide. Unfortunately I'd measure both sides of the wall, connect the tape, and the center would only measure 10 inches wide.

Luckily the rest of the walls only took another 3 1/2 hours to tape.

Painting went pretty quickly and in a fraction of the time it took to tape, two coats of the contrasting color were up and on the wall.

Then came the scariest part, removing the tape to see how well I did. I started this as soon as I was done painting so there wouldn't be any dried pieces to peel off with the tape.

I kinda started freaking out after the first couple of rows of tape came off. Just like the chevron stripes, I was shocked at how clean the lines were. I did learn the hard way after pulling off the first small piece, it is VERY important to pull the tape AWAY from the painted section and not towards it. A few chips of paint came off that I'll have to touch up eventually. Once I started pulling the tape AWAY, it all came off cleanly.

I've never loved the builder grade mirrors in our bathrooms, so as I'm painting each one, I'm replacing the mirrors as I go as well. While I was at Ikea shopping for Ribba frames, I had glanced through their mirrors to see if I loved any. My requirement was something big enough to cover the screw holes from the old mirror so I wouldn't have to worry about spackle and painting those as well. The only mirror I liked at Ikea didn't fit the height requirement, so back to the drawing board. I found exactly what I was looking for at Target, clean lines, framed mirror, tall enough to cover existing holes.

I also grabbed a small rug while at Target to cover up the sad looking tile since I'm not quite ready to retile yet.

Now all that is left is to find some prints or artwork to hang on the walls, maybe put up a shelf or two and I'll call it another completed room!

Phew, another project crossed off of my 30 while 30 list and just under the deadline since my birthday is TOMORROW!!!!!!

Yikes!

Dressing up the Walls

It only took me about 27 months to finally hang something in the living room. I don't know why the thought of putting nail holes in the wall paralyzes my decision making. We have a big empty wall that needed filling and I couldn't decide on prints or artwork that I was in love with and wanted to commit to for the long term.

When we first moved in I had envisioned several picture ledges spanning the entire length of the wall and mixing and layering in different style frames and pictures. Picking out that many frames and pictures was a little overwhelming, so I decided to go with oversized frames that would take up a lot of wall real estate.

Finding affordable frames was the next challenge. I have IKEA Ribba frames in several other spots in the house and like their clean lines. There is a 20x20 frame for under $20 that fit my vision. I wanted to be able to switch pictures out frequently and thought my Instagram would be a perfect source for the wall. I envisioned small 4x4 pictures matted inside the large frames. When I got to IKEA, the matting had an opening of almost 12x12. This was much larger than I wanted and larger than most Instagram printing sites would print.

I thought of John and Sherry over at Young House Love using different color paper when they hung smaller pictures in large frames and Googled "Young House Love, Ikea Frames" and got this post. As I scrolled down I saw how they went from color backgrounds to a fabric background. The wheels started turning and I remembered the several yards of burlap type fabric that I had bought at a going out of business sale over a year ago. The fabric background looked so much more polished, so I got excited about that idea and headed home.

Once home I ordered about 3 dozen of my favorite Instagram photos to be printed at Walgreens and got started prepping the frames. My mom was helping out with the project and she got to work cleaning all of the glass while I started cutting fabric squares for the backgrounds. Walgreens was done with my prints in about 35 minutes, so we headed over to pick them up.

After getting 5 of the 10 frames prepped, it was time to hang the first row.

With the first row completed, it was time to figure out the easiest way to get the second row lined up directly below. I came up with tying a paint key to the end of a ribbon and marking exactly where the next hook should go.

This method was so much quicker than trying to measure out and level the lower row of hooks. The second row went up pretty speedy and I couldn't get over the results. It turned out exactly how I had hoped. 

Hubs and I both agree that even though we've been in this house for over two years, this makes it just that much more 'homey' and even more 'ours'. 

You can follow me on Instagram to keep up with pictures that may make the wall in the future!

5 on Friday - Hubs' Birthday Weekend Recap

I missed the big "HAPPY BIRTHDAY TONY!!!!" post last week, so let's dedicate this 5 on Friday to his birthday weekend!

FIVE - Bars visited on our Falls Church bar crawl (6 if you count the bar where we did a quick shot, but didn't stick around). We started at Open Road then headed down the street to a roof top bar, an Irish bar (where I may have posted "DAY DRINKING!!!" at 7PM, shhhhh the sun was still out), a beach bar (didn't stay here), then onto SpaceBar for grilled cheese, and finally Chasin' Tails for a crawfish dinner.

 Day drinking at 7PM

 Quick stop at the beach bar for a photo op

SpaceBar: All Grilled Cheese, All the time. It's what dreams are made of.

FOUR - Days of celebrating!!! Thursday night HH at Ford's Fish Shack, Friday night movie with friends and Bar Louie, Saturday bar crawl in Falls Church, Sunday food festival at the Taste of Arlington. A busy but fun weekend!!! I was definitely dragging on Monday morning. I needed a day to recover from my weekend.

THREE - Years in a row we've been to Chasin' Tails for your birthday.

 2012

2013

2014

TWO - Showings of Godzilla. Hated it the first time, loved it the second. How can you not love anything on IMAX????

ONE - More year in the books. This past year was so much fun and I am so glad I got to spend it with you. Can't wait to see what this coming year brings!!!!!

Love you!!!!! XOXOXOXO

a weekend of PRs and wine slushies

I hope everyone's week is off to a fabulous start and everyone is recovered from their exciting weekend!

We had a busy busy weekend, I feel like I was on the go since I got off work on Friday. I'm happy it's Monday and I can finally get a break!

Friday after work Hubs and I went out to run a couple errands. Our last stop was to try out a beer he had heard all about and was only on tap at one bar locally. We stopped by, grabbed a beer (he hated it), then decided to move across the street to another bar for a drink and apps before heading home. Well, as it happens most Friday nights, our intentions of just having a drink then heading home for a quiet night did not happen. Friends met us out and we didn't end up back at our house until after 10. All in all, it was a great night of friends, fun and laughter.

Backing up a little, Friday morning when I had gone to the gym I saw signs for a race that would be held that weekend. I asked my friend at the front desk if he knew about it so I could be ready if it would interfere with any of my planned classes to take Saturday or Sunday. He said the race was Saturday morning and was a 10k/5k.

My plan for Saturday at that time was to go to spin class and drag Hubs along (since he finally had a Saturday morning off) and then to go for a run afterwards. I had 6 miles on the schedule since I'm gearing back up for the Broad Street 10 Miler next month. Well, as it turns out, Hubs was really not feeling spin class in the morning, so I started thinking of maybe running the 10k race the next morning.

I wasn't sure how hungover I'd be after a couple cocktails the night before, but I got cash from the ATM for the registration fee, set out my running clothes and set an early alarm. I told myself that if my alarm went off and I felt terrible, no loss, I'd get my miles in solo later on. Turns out, I set my alarm for PM instead of AM so it never went off, but I did have a dream a buddy was texting me to see if I was going to make it to the race. When I checked my phone for the text I saw that it was late, but if I could make it out the door in 10-20 mins I would still be able to make it. I hustled out of bed and was thankful everything was laid out and ready to go.

Registering the day of was no problem, so I got my bib and waited for the race to begin! The 10k started 10 minutes before the 5k and I was glad we got a bit of a head start. I was about two miles in before the leaders of the 5k started passing me. The race was two laps of the 5k route, so I just trucked along and was feeling a little smug when I kept going at the split and all the 5kers turned to the finish line. That smugness didn't last too long when I realized I was only half way and the 2nd lap would be a lot more lonely without the 5kers out there. I trucked along at the back of the pack and just tried to stick with my run 4/walk 1 intervals as much as I could. I knew I could PR the race since my last 10k was with absolutely no training and I had to walk most of the 2nd half and ended up with just under 15min/mile pace. I was aiming to come in around 1:15 or 1:20 for this one. As I hit the 6mile mark I had just about 3 minutes to beat 1:20. I knew it would happen and was thrilled when the race clock read 1:19 as I crossed.

After the race on Saturday I lazed around the house trying to catch up on sleep and rest my weary legs. We started watching The Following and were hooked after the first episode. We've only watched two so far but it looks pretty amazing. I did have a nightmare about the lead antagonist from the show last night, but that just motivates me to power through a couple more episodes to see where his character goes. Saturday night a couple of friends came over for some beers and Final Four action.

Sunday I woke up, hit my favorite Step class of the week, ran home and showered to get ready for a fun day of wine tasting with friends. We were having another couple over for breakfast before hitting the vineyards and I was trying out the cinnamon rolls on the waffle maker that are such the rage on Pinterest. Survey say: These are AMAZING. So delicious and so quick!

From there we headed about 20 minutes down the road to our first stop for the day: Chrysalis Vineyards. Hubs and I have been to Chrysalis several times, so we skipped the tasting and just grabbed a bottle of their Patio White to share with the group. We hung outside at the picnic benches and other friends started showing up. Hubs had gotten a nice little group together and surprised me with the other couples that came out to play!

From there we headed just across the main road to Cana Vineyard where I did a tasting and then enjoyed a glass of their Rosé. After hanging out on their patio for a couple of hours we headed to the final stop, one of our top 3 vineyards in the area, Quattro Goomba. Our favorite thing about this vineyard is their laid back atmosphere. They have pizza and wine slushies, what could be better! Our group enjoyed the carafes of wine slushies and soaked up the afternoon sunshine.

Enjoying a slushie with Reneé!

After our last stop we headed home and just tried to stay awake for the premier of Game of Thrones. I watched the last two episodes of last season to take us right into the first episode at 9. This season is gonna be a doozy and they kicked it off with a fantastic first episode. Once it was over I have never been happier to pour myself into bed and pass out for the night.

Happy Monday! What did you do this weekend?

Have you ever run a spur of the moment race? 

Five on Friday - Anniversary Edition

 Happy Friday!!!!! I'm actually sad to see this Friday arrive since it means the end of our week at the beach. It's been such a laid back and relaxing week. Alarm clocks are going to come as a rude awakening next week.

So without further ado, my 5 on this Friday

One (year ago) - Dinner at L'Auberge Chez Francois to celebrate our 4th anniversary. Easily in the top 3 meals of my life. As we were sitting down we hear the woman at a nearby table declare "This is the best carrot I have ever tasted", so clearly we had to order something with carrots. When hubs' dinner came it it did indeed include THE. BEST. CARROTS. EVER. Weird memory from that night, but that place is so stinkin' good. Also, the Baked Alaska. GET IT. You're welcome.

Two (years ago) - Celebrating our third Anni in the Dominican Republic. We got upgraded to a suite bigger than our condo and then spent the whole week daydreaming about buying a bigger house. The house we ended up buying had an Open House the day we got back so we were off the plane and straight to see the house we had been obsessing over on Red Fin. After some drama with it getting an offer before we could work out financing (sad) then that one falling through and our offer being accepted the minute we found out it was available again (HAPPY) it would finally be ours.

Best friend to make at the resort? 

The bartender who saves you the good beers every night.

Three (years ago) - Spent our second anniversary in Chicago. What a fun city, but they weren't lying about it being windy. That place was cold!!! We had such a blast exploring the city and had some of THE BEST FOOD. I can't wait to go back someday and explore the city even more.

At The Bean 

(minutes before my camera died and I had not brought my charger)

Four (years ago) - Our first anniversary!!! We went to New York City and planned our entire itinerary around our lunch and dinner reservations. So glad we took an entire week there, there is so much to do and we didn't feel rushed through anything. It rained for several days and we had to make a purchase of rain boots while there, those things are still kickin and one of my favorite items I own. We were on The Today Show asking the financial experts about 2nd mortgages (that wouldn't come into play for two more years when we pulled the trigger on the town house (see #2 above)) We went to Peter Luger for our anniversary dinner and stayed at The Pierre for the night. Amazing dinner, even more amazing hotel. I've never felt so fancy.

 We totally saved the top tier of our wedding cake and carted it up to NYC on the train. 

Five (years ago) - BEST. DAY. EVA. I can't even sum it all up in a few sentences. The whole day was a dream and I got to marry my best friend. Totally had the time of my life.

Love you Hubs!!!! Cheers to our first FIVE years and here's to the next five (and then the next five and the next five....)

Five on Friday - What's been happening

Happy Friday everyone!!!!  This is the winter that never ends....I can't wait for the spring and to get outside and do some new things. We've had a busy week over here, some of the highlights for this Five on Friday.

5. Last Sunday hubs and I took a little road trip to help transport a rescue dog from Alabama to Connecticut. We had a 90 mile drive from Front Royal, VA to Hagerstown, MD. If this pup wasn't heading to a forever home in CT, I would have driven him straight to my house. He was so sweet and such an adorable little guy. He slept in my lap the entire trip and I might have cried a little bit when we had to pass him off to the next person.

4. Wilbur had his first dental cleaning on Monday. His breath was BAD and his teeth were pretty gross. We were probably a year past due for getting it done and he had to have three teeth extracted. While he was under he had a skin tag removed and now has a couple stitches on his leg. While I feel bad for the little guy going through so much, a dog in a cone is so stinkin adorable. I've nicknamed him Flower for the next week until he gets his stitches out.

3. Thanks to Hubs getting a company vehicle, we found ourselves with 3 cars and only two drivers. Having car payments on two cars that we wouldn't even be driving seemed silly, so we traded two in to upgrade from a coupe and sedan to an SUV. Tuesday we both had off of work and spent all afternoon on car stuff. Picked up his new car, took our two cars to CarMax to be appraised (walked out with written offers for our cars), went to the Honda dealership that we knew had the color/model we wanted, had them match our CarMax quotes for our trade ins (Honda had come in $500 lower on each), and walked out with a new car a couple hours later. Some of my favorite features are: I now sit high enough to see over the hill by our house to be able to tell if I closed the garage door, the cup holders are big enough for my Nalgene, and calling hubs on the Bluetooth. Now we have so much more room for tailgating stuff (and friends!) for this coming Penn State football season.

2.. We just booked a beach house down at the Outer Banks in a couple of weeks. I can't wait to hit the road and take the pups for a week away from it all.

1. My 1/2 Marathon is tomorrow!!!!! The longest run I got in while training was 9 miles and that run was AMAZING. I felt like I was flying and could have gone all day. A week later I went out to do 10 miles and was so miserable I quit after 6 1/2 miles. I'm hoping tomorrow is more like two weeks ago. I'm spending today with my feet up and drinking plenty of water.

30 While 30 - Check In

Whooooooooa we're halfway there, WHOOOOOOOOA livin' on a prayer!

6 months until I turn 31, time to check in on how my list is going.....

Healthier Me:

 1. PR a 5k  38:03 12/31/13
 2. PR a 10k - Don't have one scheduled yet
 3. PR a 10 Miler - Broad Street (May 4)
 4. Run 1/2 Marathon - Rock & Roll DC (March 15)
 5. Complete a Triathlon Tri for Love, September 15
 6. Complete a mud run - Not scheduled yet. Hoping for a fun one to come up this summer.
 7. Try every class on the schedule at my gym (15?/62)
 8. Ride entire W&OD Trail from Purcellville to Shirlington - Hoping to do this one sometime this summer.
 9. Try CrossFit - Keeping my eye out for a Groupon
10. Lose 30lbs (11/30)
11. 30 consecutive days off from drinking - I had planned to do this in January and fell off the wagon 12 days in, I don't know that this will happen now that we're heading into spring/summer. Can't imagine 30 days of no patio drinking.....
12. 30 days of Paleo - Not important to me anymore, more likely to try 30 consecutive days of food tracking.

Financial Me:

13. Pay off one car - Nope
14. No credit card debt - Nope
15. Follow all cash plan for one month - Not yet
16. Make $300 outside of my day job - I need a plan for this....
17. Have 3 month emergency fund - Not even close, and it's becoming more clear how important an emergency fund is since we don't current have tenants in our rental condo.
18. Build a wardrobe of 30 essential pieces - I'm starting to get some pieces that I know I can wear over and over again and mix up. My current favorites are black skinnies and distressed boyfriend jeans. My chambray shirt is another favorite I can wear at LEAST once a week, and so many different ways to style it! I think once I get closer to my goal weight I'll pick up some more classic pieces.
19. Donate 30 items of clothing - I have a big bag of clothes to go to GoodWill, not quite 30, still working on paring down the closet. I will probably have several more items once I start pulling out summer stuff.

Experiences:

20. Travel to a new country - London, England
21. Take a spur of the moment out of town trip - Have some ideas, but that kind of defeats the purpose of spur of the moment, yes?
22. Attend an outdoor concert
23. Volunteer for 30 hours
24. Have professional pics taken
25. Read 30 books (8 books read)

Around the house:

26. Try 30 new recipes - I've tried probably about 10 recipes so far, many more on Pinterest to try though!
27. Get all recipes and magazine tear sheets pinned - I've gotten through a couple big stacks of recipes, still have a lot more to go through.
28. Paint powder room - Thinking of completing this soon actually.
29. Hang pictures in living room and fill empty frames around the house - Two more empties hanging on the wall, 10 more planned to go up in the living room.
30. Minimum of 30 blog posts (21/30)

So only 3 items completely crossed off, but a couple races coming up in the spring and several in progress. I think I will be crossing off many more come spring/summertime.

What have you been working on this year????

Linking up with Renee at SassyWife for Tuesday Tea

Wednesday Weigh In

Aaaaaaaand we're back.

I paused the weigh ins to get through the holidays and New Year's.

Now it's back to the grind.

OFFICIAL WEIGH IN:
Down 12.6 lbs since my birthday!!!! WOOT!!!!

A small loss, but a loss none the less. The scale got kind of stagnant through the end of December, but it's creeping back in the right direction.

GymPact now allows you to make a Pact for food tracking too, so I'm on board with MyFitnessPal tracking every bite I eat. Find me if you're using MFP too! Kim0903

Tracking food is crucial for me to lose weight. When I'm not tracking, I'm over estimating calories burned at the gym and underestimating how much I'm consuming. This unbalance only leads to GAINING.

How is your year starting off? Are you still on track with your goals? Tracking food or just winging it?

"January Joiners" and the time I accidentally PRed 5k

Starting about mid December the regulars in the spin and step classes I go to started to lament the approach of January. They were groaning that every bike would fill up early and the group fitness classes would be packed. The New Year's Resolutioners would be flocking to the gym, "January Joiners" they labeled them.

I reminded them that I was one of those January Joiners last year and here I am, sticking around and one of the regulars. Everyone always replies "Well you're the exception, hardly anyone sticks around past January". Well, when you welcome them with THAT attitude, why would they want to come back?!? This January I'm trying to be welcoming to the new folks, hoping they feel welcomed enough to join our crazy gym family that would rather be working out than at happy hour and who wake up early on the weekends so we don't miss a class. We have fun, laugh, sing, and get healthy together every week.

So. If you're thinking about venturing out to the gym to kick off your Resolutions, don't be shy. March right into the class and work your butt off. Get there a few minutes early to get set up and introduce yourself to the teacher. Take class at your own pace, there are always alternatives to every move.

So how does this have to do with me accidentally PRing 5k? Well, like I said a couple of weeks ago when I went out to start my training for the 1/2 marathon I'm doing with Hubs in the spring, the run went so well, I surprised myself. All these months of 6-7 classes a week has improved my endurance and overall fitness beyond my expectations.

After my first couple of runs went so well, I signed up last minute for a 5k on New Year's Eve. I thought, what could be a better way to close out 2013? It was a 1:00PM start, so I was thrown off from my usual pre-race rituals of oatmeal or english muffin and banana. It was a local race with about 600 people running the 5k and about 350 doing the 10k option. Once we got started I was feeling great. I was sticking with intervals I knew I could maintain the whole time, 4 mins running/1 min walking. I clocked the first mile in 11:39 and the next two miles at 12:32 pace. The last 1/2 mile I was losing steam and feeling a bit discouraged that I wasn't going to do as well as I had hoped.

My previous PR time was 41:15 (13:16 pace) and I knew I could blow that out of the water. My secret, would be amazing, I'd have to really work for it, "A" goal was anything starting with 37:00. My "B" goal was anything with 38:00, "C" was 39:00 and so on. I was getting audio cues from RunKeeper with my pace and time. I had about a 1/4 mile to go and if I picked up my pace I could make my "A" time goal. When I crossed the finish line I had given everything I had in the last 1/4 mile and thought I might have been able to squeak out 37:59. Once the results were posted my official time was 38:03 (12:16 pace). I'm kinda bummed I missed my "A" goal by 4 seconds, but am completely over the moon that my pace went down by a full minute. I know I'm still not the speediest of them all, but I'm slowly moving up from the back of the pack and can't complain about being able to run a race with only 4 days notice!

So lessons from today: Go to classes, get a faster 5k time.

How is your year starting off? Are you joining a gym or just looking to try something new at one you already belong to?

Five on Friday - January's Goals

In sticking with the blog o sphere's theme of goals and intentions for the New Year, I'll dedicate this Five on Friday to my Five goals for this month.

So in no particular order....

One - I have a HUGE backlog of magazines all around my house. I have a stack by my bed, a stack by my chair in front of the tv, a stack in my car, and who knows where else they pop up. My first goal is to be through this backlog in January. Anything not read by February 1st is getting trashed (recycled)

On a related note, I have been working my way through my Real Simple back issues and came across the "Your Words" section and remembered that I had responded to an email prompt from them this summer about Tips for Getting your Day off to the Best Start. I replied that just making my bed can make me feel more productive and kick off the day on the right foot. I was contacted by an editor asking to elaborate, so I wrote a few more sentences and never heard back. They paraphrased the heck outta my comment, but I made it into the issue! My name is in print!

Two - Kick off the diet on the right foot. I've done this the past two Januaries and am trying it again, Sober January. I take the month off from drinking to try to kick start my diet. The first year I lost like 14lbs (which obvi didn't stick since I ended up GAINING weight in 2012) and last year was closer to 7. My heart isn't in it so much this year since the number on the scale wasn't as scary as the past two years, but I'm going to give it my best shot anyways.

Three - Half Marathon training. Hubs and I signed up for a half marathon in DC on March 15th. The first couple of runs have been good, but I haven't been sticking to my training schedule very closely. I want to make running my priority for the next 10 weeks so I can do the best I can on race day. So far I've only been running twice a week, but have been getting in the "long" runs, currently 4 miles, bumping up next week. I know I'm going to have to start getting the weekday "homework" miles done if I want a fighting chance at surviving the weekend runs once they start getting more substantial.

Four - Try some new crockpot recipes. My sister gifted me with several cookbooks for Christmas, one specifically for crockpots. I have already gone through and marked the dozens of recipes I want to try. Before the end of this month, I want to try at least three or four to find some we can add into our weekly/monthly rotation of regular meals.

Five - Complete my blog post about our trip to London. We had such a fabulous time, I really want to document the trip in more than just a file of pictures on my computer that we'll forget details about along the way.

So instead of setting a year's worth of goals, these are just the things I want to get through this month.

Are you setting resolutions for the whole year or are you breaking it down into monthly goals you want to accomplish?

2013 Goals - How'd we do?

So I went back to the archives and pulled up my goals for 2013 from January.

Looks like I was feeling REALLY ambitious. I don't think we accomplished even half of them. Let's take a look at where we ended up after this year:

1. Eat out fewer than 20% of our meals. This is an effort to save some cash along with eating a little bit better. We came up with 220 meals, this counts lunches purchased and happy hours that turn to dinners. Since we plan to take a couple vacations, that will be 25-30 meals off the list right away. I didn't track out meals eating in vs eating out, but I bet we did fairly well with this one. We ate out usually just once or twice a week. I will try to keep better track of this one coming up, but I'm pretty happy with how much we stay in these days.
 
2. Lose a combined 80 lbs. This makes it a team effort and will keep us accountable to each other. This one is a big NOPE. I lost 25lbs, but not sure how Hubs is doing. We certainly did not make the 80lb mark.

3. Complete one house project each month. We have a couple of closets to redo, a few rooms to paint, and window treatments for several rooms to pick out and hang. Ummmmmm NOPE. We did update our pantry, paint the bedroom, hang curtains in the bedroom and basement, bought some furniture for the back patio, painted the basement bathroom, and painted my chevron closet. Didn't quite make a project per month though.

4. No credit card debt. We finished this year at zero dollar balances, which I was astounded by after all the home shopping we did. The goal this year is to maintain living within our means and keep those balances at $0.00. NOPE. And after reading last year we started at $0, I'm even more depressed how far in the hole we are right now. Working on it though.....

5. Go to London. Hubs has never been to Europe and why not start where we know the language? Flights aren't too obscene that there happens to be an event occurring in September that hubs would like to catch at Wembley Stadium. WOOHOO! Got one done. London was FABULOUS and I owe you a blog post about it.

6. Buy Penn State Season tickets. We've started the ball rolling for season tickets, now to save the cash and get them in my hot little hands! We may not be able to make it to all the games, but tickets are easy enough to sell to fellow alumni in the area. Another one done! We made it up to State College for 6 games and had a blast. Can't wait to renew our tickets for next season.

7. Golf. I would like to take lessons and learn a thing or two about swinging a club this spring. It'd be fun to be able to make a passable attempt at golf and maybe go out a couple times this summer or on vacation. I didn't take lessons so I won't cross it off, but I did go golfing for the first time ever last fall. I had a blast even though I was AWFUL and totally want to pursue lessons when I find a chance.

8. Get professional pictures taken. Once we've lost the lbs and are svelte, might as well get dressed up and get some good pictures. I absolutely adore our engagement and wedding pictures. I'd like some more recent ones of us to replace the older ones. Another big NOPE. Still on my list though....

9. Volunteer. We both would love to volunteer for an animal shelter or rescue groups. I'm really looking forward to finding an opportunity to help out some needy pups. I hate that I didn't do this one. It's on my 30 while 30 list as well, so I better get cracking to find some opportunities.

10. And finally, it'd be nice to get rid of one monthly bill, so we're going to try and pay off one of the cars this year. We still have 2 years left on the first loan, so an early payoff would save a lot in interest. This would also allow us to parlay that extra cash into paying off the other car and then rebuilding our emergency fund. And another one that we didn't get done but made it onto the 30 while 30 list. I'm pretty sure this will get done sooner than later.


Some of my personal goals this year are:

1. booze free for January and February. Last year I went booze free for January and felt great the entire month. I'll stretch it to two months this year to reap even more benefits!!! I made it about 5 weeks this year. I really enjoy this each year I try it. I may not declare a whole month booze free this year, but may just pick one or two events each month to drink at an go booze free the remainder of the time.

2. Run 500 miles. I'd like to complete a couple 10 Mile races this year along with a half marathon maybe? Training for these should knock out the miles with no problems. I did not track this one at all, but I would say I didn't come close. Since I do mostly classes now and not out running on my own, I don't log very many actual running miles anymore.

3. Track my food for 200 days with Lose It. When I track my food, I lose weight. Easy peasy. 200 days will ensure I don't wander off track for weeks/months at a time. I'm one day in so far. 199 to go. Too bad I didn't specify "Track breakfast and lunch for 300 days", because I probably would have done that no problem. I always forgot about tracking by the time I got home and dinner/drinks/dessert didn't make it into the log. I started using My Fitness Pal recently and plan to use that more again this year. Last night I was thinking about this one again and I will be aiming for 250-300 tracked days this coming year.... Again, if I track, I lose weight. So here's to more tracking!!!!!

4. At least 100 blog posts. Along with the tracking, 100 posts gets me posting about twice a week. Not overly ambitions, but much better than my past history. UM NOPE. I think this is #30 for this year. But still better than my 2012 total and I've really ramped things up in the past couple of months, so hope 2014 will be even more active on this little blog o' mine.

5. Organize all of my magazine tear sheets and try at least one new recipe a month. Another NOPE. But I did get a ton of recipes pinned yesterday and cleaned out a whole mess in my cabinets by getting those online. (sorry if you follow me on Pinterest and you've been completely inundated with my recent recipe pins)

So that's where I'm ending 2013. 2/15 crossed off. YIKES. But lots of progress on many of them. 

All in all I'm calling it a WILDLY successful year. I'm super proud of what I've done this year, see my last 5 on Friday post with my EFF YEAH list from last year. I'm planning on finishing off 2013 by PRing my 5k. It's really going to set the stage for a spectacular 2014. I can't wait to see what is in store for me.

Five on Friday

This week I'm going to share my top Five "EFF YEAH" list from 2013. Nicole over at A Life Less Bullshit posted last week her 4-Step Life Purge in preparation for the new year and goal setting. In thinking about 2013, these are some highlights from the year that I can look back a remember that 2013 was a pretty awesome year.

1. I PRed my 10 Miler. I trained for this race for 12 weeks and hit almost every single workout on my plan. On race day I just trusted my training and charged right through the race. I stuck to my intervals and hit my goal of beating my time from the Broad Street run in 2012. I can't wait to do another 10 Mile race this spring and get yet another PR.

2. I finished my first triathlon. I didn't train nearly enough for this race, I had no idea what I was getting into. I can't wait to tackle this again next year and blow my time out of the water. I will be able to train smarter and be more prepared for race day. I will probably try to schedule a couple triathlons this fall and once I get a couple more sprint tris under my belt I might think about longer distances... Yup, I'm totally hooked.

3. I lost 25 pounds!!!! I lost several pounds in January, but then promptly gained them all back. In March I was UP 3 from January 1st and that's when I really buckled down and found enough classes to fill my schedule and get me even more active. The past couple of months I started tracking my food again and kept up with my gym schedule and hit the 25lb milestone. The past couple of years have been frustrating since I felt like I was constantly dieting, but not making any progress. It feels so good to finally feel like I have some control over the situation and have a good road map to keep up the momentum.

4. I'm totally addicted to the gym. Class instructors and the front desk folks know me by name. It really is such a great little family. I never thought I'd be that girl that grabs a spot up front in class and stays after class to chat with the other regulars. The gym is no longer a chore, but a highlight of my day. The strongest testament to this is the fact that I wake up at 4:45 on Fridays to make it to spin class before work. 

5. Hubs and I traveled across the pond for an NFL game at Wembley and some British shenanigans. Maybe one of these days I'll blog about it. It was Hubs' first time in Europe and we had an absolute blast. He's got the travel bug now and can't wait to plan other trips to new countries.


What are some of your "EFF YEAH" moments from the past year? 

Early Christmas Dinner with the In Laws and a Christmas PSA

Both of our families live within 10 minutes of our house, so the first couple of years we tried to make it work seeing everyone on holidays. We quickly got burnt out of the rushing around and realized it made Thanksgiving and Christmas more stressful than fun. We decided to do Thanksgiving each year with Hubs' parents and Christmas with my family. Since we don't see his parents on Christmas day anymore, the past few years I've started hosting them at our house a few days before Christmas.

Friday was our Christmas dinner with them and I planned on going all out for the dinner. I created a spreadsheet of the recipes I was planning on making and a timeline to make sure everything came out at the same time. I included the ingredients for each dish and was able to note by color what was already purchased and what was on the final shopping trip. I planned which dishes to prep the dishes in and which to serve in. The only two dishes not included in the spreadsheet were the two desserts I made that morning.



I couldn't sleep Thursday night, worried I was forgetting something, so I made a list of everything that had to get done on Friday.

My day started with a 5:30 spin class to get my head right. Then it was off to the grocery store where the shelves weren't yet fully stocked and I had to get a manager to help me track down items I suspected were in the back.

Once home I started knocking off items on the list (yes, I included Shower, just to have an easy one to cross off before things got too stressful). I chose the desserts to make by browsing my recent Pins from my Dessert Board. I knocked those out real quick before I had to start prepping dinner.

The roast was fairly quick to get started and pop in the oven. I cut the cauliflower and grated cheese while on a conference call for work (shhhhhhhh) and the rest was fairly simple that I wouldn't have to really get going until 5:30ish. That's when things started to happen. The roast comes out of the oven and sides start going in. The frozen rolls I had taken out to rise never did, but hubs had stopped by the store to pick up some cresent rolls just in case this happened. The cauliflower was kind of runny, so it stayed in the oven for about 15 minutes longer than directed, but turned out amazing in the end.

Everything was on the table right at 6:30 and I could sit down to relax and enjoy the food and company for the rest of the night. 

The recipes I used were:
Giada's Stracotto Pot Roast (This was AMAZING and is probably my new favorite roast recipe. The mushroom sauce you blend with the cooking juices is to die for.)
Pioneer Woman's Sweet Potatoes (SO SO GOOD. More like a dessert with the brown sugar and pecans)
Bobby Flay's Cauliflower Goat Cheese Gratin (YUMMY. But recipe calls for WAY too much cream, I used half the recommended amount and as noted above, still had to bake 15 mins extra for it to thicken up, I would use even less next time.)
My own mac & cheese concoction: Stouffer's Mac & Cheese, smash about a 1/2 sleeve of Ritz to crumbs and add, throw in a generous handful of cheddar cheese, and some milk if it's looking too thick from the Ritz and extra cheese.
Pillsbury Cresent Rolls
Southern Living Apple Bread Pudding (Served with Ice Cream instead of the Apple Brandy Creme Anglaise)
And finally, Skinny Taste Cranberry Bliss Bars 

Whew! What a whirlwind day of baking and cooking, but man it was good. 

Next up is Christmas Day cooking!!!!

And for your PSA: GET YOUR GROCERY SHOPPING FOR CHRISTMAS DAY DONE NOW. Last year we both had to work on Christmas Eve and didn't get to hit the grocery store until after 6. We went to FIVE stores, all closed at 6 on Christmas Eve. There was ONE store open in our area until 8 and it was jam packed because everyone else was closed early.