2012 in review

Last year, I posted this:



I resolve to accomplish the following five things from my 101 list:

• Complete a half-marathon.
• Complete a 5-day juice cleanse. (I will be starting January 2nd)
• Achieve my goal weight (125 lbs.) and maintain it to the end of the year.
• Acquire 75 customer points.
• Write to Billie and Wally once per month.

And things that are not on my 101 list:

• I resolve to fit in my new turquoise Banana Republic dress by Mark's brother's wedding in February. 
• I resolve to make more of an effort to keep a spotless house. 
• I resolve to go 30 days with no alcohol. 
• I resolve to apply 100% of myself to my schoolwork. 
• I resolve to keep a journal of thanks, updated daily. 

And of those ten things (why in the world would I make ten resolutions?!), I completed a juice cleanse, I wore the turquoise dress in February, and I'm proud of my house right now. And, while I didn't achieve my goal weight yet, the scale tipped at 129.8 this morning, so I'm not complaining. That's more than 30 lbs. down this year. Thirty. Wow. 

This coming year, I resolve to: 

• Achieve my goal weight (125 lbs.) 
• Purchase land
• Finish my 101 list with 75% completion (let's be honest - I don't think I'm going to get all the way there. I have less than 30 goals completed currently.) 
• Buy a wine fridge! 
• Cultivate love. Loving myself, loving my family, partner, friends - I feel like I've been so wrapped up in stresses lately that I haven't had time for love. And that needs to change. 

I'm only going with five this time, so I have more of a chance to succeed. Plus, I have all the rest of my 101 list to work on! I'm going to be a busy little bee in 2013. 

xo!

I am not a cow!

Well, I should hope that much would be obvious. I don't much resemble a large barnyard mammal.

You probably know the story of my Europe trip last year. And that, because of unwise decisions that I would totally make again if given the opportunity, I gained approximately one pound per day while I was gone.

It hasn't come off easily, but I'm super proud to say that I am officially 25 lbs. lighter now than I started the year!

I've completed two months worth of boot camp. I've practiced yoga. I've ran, and biked, and walked, and cried when I felt I wasn't getting anywhere. Sometimes I've worked hard at it, and sometimes I've hardly worked. But today, I'm proud.

I'm proud that another co-worker asked me yesterday if I'd been losing weight. I'm proud that she commented on how baggy my pants were. I'm proud that, when I pulled on my brand-new, size-two pants this morning, it wasn't a struggle. I'm proud every time I look in the mirror and see my hip bones. I'm proud because I've had to work to get here, and the signs of that hard work are finally visible - and not just to me.

Here's to another ten or fifteen, and to wearing boots with skinny jeans this winter!

xoxo

I'm back in my pants!!!!!!!!!

It's not like I would walk around in them with a super tight shirt on or anything, but I put on my work pants on Sunday (a size 2), and didn't have to suck it in to button them!

Suck on that, period bloat. I definitely have lost inches in the last month! And so I celebrated by drinking green tea, doing a zillion jumping jacks, and eating a mondo lemon, spinach, goat cheese pasta dinner. My choir concert is in two weeks, and my (other) goal is to look good in that super scandalous grey dress, so I can go out in it afterward.

So between now and then, I plan to:

• drink at least one cup of hot green tea every day.
• drink at least 64 oz. of ice water every day. 
• get some sort of exercise every day. It's unrealistic to think I'll run every day, or burn 500 calories exercising daily, but my aim is to get my heart-rate up doing SOMETHING for 15 minutes every day. 
• NOT drink any alcohol until the Florida trip. This (sadly) includes tastings at the table at work. 
• do 250 jumping jacks, 25 sit-ups, and 25 squats every day on top of whatever exercise I choose. 
• make it easier to resist temptation. Don't bake at all! 

I'll try to update on how it goes! One of the things I'm most self-conscious about is the way my legs look, and this dress definitely shows them off. I need legs worthy of showing off in approximately two weeks.


Anyway. This is the hooker dress I may or may not be wearing some time soon. Too tight and too short to look anything other than fantastic before I put it on.

I also tried on my old jeans this morning, and I'm back in those, too! YAY, SIZE TWO PANTS!!!!!!!!!!! It's been eight months since I've been able to say that. Like, pre-Europe. July. I was absolutely thrilled this morning when I put them on, and that's today's photo... that I will upload tomorrow, with the rest that I've been slacking on.

I have to be up at 5 in the morning to take my wonderful bff and her fiance to the airport, so my super exciting updates about my photo shoot, dinner tonight, school stuff... it'll all have to wait. I have a test in the morning in my programming class, a test later this week in Linear Algebra, two math homework assignments due Thursday, and a German paper due Sunday night, so you might not see a whole lot of me between now and then.

xoxo!!

I'm going!!

You may recall from my list of 2012 Resolutions that one of them is to fit in a dress I bought for the boyfriend's brother's wedding by February 19th. Well up until Sunday, it was still just a plan. I officially have my ticket now, and I'm going to meet his family! I'm terrified and thrilled all at the same time.

I'm also thrilled beyond words that I will be seeing my sorority mama for the first time in five years! She lives in Orlando, and her birthday is the day after I arrive, so there will be some sort of shindig necessary. I miss her like crazy, and I can't wait! She is also getting married there in May, but I can't expect her to spend much time with me when I'm there for her wedding, so I'm really glad this worked out the way it did!

I'm about to head to bed with my Hot Pants on for the first time. They're supposed to make you sweat like crazy, so I turned the heat down 7 degrees from where I usually keep it. I'll definitely update in a few weeks on how I like them. They seemed gimmicky to me, but I know someone who has tried a similar product and really liked them, so I thought I'd give 'em a try. They were on sale, so I'm not out a whole lot if I think they suck.

Kyle seems to think that we'll have an answer one way or the other with this whole apartment collections nonsense later today, and I'm hoping that's true! I'm ready to get this nonsense over with. We did nothing wrong, and while we did chat today about getting an attorney and suing the pants off them, I'm really hoping the collections agency will recognize that we were within our legal rights to terminate the lease and are not responsible for any of what they claim we owe.

Morning comes early. Ciao!

(P.S. I made some delicious mac & cheese today. Check it out! I think it's my new favorite.)

Holy sheet.

The weigh-in for boot camp was yesterday morning. They take your measurements and all that, so you can see how much progress you've made at the end of the month.

Total weight lost on the juice cleanse?

11.5 lbs.


Wow. Bring on another one!

I can definitely tell already that this early-morning bootcamp thing is going to be brutal. Aside from the obvious 5:30, she makes us do push-ups with your weight rocked forward onto your toes, and your butt up in the air. Your shoulders take your full body weight instead of your lower back. Yikes. And she ends every session with burpees. I apparently slept on my wrist wrong, so those were incredibly unenjoyable for me.

In other news, my sister and I went out to lunch today, and she asked me to be her maid of honor! I am simultaneously thrilled, shocked, and nervous. We don't really talk that often. I feel like I don't really know her that well anymore, and yet now I'm the one whose shoulders it falls on to plan her bridal shower and bachelorette party. I am hoping this will strengthen our not-super-close relationship.

I'm going to attempt to get five hours of sleep before boot camp again in the morning. Ciao!!

Another goal down!!

Wow; it's been a long time since I've said that. But yesterday morning, at 12:01, I crossed off another goal! I have officially completed my 5-day juice cleanse.

I have also been slowly plodding away at my FreeRice goal. I'm averaging 1,500 grains a day this month (1.5 times what I need), and have donated more than 263,000 grains of rice since March. I dropped way behind this summer with all the vacationing I did, but I've made excellent progress and am almost completely caught up. (I should be at 300K grains, and am close!)

The other thing that's been taking up way too much of my time lately is Pinterest. Holy wealth of recipes! I have found SO many tasty-looking things there. It has given me so much inspiration!

I think I'm going hiking in the morning with Prince Charming and friends, so I should perhaps head to bed. Sorry for the crazy lack of updates lately! I'm buckling down now that the semester has started, so I can be as successful as possible. :)

Ciao!

Day 2, and I'm going crazy.

Yesterday, as I promised to myself, I started my five-day juice cleanse. (Recipes and more on that here.)

I'm. going. insane. I had a dream last night that I ate cookies, or a muffin, or something bread-y and delicious. I woke up SO angry that I would have to start this whole thing over.

I'm really not all that hungry, surprisingly. However, this whole not having anything to munch on is really getting to me. I would sell a child to be able to cheat and crunch some cookies. Or an avocado. Or even some blueberries, rather than squeezing all the life out of them.

I've been chewing gum occasionally, attempting to curb the madness. It doesn't work. Something about chewing your food apparently is a huge deal to the brain.

So, in an attempt to get my mind off what I can't do for the next several days, I've been trying to stay out of the kitchen. I took a nearly-30-minute shower. I called ASU to get information on auditions for the women's choral group, and then emailed the guy in charge. I emailed a boot camp place to register for an upcoming class. I cleaned out my inbox of all the recipes I could find. I did some miscellaneous work things. Read up on "tricks" to keep your resolutions for the year. Then stared at my calendar and wished more time had passed, so I could go into work.

I'm not sick to my tummy (yet), which I certainly appreciate. I remember that as being the hardest part of my oral surgeries. The liquid diet that follows for the next week means your stomach over-produces bile, and terrible things happen. Mostly you're sick to your tummy all the time.

I'm already planning what to eat on Saturday. Maybe some steel-cut oats with blueberries (if I have any left) for breakfast. An avocado as a snack. Dessert is definitely going to be some chocolate pudding made with avocado. I might toss in some super-unhealthy homemade stovetop mac & cheese for good measure.

Ohhhhhhh, food. How tempting you are! I will make it through these four days, and I will come out a slightly thinner version of myself. This will be the jump-start I need to eat healthier. I'll just keep my eyes on the prize. Steel-cut oats for breakfast Saturday morning. Oh, boy. Ciao!

My New Year's Resolutions

If I don't make a list of 'em, I know I won't actually complete them. I love lists. I love order. And I love things that make sense.

With that, I resolve to accomplish the following five things from my 101 list:

• Complete a half-marathon.
• Complete a 5-day juice cleanse. (I will be starting January 2nd)
• Achieve my goal weight (125 lbs.) and maintain it to the end of the year.
• Acquire 75 customer points.
• Write to Billie and Wally once per month.

And things that are not on my 101 list:

• I resolve to fit in my new turquoise Banana Republic dress by Mark's brother's wedding in February. 
• I resolve to make more of an effort to keep a spotless house. 
• I resolve to go 30 days with no alcohol. 
• I resolve to apply 100% of myself to my schoolwork. 
• I resolve to keep a journal of thanks, updated daily. 

We'll see how things go! I think I'm going to try to make a thanksgiving journal with Mom when I'm home, or go out together and see what I can find. That's one of the things I'm most looking forward to. 

I still have to pack tonight, since I work fairly early tomorrow, so I am outta here. Ciao! And since you won't see me until Christmas Day at the earliest, Happy Holidays!!