Goals for February

Well, I did really well this month in keeping with my two main goals - not perfect, admittedly, since I did buy three things (although in my defense it seemed like I had a good reason at the time). My food goal is the clear winner this month, as I managed to log my food all but three days (!!) and I kept intake under my calorie limit for all but one day. (I had a giant chocolate bar on my anniversary...not sorry.) I found that I'm actually a lot better at keeping my carb/protein/fat balance in check than I had ever imagined I could be, and also that I am the queen of hitting insanely high fiber intake goals. (47 grams yesterday, for example.)

As a result of that, my goal for February is to focus on working out consistently. I'm shooting for at least 30 minutes a day, 4 day a week. (5 would be nice, but I know how out of shape I currently am, and I'm thinking realistically here.) My kettle bell set will be here on Friday, so that's what I'll focus on for the month.

I'm also re-instating part of my no-buy goal: this will apply only to clothes. (I've lost 7 pounds so far, and obviously hope to lose more, so there's no sense in buying new clothes that will hopefully be too big soon.) I do, however, have a pair of shoes that I've had my eye on for a couple of months now, and I think I have Josh convinced, so maybe I can buy them sometime soon. (They're Prada's, hence the need for convincing.)

That reminds me, my anniversary present got here yesterday!

When we got married, I got a ring, but I didn't get to choose it. A few months later I got another ring, one I chose, but it still felt too conventional. I've always felt like having a diamond was so...boring. I know that I could have skipped the tradition altogether and not even worn a ring, but that's not exactly what I wanted to do. I still wanted a symbol of marriage, just something that was more a symbol of our marriage, and not just a 'back off, I'm married' ring. I considered a pearl, a black diamond, and moonstone, before deciding that a sapphire made sense because it was both Josh's birthstone, and the traditional stone for 5 years of marriage.

 I also got a free pearl necklace with purchase. Awesome. If you've ever seen my old ring, then it's pretty obvious that Josh did well in choosing my absolute favorite style. This was a long tangent.

Anyway, goals are set, and if I win then I've got a nice prize for myself picked out already. Unless those Prada's become my prize. I could live with that.

I don't really know what would constitute 'winning' though. Let's just say losing 10 pounds? That's a lofty goal, but I think I can do it. Especially with the help of those wonderful, awful kettle bells. I'm terrified and excited.

Random updates

Ok, ok, I know, I promised a gluten free product review and didn't deliver. It's coming, at some point in time, but I'm going to quit setting timelines and just do it when I do it.

In other news, we may not have to travel after all. I really don't know. Neither does Josh at this point. Either way, I'm going to stop talking about that too, until we know something concrete.

Today was our 5 year wedding anniversary. We spent 90% of it in our pajamas and watching old seasons of NCIS. (I've recently gotten Josh hooked, so we're catching up on whatever we can't catch on USA marathons.) We did go out for dinner, and afterward made a run to Kroger for chocolate. My present didn't get here yet, mostly because BoA is stupid. (Long story.)

We finally got our Wal-mart gift cards (from the Black Friday deal we used to buy our phones) and we both spent them immediately - Josh ordered a giant bean bag and I ordered a kettle bell set. I can't wait for it to get here! I've been pretty dedicated with my working out this past month, and I'm excited about trying something different.

I've also been doing really good with eating - today's anniversary dinner marked only the third time I've eaten out this month. Everything else I've been cooking or preparing at home. I do keep a few frozen things as well as some cereal for days when I'm feeling lazy, but otherwise I've been consistent with my meal cooking. I'm quite proud of myself, and, honestly, am actually kind of glad that we might not have to go anywhere next month - trips are always hard for me to recover from, and in the past any time I've lost my momentum in my pursuit of healthiness, it's always been because of travel.

I really want to dye my hair again. Blueish/teal and purple. I don't know when it'll happen, but hopefully soon. I also wish my hair would hurry up and grow out. I didn't mind it being short (like really short) but I have absolutely had it with this funky in-between stage.

In case anyone is wondering, I haven't worked on the table and chairs because we haven't had a day warm enough. Believe me, I really want to have a comfortable place to sit and eat meals, so as soon as we have two or three days of the temperature being consistently over 65°, I'll hop on that project. In the meantime, though, I'm doing my best to enjoy the last couple of weeks of winter. (This is the south - for all I know Spring could arrive tomorrow.)

Christmas lights are so weird. I have two sets still up, and I don't intend to take them down, but one set, of pink ones, that I have in the kitchen, I've had for years. Almost ten years, I think - they're the old kind, green wire, single bulbs, and there's not one dead bulb. The other set, blue icicle lights, are from last year, and already there are two decent sized sections that are dead! Wish I could find more of the old kind...

This week, on Wednesday Josh and I drove up West Mountain and watched the sunset, and I took a bunch of pictures. Then, on Thursday, we had a gorgeous, pink and purple sunset. Figures. I managed to get one good shot out the window while we were crossing the lake on our way to get groceries, but it made me so mad! One day! Ughhh. Oh well. I'll catch the next one, hopefully. Here's the window shot:

Weekend words

I don't know why I've been more philosophical than crafty lately, but oh well. It is what it is. Plus, my craft room is still sort of disaster-y because we haven't gotten around to donating the discarded clothes, and the cat has been sleeping on them. And also, you know, it's just generally messy and I hate going in there when it's messy. One of these days I'll be in a cleaning mood, and I'll go in there, but it's been sunny the past few days so we've been spending more time outside.

Both Friday and Saturday Josh and I did our workouts outside. Thursday we tried to go outside for a while, but Belle was out there with us and had a panic attack and got tangled around a post, then clawed her way up my leg. It was extremely painful for me, and obviously terrifying for her (it took at least five minutes of talking to her calmly, while bent over and holding her up with her claws sunk deep into the back of my thigh before I could even get her to let go), so we gave up and came back inside. I still have a bunch of bruises but she seems to have recovered nicely. No more going outside for her though.

Oh! The shopping trip on Friday went well. Josh got two pairs of dress pants and two shirts, and I got two shirts and a skirt. (The skirt is so great! Looks like this one.) One of the shirts I got is black/white/gold striped, to match my new gold glittery Chinese Laundry shoes that came in yesterday. The other is a grey, three-quarter sleeve, asymmetrical hem sweater. I'm feeling a lot calmer about traveling now.

...or at least I was until I thought about it.

Thursday I got a new book, The Naked Foods Cookbook. We were walking around downtown, and I wandered into one of the bath-houses while Josh was taking a restroom break and found it. The gluten-free, healthy fats part is what grabbed my attention - I've never been one to fall into any kind of 'fad diet' trap. I've done my homework, I know enough about nutrition to hold an educated conversation, and I hate when people think that eating low-fat processed food is a better choice than raw nuts/nut butter or an avocado, just because of the fat content. Anyway, I'm rambling - it's a great book, I'm going through it slowly and loving every page!

On the flip side, I also bought the Biggest Loser: 6 Weeks to a Healthier You, and didn't like it at all! The format of it sucked; it basically just profiled all the people from that particular season in the first part, and then, when I got into the recipe part, nearly every single one of them uses a microwave! That's not a recipe to me. I guess they're geared more towards people with busy lives and all, but still. Don't waste your money on that. I didn't learn anything from it that I didn't already know, other than a bunch of random facts about a bunch of random people. (In the interest of total honesty, though, I haven't finished this book either, and I doubt that I ever will.)

As usual I have no solid plans this week, but Friday is our 5 year anniversary and Josh clearly has something up his sleeve. I know I'm getting a gift, and I know (vaguely) what it is, but I don't know when it will be here, and he seems to want to 'present' it at a dinner or something, so I don't know when we'll actually be celebrating. I'm not one that puts a lot of emphasis on this sort of thing, though, so it does not matter to me when (or even if) we go out and celebrate. I much prefer a night at home, wearing pajamas and watching tv together. I just cannot believe we're going to have been married for five years. It does not seem like it was that long ago that we were standing there in the courthouse, waiting in line, and then running across Burnet in the middle of rush hour on a rainy winter day because we were hungry and couldn't get a seat at Trudy's. And while our wedding day may not have been traditional, it was fun, quite fitting for us, and full of love and laughter.