positivity – Page 7 – A Measured Life

Don’t Call it a Resolution

NEW-YEARS-RESOLUTIONS-calendar — IMG SOURCE

Last year on SparkPeople I wrote a blog on New Years Day about setting goals for the New Year. I don’t make New Years Resolutions, because committing myself to something that strict never works for me. And apparently they don’t really work for most people, so why try? Instead, I wrote goals. Here are those goals and how I did:

If you’ve been friends with me a long time on SparkPeople, you may remember that I don’t like New Years Resolutions much, so I don’t make any. However, I’ve noticed that since reaching goal weight that I’ve been struggling to find my purpose when it comes to health. I decided several days ago that I need to set myself a few new goals for 2015. Nothing crazy, just little things I know I can accomplish, some weight related, some health related, some heart related and some confidence related.

Long Term Goals:
-Do kettlebells 3x per week (I haven’t missed a day since the beginning of September so I think this should be easy) SUCCESS – I missed maybe a handful of kettlebell workouts all year
-Drink 16+ glasses of water every day (I aim for 20 but sometimes I slack a little and end up with 12 or 14) SUCCESS
-Blog on ameasuredlife.com 3x a week (this one I’m really going to have to pay attention to) SUCCESS – I may have missed one or two.

Medium Term Goals:
-Buy (and wear) a two-piece bathing suit this summer (I want a high waisted vintage style bikini) TOTALLY DONE
-Get back closer to goal weight by bulking my meals with FRESH VEGETABLES instead of leaving myself vulnerable to candy, cookies, ice cream and potato chips I’m within goal range right now! (Or I was before Christmas week, boo.)
-Get a minimum of 6,000 steps a day (I *was* getting over 10k a day but then I found kettlebells and I’ve been slacking. Plus it’s coooold and I like walking outside) While I didn’t always get 6,000 steps a day, my average only fell below 5,000 steps 4 weeks this year. Counting that as successful!

Short Term Goals:
-Be brave. Sometimes I feel like a shy little kid and I need to work harder on putting myself out there and being adventurous. I’m going to try new things this year: lifestyle blogging, publishing a cookbook, meeting new people. (The selections on Meetup.com are sorely lacking in my area.) SUCCESS – I’m blogging, I joined a walking group on Meetup.com, and I found a community in RoadRunner Sports via the Adventure Runs.
-Have more girl time. My bestie and my friend Mia and I are going to try to plan cheap camping trips a few times a year for just us girls. I’m also going to try to meet up with my friend Shelby to hike once or twice. (side note: Bingley is asleep on my right arm and he’s dreaming and his little paw is twitching against my shoulder. It’s so cute!) FAIL – Camping trip got canceled due to scheduling and I haven’t hiked once this year.
-Get cultured. There are a billion cultural things to do around Philly: museums, parks, food, plays, the orchestra, opera, etc. I used to do a lot of these things when I was younger because my dad loved them. Hubs is not at all interested in opera or ballet, so these are things I can do without him. I know there are hundreds of ethnic restaurants in Philly, many of which I haven’t yet tried. I need to try them! I’m going to count this as a fail because while I’ve been to a lot of parks with walking group, none of them are culturally significant, and I haven’t been to Philly this year except for my anniversary dinner, and we’d already been to that restaurant.

I think I did pretty well with most of these! Here are my goals for 2016:

Long Term Goals:

Have a complete first draft of a cookbook before the end of 2016
Pay off all of our credit card debt so we can begin to save for a house
RUN (and I mean run the whole thing) a legit 5K before the end of the year

Medium Term Goals:

Learn how to do a kettlebell snatch with proper form
Go camping/hiking at least once (maybe someone will ask me to go hiking with them)
Take a road trip to Chicago to visit family

Short Term Goals:

GET THIS 8 LBS OF CHRISTMAS WEIGHT OFF MY BODY ASAP (probably mostly water)
Work on better lighting for my food photography
Return the money I ‘borrowed’ to pay for emergencies to our savings account

What about you? Have you made your goals for the new year? Let me know in the comments!

A Few More of My Favorite Things

Here’s yet another short list of stuff I’m totally obsessed with right now!

Blindspot

O.M.G. Okay, look. I love Thor in the Marvel movies, but I was never a fan of Jaimie Alexander as Lady Sif. Some actors just can’t do fantasy or period pieces. So when I saw she was going to be in a new show on NBC, I was curious because the premise was awesome, but I didn’t have super high expectations. I am SO happy I was wrong. Here’s the premise:

“A woman with no memories of her past (Jane Doe), is found naked in Times Square with her body fully covered in intricate tattoos. Her discovery sets off a vast and complex mystery that immediately ignites the attention of the FBI, which begins to follow the road map of her tattoos into a larger conspiracy of crime, while bringing her closer to discovering the truth about her identity.”

What they don’t tell you is she’s found by the FBI and all sorts of awesome mystery shit happens. I wouldn’t ever describe myself as liking police procedurals but DAMN this is a good show! I whine a little when I go to check for new episodes and it hasn’t aired yet! And I just watched the “Fall Finale” (which I think is the biggest load of crap television has ever invented) and it was SO GOOD and now I have to wait until frickin’ FEBRUARY to watch the next episode!!! Ahhh!

BONUS: Francois Arnaud is a long term guest star in it. I’d watch him brood any day.

John Freida Beach Blonde Sea Waves Sea Salt Spray

k2-_d8f765e6-0209-4ae6-af22-f0e33dbad18e.v1 — IMG COURTESY Walmart.com

I am SUPER LAZY when it comes to styling my hair. Heck, I only get a haircut twice a year, because for some reason getting a haircut is a source of anxiety for me. I even go to a barber shop that’s full of comic book paraphrenalia because the idea of going to some salon where I’m going to be overcharged for a mediocre cut because they spent all their money on the decor, and where I inevitably feel like I don’t fit in. I like the bare concrete floor and cinderblock walks of the barber shop, and I like that they play crude comedies on the tv instead of The View (I HATE The View). Wow, I went quite on the tangent there. ANYWAY, I’m lazy with my hair. I’ll spend 15 minutes doing my makeup, but throw my hair up in a messy bun because I’m out of time. Enter sea salt spray!

So I wash my hair, towel dry, then air dry until it’s just barely damp, then I spray my hair liberally, using my hands to scrunch my hair up. It gives my naturally wavy hair more definition while killing the frizz factor, and it smells AMAZING. Seriously, if you could bottle the scent of ocean breeze and coconut scented sunscreen, this is what it would smell like: heaven.

Winter Squash

Be it acorn, butternut or pumpkin, I truly love winter squash. I love it roasted in olive oil, in a savory stew, sweet with maple syrup, brown sugar and butter, used to top cottage pie instead of mashed potatoes, made into dessert. Just the other night I made this amazeballs recipe from Stupid Easy Paleo (although I used acorn squash because I’ve never seen delicata in my locale):

And if you recall, not long ago I raged against pumpkin spice everything by making a spicy Pumpkin and Chickpea Stew that I adored. Pumpkin pie has always been one of my favorite desserts, and I guarantee you I ate plenty of it yesterday! And a bonus? Squash is crazy good for you.

So that’s what I’m busy lovin’ right now. What are you lovin’ right now? 🙂

Happy Black Friday, I’m off to work!

Strive for Self-Improvement Over Perfection

I’m not a competitive person for the most part. I’m totally okay with losing as long as I have a good time along the way. I’ve been known to lose board games on purpose if I think the other person might have a hissy fit if they lose. But I am “competitive” against myself.

I’m not a proponent of perfectionism. It sets you up for failure, because the perfect thing doesn’t exist. To call my life philosophy “that’s good enough” isn’t quite right either, because it implies I don’t really care about self-improvement, and, if you’re reading this, you know how untrue that is. I don’t need to be the best at anything. I don’t need to be perfect. But if I can mark every day off of the calendar with a check mark because I’ve improved a small aspect of my life then the day is a success.

It doesn’t need to be something big at all. It could be getting one more kettlebell swing crammed into my 1-minute timer. It could be holding a plank for an extra 5 seconds. It could be getting a few more steps in the day. It could be turning down a mouth-watering soft pretzel. Now these are all health and fitness related, but I don’t exclusively count those. Yesterday I learned that beavers are vegetarians and eat trees, berries and shrubs. I didn’t know that the day before, so I’m automatically better than I was before! At the Renaissance Faire, I made a point of complimenting someone on their garb, which put a big smile on her face and in turn, made me smile. Daily I have to work on being as kind and understanding as possible with a specific coworker who consistently rubs me the wrong way. It’s a process.

Last week, I worked on a bit of my social anxiety and LEAD THE WALKING GROUP AT THE ADVENTURE RUN BY MYSELF AAAAAAAAAAAAH!!! (I’m 99.9% sure I did a good job 😉 ) So I gained a confidence point that day. Are these things that would be important on paper? Maybe not. But they’re important to me! Day by day I’m working on becoming a better person. Do I need to make huge strides daily? Heck no! Do I sometimes have setbacks? Sure as hellfire I do! But it isn’t about setbacks or failures, it’s about striving for being better. It’s a challenge to me: I’ve grown to realize that I can’t change anyone else, but I can change myself. And sometimes, changing yourself is creating a role model that may inspire someone else to change themselves for the better.

http://www.boho-weddings.com/2013/08/07/365-happiness-project-quote-188/

On today’s agenda is a) getting this blog written, b) reading a bit about writing/publishing a cookbook, and c) trying something new (a painting party). Also: d) BEING AWESOME. DONE! BWAHAHA. (Can you tell I’m feeling goofy today?) What’s on YOUR self-improvement agenda?

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