A little behind on this post, but it’s all good 😀   I did a lot in May, actually.  Biking really kicked into high gear and I finished a few furniture projects:

and the dresser!

I will post more detail on how I did this in another post. I am in love with it!

Here were the goals for May:

1. Continue with Female Body Breakthrough and continue my 45-60 minutes a day of exercise.  Done and done.

2.  Eat with my guidelines of 6 eats per day with protein for all meals and snacks. Sort of.  I started snacking too much later in the month. At first I lost my appetite with all the work stress, but then the stress eating came back. 

3. Make some doctor appointments this month. Ooopsie.  I didn’t do this.

4. Clean more windows. DONE!!!  Actually, I will confess that we finished them up on Sunday the 1st, but close enough. It was starting to become a joke during the month about finishing the windows, but now they are done and it looks so much better.

5. Participate in Photo a Day. I sort of enjoyed this, but then I felt pressure to follow the prompts and I tend to be a more spontaneous photo taker. Then I would also forget about it with work.

6. Attitude adjustment about the house closing. I think maybe I did better this month. We are sort of laughing about the house closing and making jokes about it that are almost funny, but not quite – if you know what I mean.  On that note, we just signed *another* extension.  The definition of irony? That would be this:

Now on to my goals for June!

1.  Continue the last stage of Female Body Breakthrough.  I will be only lifting 2 days a week on good weather weeks due to biking. I am enjoying my workouts! They are tough:

2.  Be more disciplined with eating.  I really need to buckle down with this and quite futzing around.

3.Deep cleaning in rooms of the house. After doing the windows, I noticed things like baseboards and other dusty stuff.  I am not going to set a particular number of rooms, but I will be working on them.  Something that would have to be done when we put the house on the market anyway.

4. Keep doing my projects. I really enjoyed doing the furniture projects, which really helped me deal with the work stress and house stress. Not waiting on these until we move.  I will do anything to keep my stress level down (which will help with goal #2)

5. Try to write a couple garden how-to posts. I have had a couple different requests and I keep thinking I will get around to it, so here it is.

Here’s to a great June!

April showers bring May flowers, right?  My garden is a few weeks behind where it was last year. A cold and rainy April didn’t help that along. I hope May is a little more promising.

Here are the big plans for May! 😀

1. Continue with Female Body Breakthrough and continue my 45-60 minutes a day of exercise.  This is very good for me to keep doing and really is what I should be doing.

2.  Eat with my guidelines of 6 eats per day with protein for all meals and snacks. Something has to give if I keep doing the right things, right? Hello??

3. Make some doctor appointments this month. I am overdue for some appointments, so this will make me accountable to get them scheduled.

4. Clean more windows. Only 14 more to go. Seriously. It’s not that hard. Just need to do it.

5. Participate in Photo a Day. I will be doing this on FB rather than posting them all on the blog since I don’t blog every day, but I will put some on here.

6. Attitude adjustment. I need to work harder on dealing with the Longest House Closing Ever with a better attitude. I think it comes down to control. I am a control freak and not having any control really, really chaps my hide. 

I am going to try to enjoy more things this month, too, and do little projects that I want and stop waiting until we move to do them.

Bring on the May!

One third of 2014 is done already. Can you believe that? Vroom…

April was a busy month. Work has gotten hellishly busy. It’s funny – last year at this time it was the same way. It’s cyclical, but my company can’t seem to stay ahead of it and now is the time morale sinks. I feel like I need another vacation, even though I had one in February.

So, here were the goals to work for in April:

1.  60 minutes of exercise a day. I pretty much rocked this goal. There were a couple days were I did 45 minutes, but all other days were 60 with more on biking days. Whenever I make an exercise goal, I pretty much always meet it.

2.  Clean the windows! Well, we have 17 windows and 3 got done. At this rate, they will be all clean by September LOL! This will be going on the May goal list.

3. Figure out my eating plan.  I started doing lower carb a few days a week and I added a morning snack so I have 6 eats per day in a calorie controlled context. This was added after reading Yoni Freedhoff’s book (which again I will review at some point, probably next week). No difference in my weight or clothing this month, which I have to admit is slightly annoying since I am working really hard.

4.  Experiment with my sourdough starter.  I made sourdough crepes again and a wonderful loaf of bread early in the month. I have the starter out now proofing to make crumpets, but have just been either too busy or too tired this week to get it done. I blame work for that one.

So, not too bad on the goals. At least the important ones for health were there. The windows won’t hurt anybody if they are dirty and no birds should fly into them when they are dirty  😉

Welcome April!  I don’t do the pranks on April 1st, do you?

I have to tell you about my bargain. A few months ago, I saw a chair at TJMaxx that I just loved the color of.  It was only $99. However, we were thinking we were going to be moving soon and didn’t want to buy more stuff. Every time I went to that store over last last few months, I would always look at ‘my’ chair. Finally, Sunday I was browsing after getting my hair cut and at first I didn’t see the chair, but it was moved and the priced marked down to $79!  Again, I didn’t want to buy a piece of furniture before we move, but since we don’t know how long it will be, I decided to get the chair. We went out last night and picked it up.

I think it is a pretty snazzy chair for $80.  Pixie loves it, too, unfortunately. I already had to brush hair off it.  I am in love with the color. Good thing we are moving because it doesn’t go with our living room wall color 😉  We have the next contract extension in the works for another 30 days, sigh, so no move in the near future.

On to April goals:

1.  60 minutes of exercise a day.  I don’t necessarily mean all out stuff for an hour every day, but on days where I am not lifting, I need to be biking or walking for 60 minutes. That’s my goal.

2.  Clean the windows! It’s spring cleaning time. John is enlisted to help with this, but I would like to get the winter grime off the windows this month. Just in time for pollen season 😀

3. Figure out my eating plan.  I am doing the FBB, which will continue, but I am not seeing the results that I want to see after 6 weeks. Strength is progressing, but no change in how my body looks or fits in clothes. I need to tweak something, which means the eating plan since the lifting is good. Not sure quite how yet, but I have set forth the goal.

4.  Experiment with my sourdough starter. Breadipus Rex is alive and kicking after being dormant in the fridge for a while.  Quite so – I fed him and he went and exploded all over.

It’s alive!! Gonna need a bigger jar…

5. Start my for-hire contractor business.  Okay, that’s an April Fool’s joke 😀

I think that is a good set of goals to work on this month. Have you got any plans for April?

Seems it is March, but we are still in the grip of winter.  At least there is light at the end of the tunnel, right?  Or is that snow…

 John and I went shopping on Saturday. I knew it was going to be a good day when John said to me “I want to go shopping today. I need a coat.”  I was ready with bells on!!

We tried a new store. It’s called Peter Harris.  I used to love Label Shopper, but it closed.  Or so I thought. I guess it was absorbed by Peter Harris.  I wish I had known that before!  Anyway, I found this beautiful shirt and it was only $9.99!

Of course, it is short-sleeve, so it will be a while before I will be wearing this. I also tried on a bunch of jeans, but I want to work on my fit female stuff for a while before buying any new pants. My top size is always the same, but my pants size changes crazily in short periods of time.

So, these are the things I want to work on this month:

Goals:

1.  Continue with the Female Body Breakthrough program, really sticking with the 90/10 eating plan.  It’s going well for me so far and I want to continue.

2.  Work on paring down my closet. Time to donate the stuff I don’t wear much.  I have bought a good amount of sale items this year and need to get rid of things to balance that out.

3.  Ride my bike – outside.  Snow be damned. I am going outside on the bike this month. It will be late in the month after some of this snow melts, but I will get out there.  For my own sanity.

4. Do another guitar video.  These are good for me to do since it gives me a mini goal. Kind of like a little concert or something LOL!

I like to have 5 goals, but I can’t think of another one now other than finishing the counters, but that’s too much of a softball.

Saw a fun birdie this morning.  I went out to warm up the car early this morning and I thought I heard a woodpecker. When we went to leave, I looked around again and saw him across the street.  Hi Woody!

This is a pileated woodpecker, I am pretty sure.  I bet he woke up the people in that house, too.  😀

Check back on Monday for our monthly AIM post!

It’s December 4th already. EEEEK!!!  We were up kind of early today. Both John and I had trouble sleeping and woke up at 5 am.  John was able to fall back asleep, but I was awake. Ugh. Need coffee.  I haven’t posted a bagel day in a while, so here is my wheat bagel and coffee 😀

Here were my November goals and how I did.

1. A stretching and foam rolling program. I did not do so well on this.  We did, however, solve John’s sciatic problem by flipping over our mattress. It’s a pillow top, so you aren’t supposed to to that, but it was getting too soft in the middle and he was getting his body all bent during the night. Flipping the mattress solved his problem that night. It’s definitely firmer on the non pillow top side. Now we can avoid buying a new mattress for a little while anyway.
2. No nog until Thanksgiving!  I had my nog latte on Thanksgiving and that is the only one I have had so far, actually.
3. Two different vegetables a day. Fail. I was having a hard time even getting in one sometimes!
4. Less snacking. I did okay with this, but stress eating still tends to get the better of me.
5. Tackle a big project.  We started working on building the table!

Now for December.

1. 60 minutes of exercise most days.  Usually I shoot for 45, but now with treat season in full swing, I want to up that to 60 minutes. Mix of weights and cardio.
2. Make another guitar video.  For my captive blog audience 😀  I might shoot for a Christmas carol or another piece. Or who knows, maybe you will be lucky enough to get 2 videos!
3. Finish the table.  Gotta move on that as we are hosting Christmas Eve dinner. Tick, tick, tick.
4. 15 minutes of house cleaning every day. Getting back to Fly Lady style and keeping on top of messes and stuff.
5. No weight gain. Pretty self explanatory.

The month is already going by fast. Or I guess it seems to because Thanksgiving was later this year. It doesn’t slow down from here on out, either.

Down to the last part of the year already!  I had my monthly garden club meeting today and we made bookmarks and cards from pressed flowers from everyone’s gardens this year.  I missed the meeting where it was decided to press flowers, so I hadn’t done that, but there were plenty of flowers to share.

I made 2 bookmarks.  We just used card stock, the dried plants and then covered with clear contact paper. Very easy!

My 2 bookmarks:

Time for some November goals!

1. A stretching and foam rolling program. This one involves John! I have noticed in the last month that my sciatica is bothering me and my leg has been hurting more. I don’t know if it is coincidental with less biking and more other things or caused by that. Regardless, that means time for more of the PT exercises for it. Now John has been feeling some IT band stuff in his leg, so he will be joining me (reluctantly) with this so that he feels better.
2. No nog until Thanksgiving!  This I do every year because I could drink eggnog by the gallon.  I know it is a love hate thing for people and I am firmly in the love category.  It’s also one of those things that I can drink a lot of.  For whatever reason, eggnog is not too rich for me like it is for pretty much everyone else LOL.  So, I have to limit it during the season.
3. Two different vegetables a day.  I need to make sure my nutrition is better as we get into the season of holiday goodness.  I have no problem with the broccoli, but I want to do better with other veggies.  This does include pumpkin, but not white potatoes. I might include sweet potatoes because I rarely eat those.
4. Less snacking. Shall I add keeping the snacking under control again? I think I should. It was not a success in October and really important at this time of year.  Thanksgiving is only 1 day out of the month – not 30!
5. Tackle a big project.  This is either going to be making a table or painting one of the bedrooms.  I am leaning towards a dining room table, but I need to price out the wood and see if it is really cost effective enough to do it.

That sounds good enough for the month, I think.

Weather looks good for a bike ride on Saturday, so I will be getting closer and closer to my goal!

I never did any goals for September because the month started off with me out of town and then I was slammed busy for a week.  However, a new month as begun and a new set of goals!

But first, an update on Pixie’s new bed – she loves the bed.  However, I think she didn’t like the pillow I put in it, so I took that out and left just the towel in there and she seems much happier.  I took the pillow and put it on her usual perch by the window.  Now she loves that, too!

She now uses both beds and seems supremely happy, which makes me happy 😀

On to October goals!

1. Try at least one new recipe a week.  This will help me plan meals a little better and get out of the rut I am in.  I sometimes have the same thing for dinner 3 days in a row (and it isn’t leftovers!).
2. Make a list of all the things to do around the house and actually do some of them.  There are all those little projects that get neglected, like wiping down cupboards, neatening the closet, depapering the table, etc., that just hasn’t been getting done.
3. Curb snacking.  This one is starting to get away from me, so need to be more aware.
4. The return of the Pink Picture!  To promote awareness for breast cancer this month, I will post a picture of something pink whenever I do a post (except a recipe post because the pink picture doesn’t make sense in the archives). Along with the picture will be the link to click to help promote free mammograms.

That ought to keep me busy.

To be filed under just another little thing that made me happy:

I broke a string on my guitar a couple weeks ago and put in a replacement. Turns out I hate that brand of string.  It buzzed and sounded yucky and was irritating me when I practiced. So I ordered some new strings.  The annoying thing with strings is that I can’t just get a single string and have to purchase a whole set. If only I broke a different string each time, but I tend to break the same ones  (E, A and B) and I have a few partial sets now.  Anyone need a G string?     Anyway, I digress.  Yesterday came my new strings and I love the replacement.

I am tempted to do all rest of the strings, but stringing is a pain in the ass. Hopefully these will last as advertised. I am going to have to make another video before the end of the year.  Maybe a Christmas tune?

Today’s pink picture?  It has to be Pixie’s new bed, right?

Welcome to October!