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!

I know you are expecting a What’s Blooming post, but it’s the end of the month and I needed to wrap this up before our trip!

I will share this cool cloud photo, though!

Here were my goals for August and how I did:

1. Cook some new Indian dishes.  I was planning on doing 3, but only ended up doing 2.  Chana Masala and the Aloo Gobi.

2. Lose 4 pounds – Nope.  I lost 1, which is statistically a wash since it could be back up tomorrow.  I have this maintenance thing down, but not the losing LOL!  I was doing 4 no grain days a week and then the scale wasn’t moving, so I added grains to other days and dropped the pound this week. Go figure. 🙄

3. More strength training.  I was not so good with this.  I am just doing too much biking to really do much.  I will just do lighter workouts and focus on heavier lifting when the biking season winds down.

4. Less complaining.  I think I have been doing really well here.  It helps that my work stress has gone down a lot lately.

5.  Finishing up some projects.  I didn’t finish too many projects.  One was to make a houseplant area, which I have here.

The chest we open up twice a year, once to take out the good china for Christmas dinner and once to put it away, so I am using it for the base.  I did find a use for that ammo box! 😀  I need to accessorize a little bit more with the white shelf, but it’s nice.  John said it was like a plant shrine.

Can you believe we are on to September already??

Welcome to August!!  It feels more like fall around here. Rainy and in the upper 60s.  Pixie is back into lap mode again. This is from a few days ago, but it’s pretty much the same around here 😀

Now on to goals for August!

1. Cook some new Indian dishes.  I am going to go for at least 3 and post them on the blog.  Things that are relatively easy.  I love Indian food and I should cook more of that at home.

2. Lose 4 pounds – We are going to Vegas at the end of the month.  This was a bit of a surprise trip.  John’s friend offered to fly us out there, so we are going! Anyway, I thought it might be nice to challenge myself to lose 4 pounds before Vegas.  This will be accomplished by doing 4 days a week of lower carb/grain free and the other 3 days as I normally eat.  I find this system actually works pretty well for that purpose.

Grain free breakfast today?  Ricotta puffs with blueberries!

3. More strength training.  I have the program and I am going to stick with the level 1 for a while longer before moving up.  Being strong really helps my biking, so I can’t slack too much on that.

4. Less complaining.  I feel like I have been complaining too much about stuff lately.  Work, in particular, but that accentuates the other complaints that I normally do.  I need to focus on the positive things about my job and learn to deal better with the negative.

5.  Finishing up some projects.  I have a fair number of half-finished projects around the house (not sure how that happened) and I would like to try to finish some of those up before starting new ones!

Okay, that sounds good!

More than half way through 2013!  I have been a little slack on putting my monthly goals on the blog as the end of last month and beginning of July got busy with BOW and then an AIM post.  So, I thought I would recap some of my goals for July and 2013 so far.

1.  More strength training.  I started the New Rules of Lifting for Life, but am not as consistent as I should be at about 2 times a week.  I should be doing 3.

2.  Bike miles.  Yep, getting those in. My goal was to reach 1250 by the end of July and I am at 1359 as of today!

Anyway, I have new August goals to share tomorrow.

Here are the items on my yearly To-Do list I made back in cold and snowy January!

1.  Take a few guitar lessons.  I have not done these yet. Mostly for monetary reasons. We did the bathroom, got a new car and I got a new computer, so discretionary spending has been pulled back a bit.  I still want to do this, though.  Better work more 😯

2. Bathroom update. Done and done! All pretty much by myself and I can tell you that I still love it just as much!

3. Yep – lose weight again.  I have lost 6 pounds this year.  I have stalled out pretty much since we got back from vacation and then with the start of cupcake biking season. So, that needs a focus again.

4. Either do another 100 mile bike ride or some organized bike events. I am not sure I will do this or not. Either way, I haven’t yet. 🙂

5.  Try to hit 2500 miles on the bike this year.  More than half way there!

6.  Relax more.  Am I?  I don’t know.  I am taking an unexpected weekend getaway at the end of August.  Work has been a bit dreadful in terms of really busy for the last several months, so I haven’t felt very relaxed.  But, I do have a good life 😀

I also added in a goal of reading 30 books this year and making good progress on that.
Not too shabby so far.  Reviewing that list will help me refocus my energy (I hope!)

New goals tomorrow!

Thank you all for the comments on my guitar playing.  I have that sort of pride/embarrassed feeling about posting them.  I am still very much a beginner and I note every mistake in these videos.  Yet, I look at how far I have come in the last couple of years with it.  Then there is the whole upper arm flab thing  😳   But, it’s me, it’s real and unedited.

We have had the most fantastic weather the last few days.  Just gorgeous!  We rode to breakfast today and I tipped my face up to the sun and just reveled in it.  I can’t believe how much the weather can affect my mood.  It was 55 degrees and sunny for our ride.

You know it!

Extreme bagel closeup!  Careful, carbs are catching, you know 😉

It’s now May and time for me to set some things going for the month.  Not too many this month.

1.  Pantry use up.  When I was cleaning out the bottles of dust old spices from the pantry, I saw a lot of half used up food items.  Grains, pastas, beans, etc.  This month will be using up a lot of that stuff.  I cannot buy any new hot cereal until I have used up the quinoa flakes, Wheatena, cream of wheat and oat bran that is currently in various states of being used up.

2.  Keep an extra close eye on my eating.  We are taking a vacation this month, so I need to be extra careful the other weeks of the month.  Nuff said there.

3.  More strength training with weights.  I have been a bit lackadaisical with this lately as biking is consuming all my thoughts.  I am going to write out some programs and follow them.

4.  RELAX! We are taking a very much well-needed vacation and I am going to make the most of it.

That’s it for this month.  It’s going to be a busy month. I have 13 to 15 people coming to my house on Friday and I need to be in full cleaning mode now.  Guess that will move along spring cleaning a bit. 😀