It’s Stephen the webmaster here… Unfortunately there seems to be a few issues with the site so please excuse our looks while I try and straighten everything out. The site may go offline once or twice, and I’m also going to be changing around the theme. If anything strange happens please just refresh the screen and try again!

Hopefully this will be a quick fix.

-Stephen

My new job is on the 7th floor of an old building that used to be a shirt factory in a previous life.  It now houses all sorts of offices on each of it’s floors.  And in case you wondered, there are 9 floors, and a basement.  That’s 10 flights of stairs, 24 stairs each flight; 240 stairs up, and 240 stairs down.

Going down is easy, and each day, when I finish work, I take the stairs down.  Today, during a break, when I was feeling antsy after sitting so long, I attempted to go up.  And it. was. hard!  I started in the basement, and by the second floor landing, I was winded.  By the time I reached the seventh floor to get back to the training room, my heart was pounding, and my face felt flushed.

So, since I’ve got to sit most of the day, but I do get 2 breaks and a lunch everyday, and often feel the need to move, I figure that those stairs and I are going to be well acquainted with one another. Because that’s what my next fitness bucket list addition is all about.

Fitness Bucket List Addition #1 - 

Make it up the stairs at work, from the basement to the very top, without stopping.

The second thing I’ve been thinking about is push-ups.  I really want to be able to do a real push-up. Not on my knees, not only going part of the way, and then flopping down.  Even in yoga when I do knees-chest-chin instead of chaturanga, I can’t quite do it and flow down.  My chest gets in the way, and my arms give out, and it becomes knees-belly-chest-chin.  So working on my upper-body strength, my planks, my push-ups and knees-chest-chin, are my next addition to the fitness bucket list.

Fitness Bucket List Addition #2 - 

Do a “real” push up.

And that’s it for now!  This girlie is going to bed soon!  And tomorrow (or Thursday?) I have a recipe to share!  (Finally!!!)

And because sharing is caring, do you have a fitness bucket list?  What are some things you said you couldn’t do, but want to try, or have tried?

I’m no stranger to busy days, schedules full to the brim, and mile-long to-do lists.  I’ve always prided myself on my color-coded schedules, which were crucial especially in college, where I balanced being a full-time student with volunteer work, babysitting, working as a tutor, family life, and a semblance of a social life.  And the past few years, with my research job, and figuring out my post-baccalaureate education, plus all the other activities I’ve taken on since moving to Albany, my days have certainly been full, and sometimes, worse yet, my evenings and nights too.  But the big contrast between last week, and the busy-ness of the last few years was that for the first time, I was able to leave work at work.  I didn’t carry the stresses of the day home with me as I so often have before, and I like that change the most.

I can honestly say that my highly-flexible, unstructured, yet busy schedule had me feeling burnt out, and so I’m sort of embracing this whole 9-to-5, structured schedule.  In the past few months I felt as though time for myself was fleeting, I was worrying about a million-and-one things because there was no clear demarkation of time that was for work and time that was for me, and I was losing a bit of focus regarding my goals and feeling frustration because I was unable to put things into action to achieve said goals.

But this past week, I did some real cooking for the first time in weeks, because my evenings felt unburdened!  I cracked open a novel!  Knowing that I have a reliable, regular income allowed me to draft a budget, so that I can pay down some debts, be better about saving for long-term things, perhaps embark on my own again!  Having to make decisions about my benefits package, allowed me to reexamine my habits as a consumer, and make responsible choices for myself.  I went to bed early when I felt I needed to (plus, I was battling a cold, so I sorta needed the sleep!)  I worked out solely because my body craved the feeling of moving.  I woke up before my alarm went off nearly every day!  I packed my lunches, ate healthy breakfasts, and besides a few unnecessary dips into the candy basket in the training room, I ate better than I have in a while!  I felt more in touch with myself this past week, and with the things I’ve wanted to work towards, and yet, despite working so hard the past few years, have been unable to.

And maybe it’s just the newness and the naive exuberance of a different venture, and this bubbliness will wear off and yield to the drudgery that jobs are known for.  But regardless, it was a great week, this week was off to a good start too, and I’m looking forward to tomorrow!  I know that adjustments will still be made with my schedule, and finding a new balance between this new job and old responsibilities may take some time.  But even after working a full week, as demanding as it was, and still feeling better about my life in general makes me hopeful that this new job is going to be an asset in my life, and help me overcome some of the hurdles that have stood in my way in terms of working towards some of my goals.  Only time will tell!

So, I’ll be more patient with myself, and if I have any readers, I hope you’ll be patient with me, as I quell my inner critic, and start to add content to this blog.

Now that I’ve assuaged some of my guilt for not blogging, I’d like to do a status check with some of my January goals.  I wrote in my last entry that I had hoped to focus on what I was eating and make better choices, as well as continue my job hunt.  Well, I’m pleased to report that at least with the latter, I’ve had stunning success!

I landed my first full-time job earlier this week!  I start a week from tomorrow and I’m amazingly excited!  It’ll be a good stepping stone for me to work towards some of my other goals.  I also find that I thrive on a structured schedule, and while I’ve loved the flexibility that my other job(s) have given me, I definitely am in need of structure and routine these days.

And that brings me to my other January goal, to improve my eating.  With variable schedules, income and faltering motivation, I haven’t done as well as I’d like to.  I’ve skipped meals, I’ve settled for eating junk, I haven’t drunk enough water and I’m feeling the effects of it all.  I had a doctors appointment earlier in the week, and while my numbers are all great, I don’t feel as great as I know I can.

But, I’m reinvigorated with the prospect of this new job, as well as having a great check-up!  It has me thinking about what I’ll pack for lunches and snacks, what my new routine will be like, and even the nerd in me is rejoicing over a new spreadsheet I created to plan a budget with my new income and track my expenses.

I’m grateful that though my motivation was faltering only 20 or so days into the new year, that my motivation has gotten a bit of a jump-start!  I’m looking forward to seeing how things unfold in the next few weeks (as well as sharing all of it!)

How are your New Years goals going?

Going back to packing lunches and snacks, I want to post about some of the ideas I’ve come up with later this week, but I’d love to hear suggestions that anyone else can offer!  So what’s your favorite take-to-work (or school) meal and snack idea?

The New Year has always represented a “fresh start,” to me.  I was always the girl who wanted to start a new endeavor on a Monday, or the first day of a month, and January 1 is the quintessential first day for making changes.  And yet, I’ve always been averse to the idea of resolutions, in the cliched-campy-everyone’s-doing-it sense.  Instead, I would write in my journal my goals for the year (which sometimes, ironically enough were quite cliched and campy.)

This past year (and really, since I began overhauling my lifestyle), I’ve developed a desire for balance and wholeness in my life; a more holistic way of carrying on my day to day activities.  I’ve learned that what I eat affects not only the number on my scale, but how I feel, physically and emotionally.  I’ve learned that getting in a run at the end of the day, or a yoga class at the start of my weekend significantly affects my outlook.  I’ve learned that how I manage my finances can affect my level of motivation and clarity of my thoughts.  All the little facets of my life are intertwined in ways I didn’t see previously.  My goals for the year ahead strive to honor that, because they address the little facets, that when tended to, make me feel better as a whole.

• Focus on eating whole, nourishing foods – instead of becoming obsessed with how much fat or protein or carbohydrate my food has.  I’ll still keep a food journal, and be mindful of calories, but obsessing over those other numbers actually hindered me more than helped me.
• Focus on moving my body in fun and exciting ways!  (see also:  Fitness Bucket List)
• Ditch the scale.  I was an every-morning-get-out-of-bed weigher, and that, like obsessing over food numbers, hindered more than helped.  My doctor weighs me, and that’s enough for me.
• Establish financial health.  I need to be better about saving money, and I’m actively searching for and hope to find a full-time job to replace my dozen or so part-time gigs!  (I’m kidding about the dozen gigs…mostly.)
• Work towards independence.  This is related to establishing financial health, but also to not be so dependent on the approval of others and being disappointed when I don’t get it.
• That latter part is also part of being comfortable in my own skin.
• Keep up this blog!  ’Nuff said!

In reflecting on past New Year’s goals, a lot of them were about meeting the expectations of others, and conforming to the ideal set by someone else.  Part of my growth has allowed me to reframe my thoughts to make my goals about what I want.  (Example:  Well-meaning people in my life have told me that I would be most comfortable/happy/accepted if I weighed X amount.  Instead of trying to lose enough to weigh X, I’m more interested in how I feel.)

So, those are my goals, in broadly painted strokes.  The specifics I’ll sort out monthly.

This month, I’m focusing on food, and getting those whole, nourishing ones back into my diet on a regular basis, and using my food journal as a way to measure this progress, and continuing my job search.

What do you hope that 2012 holds in store for you?  And since this post is a couple days late, how’s it going so far?

Without further ado, here is 2011, my year in review (in no particular order).

This was the year that I…

• Decided definitively “what I wanted to be when I grew up.”
• Started taking pre-requisite coursework for my Masters and new education and career path
• Fell in love with doing yoga
• Spent a week in Cape Cod with the some of the coolest kids I babysit and their family
• Tried kayaking and LOVED it
• Moved my “baby” brother to his college dorm (in the rain)
• Tried my hand at maintaining a vegetable garden, that yielded a bunch of radishes and turnips but not much else (unless you count the weeds)
• Started doing member hours at the Co-op and discovered that my love for the place was well founded
• Expanded my local social network and met amazing people who I had things in common with
• Discovered the joy of food swaps
• Watched my mother fight breast cancer and struggle with a non-cancer complication, while simultaneously learning how strong she was (and how strong I was)
• Learned to stay true to myself
• Learned to assert myself and reach out when I needed help
• Went apple picking for the first time in my life (why it took 25 years, I’ll never know)
• Struggled with my finances and ability to find a better job due in part to the sh*tty economy
• Learned how resourceful I am, in spite of the sh*tty economy
• Met Michael Pollan, whose book changed my life two years ago
• Had some baking/canning extravaganzas with my very best friends
• Discovered that I really enjoy photography thanks to friend who lent me a camera

I suppose that this is not an all-inclusive list, and that much more happened, but reflecting on these things, and what I learned in each of them, brings back a plethora of memories.

What did this year hold for you?

I’ll be back a little later with two recipes for appetizers that I’m making for this evening’s festivities.  And tomorrow with a post about my goals for the year ahead!