#Hashtag2014

2014

is 

going 

to rock. 

seriously

So many things to look forward to already! 

I'm going to San Diego for the first time!

My drivers license expires!

I'm getting my wisdom teeth removed!

oh 

AND I'M GETTING MARRIED

Truth.

less than 200 days. yah. for real. 

After a crazy, crazy Christmas in seattle (both good crazy and bad crazy), we rang in the new year right: game night, drinks, dance party, a sweet mermaid trophy and of course an intergalactic unicorn shirt, all with fabulous company.

Spiced Apple Kava Kombucha + Sweet Vodka = whoops thats delicious

I love New Years Eve. For some, I know its just another night with super expensive bar covers and a chance for the mayans to tell us the world is ending. But to me its an opportunity to reflect and give thanks for another year.
The following day feels like a fresh start. So much opportunity lies in a new year. What do I want this year to hold? What changes will I make? What do I want to accomplish?

Social media is littered with resolutions right now
"I'm going to work out EVERYDAY for 8 hours while maintaining a full time job"
"I'm going to pay off all my $100,000,000 debt tomorrow with my starbucks paycheck" 
"I will never eat pasta on tuesdays with a full moon"
"I will run twenty marathons while carrying a horse on my back"
 "I will lose 50lbs off my 120lb frame"


Obviously, I'm exaggerating, but frighteningly not by much. This time of year, we feel invincible (hooray!) and like we can take on the world (yah! lets do it!). But this is why so many resolutions fail. By march 1st, we're overwhelmed, overworked, or just plain forgotten what we've resolved to do because none of it was actionable, timely, or realistic.

I prefer to make goals for the new year, things I'd like to accomplish, instead of resolutions. Is there really a difference? Maybe not. But a goal feels like something I am constantly working towards, something I can check off baby steps and see progress. I like that. Today, I am this much closer to my goal.  
So if by the end of this year, I didn't meet my goals-- its not failure, I'm just not finished. I can look at all the great things I accomplished on my way to meeting those goals. Progress doesn't hurt.

Last year one of my goals was to record an entire album. Like of music that I'd written. Ambitious right? yah. Well. Didn't happen. BUT I did record ten songs that I covered and two songs that I'd written. And I am proud of that for sure.

I also, like many, just forgot what I'd resolved to do. I'd written my goals down, but that scrap of paper got lost and found and lost and found and lost all over again.

So this year, I tried something different. I created something I could not possibly lose. 

My lovely friend Em came over for a crafting new years goals party. As a pair of wildly ambitious and crazily crafty women, we really got into this...

Puffy paint, obnoxiously bright colored paper, poster boards, oh my. 

School supplies heaven.

I broke my 2014 goals in four categories:

Life

House

Finances

Fitness

 And I made a lot of them. 

But. 

They are actionable. 

They are measureable. 

They are attainable.

AND they are on bright colored paper, with glitter, on a huge posterboard.

Life goals

• Complete the Artists Way by September 1. This is a 12-week creative development book that I've been dying to really get into. This year. I'm making it a priority
• Make Grad School Happen: Applying to the MPH program at PSU. Submitting my application materials NEXT WEEK. WOAH.
• Read 10 books this year
• Creative Cooking: try one new recipe a week
• Celebrate the small stuff: We now have a jar in our house that is slowly but surely filling up with slips of paper describing happy moments  we've experienced during 2014 so far. Next NYE, we'll read those papers:)

Fitness Goals

• WOD an average of 4x/week: Shit happens, I'd love to workout more. But four days is something I can definitely commit to. 
• Complete 60 doubleunders, unbroken: No singles inbetween, no stops. JUST GO. I got my doubleunders earlier this fall and now I want to make them extra awesome
• Handstands will be my bitch: Seriously. I am tired of being afraid of going upside down. This is stupid. 
• Deadlift more than 300lbs: My current PR is #265. I want to crush that. 
• Backsquat with 195lbs: Current is #175
• Compete at least three times: CrossFit Open, Gorilla Takeover, and ????
• Drop #25 by July 1: Okay this is my token weight loss goal/vain wedding push.  Sure, I'd love to see an ab or six, but I'm feeling strong and happy. If this happens, great, if I only drop five or ten, thats fine too. I've learned the scale doesn't really represent progress. 
• 2013: Gained 8 pounds, dropped two sizes. Say what?

HOUSE goals

• Paint the living room once: In the little more than a year that I've owned this place, the living room has changed colors three times. We need to paint again, but NO MORE after this. 
• Replace the back-fence: Somehow showing off our living room to our neighbors a block away, feels weird
• Build garden by April 1: Six raised beds, moving a couple of sheds and thrashing the shit out of some grass and we are good. 
• Finish the guest room by July 15: Paint, furnish, rid of random shit and make generally habitable.

 FINANCE goals

• Pay off US bank CC by Mar 1
• Pay off Elan CC by Dec 1
• Reduce total CC debt to less than $1000 
• Pay off the damn car by Dec 31
• Transfer $50 week to savings (and leave it there, seriously)

Woah. That is a LOT of goals. 

Let's get goin! 

CrossFit Cat thinks you should make some awesome goals with glitter pens too.

Mid-Way Adjustments

So my month-long May challenge has reached the half-way point. I had every intention of going full-bore, super strict, sugar is the devil, I will rid my life of everything sweet- ass kicking mode.


That's not exactly how things have panned out, but I refuse to say the first half of this month hasn't been successful.
Shane and I have not only decided to run a half-marathon, we've even started our training program. Last night was our first run---nailed it, bam bitches.

Run run ya'll

Annnnnnnd now on Saturdays we roll out of bed and train at Em's
outdoor bootcamp in the beautiful Irving park.








Last summer, we were the couple that beat the heat by sprawling in front of the ac unit to watch tv. Now we are climbing, disc golfing, running and lunging around public parks.

So yes, this month challenge has changed, but my goals have too.
I started my first 21-day sugar detox in March because I felt like my 80/20 approach to diet had become more like 60/40 (sixty for who and forty for who?!) and my weight loss had stalled considerably.
I reigned in my sweet tooth and developed a more conscious awareness of what was on the end of the fork. Great.

But like many before me--- I falter at what to do on day 22! How do I apply all the things I learned during this detox to real life. I started to feel like I was off track again, thus the reason for wanting to jump back into another detox. But, I've started to realize I forget there is a reason its a 21-Day detox or a Whole30 and not a 365 fast.

If I consume something that is wildly outside my dietary lifestyle (sigh there was a mini- apple-turn over incident during the Dalai Lama visit) is it a fail or simply a choice? I really appreciate the Whole9 article approaching this very topic: hypocritical or human? 

Sometimes you can't turn down an opportunity to try a really delicious bourbon or scotch, especially after dealing with angry parents for three hours straight (#commencementticketfail #longstory #Ilovehashtags).

 

It seems backwards.

 I've been toting my recent weight loss accomplishments, only to step on the scale this morning and see a not so friendly number.

I'm up seven pounds.

This is me not freaking out (this is me lying).

I've heard rumors of the initial crossfit gain, but I certainly didn't believe it. I mean I've been doing crossfit for months? ehh.... not really. Going a couple times few weeks is not enough to really shock the system.
But the past few weeks.... I've been working my ass off getting to class at least four times/ week and rocking it, if I do say so myself.

This article shed some helpful light on the ups and downs of starting crossfit http://www.thereformedbroker.com/2012/10/21/the-ten-things-that-happen-when-you-begin-crossfit/

My fabulous friend Jen also put it perfectly "I guess that since we are super buff and fit as shit, we are going to have to get used to weighing a little more while being smaller"

I'll take it. 

move around, lift heavy things, sprint

I have been neglecting my crossfit gym lately. But I have a good excuse!

I bought a HOUSE.

oh HOUSE. Or really I bought a constant source of stress that requires immense physical, as well as financial exertion.

Anyone who has moved knows how exhausting it can be. As I was collapsing onto my makeshift bed on night two, I was feeling oh so guilty for not hitting up the gym between packing, unpacking, painting, cleaning and tearing my hair out.

But then I remembered that it is not about hours spent at the gym (or box or whatever you want to call it).

I totally fulfilled the the philosophy, as I understand it, behind the paleo/primal and subsequently crossfit, lifestyle during my move.

• Move around a lot at a slow pace: Cleaning, packing, crying for four days straight pretty much covers that
• Lift heavy things: I have a really awesome packing style where I put all the heaviest things conveniently in one giant box. Then I enjoy struggling to carry it out to the car, because of course I don't have a dolly, and then I'll quickly decide to drop set it down in a mud puddle. I'll then lift that beast back up, attempting not to throw my back out, and shove it into the car. 
• Sprint occasionally:  My lovely animals have made sure I get my fair share of sprinting. I now understand the expression "herding cats" but probably more literally than others... sigh....

The stumptown snatcher.

Okay I have been tweaking lately. I've been without my beloved ass-kicking workouts on a consistent basis. I've got LOTS of excuses, even good ones, as for why I haven't made it to crossfit the five days a week I promised myself I would.
 Like the class times are inconvenient, I need to sleep and actually the most legitimate, I dont have a car.

But I'm going to have to say fuck that to all of those excuses. 

1. Class times are inconvenient? I have 8 class times to choose from. Get over it. Get out of bed earlier or good lord forbid cut back on the afternoon tv zoning and get to class.
2. Yes sleep is important. But perchance going to bed on time will alleviate the need to sleep till 7:30.
3. I am indeed without a car. BUT I already solved this issue three weeks ago.

Meet the Stumptown Snatcher

Add caption

 I NEED to get back on track. So here are my goals for the remainder of 2012.

1. Crossfit 3/week

2. Run 2/week 

3. Ride my scooter at least once before Halloween ( I may or may not be terrified of it). 

4. Continue to ride said scooter.

5. Lose 12 pounds by Dec. 31

attack of the frump monster

I spent my entire morning creating an outfit based on a stupid scarf I made this weekend. 

MY ENTIRE MORNING.

Granted, getting dressed has become a decidedly difficult task. Not the actual physical act--- I mean if we are talking about morning battles let's address the whole getting out of warm bed and facing the world at the ass crack of dawn. 

The difficulty lies in my lack of wardrobe choices. Forty-five pounds lighter and with a paycheck that also seems to be shrinking, new clothes don't seem to be in my future.

It also doesn't help that my cat steals my socks.... and I am damn well sure he stole the yellow sweater, that fits, that I wanted to wear today.