Goals update

Posted on April 7, 2012 by admin

Since we are at about 1/4 of the way through 2012, I thought that I would revisit my goals for the year to see what my progress is as well as whether or not I should make any changes. Overall, I’ve been pretty good with sticking with my goals, but I am going to drop the Sprite Stitch Challenge. I just don’t have the time/resources that I thought I would at the beginning of the year.

Health

Lose at least 75 lbs by the end of the year (totally doable and will leave me at a still healthy weight): I am already at -25 and am working on the rest of it. May have to make another goal once I reach this one, though.
Exercise regularly (weekdays; alternating between cardio and strength exercises): Exercising regularly, but I have not been doing the strength training exercises like I had wanted to. I will have to make a concentrated effort to work on this.
Drink recommended daily amount of water every day (even the weekends, which is where I usually drop the ball). I’ve been doing really well with this and have completely eliminated soda from my diet and have been drinking tea, coffee, and water.
Pay attention to portions: Again, I have been doing really well with this and plan to stick with it.
Get physicals done at least twice this year: Already scheduled my first physical of the year.
Get a cleaning at the dentist at least twice this year: Also just scheduled my first cleaning of the year.
Keep up with blood work to keep OBGYN/Oncologist off my back Yeah….I should probably do that….
Whiten teeth regularly: About to do my second round of whitening (four/year)
Don’t drink soda: Mission accomplished!

Finances

Pay off all of 2010′s medical bills by year’s end
Put money into savings after each pay period: Starting to do this.
Pay off last credit card
Start retirement fund and put money in it monthly: Yeah…haven’t done this yet.
Make monthly budgets and stick to them: Getting good with this one.

Social (ness? ability?)

Update blog every week day: I need to get better about this, but have already blogged more than I did all of last year.
Write a letter to any friend at least once a month: Done!
Initiate conversations with your friends (I kinda suck at that): Doing a lot better with this.
Call mom and dad at least once a week: I was doing really well with this until my new schedule at work started. Will have to get back on the ball.
Visit Florida for at least a week: Done! And trying to see if I can’t make another trip.
Visit with Nikita more often: Done. And I think I’ve already seen her more this past few months than I did all last year :<

Projects

Do/make at least 1 thing a month (outside of sprite stitch challenge): I have not been doing this at all…
Document (photograph) everything that I make: Will do if I make anything.
Don’t over-commit: Mission accomplished!
~~Do monthly sprite stitch challenges~~ Scratched off the list because I just don’t have the time to do them.
Hand make presents more often than buy them: Done this a few times already

Organization

Find a way to organize mail and bills: Done. Getting a mail organizer once we move.
Donate clothes I don’t wear at least twice a year: I have four bags of clothes that I need to drop off to the donation center.
Donate books I know I won’t re-read: I also have a box of books to drop off…
Find a way to organize badges, closet, make up, shoes and accessories that won’t drive the bf crazy or look tacky: Will be looking more into this once we make the move. I am leaning toward framing them.

Knowledge

Go through electronics textbook
Get a cert
Do something that’s mentally challenging and not mentally challenged

Misc.

Read at least two books a month: Up to about 4 books a month now, so I would say that this has no problem being met.
Stick with the ISBC throughout the year: So far, so good!
Do something good for yourself just because at least once a month: I kind of have been doing this. I skipped last month, though, since I spent time with family (even though that can arguable be considered a good thing for me).
Have at least a monthly date night with the bf: Done!

This month’s goals

Posted on March 29, 2012 by admin

March seems to have gone by in a whilwind. I had an amazing week in Florida with my friends and family. M seemed to really enjoy himself as well, which was a very nice bonus. I didn’t update once during the trip because every time that I sat down to do it, I felt exhausted from the day’s activities. I will most likely write a recap post on it in the next day or two as well as post some pictures up for the folks who are not on my Facebook and, as a result, were saved from me spamming them with pictures and check ins.

~~Read this month’s ISBC book~~ The discussion post and link to the new message board will be up tomorrow.
~~Read 4+ other books~~ (Finished Carpe Jugulum, Witches Abroad, Maskerade, and It’s Not All About “Me”: The Top Ten Techniques for Building Quick Rapport with Anyone)
~~Put money in savings~~
Keep up with blog posts while on vacation (This totally did not get accomplished. Sorry.)
Get an average of 50,000 steps a week on the fitbit (Averaged closer to between 35-40k)
~~Finish the 100 push up challenge~~
~~Go to Dinosaur World~~
Go on an airboat tour of the Everglades (This, sadly, did not happen)
~~Go on a haunted tour of downtown St. Petersburg with friends~~
~~Eat the best Cuban sandwich I can find~~ Holy crap, mission accomplished
~~Do something with Nikita for her birthday~~ Just a quick visit, but I am planning a BFFSW day for when we are both able to.
~~Go to goddaughter’s birthday party~~
~~Do something special with goddaughter for her birthday~~
Make Easter baskets for the godkids and leave them with their momma (Didn’t have the time to do this, sadly, but am going to send the kids something special)
~~Prep hard drive for cousin~~
~~Prep laptop for little sister~~ Didn’t actually do this, but crossing it off because I found that the laptop was in too poor of a condition for me to give it to her.

All in all, not a bad month. There are more things that were left unchecked on the list than I would care for, but I’ll just have to live with it. I’m planning on doing much better this month and my goals for April are as follows:

Send Sara a birthday present and wish her a happy birthday.
Read the ISBC book of the month.
Read 4+ other books
Send godkids something special for Easter
Send something to cuzzo for her birthday and wish her a happy birthday
Find best apartment ever to move in to by the middle of May
Self-appreciation day
Get 10,000 steps daily
Get back on track with posting every week day (less filler, too, if possible)
Start packing and arrange for movers once best apartment ever has been found.

There is probably a whole heck of a lot more that I want to get accomplished this month, but these are the things that are standing out most in my mind. I have a few projects on the back burner as well, but I don’t really want to announce them until they are out of the planning stage and are close to happening. I will be sure to keep everyone up to date, though.

Health update/Goals

Posted on March 13, 2012 by admin

So I had set a personal goal for myself when I was first booking the trip to Florida back in January: I want to be 25 lbs lighter than I was when I last visited. That was also around the time that I started up on Weight Watchers again because I have had really good results with it before when I was on it during high school. I am now very pleased to say that I have met (and passed) my goal! I am currently 30 pounds lighter and 2 sizes smaller than I was when I last visited my friends and family back at home. Coincidentally, this is the same size I was when I first moved from St. Petersburg to Seattle. Now for my next short-term goal: drop 50 lbs by DEF CON. It seems like a huge number in a short period of time, but it is actually only roughly 2.6 lbs. a week (19 weeks or so until DEF CON, HOLY CRAP).

I also plan on gradually increasing my daily number of steps. According to the fitbit, I average about 4500 steps a day. This is a little less than half of what is considered the minimum number of steps that need to be taken if you live an active lifestyle (10,000). It sounds a little daunting, but I figure that with my new work schedule (8AM-7PM W-Sa) I should be able to work it out. I want to continue to do my morning hikes with Amanda on Sundays, but also want to add mini hikes on Mondays and Tuesdays. On the days that I work, I can hit the apartment’s treadmill once I clock out (the workout area isn’t open until 8AM and closes at 10PM, so I would only be able to hit it up after work). It may all sound a bit ambitious, but I am anxious and excited to see how it turns out!

February recap and March goals

Posted on February 29, 2012 by admin

So, here we are at the end of another month. It seemed to have flown by pretty quickly and I was kind of lax about getting stuff done, unfortunately. I didn’t do the Sprite Stitch Challenge, even though I had two months to complete it. I just didn’t have the creative juices flowing on what I wanted to make and then once I figured out what I wanted to do, I just didn’t have the time to do it. I also have no excuse for not writing on here every day or for not doing the letter to a friend this month. I did, however, buy some stationary so the letters going out from now on won’t be on lined notebook paper, which is nice.

~~Read this month’s ISBC book~~
~~Read 3+ other books~~ (listed them in yesterday’s post)
~~Put money in savings~~
~~Book rental car for vacation~~
Do the Sprite Stitch Challenge
~~Make a budget for the month~~
Write letter to a different friend
Write blog posts every week day (failed already yesterday….)
~~Arrange for shuttle pick up/drop off for next month’s vacation~~
Get an average of 70,000 steps a week on the fitbit (been averaging at 40,000. I think it is because we didn’t go hiking for two weeks and then last week I got hit with a bad allergy attack)
~~Stick with the 100 push up challenge~~

The month of March is going to be a little different because I am also including stuff I want to do/see while in Florida (not going to mention people in particular because I don’t want to hurt people’s feelings if I don’t see them or if they aren’t included on the list).

Read this month’s ISBC book
Read 4+ other books
Put money in savings
Keep up with blog posts while on vacation
Get an average of 50,000 steps a week on the fitbit
Finish the 100 push up challenge
Go to Dinosaur World
Go on an airboat tour of the Everglades
Go on a haunted tour of downtown St. Petersburg with friends
Eat the best Cuban sandwich I can find
Do something with Nikita for her birthday
Go to goddaughter’s birthday part
Do something special with goddaughter for her birthday
Make Easter baskets for the godkids and leave them with their momma
Prep hard drive for cousin
Prep laptop for little sister

January review and February Goals

Posted on February 2, 2012 by admin

Below are my goals for the month of January. Overall, I did pretty well at keeping up with my goals, but this month I want to get better. Especially with updating here as well as doing the sprite stitch challenge.

~~File taxes~~
Write blog posts every week day (Not done but I still did a lot more than I usually do. Yay me!)
Participate in the sprite stitch challenge this month (Totally didn’t do this, but I have until the end of February to do it)
~~Read the ISBC book for January~~
~~Read at least one additional book this month~~ (Read an additional 3.5 this month; still reading Interesting Times)
Make/mail gifts to the following birthday people:
-Aunt Anne (Fail all around on my part)
-~~@Sunshine_Guinn~~ (Sent a gift to her, but didn’t make it)
-~~Tottendad~~ (Sent a gift to him; but didn’t make it)
~~Make budget for the month~~
~~Write a letter to a friend~~
Donate clothes (I put them all in bags to be donated, just have to do it now…)
~~Put money in savings~~
~~Do something special for myself for 25th birthday~~

So, I think that I did pretty well (over all) when it comes to trying to accomplishing my goals last month. Now to see if I can do it this month! I think since I did a lot more reading than I thought I would, I am going to up the 1+ books to 3+ (would do 4 or 5, but it is a shorter month and I’m only just now finishing up Interesting Times).

Read this month’s ISBC book
Read 3+ other books
Put money in savings
Book rental car for vacation
Do the Sprite Stitch Challenge
Make a budget for the month
Write letter to a different friend
Write blog posts every week day (failed already yesterday….)
Arrange for shuttle pick up/drop off for next month’s vacation
Get an average of 70,000 steps a week on the fitbit
Stick with the 100 push up challenge

Health update and weekly meal plan

Posted on January 24, 2012 by admin

It has been about a week (technically a week and two days) since I started to get back on Weight Watchers. Last week I was unable to go to the gym (the apartment complex has a little gym with weights, treadmills, etc.) because I stuck inside the house and the gym is still being renovated. Yesterday was when I was scheduled to weigh in and I had lost 3 pounds. Not much-I know-but considering I lost that as a result of just eating better (still cheated on Saturday when we went over to Kita’s for game night, but that’s totally my bad) and being more careful with portion sizes. So I remain kind of optimistic. I’m still doing yoga in the mornings and starting this weekend, a friend of mine and I are set to go on a hiking/nature trail once a week. I really do need to get better about getting my blood drawn/tested (late last month was the first time I have done it since surgery), but overall things are good on the health front.

And as far as next week’s meal plan:

Su: Roasted chicken legs, rice and broccoli (~9 points; instead of 5 spice like she used, we are going with a lemon and herb roasted chicken)
M: Sweet and sour chicken with 1/2 cup of rice (6 points)
Tu: Sausage-stuffed shells with side salad (11 points)
W: Crock pot creole chicken (5 points a serving)
Th: Salisbury steak with mashed potatoes and broccoli (7 points)
F: Orange-glazed chicken with 1/2 cup of rice
Sa: Chili (unknown; will update with points)
Breakfast: home-made granola bars with pecans and chocolate (4 points a bar)

Starting on WW again and meal plan for the week of 1/15

Posted on January 12, 2012 by admin

I took the first step in trying to get my weight/eating habits back on track (not just on track, but down to normal, healthy levels) last night. I went and I found all of my old WW stuff that I had saved (I had a bunch of links) as well as found some new recipe sites. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Weight Watcher’s program, you are given a certain amount of points that tells you how much you’re allowed to eat every day (every food item is assigned a point value and there are a lot of free point calculators out there on the webosphere nowadays). So a good chunk of my night was trying to find the formula for determining how many points a day I get (32. Which is crazy high in my opinion, but there you go).

After that, I sat down and completely re-did my meal plan for next week (which is usually done on Tuesdays and then we scour the sales ads on Wednesdays when they come out). The meal plans start on Sunday and go through Saturday; grocery shopping is done every Saturday morning.

So, with all of that said, I figured that it would be easier to post the meal plans (with point values/links/recipes) weekly instead of monthly (since last month showed that it can become a pretty big pain). Sunday is the day where I’m allowing myself a little more freedom with dinners/breakfast so that way it is easier to stick to while I’m starting to get back in the swing of the WW diet. This week’s meal plan includes:

Su-Pesto chicken, peas and cheese tortellini: 15 points
M-BLT salad: 9 points
Tu-Sweet and sour chicken with rice: 7 points
W-Chicken rollatini with spinach alla Parmigana: 4 points. With a side Greek salad: 8 points
Th-Yakiniku don with rice: 9 points a serving
F-Salmon with a ginger, honey, and soy sauce glaze: 7 points. Served with 1/2 cup of rice and broccoli (2 points)
Sa- Stuffed pepper soup: 5 pts/serving
Breakfast for the week- oatmeal bars with blueberries and bananas: 4 points/serving
Snacks-fruit smoothie (recipe given to me by Killface):3 points/serving ; hard-boiled egg: 2 points an egg

Looking backward and forward

Posted on January 12, 2012 by admin

Saying/doing something like “I want to be happy” is a lot more complicated than I originally thought. So I decided to spend some time browsing old pictures and tried to remember what my state of mind was like when that picture was taken. It has helped me realize that I’m not as happy as I was 5+ years ago and I want to figure out why (it is also an excuse to share some old pictures).

Me (left) with my little sister (right)-summer of 2004 I think

For a few summers, my family and I would go to BonAire and scuba dive. This picture was taken during my last summer before graduation and I was having a blast. The world was my oyster and all that other nonsense…During this time:

I was hella tan then. But I’m ok with not being tan anymore. It’s a pain in the butt to keep up and it’s really easy to get embarrassing tan lines. That and I think I look better pale.
I was at my (then) all-time high weight (25 lbs lighter than I currently am). I had just started Weight Watchers and was walking 1 mile every day. No soda and no candy. Occasionally eating out.
I had just started to let my hair grow (when this picture was taken, it was nearing my shoulders) after I made the mistake of deciding to cut it off (something I would do again a few years later and regret even more).
I whitened my teeth regularly (now they’re this awkward yellow from all the coffee I drink)

Me circa 2005

This was taken the year that I graduated from high school. I was super excited about everything (just figured out that I wanted to pursue a career in InfoSec) and:

Reached my all-time low weight (75 lbs less than what I currently weigh)
Acne treatment and teeth whitening were really paying off
I got my hair lightened regularly and have decided to let it keep growing
Made time to read as often as I possibly could
Was going out and doing stuff (visiting friends, going to concerts, meeting people and being active)
Still on weight watchers, jogging 2-3 miles a day and starting to do yoga every morning.
Spending a lot of free time with my friends and (especially) with my goddaughter (I’m ashamed to admit I don’t do either anymore, really…)

Me at DerbyCon 10/2010

Somewhere between then and now, I have gained 95 pounds (have lost 20 since August), bite my nails, stopped getting my hair done/exercising/teeth whitening regularly and just kind of let myself get distracted from what I want and who I want to be and end up with pictures where I’m forcing myself to smile instead of just being happy all of the time. I’m not saying that now I’m a sad sack, I’m not just as happy as I was. Yes, a lot of stuff and experiences have happened between then and now that I wouldn’t change, but I have let myself venture off the path that was working so well for me. I want to be that happier person, who doesn’t have to fake smiles and who actually wants to have her picture taken (instead of insisting on being the one who hides behind the camera) because I’m embarrassed.

January goals

Posted on January 3, 2012 by admin

First, I’d like to wish a Happy New Year to all y’all!

Secondly, I figured that in conjunction with the goals for 2012, it may help if I have monthly goals as well. Some of these goals will have something to do with the long list of goals that I posted. Some of them are just things that I wish to accomplish by the end of the month and may or may not do unless I have it posted somewhere that people can see (it helps to feel like I’m being held accountable for this stuff, even if no one ever reads this or doesn’t give me crap if I don’t achieve these goals).With all of that said, here are the things I wish to accomplish this month:

File taxes
Write blog posts every week day
Participate in the sprite stitch challenge this month
Read the ISBC book for January
Read at least one additional book this month
Make/mail gifts to the following birthday people:
-Aunt Anne
-@Sunshine_Guinn
-Tottendad
Make budget for the month
Write a letter to a friend
Donate clothes
Put money in savings
Do something special for myself for 25th birthday

New Year Goals for 2012

Posted on December 28, 2011 by admin

I figure that I would go ahead and write up all of the goals that I want to accomplish for 2012 (I will be doing a recap on how the trial run went either tomorrow or the day after) so that I won’t accidentally forget some time between now and the 1st. There are 7 main categories that I want to improve in and there are a few “sub-goals” in each of those categories that I will try to accomplish.

Oh and the song has nothing to do with anything, I just like the cover that these girls did of one of my dad’s favorite Foo Fighter songs.