So many of us make New Years Resolutions, but how many of us actually achieve those goals we set our for ourselves? Resolutions often fade in our minds around tax time, and then right around the Holidays, we start to feel guilty for wasting a whole year doing nothing to work on our self imposed ambition. I think that's why in January, the gyms are packed with people, and by April, the population waiting in line for a stair stepper has dwindled to none. Like most women I know, I tend to have the same resolutions each year: to lose those 5, 10, 15lbs I feel I need to lose-even when I was a slight size 2 and weighed only 115 on my 5'6 frame, I thought I could stand to lose a little more fat from my butt. But I guess that's a folly of being an early twenty something girl. Sure, I'm reaching 30, not young, not old, but I'm starting to see age on my face and body from stress and life, and while I'm starting to realize just how foolish I had been and how I'd KILL to only need to lose a few tiny fat spots from my derriere.
Resolutions can be a good thing, though, a source of motivation or the impetus to self improvement. But more times than not, it's a cause for finding the acutest faults with oneself, or your life. And you feel guilty when you fail to reach the goal.
I think the best kind of resolution is the realistic one, where you enlist the help of friends and family, people who know you best, to help you get to where you want to be. My husband and I have decided to start early. We are redoing our home offices so that they are more relaxing, more organized, and overall a nicer place for us to work and relax. We think it'll help us be happier, more productive and less stressed if we improve our surroundings. We're painting huge rooms, lifting heavy furniture, running up and down stairs and working hard. Neither one of us would do it alone, but we're doing it together, so it's getting done. We've also decided to move my letterpress workshop to our cellar and turn the old workshop into a work out space. I'm taking my treadmill back from my parents, we already put the inversion table out there
(this thing is awesome, I love it-but consult your Dr. first!). We're putting down mats, moving our weights from the attic and planning to get our gym ready to use by early Spring, at the latest.
Having someone to monitor and motivate makes resolutions attainable, and gives you someone other than yourself that you don't want to disappoint. We'll push one another to work out instead of eating out, just like we did redecorating the office. I'll keep him motivated, and he'll do the same for me. We'll look better, we'll feel better, and we'll keep one another on the right track. I'm counting on him to give me the gumption to get back to my pre-wedding fitness routine. Plus, I feel a little safer hanging upside down from my ankles after an exhausting workout knowing that he's there behind me.
You know the saying..Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue. The color blue and weddings are like Peanut Butter and Jelly. A Tiffany engagement ring, one of the most coveted items on any besotted ladies list comes in a little blue box. Blue is such a great wedding color, namely because there are so many versatile shades, but also because it can stand alone as the star of the show (behind the bride of course) or it can blend well as a supporting character among just about any other color. I could go all Bubba on you naming all the colors that work well with blue, but I won't bore you or make you read it. Just enjoy the eye candy and have a blue day!
Images courtesy of Mi Belle, Marie Labbancz, Jose Villa, Snippet and Ink, Martha Stewart,
Aren't my nephews the cutest boys EVER? I took these over the Holidays-the boys finally fit into the overalls Nic and I bought them, and they were so adorable, I had to stop taking pictures and squish their little bellies! Gotta love babies....
Ethan making his famous "Stay Puffed" face
Ethan, the one with the biggest 'tude, looking like he's gonna punch me in the face. He didn't, but he always has his hand clenched in a teeny tiny fist!
I am the sort of cook that tends to never write anything down or stick with a recipe, IF i follow one. I have a vague idea of what I'm making, but I sort of cook off the cuff, so to speak. My mother has an array of delicious dishes that I grew up with, and I tend to long for those homemade favorites, especially when the weather is colder. I guess I get more nostalgic in a colder climate, because I have been nagging my mother to get me her notebook of recipes. She happily obliged, and she handed over this tattered folder chock full of her family recipes, dating back to who knows when in her family. The notebook has cooking stains, and the pages are starting to turn to yellow, and crinkle a little around the edges from age and use. My mom is old school. So old school, that she rocks a punch key typewriter, Betamax and a turntable with a huge assortment of vintage vinyl. She isn't a hipster, they bit HER style, and if she's the trendsetter in all things retro, you might spy those cool coffee shop jockeys rockin' some cotton stirrup pants, kitten embroidered sweatshirts with a coordinating dickie sewn in. She recently got her very first computer, a mac laptop, and has decided to leave her comfort zone of 19th century technology and blaze headfirst into the 21st century. Since she's becoming a thoroughly modern mother, I thought it might be nice to take all her recipes and put them into a custom printed, modern cookbook for her. Part of me wishes I had thought of this in time for the holidays, but what the heck, I'll throw caution to the wind and get her this little present just because.
