2009 Goals Recap

So how did you do on your goals for 2009? Me? Not so well. I reached four of nine. They were the four easiest too so it's not like I had to really stretch to hit them. Here is the recap:

Running Goals:
1. 5k PR - Nope. Not even remotely close.
2. Run a total of 650 miles. - Funny, I thought I might have been low-balling a bit when I chose this mileage total. Total miles for the year ended up being a whopping 354.
3. Complete a half-marathon without walking. - No. I ended up Gallowalking the one I competed in this year.

Health Goals:
1. Weigh what my driver's license says I do. - Bwahahahaha!! Not only did I not come close to this one but the six pounds I had lost at mid-year have been regained along with three others. I am now the heaviest I have ever been. Epic fail.
2. Have all preventive health and dental services - Success! I also added a mammogram and a core needle biopsy for good measure. Way to overachieve!

Personal Goals:
1. Go someplace in state you have never been before. - Done. This is the easiest one of all. I went to Friday Harbor for the first time this year.
2. Go someplace out of state you have never been before. - Done. Napa Valley, South Dakota, Yellowstone National Park and Devil's Tower.
3. Pay off a minimum of half of my debt. - This would be the epic fail if not for the weight loss. This would be much closer if Ollie hadn't been single handedly (paw-edly?) trying to stimulate the economy not once, but twice, this year.
4. Finish my Bachelor's degree. - Done. Even though this was probably the biggest challenge in the grand scheme of things this was also kind of a gimme. Unless I was abducted by aliens this was pretty much a foregone conclusion. I also attribute some of my other failed goals to the evils of school. Yes, I could have made running and weight loss more of a priority while going to school, lots of people do, but I felt like I couldn't add much more to my plate.

Have you thought about what you want to accomplish in 2010?

Dream Come True

Guess where we are going in February?If you said Vancouver, B.C. for the Olympics you would be correct.

Kevin got us tickets to a men's long-track speed skating medal event and a men's ski-cross medal event. Any events would have been great. Seriously. Women's curling elimination round between Latvia and Uzbekistan? Great, we'll be there. However, he knew that the event I wanted to see most of all was long-track speed skating. That is what I would most want to compete in out of all Olympic events.

Getting to go to the Olympics is a dream come true for me and this is probably the only chance I will ever get. I am practically bouncing off the walls with excitement.

Oh, the critter in my arms is MukMuk. He is a marmot. I am quite enamored of him.

The Week Before Christmas

Here are some random bits and pieces from the last week.

Here are Mike and Amber decorating gingerbread houses over at our place last Tuesday.

The top picture below is the house that Kevin and I made. Yes, there is a cactus. Yes, there is also a snowman homicide and yes, the snowman is, in fact, quite happy to see you.
The Sunday before Christmas Kevin and I went downtown to see the professional gingerbread house displays. The theme this year was Christmas movies. Snoopy's doghouse was fabulous. I wish I had gotten a better picture of the inside of it. He even had a dog bowl full of kibble (cocoa puffs).

The best display was the one for "A Christmas Story". The leg lamp was made out of clear gummy bears, licorice and black jelly beans with red licorice sitting in for the red fringe on the lamp. There were little scenes from the movie in gum paste all around the bottom of the display and the whole thing was set on a gingerbread box that looked just like the one the leg lamp was delivered in. I am always amazed at people's creativity. How they come up with the concepts and the materials to use is a true talent.

After gingerbread houses we went out for my belated graduation dinner. Really the dinner was an excuse to open a great bottle of wine we had been saving. We went to my favorite restaurant, Eva, and had a tremendous meal. The wine was well worth the wait.

Just because I wanted to post these pictures: Our Christmas pig!

The Bon Star (It can never be the Macy's star) and the downtown tree. It isn't Christmas without the Bon Star. Every time I see it I think of how my sister once said she wanted to die. She wanted to be standing underneath that sucker and have it fall and pierce her skull. She has subsequently changed her mind.

And a picture that has nothing to do with Christmas but it is proof positive that I have now attended a football game. I somehow managed to get to my ripe old age without ever seeing any kind of football game; not high school, not college, not pro, not Canadian...nothing. It was actually kind of fun. I still don't give a rip about the actual game but I am glad we went.

By the way...only seven weeks until pitchers and catchers report for spring training and the real sports season can begin again.

Holiday Spirit

I love Christmas. I love everything about it. I look forward to it all year long. I am a Christmas whore. I get giddy and happy and insanely festive this time of year. Kevin even says I have a "Christmas smile" which is the biggest, most genuine, happiest smile of them all. However, I have not been feeling festive this year. I have even seriously contemplated boycotting Christmas; or at least as much as I can get away with . No cards, no baking, no socializing, no Christmas music and no more decorating aside from the ginormous living room tree already completely covered in ornaments ... and the smaller 6 ft. auxiliary tree decorated only in lights in the bedroom...and the one at my parents house...and the work tree...but that's it...no more!

But since I love Christmas so much I wasn't ready to let it go quite yet so I asked Kevin to take me to Leavenworth for the tree lighting for a graduation present. So off we went early Saturday morning determined to absorb all the Christmas fabulousness that there is to absorb. As an aside, poor Kevin needed a break too. The refrigerator died on Wednesday and he had to buy a new one (and it is beautiful...angels sing when you open this one up) and then we had a pipe burst in the garage on Friday night. Friday night was a combination of cleaning up the garage and busily making a cake for my father's birthday on Sunday. Good times.

Here are some pics of the day:

The last one is the frozen Wenatchee River. Brrrrrr!

Chestnuts were eaten. Wine was consumed. Lights were lit. It had moments of festive and it sure was pretty but the Christmas feeling wouldn't stick. I was ready to call it quits on the holiday until I finally got some well-needed rest last night and a night alone (by shutting myself in my office). Today the Christmas spirit is burbling and I feel the festiveness coming on. The baking and the socializing and the music and the cards and the lights are all back on. I couldn't be happier. I might even flash some Christmas smiles.

I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday season. It truly is the most wonderful time of the year.

To Do

Well, I don't feel any smarter. Quite the opposite in fact. I feel like I have contracted some weird degenerative brain disease.

When I am not suffering from the effects of the degenerative brain disease I am busily plotting all I am going to do with my free time now that the evil that was school is over with. I was actually daydreaming during a class all about that and made a list instead of listening to the instructor's lecture.

Here are a few things I came up with to occupy my free time:

• Run
• Back to yoga classes
• Clean the house
• Maintain the house cleanliness
• Restart my Netflix subscription
• Read books for the sheer enjoyment of it and not because someone will be testing me on my retention. If the books make me want to fall asleep and/or gouge my eyes out from boredom I will simply stop reading them.
• Spend time with people other than just Kevin and my co-workers
• Cook
• Bake
• Start taking classes for fun
• Sit on my butt and watch TV

I just have to make it through the busy Christmas season and all of those fun things can be mine.

DONE!!

I am like this now........only less amphibious.

Lessons Not Learned

It is 10:24 p.m. and what am I doing that I vowed I would never do again? That's right...waiting for the other members of my group to finish their parts of our last paper that is due tomorrow. At least this time someone else is editing and she will merely pass it to me for final formatting. Clearly, college has not made me any smarter.