Category Archives: monthly goals

April Wrap Up!

Quickie post! Another month come and gone. Forward into spring now – woo hoo!

May is going to be a busy month.

Here were my goals for April:

1. 250 miles on the bike. I didn’t quite make it. Weather didn’t cooperate as fully as I would have liked, but I did get 170 miles in.

2. Do a month of body weight only exercises. I was somewhat lame about this and only posted 1 of the routines.

3. Guitar video. I posted one yesterday and as a bonus for lucky listeners, a second one below!

4. Clean out the pantry. I did clear out some old spices, but I think we need to do a “use stuff up in the pantry” month.

5. Try 2 new veggies. I did one – the rutabaga. Turns out this time of year there aren’t a lot of new types of produce in the market. I could have done something like orange cauliflower, but that would have been pretty lame of me. 😀

So, yesterday I posted a video and here is the other one. Waltz in E by Carulli

I like yesterday’s recording better, but this is a fun tune. Next videos will be even better in the future!

Back with May goals tomorrow.

April Goals

Brand new first full month of spring and it still feels like winter around here. Strong winds and spitting snow. I thought it was supposed to be April showers?? Hello?

At least a hot breakfast warmed me up. New to me product that I found:

It’s a nice alternative to other hot cereals. It doesn’t have all the protein that is usually in quinoa, so I don’t know what happened when they flaked it.

I did this banana custard style. You could definitely taste that it was quinoa. I liked it, but I don’t think I would buy this very often because the flavor wasn’t worth the price.

So, it’s time! Goals for April:

1. 250 miles on the bike. I almost was going to go for 400, but then I realized that it is April and the supposed showers, plus that is a big ramp up of miles in 1 month seeing as I did 60 in March 😀 I won’t be too upset if weather causes me to miss this goal (remind of this, please, when I am whining).

2. Do a month of body weight only exercises. This is something fun to try to not do weights, but just work with body weight exercises working all muscle groups. I’ll be listing what I do for these.

3. Guitar video. I haven’t made you listen to a guitar piece in a while, so it is time to do that again!

4. Clean out the pantry. Okay, since I have utterly failed at cleaning out my bedroom closet the last 2 months, let’s try the pantry. We have some spices and stuff back in there from the stone age that need to go. We need to get new spices, too. Good thing is that all those old spices can go in my garden for compost. Instant herb garden!

5. Try 2 new veggies. I actually had one today, but I need to find another. Been slacking in the Great Veggie Experiment category.

That ought to keep me in line this month 😀

I got this shot of Pixie being all annoyed at her tail again.

Her face cracks me up. She was hating on that tail for a good 10 minutes LOL!

Weekend Ride and March Wrap Up!

50 degrees means bike riding! I only needed a few layers today. 😀 I dare anyone not to notice me in these colors!

I wanted to get in a 20 mile ride today. Need to ramp up mileage fast if I am going to get in 2500 this year. The gravel part of the bike path is still soggy, so it was mostly road riding. Lovely intersection near the path.

Then John took the lead and went where I wasn’t thrilled about going. Too much traffic on this road in the afternoon for me. Normally we ride this early Sunday morning when we bike to Panera Bread and it is pretty empty. Not on a Saturday afternoon.

After getting into Queensbury, we hooked onto the paved bike path.

This was our turn around spot. Mile 9. I was ready to go further, but John wanted to turn around and head for a snack 😀 You just can’t resist this face.

We road back to Glens Falls and hit up Coffee Planet at mile 12! A 20 mile ride earned me an espresso brownie 😀

Love longer ride days

New artwork on the walls.

I think this is sort of a cross between Picasso and Tim Burton.

More path riding homeward. This is what we call the Sprinkles bridge because at the bottom of the hill is Sprinkles ice cream (open for the season).

Home again:

Ride stats:

Total miles: 20.3

Average speed: 12.4 mph

Top speed: 20.3 mph

Calories burned: 590 (hello brownie!!)

Longest ride of the year so far. Not quite ready to go to Saratoga yet, but I think a Lake George ride is coming soon – weather permitting.

Now, how did I do on those monthly goals?

1. Purge closet – Fail. Again. Two months in a row. We will just shelve this for now 😀

2. Get my bike outside. Pretty obvious that this happened. Almost 50 miles this month and Sunday still with some ride time, most likely. Yay!

3. Moving in March. I did pretty well with this. Lots of walking and bike riding.

4. Planning meals. We did this, but it is really hard, I have to say. I imagine it gets easier the more you do it. It did get us to try more recipes, though!

5. Grain-Free days. I did this pretty well. I did keep a good check on calories, so my eating was actually quite good this month except for a bit of over snacking at the beginning.

Pretty decent March. Now to find some goals for April!

Monday is an AIM post, so stay tuned 😀

March Goals

Spring is coming. I keep telling myself that spring is coming!

I did a bit of plant shopping and ordered a rose for my new bed extension. I was going to go with a different one, but after reading some reviews of its performance in real gardens, I set up my search again and came up with this one:

It’s called Enchanted Evening. I told John to be ready for lots of singing. I used to play the soundtrack to South Pacific all the time and it doesn’t take much for me to break into song 😆 I purchased this from Jackson and Perkins this time (their photo). Its a floribunda and grows about 3 feet tall, so should be perfect. Of course, this won’t arrive to me until May, but I can just keep looking at the picture.

New month, new goals.

March goals:

1. Purge closet – Okay, that goal got moved over from February since I failed at that one.

2. Get my bike outside. I am riding early this year. I normally like to have 50 degree weather to be biking, but I miss outside biking so much that I am going to suck it up and do 40s. I’ll just have to dress a bit warmer. John gave me a real side-eye when I said 40s, so it will likely be solo biking.

3. Moving in March. Since I am done with the rehab, now I can move more exercise wise. I actually enjoyed being more physically active than usual with the rehab, so I want to keep that up, although not quite to the difficulty degree 😀 No more hibernating!

4. Planning meals. We don’t plan meals too often. Sometimes we do, but most times we fix whatever we have in house. Planning will get me using more recipes (instead of just pinning them). Plus hopefully shopping more efficiently.

5. Grain-Free days. A few days each week, I want to do grain free. I actually like doing that and it keeps me motivated while I work on project Drop A Size in 2013. 😀

That is a nice set of goals.

Now from the files of the laziest cat in the world: I was vacuuming and needed to get my foot pedal off the floor. Pixie wouldn’t move, so I had to put it on her.

No response…

And on the quick Friday dinner front – more stir fry! This time I did a heap o’ broccoli, Kikkoman Triple Ginger sauce and jumbo shrimp (4 ounces). I would have had some rice with it, but John got to the last of the rice before I did 😀

Stir fry – when it is okay for food to touch.

Here’s to a relaxing weekend for everyone!

February Wrap Up!

Short month and can we please move on to spring???

Here are the goals set for February and the progress I made towards them:

1. Finish the bathroom renovation. Done! If you missed the reveal, it is here. I would have liked to have finished it earlier in the month, but there was a delay in ordering the floor and I have that darn job to work. 😉 I am very, very pleased with the project overall and the budget.

2. Exercise 60 minutes most days of the week. I struggled with this one. Part of it was that the renovation was so tiring that getting more than 30 minutes in was just not in the cards. I actually think the reno counted for a lot of exercise, so maybe I did okay here. The scale seemed to agree with that assessment, so I’ll take it.

3. Purge my closet. Oopsie. This one just got away from me. I’ll have to move it to March 😳

4. Keep on with my good eating habits. I did quite well this month and am making progress towards a smaller size. Probably almost halfway there now? I had a few days mid month where I got off course and snacked too much, but then got it back. I also worked in some delicious meals like our Mardi Gras party and some Indian food!

Mmmm…. delicious naan bread.

5. Do some kind of Pay-It-Forward thing. I decided to go with Cup of Joe for a Joe. You purchase cups of coffee for service men and women that they redeem on bases that have these shops. It’s nice because you purchase in $2 increments so you can sponsor many different service members with just a little thank you and a piece of normalcy. I got emails in response from the recipients thanking me as well – so I know it goes right to them!

I finished 2 books this month.

One was an oldie that I never actually read.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.

I actually really like the Disney cartoon of this. In fact, I prefered it to the actual book. Go figure. That rarely (if ever) happens.

The Exquisite by Laird Hunt.

I’ll just post my Good Reads review here.

This was an interesting book. It is a book about Henry and seems to be about his slide in and out of reality post 9/11 and how he coped after that in a sense. Or it just happened to be set post 9/11, which Henry describes as “the events downtown.”

Henry meets up with a Mr. Kindt, who hires him to do fake murders for hire. The book parallels this along with Henry’s stay in what seems to be some sort of institution and the choice for the reader is which is the reality.

It’s all told from Henry’s point of view and some of the writing is lucid and the other is more train of thought (medication induced?). Overall an interesting book to read and I think it is more about the writing style than the actual story that makes it good.

Now that I am done with rehabbing, I have more time to read – and just do other stuff in general.

On to March goals tomorrow!

February Goals

Hello new month! Now we can really think about spring coming, right? January seems like such a long and cold month with not much to do.

I’ve been busy, so I will just get down to the goals!

1. Finish the bathroom renovation. Okay, this might be a bit of a softball, but I think I will challenge myself to try to finish by our Mardi Gras party on the 10th!

2. Exercise 60 minutes most days of the week. Biz set this challenge for herself, although I think she has it every day. I will take some rest days in there. Normally I do 45 minutes of exercise. This might be challenging to fit in with the renovation, but it will keep me aware.

3. Purge my closet. I have stuff that I just don’t wear anymore because I don’t like it. That will give me room to shop sales and consignment for new stuff! Yay!

4. Keep on with my good eating habits. Results follow if I really stick to this. I am in a good groove right now. Two areas of concern in February. One is Super Bowl Sunday and the other is our Mardi Gras party. But they are only 2 days out of 28, so they shouldn’t affect me all the much if I am focused the rest of the time.

5. Do some kind of Pay-It-Forward thing. I don’t know what that is, but I am going to really look for something to do for someone else. It doesn’t have to be big, but something I don’t normally do.

On the agenda for this weekend? Dun, dun, dun :

For the tub surround. Going for frosted white. I have a feeling it is either going to be great or really cheesy. No in between :D

Wish me luck!

January Wrap Up

I didn’t really set any specific goals for January itself because I had set up my To Do list for the year.

I actually did make progress on some of those goals already, though. That’s the whole beginning of the year for you. Everyone is really motivated, including myself!

I read 3 books this month, 2 of which were fiction. I don’t know if I should count cookbooks as part of my 30 books for the year?

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

This is a very sweet book. It’s a journey of self discovery by a man later in life.

Then Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote

I had never read this book. It’s really a novella, not very long. Interesting that the book does not end like the movie and I wonder what Capote thought about that. Capote’s writing style is so good and I think the shortness of the novel makes people maybe not realize its greatness. This book is very reminiscent to me of The Great Gatsby in terms of style of writing. Crisp and witty. If you liked Gatsby, you will probably like this one. This particular edition also had several short stories in it, and I loves me some short stories! Those were a sweet little bonus.

I got started on the bathroom renovation. Did I mention I was redoing the bathroom? Just in case you weren’t aware… Funny, this was not a project that was going to be started so soon, but it actually came about because of a coupon for tub refinishing that I saw in the paper. I called for an estimate on doing the tile in the whole room and decided I could have a better look for less money by taking it out myself. (I will have them do just the tub at some point). That got me going a few months before I had really thought I was going to do it. Now I am glad it will be done before biking season. Don’t want anything keeping me from my cupcake rides!

I am actually progressing on the weight loss front as well. Remember when I had my little hissy fit earlier in the month that the scale wasn’t moving? Well, I didn’t need to change anything. I just needed to be patient and wait a bit and the scale went down 3.5 pounds for January! That is pretty amazing for me and I am super pleased. I’ll just keep on keeping on.

Pixie picture of the day. We have a portable dishwasher (which also is a nice catch-all for putting stuff on… ) and Pixie loves to lay on it when it is running because it is warm. I set my latte next to her to get a picture and she got most offended. This was just as she was getting ready to leave 😀

Maybe she doesn’t like my owl cup?

Anyway, I need to think up some February goals!

How was your January?

November Wrap Up!

11 months gone for 2012. Only about 3 weeks left until Armageddon, too, and I still have a lot to do

Billy had his big adventure at the vet’s today. He was quite the trooper and is now back home and singing soprano. Such a good kitty. Officially up for adoption now.

Without further ado, here were the goals for November and how I did:

1. Do several days a week of lower-carb/grain-free. I did okay here, but this last week was a trip to Snack Town. Ugh.

2. Organize the bedroom. Oops. I did go thrifting for dressers, but couldn’t find anything in my price range (aka cheap). This is a work in progress

3. Run a 5K on Thanksgiving. I did not run one on Thanksgiving, but did run one the week before. I did walk for at least a 5K on Thanksgiving and now I have given up running yet again.

4. Get out and do more. I have felt so busy this month that I don’t know if this was a success or not. LOL

5. Going with the no-grain days in goal 1, I will also make some new grain-free recipes and post them. I posted 2 recipes. Parmesan crackers and the banana puff.

Goals were definitely underachieved this month. That’s okay, though. Plenty of goals are always available to work for!

This weekend is more craft show shopping, taking John out for his football meal (again!!! Ahhhh!!!), and who knows what other trouble I will get into.

November Goals

Welcome to November – and Happy Day of the Dead! Or Days of the Dead as John pointed out, since technically it is 2 days. Of course, every day is day of the dead until coffee time!

Don’t you love this coffee break? I asked for permission to use this photo – if you want to see Collin’s other work, here is his website.

We are now a candy corn free household (until the sales, that is), but I did have breakfast in my candy corn bowl!

Cold and icky today. I did a 3 mile walk today in rainy and blustery 45 degree conditions and I got a deep chill. Pixie was wanting a lot of warmth, too.

I think she really knows how very lucky she is to have come up to our door.

Anyhoo, new month means new goals! These are my plans for this month:

1. Do several days a week of lower-carb/grain-free. To help prevent holiday pants busting, I have found this really works well while still letting me enjoy the yummy foods this time of year, like pumpkin pie bagels and eggnog lattes! Now for me, lower carb means 100 total grams of carbs a day. I don’t bother with net carbs. So if it is not net carbs, is it gross carbs? LOL. Going grain free makes it easier to cut those down as well. So, 3 or 4 days a week will be my goal.

2. Organize the bedroom. Having decluttered the downstairs, now the upstairs is a mess, particularly the bedroom. I tend to dump my clothes (clean) on the floor by my bed. I need to organize the closet and get more storage. That means thrifting for a couple dressers. Wooden only – no MDF!

3. Run a 5K on Thanksgiving. Not an official 5K or anything, but just going out and doing one on my own, running the entire thing. I am up to 2.3 miles now, so this should be doable. Of course, if the weather is really nice – I may bike on turkey day (highly unlikely, but I have my hopes).

4. Get out and do more. We have been homebodies too much lately. Goal this month is to do some things other than go out for coffee at night.

5. Going with the no-grain days in goal 1, I will also make some new grain-free recipes and post them. They won’t all be desserts, either 😀

Sound good?

We decided to work on the goal of getting out more and went out to dinner tonight. Seeing as I won the football picks for the third week in a row – because I rock – I got the dinner choice! We went back to Siam Thai Sushi, where we went on John’s birthday. Being the nice wife that I am, I had a BOGO coupon to use for a free entree. Wasn’t that nice of me to do since he had to pay? Anyway, check out the world’s largest spoon.

Seriously, this thing is like a ladle. I actually used the spoon served with my tea to eat with since I didn’t feel like using a shovel to eat.

My dinner – Massaman Curry with shrimp.

I guess the picture probably doesn’t look as good as this tasted! It was wonderful! It has potatoes, peppers, carrots and peanuts in a coconut based spicy sauce. I added the shrimp for protein. This must be recreated at home and soon!

Bonus is that I brought home half to have for lunch tomorrow as well.

More guitar practicing for me today 😀

I don’t quite look like this, but close Just add skin and remove the mustache.

Boo! And October Wrap Up

Happy Halloween! You all know why I like this sign, right?

It was raining this morning, so no biking for Wednesday bagels. We decided to go to Panera Bread for the first time in a loooong time for a change. They have pumpkin pie bagels!! Wow!

Yum. I wonder if this is in place of the gingerbread bagel?

Drizzly start to the day, eh?

I can’t believe it is the end of the month. Then again, I think I say that every month. Here were my goals for October:

1. No weight gain. I just squeaked by on this, although the scale was a little lower earlier in the month, so that was sobering. Given all the candy corn, though – I am lucky.

2. Finish the flooring. Done and dancing around on the floors. Love!! Yay!

3. Make and post 3 crockpot recipes. Done. Cinnamon Chicken (I liked, John didn’t), Red Beans and Rice (winner), Potato and Corn Chowder (winner)

4. Eat more vegetables. Complete and utter fail, unless candy corn counts as a vegetable – then I have done stellar. I haven’t even been eating my usual amount of broccoli.

5. Post a pink picture for every post. I think I only missed one or two posts. Hopefully a lot of people clicked through and helped give those free mammograms!

Now to get some new goals lined up for November!

The little kids had their parade up the street in costume today.

I would have zoomed in, but I didn’t want to get any faces of the kids on film. I think this one is popcorn – very cute, although how she sat in class I have no idea.