must remember, i don’t want to be a cow on our mexico trip…here’s some inspiration.

20 workouts. daily prayer. gratitude.

my february vegetarian goal is going pretty well! without much angst even. i started without any real planning or groceries, hence the pretzel and mac-n-cheese in the beginning of the month. one night i improvised and made hamburger helper, sans burger, sub sardines! actually, the sardines made a couple of repeat performances throughout the last 2 weeks. other ways i’ve been getting protein is with beans and almonds. and i found this awesome  recipe for avocado pasta!

then, i stumbled on the documentary, fat, sick, and nearly dead on hulu. i was inspired to start juicing the next day! except that i didn’t have a juicer. while i debated on whether to spend the $100+ on a juicer, i bought a variety of green machine/detox juices from naked, odwalla and evolution fresh. and i didn’t think i could do a total liquid diet. so started doing juice in the morning and sometimes for lunch. i find though, that i am starving by dinner and can barely last long enough to finish making dinner. so it’s best if i have a juice/smoothie for breakfast, a normal lunch, a juice/smoothie for a snack, and a mainly vegetable dinner. for me, that’s a really good balance.

eventually, i decided not to buy a juicer. since we do have a blender, i decided to find smoothie recipes that do not involve dairy or sugar. i made one this morning with spinach, avocado, banana, and strawberries. it was pretty tasty. i filled some ziploc baggies with the ingredients to make 2 servings and stocked them in the freezer to save me prep time in the mornings. i also hardboiled half a dozen eggs on the days i need a little protein pick-me-up.

so while i haven’t strictly detoxed, i do feel i have reset my body in a good way. i’m finding that i choose vegetarian options despite having meat options and am actually only eating meat once a day.

so i’m late to the game but have you noticed that friendship bracelets have made a comeback? i used to make dozens of these things, once upon a time. i was feeling nostalgic (and perhaps, bored) and thought i’d make a more grownup version. the metallic threads throughout the bracelet are a nice touch, i think. and i finished it up lickety split. it seems my fingers still remembered after all these years.

(side note: this weekend, i got a lot of it done while watching, drive. i got it to ogle ryan gosling, but holy crap had no idea it was gonna be such a mind f$ck. and bloody. so bloody)

while at the store, the nephew and i picked up some yarn for him too. i was planning on teaching him how to make bracelets, but instead we made a super awesome laser spy training maze! we strung and taped the yarn at various heights to create an obstacle course to slither through ala entrapment. and boy did he love it! i took a couple turns through, as did mom and the husband. my brother and sil were too chicken. serious fun for serious cheap.

• we found a new apartment. by the beach. hel-lo!
• we booked our trip to mexico in may for our one-year anniversary!

the bad news:

• there’s the potential for reorganizing at the hubby’s job, which could mean layoffs.

<sigh> haven’t i heard this song already?

this news has had me in a funk the last few days. it took me months to finally get comfortable with the idea of leaving my mom alone. and now that we have found an awesome place and i’ve finally let myself indulge in all of the interior decorating ideas i’ve had tucked away in my mind for months – we’re put on pause. <sigh>

the good news:

• my mom is happy to have us at her house to weather another unemployment storm, if need be.
• we’re only out $200 for our deposit on the apartment.
• we bought the travel insurance, so if the worst happens, we get our money back on our trip.

so while it isn’t the end of the world, it certainly hampers two of the best things we had planned this year. it’s embarrassingly hard to pick up the pace again after that.

but…

that’s what we’re going to do. it’s better we know now. and we’re certainly more prepared this time. and most importantly, the gloom and doom may not even happen. so i am officially putting good vibes out there. i must remember that things always have a way of working out for the best in the end.

even though my middle name is luscious pork fat, i am not opposed to vegetables. i really do love them. and i know i should eat them more often if i want to live a long healthy life enjoying meat treats. to encourage me to try more and eat more meatless meals, i am challenging myself to a month of vegetarian dinners. sure, that means i could eat cheese pizza every night and i wouldn’t be necessarily eating healthier. but if 80% of my dinners are the healthy kind of vegetarian, i think that’s a great improvement.

vegetarian dinner: day one. aka how not to do vegetarian.

i heart valentine’s day. not the long stem roses and diamonds kind of valentine’s day. the handmade paper valentine, turn a shoebox into a mailbox by gluing pompoms and doilies on it valentine’s day. though ever since they changed the formula of those conversation hearts candies, valentine’s day just isn’t the same. i loved those little candy hearts. i am not a big fan of spending tons of money on this holiday, but i do have a fun little surprise that the hubs will be delighted about receiving at work! i’m counting this as my creative project for the month.

i’ve got a lot of organizational housekeeping on the docket. i was inspired by this to streamline my closet. we’re hiring a tax accountant to do our taxes this year, since it’s our first as a married couple. so while we’re at it, i may as well collect, merge, and purge all of our financial papers. and mama needs lots of help getting her affairs in order. when my dad passed everything seamlessly transferred to her as his spouse. the same will not be true when she passes. some people may find this task morbid or uncomfortable, but it is a fact of life. and a crucial way to take care of those you love.

• took the nephew and mama to the harlem globetrotters. tons of fun. monchi was talking excitedly the entire time, turning to me to scream “who’s got it better than us? NOBODY!” after every basket. he was super stoaked to get autographs at the end of the game and it was a huge surprise to hear that his favorite globetrotter was the only girl, TNT. he claims it’s because she can dougie later in the month i took him down to walmart to pick up supplies to make his first scrapbook. he LOVED it. “i’m being creative!” he wanted to have an art show and sell free tickets.

• nfc championship game was a huge disappointment. with all the screaming and jumping and ahem, eating, i ended up pulling a muscle in my ribs or something, which i mistook for a gallbladder issue. overreact much? when the niners lost, the monchi burst into tears shrieking “my life is over” and started tearing down the posters he made that night. the good news is, i tried out a new nail polish technique in honor of the niners.

• the first rain of the season led us to our fave local brewery for some french onion soup, burgers, and cocktails. and by us i mean me, the husband, and mom. i love that my husband wants my mom to come out with us on our dates. insists that she comes.

• among other food “adventures”, i tried beets again, determined to like them. mainly to “heal” the gallbladder i thought was dysfunctional. now that i know it’s all good in the hood, i like them enough to eat them again! and i did! most boring news ever! the husband and i also tried a new-to-us indian restaurant. i was afraid that when i told him what i was in the mood for, he was gonna pitch a fit. but he went with it! we ended up at a place we had made fun of every time we walked by. don’t know why, we just did. food was great, except for the lamb, but the owner himself came out to apologize and take it off our bill. we’re definitely going back.

• january was the month of doctor visits: 2 urgent care visits, 1 regular doc visit, blood tests, urine tests, antibiotics, nausea, pulled muscles. thankfully, nothing was serious. and thankfully, i feel 100% now. i’m totally ready to tackle february!

• in january, we met our first savings goal. to reward ourselves we booked a trip to mexico! actually, we’re going for our one-year anniversary. if the husband had his way, he’d knock me up on the trip and 9 months later i’d pop out our first bebe. for the time being, we’re more than stoaked to be frolicking en la playa come may!

fundamentally, my main goals for 2012 are to

1. be more active.
2. be more patient and loving. especially to myself.

no matter what other goals or obstacles that come my way this year, those two are top priority. traditional goal setting says your goals need to be quantifiable and have a definite completion date. but i don’t think i can quantify patience. and if i start setting more specific exercise goals, i’ll just get stressed. so let’s just call these goals mantras instead then, okay?

as for more specific goals, i have some narrowed down:

1. Open Roth IRAs
2. Max out Roth IRAs
3. Beef up our 3 month emergency fund to a 6 month
4. Save at least $5k towards house fund
5. Complete our Will/Living Trust
6. Blog regularly
7. Post photos regularly
8. Complete 1 creative project per month
9. Eat more vegetables
10. Weigh less by the end of the year
11. Live it up on our Mexico Anniversary Trip!!
12. Implement and practice 3 new greener living practices
13. Buy no more makeup. Replace beauty products with natural / homemade alternatives as I use stuff up.
14. Start trying to conceive

some of these goals will go on autopilot once i set up auto-contributions and such. most i will have to monitor on a monthly basis, maybe weekly basis. but all of these all seem comfortably doable, yet exciting.

In a nut shell, 2012 is all about saving, continuously being creative outside of work, and being healthy.

home is a place you grow up wanting to leave, and grow old wanting to get back to. – john ed pearce