Oh What a Year…

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I still can’t believe it’s 2012. 2011 felt like it flew by! It doesn’t help that I was quite the party animal on New Years Eve. Actually – that is a lie. I wasn’t feeling great on NYE so me and Darren cancelled our plans to party it up in SF for a quite night at home with a bottle of champagne. In reality this meant an unopened bottle of champagne and me falling asleep on the couch at about 10pm. Luckily I woke up at 11:30 in time to ring in the new year as I moved from the couch to the bed. What can I say – I’m a party animal! Don’t worry the champagne didn’t go to waste I had a mimosa the next morning with it. Who would waste champagne?

So much was packed in this previous year I really don’t even know where to begin. I experienced and learned so much in a year that it’s surreal that it all happened in just one year. I’m not a mushy touchy feely person so going into depth about how impactful this year was to me isn’t really my style. Because I think its important to reflect I’ll humor you and give you a little list of the big things I remember. Pardon my memory, I forget things all the time. I guarantee this list will be no different.

• I moved in with Darren – this was a HUGE step for me. I always said I wouldn’t live with a BF, that I like my space, independence and all that jazz. Look at me now – we’ve been living together for nearly 6 full months. We’ve both had to adjust to annoying habits the other posses but for the most part things have gone smoothly – if only he would put things back where they go!
• I’ve been out of college longer than I was in college – that is REALLY surreal and weird to think about but at the same time makes total sense. At times I feel like college was lifetimes ago and other times I feel like it was just yesterday. It’s really odd to me.
• I concurred some fitness related things that terrified me. – I took my first boot camp class and started running. I was always so scared I wouldn’t be able to hang in a boot camp class and now I do it twice a week! Up until this year I literally could not a run more than a minute or two without stopping and now I can run a few miles at about a 10 min/mile pace. I even participated in my first turkey trot!
• Started this blog! Me and Anna started this last May and it’s been a fun (and difficult) journey so far. We attended our first blogger meet up and a blogger festival. We had such great and positive experiences with the people we’ve met through blogging.
• Started seriously cooking – I’ve tried SO many new concoctions and recipes this year than any other year. I’ve had my kitchen disasters but for the most part have been successful. I’ve found how much I enjoy coming up with tasty, nutritious and easy to make foods that can fit into my lifestyle.

With every year that ends I like to set goals or expectations for myself. I don’t like to make goals that are unattainable or that I could never stick to because it’s setting myself up for failure and I hate losing at anything. I think long and hard about things I want to do WAY before I do them – some would say TOO much. I research and look into EVERYTHING. I seriously investigated hair brushes when mine broke. So the goals I have below are things I want to (and plan to!) complete before the year is over.

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• Run more – I really want to pick up my running because I do like it (most days). I’m participating in my first 5K next weekend and would really love to do my first 1/2 marathon before the year is over. I’m thinking maybe the San Diego Rock & Roll for my 1/2 and also probably doing Bay to Breakers. I’m not setting time goals – I simply just want to finish.
• Apply to grad school – I’ve been going back and forth on this for what feels like forever. This is the year I finally want to crack down and send out the applications and get my butt in gear.
• Go to Europe – This is already planned for this summer and all we need to do is bite the bullet and buy our tickets. We’re planning on doing Ireland and Italy (10 days in each). I’m excited since I’ve never been to Europe and have an obsession with Italy.
• Make Cubicle Chronicles better – I don’t really have a set list of things I want to do but I really want to work hard on blogging better and more frequently. I also want to be more interactive within the blogging community.
• Work out better and smarter – I think this last year I kind of fell into a lull a bit and went to the gym days I probably should have rested and had sub par workouts. I also feel like some days I could have pushed myself farther. The ways I’m going to remedy this is try new classes/activities, incorporate more outdoor/interactive workouts, and use my new Garmin to track calories burned, distance, etc. to make sure I’m not just going through the motions but actually pushing myself for a good workout. Most importantly I want to listen to my body better.
• Plan and cook more – I LOVE trying new recipes but hate planning my grocery list and menu for the week. When I go to the store this leads to random things thrown in the cart and creative thrown together dinners/lunches. I really want to be more proactive about planning and preparing delicious and nutritious meals.
• Pay off any debt I have – I have some student loans, car payment and a few credit cards with balances on them. It’s nothing too crazy but I really would love to get the majority, if not all, of it paid off by the end of the year.
• Build Savings – This kind of goes hand in hand with my last goal. I’d love to pad my savings a bit (ok, a lot). I’ve already started this by automatically taking money from my weekly checks to my savings which is not tied to my checking account.

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That seems like a lot when I write it down but in actuality I know all of these are attainable but wont be easy. If they were easy what would be the challenge and fun in that??

I hope everyone had a great New Years and is set to make this the best year ever. I know I am!