Goals for 2016

I know I'm a little late getting to these, but here they are (in no particular order).

My primary goal is to live a healthier lifestyle overall. To focus on self-care, both mentally and physically.

• Eat healthy. Most of the time. It's okay to splurge now and then. I really want to find a good balance for myself as far as food goes. I think a lot of my IBS symptoms are more stress-related than food-related. So I think if I just continue to eat a healthy diet (including higher-quality grains and dairy) and manage my stress better, my IBS symptoms might be reduced.
• Be active. I want to continue with the [more] active lifestyle I've had since we moved to Dallas. I'm walking 20+ miles each week (which may go down a bit once I get a job). I'm doing yoga several times a week (almost every day, which again, will probably change once I get a job). I haven't started running down here yet. I want to be a little more familiar with the area before I start that. Overall, I just want to spend less time sitting inside on the couch watching TV. I want to get out and explore (and living in a new city certainly helps!).
• Read more. My goal this year--again--is to read 25 books. I only read about 13 books in 2015, so I hope that if I don't make it to 25, I at least read more than 13. Less TV/movies/Netflix-bingeing. I want to try to read at least a half hour each night before bed to help myself unwind and hopefully sleep better. 
• Unplug more often. Especially during meal times with Chris, family, or friends. But also at least a half hour before bed (no TV, no phone, no computer) to help myself unwind from the day and sleep better. 
• Be present. This goes along with unplugging--putting the phone away at meal times and giving Chris or anyone else I am with my full attention.
• Drink more water and herbal tea. Less beer, wine, and other alcohol. To go with my book before bed, I plan to drink a cup of hot tea (at least while it's cold out--might switch to infused water in the summer). With our move and the holidays, we've done a lot more drinking, and we love trying new, local beers so this will be challenging.
• Be kinder to myself and others. I am my own worst critic. I put myself down more than anyone else and punish myself far too often. It's time for me to change that. Through yoga, I'm learning to honor my body--both on and off the mat. It's a constant work in progress, but I have made some great improvements over the last year and hope to continue that. I also want to work on being kinder to those around me. To Chris, especially. But also to family, friends, and strangers. I can have a short temper (although yoga is helping me with that, too!), and I'm trying to think and breathe through my immediate emotions. I'm trying to put myself in the other person's shoes. Maybe that person cut me off because they're having a rough Monday and are late for work. Maybe the checker at the grocery store just got yelled at by another customer so they aren't feeling too friendly. I'm want to be kind to those who aren't kind to me, because they probably need it most. 
• Have better relationships. I want to make a point to keep in touch with my family and friends on a regular basis, which is especially important now that I'm living out of state and most of my family and friends live in St. Louis. I want all my family and friends to know how important they are to me and to let them know by calling and texting them--not just liking their Facebook posts. I also want to be able to let go of relationships that are no longer healthy or just aren't there at all. I had a "friend" who I regularly called and texted to try to keep in touch, see how she's doing and let her know how I'm doing. But she almost always ignores my messages. So I'm going to let that one go. Friendship is a two-way street and I'd rather put my energy into other friendships.
• Budget, reduce debt, and increase savings. This is something Chris and I will be working on together, but it definitely falls under "self-care" since having less debt = less stress (for me anyway). Chris and I both have student loans, car loans, and credit card debt, though thankfully not a ton of credit card debt. I will probably do some separate posts on our plans for reducing our debt and budgeting in case anyone wants to follow along. (If you're looking for a blog on budgeting and reducing debt, my friend Elise has a great one--her and her husband have made a serious dent in their debt and were my inspiration for wanting to tackle our own debt!)
• Write more. With the wedding, moving to Dallas, and the holidays, I haven't had a lot of time to write. I am working on a book though, and want to make some real progress with that this year. I also want to continue writing poetry. Plus, writing more will allow me to have [long-distance] workshops with one of my good friends, which helps with the better relationships goals too. Ideally, I'd like to get something published this year. So I might make a secondary goal to this one to submit to one literary magazine per month in an attempt to get published. 
• Find a job I love. I've been unemployed (again) for a little under a month. Thankfully, with Chris's job promotion, it isn't imperative that I find a job--any job--right away. Having a job will certainly make budgeting, paying off our debts, and saving easier, though. But my goal here is to take my time and find a job that I truly love. I do have one opportunity on my radar and I'm hoping to get an interview set up for that within the next week or so (I'll let you all know how it goes!). If that doesn't work out, then I will keep looking because I want to find the right job for me. I don't want to just settle on something to say that I have a job. I've had to do that in the past and it made me horribly stressed.

Those are my goals, although I'm sure I think of more to add to this later! What are your goals for 2016? 

Things I'm Missing

I miss writing. Now that I've quit school and have slightly more time on my hands, well I'm still not writing much of anything other than these blog posts. I miss my poetry.

Reasons I'm not writing:

• I don't have the energy. 
• I don't really have a lot of spare time. The spare time (and energy) I do have goes into looking for jobs. 
• I haven't felt motivated or inspired in quite a while. I feel like I just don't have much to write about or say lately. Aside from my exhaustion and pending possible unemployment, my life has been pretty great lately and I've been happy. Considering 99% of what I write is heavy, depressing stuff, well "happy" doesn't exactly help me get any writing done. 
• I also feel like I tend to focus on the same things, and I'd like to branch out to other topics (even if they're still depressing), but I'm not quite sure how to do that. Maybe I need some writing prompts or something (although most of the ones I've seen I completely hate and think they're dumb, so if any of you know of some good ones, send them my way!).

Reasons I should be writing:

• Even though my poetry is generally depressing, writing makes me really, really happy. 
• It makes me feel accomplished (even if none of my poetry is ever published again). 
• Poetry is something I can create. I'm not a good cook, or a crafty person, or an artist, or anything like that. Poetry is my art. That's something I can create. And I can destroy (unlike meals which I mostly just destroy :p). I can mold it into whatever I want it to be. I can share it with the world or keep it to myself. 

I really need to get myself a new journal. One small enough to fit in my purse so I can take it with me everywhere I go. So I can write down lines that pop in my head. Or really great quotes I find randomly throughout the day. Yes, I have an iPhone that I could easily do all of these things on. But it's not the same as putting pen to paper. I love journals--although I rarely fill any up--and I think it's time for a new one. 

Something else I really miss is playing my violin. It has been a very, very long time since I've played. The reasons I haven't are pretty much the same reasons I haven't been writing: I just don't have the time or energy. 

I also miss running. I really can't remember the last time I went for a run. My body actually aches from the lack of physical activity. I'd give anything to trade the soreness and pain I get from spending 4 hours in my car every day for the muscle soreness I get from a good (or even a not-so-good) run. 

I did just find out that I've got eight sick days (yes, EIGHT) to use before my last day. I have no idea how I'm going to fit in that many days off, but I'm totally gonna try because I could definitely use them! And I'm hoping those days off will allow more time for all these things I've been missing so much lately. 

Falling Off the Wagon

Last week I fell off the "30-Day Squat Challenge" wagon. Hard. Tuesday was my first day of classes and it went pretty well. I had a decent day over all even though I had gotten little sleep the night before: class was good, and I was looking forward to going home, doing my squats and then relaxing.

Instead, I came home to a house that smelled of poop. I had no clue which animal had done it or where, but I knew what it was the second I walked in. I wanted to cry. Of course, it was Copper. She had diarrhea. And she had managed to get it all over her kennel and herself. So I had to clear all of the cat's stuff out of the bathroom so I could give the dog a bath (still in my nice work clothes--didn't want to risk her getting her poop-covered self on any of the furniture). She was not happy about the bath, which she made quite clear when she got out and shook off, soaking everything in the bathroom.

I made a few attempts to dry her off then set out to clean her kennel. I wanted to puke. It smelled so, so bad. Meanwhile, she went and took a little nap on the couch. While she was still soaking wet. On top of all that, I couldn't even shower until later that night because Chris was working late.

Needless to say I did not get any sort of workout accomplished that night. The next day was my other class, Advanced Publishing, which is my night class. I had coffee twice that day because I was so exhausted. The class was good though. We watched Helvetica (if you're into typography and that sort of thing, you should watch it) which was pretty good. I'm pretty sure it's on Netflix, so once we move and have better internet, I might watch the whole thing. Since I work all day on Wednesdays and then have night class (not to mention the fact that I was exhausted), I didn't work out that day either.

By my afternoon class on Thursday I was completely off the wagon. I had given up hope of working out at all that week, or on catching back up on the squat challenge.

I spent the weekend doing homework, laundry, and napping. Copper's diarrhea slowly went away (thank God!!) and she's doing much better now.

Labor Day marked Year Two for me and Chris. We stopped at the Boat House in Forest Park for a beer and then went to the Zoo (mainly to see the sea lions!). After that we went to Pi for a late lunch and then headed home. Aside from burning my fingers with hot grease from our breakfast (much better now but hurt like hell at the time!), it was a really great day :)

Despite all the obnoxious kids that kept getting
in the way, I was able to get a couple good pics.

The Sea Lions/Underwater Tunnel is definitely
my new favorite place at the Zoo :)

Cute little elephant :)

View from one of our favorite spots.

Grizzly bear!

And last, but not least, the penguins!

I hope you all had a fun, safe Labor Day! Sorry that I also seem to have fallen off the "blogging wagon" as well. I promise I'll try to write more regularly ("try" being the key word there!). 

Updates on Life and Such

Here's a few quick updates:

I've lost 7-8ish pounds in the last month or so. Could have something to do with me getting sick twice, or going gluten-free, or both. I do know that it's not from working out. This week is the first I've gotten to work out three days in a row in at least 3-ish weeks.

I did yoga on Monday and there were only 4 people in the class (I guess a lot of people were still Spring Break-ing). I always enjoy the class, but with just 4 people, the instructor was able to really pay attention to our form and correct us and that was really helpful. And we did a lot of plank poses. I was definitely feeling those yesterday!

Yesterday I did the elliptical. I felt like I was pushing myself really hard (and I once again forgot my inhaler--woops), but according to the screen, I didn't get anywhere near 2 miles which is what I normally do, and I burned just under 400 calories, and I can usually burn more than that. I don't know if it was because I was tired or what but I was exhausted after that.

I went home, skipped dinner for the second (maybe third?) time in a row this week, and just watched SVU with the pup until about 10:30. I don't know why, but I haven't had much of an appetite lately, plus I've been eating my lunches later too, so maybe that has something to do with it. But I figure there's no point in wasting my time making myself dinner/wasting food if I'm not hungry.

I've had zero motivation to get any homework done since, oh, about Saturday. And I have stuff due tomorrow. And just a ton of stuff to do in general with no real deadlines. So I keep putting them off. Which will bite me in the ass sooner or later. Probably soon because that's the way my luck goes. But I wrote a sonnet two-ish weeks ago and I wrote a book review which I haven't done in forever. I really need to work on revising my poems so I can submit them to a few lit mags, but it's such a daunting and overwhelming task. So I'm putting that off too. For now. I'm totally screwing myself. I know this. :p

My boss bought me a present:

From Fab.com. It's a lab (not labradoodle) and it's brown,
so she thought of me and bought me one. Cute :)

I think that's just about everything. Happy Wednesday!

Daylight Savings Effects, Gluten-Free: Day 2

So while everyone else was complaining about losing an hour of sleep and that makes Monday suck even more, blah, blah, blah, I was busy being super productive.

I was pretty busy at work yesterday, but I got a lot done. Then I went home, cooked dinner (spaghetti squash with italian sausage--which is gluten-free, btw--and pasta sauce), did the dishes (and by that I mean I rinsed them and put them in the dishwasher), folded laundry, showered, fed the dog...about the only thing I didn't accomplish is write a poem for my class tomorrow. So hopefully I'll get that done tonight...

Copper woke us up at 3:30am Monday morning, which I suppose is sort of understandable since technically that would have been 4:30. I think. I'm confusing myself. And I still haven't changed the clock in my car...just when I had it figured out on my old car, I bought a new one and it will probably take me just as long to learn that as well...I digress. This morning she woke us up at 1:30am and then again at 3:30am. I had all sorts of mean things to say to her. She better get her shit under control because that is more exhausting than just waking up at 4:30am every day. Ugh.

It's my second day gluten-free. So far I see zero difference in my intestinal health. I know, I know, it's only the second day and I'm sure it will take more than a week to notice a difference (if any), but it's frustrating.

As I mentioned earlier, we had spaghetti squash with italian sausage and pasta sauce for dinner last night. Pretty tasty if you ask me. Chris liked it too even though he gets cranky with me for making him eat vegetables :p I had enough leftover for two lunches this week, so that covers today and tomorrow. Tonight I'm on my own for dinner because Chris has to be in St. Louis late tonight and then work early tomorrow. After I go pick up the milk I forgot to buy on Sunday, I'm going to make eggs with spinach and asparagus. And maybe throw in some tomatoes. And top it off with parmesan cheese. And my boss baked me more bread, so I'll probably have that with it too. :)

Since I'm going to be in St. Louis this weekend for my friend's wedding (really, really hoping for good weather), I think I'm going to stop by Trader Joe's. I know they have a lot of gluten-free stuff that most grocery stores don't have. Do any of you have any favorites I should try?

Gluten-Free

My stomach issues are not getting better. I have learned that the best way to deal with this is trial and error first--then go see the doctor. The last time I saw my doctor she said I might be lactose-intolerant. She said she wanted me to cut out ALL dairy for a month or so and see how I did. First of all, that was torture. I love milk and cheese and other dairy-based things. I hated soy milk. It was awful. I was just miserable. And to top it off, it made zero difference.

I'm thinking when I decide to go back to the doctor, A. I'm going to see a specialist rather than my regular doctor, and B. I'm going to be prepared. I've already tried cutting out dairy and that didn't work. The next possibility is gluten. Again, this pretty much sucks because it means no wheat. And I love bread. But I know if I were to go to the doctor tomorrow without trying it, that's what they'd tell me to do. No tests, no answers until I know for sure it isn't lactose or gluten that's causing me problems.

Luckily, there are a lot of foods that are gluten-free now, so that helps. I talked to my boss about it a few weeks ago and she told me she makes bread with some sort of rice flour and whatnot and she said she'd bring me some the next time she made it. She came in yesterday with a slice for me and it was delicious. Beyond my cooking skills? Probably. And I can't tell you exactly what's in it, but I do know she added poppyseeds and cranberries (and I topped it off with a little jam and butter).

Proof that not all gluten-free things will taste terrible. 

And now for the weekend recap:

I got almost all my homework done Saturday (or so I thought--I now have two days to finish the rest of my homework for my research class...grrr.). Chris came home and we had planned on going out for dinner and possibly trying a restaurant in downtown Farmington. After sitting on the couch for a while, we decided we'd prefer to just stay home. So he went to McDonald's and got us some dinner and a couple Sprites and we watched Saw. We also possibly watched Saw II that night. I can't remember. 

On Sunday, we did our usual routine--woke up, went to breakfast at the Factory Diner, went grocery shopping, and then came home to watch more Saw movies. I believe we watched Saw III-V. So we have another two or three to go. I don't know. Those movies are weird. But Chris likes them. And I make him watch Disney movies with me constantly, so I kinda owe him. 

 We also got Copper a nice big bone to chew on:

It apparently has a "real meat" center--that stuff stinks!

It's raining/snowing/sleeting/etc. I told Chris we should quit our jobs and move to a beach. His response? "I could just transfer to a store in Florida." Totally do-able. Except for the part where I asked him what I would do all day and he told me to take cooking classes--yeah right. 

First of all, I'm not a terrible cook. I just despise it with every bone in my body. And working full-time and going to school full-time makes me want to never ever cook. Seriously. I had ice cream for dinner last night because I didn't feel like making hamburger helper. And yes, I'm well aware that ice cream for dinner is probably not the best thing for my stomach, but let me remind you--I'm not lactose intolerant! :) 

Anyhoo. It's Tuesday. It's raining. I started my morning getting hit in the face with Copper's pea-soaked tail. Fun stuff. I imagine that's similar to parents who change their baby's diaper and the kid shoots pee in their face. It's hilarious when it doesn't happen to you. 

Have a good one everybody!

P.S. If you have any tips/recipes/whatever for eating gluten-free, I'd love to hear them!