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Thursday, January 31, 2008

#17 Volunteer at a Race

I love road racing. It is a lot of fun. In the past 5 years I have run 30 races. I did not enjoy my first race, the Dash Down Greenville 5k in Dallas Texas. John convinced me to run it with him and I thought I might die. But I didn't. We moved to Austin and we started doing more and more races and eventually I ran a marathon. After all the racing I have great respect and appreciation for the people that organize the events and volunteer. So much effort is put into getting sponsors, coordinating with city and police officials, advertising, setting up the course and wrangling volunteers to hand out water and provide support on the course.

I have been thinking for awhile that I need to give back to the running community by volunteering at an event. I picked the Hendrickson Hawk Hustle 5k & 1K on 3/1 at the Hendrickson High School. One of my co-workers is the race coordinator so I have some association (no, I don't have a kid in HS and I don't even live in Pflugerville). I like that it is a small race, so my support will really have an impact. I volunteered at the Austin Marathon 2 years ago and it was kind of a bummer. There were so many freakin volunteers there was literally nothing for us to do. We ended up going up to the race course and cheering people towards the finish.

So... I think you should all sign up for this race or volunteer with me to support my 101 goal!

Check out the Run Tex Website or the race registration page

#2 Give Up Soda for 40 days

This is going fine. It has been 30 days since I quit the soda. For a week I just drank water, coffee and milk. Now I'm hitting the lemonade or ice tea around 2:00, so I have really just replaced diet soda with another sugar beverage. But I think iced tea is healthier than soda, so its acceptable.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

#37 Make Healthy Meals week 11

Can I go 2 for 2?

Monday - Pasta and Chicken Pesto Sausage - surprisingly good
Tuesday - GNI
Wednesday - meatloaf and mashed potatoes
Thursday - Cran-Orange Turkey and mac 'n' cheese
Friday - take-out burriots
Saturday - Rudy's
Sunday - Football Sunday Chili

4 home made meals!!!!! YES!

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Lent

Lent is coming up in just a few weeks. Sometimes I give things up and I am considering giving up - ALCOHOL - this year (GASP!). But we'll see how that goes. I would like to work on the going to church item on my list. I have been checking this out daily: Our Daily Bread and it has given me a lot to reflect on.

Edit: how come no one wants to do things that are hard just because? Maybe I need to exercise my will power or have an excuse to be pissed off all the time. Actually, John challenged that I could NOT give up alcohol for 40 days in a non pregnancy induced environment. He may be right.

#37 Make Healthy Meals week 10

Monday - Pasta with Turkey Sauce
Tuesday - Chicken breast and rice
Wednesday - Pasta and baked Sweet Potatoes
Thursday - Left overs
Friday - pizza
Saturday - I can't remember - left overs?
Sunday - Mandarin Pork Chops and Asian Noodles

FOUR DINNERS! SUCCESS FOR WEEK 10 !! Woop!

Sunday, January 20, 2008

#37 Make Healthy Meals week 9 - failure

It was a busy, sick week for the Mills. Lots of thrown together meals, leftovers and eating out. Better luck next week? Perhaps. Now that John is back in school I have at least 2, probably 3 nights a week where it is just Gwen and I for dinner. Which makes it hard for 2 reasons, 1 anything that takes longer than 15 minutes to make is difficult to do with a toddler to distract. 2 Gwen will only eat so many things, and dinner is a little stressful when she doesn't like what is presented to her. I really make an effort not to have battles over food, or make a dozen different things for her. But it still bothers me when I make a meal and she literally pushes the plate away and says "no". Unfortunately, that will be the next 10 years of my life.

Hello chicken nuggets, goodbye salmon pate.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

1. No TV for a week

Failure. I gave up, and now that I did I think it was a stupid list item. (I don't like this game, so I'm going home!) But I really did delete over a week's worth of shows, so I still won't watch them. I was just too bored folding laundry and taking the Christmas tree down on Sunday to not have the TV on at all.

But my diet coke fast is going well. I should be able to do 40 days with only minor complaining now.

Monday, January 7, 2008

#13 & 19 things to be thankful for and that make me happy


John bought me a very nice journal for Christmas. I decided to use it to keep track of my list of 100 things that make me happy and as a gratitude journal. I am also starting a "bucket list" - ie things to do before I kick the bucket and I will keep track of it in my journal. In the mean time, here are a few things that I am thankful for: Sushi, happy Gwendolyn and ice cream.






"If you start focusing on what you have and what you're grateful for, you will then begin to see more."--Oprah, Girlfriend

"Good, the more communicated grows." — John Milton

"If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough." — Meister Eckhardt

Edit:
I am also very thankful for John K - he is fucking hilarious (and I am NOT being sarcastic)

#37 Make Healthy Meals week 8 - failure

I think this is week 8?

Monday - Gnocchi with tomato sauce and frozen veggies
Tuesday - sloppy joes, slop, sloppy joes
Wednesday - Antonio's Tex-Mex (mmmm margaritas!)
Thursday - Chick-Fil-A
Friday - Burgers and baked sweet potatoes
Saturday - Chinese
Sunday - pizza

I'd say 2.5 homemade healthy meals - bad bad bad

Sunday, January 6, 2008

#2 Give Up Soda for 40 Days


I am in progress on this one as of 1/2/08 and I am hating it. I L-O-V-E diet soda. Actually, I think I may just really love caffeine. I wanted to cut down on my soda consumption in general and I thought if I went 40 days I would keep it to a minimum after that. My habit is not excessive, 1 soda a day in the afternoon. But a couple of months ago I added a cup of coffee in the mornings too. I would rather drink coffee than soda, mostly because soda is completely engineered and unnatural. Coffee at least has some health benefits. Anyway, I'm working on this one, but begrudgingly.

Saturday, January 5, 2008

#20 Date Night

I had a date last night, but not with John. I went to see Atonement with Lauren and I think it was a pretty good date. Technically I shouldn't count this, but I want to.

Thursday, January 3, 2008

#94 Keep weight under 140

So this was kind of a gimme since I haven't weighed 140 in about 6 months. I set that goal since it is what I weighed before getting pregnant and was generally my comfortable weight that I didn't have to do a lot to maintain. But, for some reason I have found some weird combination of eating decently in small amounts, working out consistently and not depriving myself of anything that seems to work. In fact, I hit a new weight low today. Go figure - eating right and keeping active really works. Either that or I have a tape worm. Now bring me some ice cream!!

#65 Update investments

I spent some time tonight going over my 401k investments and updating my portfolio and made a few changes. After I did the whole analysis on my IRA, Fidelity recommended I sell the only stocks that are actually making me money - go figure. So I didn't make any changes there, but at least it was an educated decision.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

#66 Clean Out Closets 1/5 in progress

Last night I spent about 2 hours cleaning out my dresser and reorganizing my clothes. Tonight I went through my shoes and purses. Result - 2 bags of trash and 3 bags to donate. Now I just need to drag it over to Good Will.

This also begins a process of thinning out everything in our house so it is ready to sell in the spring. We're planning to pack a bunch of stuff up for a storage unit this month. I have Gwendolyn's outgrown clothes and toys semi-organized to store already. I know I have to go through our guest room closet and my books with some brutality.

It is all a pain in the ass, but I feel very accomplished when I finish a small section.

#37 Make Healthy Meals week ?

Monday - n/a
Tuesday - Pecan Crusted Chicken and Sweet Potatoes (yumm-o)
Wednesday - flank steak (thanks Super Suppers) with mashed potatoes
Thursday - left overs
Friday - Chicken Pasta with Veggies (frozen meal)
Saturday - SUSHI dinner - Yummo! (but not at all homemade)
Sunday - Meatloaf and Mac 'n' Cheese

3/7 - this seems to be par for the course for me