hello 2016

2016 started with epic shrimp tacos and about four days of binge-watching World Junior Hockey (RIP tiny Slovakian hopes and dreams), which was not at all a bad time (I also can’t stop playing Undertale either; RIP my productivity).

I did a resolutions/goals post last year, and it actually did a pretty good job of grounding me to a lot of habits & behaviors that made the year a pretty damn solid one.  I’m not sure I have quite as much of a list of specific goals going into 2016, because I’ve decided in lieu of setting goals, I’m just going to make some shit happen, and that shit is:

• I’m going back to school!  I enrolled in a brewing & distillation technology program beginning Winter semester (next Wednesday!), and I’m mega stoked.  I hemmed and hawed about it for a while because while I’ve missed formal education terribly since I graduated from Western, really, am I positive I’m going to use a 24-credit certificate in brewing? Do I know for sure that I’m going to parlay that into a useful experience? Should I spend money on something so unrelated to the career I’m actually in?  But from the second I heard about it, a part of me strangely knew I was going to do it. I’ve seen a lot of brewing/fermentation programs pop up, but the thing I really like about this one is that it’s completely doable for someone in a position like mine (AKA not some full undergrad degree that requires selling my soul to a college), and it’s not JUST brewing – it touches on everything related to owning/operating a brewery, from the actual science behind beer, to brewhouse operations & equipment, to stuff like cellaring and marketing.  AND I’M STOKED, did I say that?

• I’m doing some new programming at my gym – I’ve been involved in some small group boot camp training for a couple months now, which I LOVE (probably because it feeds in to both my love of competition & being held individually accountable), but I’ve started working a little harder on monitoring progress. One of my huge goals for 2016 is to be able to hit some benchmarks & track a LOT more about where I am vs where I’ve been.  We’re starting off the year with monthly fitness tests and a 90-day challenge that I’ve done a couple times, but haven’t taken REALLY seriously since I first joined Life Time.  This time around I’m throwing down for real. 20% body fat, huge lifts & lots of being upside-down, here I come.  (ALSO a thing I’m considering: yoga teacher training.)

• I’m going to travel all the fuck over the place.  The only thing I really have set in stone right now is New York in March (Rangers game, arena #12, what what!), but I went on a slew of pretty big and totally amazing trips in 2015 and I’m going to be extremely disappointed if I don’t keep that up.  I forgot how much I love discovery.  At LEAST one other NHL arena & hopefully a whole shit ton of breweries.

I would also like to train myself to stop pretending to be too busy to do things like take the goddamn cats to the vet while somehow finding the time in between work and the gym to go to Target & buy eleven thousand pounds of unnecessary trail mix, but that’s another story.

AND ON THAT NOTE, happy 2016, babes!

7 month check in??

I had this idea to do a mid-year check in on all the goals I set at the beginning of the year (and the other day I listened to a podcast with Chalene Johnson on push goals and how to be successful at setting and maintaining goals that reminded me again), but now it’s August, so it’s kind of less a mid-year check in and more….a mid-year plus a little more check in.  The good news is I’ve been doing productive sorts of things in the meantime!  Mostly!  But anyway!

• Practice yoga more regularly – I started the year off REALLY strong with this, going 2-3 times a week and just loving it.  I still love yoga (especially a really awesome juicy hot vinyasa class with enormously loud music where I can just lose myself in my body), but…..it’s summer, and being in a 100 degree room full of other sweaty bodies is just harder to find the motivation for right now.  BUT I’ve still been going around once a week, and putting in a lot of work on the “flashier” aspects – after months of trying, I finally nailed getting up into & holding bound headstand without any sort of wall! (Actually my first successful bound handstand with no wall happened on a precarious cliff edge at Mesa Verde in Colorado….

• Incorporate more strength training – YES!!  I’ve been going to barbell-based group fitness classes two days a week, which have been fabulous, even though they use simple iron grip equipment & not full size bars – I’ve definitely seen large strength improvements. My squats, chest & back have gone up exponentially and I’m slowly dragging my biceps along as well.  I just started a new boot camp program and let me tell you what, outdoor tire flips & prowler pushes ALL DAY make you feel pretty bad ass.  My new goal is to get into my gym’s Alpha Training (similar to Crossfit, with Olympic lifting & WOD-style workouts) by the end of the year!

• Read 50 books – I’m at 36! Definitely on track to finish 50+ by the end of the year.  Reading is something I haven’t done that much of in the past couple years, and it has felt REALLY good to get back into it.  I’ve been carving out an hour or so at night to do nothing but read from the comfort of my bed (I’ve even in the past week been starting to leave my phone OUTSIDE the bedroom charging through the night, which I never thought I’d be able to do…) and it’s such a nice way to wind down at the end of the day.

• Get more done – I’d say this is about 75/25.  I HAVE been doing much better at planning out my days to make the  most of my time, and I’ve gotten a lot of things done that I’ve been wanting to/planning on and at forcing myself to just get up and accomplish a task, but there are still those 5-10 minute jobs that I just can’t find it in my not to procrastinate on…

• Write more – PFFT. Moving on.  

• Run at least 6 races – I’ve done 3 so far (The Color Vibe, Hightail to Ale, & Insane Inflatable 5K) and have another one scheduled tonight (Glow in the Park!), so I’m almost there J  Looking at a Halloween race as well as maybe something closer to winter (Hot Chocolate 5k in Columbus is a possibility). I actually really like running when it’s colder out!

• Brew one batch a month – I’ve kept CLOSE to this. I’ve also gotten a lot more scientific in my brewing & started doing a much better job monitoring the process & my efficiencies, which I think has made a pretty substantial difference in overall quantity.  I’ve made a few really quality brews this year, and I’m pretty excited about this barleywine that I’ve got fermenting away right now, as well as the watermelon gose that’s currently in the works!  The second half of this goal was to seriously look in to an apprenticeship or volunteering at a brewery, which I have NOT put time and effort into yet, but I have one lead (a friend is head brewer at a brewery that is expanding) and one potential lead (a brewery run by a guy in my homebrew club is slated to open in a couple months), so the possibilities are out there….  

Bon bon bons & beers beers beers <3

•  Go camping for the first time ever! – YES!!  This happened and it was fabulous!  I went out to Colorado over my birthday and was treated to some glorious company, incredible beer, mountains to die for and also an army of Scottie dogs (no, really).  Despite the fact that it happened over a month ago, I still want to write about the experience so maybe someday…

Overall I think I’ve made some pretty decent progress – obviously there’s some things I’ve skimped out on, but 2015 has been MUCH more good than bad when it comes to personal improvement, and there’s still 5 months left!

hello 2015!!

Good morning & welcome to 2015!!

The 1st of the year is always the perfect time to revisit what you've accomplished the year before.  I've never been a big resolution person, but I always try to set some new goals to keep me going through the new year - which, in the long run, are pretty similar things, but "goals" sounds so much more positive than "resolutions"! 

• Practice yoga more regularly - at least twice a week classes at Lifetime & hopefully some practice on my own as well.  I want to be able to do a legit handstand by 2016!  And besides that, I really like the mindfulness the practice brings to my life, and how it really forces me to focus on every sensation my body is experiencing at any exact moment. 

• Incorporate more strength training as well - again, barbell & barre at least once a week each.  I really want to focus on increasing my strength this year - numbers on the bars going up instead of numbers on the scale going down!  I'd also really like to keep trying NEW methods of strength training & hopefully find something new that really resonates with me.

• Read 50 books - I set this as my challenge for 2014 and I barely made it halfway - which is sad, considering I used to probably read upwards of 100 in a year!  I spent December doing a whole lot of reading while all the TV shows I watch were on holiday hiatus, and it felt awesome. Spending the last bit of the evening winding down with a book in bed has done wonders for my mental health.

• Procrastinate less - or maybe better worded, just get more done. I've actually already started this the past couple months, but I want to make better use of my time & spend more of it doing things that make my life better, even when all I really want to do is come home and collapse on my couch.  I have a lot of home and life improvements I want to get rolling on this year & I can't afford to put them off!  So many times I put off doing something that will only take me 5-10 minutes, and I want to stop doing that and just push through it, regardless of how bombed out I feel after a day of work and a workout.  I ordered myself a gorgeous (and hella pricey) Erin Condren planner, and I'm looking forward to using it to get not only more organized, but more priority & goal-oriented.

• Write more - whether it's blog posts or fiction, I've gotten SO far away from writing since graduating college, and I miss it! I want to set a goal to blog at least twice a week & hopefully go from there.

• Run at least 6 races - I got away from 5ks last year after running about a million the year before, & it's another thing I'd like to get back into. Along with this I want to try and run more period, hopefully starting with this morning.

• Brew one batch a month & keep branching out trying new things, but also try to brew some old recipes over again and gain some consistency.  I also want to seriously look into some sort of apprenticeship or volunteering at a brewery to start to learn the business on a larger scale.

• Go camping for the first time ever!!  Luckily my Colorado beer buddy has already promised to take me - just have to figure out the whens and where.

I already have so much to look forward to in the coming year - a trip to Colorado in late February, the Toast of Hockeytown with my best friend, a planned trip out to Montreal/Ottawa/Toronto in October with my OTHER best friend...about to get this party started!

Now I'm about to ring in this January 1st with a quick run to try out my new headphones, a barre class with my favorite instructor, and then a home cooked meal of cauliflower chorizo curry soup & pork loin stuffed with spinach, goat cheese, sun-dried tomatoes & mushrooms. Yes, please!