November Goals

November Goals

Oopsies, we are almost half way through the month, but we have already been working towards our goals for November and here’s what they are:

Teal-

1. Basically because my last month’s goals are a continuing struggle I am rolling all of those forward as well and will keep working on it.

2. You might have figured out by now that that room I was working on 2 months ago is the room the baby is going to live it when she gets here. I NEED to clean that completely out so that the construction guys can come in and replace all the walls and ceiling and I would like that to get taken care of by the end of this month. So FOR REAL this time, GET THE BACK ROOM CLEANED OUT!

back bedroom

3. Choose a new paint color and fabric for the kitchen. They are coming in to remodel the kitchen within the next 3 to 4 weeks and I really want to learn how to make Roman shades for the 4 windows in my kitchen. It is too ambitious for me to say I will actually make the shades this month, but the goal is to get everything ready for them.

Beth –

1. Stop letting your car be a gym bag! I am not even posting a picture of this because it embarrasses me and no, Teal, will not take a picture and upload it here. 🙂

2. Yoga twice a week!

3. READ!! This month I’m going to need to read 3 books in order to catch up!  The book club selection for November is Ladies’ Night by Mary Kay Andrews.

ladies night

source

4. Buy fabric for the master bath and make another DIY window cornice!

Joint Goal –

  • Have pictures done and Christmas cards from Kate ordered!!  Who doesn’t love supporting local? Kate is a Dallasite that is an awesome graphic designer, so we can’t wait to work with her to design Christmas cards for each of us this year!
September Report Card

September Report Card

Teal –

1. Clean out the back bedroom. Just look at this mess. Enough said and now I am sufficiently embarrassed!

B-: even though it looks like I actually did nothing I did a bunch, hence the decent grade. I got a lot of crap moved out, donated, or reorganized into another room but in the process I moved more things in here. I really need to deal with the fact that my house has no storage and toss some stuff but I am still working on finding homes for things. I’ll continue but I have made progress.

10082013 2

2.  Join Soul Motivation yoga and go 2 times per week. I used to do yoga at 24 Hour Fitness with the guy (Joseph) who now owns Soul Motivation. He left 24 Hour obviously but I have so missed him. It’s pretty far from my house but it’s worth it. Just need to get my butt up there.

B-: Apparently I like this grade today. I am not going to join now because I haven’t been able to actually get there. It’s kinda far from my house and its smack dab in the middle of 635 construction (I’m thinking summer time) and I leave work at all weird hours, I decided to buy his DVD’s. I have heard awesome things about them from his former yogis, so I figured I would try that instead for now. I am still going to try and make the Friday community classes for just $5 and the occasional Saturday for $7 if my dad lets me off early from work! I just got the DVDs yesterday so I’ll let you know how they go!

10082013 1

3. Make healthy popsicles! I am in a search for healthy popsicle recipes! I know summer is basically over but its Texas so I still have awhile! I bought super cool Popsicle molds like a month ago and have not even attempted to use them. This must change!

A: Made them and they are good, kinda tart but good.

10082013 6

(one cup plain Greek yogurt, one pint blueberries, one cup of strawberries, juice of 5 lemons, tablespoon of honey- mix in blender, poor in container, freeze, eat) You can probably use less of each thing because I actually had about a cup too much for my containers.

Beth – 

1. Our house is still a work in progress obviously and I’m pretty positive every month for awhile I could work on a new house project.  This month my house project is to actually make window treatments for at least one window.  I have fabric for two and then remember I wanted to make some for a third window as well.  So I’m starting small with one window and hope I actually accomplish more.

F: My windows are still verrrrryy lonely! 🙁

2. Read two books.  On goodreads I set a challenge of reading 26 books this year and have been on track or ahead by just a liiiittle bit all year long.  Need to keep that up. I also joined a book club a couple of months ago, so I’ll be reading Serena by Ron Rash as one of my books to be ready for our next meeting!

A+: I did it! I read two books except they weren’t the ones I told you about. Ha! Since we posted our goals so late into the month I’d already let my mind forget about the book club book I read for our meeting in early September.  We read Table for Seven by Whitney Gaskell for our September meeting so that was book number 1.  The second book I read before diving into October’s book (Serena) was The Likeness by Tana French.  I read her first book a couple of years ago and I keep trying to spread them out so I don’t run out of Tana French books to read. 🙂  Am I the only dork that does this??

 

3. YOGA!!  Still with the goals and needing to get them done!

B-: I’ve still been though I did slack off in the last week of September hence the somewhat lower score! 🙂

October Goals

October Goals

Don’t worry we’ll let you know how we did on those September goals soon, but in an effort to not delay putting out there what we want to accomplish in October we are getting these goals out there to the world.  Time to get busy!

Teal – 

1.  Log food in myfitnesspal EVERYDAY. You should follow me! I will follow you, we can keep each other accountable! I am teal0906 on there. 🙂

2.  Wake up 4 mornings per weekday and workout, even if it is just 30 minutes. Choose 1 day to take off.

3.  Prep meals. I use to do this religiously and haven’t… hence the Mexican food twice in one day!

mason jar 009

4.  Minimum of 64oz of water daily. I need more because I am so active but I am not even getting 64… must fix.

5.  If I am going to eat a cookie it can only be 1 and when I say cookie I also mean any other sugary treat that I feel like I can’t live without.  Just 1, not 4, not 7, not the entire box, just 1. I say this because if I say absolutely no to these treats I really will eat them all.

Beth – 

1.  Pretty much since I’m in that book club now and I have a reading goal for this year on goodreads.com I’m just going to make y’all read every month about my goals.  I’m super pumped because the third book in the Divergent series comes out this month and I canNOT wait to read it! 🙂  So this will at least be one of my two books to read this month.

2.  I’m still working towards an organized home… 🙂  Will I ever accomplish this? I have a collection of boxes in three different places right now and my goal is to go through them, throw things away and either put the leftovers in the attic or some other place they can live.

IMG_0283[1]

3.  This goal basically let’s you know I did not meet a goal last month, so again this month I shall make a window treatment for at least one of the three windows in my house I have fabric to do said project! I’m going to do it!

4. Yoga! Is it annoying that I keep just repeating goals?! I really want to make sure I’m getting in yoga during my marathon training because I know it’ll be soooo beneficial come December 8th when I’m taking on those 26.2 miles at Dallas Marathon!

What are you trying to accomplish this month??

September Goals

Oh, good! We are getting our goals for the month up before it’s officially the half way mark. 🙂

Teal –

1. Clean out the back bedroom. Just look at this mess. Enough said and now I am sufficiently embarrassed!

09132013 1 09132013 2

2.  Join Soul Motivation yoga and go 2 times per week. I used to do yoga at 24 Hour Fitness with the guy (Joseph) who now owns Soul Motivation. He left 24 Hour obviously but I have so missed him. It’s pretty far from my house but it’s worth it. Just need to get my butt up there.

3. Make healthy popsicles! I am in a search for healthy popsicle recipes! I know summer is basically over but its Texas so I still have awhile! I bought super cool Popsicle molds like a month ago and have not even attempted to use them. This must change!

Beth – 

Don’t kill me if my goals are pretty much the same as last month! Still working perfecting them.

1. Our house is still a work in progress obviously and I’m pretty positive every month for awhile I could work on a new house project.  This month my house project is to actually make window treatments for at least one window.  I have fabric for two and then remember I wanted to make some for a third window as well.  So I’m starting small with one window and hope I actually accomplish more.

2. Read two books.  On goodreads I set a challenge of reading 26 books this year and have been on track or ahead by just a liiiittle bit all year long.  Need to keep that up. I also joined a book club a couple of months ago, so I’ll be reading Serena by Ron Rash as one of my books to be ready for our next meeting!

3. YOGA!!  Still with the goals and needing to get them done!

Here’s to hoping we’ve been working on these for the past 12 days already if not we’ve got a lot of work to do! 😉  Hope your September is going great!

May Report Card & Holy Cow it’s Time for June Goals!!

Yah, yah, yah…we are a little late to get this up, but we are started on June goals already! Have no fear! A lot has been going on over in our parts of the world as we are sure it has been with lots of you too! Anyways, let’s get on with it…

Teal:

1.  Lose 5 more lbs. I have tons of motivation right now because I will be on the beach June 6-11 for one of my best friend’s weddings in the Dominican Republic! C: lost 2-3ish depends on what time you weigh me (don’t you love that) BUT on a side note I am back to where I was before the marathon!!

2. Ok, I’m just going to change this yoga goal. The goal is to go 3 times per week. After looking back on the last 2 months I think this is doable and still a stretch.  I had a 6 time month and a 5 time month so hopefully just 3 a week will be a big enough push that is actually time possible!  B: Close… I went to yoga 9 times. So basically 3 short, not bad for a crazy month!

3. Stop skipping my morning workouts. My gym buddy and I got a little off track due to crazy lives and schedules. The goal is to go all 5 mornings. I had done this for over a year so it’s doable, just need to get back in the routine! I have been going at night more, but it’s not as easy to do and gets in the way of my yoga goal! Domino effect-boooo!!  UMMMMM, not 100% sure how to grade this, I worked out the same and went most mornings, it is just sooo much easier to go at night when I don’t have grad school or something else. I did most of the runs at night but still went about 3 days a week in the morning, PLUS, if you remember from earlier in the year, I wanted to do more weights alone…. DONE!! Feeling so much better about this, well except for the super creepy guy who told me my aura was beautiful. What??

4. Be nicer! I am not evil, but stress has taken over this month with preparing for graduation, looking and interviewing for counseling jobs, planning showers and events, tax season at my dad’s, state testing for schools, blah blah blah. I have NOT been the picture of niceness at all and have become way more annoyed at things than normal. I am not sure how I am going to actually do this or prove it, but I’ll come up with something and let you know how it goes at the end of May!  B-: Ok I was nicer for sure. I did some random things, that at least made me feel nicer including, walking to teacher friends to talk instead of email, putting shopping carts back in the shopping cart thing even if they weren’t mine,  waved at the people in my neighborhood when we passed each other in cars, I never once honked my horn, I bought the lady’s order behind me at Starbucks in the drive through line, and I just got a better attitude about work and stuff like that. Not too shabby BUT I still have a lot of room!

Beth:

1. I’m still chasing those 5 pounds to lose! Ha, one day…one. freakin’. day. I will be able to say I did it so. This goal is sticking! C: I lost two pounds! Haha

2. Survive my first 10 mile race!  I’m currently freaked out by this distance since I’ve never raced it and it is getting hotter down here in Texas!  A+: I DID survive!! It was a hot one, but I did the White Rock ‘n’ Roll 10 miles!

sprintin’ it in!

3. My wedding related goal is super vague, but the goal is to have at least 3 items on my checklist marked off and report back to you what I’ve accomplished them! B-:  I have a CAKE!!! 🙂  I also bought all the supplies for two projects I am working on and while that doesn’t seem like much of a feat, well, it is in my world! Finding time to work, workout and get to stores before they close is hard for me! Ha.  I’ve also done a lot of research into decorations I want to use, so while it would be amazing if I was further along I am proud of where I am!

This isn’t really what my cake looks like – I got more of a simple yet elegant look to mine! 🙂

(source)

4. I want to continue on with my preparing food for the week on Sunday’s goal, but to make it different the goal here is to find two new recipes this month and make them! Must add variety to what I’ve been doing! F:  I did do a lot of food prep in the month of May, however, I only ended up finding one new recipe that I wanted to try and then I didn’t even try it. Ha! I’m not going to make this a goal for next month, but I will make the recipe I have and find at least another to try soon! So help me God!

My extra goals each month – a. Hill workouts weekly! I actually hosted hill runs in the month of May for NTX Runners, but Teal had to cover one of my hill runs because I was sick. :-/  Which means I did 4 hill runs in the 5 weeks of May.  b. Read two books a month.  Well, I actually finished 3 books in May! 🙂  I was a busy reader!  I finished The Girl in the Green Sweater: A Life in Holocaust’s Shadow by Krystyna Chiger, Girls in White Dresses by Jennifer Close and Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford.

(source)

Joint Goal:

We will be participating in #runchat’s May challenge which is pretty much to run a different route, a new trail or try a race you have never done before.  For more information please visit the #runchat site.  Beth & Brent found a trail area by his house to explore during this month.  You might remember it from Wordless Wednesday No. 25

Onward to June goals….How are we in the 6th month of this year?!?

Teal:

1.  Clean out the garage which involves properly deposing of all old paint, chemicals, and random things you can’t through in the regular trash, donating anything that  should have donated a long time ago, if it belongs to my brother it’s going to his house, and then just generally cleaning. Why I pick June to work outside in the heat is beyond me but whatever!?

2.  So I graduated at the beginning of May!! Yay, but I have very annoying things that I have/need to do

  • Consolidate and move all my student loans to one place and get on a better plan to pay off faster. YUCK, YUCK, YUCK!
  • Register for the LPC exam and not cry when I pay the $300 to take it
  • Organize all the grad work that I did that I want, toss the old stuff, bind what I am keeping ( anyone have one of those spiral binding things?)
  • Organize, bind, toss, or give away my teaching stuff! I will be moving to counselor next year and have a billion teaching things to go through

3.  Follow my under 2 hour half marathon runkeeper running plan as close to possible! I will eventually run and under 2 hour half marathon if it kills me! Well not really, I want to live, but you get the point!

4.  Eliminate random eating. Raise your hand if you stand around trying to figure out something to eat and you find yourself eating crap in the process! ME!! This has to stop!! It’s not like am eating like crazy stuff, but it is mindless and when I finally figure out what to eat, I’m annoyed that I ate weird random things in the meantime!

Beth:

1.  This time around my weight goal is simply: DON’T GAIN ANY!!! Ha, sounds simple right?  Well, this is my birth month and my parents are divorced so this usually means multiple celebrations with good food, good drinks and dessert.  So it’s a dangerous time of year for me. No weight gain in June!!

2. Yoga 2-3 times a week.  Ever since I finished my goal of completing 200 classes in a year I’ve been kind of a slacker, so let’s get back to yoga goals! It’s soooo good for me!

3.  Finish projects at Brent’s house.  I volunteered his house to host a friend dinner (like this one) towards the end of the month and I haven’t finished some art I started for the walls, since I’ll eventually move in there (you know when we are married) I had already left all of my racing medals, hook to hold them, awesome race bib board my SIL made me over there they just need to be hung up.

4. Finish the two wedding projects I have ALL of the supplies for! 🙂

Joint Goal:

We are doing and have asked YOU to participate with us in our Tone It Up Challenge for the month where we do as many days of pushups and planks!

Hope you all have are working hard on your June goals and have a fabulous month! Check back with you when it’s July!  But July please do not come TOO FAST!

Dr. Seuss, Levee Run & New Book

So many things going on this Friday, but first of all – Happy Birthday to Dr. Seuss!  So fun that we just got to visit Seuss Landing less than a week ago!  Anyone going to see The Lorax this weekend?  This is one movie that Teal will probably catch in the theaters despite not being a big movie person because The Lorax is her favorite Seuss book.

Tomorrow Beth will be running the Trinity River Levee Run 10k!  Sadly, Teal being the good teacher that she is, will be on a field trip with her students and cannot participate in this run. 🙁

(source)

The new Margaret Hunt Hill bridge is officially open in Dallas as of this weekend, and the 8th Annual Trinity River Levee Run is the kickoff to a day of celebrating.  Part of the selling point for this year’s run is that this will be your only chance to run across the Margaret Hunt Hill bridge, well you know in a safe way were it’s blocked off for runners. It has also been a long time since either one of us has raced the 10k distance, so it’ll be good to get back out there and give it another go!  But we’ll have to find another 10k to do so Teal can revisit that distance too!  There isn’t really a goal for this race, but Beth’s 10k PR stands at 56:46.  That PR was accomplished in the July Texas Heat, so guess there could always be hope of a new PR this weekend!

On a completely different note, perhaps aimed more at the people who are big readers – Beth’s sister Kate as of today is an author!  About four years ago, Kate wrote a “chicklit” book, attempted to get publisher for it, and when that didn’t work she decided in today’s technology that she would self-publish!  We are both really excited for her in this endeavor and so proud of her for following one of her dreams!  The book is called Creative Chaos and will be available to purchase as an iBook & on your Nook today, and then to follow all you Kindle users will also be able to purchase it!

You can learn more about Kate over at her blog which also has some more details on the book!  If you buy it you have got to let us know!  And a big CONGRATS to Kate, the author! 🙂

Happy Friday to you all!  What do you have in store for your weekend?