So I’m writing a post about the beginning of March on the evening of March 2nd, which will undoubtedly appear in many of you East Coasters’ g-readers as March 3rd, which tells you a little about how my week/life/month is going so far!
Madness.
Okay, first of all, I AM pretty much jumping up and down with excitement every time I think about the upcoming NCAA tournament, which not only is my favorite sporting event of the year, but I’ve also missed the last two, so now I’m triply excited to make up for it.
Go Bruins. (Circa 2005. Yikes. I’ve dated myself.)
But that’s not all that’s going on in March.
I’m really getting into my job, for real. This month I start making it happen.
Next week I’m MOVING INTO AN ADORABLE APARTMENT IN SAN FRANCISCO (win!).
Next weekend I’m also running a half-marathon. Shamrock’n in Sacramento! (And there’s a post-race “Beer Party.”)
I’m also attending Peace Corps and Zumba events, catching up with friends, and going to LA for a weekend.
Somewhere in there, I’m also doing 17-, 16-, and 18-mile runs.
And trying to have a life.
It’s going to be a good month.
I like to have goals for the month and my first two of 2011 have been pretty huge, with varying levels of success.
Around the new year my goal was The Pescatarian Project. I vowed to follow a pescatarian diet for at least a month but with the initial goal of a year. I guess I’ve succeeded at that goal, as I haven’t eaten meat since around Christmas and have only had fish a handful of times. But whether or not it’s been successful in terms of the goals I originally laid out for the project, I’m not sure. That merits one heck of a blog post which is sure to come later this month.
In February, as a bit of a hop-on to the Pescatarian Project, my goal was the Vegetarian Kitchen Challenge: to cook new and inventive vegetarian dishes several times a week. My project started off awesome with the help of the Veganomicon and ended with me eating nothing but yogurt pretzels and five-day old pizza for dinner. Sure, at the beginning of February I definitely was not planning to be living in the Bay Area by the middle of February (I hadn’t even had my first interview with the company I’m now with yet!), so for the sake of crazy life changes I’ve cut myself a little slack on this one, but still, pretty big fail. I would like to think that the VKC will be reinstated when I have a place to live and some stability and am no longer living out of a suitcase. Win.
…which brings me to March. As I wrote about in my last post, I have a LOT of things I need to work on. (Thanks for all your comments on that post, they were awesome!) When I thought about it, though, the first thing that came to mind was a book I recently read for my awesome new book club, called The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin.
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I am definitely going to be writing a review/synopsis of this book on the blog, because it really reminded me SO much of healthy living blogs in general! She makes little changes in her life each month, worked in around her day-to-day life, to try to make herself happier. It really is what so many bloggers do. Why do we eat healthy? Why do we run if we don’t always love it? Why do we take pictures of our food like idiots? Why do we spend hours catching up on our google readers that could be doing other more productive things? Because these actions make us happier, even if they don’t always make you happy in the exact moment. Much more on this at another time, but you get the gist.
I wanted to make some SMALL goals for March like she does in her book, things that I know I can accomplish and will serve to motivate me instead of be like “OMGFAIL” every time I look at one of my ten million to-do lists. I’m also trying to focus on positivity in the messages I send myself. (“No sweets”, for example, is impossible for me, but putting the word NO in front of pretty much anything makes it doubly impossible to resist!) So this month, I am hoping to do the following:
Week 1 (Feb 28—March 6)
- Spend time with God every day.
- Eat healthier.
- Stand up straighter.
Week 2 (March 7—13)
- Blog every day!
- Add marathon, SF, food, travel, and blogroll tabs to P&P.
Week 3 (March 14—20)
- Nest.
- Get some type of exercise every day.
Week 4 (March 21—27)
- Reconnect.
I guess I should explain some of those. This week’s mini-goals are pretty obvious, especially after my last post about how off-balance I felt during my first week working in SF in terms of all my routines being interrupted. Eating a little better and spending time with God will really help with that.
Week 2: blog every day. Okay, I have NEVER DONE THIS. I don’t think I’ve even posted four times in the same week! But I really want to grow my blog, and make it better, and even though that takes TIME, it is time well spent because it makes me happy. I wanted to try posting every day for one week to see if I can do it, and also to alleviate some of the pressure. Example: a lot of times, something happens and I want to blog about it but I want to write such a great entry that I end up never posting it. Which is why I have one entry so far from my month in Asia. I get intimidated by HOW MUCH raw material I have to work with. If I post every day, time is short, so I just make do with what I got. And plus I’m moving and running a half marathon that week so it’s not like I won’t have things to post about. Hah.
Week 3, I am hoping to nest into my new place and to exercise every day. The reason I picked this week is because once I am living in the city I will be able to run or walk before work and have the sun be out or almost out, which makes everything a lot easier. Otherwise stuff like this happens: today, I tried to wake up at 4:45 to work out but I didn’t get up because I woke up at that time yesterday to work out and was still tired, so I said I’d go after work, and dragged a whole bag of sweaty gym clothes into the city with me, only to end up going home and eating three bowls of cereal instead because I was at work until seven and I was tired.
So how about that eat healthier goal? Hah! Well, in my defense, today was better. I actually had a salad, carrots and hummus, and an apple for lunch today. Win. Salads every day this week. Let’s not talk about how yesterday’s was a brussels sprout salad that I didn’t realize had bacon bits in it until I opened it. I totally fail as a veg.
Week 4: reconnect, well, I am going to LA that weekend, but more importantly, once I have a few days in my apt to settle in I REALLY want to start making headway into catching up with the wonderful friends that I have, many of whom live nearby in the city or bay area. Life is too short to let life get in the way. (Bear with me here.) In addition to reconnecting I’m excited to invest in new friends and new friendships!
So there’s March for you. The days are long, but the years are short… and lately, it sure does seem like the months are short. More reason to grab life by the horns.
Last thing: GIVEAWAY WINNER! Thanks to everyone who entered the Green Giant giveaway. The winner is…
Sarah of The Pajama Chef! Congrats! Send me an email with your address and your prizes will be on the way!
Have a great evening (morning?) everybody!
What does March have on the table for you?
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