High.

This morning I am celebrating a personal victory, which is really not that monumental in the grand scheme of things, but it feels so good to me! I received wonderful words of encouragement from one of my bootcamp coaches, and it's sparking a fire in my heart to more seriously pursue becoming a coach or trainer myself!

Since May, I've been attending an intense bootcamp for women (KAIA) three days per week. I've honestly never felt so healthy, at least not as long as I can remember. Each class I attend gets my heart racing, my sweat dripping, and my muscles burning! It feels incredible to push myself further than I knew I could go, and to see results I felt were long gone. My experience makes me want to scream out loud to everyone I love- "YOU can feel this good too!!"

It's incredible what working out can do for you. I firmly believe in "healthy body = healthy mind". Of course, there will always be those days. Always! But, overall, my energy level has increased tremendously, my confidence has increased, and I feel so much happier. I am motivated to eat healthier, and to workout on the days I don't have bootcamp, because I feel the outcome is so positive, there's no way I want to let it go. I believe everyone owes this to themselves, to take care of their bodies and minds, and stop making excuses. Just do it!

Miss You.

...my beautiful grandparents. True love.

Reason #114537438 that I love my husband.

Matt and I have had an ongoing....struggle....with laundry. I tend to do our laundry, and have never gotten into the habit of checking pockets when I do. I ALWAYS have a tissue on me, so unfortunately, I often end up with pieces of tissue all over our laundry. When Matt and I first got married, this drove him crazy- understandable. He'd beg me to check my pockets for tissues before I did the laundry. I was slightly defensive about it, depsite my understanding, because after all, I was the one doing his laundry!!

So one day, I did his laundry, and when I opened the dryer, I was mortified at the endless pen streaks around our dryer. He had left a pen in the pocket of his work pants, and it looked like an angry little child had scribbled hundreds of marks around and around our dryer. Fail. I didn't want to hear it- WHY did he not empty his pockets before putting his clothes in the hamper? Back and forth we went, he knew he shouldn't have left a pen in his pocket, but wondered why I couldn't just check. 3 days of scrubbing later, our dryer was spotless, thanks to me! Moving on!

Last week, I did our laundry again. As the clothes are in the dryer I hear a thumping towards the end of the cycle. I open the dryer to investigate but see nothing. I figure it must be the heavy load. I start the dryer back up after fluffing out the load a bit, but hear the thumping again. Ugh! I open the dryer and to my horror, find Matt's relatively new IPOD in the pocket of his gym shorts. SERIOUSLY?!! As annoyed as I was that he had left it in his pocket, I felt HORRIBLE. Luckily, the Ipod was revived after 30 min on the charger, but the screen was a bit funky. So when he came home, I confessed and apologized profusely. Luckily, he was super sweet, no arguing occured. He told me it was alright...Phew!!

Yesterday, when I came home, the first words Matt said to me were:

"Babe, I have to tell you something. Now I could choose to withhold this from you, but I am an honest person...." What in the world is he about to tell me?? "I did my laundry this morning. And I had left my walllet in my pants."

I love you my man! You're hilarious and so sweet.

Happy Birthday my Love!

26 years ago, my best friend was born...I love you, Matt... so much! I cannot wait to celebrate with you this weekend celebrating your first birthday as my husband!!

Looking forward to....

....the weather warming up, ....having no plans tonight, ....riding our bikes tomorrow, starting our garden, spending some QT with the hubby. I'm feeling good entering the weekend with no residual work-related stress. While the first week of work is always awkward as you revert back to knowing virtually nothing, having daily breaks and leaving at a reasonable hour really helps me to go home feeling more refreshed and less stressed than I have for a loooong time! Fantastic! This blog started with a list of goals and a rigid plan that aimed to allow me to accomplish those goals. Looking forward, the next year will be an interesting one for us, as the state budget cuts have truly limited Matt's school schedule flexibility, and we will thus be facing a time in which we will have to spend wisely and cautiously, and save as much as possible. While I've realized I can't manage to stick to such a rigid plan, I'm going to have to think again about how to manage my time and money best in order to continue to meet our goals. Sigh. The challenges never seem to stay away for too long. In such times, it helps me to remember: 'God said, "And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart".' -Jeremiah 29:13

Just dance.

I often have dance parties in my living room. Sometimes, you just gotta get your groove on! And yes, maybe at first my husband may look at me like I'm crazy (adoringly of course) but within moments we both end up dancing around our house, laughing hysterically. I highly recommend this to everyone. It's guaranteed to boost your spirits on any day!

C'est la vie...

The last few weeks have been an emotional rollercoaster, on a further from home basis if that makes sense. Leaving a job that I’ve been at for four years, and really the only “real” job I’ve ever had has proven to be more of a challenging experience than I expected. I am so happy to have this new opportunity, and I am embracing it with open arms and excitement! But at the time of departure, I’ve really spent some time reflecting on what my almost former position has taught me and the experiences I’ve had. It’s posed so many questions that I thought I had all the answers to but then you revisit them again at the last minute, partly in a state of panic and partly in a state of relief, excitement, curiosity and some anxiety! As much as I am not one who wants my career to define my life, at this point, it is something that takes up majority of my time, and I’m still in a place where I have the freedom and flexibility to take some risks…..hmmmm. Here's to change! On a different note, it’s been a time of challenge with friends, some good and some bad. I love when you experience such fulfilling conversations and moments with friends who you really love and you walk away feeling better, closer, and comforted. I cherish these times, and growing closer to the people who I know I will care for forever, with endless memories ahead of us. Thanks, ladies! On the other hand, we’ve reached an age where I cannot have superficial relationships in the way I used to when I was younger and had less of an idea about who I am. While I’m still 20 something and striving….I know so much more about the kind of life that I want to live, how I want to carry myself, and I believe that your friends should compliment those aspirations and enrich your life. It’s an interesting realization when it causes a relationship to split off into different directions.

I know this picture is fuzzy and super random, but I just found it and I love that is has my 3 besties in it!

Yet in spite of all these roller coasters, my life at home with my hubby has been so fantastic, and I am just so much more in love every day- seriously!! I think we’ve reached a point where we can look back on 9 months of marriage and say we’ve overcome the adjustment phase and entered into a blissful place of comfort, stability, satisfaction, and a deep new level of love.