Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year, everyone!

So the first post of the year is all about goals. I have so many, they are all competing for that small bit of attention not taken up by life in general. The big one is I want to lose weight. I've slowly been gaining since I returned to work post-The Girl. I did lose most of my pregnancy weight (though is there such a thing as a toned belly after kid 2???) but now weight is slowly creeping back on. Obesity is pretty rampant on both sides of my family, and the advice I seem to hear from them is that preventing fat is a whole lot easier than getting rid of it. So. That said, my main goal here is to lose weight. My initial goal is 5 pounds. In January, I will be trying to do that by:

• Exercising no less than 3 times per week
• Only visiting the snack machine 1 time per week at work (I have to give myself something, otherwise I'd go bonkers and start snarfing everything in sight.)
• Watching my portions (which is vague, but really what I mean is being careful to eat a single serving.)

[Note: I don't actually expect to lose a full 5 pounds in a month with only these modifications.] As you can probably guess, I am easing in to this a bit. The thing about the exercising is, my exercise of choice is jogging, and darned if I don't hate to run in yucky cold and snowy weather. I also have two little tidbits planned for myself: if I can go two weeks and meet all of the goals, then I can shop for a new pair of running pants. If I make it to the end of the month, I get a new running bra.

I started it off well -- this afternoon I went for my first jog in probably more than two months. I went a whole mile! Yeeha! Now if I can only resist eating something naughty as a reward. I won't be going major distances until the weather is better. I suppose that leaves room to sneak in a longer run on those occasional nice days. Anyways, the lesser goal will keep me from giving up as easily.

In other more quilt-related news, here are my sewing goals:

• Finish binding The Girl's quilt
• Baste, quilt & bind The Boy's quilt
• Finish at least 10 of the hand-pieced blocks for the sunburst quilt

I already finished one of those blocks. Though I finished it yesterday so I guess I still have 10 more to go for the year :)

Other goals...post more often, try to improve my wardrobe, be more patient, savor life!

Here's looking forward to a great year!!!!