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January 2, 2011

looking ahead in 2011 + a challenge

Filed under: Fitness/Health,Holidays — Tags: , , — Kristen :) @ 10:32 pm

Hey all! Hope you had a fun and safe New Year’s!!! 2011. Wow. What were you up to this new year’s? Parties? Quiet night at home watching the ball drop? . . . Me? well, we pretty much sat on our butts, watched ’24’ on Netflix, and then fell asleep around 11pm with the faint boom of fireworks in the distance. Boy, we are sure party animals, eh?  

The main reason we didn’t want to get too crazy because there was a nice ride out to Callville planned the next day which totaled 72 miles for me! Whew, and it sure kicked my booty too even without staying out late and drinking.  I averaged about 16.2 mph with a 4 hour and 30 minute riding time.  Not to mention the temps here have dropped to what us wussy Nevadans would call freeeeezing! But for all of you east-coasters, you would call it nice and warm at about 33 F.  It was pretty chilly though!  Thank goodness for bike winter gear and base layers.  After the ride I pretty much went into a coma and took a nice nap.

Since we all have been reflecting on the past year and looking ahead, I’d like to take a moment to look at how I did with my goals for 2010 . . .

  • Train for a sprint tri . . . ummm this kind of happened since I took a swimming lesson, but I have become a lot more focused on cycling and actually joined a team!  I’d still like to do a sprint tri, but I’m not sure it’s going to happen very soon.
  • Budget . . . I’ve been pretty good with sticking with a budget and have been using mint.com religiously, but reduced hours and lack of moola has been made saving tougher.
  • Make gains on my thesis . . . Boy I can’t believe I’m still not done with this one! ugh, well at least I have a topic and am one semester away from graduation!  positive thoughts and determination.
  • Gain more experience . . . in the sports nutrition field.  This one hasn’t been very easy to come by, but there are some things in the works 🙂
  • Explore photography further . . . I have made the purchase of a tripod and a lens, but I would still love to take a class when my schedule and budget allows.  I’d really like to make a lighting kit in the future too.
  • Improve the blog . . . Yay!  I did this one, well I hope so at least.  The look is certainly better than before 🙂
  • Culinary School . . . This would be an absolute dream, but it is still a far reach!

Now for my goals in 2011 . . .

  • Finish my thesis for good and graduate in May. period.
  • Time management.  With the limited amount of hours in the day, I need to make sure those hours are planned out to the minute.  I also need to stick to those plans and not get lost on social media or Netflix
  • Plan for our wedding (late september/early october) and stay within a budget (yikes!)
  • Start my own consulting business, and/or focus on my ultimate career goals . . . go for it!
  • Kick major A$$ cycling and stay determined with training for the race season
  • Surround myself with positive people to inspire and bring out the best in me 🙂 This makes such a difference!

Now for a little challenge . . .

Eat In Month Challenge!

As some of you know, Diana has a challenge that I tried for the first time last year.  It’s great because it brings us back to eating in, eating healthy, and saving moola.  Who doesn’t love that?

You can check out the details on the link above, but pretty much all our meals will be made at home during the month of January, with a little help from pre-packaging where needed.  For me it will be mostly about saving money, so if it’s cheaper to buy a block of cheese rather than shredded, I’ll get the block.  If it’s only a few pennies, I’ll go for the time-saver and get the shredded cheese. Easy enough, right?

I think the biggest challenge for us will be making sure Chris doesn’t buy lunch at work every day!  If I don’t have a lunch prepared for him, he always takes the easy route and ends up spending way too much money.  yikes!  It’s amazing how much we can save just by making sure dinner is big enough to last us for lunch and dinner the next day.  Good thing Chris likes leftovers!!

Another important thing will be planning of course.  Each week I need to have an arsenal of easy, quick recipes ready for the week with multiple servings to last us a few days.  Once dinner is done, I will need to make sure and prep for lunch the next day too.

If you join along and have a twitter account, don’t forget the hashtag #eatinmonth

We started our eat in month with Chicken Tagine with Butternut Squash and Dates . . . mmm

I have some other easy and fairly quick recipes & tips on the way!

Wishing you a happy and healthy 2011!

What are you looking forward to in 2011?

10 Comments »

  1. So far we are 2 for 2 on the eat in month challenge. 🙂 Which was actually pretty challenging since we went by a number of Starbucks this weekend during grocery shopping. Of course I don’t know if Starbucks counts as a ‘tick’ against eating out, but it is expensive. I even made coffee this morning and brought it to work in my fancy new travel mug. 🙂

    -Allen

    Comment by Allen — January 3, 2011 @ 9:00 am

  2. @Allen, Awesome! yes of course starbucks counts that place is pricey 🙂

    Comment by Kristen :) — January 4, 2011 @ 11:58 am

  3. Yea tagine!!!! I bought one when I was in Morocco, actually I brought 3 home with us. It was crazy because we bought ceramic ones, not metal. Good luck with your goals and challenge. As usual, I know you will be successful.

    Comment by Melinda — January 3, 2011 @ 3:52 pm

  4. @Melinda, I’d love to have a tagine from Morocco, very neat!

    Comment by Kristen :) — January 4, 2011 @ 11:59 am

  5. I’m excited for moving!! Bring it on! As of 31 May, I’ll be… somewhere else… and I’m stoked!

    Happy New Year to you—and don’t beat yourself up on the thesis. They’re never as straightforward as we think they should be… and if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right. No doubt, you’ll rock it!

    I’m trying to be frug-ulous too, this year, since I’m going back to school… which for me means NOT going grocery shopping more than once a week, and being sure to freeze 1/2 of my big batches of *whatever* for later, instead of leaving them in the fridge *convinced* that I can eat it up over 10 meals and not be sick of it… 🙂

    Comment by S @ extremebalance.net/blog — January 3, 2011 @ 8:51 pm

  6. @S, Hope you have a great move! Yep, I think I spend the most moola on grocery shopping so must cut back on the ‘oooooh I want to try that’ every time I go 🙂

    Comment by Kristen :) — January 4, 2011 @ 12:01 pm

  7. I was definitely boring on NYE, too. I was in bed before 12! I think it’s definitely worth it, especially to wake up feeling great…and to have a hard core ride like you did!

    Looks like you did a great job with goals from 2010 and some good ones for 2011! Can’t wait to see what the year holds for you!

    In 2011, I’m looking forward to embracing positive changes and amazing adventures. 🙂

    Comment by Emily — January 4, 2011 @ 6:58 am

  8. Happy new year! I love the look of your goals for this year, you are going to have one kick butt year thats for sure I can just tell 🙂

    Comment by Michal — January 4, 2011 @ 9:22 pm

  9. Love your goals for 2011! Mine also includes getting more into photography now that I have a new camera. We should look into classes.

    Comment by Kristen (swanky dietitian) — January 7, 2011 @ 1:49 pm

  10. Eating in is one of the BEST ways to save. Way to go! 🙂

    Comment by Dana @ Budget Dietitian — January 10, 2011 @ 7:35 am

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