Fall goals - how did I do?

WELL. How did I do? 

                    

1. Become Bob MFing Vila in the home improvement project arena. Not exactly, but I did get back to painting walls (haven't done that since we bought our house eons ago) and I learned how to use a hand sander. Boom. 

2. Get up 15 minutes earlier one weekday each week. Victory. Usually on Friday...it's easy, because I'm excited for the weekend. LOL

3. Attend Opera on the Mall and 20th Year high school reunion. Fellow classmates, did you get your tickets? Opera on the Mall was moved from its initial date due to rain, then on the new date I was sick. So, fail, but not for lack of trying. 

4. Participate in a Pancreatic Cancer Walk with my family in memory of my Grandmom. November 7. 

5. Finish using the remaining nail polishes in my arsenal - for those of you playing along at home, I have used a different nail polish without repeating every time I paint my nails or toes since January 1 thanks to an idea from Steph @ Insert Classy Here. My collection is large but I'm nearing the end. FINALLY freaking finished. It took me a year to get through these, only not using my polish twice (when I got gel manicures for trips). And I culled a lot. 

6. Outdoors:
       a) Clean old cushions and store. MFD took care of this. 
       b) Winterize flower beds. Done, quite late (December 5), but done nonetheless
       c) Yard cleanup/winterization. I did my part December 5, MFD did his the week following. Again, late, but finished. 

7. Check out the Schuylkill Banks Boardwalk. Fail. I will attempt this again in the spring. 

8. Gather whatever gear I need for Africa trip and make appointments for shots. I bought sun protective long sleeves for me & MFD for safari, as well as hats and scarves with anti-bug and anti-sun stuff. We have pants that will do. I got my hepatitis A shot. Typhoid is next. I need to get the prescriptions at the pharmacy too. 

9. Get miles situation straightened out and book flights for New Orleans using miles. Done November 6. 

10. Bake french bread. Fail again. I think this is a three time goal list fail? 

11. Wish The Boss a happy 66th birthday today. (dunzo)

Did you make any fall goals? How did you do? 

Winter Goals 2015

Even though it's been warm as hell in Philly, winter does officially begin on Monday. Winter is the second hardest season for me motivation-wise. Believe it or not, the first is summer. My winter season goals: 

1. Make mozzarella cheese at home.

2. Weights 3x/week and walking once a week. I abandoned my program and need to get back up to speed. The only way I can do that is slowly!

3. Eat at Abe Fisher.

4. Reconfigure basement rooms and how we're using them. This will require purging and reorganization.

5. See sunrise in Cape Town.

6. Bake a carrot cake.

7. Get shore house listed and rented out for the summer.

8. Monthly massage - actually use the membership I have at Hand & Stone.

9. Try five recipes I have pinned on pinterest.

10. Go up to the Liberty One observation deck.

What are your winter goals? 
I'll be reporting in on how I did on my fall goals tomorrow. 

Happy weekend, friends! 

Currently...December

V I S I T I N G ... The Christmas Village in LOVE Park. I love to see the tree behind the LOVE sign but I don't like the actual Christmas Village. I'm not sure if I'll make it down to the one in Franklin Square this year, that one looks awesome.

R E A D I N G ... my fifth book in a little over a week - The Family by Melissa Kennerson. I've been devouring books.

M A R V E L L I N G ... over the fact that a Joe Dirt 2 exists. I never heard of it. Apparently it was bad, and I want to know if it was bad the way Joe Dirt was bad, because that was good bad. 

L O V I N G ... this shore-themed Christmas gift from the lovely Amanda MeeMee. The candles smell amazing and I was wanting something with the coordinates on there...even though I can't read a map to save my life.

And the sassy gift, pug cards,  and cookies from Kerry. Mug love, bag love - hits two of my spots!

F E E L I N G ... college-ish. I love papasan chairs - I always have, and I always will. I ordered one for the efficiency porch at the shore in cobalt blue. I am so excited. I'll be even more excited if the cushions on the right come back in stock to go in the other two chairs out there.

C O N T O R T I N G ... myself on the couch to accommodate three dogs while behind us, MFD slumbers peacefully, spread out. Mae blacks out in these photos, she's right against my leg in the first one.

E A T I N G ... healthy-ish...why do the cookies have to be on the way to the fruit?

A C C E P T I N G ... That I was too ambitious in dreaming up our family trip to Europe next year. I have officially given up London after six iterations of an itinerary trying to cram it in. Paris and Ireland it is. 

Fill me in...what's going on with you this month?

Linking up with Kristin and Joey

Christmas Confessions

1. If you make a big deal about people saying Christmas instead of holidays, I wonder why of all things to pick on, you pick this instead of being happy people are wishing you a merry or a happy anything. If you celebrate Christmas, YOU say Christmas and you don't worry about what anyone else says. If someone says Happy Holidays to you, feel free to reply with Merry Christmas if that's how you want to reply. Likewise, you can say Merry Christmas to someone and they can reply how they would like to reply. No one is telling YOU not to say Merry Christmas. Why is this so hard? It's like kindergarten level. There is not a finite amount of holiday spirit. There's enough to spread it around to people celebrating whatever holiday they celebrate.

2. The Christmas songs I like best are sad or depressing i.e.: Fairytale of New York by the Pogues, Hard Candy Christmas by Dolly Parton, Last Christmas by Wham!, Blue Christmas by Elvis.

3. Movies:
-I've never seen Love Actually and I don't have any desire to.
-The Home Alone family is chock full of assholes and I won't watch it. I prefer assholes of the Uncle Louis/Christmas Vacation variety. THE BLESSING.

4. You can always pick out the gifts I've wrapped - they look like festive crime scenes. Ho ho ho a psycho wrapped these!

5. I think the Elf on the Shelf is a hideous little turdburglar.

6. I adore Christmas Eve, it's always so relaxed and jolly. Christmas Day, meh. I feel like I'm always running to see someone or be somewhere at a certain time and just running on empty in general after a full season of celebrations. Christmas to me is much about the events and the festiveness of the month leading up to it, and when it's over, it's over. I am not looking to extend it. My personal idea of hell is having my Christmas stuff up inside for more than a month, which is why I put it up the Sunday after Thanksgiving and take it down in stages between 12/27 and 1/4.

7. I say HO HO HOooooooooooooo throughout the season a la the Santa in A Christmas Story to the point of being extremely annoying (I'm sure).

8. I love to see gorgeous Martha Stewart-esque Christmas scenes but have no desire to have them in my home.

9. I haven't decorated a tree in over 12 years. I rely on my perfectionist tree decorating husband to do that...

10. but the thought of one day having a home with numerous trees, some of them themed, entices me. I still don't want to decorate them though. Just bask in their glory. Even though this year's tree has been up un decorated aside from white lights for over two weeks, the glow of it is still just awesome.

nakd, but suitable for work. trust me. You can click.

I'm a big fan of the bars (lara, kind, etc) as they travel well and are not too bad for you, depending on which one you choose. They also feel snacky, and I like snacks. But the super processed shit food snacks like me less and less as I age.

The nice folks at Natural Balance Foods are all about the natural snacks and sent me a Nakd sampler box to try for free in exchange for telling you what I think of them.

What I thought was that I could've eaten the whole box upon opening them. I mean, MFD and I went to town on them. They have nine fruit and nut bar flavors available in the U.S. (my favorite is berry delight, but the rhubarb and custard is pretty freaking awesome too) that are just that -  raw fruit and nuts smooshed together. Good and good for you. No added sugars, syrups, or other crap ingredients that don't belong. They're also wheat, dairy, and gluten free.

Are you laughing when I say nuts? I am.

I'm going to get some of these Nakd bars for upcoming trips, and some to keep at work. You can find the sampler pack on the Natural Balance Foods site as well as on that trusty steed, Amazon.

Natural Balance Foods is a Brit company trying to make the move to whole foods easier for health-conscious snackers like me. Well, sometimes me. Sometimes I still really want some Pringles. But mostly I like the good stuff. And these are quite good, I might say similar to my lara bar loves but with more flavors and better in many cases. Give them a go!