At the moment…

…I have totally failed on the February Photo Challenge I blogged about at the beginning of this month. I wanted to experiment with my phone to take pictures, but my phone is on the blink. I’ll take a photo and then I can’t pull up the images, plus I realize the quality of the photos totally sucks. And my laptop is also dying a slow death, so I haven’t been uploading any photos on my computer, afraid I might see the blue screen of death before backing them up. Maybe next month? Maybe I’ll just get an iPhone and Mac and solve all my problems?

…totally rocking my half marathon training, thanks to my super awesome training partner (best-husband-ever!). I was following a seven week training plan and slowly increasing my long run every week, with some 4-5 mile days during the week. I managed to do 9 miles on a treadmill (snow outside) and find a couple days where it wasn’t too windy out to get in my 10 and 11 miles, over the last 2 weekends.

…thinking this is going to be a great year of running. Already thinking of doing another half marathon next month and joined the lottery for the Broad Street 10 miler in May.

…excited to visit New Orleans again and enjoy some good Cajun food!

…J’aime beaucoup parler français! I’m totally loving my French class. It’s hard to find time to practice daily, but I’m starting to get the basics down.

…designing in my head a whole new everything for our bedroom.

…so excited that I am now a preferred member of an airline! Now I understand why people just book flights just to fly in order to get enough miles to maintain their status. PHL-PHX-AUK-SFO-IAD-PHL, might be my plans for next weekend.

…this preferred status is part of my problem, you see I’m addicted to travel. Oh how I wish travelling the world could be my job!

February Photo Challenge

Happy February!

Last year I FINALLY finished the photo-a-day Project 365 challenge (see my Flickr Set) after 3 failed attempts. I was so proud of my accomplishment,  I rewarded myself with a photo book all the photos I took throughout the year. Dave and I have fun looking at them, although most of the photos are so random and true to the fact that you just ‘had to be there that day’ to understand the photos.

This year I wanted to do some kind of photo challenge, just wasn’t sure what. And then the internet universe gave me a challenge. Tori, of Marvelous Things Photography, posted a photo challenge for February (isn’t the internet so great, no idea how I even came about this cool blog, but so glad I did). She created a list of things beginning with ‘F’ to take a picture of everyday in her February Photo Challenge. So I’m going to try it out, maybe using a mixture of my phone camera, which I never use and should probably learn how to take better photos on, and my lovely dslr.

I’m hoping to do a mixture of taking photos for fun and maybe monthly challenges throughout the year as I continue to learn more and more about photography. I’ll try and post a few of my February photo challenge photos throughout the month.

Hope you are enjoy the first day of February and the weekend!

January = Longest Month Ever

January has been such a long month! A good month, with lots of reasons to celebrate, but still long.  

Reason #1 to celebrate, I got a promotion at work!

Reason # 2 to celebrate, Dave was born! 

Looking forward to a short month. Hope you enjoy the last day of January.

 

(Picture: via)

At the moment…

…I’m super excited because I got a promotion at work today! Long overdue, but well deserved. Unfortunately with how promotions work at my company, I likely won’t get promoted for another 10 years, so I’m enjoying the moment while it lasts

…I’m loving the 2012 Project 365 photobook I made and just got in the mail yesterday. It’s a fun view into my life in 2012. Not sure if I will do it again, but it has made me realize how important it is to take photos of life.

…I’m missing Homeland. Dave and I watched the first season in the fall last year and because we found out it was Showtime Free Preview this past weekend, watched the entire second season in 24 hours. I’m totally hooked and counting down to the start of the third season.

…Finding it so hard to get motivation to run more than 4 miles on the treadmill. I came up with a training plan and getting some long runs in on the weekends, but struggling with treadmill running during the week.

…Love making all kinds of lists in my new planner by Erin Condren. My super organized list making self from 3rd grade is making a come back (I use to make a ‘Nightly To Do’ list for myself)

…Totally behind on blogging about our fun European adventure last fall

…Excited to start my French class next week

…Planning some birthday fun for my husband

Running in the Cold

Like the rest of the wold, I”m starting the new year by being active (although trying to avoid the gym until this active motivation dies down). Last month, I signed up to run the New Orleans Half Marathon in February with my friend who is doing the full marathon. Being active isn’t one of my new years resolutions, I decided long ago that this just needs to be a part of my life at all times. Last year, while I was active, my running was not where it had been in previous years, I only ran in one 5k race (Turkey Trot). So this year, I decided to kick off the year by already having a race to train for (50 days left to train!). I’m excited about the upcoming race, especially the post race hurricanes and po’boys!

So far this week, I’ve been running in the cold and I’m sure it’s only going to get colder (hello snow!). I have no specific races that I want to run the rest of the year, but I’m hoping to do at least a couple more half marathons this year.

Here’s hoping the training goes well!

Girl Shows

Happy New Year!

I’m not sure what it is, but I seem to have a slight obsession with TV shows that have ‘girl’ in the title. I’m not normally a big TV watcher, but occasionally I’ll get hooked on a show. First it was Gilmore Girls. I lived with roommates, just got a Netflix account and was trying to ‘beat the man’ by getting my monthly money’s worth of renting. I never really watched the show when it was on the air, but I was hooked the first episode. The fast talking, funny real life references were great, although I wasn’t such a fan of the way the show ended.

Then I discovered New Girl. This show is so hilarious!A refreshing comedy that stands out from all the crap on regular cable TV.

Then there was Girls. I spent a weekend with my friend Kate who has HBO on demand, we watched 1 episode and then went on to watch the whole season before the weekend was over. The first season was only 10 episodes, but I don’t know what I’m going to do when the second season starts up again soon. I might just have to wait till the season is over and do another marathon episode weekend.

And lastly, there was Gossip Girl. I somehow caught the first episode on a random lazy Sunday afternoon and 3 episodes later I was DVRing every episode I could find. This really wasn’t a quality show, but it was like the train wreck that I just had to keep watching. I even watched seasons out of order and then found out Netflix had the seasons streaming online. I’m glad the show ended this year (I thought GG was Dorota). Needless to say, I wasted days of my life on a crap TV show, but I did take away some fashion tips and spots to check out in NYC.

2013 will be a year with less TV in my life, unless of course there is a good show out there with ‘girl’ in the title.

On to a new year…

Goodbye 2012, Hello 2013!

The start of a new year is always exciting, a chance for new adventures. And it’s the end of a wonderful year, full of memories made. 2012 was a great year! I was lucky enough to spend it with family and friends, to celebrate my 1 year wedding anniversary, to travel to exciting places, and to finally complete my photo-a-day project.

Every year as I get older, I realize how precious each year is. I’m looking forward to all the fun and adventures that 2013 brings!