Reestablish

As I wandered around Target the other day looking for baby things for my friend's baby shower, I was ultimately drawn towards the office supplies section. They had so many pretty little journals and notebooks. I flipped through each one that interested me, judging how flexible the binding was so you could open it wide enough to write in it but it wouldn't destroy what held it together. I've tried spiral notebooks or journals but they've always felt too school-like. I obsessively held each one when I realized I've already got one at home that isn't even half way written through!

That's when I sat back and thought about how I should go about journaling and blogging in order to consistently use all the resources I've tapped into. I have a physical journal that sits under my bed side table that I want to use for more personal reflections of the going-ons in my life. RoosterTeeth is my go to for video game related thoughts. And I have decided to use this space to post more along the lines of opinions, movie reviews, and random craft project-like things I work on. It will be a more generalized approach that will exclude sob stories and the more deep, insightful, thoughts that cross my mind. I think that is what this blog has always been but I wanted to sort this all out in my head.

Shoe Upgrade

We had a good run brown Oxford flats. You were comfy, easy to slip on and went with almost everything. I knew we had to part when I stepped into a shallow puddle and the bottom of my foot got wet. 

Culprit - the hole

So cute. I will miss thee

 These were hands down my favorite shoes to wear. They weren't particularly comfortable for long walks around a museum but they were dependable. Just so damn adorable. One of reason I held onto these shoes for so long was that I wanted to find a new pair that was almost exactly like them. I wanted to replace them in the strictest sense. So voila! Below are pretty much the same exact shoes but in black with some fun laces.

I was afraid black would be too harsh of a color to have since I had been so accustomed to brown but these shoes really make my fun colored socks really pop (I also bought new socks at the Gap; orange/pink/white. They're awesome.) So mission accomplished! I finally bought new shoes that are exactly like the old ones! Thank you Not Rated for making the same exact shoes you had last year! :)

Pintrest - DIY pencil organizer

As much as I loved our little plastic pencil cup, it was starting to get a little crowded. I found a DIY "marker caddy" on Pintrest that I found to be very easy! My version is a little different but the idea is basically the same.

I took an empty puzzle box (the puzzle I finished a few weeks ago and glued it together), some paper towel and toilet paper rolls, cut them up, and stuck them inside the box. Initially, I didn't have enough cardboard rolls to fill up the whole box and the pencils and pens couldn't hold themselves up. Until I found one more paper towel roll hidden in another shoe box my temporary solution was to paper clip all the rolls together and to the box. Voila!

Pintrest - Organizing a t-shirt drawer

I've seen various blogs depicting Pintrest Fails but none that showed people trying all these DIY projects with normal to great success.

I found a pin that helped with organizing your t-shirt drawer. The lady who posted this idea describes reorganizing her son's t-shirt drawer. She listed very simple and clear instructions and although she was dealing with shirts that were probably bigger than mine and slightly different in shape, I thought I'd try it out anyway.

Before: shirts barely fit. Hard to find the one I wanted to wear

After: I fit more shirts in the drawer than were originally in there. Huzzah!

The project was mostly a success. I was able to fit a few more shirts than were in the drawer before but since my dresser is kind of small the shirts stuck UP a little too much and got stuck in the dresser when I tried to pull out the drawer again. I just squished down what I could to make it fit and hopefully not get stuck. Another remedy I could try would be to double fold those shirts that stick up but then I'd end up taking up more room in the drawer. The ultimate answer would just to get a bigger dresser.

Stan "helping"

Slacking

But not on purpose!

The trauma to my mouth kind of set me back the whole week. I couldn't really do anything at home either! I just sat on the couch as soon as I got home from work, turned on the TV and hung out with the cat until Joe came home and made dinner. It was quite pathetic but I don't regret any moments rest I took. But now I have no excuse not to work out! Well except that yesterday we had planned on jogging to Cheeseman Park (a few blocks east of us) but then it decided to snow pretty heavily in the evening. So we ended up staying in and watching a documentary called The Revisionaries.

I am determined to get back on track! I still remember what exercises I was working on and continue to find new ones on Pintrest. Also, a friend of mine that I used to work with at DSW asked me if I wanted to try a Zumba class with her. I've only tried Zumba a couple of times and that was about two years ago when I was still in college.

It kind of reminds me of a modern day Jazzercise.

It was pretty fun and I think it'll be great to have a friend to go along with. I might try to get Joe to join us but he gets embarrassed easily and this is the kind of work out that can start out pretty embarrassing. But I want him to stay active. If I enjoy this Zumba thing enough to stick with it I will probably cancel my membership at the gym we currently attend since the pricing will be about the same and I'm not about to pay double for working out. And if I quit that gym, Joe will have no motivation (i.e. me) to go on his own and he will probably quit too. If or when that happens I still want him to be active in some way. Any way! Maybe he'll warm up to the whole Zumba thing, who knows.

Tooths

These pens are probably the most exciting part of my weekend. Besides the whole wisdom teeth extraction I had Thursday afternoon. I finally got all four pulled out of my head and it wasn't that bad. Except for the lower left tooth that was basically perpendicular to the rest of my teeth. The dentist really had to work on that one, cutting off pieces of with his little drill, pulling and tugging, more cutting, until it finally gave up and vacated my mouth. Of course that left me with a lot of swelling, but only on the left side so I looked a bit lop sided for a couple of days.

Fast forward to now and there is definitely less pain in my mouth! The lower left tooth that was trouble for my dentist left a pretty gaping hole in my mouth and I was concerned that would get infected and cause all sorts of trouble. I've never been through any kind of major "surgery" before so I really didn't know what to expect. But the pain is lessening and the hole itself seems to be closing up so I think I'm in the home stretch!

I werk out

Today's (Tuesday) numbers:

Started with treadmill - 3 min warm up, 4 min run, 2 min cool down
On to box step ups - 2 sets of 15 each leg
Next was triceps dips - 3 sets of 10
Then one legged squat and leg abduction - 2 sets of 10 each leg
Seated leg sweep - 3 sets of 5 each leg (I kind of pussied out on these)
Lastly the dreaded stability ball V-press - 2 sets of 10

If you don't know what that last one looks like...

It was a pretty good workout. I keep pushing myself to do more and more each week. I'd like to add one exercise to my routine each week as well. But if I feel like I'm not improving or mastering on the exercises I'm doing already that means I need to stick with those before I start anything new.

Yeah, that sounds like a plan!

Commitment

I've found a new addiction in Pintrest.

The site features posts about almost anything you could think of: food, tattoos, baby animals, organizing tips and even better - exercise. It's made tracking down new workouts a breeze and there's no excuse not to implement them into my dwindling exercise regimen.

The other night I tried the new leg exercises to get back into the groove. There was the seated leg sweep, step ups (on a box step), and a leg extension with squat. After those simple exercises I felt exhausted and ashamed. But I am still motivated. There are to many parts of me that jiggle.

I am also going to start a "wake up warm up" routine that I also found on Pintrest. I would like to go running in the mornings but  know that I am not up to that caliber yet so hopefully this warm up routine  will help me get my day going with an energetic start.

Here's to the new year and a new me!