For Fran

All men have stars, but they are not the same things for different people. For some, who are travelers, the stars are guides. For others they are no more than little lights in the sky. For others, who are scholars, they are problems... But all these stars are silent. You-You alone will have stars as no one else has them... In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. ...And so it will be as if all the stars will be laughing when you look at the sky at night..You, only you, will have stars that can laugh! And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will be content that you have known me... You will always be my friend. You will want to laugh with me. And you will sometimes open your window, so, for that pleasure... It will be as if, in place of the stars, I had given you a great number of little bells that knew how to laugh.
~The Little Prince

2013: Four Simple Goals

A blog I like to read called A Beautiful Mess blogged about the idea of Four Simple Goals.  Since 2013 will be nuts and the year of The Wedding, instead of writing a huge long list of things I want to accomplish I decided to keep it simple this year.  My goals are:

1.  Eat (at least) one vegetable a day.  I've been getting better about thinking about what I eat and trying to make better choices about what I eat.  I've lost a few pounds (hooray!) as a result, so something must be working.  I've been using an app where I can keep track of what I eat and what exercise I do, so it'll be easy to track this.

2.  Quit coffee.  I actually started this a few days ago, but the goal is to continue it into 2013.  I haven't had coffee since Wednesday.  So far so good!  I'm drinking black tea, which is better because it's less sugar and cream and less expensive since I can just get a tin of it instead of spending $10-15 a week on coffee.  The goal is to keep it going once work starts up again.  I'm allowing myself to cheat on weekends when there's a fun latte with crazy flavors involved (i.e., Starbucks, Gulu, Jaho)

3.  Finish my 5k goal and run the 5k outside in a race.  As I've noted, I've run several 5k's in the gym alone on a treadmill.  I'm also working on improving my time.  I'm at about 40-43 minutes right now, which is decent.  Once it's warmer and there's sunlight after work, I'm getting outside to keep it going and then I'll be signing up for a 5k in the spring or summer.  There's a breast cancer 5k I'm looking at or the Fiesta 5k in June.

4.  Finish the blue sweater and knit another fun sweater.  The blue sweater is about 60% done.  Maybe 70%.  But then all my friends made an unofficial pregnancy pact and had babies, and those babies needed hats.  So the blue sweater went into hiding in the closet.  Well now most people have had their babies, so it's time I finish it and wear it!  I also want to make another sweater for myself.  I might just do a plain thing, I'm not sure.  There are a few I'm eying and I have a ton of yarn asking to be used.


I'll keep this updated with how it's going.  I'm also still doing the 50/50 challenge, but that I'll keep separate from my goals.

Television PSA

The West Wing is streaming on Netflix right now.  All seasons.  GET ON IT.

Also, there's a storm coming, so I think today might be the best day to watch all of season 1 and get started on it. 

Holidays

I hope everyone had a nice Christmas and is enjoying their Boxing Day.  Ricky and I have been tidying up, enjoying our new gifts, and are off to see Les Mis at the (newly funded by Kickstarter so it doesn't have to close!) Cinema Salem. 

Above is some star lights that were on my aunt's porch that I thought were pretty when I was leaving their house the night of Christmas.  I though they were pretty against the blue and black.

12 Days of Christmas Music: Day 12

Christmas Eve!  This has been fun, albeit often done in bulk.  Tonight, we're featuring one of my favorite songs of not only Christmas but probably of all time.  That'd be True Blue Miracle from Christmas Eve on Sesame Street.  It's such a beautiful happy pretty song, and I love the idea that all the Sesame Street gang takes the subway to a different area of the city to get Christmas trees and go ice skating, then have to take the subway back to town.

Ricky and I have spent the last few Christmas Eves watching Christmas Eve on Sesame Street.  It's been a fun way to prepare for Christmas... and this special is so nostalgic and fun.  I strongly recommend it.

I hope you enjoyed this mini series.  It's been fun talking about what festive things I've done and thinking about what songs I like.

12 Days of Christmas Music: Day 11

Yesterday I continued on my tour of old friend Christmas parties by heading to Worcester to embrace my college days.  Tim has been teaching at HC and living across the street from the campus, and he held an egg nog party for his friends.  It was really fun getting together and laughing about crazy old stories.  When we were getting into our cars, though, Jess and I both agreed that we wished that this was 7 years ago and we lived across the street from an off-campus party and didn't have to drive over an hour home.  Alas.

I asked Ricky what Christmas song he wanted, and that was Robert Smigel's Christmastime for the Jews, which was featured on SNL a few years ago.  It made him laugh so hard he cried.  Not a traditional Christmas carol, but definitely a good one for this.  And it's clay animation... who doesn't love that?!




Christmastime for the Jews from Bix Pix Entertainment, Inc. on Vimeo.

12 Days of Christmas Music: Day 10

It's been a crazy weekend, so I am woefully behind on this.  Saturday night was Friendmas.  Friendmas is the annual Christmas get together my friends from high school and I have every year to get together and catch up.  We have a Yankee Swap and play weird games.  It's really fun, and as we've all been pairing off and settling down it's been nice having the spouses be a part of it.

This song doesn't have anything to do with Friendmas, but I wanted to talk about it for a moment.  This day, I thought I'd take a moment to talk about a favorite one of mine from the 80's.  I am of course talking about Christmas in Hollis by Run DMC.  It ends Die Hard (a Landry brother Christmas movie favorite) and it always makes me laugh.