Hi everyone! I hope you all had a great weekend! My weekend was jam packed with fun stuff! On Friday night I went to a game night with a few couples that I just met, and on Saturday I spent the day making ugly sweaters with my friend for us and our husbands before we went out to an ugly sweater pub crawl! Sunday was spent relaxing and celebrating the first night of Hanukkah with my husband. When I think about this December versus last December I’m pretty happy with how things are going – we’re making new friends, doing fun stuff, and keeping busy in the winter. Have I mentioned how much I love living in Alaska? 🙂 Anyways, here’s an update on what I was up to last week and how I’m doing with my December goals (if you forgot what they were, go here!):
Things I’m not doing so well on: First of all, the gratitude journal idea isn’t working out so well – but that’s because I always spend the last few minutes of my daily short yoga practice focusing on what I’m grateful for, and it just feels a little strange to then go and write that stuff down. It just makes more sense for me to think about those things instead of writing them down, so I’ll be doing that from now on. But I can say that I’ve been able to come up with three meaningful things each day so far! The other thing I’m failing on right now is the no sugar challenge. I was doing great until Friday and Saturday when I spent time out with other people. But I guess if I’m sugar free all week long and only have sugar on the weekends then it’s still an improvement over what I used to do. I’m hoping that next weekend I can attempt to be a bit more sugar free!
But the good news is that I’m doing great with the rest of my goals! I am totally rocking my #25daysofholidayspirit challenge. I’ve been able to do something festive at least once a day so far! If you’re not following me on instagram, here’s what I’ve been up to over the past 6 days:
December 1: I bought a new ornament for our tree! I get a few each year but this was the first one of 2015. I definitely have a thing for rustic reindeer right now!
December 2: I’m a big reality TV nerd so I had to watch this new TV show called “Santas in the Barn”. It’s awful, but my husband and I have way too much fun watching it!
December 3: I put up my mini tree and Christmas countdown at work!
December 4: We spent our lunch making paper snowflakes to decorate our office. It was snowing a bit outside so it was a nice touch!
December 5: I rocked the ugliest Christmas sweater on earth (I basically bought everything in the Christmas aisle and hot glued it to myself, and then I wore lights that actually lit up. So many people stopped to give me compliments!) and my husband was one of two people in town rocking an ugly Hanukkah sweater!
December 6: We celebrated the first night of Hanukkah with healthy sweet potato latkes (if you want the recipe go here!).
And for my last two goals, here’s what I’ve done so far:
December spin class milage: 29 miles
December running milage: 1 mile
Wait what? Yes, I was tentatively cleared to run at my PT appointment on Thursday – he said I could start with 10 minutes and go from there. So I did my first run on Friday and even though I was really nervous it went okay! Later that day the entire lower half of my body was a bit sore, but I’m not sure if that’s just because it was my first run in such a long time or if I’m still injured. There’s a difference between the soreness I felt and the injury pain, so I’m going to tentatively continue on with the 10 minute runs until I see my PT again on Thursday and we can discuss it – but if I get any pain at all between now and then I’ll stop. This injury has helped me get better at listening to my body so I’m going to use that skill this week for sure.
How was your weekend? Did you do anything especially festive?
Mom in the Mtns 
Those latkes look so delicious, I already wrote the receipt down!
I couldn’t go for a run at the weekend because of the heavy rain and storm (many towns not far from here are flooded).
Saturday evening I attended a Christmas-do from the army which was very boring as my husbands colleagues only talked to my because of pure politeness (easy to tell) and I just counted the hours until we left.
As for Christmas itself, for some reason I am absolutely not in the mood yet.
But I am feeling great, as I went for a morning run in the dark-
it was a very muddy business!
Haha I hope you get the chance to make them! Great job on your muddy run this morning, it sounds super wet there!
My husband does not like sweet potatoes. 😦 So I just bought some premade ones at Whole Foods & fried them up yesterday. Much as I love Whole Foods, mine are better, but seriously just too much trouble especially with how little sleep I’ve been getting lately.
I’m betting the soreness is just from the return to running. But you’re being very good listening to your body!
Oh yeah these took forever to prep so store bought ones sounds like they would be way easier! I just went for my second run and still feel good so we’ll see if that soreness comes back today.
It’s not even the prep time (although there is that), it’s the cooking time too, since we can only do them in small batches.
I guess I don’t like them as much as pancakes/waffles/crepes, where I’m willing to stand there forever making them.
Home made does taste better, though, I gotta admit!
YAY! So glad that one of us is running! You be careful, though, and let me know if you want some help coming up with a plan as you come back. I may be injured, but that just means that I have more time for everyone else, right?
I like to think of my blog as my gratitude journal, and if you do so during your yoga, I think that is sufficient–you may not be writing it down, but you are going through thea ction, and that is the point.
Ahhh I meant to email you back! I think that if things go well with this running thing right now, and I’m feeling great in the spring, then I’ll probably sign up for the Philly Marathon (my first!) and I’d love to get you as a coach! I am very aware at this point that I have no idea how to do this whole running thing and it seems like a whole other level with marathon training. So I would love someone to help me figure out what workouts to do, how fast I should be running during training, etc. So I’ll be hitting you up for that! Right now I’m just hoping my PT can help me ease back into this but I will let you know if I need any help. I’m so nervous I’m going to mess something up! I never want either of us to go through this again!
I had a great weekend too & it was very festive! I went Christmas shopping, put up my “tree” (not your typical Christmas tree) and watched the “Very Murray Christmas” special on Netflix! I’m not used to being this festive! haha 🙂
Ooooh I want to see this non-typical tree! All of this sounds amazing!
lol I’ll Tweet you a picture of it. It may or may not actually supposed to be an outside yard item… hahahahaha
sounds like a great weekend! i’m so glad you’re getting back to running! i think the soreness is just from not running in a few weeks (at least that’s what i’m hoping it is!) this weekend wasn’t too festive for us, but all of our stockings finally got delivered and it makes me so happy!
I’m thinking so too. I just ran this morning and had way less soreness and only a few sensitive moments throughout the day. I’m tentatively getting hopefully that this is the real deal!
An ugly sweater pub crawl sounds like a complete blast! Your sweaters were indeed….something! The 25 days of holiday spirit sounds like it would be a really fun tradition. I would be way behind though since today was my first day of doing anything holidayish. We got our decorations down from the attic and also started our shopping. Now, I’m in the total mood! Let’s get this party started!
Hahaha yes that’s the best way to describe them 🙂 And you should jump in and do it with me! It’s so much fun looking for something festive to do every day. It has motivated me to get out and do things when I’m feeling lazy and has reminded me that there’s so many ways to stay happy this holiday season.
Sounds like a lovely weekend!
Thanks! I’m kind of hoping for this upcoming weekend already 🙂 They’re the best!
I like the idea of a gratitude journal. But I have never followed through. My weekend was not festive .. maybe the coming.. Sounds like you had a great weekend though!
Yeah, it’s just hard to actually write stuff down. I stick to it more if it’s in my head!
LOVE the festive sweaters! I never would have thought to make one myself, if I end up doing the sweater run this year I am going to try it!