Happy New Year!

223.0 this morning!  Since I was somewhere between 224 and 226 for the last 2 weeks of December, this means that I LOST weight over the holidays!  I'm not surprised.  I exercised every day that I was in Oregon except the last 2 days and ate pretty well.  The exercise helped me not be as stressed by "family time," and made it easier for me to last a week with family I only see about once a year.  My eating degenerated as the week progressed.  By Friday, I was dipping my hand into the cookie batter!  Glad I managed to start off pretty well and glad to be back home before totally falling off the wagon.

I spent time yesterday while I was trapped in planes or airports to think about New Year's resolutions, about last year and the upcoming year.  (I also spent time being bummed that I'd spend New Year's Eve alone - again.  But Oh Well.)

Last year was tough, but overall OK and ended on a high note.  I joined the volunteer fire department and as the only woman had a tough time getting started and a rough year up until November/December.  I had Lyme disease in June/July and some money issues in the fall that had me a lot closer to the edge than I'm comfortable with.  I had a frozen/broken pipe in January and the whole back of the house didn't have heat until a few weeks ago (which doesn't really work for upstate NY!).  I dated 2 guys, one at the beginning and one at the end of the year, and broke it off with both of them after a few months.  The more I write, the more I remember!  Ugh.  Last year had some real gems.

But what really takes hold is that I'm pretty tough too.  I got into the CDCC challenge in September and FINALLY started to take care of myself physically.  I took a meditation class in October and FINALLY started to learn how to be gentle with myself and started to realize that I'm lovable not because of what I accomplish but because of who I am.  And then I started to figure out who I am and started to re-discover things I used to like to do.  Like art and poetry.

After I started to focus on ME in a gentle, supporting way, other things began to fall into their right places. I'm starting this year with a much greater sense of possibility than past years.  I still need to make some close friends and get more comfortable with the firehouse people, but that is WORLDS ahead of a year ago and will be a focus of this year.  This is the year of ME.  Is it selfish?  Yup.


Resolutions:  I'm already doing ALL of the things that I would resolve.  It started with the CDCC challenge and continues with the E2E challenge. This feels great.  I'm not gonna make any more resolutions than what I'm already doing.

Goals for this year:  I want to get out of obese territory and get to 185 pounds, possibly 170.  I'm going to push really hard to get to 200, but then may slow down.  Increase my fitness level - details will be in E2E posts.  End the year with some strong friendships and possibly, maybe ... hopefully ... in a relationship ... with a boy!

Other 2012 goals: take and complete EMT training (lots of hours Jan thru May) and get into the brigade at work (I tried last year and failed.  I think it's because I was fat).

As it unoriginally says at the end of my match.com profile - Let's Get this Party Started!