Five Things Friday

1)      I am so fortunate and grateful for all of the opportunities I have gotten to travel this year. E and I have already made two trips over to NOLA and a trip to Nashville. We even had a little stay-cation last weekend when we headed over to Pensacola Beach (I live downtown, two bridges/ 8 miles away from the beach) for our Valentine’s Day getaway. We couldn’t have asked for better weather or more beautiful accommodations. It was pretty awesome.

 

I also have a whole lotta trips coming up on the horizon and I couldn’t be more excited! I am off to Houston next week for a girl’s weekend with one of my dearest friends, Monica. The following weekend E and I are heading south for Phillies spring training. We will be hitting Sarasota, Clearwater and Tampa all in just three days- that will be a bit crazy and a whole bunch of fun. Early April I head to Anaheim for EIGHT DAYS for a work conference. Super excited to see all of my west coast peeps and hopefully set up a meet up or two. Then in early May E and I head to Atlanta for the weekend to see Arcade Fire and hopefully hang with some friends there too. Then the big one, the trip I have been anxiously waiting for- I’m going home to Philly….and taking E with me. He has never been so of course we will be doing a lot of sightseeing, hit some breweries and, of course, catch a Phillies game at CBP! That is May 21-26^th- I cannot wait to see my family and my bestest friend Jaime. It’s been too long!

Ahhhh-  and I cannot forget Fitbloggin’ 14 in Savannah the last weekend of June.

Also in discussion- a trip to south Florida and possibly (hopefully) a second trip to Atlanta but this time with Jaime!

2)      HOCKEY, HOCKEY, HOCKEY!!!!    I love hockey, it’s definitely my favorite sport to watch. I hope one day I can learn how to skate and get out on the ice too! But in the meanwhile I am perfectly content with going to hockey games (and of course watching the US in the Olympics) and watching them on TV. E and I went to a whole bunch of Pensacola Ice Flyers games this year as well as a real NHL game- Avalanche v Predators when we were in Nashville. He is a super huge hockey fan and has been to 9 different NHL arenas (me, only two) and goes to almost all of the local games. When I found out I was definitely going to Anaheim the first thing I did was check the Ducks and the Kings schedules. No home games for the Kings while I am in Cali but two home games for the Ducks. So….I got tickets for both and invited two of my friends, Kiki and Annabel,  to join me. I am super pumped!

On my bucket list is to one day go to the Winter Classic. This year, January 1, 2015, the game is scheduled to be Flyers v Caps in DC. I am a Flyers fan, E is a Caps fan. My fingers are crossed that we can make it out there for this game. I know it is still pretty far out but a girl can dream, right?

3)      Yesterday I had my second personal training session. It was awesome. I still can’t do crunches but I was able to do three exercises again which I did last week, plank, boat pose, and Russian twists, with a little bit of improvement in the boat pose and Russian twists. The plank still sucked. But, to be fair, I was never very good at plank. Lol!

The workout was primarily weights (both machines and free weights) with a bit of cardio thrown in there just to get the heart rate up. It was good. This session as well as last week’s session was kind of setting the benchmark to see where my ability level is and determine what I can and cannot do. Going forward our sessions will be a mix of weights and cardio with the main focus on building muscle to help get my fat burn rate up. Sounds good to me. Happy to finally be getting my confidence back as things get easier and there is less pain after. Progress!

Oh and I am still doing the Couch to 5K program, just at my own rate. I think this was my third week and I just finished W2/D2 on Wednesday. Eh, I am not too concerned about the timing. I am not in a rush to finish the program. I am just using it to get used to running again.

4)      I just had my one year anniversary at the university and therefore needed to complete my one year performance evaluation with my boss. It went really, really well! Not only did my boss write some really amazing things about me in there but he also included feedback from other people I work with. It was nice to read that my peers think so highly of me. I mean, I think I am pretty awesome but it’s nice to know others do, too ;)

 

5)      You know, yesterday was a pretty big day for me. As you probably saw, it was my three year blogiversary. Three years ago I not only started a blog (thanks mostly to my BFF Jaime) but I also committed to change my life. I had hit my breaking point just a few days prior and I was finally able to recognize what had become of my life. It was bad, even though I still managed to keep a smile on my face, the reality of what my life had become had finally started to sink in. I was miserable. I was sick, tired all the time, everything hurt. It was just not at all the life I wanted. And I was FINALLY ready to step up to the plate and take responsibility for the actions that led me there and FINALLY ready to take the actions needed to change. And I needed to hold myself accountable for making those changes. Blogging helped. Twitter helped. Facebook helped. I shared everything; the good, the bad, and the ugly, along the way and somehow managed to end up here. Sadly, I don’t think I stressed this point enough yesterday- I would not have ended up here if it wasn’t for the amazing my support group which has somehow grown exponentially over the last three years. I am lucky. I know this and am thankful for it every day. I couldn’t have done this on my own. You have given me hope, inspiration, guidance, camaraderie, pride, happiness, love, a sense of worth, and motivation for days. You are my rock through all this. A big, huge, ginormous thank you to you!

 

Happy Friday my loves!

xoxoxox-

Dacia