WIAW - So Much Yum

Hey everyone! I hope you are all well and getting over the middle of the week hump. Things are thawing here thanks for 40 degree weather and I'm thankful for that. It's still just white everywhere but I'm a fan of clearer roads so it's all good.

I'm starting to get back in the habit of taking more pics of my meals and today I have a bunch of yummy things I've eaten over the past week. Check it out!

There must be something in the air lately making us all want banana bread because I was having a serious craving last week. Serious enough of a craving that I came home from work after 6 on Thursday night and made a loaf. I used Chocolate Covered Katie's Fat Free Banana Bread recipe and added some chocolate chips because… well chocolate chips. 

This was breakfast the following morning. I got a nice little chocolate pocket and oh man it was so good! I still have a few pieces left in the freezer and I assure you that it has taken every ounce of my willpower not to eat the rest of it in one sitting :)

This was a beautiful salad that I ate. It had romaine, cucumber, tomato (which I avoided… they were gross and mealy), apples, almonds and dried cranberries. It was so freaking good. It was later topped with some balsamic vinaigrette and I just left off the feta.

I've been eating a lot of gluten free pasta with spinach and nooch. It's been a good staple meal in the cold weather. I use a lot of spinach in it, and I really enjoy it. It's strange because I've never really enjoyed eating pasta but lately I have been really liking it.

This was a lazy dinner but still delicious! This was a grilled peanut butter and banana sandwich on wheat with some snap pea crisps. Yum.

That's all I've got for this week but I guess it's better than I've been doing? I've been repeating meals and didn't feel the need to repeat pictures. 

I hope all is well and that you all have a great night! I'll see you on Friday for another Fun Friday post!

Fun Friday: DIY Pin Roundup

Hey you guys! We are just hours away from this big blizzard they are predicting. I have done everything I can possibly do to prepare for this (including taking tomorrow off from work) and now it is time to hurry up and wait. I wonder how much we'll actually get... more like how much I have to shovel actually ;) Workout for the day!

I thought it would be fun to do a Pinterest Roundup for this week's Fun Friday post. I figured if a lot of us are going to be stuck inside for a good chunk of the weekend it might be fun to post some of my favorite DIY and craft ideas in case anyone is looking for something to do! I have the materials for some of these projects but we'll see if I actually do anything or just lay around like a lazy butt... in between all of the shoveling of course.

OK, let's check out some fun DIY projects!

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The first DIY project that I LOVE and am looking forward to trying is making your own note cards! I love note cards and I think it would be really fun to make your own and be able to customize your cards for each person and each occasion. The one above is a Sunburst Card which utilizes scrapbook paper scraps. It's really cute!

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The best part about this project is that you can use any medium that you want to decorate your note cards! I found a pin for this Watercolor Technique Tutorial and I think that it would be really cool to use some of these techniques on your note cards! You can use different techniques and different colors and you can a great variety of cards :)

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The last card decorating idea that I'm going to link to is probably my favorite and that is paper marbling. You can check out a great Paper Marbling Tutorial here! I think it comes out so beautiful and you can use any colors that you like and each one comes out different. I really love this technique and I think this would be a really fun snow day project! It doesn't require any crazy materials and I think it's something that kids would have fun doing too. Heck you can get your kids' Valentine's Day Cards finished early this year!

I would recommend using card stock to make your cards. I actually happened to purchase a 25 pack of pre-cut card stock that is already the perfect size for your cards (and has a fold). I got them on sale and a pack of 25 cost me $1.16. Not bad considering greeting cards can go for $5 nowadays!

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You guys. I can't with these. I am OBSESSED with these! These are DIY Raw Crystal Necklace Displays. My inner rock nerd was so happy when I found these, especially because they are so easy to make! Obviously this is something that you would need to prepare for before being able to make it but maybe if you collect the materials it may be a fun activity for your next snow day. I love the idea of buying the raw crystals and thinking of fun and beautiful ways to use them. I had a rock collection when I was a kid and I would love to be able to use crystals in a decorative and functional way. I definitely want to try and think of my own DIYs using raw crystals as well.

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Something that I've been enjoying lately to alleviate my stress has been coloring! It seems silly but adult coloring is actually a think now and it really does help you with your stress. The best part about this is that you can go to this website, download and print your own Mandalas to color! All you need is a printer and whatever your favorite coloring medium is.

There you have it! Some fun DIY/craft projects to try when you are stuck inside the house or just if you were feeling crafty. I don't know what I'll end up doing this snowy weekend but if I do end up making something I will definitely share it with you!

For everyone that is going to be getting this snow, please stay safe, stay warm and stay dry! I hope you all enjoy your weekend and I'll be back in a few days to show you a planner update and how last week's spread turned out as well as next week's spread!

WIAW - Tuesday and Most of Wednesday

Hey everyone! I did it! I photographed my meals yesterday for you to see today. I'm still not feeling great so my appetite is still kind of low but I am making sure I get three meals in. Leaving a lot of time in between helps me to digest and get hungry so hopefully this will help me feel normal again. I also started my lemon water yesterday and so far it has been working out pretty well! I actually can't wait to make fruit infused vitamin water in the summer when all the good stuff is back in season ;)

Anyway, here is what I ate yesterday. I didn't photograph the lemon water but I did drink a huge glass of it… probably a 32 oz sized cup. I drank half before breakfast and finished it with breakfast.

For breakfast I had my favorite… oatmeal! With cinnamon, ground flax seeds and a banana.

I had it in my new bowl! Isn't it the cutest?! I got it from the Target Dollar Spot… for $3. Go figure. Worth every penny though.

For lunch I made this delicious sandwich! I toasted a bagel and spread a thick layer of Isa's Hummus for Sandwiches from Veganomicon and topped with basil and sun dried tomato. This is one of my favorite sandwiches. I love it.

For dinner I decided to make a little gluten free pasta. I added some spinach, nutritional yeast and a teeny bit of earth balance. It was good. I made extra to bring to work for lunch today.

PS. check out all the carbs today. Sorry not sorry.

I have been having major apple and pear cravings lately. They have been my favorite night time snack. last night I had a small honeycrisp apple. So good.

For breakfast this morning I made some Ezekiel toast with hummus, basil and sun dried tomato. I had a small apple on the side. I got through one and a half pieces of toast… it was so filling!

Lunch is going to be leftovers from yesterday. Looks pretty good.

That's it! Tonight I'm going to have soup with roasted sweet potato for dinner. I haven't decided if I'm going to do black bean soup or veggie soup. I'll see how I feel when I get home.

You'll notice if you check out my last post that my meal plans can change if I wake up craving something completely different. I'm ok with it, sometimes you just have to go with the flow. I'm also doing a little bit of a pantry challenge to try and save some money so that's where the gf pasta, ekeziel toast and oatmeal came from. I have some smoothie bags in the freezer too that I pre-portion to make it easier in the morning. You'll probably see some of those in the future too.

So that's it! I tend to eat repetitively, especially if there is something I really like (like the hummus combo above) so sorry that there isn't much variety. I'm a creature of habit :)

I hope you have a great day! Are all of my friends here in the Northeast ready for our first winter storm? Yikes!

Plan With Me Monday: January 18-24

Hey you guys. I'm back with another post showing you my planner. This week I'll be showing you how last week turned out and what this week looks like as of right now. I'll be honest with you, last week was a really bad week for me. I'm still not feeling great and my spirits are down a bit but I'll explain that more as we go through the post.

This is the full spread from last week. I really love the way it looks. It was actually the perfect kit to use to decorate because we got our first snow last night so the watercolor snow theme was perfect. I ended up decorating that section a little more as you'll see in a minute.

So the first half of the week looks like this. I've been making notes when I don't feel well so I can explain everything to my doctor appropriately when I go in for my physical. I also picked out some recipes that I wanted to make from The Abundance Diet but those will mostly be on hold for a bit as I'm doing a little bit of a pantry challenge to try and save a little money. As you'll notice, I ended up staying late at work on Tuesday and experienced horrific back spasms all day Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. They were the type of spasms that knock the wind out of you and leave you in an incredible amount of pain. I'm still in pain and sore from them today.

This is the second half of the week. I made a note of the death of Alan Rickman because that is incredibly sad and it is just a reminder for me. If you look at the top box on Friday you'll see that Friday night/early Saturday morning was especially bad for me. I am no stranger to panic attacks and if you've had them yourself you know they can be terrifying but the only defense you have is that you can typically tell when it is coming. Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night in the middle of a panic attack? It is 100% the most terrifying thing I've ever experienced in my life and it's not the first time it has happened to me. You wake up and you think you are dying. It took me a very long time to calm down and I was anxious the whole next day because of it.

You'll notice on Sunday that it was the first snow of the season. It was just a light flurry with the tiniest bit of accumulation but it finally happened.

Unfortunately that is not the most notable thing that happened on Sunday. I don't know if any of you have heard about the double murder-suicide that occurred in an off campus residence at SUNY Geneseo (in NY). If you haven't, you can read about it here. The reason that this affected me so greatly is because this is where I went to school. And this isn't a giant student mill of a school... it is a small town, set in the middle of nowhere. There are about 5,000 students in total and you pass by giant cow fields to get to the school. The town consists of the school, a Main Street and residences. Up the hill is a Walmart, Wegmans, movie theatre and a few restaurants and small hotels. That's it. It is a small, tight knit community that I grew to love and I can assure you that a tragedy like this hits very hard. It was my home for four years... probably the best four years of my life and my heart is broken for the community, the school and the families. I know exactly where that house was and it is hard to imagine it being the scene of such a horrific crime. Parents were sending their kids back to school yesterday for the spring semester and I can imagine the fear and concern they must have felt... which is strange because I have never felt safer than I did when I lived there.

Anyway, there is a snapshot of what my week was like. I'm hoping that this week is a fresh start and that things will go a bit better. I'm still not feeling great but I'm trying to rest as much as I can today and hopefully that will help.

Here is the full week spread for next week. I'm not going to lie, I'm REALLY happy with how this came out. I ended up cobbling it together with a bunch of different stickers from different shops and it turned out to be a cohesive spread. I even had the perfect washi tape to use to decorate the bottom.

This is the first half of the week. I was supposed to go to the bank and post office today... not realizing that they would be closed for the holiday. I have no concept of Monday holidays anymore since Monday is a standard day off for me. Anyway, it's pretty typical stuff planned for this week. One different thing that I added was a "Lemon Water" habit sticker in the sidebar. I know it is great for digestion so I'm hoping that if I can make that a daily habit it will help me out.

This is the second half of the week. I was so excited because I finally got to use one of my "Fat Amy" quote stickers! I am a huge fan of the Pitch Perfect movies and Fat Amy might be my spirit animal. She is freaking hilarious. Anyway, I knew that I wouldn't be working out on Sunday so I used my "Yeah, no... don't put me down for cardio" quote and it is my favorite part of the spread by far. I laugh every time I see it. I also may go with my mom to get a pedicure on Sunday depending on the weather. Otherwise is it pretty open for now but as you know, I'll show you the finished spread next Monday. 

That's all I have for you today. Hopefully this week will be better than last and I'm sure it will be. 

I hope you've all been well! Let me know some fun things you have planned for this week!

Fun Friday! Weekly Favorites

Hey you guys! I hope you are doing well! I'm here for my first Fun Friday post and I have some weekly favorites to share with you! I know I didn't get my WIAW up but I did have good reason for that… mainly because I was totally off on my eating this week. Meaning that I didn't eat a whole ton and what I ate wasn't interesting. I had really horrible back spasms for three days straight that left me in a lot of pain and with no appetite so I just knew it wasn't going to happen. But I'm here and I have a few things to share with you!

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My first favorite shouldn't be a surprise since I raved about it earlier in the week. I was inspired by Bianca's posts to purchase The Abundance Diet by Somer McCowan. I tried a few of the recipes including the Homestyle Mexican Casserole and Cheesy Cauliflower and Potato bake and both are AMAZING. I also made the Tahini salad dressing and it is also delicious. I read the book cover to cover and I really enjoyed it and the recipes are hearty and delicious. I really really recommend this book to anyone that is looking for some new recipes to try. I have most of the recipes I made in the freezer because I didn't want it to go to waste when my appetite is low so I'll let you know how it freezes!

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I know I've mentioned that I am a big fan of listening to podcasts so I like to bring some recommendations here when I find something I like. I am obsessed with Serial but found out this week that they are changing to bi weekly releases (waaaaaaah!) so I thought I'd talk about The Generation Why Podcast. A little known fact about me is I'm fascinated by true crime even though it scares the hell out of me. It's probably sparked some irrational fears and exacerbated a little door/lock OCD thing I have (nothing intense) but for some reason I can't get enough of it! Anyway, I found this podcast a while ago and I've really been enjoying it. I really like the way that they present the information and discuss the facts and how they weigh in at the end. Some of the cases are really fascinating, some are disturbing and some are straight up terrifying. If you like true crime I recommend this podcast, I think you'll like it. 

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In the winter I especially enjoy being lazy and watching movies all day. In fact, I have planned a movie and tv binge day for this Sunday because I'm tired and still in a bit of pain so I'm excited to just do nothing all day. I also don't really watch TV at all during the week so one day a week when I can isn't too bad ;) Anyway, I recently watched the movie Bad Words on demand and it was so funny! Totally inappropriate but hilarious and I am a big fan of Jason Bateman so it was a win win all around. I definitely recommend this movie.

I know a lot of people are all about the Target Dollar Spot... and trust me I'm into it too. I feel like the Michael's bargain section doesn't get enough love though! I found these beautiful note cards and journals in the Michael's bargain section for $1.50 a piece! They always have super cute note cards and note pads and journals and things like that and they are always really affordable. I like to stock up on them to add into gifts and I always like to keep a stash for myself :) I love having lots of note cards to choose from when I'm sending a package or writing someone a note.  These are obviously a beauty theme and I'm a sucker for a good beauty theme plus tasteful amounts of glitter.

So there you have it! I know the list is short but I didn't have a lot going on lately. I did just book another trip to Florida for the beginning of March and I'm so excited about it!! We are hoping to do a few new things this time around so it'll be really fun :) Also something to look forward to when it's freezing outside!

That's all for today! I hope you have a great weekend!

Planner Nerd: January 11-17 Spread

Hey everyone! I'm back to show off a new week in my planner and I'm already so much happier with how my spread looks this week! I cut the clutter and made it nice and clean and added my lists back in on the days that I work. The stickers I used are beautiful and I will include links to the shops that I used at the bottom.

I am going to start by posting my completed spread from last week. Things got crazy at the end of the week so it's not as filled out as much as the beginning of the week but you can definitely see that it was filled in much more than in the beginning of the week.

This is the full spread. Sadly I didn't get to the gym as much as I would have liked but I am figuring out a good schedule for myself and I'll get it together within the next few weeks. 

In the sidebar I wrote down the names of books I wanted to try and find at the library. As you can see, I already got my hands on The Abundance Diet because I was inspired by Bianca and I'm so glad I got it ($6.49 for Kindle on Amazon!) because it just makes a lot of sense and the recipes look fantastic. I highly recommend it.

The sad second half of the week. Not filled out as much but you still get the idea.

I set up my new week yesterday and I really love how it came out. Check it out!

This is my full spread for next week. As you can see the "theme" is a blue and gray winter/snow theme. I'm obsessed with the watercolor snowflake checklists, they are so pretty! Almost everything I used on this page came from Creating & Co (the camera and laptop stickers in the top boxes as well as the scalloped strips, the to do lists and headers and the sidebar stickers). What you see in the bottom box (the workout heart things, the meal planning stickers and the hydration stickers under the meal planning stickers) came from Sweet Kawaii Design. These are my two absolute favorite shops for stickers so if you are going to start to dabble in planner stickers I highly recommend starting there!

Here is the first half of the week and the sidebar. I plan on using the "Next Week" section in the sidebar to choose the meals I'm going to make next week. I'm still tracking my sleep and I put in a spot for reminders as well. I am trying to figure out my workout schedule and my meal plan will get filled in the night before. 

Here is the second half of the week. Fridays will be weigh in days (and no that info will not be shared on here). I think it looks really good!

So that is my week coming up. I have decided to use the recipes from the Abundance Diet for the next few weeks but I will not be following her 28 day meal plan. The main reason for that is basically because I need to adjust to fit my tastes, my schedule and my budget but I will be using the recipes and general principles. I'm really excited about it, the recipes sound SO GOOD! 

That's about it for now! I hope you all had a great Monday! I'll be back Wednesday to show you some yummy food I've been eating!

See you soon!

Stuff I Ate

Hey guys! Well, this post is a few days late but it's here! I'm trying to get back into the hang of taking pictures of my meals and haven't been doing a great job but I have a few pictures to share with you. I've also been doing better with my sleep this week but I've been oversleeping a little and therefore rushed in the morning… also making it difficult to take pics. But, I managed to get a few so here they are!

This is a Caramel Apple Overnight Oatmeal Smoothie from Running With Spoons that I had for breakfast one day (I found it on Pinterest)! The flavor was DELICIOUS but the texture was a little off for me. It wasn't super smooth, even after adding more almond milk but I LOVE the flavor so I'm probably going to turn this into a hot oatmeal and eat that for breakfast. YUM!! Oh and the only change I made was to switch the chia seeds out for ground flax seeds.

This is a chopped salad that I purchased when I was out running errands on Thursday night. I got it from Fairway and it wasn't chopped as fine as I like it but it was good nonetheless. It is romaine, carrots, cucumber, chickpeas, sun dried tomatoes and asparagus. I topped it with a red wine vinaigrette. 

This was leftover takeout that I had gotten. It is steamed tofu with broccoli and I topped it with a few spoonfuls of a spicy garlic sauce. Very yummy.

Finally, this is a terrible pic but I've been eating lots of oatmeal lately. It is definitely my favorite winter breakfast and this is my favorite way to eat it. It has cinnamon, a little stevia and banana. I'll probably add some ground flax seeds in the future because they are so good for you and has a nice nutty taste. Yum.

So that is some of what I ate this week! Hopefully each week I'll get a little better at taking pictures of what I ate and you'll have a more well rounded idea of some of my meals. 

I've been trying to figure out a good posting schedule and my favorite schedule that I've come up with so far would be the following:

Monday: Plan With Me - I'll show my new (empty) spread for the upcoming week so you can get an idea of the rough outline and also show how I designed it. I'll also show the finished spread from the previous week to show how it filled up. Is this something that you are interested in? 

Wednesday: What I Ate Wednesday - Either show a full day of eating from the day before or a collection of meals over a few days (whatever I can get pics of) to get back into the habit of doing food posts.

Friday: Fun Friday - Bring back that Fun Friday post I did on my previous blog! I loved these posts and I could do things like weekly favorites, my favorite pins from the week and other things like that.

Does this sound like a good schedule to you and are these posts that you would want to read? Let me know in the comments below :)

Hope you all have a great weekend!

My Planner Layout! Jan 4-10

Hi you guys! Check it out, ANOTHER post! I know the year is young, but hopefully I'll be able to keep up with these posts. Today's post is going to be a peek into my brand new Erin Condren Life Planner! I love lists and planning and organization so using a planner as a form of stress relief is perfect for me. And as you know from my New Years Goals post, this is one of my biggest goals of the new year. So I thought it would be fun to show you my planner and how I decorate it and what my days look like. Keep in mind that my post in the beginning of the week will look quite bare as I plan each day the night before but I will try to remember to show you what the layout looks like at the end of the week.

So for those of you that don't know what the Erin Condren planner looks like, I took a picture of next week's empty spread because I forgot to do it for this week before I decorated. It is a vertical planner so each column is a day of the week. There are three rows and can be divided up and organized however you like it. I've seen it done hundreds of different ways but I'm not a fan of clutter so mine will most likely be very clean and minimal. There is also a side bar on the left side for miscellaneous things and a bottom bar that can also be used in many ways.

The Erin Condren planner has different color combinations pre-selected for each month. You don't have to follow them but for this week I decided to use the monthly colors which is that tealish blue color and tangerine. This is what my overall spread looks like. As you can see it is very clean but still colorful and decorative. 

I took separate pictures of each page so you can see what it looks like up close.

So this is what the first half of my week looks like. I'll explain how I split it up because it is hard to tell in the beginning of the week.

The top row is where I record my work hours, the blog posts that I want to put up that week and where I am going to track my reading. There will also inevitably be space to add more in. I only have "to do" lists for days that I have off because the likelihood of me getting much done on days that I have to work  isn't as high, haha. There is space to add small "To Do" lists up there if I need to though.

The middle row contains "To Do" lists on my days off (I try to be very productive on my days off) and decorations on my work days. This is working for me right now but if I find that I end up needing those "To Do" lists every day I'll make that change.

The bottom row is my health/fitness section where I have my daily meals and my workouts. I am filling in the days I plan to workout at the beginning of the week and will fill in what I actually do after I go. In addition, I can always add days if I feel like going for bonus workouts :) I still haven't decided on a workout schedule so this week looks sparse but I'm going to see how I can best fit the gym into my work schedule and plan my future workouts better based on that. As you can tell I didn't plan my meals for today in advance but I am not as concerned about planning for my days off as I am for my work days. 

In addition, in today's bottom bar you'll notice that I was going to go buy some stuff from Michael's but after consideration I decided to hold off and save the money for now. I have the canceled sticker going across and I'll assure you it DRIVES ME NUTS that most canceled stickers you find on Etsy are spelled incorrectly and that the one that I had is spelled incorrectly but I used it anyway.

Finally, for my side bar I have a bullet list of "Tiny Tasks" which will probably actually just be a list of things I want to remember such as books I want to find or meals I want to make for the next week. Under that I have daily habit lists. Two of them are for tracking my sleep in two different ways: How long it takes for me to fall asleep and how much sleep I get. I'm hoping that the fall asleep time gets earlier and the hours of sleep gets longer as the year progresses but we will have to see. In addition, I'm awful at remembering to take my vitamins and medication so I have a visual reminder for that as well.

Here is the second half of my week! It is pretty bare right now but you'll see the difference at the end of the week when I take more pictures. 

I apologize for the quality of these pictures but I took them with my phone and as much as I tried to fix the color it still looks pretty terrible. I'll try to take better pictures from now on but hopefully you get the idea!

I am not affiliated with Erin Condren at all, this is my first planner and I found out about it on Youtube and it just seemed like a nice way to relax each week. These planners are a bit pricey but in my opinion it is worth the investment. I got $10 off of my first purchase by using someone's referral code (every person gets a referral code when they sign up) so if you are interested in purchasing one for yourself, let me know and I can give you a referral code so you can get $10 off as well!

I hope that you liked this post! I know it is weird to post about your planner but I'm enjoying it and wanted to share! I'll share some of my favorite sticker shops and ways to save money on your stickers down the road.

I hope that you are all having a great 2016 so far! As you can see in the pictures above I have a What I Ate post planned for later this week so stay tuned for that!

*Edited to Add: I am already wishing I had "To Do" lists on the other days so that is definitely going to change next week! The more I think about it the more I realize I'm not as lazy as I think I am, ha!

New Year's Resolutions/Goals

Hey you guys! Happy New Year! I'm getting back into the swing of things here ;) Still hoping to get into the habit of 2-3 posts per week so I'm starting off well! I figured that discussing some of my goals for the new year would be perfect for my first post of the new year. I have a few goals for the New Year and the common theme is basically I just want to feel better… physically and emotionally. I have felt pretty crappy the past few months and I really just need to make the time to take care of myself. So here are some of the things that I'm focusing on in the New Year!

Eat Clean and Healthy!

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The first thing on my list that is constantly something that I am working on and focusing on is my nutrition. I'll do really well for a while then I'll get lazy and fall into the processed food habit that I tend to favor when I don't feel like doing anything. I really need to make sure that I focus on unprocessed, whole foods and primarily on produce, legumes/beans and unprocessed fats. I would like to try to cut out oil to see if it makes me feel better. I always feel at my best on a produce heavy diet so I'm going to focus on that and hopefully it'll help me feel better.

Fitness!

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When I first started my blog I was a total gym rat and LOVED working out. Over time things changed and I left the gym I was currently in and had a hard time finding the motivation to get into a new place. I had joined other gyms but went zero times and made excuses that it was too far and I just wasn't comfortable in them. The bottom line was I just didn't like the gym and lacked the motivation to work out at home. I decided that I need to get over it because I miss the way I felt when I got done with a great workout so I joined a brand new gym that is about 5 minutes from my house and I'm so excited! I plan to start off working out 3 days a week at the gym and maybe add in a yoga class if there is one that works with my schedule. I know I will need to start off slow but I plan to build up the intensity of the workout as my fitness improves.

Sleep!

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Sleep has been a major issue for me in the past 6 months or so. I rarely can fall asleep before 2:00am and my body clock wakes me up around 6:30-7:00. I average 4-6 hours a night on a daily basis and this is nowhere near enough sleep for me. I'm exhausted all day every day so I am going to try a few things to help me get to bed earlier. No phone, no tv, no kindle fire (basically, no blue light) for at least an hour before bed. The blue light from your devices are said to have an effect on your sleep so I'm going to give it a try. In addition, the next goal I am going to discuss is partially to help with sleep.

Read!

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When I was a kid I read ALL THE TIME!! Now that I'm older I never make time to sit down with a book. I've decided that I need to change that and make some time to read. I think that reading before bed would be the perfect way to help me sleep better and to keep me off of my devices. I'm actually planning on getting a new library card next week so I can take out books for free and I'm really excited! I would love some book suggestions as well! I favor non-fiction and biographies so if you know of any good ones please leave in the comments below!

Using My Paper Planner!

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I've mentioned over the past few posts that I made the investment in an Erin Condren Life Planner for 2016 and I couldn't be more excited to use it. I did my first spread last week and I am in love with it. First, I am going to be using it to stay on top of these goals on a weekly basis with a visual representation of each one. It's going to keep me organized and it is going to help me with my budget. Most importantly, it is going to be a big source of stress release for me. I know people think it is kind of stupid to sit and decorate a planner but in addition to making it visually appealing, the main thing is that it is the best stress relief I have in my life at the moment. That hour I take each week to sit down and decorate and plan the upcoming week makes me calm and makes me happy and even if I don't look at it at all during the week (which is not the case, I sit down each night and fill stuff in) that is worth it to me. In addition, the planner is no longer just a planner… it is a scrapbook and a journal as well and I'm so happy I started to do it. I do plan on doing a post on my weekly planning with next week's spread so look out for that on Monday! I think posting my weekly spreads will help me be accountable with my goals as well. Is this something that you are interested in reading?

Budget!

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My final goal for the year is to be more mindful of my spending and to create a budget. I'm pretty good about spending and I am proud to say that I currently have zero debt (and the only debt I ever had was student loans) but I want to be more conscious of my saving. My main goal is to save a bunch and get on a good savings plan and create the habit of putting more money away each month and the key is obviously less frivolous spending. I plan on using the monthly views in my planner solely for budgeting and I plan on showing you that at the end of February (I already wrote in numbers in January so I'll show you a figureless February!). I have a pretty good grip on setting up a budget so I'll just have to make sure I stick to it ;)

OK friends, that's all I have for you today! I hope that you all had a very happy new year and that you are all doing well! What are some of your goals for 2016? Share below - with your book suggestions ;)