March Progress Report + April Intentions

It’s going to be April, you all! Where the heck is the time going? We are a quarter of the way through the year and I’m all of sudden feeling like there is quite a bit left to do! Ah well…that’s why I make lists!

In February I kicked ass at work but felt a little out of balance. I wanted March to be more fun. In the end, I’m happy to report that this was pretty easy to accomplish! March was full of relaxation and doing things just because I felt like it. I always fear that if I allow myself to only do what I feel like, nothing will get done. But do you know what the weird part is? I got a metric ton of work done on my 2012 Goals WITHOUT REALLY FEELING LIKE I WAS TRYING. Funny how that works. There’s a lesson in there somewhere and I think the lesson is going to sound a lot like “Follow your passions and the rewards will come.”

I get it…but it’s still a bit of a struggle.

I read A LOT of books in the bathtub this past month — my bathroom might officially be my favorite room in our house! I’ll be telling you all about what I read next week — lots of good ones actually — but I’m most excited about this victory because if you’ve been around here the last two months, you know that reading has been sorely missing from my daily routine.

I also worked out with abandon! More than 20 times in March despite the fact that we had weekends full of wine tasting, Girls Night’s with my mom, and dinner parties with my family to throw and life to live! Fitness-wise, I challenged myself this month by participating in the CrossFit Games Open. I have a lot to say about that, so I will probably do so in another post. But rest assured it was a blast and I’m so glad I did it!

I made a lot of progress this month towards getting that first unassisted pullup (June is the goal date! I’m gonna make this happen) and I started doing regular push ups in WODs (aka, not on my knees.) There’s no going back now — and my knees are going to be so happy that I’m no longer doing scaled push ups this spring because: Dresses + Town Whore Knees = Not A Good Look For Me. 🙂

Speaking of dresses — I bought a bunch of new ones and now I am so ready for spring it is silly! (Wear dresses everyday for a week is on my Spring Bucket List, so I’m sure I will show them to you sometime soon. Dresses make me so damn happy!) The weather was FINALLY nice enough for me to wear this dress yesterday and man, I still love it! I think I need to figure out some new ways to style it because I want to wear it every freaking day!

One of the things I’m looking most forward to this spring (aside from new clothes) is some of the places we are going. We solidified some travel plans this month and I’m excited about all of them! In a couple of weeks we are going to Portland — it will be both of our first times so if you have any recommendations of things to see or do, wait scratch that — recos on WHERE TO EAT (ha!) please let me know in the comments! We are excited to be heading up there (it’s one part work, one part play) and it should be a great time. We also ironed out the details of our long Sonoma weekend — both of which are on the Dream Travel List this year. I seriously can’t wait! And finally, for Garrett’s birthday the plan right now is to try and make it out to New Mexico to see his parents. I really would like to make that happen because we had so much fun out there last year.

March also had me switching up our meal planning a bit. We did a stint with some Zone/Paleo for about a month and while we definitely noted some positive changes, it came at the expense of my creativity in the kitchen. But I’m not giving up just yet. I’m taking the things I loved most from Zone (smaller portions, more balanced meals, kick ass food prep) and incorporating that with some of our Paleo passions (meal planning, not eating as much dairy, not having a “cheat day” — can you believe I didn’t enjoy the cheat day? WHO AM I?) My passion for cooking things just isn’t worth giving up! Not even for weight loss, so we’ll see if we can bring back some kitchen creativity and still get to my goals. Remember what I said in the beginning of this post about following your passions? I think I’m going to take that approach with my weight loss strategy!

Last but not least, I took the first steps to making my Summer Garden happen for 2012.

I seeded my tomatoes a little late, but they don’t seem any worse for the wear. I’m getting ready to cut them back and maybe put them outside to harden. Can we all say a little collective prayer that I don’t kill them in the process? Pretty please? I can’t even tell you how excited I am to have fresh tomatoes and squash and who knows what else all summer long! Best part of the season last year, hands down. YUM!

So with all of that said…

Intentions for April:
*Trash the scale, continue to CrossFit for the joy it brings to your life
*Run a 5K just for fun (Local peeps, want to come? It’s such a good cause!)
*Get back to planning some good looking menus
*Travel and document the hell out of it (Yep, I haven’t forgotten about Project Life! I’ll have an update for you in April.)
*I may even do a Week in the Life Album this month. We’ll see!
*Wear some dresses, enjoy the weather
*Get the garden in the ground

Low pressure.

I think I’m enjoying this strategy, so why not keep it going. Let my goals bloom at their own pace. It’ll happen when it happens!