May Day's, Running Bulls, & Month End...

Happy May Day!  Awww… the first of May and hopefully, those April rain showers will simmer down.  May flowers bring them on! 

This last Saturday I opted to go for a run outside than a bike ride.  While I was running along over to my favorite park, I turned a corner and I was in the midst of 100 other runners.  I felt really bad because all of them were passing me like I was standing still.  I was going an easy pace because I was planning on going at least 5 to 6 miles.  They were ladies pushing strollers that were going faster.  I almost felt like I was in the middle of the running of the bulls and I was waiting to get pulverized into mincemeat. 

I ended up going up on to the sidewalk just to feel a little more at ease.  A local running store was holding a free training run.  About a block away from my favorite park there was a water stop with a van advertising the shop.  Shortly, after the water stop they had the run turning around in the street and I was glad I was on the sidewalk.  I continued on and did a lap around the park where a bunch of Army ROTC kids were stretching out before they started running laps around the park.  I did the one lap and it was like I had the whole wide sidewalk to myself; plenty room to breathe.  As I headed back home from the park, the running shop was clearing away the water station and I was going along nicely at my own pace on a quiet street.  Awwwww… that was nice.  I managed 5.5 miles for the day.  It felt good.

Later Saturday, I was having a late lunch/early dinner and had thought I had broken my tooth.  I freaked a bit and couldn’t remember my dentist name, couldn’t find the number and was just freaking out.  That’s strange for me.  Then I calmed down and got to looking and thought it might have been a crown I had swallowed.  Waited and went to the dentist on Monday afternoon to discover that it was a broken filling and I would now need a crown.  Darn; another expensive crown that doesn’t go on top of my head!

Month in review…

1.)    Saving Money?  I’m at my goal pace plus an extra 4% more.  I haven’t sold any more paintings and I’ve been trying to build up a stock of paintings, cards, and etc. for the booth I’ll have in the Little Red Riding Hood Bike Ride. 

2.)    Uncluttering my life?  Well, almost a quarter of my bedroom is stacked with donations that I need to take to the Good Will.  I need to see about taking a trip on some Saturday afternoon to drop it off.  But I still want to go through some more of my summer clothes before I do.

3.)    Reaching my goal weight?  As of last Friday morning, I was within 8 lbs. of my goal weight.  I’m feeling pretty happy with that.

4.)    Cutting down on eating out?  Nope! Sorry!  I’m SOL here!  I’m really failing at this one of late.  I’m beginning to wonder if I should throw this goal out and start from scratch!  Of course, it would help if I got my act together and cooked at home.  But I just haven't been in the mood to do that of late.

5.)    Do 1 Century Bike Ride?  Yep, got this off the list!  I found out this morning I did win the lottery for RAGBRAI.  So I’ll need to start upping my average mileage to prepare for 472 miles in one week.  In other words, I may have to plan to ride my bike every where by the beginning of July.  

Stats for the Month of April…

368 miles Cycling

19 miles Running

30 minutes on the elliptical

And

I’m now up to 21 books read for the year!

Hair Adventures & End of Month Report...

This last Saturday I went into my hairstylist and said I needed a change. I bravely left it in the hands of my stylist and said whatever you think. Talk about the beginnings of an adventure.  I went in a mainly medium length brunette with red streaks and came out a short asymmetrical bobbed blonde with caramel highlights. My stylist made it look SO cute using a straightening iron and this is me on day 1. Barbara Streisand eat your heart out!

This is day 2- I don’t happen to have a straightening iron but used a regular curling iron to attempt to straighten it. Did I mention I have naturally curly hair?

This is day 3- This I took this afternoon at my desk. It’s been unusually humid here all day because it’s been pouring rain off and on. Some parts of Utah got up to 1’ of rain which is unusual for this time of year. But it’s been enough to make my natural curl sprout some of that wonderful frizz. Ugh!  Darn hair sometimes has a mind of its own!

Do we see a trend here?  More hair adventures to come, I'm sure.


Being the first day of August, here’s a look back at the month of July.  The End of Month Report for July.
Savings- I stayed right on track for the month of July which I think is pretty good considering that I went on a bit of a vacation to Helena, MT.

Weight loss- I’ve been rather on a plateau at the 22 lbs. mark, but that happens. Why does it always seem that the last 10 lbs. are the hardest to take off?

100 Salt Lake City Porches- I’m a bit behind on this art project. I should be finished through to porch #66 as of yesterday if I keep to the schedule I set up. Instead, I just finished porch #64 and hope to finish porch #65, an oil, tonight. I have lightly sketched porch #66 and have it prepped for a watercolor. So I’m not terribly behind and I can catch up to where I should be.  To view the progress of 100 Salt Lake City Porches, click here.

"100 Salt Lake City Porches,No.64"; Watercolor on 10" x 14" Paper

Uncluttering my life? I’m still building a pile to go to the good will. It’s slowly getting larger and taking up more floor space in the corner of my bedroom. I’ve added items of summertime clothing from last year that doesn’t seem to go with anything else in my closet. What happened there? I’m unsure.

Stats for the Month...

18.50 miles Running

460.50 miles Cycling

2 hours on the Elliptical

Read 6 books ( Makes for 39 so far this year!)

May's End of Month Report...

It's seems like this month has went by in a whir ( a whir that's been mostly composing of rain).  Because of the rain I haven't gotten out as much on the bike as I would have liked to.  But sometimes that's the breaks, but overall I feel like things are progressing rather nicely so far this year.  Getting closer and closer to being the halfway point.  Here's how this month shaped up...

May showers bring May flowers?  Some tulips during recent bicycle ride.

As far as savings, I've turned around on my savings schedule; thanks mostly due to the sale of some paintings.  I've sold 4 porch paintings this last month; bringing the total to 7 porch paintings sold so far and have another porch owner interested.  I've also sold a bicycle painting to a friend.  I almost feel like a professional artist!  But all of this has helped with being able to save a bit more money.  I've also made donations to the Salt Lake City Habitat for Humanity; a win-win situation.

I’ve been happy in the weight loss department. As of last Friday, I was down a total of 20 lbs. Which puts me within 12 lbs. of my goal weight. I’m not losing fast with only an average weight loss of 4 lbs. per month but it’s been a nice steady pace which I hope means it’ll be harder to put back on if that ever happens.

The Nitty –Gritty for the month…

2 hours 23 minutes on the elliptical

24.15 miles running

2 miles swimming

212 miles cycling

and...

Read 6 books (now up to 29 for the year)

Even with all of this rain I managed to get more miles on my bicycle. I have still been having problems with that “butt cramp” coming back. I have noticed that when I run on a more “cushy” treadmill that the cramp doesn’t occur until almost the 2 mile marker. I may have to back off some more with the whole running. Though, I really hate to because it’s such a good calorie burning exercise. It also serves as a good indoor on the treadmill when the weather is yucky outside.

"100 Salt Lake City Porches, No.43"; Poured Watercolor painting.

I’m currently struggling to do #49 out of the 100 Salt Lake City Porches project. I’ve now started the same porch four times on the oil canvas. I may have to set it off to the side and just come back to it.


Un-cluttering my life? Well, I’ve been forming a pile to go off to good will. It’s formed out of summer clothes that I’m not going to wear this summer and some winter clothes that I really didn’t get much use out of this last winter. I also went through my collection of make up and threw out a good bit of make up that needed to be done away with. Now I just need to work on that misc. shelf in the hall closet. It needs a major overhaul and to be organized. I guess that could be the project for this next month IF I get my act together.

A Late End of Month Report...

This is late by a couple of days. Oppps! I kind of spaced it off completely, but better late than never as they say. So here it goes….

As far as my savings goal, I’m behind my saving schedule by about $50... I’ve had birthdays, get well presents, and Mother’s Day coming up and it’s made a dent in the finances. I must admit that I didn’t add gift giving into my budget. It’s something that I need to look.  In other words, I need to figure that stuff in the budget plan.

Weight loss has been progressing along fine. I was down a total of 18 lbs. as of this last Saturday morning. I’ve been averaging about 4.5 lbs weight loss every month; which is a good steady pace.  I've really been please with this pace and my progress.

Here’s the nitty gritty for the month…

4 hours on the elliptical

21.65 miles running

2.4 miles swimming

159 miles biking

Read 9 books (Up to 23 books for the year)

Even with this strange Spring time weather, I’ve been managing to get out on the bicycle. I’m hoping that it will warm up even more and then I’ll get 400 miles in cycling in the month. I also hope to get a little more mileage in running too. Speaking of running, last Friday night while on the “dredmill” doing 3 miles; I broke an average speed record. I managed to run an average speed of 11 minute and 4 second mile! Normally, I’m a slow 12 minute mile. I’ve been doing little drills all winter long on the treadmill to help improve my time. Now as far as the reading of books, I blame the bad weather to enabling me to read more. Last year I read 57 books and I wouldn’t be surprised if I break the 60 mark this year.

"100 Salt Lake City Porches, No. 40"- Poured Watercolor on paper

I’m working on porch #40 of my 100 Salt Lake City Porches project. I will admit that recently I took a bit of a break and did some bike art. The Gallery Roll, which is put on by a downtown bike shop was looking for some bike art, and I thought Why Not? So I painted a few watercolors and entered a couple of those along with an oil painting I did this last fall. I’ll let you know which ones get in, but in the meantime check out my progress on the 100 Salt Lake City Porches. I’m up to 40 of them! Wow!

As far as the goal of uncluttering my life, well… I’ve started a pile of clothing from the closet but it’s not very sizable. I’m figuring that as the weather warms that I’ll bring out the summer clothes, and start going through those and get rid of stuff that I’m really hoping is too big because of my weight loss. Keep your fingers crossed!

An Early End of Month Report...

Since I’ll be heading out to the Netherlands of yurting tomorrow morning and getting some much needed R&R,  I figured I would go ahead and do my progress report for the month of March. It’s kind of hard to think that a quarter of the year has all ready passed by. Overall, I feel good and think I’m progressing well on my entire goals for the year.

As I type this I must admit that I’m very pleased with my progress on my savings goal.  I’m still ahead of my goal, and I even have managed to move more ahead of that goal. I’m almost ahead by $110. Yahoo!  Little by little its adding up, and it feels good too.



This morning I weighed myself, and found that I’m down another 2 lbs. YES! Though, I tend to wonder if some of that is due to my hair appointment this last Saturday. You see, I had about 4” of hair taken off the length. Naw! Just kidding around! Yes, I did have that much taken off but hair couldn’t weigh that much could it? So anyway, that brings my total weight loss to 18 lbs. total. I seem to be still averaging 6 lbs. per month; a very good pace of losing weight.



Here’s the nitty gritty stats for the month….

6 hours 24 minutes on the Elliptical

28.33 miles running

92.25 miles cycling

2 miles swimming

And

Read 5 books (up to 14 books for year)

I’m running a little bit less but getting more miles on the bicycle as the weather allows. I’m trying to balance out the running with the cycling; which was one of my goals. I’m also trying to build up more miles on the bicycle to work towards doing a century. One of my goals is to get one century in for the year.

"100 Salt Lake City Porches, No.32"- Poured Watercolor on 9" x 11" Paper

I just finished #32 of the 100 Salt Lake City Porch paintings.  This project has been moving along quite well and I seem to be on schedule to finish it up within the year so far.  I also think I'm seeing some improvement in my paintings.  Click here to check out the progress of the project.



Now for the uncluttering my life goal… Well, at the end of last month I moved out the defunked dryer. I then went through that closet and reorganized and cleaned it out of excess stuff. With doing my taxes I ended up going through various paperwork and receipts that I had. I cleared out quite a bit of the unneeded. Why I had the receipt for the 52” Big Screen TV that I got rid of 8 years ago? Gee, I think it was a safe bet that I didn’t need to keep that anymore. I was amazed at how many receipts that I had like that. I thinned out those files pretty well. I was actually able to get all of those, my tax papers, and other important papers to fit in my small fire safe. Cool! But you know with all of this clutter “maintenance”, I sometimes feel like I’m a gardener. There always seems to be weeds sprouting up where you least expect them.  The worst thing is... I never did like gardening or yard work, and most of it was due to those darn weeds!

2 Outta 12- Monthly Update

The short month of February flew by in a blink of eye, and here I am giving another monthly update as to how I’m doing on my New Year’s goals. So how am I doing two months into 2011 or should I say the .1666666666… of a year? Well, everything seems to be progressing…




I’m ahead on my saving schedule by a whopping $35. Not a big amount I will admit but every little thing helps. I think that a majority of the extra money is due to less being taken out in FICA. A small thank you to those in Congress who decided to take a little less out of my two paychecks per month. Since I haven’t seen a pay raise in almost two years, it’s kind of nice to see a little more. In fact, I asked after I got my first check wondering if my employer had actually decided to give out a small bit of a raise. Nope came the answer less being taken out of the paycheck. But it’s still nice getting a bit of a break. I filed my taxes this last week and hope to soon be putting most of what I’m getting into my savings.



As far as losing weight, it’s been feeling like an uphill battle. I keep pushing that HUGE rock up the hill but if I take a bit of a rest it seems to want to roll right on over me and back down that hill. As of yesterday morning, I’m down 12 lbs. over all. That averages out to about 6 lbs. per month loss. At that rate I’ll be down to my goal in 3.3 months time. I would be happy with that! But we’ll see how the uphill battle goes. Oh, and did I mention that I got my box of Girl Scout cookies today?  It's only one box but....I'm so afaid that I'll eat the entire box in one sitting!  I’ve been keeping track of my stats of working out. Here are this month’s stats…

7 hours 15 minutes on the Elliptical

37 miles running

14.1 miles cycling

3.8 miles swimming

 

Speaking of more stats, I’ve read 6 more books on my Nook this month. That brings me to 9 books that I’ve consumed on my Nook this year. I’m now up to 24 paintings on my 100 Salt Lake City Porches Art Project. You can view the progress of the project on this page. It’s kind of interesting looking at the different styles and techniques that I’ve used and I’ve been enjoying the project too. I hope that joy is showing up in my paintings.


Now for working on the clutter in my life—I got rid of the pile of clutter that was forming in my living room last month. While I was taking that pile to the D.I. (Deseret Industries- an LDS goodwill here in Utah), I also decided to take the old sewing machine that’s been sitting untouched for over 2 years. In the last couple of weeks as I was preparing to do my taxes, I’ve found myself getting rid of extra paperwork. Then, I also started in on a pile of old magazines. Why was I keeping them? Some for recipes or interesting articles but most of them just sat collecting dust. I tore out some pages here and there and the rest went to the recycle pile.

This next Saturday, I’m finally saying good bye to the unrepairable dryer that hasn’t worked properly for a year. It’s being taken by a fellow renter who is down on his luck with this economy He’s taking it to be recycled at a local parts store. I told him I would pay him $10 to move it out and then he could also collect what they pay him for the dryer. I’m happy just to help some one out, have the dryer out of my place, and its being recycled too. Kudos! I’m thinking I may work some more this month on the hall closet. Little by little by little, I’m getting the clutter out of my life.

Happy Ground Hog Day & January’s Progress…

Happy Ground Hog Day! Good news! It looks like an early Spring this year. I guess that the famous Punxsutawney Phil didn’t see his shadow. Of course, my co-workers and I were wondering if he couldn’t see his shadow due to a HUGE blizzard that hit the Northeast. I can imagine the man with the hat had to bribe Phil BIG time to even come out to take a look around. I imagine Phil would much rather be warm and driving around in that truck with Billy Murray in the 1993 movie version of Ground Hog Day. That was one of my favorite scenes where Bill’s character says, “Now don’t drive mad!” Sorry, I get a kick out of the idea of Road Raged Ground Hog.




It’s kind of hard to believe that January is over. I’ve managed some progress on my New Year’s Goals within the month’s time. I’m on track for my saving money so far but one month is only a bit of wading into the 2011 year. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to see a good tax return and add to the savings. Of course, I need to get my act together, sit down and do the tax return before I can coup any kind of gain.


I’m down 9 lbs. in weight as of last Friday and I’m working hard on this goal. I’ve put in a total of 4 hours 7 minutes on the elliptical for the month; as well as 29.10 miles running on the treadmill. I’ve been out for a couple of 3 mile snow hikes and even swam a mile. And there was enough sunny and low-40’s temperatures this last Saturday that I got an 8 mile bike ride in. That felt really good! I’m watching what I eat but I will admit that I’m still struggling just a bit with my evening snacking. There’s something I need to work on.

I'm progressing along with using my Nook.  I've read 3 books this month.  Two of those books were 600 plus pages; which means I'll read more books (shorter) books this month.  I know this wasn't really one of my goals but I thought I would throw something in here just to mix it up a little.


Tonight, I’ll get a good start in my watercolor painting class on #15 porch of the Salt Lake City Porches Art Project. Check out my Allgood Art Blog if you get the chance. I added a whole page where you can view the porches from the beginning. It’s rather interesting watching the progression of the porches. I think the project is helping my skills as a painter.


I’ve been working on getting rid of the clutter in my life. Right now, I’ve got a pile that’s in my living room that needs to go to the good will. Earlier this month when I was putting away my Christmas décor I took what I didn’t use and started the pile. Then, found some odds and ends in the front closet that I haven’t used in probably two years. It was all just sitting in there taking up room in a corner of the closet. Then, this last week I read a Better Homes & Garden on-line newsletter that talked about getting rid of clutter in the kitchen by going through the utensil drawer. Yep! I went through my utensil drawer and added to the pile. Now, I just need to get the pile of clutter out of my living room!