Life Lately: December 2014

Last week I blasted you with my November life update, and today I’m here to share scenes from December and the holidays.

The month kicked off with two girls nights in a row, and both were on school nights too! The first was a midweek fitness date with my gym friends Liz, Ashley, and Mary. We took a class at The Studio Empower and then treated Liz to a belated birthday dinner at Farmstead Table in Newton. It was so cute in there, and our farm to table food was perfect.

The following night, I met up with my friend Erin downtown for dinner at Rustic Kitchen before we saw The Nutcracker! <–Recap post here.

Tim and I spent the first weekend in December enjoying some quality time together. Friday night was spent at home before heading up to Portsmouth on Saturday for our annual overnight. We typically go in the fall, but this year we didn’t have a weekend to use our free Marriott night until December. It was really nice being up there at Christmas time for a change. Everything was decorated, and we were able to get a lot of Christmas shopping done during the day on Saturday.

We ate dinner out on Saturday night at Cava, and it was one of the best restaurants I’ve ever been to in my life. We sat at the bar downstairs, drank a bottle of wine (oops!), and left happy and full from all the delicious small plates we sampled. Crazy new try of the night? Octopus ink! Ever had it?

Finally, on Sunday we grabbed coffee and a quick breakfast at Popovers on the Square before hitting up the Kittery outlets for some more shopping. Neither one of us wanted to head back to Boston that night!

The following week we decorated and got our Christmas tree. Every year we get it from McKay’s trees, which isn’t anything special, but it’s close by, and the people there are so nice. Our tree this year almost didn’t even fit in the house. Tim had to get his saw from the basement. I didn’t even know we owned a saw? Good to know.

Despite turning down a few invites, the rest of the month was one holiday gathering after another. Luckily, since we did most of our shopping in Portsmouth, the weekdays weren’t too crazy, which made the busy weekends more manageable. The weekend of the 12-14th kicked off with Christmas dinner and a slumber party at Katrina and Geoff’s new house on Friday night. I almost had a mental breakdown in the amount of traffic we hit getting there, but once we got there and started cooking all together, drinking wine (confession: I have completely turned into a wine-o if you couldn’t tell from my life lately posts the last couple of months), and laughing, I was fine. I’m still mad I forgot my cranberry and pistachio bark though!

On Saturday we celebrated Christmas with my dad’s side of the family at my grandfather’s house in New Bedford. We did a Yankee swap instead of a secret Santa this year, and since it was my uncle’s birthday, we also had a cake for him.

Finally, on Sunday after a really hard workout from all the food we ate on Friday and Saturday, we headed to my godfather’s for a holiday luncheon with all my second cousins. The following weekend we had my work Christmas party at Julia’s house on Friday night, and on Saturday night we had the 15th annual Christmas party with my home friends at Shannon’s apartment. I can’t believe she’s hosted this party for 15 years straight (or that we’ve all been friends for so long!).

This brings us into Christmas week. On Christmas Eve Eve, I went to Liz’s last kickboxing class (end of an era!), then Tim and I met some of my home friends at Rudy’s in Somerville to celebrate Shannon’s new job and Esk getting into medical school.

This year was the first year that we had Christmas Eve off from work, and it was so nice to spend the day at home together before heading to Tim’s cousin’s house like we do every year.

Tim and I also have two Christmas Eve traditions of our own. The first is to do a random act of kindness for someone. This year we gave a ten-dollar bill to the person working the tolls on the mass pike, and we asked him to please pay the toll for however many cars it would cover after us. We also always exchange an ornament before going to bed. My ornament was my favorite gift that I received during the entire holiday season this year. Tim had a custom one created with a picture of the lighthouse where we got engaged this summer. Love!

On Christmas Day, we woke up and exchanged our other presents for each other and opened our stockings before cooking a festive breakfast (our other holiday tradition together!). We each got each other a new winter jacket and winter hat. Does that make us lame? Tim also got me a kettlebell, a couple of new workout tops, and a cozy infinity scarf, and I also got Tim tickets to a beer and cheese festival in February.

The rest of the day was spent at my parents’ house with my mom’s side of the family! Seemed like it went by in a flash.

The weekend immediately following Christmas was our 8th and final wedding of 2014, which we have officially dubbed the year of weddings. Tim was a groomsman in this one, so we spent Friday night at the rehearsal dinner at Smith and Wollensky’s, and Saturday was the wedding itself at the Boston Public Library. Holy fancy! We had such a fun time, and I enjoyed getting to know some of these friends a little bit better.

Finally, we finished out our month (and year) with dinner out at Solea on Moody Street and meeting up with friends at Hopsters to count down at midnight.

I have no idea how we survived the last two months, but somehow we did!

Readers, let’s chat! What was the best part of your holiday season? Tell me about your favorite traditions, the best party you went to, or your favorite relaxing day at home.

I just love sitting on the couch with Tim with our tree lit up, a cup of tea, and a Christmas candle lit! I am looking forward to more of this (sans tree) in January now that our weekends are no longer jam-packed. I know I haven’t written about my 2015 intentions yet, but one of them definitely is to create more space. I need to be more mindful of living in the moment so I’m not always thinking about the next place we have to go. This is something I struggle with! Tim and I are both social butterflies despite still turning down more things than we ever have this year.

Hope you guys are having a great week so far. ❤

Happy New Year! Make Commitments, Not Resolutions

Happy New Year!

Whether you rang in 2015 with a crazy night out, a nice dinner, or a low-key night at home in your sweats, I hope you had a great time and were able to live in the moment.

A lot of people use the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day to reflect on the year past and review their goals for 2015. Along the same lines, a lot of bloggers use this time to post their “best of recipes/workouts/etc.” posts and give a rundown of both blog and life highlights.

I typically like to let the holiday hustle die down a bit before I do any reflecting or commitment making of my own. I don’t think there’s any magic rule that says all of that needs to be done by January 1st.

One thing I do want to do today is point out how I used the phrase “commitment making.” I didn’t say anything about New Year’s resolutions.

When I hear the word resolution, it makes me think of the result of something that was once broken or a situation that needed fixing. Every year, millions of people make New Year’s resolutions, and this has a very rear-view mirror way of looking at things, don’t you think? By making New Year’s resolutions, we essentially acknowledge all the baggage and crap we’ve carried around. We dwell on the things we’ve done incorrectly in some way, and then through our New Year’s resolutions, we resolve to fix them.

When we resolve to fix something, it implies that something was broken in the first place.

That seems like a pretty negative way of looking at things, if you ask me. Not exactly the way I would want to start fresh and anew.

My advice to you this year? Forget all the crap!

If we kick off 2015 focused on what we CAN’T eat anymore or what behaviors we WON’T do anymore, then we will immediately start our year with a deprivation mindset. It will make us feel like these items are off-limits, and that’s typically when we’ll feel MORE compelled to eat the junk or indulge in the “bad” behaviors.

So let’s make a little shift this year. Let’s make POSITIVE commitments for ourselves instead by looking ahead. Let’s ask ourselves:

• What WILL I do this year?
• What foods will I eat MORE of?
• What behaviors will I START doing?

 

To commit to something means to make a pledge or promise. Today, or when it feels right for you, set yourself up for success and make a commitment that is meaningful to YOU.

Pledge to take positive action.

Promise yourself you will add choices and behaviors that add purpose, health, and happiness to your life.

Isn’t this a much more positive way to start the year than looking back on the could have, should have, and would have?

Readers, let’s chat! I’m wondering, what do you think of this concept? Have you made any personal commitments yet for 2015?

Wishing everyone a fresh start and a wonderful first weekend of the new year. ❤

Down the Chimney, Up the Chimney Workout

You didn’t think you’d escape this holiday season without a new holiday workout from me did you? I taught my infamous Run, Run, Reindeer workout last Thursday for the third year in a row, but I created this Down the Chimney, Up the Chimney workout for my Tuesday folks this morning. It’s a holiday play on a ladder workout!

For today’s class purposes, we did one round of the four pairs of moves. In each round, we started by doing 10 reps of the strength exercise and 2 reps of the cardio exercise. With each set, the number of strength reps decreased in a 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 rep scheme while the number of cardio reps increased in a 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 rep scheme. In between each set, I had everyone do 10 reps of half to full v-sits and 10 v-sit pulses. All together it took about 40 minutes, including the warmup, and we finished class with some oblique and glute work on the floor.

Here are some options for switching this workout up:

• Do just one or two of the pairs at a time, but increase the number of rounds you complete. For example, do only the step ups/burpees and pushups/squat jumps (eliminating #3 and #4), but do each chimney twice through for an intermediate level or three times through for an advanced level.
• Come back up or down the chimney for each set. For example, after doing the 10, 8, 6, 4, and 2 reps of the strength exercise and the 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 of the cardio, reverse and finish the round by doing 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 again of the strength and 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 of the cardio. This will end up being very high repetition, so you might have to decrease the amount of weight you use.
• Substitute your favorite strength/cardio moves for the ones here, but keep the same format.
• Do burpees as your cardio exercise in every round. <–muahaha.

We rocked out to this fun holiday playlist too:

Happy sweating!

–Let’s chat–
Do you ever do ladder workouts? Fitness instructors, are you teaching any holiday themed classes this year? Class goers, have your instructors done any fun classes like this? Do you workout to Christmas music?

For more fun holiday themed workouts, check out:

• Run, Run, Reindeer
• Winter Workout Land
• The 12 Days of Fitness Workout
• The Warm Right Up Winter Workout

P.S. A special thank you to my gym friend / class member Mary who surprised me with a nice iTunes gift card this morning! What a great way to start my day. Looks like someone paid attention to my F&F holiday gift guide. 😉