Ski trip

Last Saturday a bunch of us headed up to Seven Springs for a day of skiing. It was actually a beautiful day for it - and I was so layered with clothing that I honestly didn't even feel the cold. I had been skiing once before in my life, although that attempt really doesn't count seeing as how I pretty much tumbled down the mountain once and then gave up. So I was pretty much a total beginner and so was Paul.

Well, Paul took to skiing like he usually takes to new things like this - quickly and easily. By the end of the day he was zipping around like it was nothing - easily keeping up with Nick, Joe, and Kim who all had more experience. It took me a little longer to catch on. Kim was awesome and stayed with me the whole time as I snow plowed down the mountain at snail speed for the first couple of trips. I think this was a mistake overall because my muscles got really tired from the constant strain. I had a couple of falls (one of which involved a pretty decent split) but didn't really get hurt too badly.

I took a break halfway through and hung out with Ryan for a while in the lodge (he insisted that he would ski under no circumstances, LOL). When I tackled the slopes with everyone again later, I did much better. Paul convinced me that going faster was actually going to make it easier - and it did. We had also met up with Beth and Jason who were staying at the resort for the weekend, and they were really encouraging to me too, which helped. I was exhausted by the end of the day (and came away with only sore muscles and a strained Achilles tendon) but I thought it was well worth it. I'd love to go again.

A little bit at a time

I'm the kind of person who doesn't really like resolutions... if you tell me that I absolutely cannot do something, of course I immediately feel the need to do it.

So, this year I'm hoping to set little goals for myself instead... things that I want to improve about myself. I'm going to have a positive outlook and try to see the benefits from the combined effect of all of these little things instead of feeling guilty that I'm not making a bigger effort to reach some monolithic goal. And if I mess up with one of them... hey, it's not so bad, because it's just a little thing. And it can easily be replaced by other little things. So enough of my new philosophy - here are some of the things I've been doing differently:

> I'm making a serious effort to get to bed by 10:30pm (which will get me about 8 hours of sleep). I'm a night owl and I've functioned on approximately 6 hours of sleep for most of my lifetime, but recently I'd started to feel tired all the time. So, it was time for a change! So far I've been doing this for about 2 weeks, and with the exception of most weekends, it's been working. I feel SO much better in the mornings.

> No more diet pop. OK, well I'm not banning it forever (see the first paragraph of this post), but I'm making a serious effort to stop my regular intake of so many chemicals. I've been drinking unsweetened tea, coffee, and water. So far, so good.

> I'm taking multivitamins and moisturizing every day. This may seem ridiculously easy, but this has always been a struggle for me to remember for some reason, so I'm starting a new habit where I go through a nightly ritual and remind myself to do these things to take care of ME.

> I'm attacking laundry in smaller batches - maybe doing 1 load a night for 2 weeknights in a row to keep up... instead of waiting for the Big Laundry Mountain to appear.

> I've also been hitting up the lunch stand at work and having soup for lunch lately - it's saving on calories AND giving me that super-warm happy feeling that you get when you eat something warm on a really cold day.

So that's my plan. We'll see how things progress...

Looking forward to a ski trip this weekend and then, of course, the Superbowl! Let's go Steelers!

Look at the turkeys in our yard!

Comedy and Culture

On January 3rd we got ourselves all dressed up and headed out for a night on the town with Kim and Joe. We started the evening visiting with some family - it was Uncle Tom's birthday and we went over to help celebrate. I was excited to get to see baby Jack because I wasn't able to make it the last time he was in town. Afterwards, we had dinner at the Grille on 7th in the cultural district before heading over to see Jerry Seinfeld live on tour at the Benedum. Jerry was excellent - we were a little afraid that someone so popular wouldn't live up to the hype, but honestly I was laughing so hard that at times I thought I was going to throw my back out. We had a great time with Kim and Joe and the show couldn't have been better. I think we need to do this more often!

Pouncing into 2009

Keeping with tradition, we celebrated the new year at Wes and Danielle's house. Another beer pong tournament took place and this time I chose to sit it out. Kim got Garrett's sister Erin to be her new partner and the two of them pretty much ran the tournament for most of the night. So... it looks like I've been thoroughly replaced (but that's OK).

Paul actually ended up teaching some of the others how to play Pounce, and we had some pretty good Pounce games taking place at the same time that the others were playing beer pong. (In fact, we had such a good time that we had everyone over to our house on Friday for a Pounce party!)

The rest of New Year's was filled with good times, strawberry daquiris (at least for the girls), and a little champagne. Wesley even broke out the trombone (with Frank accompanying on cymbals).


Our cute little contribution to the night was the "Countdown Cheesecake" which we didn't bake ourselves (hey December was an exhausting month!) but Paul did make the most delicious homemade raspberry sauce for the numbers.

Hopefully 2009 will bring all of us happiness, prosperity and good health. Notably we will see Wes and Danielle's wedding this year and my graduation from the doctoral program. I can't wait!