the giraffe life

Time for a goals update! Financial   •  Save $300 per pay  - Yes! Easiest goal ever because this was automatically deducted from my paychecks! Personal   •  Attend more than 67 yoga classes  - Nope! I stopped attending yoga classes in June because I was modifying so many of the poses to accommodate my growing belly that it seemed silly to pay to take a class that I wasn't fully participating in. I couldn't find any local prenatal classes so I switched to DVDs from the library until the very end when just cooking dinner felt like a work out. How do pregnant women who already have children do it?? •  Read 52 books  - Yep, a total of 70 . It was a banner year for reading actually, considering almost all those books were read before September. Now baby girl and I listen to audiobooks (electronically downloaded from the library to my cell phone) during some daytime nursing sessions when I want to read something. Plus I read a kids book to...

2015! It feels like a good, round number for some reason. I'm excited to share my goals for this year - a couple familiar carry overs and some new ones. Financial   • Save $300 per pay - Continued from last year . And to make it easier, I'm having it automatically deducted from my paychecks.  Personal   • Attend more than 67 yoga classes - Super random number, right? Last year I attended about 67 yoga classes (can't be 100% sure because I didn't start keeping track until late July) so I just want to beat my previous record. I'm going to use this daily goal calendar  - black Xs on days I do any kind of exercise (probably a walk), purple Xs for yoga, and left blank for no exercise. This method is quick and very visual so I think it'll work for me.  from the make29 shop • Read 52 books - A book a week (or so). Aiming for 50 books pushes me to make reading a priority without pressuring me to choose short books to inflate my numbers. So I just ...

I've been making an effort to take more walks (regardless of weather!) since Sarah's Walking Challenge last December. In January, I shared photos from a winter walk  and I continued with a summer version in June . Here's the autumn set to round out the year. Fall is a great time for walking because the temperatures are usually comfortable and there's no snow or ice (well - til December, but I consider that winter). Despite being mid-afternoon, everything was still damp from a rain shower earlier in the day because the sun never really came out.  Leaves have been changing colors and falling for a few weeks now, making pretty scenery on the trees and the ground.  But there's still a good amount of green left to go. I love these purple-pink leaves. Beautiful!  I have a soft spot for the yellow ones  too. This is also the time of year when we watch lots of birds migrate to warmer locales. Goodbye orioles, robins, hummingbirds! I espe...

One of the women I follow on instagram occasionally posts "Transformation Tuesdays." This is one of my favorites: Impressive and inspiring! I love how stunning a visual her progress makes.  I know I've improved since I started yoga just from being able to reach a bit further or hold a pose longer, but both are difficult to quantify. So I took some pictures of myself in various yoga poses . . kinda like the one I took in tree pose a couple months ago. And in another few months, I'll take some more and see if I notice anything. It also got my wheels spinning . . how else could I use this? W ouldn't it be nice if the bank put all the money from my retirement account in a big stack and sent me a photo of all that cash? :)

Yoga doesn't really require any special gear - just comfy clothes and a mat. So I've been getting by just fine with track pants (the plastic-y, swoosh-y sounding kind) and tank tops. But as the weather warmed up, I switched to my workout capris and found my track pants had been holding me back. I can stretch further when my clothing is elastic and fitted. So I splurged on "real" yoga pants . (I also bought a plain black pair, but those don't make for a very exciting photo opportunity.) Oops - off-center photo - I put the camera on a ten second timer and hoped for the best. :) Splurged on anything lately?

Back in January, I took a winter walk and promised another when things had greened up. Getting ready to go out still takes about 15 minutes, but instead of bundling up, I apply sunblock and wait (and wait and wait) for it soak in. My hat helps protect my face and keeps me cool. I pair it with sunglasses because my eyes not do appreciate bright light. This is one of the trails I frequent (mostly because it's about 2 minutes from my front door): I'm grateful for the shade and the cooler air that comes with it. The stream looks different these days . . no ice! It's pretty wet everywhere in fact. Lots of rain this past week! I noticed a good bit of wildlife, but everything was much too fast for a photo - a butterfly, tons of bugs and birds, a frog, and a rabbit. And plants! Take a look at this leaf: I was following a butterfly (should've learned my lesson from Alice in Wonderland , right?) down a gully that I usually just walk by and came acros...

I talked about the Pedometer Challenge my work is sponsoring a few weeks ago, and since all I had to share at that time was baseline information - I figured I was due for an update. :) I've been doing well increasing my steps each week (although I still haven't quite made it to the mystical 10,000 steps). Thankfully other activities count as well, like cooking, cleaning, and yoga, which boosts my totals. My work also posts the participants' weekly averages in the break room, and looking those over while my lunch is heating up has encouraged me to walk several times when I didn't feel like it. Mr. G is having a tougher time improving his totals and we've talked about it a few times. He thinks the challenges have been easier for him when they're offered by his work because then there's a group of guys in his division that walk together for the second half of their lunch break and during their shorter breaks as well. I think he's not giving himself e...

Happy Easter! I hope you enjoyed the day :) We were even visited by two of the Easter Bunny's friends: Do you guys outside the US have an Easter Bunny too? You know, a bunny that breaks into your house to leave children a basket full of chocolate and candy and hide plastic eggs around your home/yard. (Even as a kid, I thought the idea of the Easter Bunny was just plain weird. I mean, rabbits don't lay eggs. Where did the Easter Bunny get them from?!) And now onto my post, which is completely unrelated to Easter (or at least I couldn't think of any good segues . . ). My work is trying to encourage employees to exercise regularly by hosting a Pedometer Challenge (I say it like the Cash Cab host says "Red Light Challenge!" - as seen at about 3:17 in that video). Basically, you're given a pedometer to track your steps daily for about 5 weeks. For people who don't do much walking, but participate in other activities, we're allowed to use this chart ...

Sadie Nardini Since committing to my November goal of attending yoga classes, I've been making an effort to attend yoga class twice a week. I've been fairly successful. ( Going to classes really works for me because the order and types of poses changes slightly each time, keeping me interested, and I like having it on my schedule. Then exercise just becomes part of my routine. Plus other people in the class ask if I’ll be there, where I was if I miss, etc. and they keep me accountable. Yoga DVDs are my best friend for a week or two; after that I slowly start to get sick of them.) But this fall my one yoga teacher went through some rough patches with family issues and scheduling conflicts, and cancelled class more often than not. Unfortunately, at the end of January, she decided to nix her night class altogether, meaning I've dropped down to one class a week. Besides being bummed about the fact that this instructor wasn't teaching anymore (she's great), I don...

Although Sarah's walking challenge ended last month, I'm still trying to fit in an outdoor walk most days but my surroundings have changed slightly since then. I've switched from sneakers to boots: Our little stream has frozen: Small hills become a little more difficult to navigate: And I don't see or hear a whole lot of wildlife (although I notice their tracks!): looks like a mockingbird to me Sometimes Dottie joins me for a few minutes, but she's definitely an indoor cat. My hope is to take pictures in these same places in May and compare. It'll be so green! :)

The final update!  Previous totals, Dec. 3 - 19:  210 minutes yoga, 196 minutes walking Dec. 20 - rain Dec. 21 - rain Dec. 22 - 28 minutes Dec. 23 - 23 minutes Dec. 24 - spent most of the day cooking and cleaning, and then it started snowing, so I excused myself from walking Dec. 25 - 14 minutes Dec. 26 - 2 hours (an estimate - we were at the mall for over 4 hours, and we only sat down in the shoe shop and for lunch) Dec. 27 - 18 minutes Dec. 28 - 36 minutes Dec. 29 - rain Dec. 30 - nada Dec. 31 - nada Overall: 435 minutes walking, 210 minutes yoga  (yay!) With all that walking, I finally finished Hattie Big Sky and now I've downloaded  The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks to listen to next. Even though the challenge is over, I'm going to shoot for a walk at least 3 days a week. Yoga starts again next week after a two week hiatus for the holidays and I'm looking forward to that as well. It'll be nice to get back into a routine and m...

Another update for Sarah's +1 Walking Challenge . . . Previous stats for this month: 60 minutes yoga, 50 minutes walking Dec. 9 - yoga Dec. 10 - 21 minutes Dec. 11 - yoga Dec. 12 - 17 minutes Dec. 13 - lazybones, so nada Dec. 14 - Cookie Day - I figured 7 hours of mixing, bending, and standing earned me a day off from walking Dec. 15 - 29 minutes Dec. 16 - 19 minutes Dec. 17 - 32 minutes Dec. 18 - yoga Dec. 19 - 28 minutes New totals: 210 minutes yoga, 196 minutes walking I'm still working on the Hattie Big Sky audiobook and that seems to be distracting me enough to lengthen my walks (especially since Hattie is dealing with a Montana winter in 1918 - that means living in a shack and using an outhouse, eek!). But I also feel busier and busier as Christmas draws closer. Lots of parties and things to do . . not a bad thing, just a busy thing ;)  But I'm happy with the amount of time I've been getting out to walk anyway. It's hours more than I woul...

Normally, December begins about a three to four month stretch where I don't spend much time outside for leisurely activities. When it's super cold, all I do outside is walk into a store or work, get the mail, and shovel snow. But   Sarah's hosting a walking challenge this December. I adore this idea! Basically, the goal is to walk a minute more each day by getting up a minute earlier. Since I wake at 5:30 (when it's pitch dark), I really don't want to get up any earlier, so I'm trying to fit in my walking minutes after work. I'm happy to do my walk in the morning on the weekends though (less excuses that way)! On Wednesdays, I'm giving myself a free pass off from walking since I take a yoga class ;) Dec. 3 - 11 minutes Dec. 4 - yoga Dec. 5 - 12 minutes Dec. 6 - pouring rain, ugh Dec. 7 - 23 minutes Dec. 8 - snow, 4 minutes  On Friday night, I downloaded an audiobook from the library, Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Larson, to encourage me to walk ...

Welcome to December! :) My on-going goal (since August) has been putting extra money toward my mortgage principal, and here's my final tally for 2013: I am thrilled to have been able to send an extra $1550 to the loan company, especially since that exceeds my original goal of $1k! Now, let's talk about November: Yoga : This one's complicated. I found 4 nearby yoga classes. But two of them cost $5 for the hour-long class, and the other two are $15 and $20 for an hour-long class. Easy choice, right? Between the two $5 options, there were 5 classes in the month of November (the class schedules were cut short by Veteran's Day and the week of Thanksgiving). Then two were cancelled! I decided not to fret. I could've gone to one of the more expensive classes, but why spend $20 on one class when I could just wait and use that same amount for four classes next month? So, technically, I failed for the purposes of this goal, but I'm counting the 3 yoga cl...

Happy Friday! Since August, I've been challenging myself to put extra toward the mortgage every month, so here's visual look at my progress: I think this graph was the best thing I ever did in terms of encouraging myself to put a little extra down each month. The goal's always been in mind, but I felt like I did it more often than it was actually happening. I started tracking it in July, and I'm very happy with my consistency since then. :) And now for November: Attend yoga classes : Yoga is my kind of exercise - methodical, doesn't require anything too fancy, can be done solo or in a group. I used to only do yoga with my Wii , until I was spoiled by a yoga instructor coming to my work to teach a class. Sadly, she has moved on to other opportunities, and now I'm looking for a new class. I've found a few leads. My plan is to attend four local classes this month and figure out which one I prefer. Internet-free days : Everyone needs an internet br...