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 ...

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?