Holiday Lights Revisited

This about wraps up our Christmas visits! 

Our very last activity of the holiday visits was a bit impromptu - on the drive home from dinner, we passed by the Cambria Pines Lodge and noticed their spectacular lights. Sabine suggested that we go home, get some layers, and then head back over to enjoy the festive displays. 

This was one of the best light displays I've ever seen - made all the sweeter by capping off our Christmas celebrations and being free to boot (In stark contrast to the Los Gatos "Festival of Lights" that goes for $20 a car - apparently our pockets aren't quite deep enough for the local festivities!). 

I must have taken about a million pictures, and was just soaking everything in - I can't wait to have our own home to decorate with lights - hopefully by next year :). 

Cambria at night is spectacular, but, as we drove away, back to real life, we couldn't help but reflect that Cambria in the light of the day is pretty spectacular, too. 

Evening Out

Taking a quick flashback to continue posting about my wonderful Winter Break (that seems oh so long ago....). Also, the whole food/wine commitment? Not happening at the time of these pictures :). 

For dinner our last night in Cambria, Ed and I went out with his remaining (in town) family to a local favorite - Robins. I have fond memories of visiting this restaurant 8 or so years ago on a family vacation, and it was perhaps even better than I had remembered. 

Ed and I started by sharing a garden salad - in this case with food literally from their garden. It was topped with semi-local Point Reyes blue cheese - fabulous, and topped with a perfect dressing. 

Of course, the wine was great as well - a very non oakey chardonnay. 

My dinner was spectacular- one of the best I've had. Port braised short ribs with leek and potatos and kale, topped with root vegetable chips. I think I ate almost the whole thing.

Sabine's was also great - an amazing lamb curry (apparently this place is know for currys, something I didn't know).

As stuffed as we were, we decided on one dessert to share. That is, we decided that until I saw the dessert menu. 

On it - probably one of my all time favorite desserts (that is not an option nearly enough) - hot fudge sundae. I had to apologetically tell my dining companions that the sharing option? Wasn't going to work out. I wasn't adverse to sharing, but I was adverse to sharing with 4 other people. How could you resist that hot fudge and whipped cream?

So, we also got a slice of carrot cake, and all was well. Finally, we pulled ourselves up from the table, overly satiated, but very happy and content with this spectacular meal. 

Reflecting after a Healthier Week: Eating, Drinking, and Running

This part of my resolutions was harder for me than I thought it would be. Food and drink temptations seemed to abound around every corner, and my runs were some of the toughest I've had in a while. But, I perservered, and have finished feeling tired, but clearer headed, healthier, and stronger.

It made a lot of sense for me to start this healthier lifestyle this week, with my long run climbing up to 12 miles, where those choices you make before and after runs really start to count (and, of course the New Year had something to do with it :) ).

Over the last year (ever since I got married, really), I've been trying to return to the healthy, fit lifestyle I had as I got ready for my wedding. I've just had trouble harnessing the motivation. One thing Ed has trouble understanding about me is why it's so hard for me, when from his perspective I do eat pretty healthily. What gets me is the wine, the sweet treats at work, and that desire I get to "treat" myself. My day to day eating is actually pretty good - its just the extras that sabotage my good choices. 

So, with my resolution to give up alcohol and sweets, I'm cutting out the majority of the wasted calories that keep getting me into trouble. I'm finding it much easier to do this than what I've tried in the past, and am feeling much more relaxed about my other food choices, trusting that I'm still making good decisions. According to my scale (which granted, is a little finicky), I've lost a few pounds, which is pretty awesome, and hopefully that continues. 

The resolution is also a very handy way to let other people know that I'm not drinking or eating desserts is a very socially acceptable kind of way. It made it easy to not have dessert at the knitting night I have with friends, abstain from alcohol or sweets at a friends' weekly dinner, and not drink when my family was visiting (though, funnily enough, my mom had to made sure I wasn't giving up alcohol for a "medical" reason - i.e. having a little one on the way). It makes it pretty clear, though, when I say I'm planning to add some wine back in next month :). This is definitely a health/running related decision.

So, I am excited to head into week 2 of a healthier me. The 13 miler at the end of this week is good motivation to make good choices, as is the 6 miler after work on Wednesday (though, I have to admit, I'm a little nervous about that mileage after the work staff meeting, with it being very dark and pretty long for a worknight workout). 

It will be a great week!

(and here's a preview for the next month of my running - I am nervous!!!)

Reflecting after a Healthier Week: Cleaning Up

It makes sense, after one week with my resolutions, to see how I've been doing with them, and if sticking to them has had the effects I'd hoped.

In short? They definitely have, but they've also been a little harder (and funnily enough, in some ways easier) than I expected.

The easiest, surprisingly enough, as been the keeping organized. After I shared this goal with Ed, he also decided to jump on the bandwagon, and chose the living room as his room to keep organized.

(Apparently not all that true! Cleaning doesn't take as long as you'd think)

We had a funny moment one evening, after we had finished the laundry. It sat, ready to be put away, but it was late and I was tired. "Honey, would you mind if we just left the laundry for tomorrow?" I asked. "Well, okay," he replied. "Just let me carry it to the bedroom." Of couse, I couldn't let that happen, since, if it was in the bedroom, that meant I would have to deal with it. I told Ed as much, and he replied that we couldn't leave it in the living room, since that meant he would have to deal with it."

After spending a few minutes wondering where we could stick it until the next day, that wouldn't mess up our rule (we did entertain brief thoughts about leaving the laundry in the kitchen) before we realized this was our cue to just suck it up and put the things away. This "suck it up" philosophy got me to clean up, not only the bedroom, but the living room and even kitchen this week as well, while Ed was out of town.

I learned that if I start getting ready for bed at 9pm, it's easy to have enough time to deal with dishes, leftover food, and clothes that need to be put away. This week, I'm going to keep doing what I've been doing. My focus room is going to be the kitchen (which is harder for me), but I'm feeling confident and looking forward to having a clean house this week!

Avila Beach

I first heard about this beach from my family, who mentioned it on their drive up for Thanksgiving. Of course, they pronounced it like a favorite Mission Viejo restaurant - Ah- vee- lah. We were quickly informed that this place is called Av- ih-lah. But, besides it's name, my family had all the beauty of this place down perfectly. 

Sabine took Erma and me for this short day trip, while Ed and his brother, Tom, were out on an arduous 16 mile trek up the Big Sur coast. 

Standing at the beach, seeing the kids gleefully playing in the surf, it was hard to believe it was just a few days past Christmas.

While we brought coats with us, we were soon shedding out layers in the lovely weather. 

We peeked into the cute storefronts (that had been recently remodeled), 

before heading out onto the pier, where we were treated with spectacular views. (As a side note, we originally planned to do a few mile walk, but we all - me especially - claimed laziness and called this walk down the pier it. Apparently my 5 miler that morning took more out of me than I thought!)

After walking around, Sabine treated us to a lovely lunch at the nearby harbor, we we got to continue enjoying our ocean views. 

I had very tasty fish tacos (they were trying to sell me the "loaded" tacos, which would apparently be even fuller than these! I had more than enough food, and saved the rice and beans for Ed.

Just as we finished lunch, we got a call from the boys, telling us they had had a great hike, with spectacular views. When we got home, we shared stories and photos from our equally great adventures. 

2011 Running

As I mentioned, this year was my "return to running". Again, you say? Yes, I did return to running back in 2010 too, but totally fell off the wagon after our wedding and lost all my fitness.

This year, I finished strong! I can't even remember the last time I ran 100 miles in a month, and I'm hoping to only see these numbers climb.

You can see that October and November were a bit sub par with running (as were, obviously January through May, when I was just starting back up with running), but hopefully I won't see months like that again. 

After March's marathon, I am entertaining very small dreams of a summer 50k, but I can't really look farther than March right now, and hope all my training goes well. 

I'm still not entirely sure how 10 miler midweek runs will work, or how I'll balance running with everything else, but I'm just going to be optimistic. 

Happy Running!

January (and 2012) Goals

Also typical of New Years, I've been thinking about goals for myself this year. It's a little hard to set very large reaching goals, since the second half of our year is a bit fuzzy. In light of this, I'm setting some pretty general goals, as well as some more specific ones for just January. January is going to be a very busy month, and also a month in which Ed will be around a lot less, so it seems a good time to tackle some specific goals that I have for myself.

My first goal is in regards to running. I am so happy to be consistently running again, but I know that my habit is to go through phases, and I'm not naive enough to think that just because I'm running now, that it won't seem tempting at some point in the future to become lazy again. I'm certain that this won't happen before my March marathon,

but after, I will need to be committed to keep it up.  My goal is to run 100 miles (or more) a month, for this year.

I also want to be healthier, in general. Drink less alcohol, make better food choices, just do all the things that will make my running more successful and me feel better. Off of this, I have set the goal of abstaining from alcohol for the month of January (with a specific exception).

I'm curious to see how this might affect how I feel day to day, and during my runs. Coupled with this, I want to be drinking a lot more water.  (And, after talking with Ed, I'm adding the goal to not eat any "junk" desserts this month - with one excepted day). I'm really hoping that this all works together to making me feel stronger and happier in running and normal life.

My last goal is to be more organized, mostly at home. My specific goal is to choose one room each week during the month January that I will make sure to clean every night before I go to bed.

(For instance, our living room should look like this, not like it does normally, with my piles of work on the table and by the couch)

No waiting until the morning or the next day. This has always been a challenge for me, but is something I really want to tackle before we move into a *hopefully* larger place this summer, with more rooms to keep tidy. This week's goal is the bedroom, which feels more doable than the living room to start. Ed asked to get in on this, so he'll be working on the living room. Yay!

So, lots of goals for the month and year - I'm hoping 2012 is the best yet.