Ten on Ten :: February 2016

Good morning from Pure Barre Boulder. Love seeing this view every day. 

How productive can you be the morning that your adult coloring books arrive? 

Love how much new retail we have in the studio right now! 

Took class from one of our new teachers for the first time this morning. While my knee wasn't up to the task, Ali totally rocked it! We have THE BEST team! 

 On Wednesdays, we update the club countdown board. I think I need to shake it up next week with some new creativity.

I'm attempting the Bible in a Year She Reads Truth plan again this year. Right now, I'm in Job and Matthew. So far so good. The major change has come since I changed my reminder from 9:00AM to 2:00PM and I actually listen to the reading on my drive home. 

My new perfume came! This bottle is about three times as big as my usual bottle. That's what I get for shopping online and not paying attention. At least it will last me for forever.

Today was warm (almost 70!) and sunny! I napped after work, so I wanted to get out and get moving before the sun went down. Unfortunately my new favorite shoes got muddy in the process. 

My five o'clock shadow. 

Just in case you forgot who won Super Bowl 50, here's a sunset reminder.

February 2011 | February 2012 | February 2013 | February 2014 | February 2015

Finn & Rey

One month ago, I embarked on a new adventure...I fostered two puppies! I normally foster kittens--in fact, I've fostered 61 kittens in about 6 years--but during the holidays, there were a lot of puppies that needed a few weeks in foster while they got a little bigger. I decided to just go for it, and I agreed to take two for two weeks. They ended up being the sweetest, cuddliest, cutest, puppies I've ever seen! Since I had just gone to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens for the third time before picking them up, I renamed them Finn and Rey.

When I first brought them home! All they did was sleep and snuggle for the first 4 hours. 

 

I took the puppies to work, which also happened to be my six month anniversary working full time at the studio. 

We got a major snow storm one day and the puppies loved playing in the snow. (I only kept them out for a couple of minutes.) 

I got a sweater for Hurley at the $1 spot in Target during Christmastime. It just so happened to be puppy size as well, but Finn embraced the look a lot better than Hurley did. 

I took the puppies over to my dad's so they could meet their two dogs. Bonnie is older and has zero patience for puppy shenanigans. Tango really wanted to play with the puppies, but he didn't realize how much bigger he was than them. Rey took a liking to him though. Finn, not so much. 

I went to PetCo to get them Star Wars themed toys. They loved the Chewy toy, but they didn't quite get the concept of the BB-8 toy. (It has a tennis ball inside of it. It was just too hard to chew on.) 

I took Rey to run some errands with me, including picking up a kid from school. She awfully popular after class got out and she did awesome! 

Finn can sleep anywhere. 

Getting in some final quality time with them the night before I had to take them back to the Humane Society. They look the same in the picture, but Finn is on the left and Rey is on the right. It perfectly sums up their little personalities.

I had about two and a half weeks with them. They got to meet a lot of people, hang out with me at work, and have quite a few adventures during their short time with me. I definitely miss the pups, but I don't really miss the work that it takes to have puppies. Part of me wishes that I had kept one (or both), but I think in the long run, it's good that I didn't. I hope they went to wonderful homes with wonderful families. I was able to visit with Finn the day after I took them back to the Humane Society (and briefly saw Rey, who was visiting with another family at the time) and I would imagine they were both adopted the next day.

February 2016 Goals

January in review: 

{Spiritual} Start the Bible in a Year plan again. That I have done! At the beginning of the month, I was bad about getting it done the day of. But I changed the She Reads Truth reminder to go off at 2:00PM instead of 9:00AM and I've actually started listening to the daily reading on my other Bible app while I drive home from work. Those two things have made a world of difference and I'm staying on top of it now.

{Financial} Figure out, realistically, what I can afford in terms of buying a car and a house in the near and not-so-near future. Well, I actually did buy a car this month. It kind of all just fell into place and worked out. My credit score is still really good and my car payment is completely manageable. Going forward, I want to focus on eliminating my credit card debt so I can start saving for a house and paying off my car more quickly. One of the sermons at church this month was about money and something that really struck a cord with me was paying off debts quickly. So while I kind of feel like I'm back at "square one" in some ways, I also feel really good about the path I'm on to become debt-free.

{Social} Give more as a leader at Merge. The first two weeks were rough. If I'm being completely honest, I didn't want to be there. But Merge is different this semester and I'm coming around a little bit now. I'd still like to meet with people more outside of Thursdays and Saturdays, but all in due time. One thing I am really proud of this month, is that I've lead the discussion in my break out group every week. That's something that's really pushing me out of my element.

{Mental} Kick my sleep aide habit. Boom. Done. I haven't taken a sleep aide before bed since late December. I don't even have any at my house right now.

  

{Physical} Get back into working out. Yes, I've gotten back into Pure Barre and Platform. I've continued to have knee and hip problems, so I actually haven't done abs in any of the classes I've done this month, but I've been taking class about three times a week this month. I'd like to start using my ClassPass membership again. Right now it's on a "hold" so I get one class per month for a very small price. I just need to find a good time to go to something.

{Personal} Stop drinking soda. I'm certainly better than I was in November and December. The only times I've had soda has been at the movies, which is maybe three, but I just need to get better about taking in my water bottle!

{Professional} Update the Front Desk Manual. I kept putting it off thinking it was going to be a bigger ordeal than it was. But I was able to finish it just before our Front Desk Meeting at the end of the month. Hopefully it's as useful of a resource as I've envisioned it to be.

On to February: 

{Spiritual} Focus on how my works represent my faith. In the last sermon of the month at Flatirons, Pastor Jim talked about how the external is a symptom of the internal. That faith and works aren't mutually exclusive because an outsider should see your faith through your works. It's really made me think about how I act, what I do, and what I say. I need to reel it in in a lot of ways and be a better person.

{Financial} Start fundraising for my mission trip to England. Last month I interviewed for a mission trip to England through Merge's partnership with Globalscope. I found out that I was going to be a part of the team later that week. It's crazy because I hoped 2015 would be the year I went to Europe and when that didn't work out, I hoped it would be 2016. While it isn't exactly what I envisioned in 2014--or even 2015--it has potential to be so much better. It's just a matter of raising the funds for the trip, preparing with the team, and preparing with God now.

{Social} Meet with at least four people outside of Merge. This was kind of what my January goal was, but I want to be more specific this month. Because I'm not in a small group like I was during the spring semester of 2015, getting together outside of Thursdays and Saturdays is something that I've been lacking. My schedule is a little more flexible these days, so I have plenty of time to meet people for coffee or dinner, or whatever!

{Mental} Stop watching Netflix to fall asleep. This is my other big bad sleep habit. For years now, I've let Netflix play on my computer until I fall asleep. I just keep watching Friends, How I Met Your Mother, The Office, Scrubs, or 30 Rock. Last month, I woke up one morning and How I Met Your Mother was still playing. It had played through an entire season while I was sleeping because, for some reason, it never paused to make me click continue watching. While I turn the screen brightness all the way down and the volume low, it's definitely not good for my computer to be running all night, or for my brain. This is going to be a tough habit to kick.

  

{Physical} Take at least 8 Pure Barre classes and 5 Platform classes. Because of my hip and knee pain, I really didn't take in December and barely in January. I want to get back into it now, though, and I need some motivation.

{Personal} Spend less than half of what I spent eating out in January. I don't know how it happened, but it's been a long time since I've spent that much money eating out in one month. I want to more than cut it in half, so I just have to take it day-by-day.

{Professional} Get into a better routine of cleaning. Unfortunately I'm in the habit of convincing myself I'm "too busy" to keep up with the cleaning around the studio. I definitely make sure things are presentable, but I don't follow the same standards I set for the other girls and that's really not okay. I definitely need to step it up and "go first", so to speak.