New Year's Goals

Yes, the last time I posted anything to this silly blog was in August.

Yes, the last time I wrote in my journal was just after Christmas.

But it's a new year: 2011. I started thinking yesterday about the things I want to do, be, and achieve this year. I do have a long list of things I'd really like to do, but I thought I'd keep it short and sweet to make it more achievable and more realistic.

Without further adieu, here are my goals for 2011:

1. Quit smoking. Easier said than done! Trust me, this isn't my first time quitting; but I'm hoping this will be my last, successful attempt. No, not an attempt. An achievement! I didn't feel like smoking yesterday at all, as my stomach was not feeling up to par, and I realized last night that it had been since Saturday night at 11 pm since I had smoked one. I was also thinking that I must "walk the walk" if I am going to be a good nurse when I graduate from nursing school; I can't be a true health advocate and lead an unhealthy lifestyle - that would be hypocritical! I've always been annoyed by hypocrites. And a friend decided he was going to quit, so it inspired me to quit, too. So that's it. I'm walking away from cigarettes. For good.

2. Exercise 5 days per week and lose 20 lbs by April 10, 2011. Another tough one. But even if it's just a brisk walk with the dog, I need to move every day. Up until last summer, I used to run 3 - 4 miles about 4 times per week; then it got so hot that even when I got up early I still felt stifled by the heat and humidity (ahhh, South Carolina summer!). So I laid off, thinking I would go to the gym instead. Oops. That didn't work. And then nursing school began and I got even lazier. The result is that I feel sluggish and I've gained too much weight. At the beginning of summer 2009, I weighed a healthy and slim 115 lbs. Now I'm at about 135. Yikes! It's past time to get this extra weight off. I know I can do it because I've done it before, but from now on, I'm not ever going to let myself get this far out of shape again. Period. It's going to be a gradual process and I'm going to be patient with myself. I'm going to start out walking or riding my bike every day. Then I'm going to start lifting weights again. Then maybe yoga again. Then maybe swimming at the gym. Eventually, I want to be doing something different every day so I don't get bored with a routine. And I want all that good energy back!

3. Go vegetarian. Again! Before I met my husband 5 years ago, I was an ovo-lacto-vegetarian (I ate no meat, but I would eat dairy and eggs). When I ate no meat, I had more energy, and I weighed less without having to work quite as hard at running and at the gym. Plus, eating a vegetarian diet is better for the planet, in general. So again, I'm starting slowly. First I'm cutting out meat. Then milk. Then cheese. Eventually, I'd like to be vegan - or close to it. I'm not expecting anyone in my family to join me in this endeavor, as I know my boys are carnivores, but I know that I will feel better and look better for eating a plant-based diet.

4. Be more creative. I want to write more, garden more, do crafts (decoupage, assemblage, collage, etc.) more.

How am I going to do these 4 things? I'm making commitments to:

A) I am going to be gentle with myself if I fall off the wagon (I just have to make sure that I get right back on).
B) I am going to give myself lots of "positive self-talk," as one of my old psych professors used to say.
C)I am going to reward myself with little things as I achieve little goals. Not with food though! The rewards will be more like giving myself a facial, a pedicure. Or buying a little trinket, such as new earrings or new nail polish.
D)I'm going to use a Mayo Clinic style approach for the weight loss, which means that I'm going to aim to losed 1 - 2 lbs per week, and I'm aiming for a total loss of 20 lbs, which means it should take me 10 weeks to lose the weight. I have to burn 500 to 1,000 calories more than I take in to do this.
E) I'm going to journal, blog, clean house, walk, ride my bike, or do yoga when I feel the urge for a cigarette. Like right now! :) Anything to keep the mind and the hands busy! I'm also going to journal what I eat and how much I exercise each day.


Any thoughts? Any suggestions? Any advice? Comments are welcome!

Summer Time When the Livin' Is Easy - and Busy

I know it's been forever. I'm just not a "blogger." I have too much going on in my life to keep up with this thing on a day-to-day basis and no incentive really to do so. But for the family and few friends who might peek, I thought I would post some photos of our vacation to Maine. See below for a slide show of our summer so far...

We traveled ME 2 weeks ago for one week, and it was both Bob's and my first time visiting. I wish we could have stayed longer! The Maine summer climate is much milder than it is here in steamy, sultry, seventh ring of Hell that is summer in South Carolina. Tthe ability to breathe and to walk outside without sweating half of your weight in water was just wonderful. Example: the hottest day while we were on the coast of ME was 83 degrees fahrenheit and little humidity, while here in SC the hottest day was 102 degrees with 98% humidity. Ahh, Maine I love you. I want to marry you - well, your summer version anyway. Just kidding Bob! I don't think it's legal to marry a whole state in any case. *Grin*

Seriously, though, I do love Maine. We went, in order, to Portland, Camden, Freeport (a brief stopover), and Mt. Desert Island. The seafood is incredibly fresh and inexpensive, which is a huge plus for a woman who can eat it everyday of her life and never grow sick of it. We ate lobster at a little dockside place on Mt. Desert Island called Thurston's, and it was the best lobster I have had in my entire life. It was super-fresh, sweet, succulent, tender, and cooked to perfection, and if you buy the lobster dinner for an additional 6 bucks or so, you also get corn-on-the-cob, a generous slice of blueberry spice cake, and a drink. I recommend the soft-shell lobster, which Bob had; since we'd never heard of such a thing he ordered the soft and I the hard so we could compare the two. There was a littler blurb hanging on the wall where we ordered that explained that each person is different and has his or her own preference. The soft shell seemed to taste sweeter and the flesh was lighter, while the hard shell has denser meat. You get more meat out of a hard shell, but my personal preference is for the soft now. I also ate haddock for the first time and am really glad I did: its light, mild flavor reminds me a bit of tilapia, only better. There are tons of great seafood places along the coast, but Thurston's had the best lobster I tasted; go early - around 4 or 5 p.m. - if you want to avoid the crowds (though we stayed until 5:30 and it still had tons of seating). For a great chowder, I recommend The Corsican, a little place in Freeport. Yum.

Better than all the incredible food is Maine's natural beauty. Now, coming from a woman who's traveled quite a bit to some beautiful places and hiked and camped in many of them, when I say Maine is amazingly gorgeous, you know you can trust me. My favorite place was Mt. Megunticook in Camden Hills State Park. Bob and I hiked up (warning - it's a steep hike so it is probably too strenuous for folks who don't exercise regularly), and the views of Camden harbor and the surrounding hilly countryside were just amazing. The day we hiked it, there was a swarm of dragonflies at the top, flitting about like faerie, their metallic blue bodies glittering in the sunlight. Bonus! The trees are different in ME, consisting mainly of conifers (spruce and fir especially), birch, and maple. Oak trees are there but they don't seem to be as abundant as birch and maple. And flowers like Queen Anne's lace, coneflower, coreopsis, hydrangea were still doing great in the last week of July, whereas here everything droops by mid-afternoon because of the heat and humidity (despite our best attempts at keeping them watered). And in the South, our hydrangeas and Queen Anne's lace are long gone.

So check out Maine if you haven't yet, and go back to visit if you've already been! Hope you enjoy the photos!

(Post Script: Our camera went kaput on the trip, so these photos were made with my iPhone, hence the less-than-stellar resolution. Oh, and I'm also including some of our garden pics. Bob tomatoes! Delish!)

The Ol' Switcheroo

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there! I hope all of you who are mothers/caregivers/legal guardians felt as loved, appreciated, honored, and cherished today as you should be each day of the year. As my grandmother has always said, "A father's work's from sun to sun, but a mother's work is never done." I didn't understand that until I had my own child almost eleven years ago. It has grown easier to some degree - especially as far as the mindless menial tasks go - but in other ways it has grown more difficult. And I understand what a thankless job it is; at least it is so until one's children grow up and they begin having children themselves.

Soooo... I had an account under a different name, one that is almost impossible for non-Francophiles to remember and spell, and so now I am listed under my actual name. Pondering this point now, I realize that "Critser" isn't easy either; it is a surname that is regularly misspelled and mispronounced. Look, I tried to get my husband to take my last name, but he staunchly refused, being hesitant to have his friends give him a hard time. *Grin* So here I am.

I'm trying to decide if I should import all of my previous posts from the other account to this one. Hmmm... That would require more work than I am willing to do at this moment, but I may change my mind later.

I'm so excited that I have the next week off from school. For those of you who have not heard me whine yet, I am in nursing school. Yep. A 30-something mom & wife in nursing school. I have plans to give the house a good cleaning and to go the to library (in desperate need of a book fix), and I also hope to do lots of dog-walking and jogging. Other than doing these tasks, I plan on relaxing a good bit and reading, reading, and reading. My brain feels so full of care plans, pharm facts, review of systems... I am happy to let my brain "air out." Nursing school is most emphatically not for sissies. Then the next 5 weeks begins and I'll be doing psych rounds. Fun! (No, I am not being facetious! I'm really that geeky.)

On that note, I'll wrap up this inaugural post with a quote by someone whom I've admired since I was a child:

"I have an almost complete disregard of precedent, and a faith in the possibility of something better. It irritates me to be told how things have always been done. I defy the tyranny of precedent. I go for anything new that might improve the past." ~ Clara Barton