Happy New Year!
I’m excited about 2013 and was ready for 2012 to come to an end. Sometimes a fresh start is in order and I definitely think I’m in need of one of those.
I took a pretty serious blog-cation for the last 3ish months and it was mostly to work on ‘me’. I needed to eat about a billion cheeseburgers (with bacon), drink 5 million caramel fraps from Starbucks, cry about 8 thousand times, drink 6 hundred adult sodas, skip 46 trips to the gym, and get 1 puppy.
Ohh… by the way…
Meet Donner!!!
Donner is my wonderful 12 week old yellow lab that you’ve seen an obscene about of photos of on Instagram. What can I say I really really really love my dog?!?!
He’s awesome and I’m his most favorite person. He literally follows me from room to room, including the bathroom. :oops:
Anyways… You’ll continue to get moment by moment up dates on all things puppy so… On to the New Year.
2012
My goal for 2012 was to GET FIT!
And I pretty much did. I dropped between 15-20 pounds, depending on the most recent holiday. I ran a half marathon. I joined a gym. I cleaned up my diet.
I pretty much kicked my 2012 Goal’s BUTT!
But, in the last 3 months I’ve done some pretty serious life looking and soul searching. Because I’ve been dealing with some really big stuff I decided to live intuitively. Which means if I wanted Chipotle Mac & Cheese, I ate Mac & Cheese. If I didn’t want to go to the gym, I didn’t go to the gym.
Sometimes I think it’s best to just cut everything out of life and do exactly what you want… for me (this time) it meant no more working out and no more forced healthy eats.
Which brings us to…
2013
This year is going to be a really great one. For one, I just know it has to be better than the last 3 months. For two, it’s going to get blog-crazy!!!
My goal for 2013 is to Pick Up the Pieces!
My mom inspired me with my christmas gift this year. She got me a year subscription to The Top Chef University. It’s really cool. It’s about 8 months worth of cooking tutorials, how-to’s, and recipes. All taught by the contestants from Top Chef. I’ve already set up a lesson plan and I’m planning on blogging everything. It’s going to get crazy and I guarantee it’ll be full of cheesy photos of me and silly-ness. Get ready!
I also want to start working out again, I’m not quite sure exactly what that means yet… but I know I’m going to get back to using my gym dollars no matter how mild or extreme.
I’m going to start cleaning up my eating habits. I don’t think that means eating as hard core as I was before. My intestinal health is finally really great and I can eat almost anything without flaring up my old symptoms. But I do know that it’s not good for me to be eating double cheeseburgers and fries 3 times a week for longer than a brief period of emotional distress. :mrgreen:
Hopefully with my new cooking plan and some sort of fitness everything will fall into place how it should. Puppies make everything awesome!
As a quick little addition, I just wanted to say thanks to all of you for your continued friendship on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Emails despite my blog presence. Every little message was so helpful for me and made my blog-cation so much more productive. I never intended to quit blogging forever, but I did need to completely step away from a few different hobbies in my life in order to start down the new path I’m on. Anyways, you all rock! I’m crazy excited to start the new year and I hope you all plan to come along for the ride. It wouldn’t be the same without you!!!
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
Happy New Year girl! The puppy is too adorable. I’m glad you took the time you needed away from your blog but I”m also so excited you are back ;)
Thanks Danielle. Your amazing! I hope you have a great 2013. And thanks for being so flexible with me and working on your blog. The trial was really draining and scary. It was gang on gang and the actual murders were in my neighborhood… I’ve been having a really hard time. I have wonderful things in the work for your blog! I hope we can still do them in the coming week.
Happy new year, Maren! Hope 2013 treats you well! Can’t wait for more posts.
Yay. I’m really excited to see what you think about top he’d university since your my only chef friend.
I love hearing from you. Donner – oh goodness gracious, I saw him all over twitter but this dog is adorable. I love this top chef thing and can’t wait to see what the new year holds.
I can’t wait for this year Alex! And I’ll share Donner with you. You can be his virtual god-mama ;)
i was obsessed with every single picture of Donner you posted and had to show Travis them all because he grew up with a puppy that looked just liked that (but unfortunately passed away about 3 years ago…). I need the same motivation from your past year for myself this year. I really need to start watching what is going into my body and how I am treating it!
How cool! I hope it doesn’t make him sad to see photos of Donner. He is one pretty pup, though. I’m pretty biased though. Congratulations on your engagement!!! I’m so so so happy for you!!!
I am so glad you are back to blogging. I’ve missed ya chica!! But I have LOVED seeing all the Donner pictures. I show them to Sasha, but she is not as impressed. ;-)
Ohh mo! I loved getting all your tweets. I’m glad to be back too. I’m hoping your Sasha and my Donner will be Internet boyfriend/girlfriend lol!
I totally can relate to taking time off from blogging since i did the exact same thing earlier this year. I for one and glad you are back and am even more excited about all things puppy. You know I love the puppies. And now you can join in 23paws with all kinds of Donner awesomeness. Looking forward to hearing from you and all that you’ve got going on. Missed you!!
Aww thanks cinnamon!! I am totally planning on joining 23 paws every month. It’s one of the reasons I really wanted a puppy, lol.
Missed you in the blog world Maren, but I am glad you took time to focus on yourself :) I live seeing all the pictures of Donner and the joy he brings you is evident. Love seeing his pictures on twitter :) I hope this year brings you plenty of happiness and adventure!! <3
Can’t blame you at all for the blog-cation, I totally feel that. Life is more important than the internet! My pup often follows me into the bathroom too…. even when the door is shut he rams it open. Not sure what that obsession is other than ‘need to be with my master every second of every day’ :)
HAHA. Alysia- so glad it’s not just Donner. I was starting to get worried he was a little bit twisted. LOL
Hey! I don’t believe I’ve posted before but I figured I could today ;) glad to see you’re back, but glad you could take some time off from blogging….it’s necessary sometimes. I’ve been taking a bit of time off myself. Anyways, sometimes we all just need a break…for everything! Balance is key, so good luck with finding yours :)
Ps. Love the puppy ;)
Trudy! Thanks for finally commenting. this way I get to thank you for stopping by and reading my blog. Blogcations are really great and keep me a little bit more sane. LOL