updates

Today I am providing updates on the many ongoing projects and goals I've put in place over the last few months.

First topic of discussion: Fantasy Project Runway

This season is going about as poorly as last year. I drafted one awesome competitor, Sonjia, who is carrying my team. Andrea was a coward and left the show in the middle of the night, and Raul is the bain of my team's existence as he continually ends up in the bottom of the bunch, awarding me with negative points each episode. When he finally got kicked off a few weeks back I was thrilled he wouldn't drag my team points farther in the red. But as Project Runway has been known to do, the producers invited the man with the ugliest hair in the history of the show back, just to give Heidi Klum the task of saying auf wiedersehen to him for the second time last week. I just about poured a glass of wine over my head when I saw him back in the work room.

Second topic: Spending freeze

Five days in and $0 spent on clothes/accessories/shoes.

brunching @ Gram & Dun

$70 spent on brunch yesterday. Good thing I decided food & drink weren't part of the freeze.

Third topic: 2012 resolutions

1. Learn Spanish. Doing a pretty horrible job on this lately.

2.Work out three times a week. I'm averaging three work outs each week and really enjoying the classes offered at Woodside.

3. Go to church. Summer is tough on church attendance with lots of lake weekends. Probably now averaging 2-3 times per month.

4. Eat more veggies. I'm making a concentrated effort to up my veggie intake, but am not at the level I'd like to be at yet.

5. Read 12 books. I finished book one of the 50 Shades trilogy and can't imagine taking any more time out of my life to finish the series. I'm now over halfway through Mindy Kaling's Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? tome. So I've read 6 1/2 books in almost 9 months. Does anyone else slow down their reading over the summer?

I hope you all had a lovely weekend. And if you have any quick but enjoyable book suggestions for me, I'll take them! I really want to cross that resolution off in December.

2012 resolution status update

Do you have drafts that have been sitting in your Posts queue forever? I just cleaned mine out and realized I never hit the Publish button on a post about my New Year's resolutions. Whoops - That's an easy way to get out of keeping them.

Only 5 1/2 months late, here are my 2012 resolutions:

I keep this framed scrapbook paper on my vanity (see those toothbrushes making their first blog appearance?) so I'm conveniently reminded of my resolutions every day. Here goes the status update:

1. Learn Spanish. 

I spent weeks stalking eBay for a cheap and legitimate set of Rosetta Stone CDs to no avail. Then in February, I received a promotional email for a 12-month online-only subscription for $20/month. Holy bargain! Seriously, have you seen how much those CDs cost? Since then I've passed one level (out of TWENTY) but regardless, I'm on my way to communicate with the locals at the two Mexican destination weddings I'm attending over the next eight months. Gracias.

2. Work out three times/week. 

Meh, more like once or twice on average. But hey - that's progress compared to this time last year.

3. Go to church more often. 

I'd say my monthly attendance would earn me a C if the Catholic church gave out grades.

4. Eat more veggies. 

This one is conveniently hard to quantify.....

5. Read 12 books. 

Now here's something I'm excited about! I bought the Kindle at the beginning of the year, which has made this goal much more attainable.

Complete: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet | Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close | 30 Pieces of Silver | Bring on the Blessings

In progress: 50 Shades of Grey | I Will Teach You to be Rich (<---- you can make fun of me for this one but I'm enjoying it!)

Next on the list: The Happiness Project | Yellow Crocus | A Tale of Two Cities | A Distant Grief | The Girl Who Played with Fire | the next book club choice

How's everyone doing on their New Year's resolutions? What other books should I put in my Amazon wishlist?

2012: the year of the reader?

Hello and Happy Monday! Sorry I've been MIA lately, 2012 has been busy (but good!) so far. What's happened over the last few weeks? I turned 26, booked two international trips (!!!), bought a Kindle and met a friend's newborn daughter!

I held an internal debate whether or not to give in to the hype and get a Kindle for many months. I like to think of myself as an early adapter when it comes to most things, but to me, e-readers threatened to stunt the growth of my book collection (remember this post?). But after Cancun, where I finished a cumbersome 400 page hardback three days in to the trip, I realized there might be a certain convenience worth the $79 price tag of Amazon's gadget. (I was more than halfway through the book when we left for vacay... I'm not that fast of a reader!) Anyway, my mom was nice enough to let me download a book on her Kindle, and since then I've pretty much been hooked. I'll still buy classics and books I want to keep forever in hardback, but for book club and trendy fiction books, it's far easier to download the inexpensive e-book than buy it online, or wait for it to become available at the public library. 

So what's on my list of books to read in 2012? So far I've finished "Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet", I'm 33% through "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" and have "War Horse" and Ellen Degeneres' new book, "Seriously... I'm Kidding" in queue. On top of those I'd like to finish at least three classics, one biography and the last two books in the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy. Not to mention the six book club books we'll pick this year... I'm so ready to be a big book worm in 2012!

Hannes Beer