New Year's Resolutions

(Warning: Super long blog post. Scroll down for the card that I made today.)

Happy New Year, folks! Hope everyone had a good time last night celebrating! I invited Robyn, Maria, and Beth over to hang out with me and Julie. I ordered pizza and Julie helped me arrange some cheese/cracker and veggie platters. I was happy that I was able to use some of the serving platters that I got at the housewarming party that my family attended. After watching Crazy, Stupid, Love (which was pretty good. I haven't decided if I want to get a copy of the DVD for myself), we played a few hours of Just Dance 2, which was super fun (and funny). RJ was very excited to make new friends. He went so far as to sleep with Robyn on the couch last night.

One semi-embarrassing thing from last night was that I didn't have a corkscrew to open that Robyn nicely brought over. "Tina! You went to WNL. How can you not have a corkscrew?!" I also didn't have a bottle opener, but Julie, being the resourceful person that she is used a flathead screwdriver to open the sparkling apple cider. Whew, saved by the engineer. Fortunately, I found an extra corkscrew at my parents' house earlier tonight.
Book: I finished up Nicholas Sparks's book Best of Me a few days ago. I thought it was good, but wasn't fully awesome.

Nail polish: This glitter nail polish is not working out for me. Many of the tips have chipped off and my right pinky finger is half gone. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

Spin class: I started 2012 on a good note by going to an hour spin class taught by Janice. She had advertised over the past few weeks that she was going to give a lottery ticket to anyone that came to class. True to her word, she gave each person a scratch off lottery ticket. I didn't win anything in my first ticket, but because the class wasn't full, some people got to try again. I ended up winning $2 on the second ticket. :)

Time for New Year's Resolutions. Let's revisit the ones that I posed last year and see how I did.

2011 Resolutions

• Repeats from last year: Keep up with my blog and Etsy shop every day through promotion, posting, or listing. Track my financial spending better by keeping receipts and entering data into MS Excel. I definitely didn't give it my all in accomplishing this resolution. I feel like I was better at keeping up with the Etsy shop in the first half of the year than in the second.
  
• Reach 625 Etsy sales by January 1, 2012. I'm currently at 485 sales. Check.
  
• Complete a 8K in March 2011 without walking. I did this race in 2008, and my time was 54:22. Check.
  
• Complete a 10K in April 2011 without walking. I also did this race in 2008, and my time was 75:55. It was a huge challenge for me because I hadn't trained very well for this race, and my knee was in a lot of pain during the last mile of the race. I want to do better this year. Check.
  
• Continue to go to spin class, run more, and incorporate weigh lifting into workouts more often. Spin class: check. Run more: I did better in the first 6 months of the year. Weight training: meh, not so much. I did get a resistance band so that definitely helped some.
  
• Leave the nest. This is going to be tough as I have never lived by myself before. I guess it's time to grow up a little. BIG CHECK. ::victory dance::
  
• Teach a class on origami. Hopefully this'll help me with my fear of public speaking. Didn't even attempt.
  
• Increase my professional contributions at work and work towards a promotion. BIG CHECK. ::victory dance::
  

Other highlights from the year...

• I did one more race than I thought I was going to. (Kensington 8K)
• I supported my friends at some big events. Jenny: wedding reception. Laura: wedding. Meg: Marine Corps Marathon. Robyn: Light the Night walk.
  
• I took a vacation to the beach with my friends.
• I adopted a kitty.

2012 Resolutions to complete by January 1, 2013.

• Read 20 books that I've never read before.
• Complete all the races that I did in 2011 and beat my times.
  - St. Patrick's Day 8K: 52:43. Meg and I already registered, so that's a good first step. Now it's just a matter of finding my running legs.
  - Capitol Hill Classic 10K: 66:14
  - Kensington 8K: 51:35
• Use 25 brand new recipes that do not use a crock pot and is not a casserole. 5 of those dishes have to include some sort of seafood.
• Reach 785 sales on Etsy.
• Lose at least 10 pounds by April 30 and spend the rest of the year maintaining that weight.
  

Card: Here's a picture of all the crafty things that I received for Christmas. Of course, it would make sense that I would use these goodies for a card, right? I have been reluctant to get the Tim Holtz ink blending tool and using makeup sponges instead. I found that the makeup sponges, whatever material they are made of is not as durable as the foam used for the blending tool. The makeup sponges would break apart pretty quickly and the little bits would get all over my project, creating dots of ink where I didn't want them. This was a good investment. Sometimes you can't substitute for the real thing.
Card Specs:
Ink: Colorbox chalk ink in Blackbird. Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Broken China.
Stamps: Studio G (sentiment, balloon), Martha Stewart- Patterns
Punch: Fiskars Large Cloud punch
Embossing Folder: Cuttlebug (Swiss Dots)
Pearl: Queen & Co.- Pearl
Other: Staedtler Triplus Fineliner, embroidery floss

Song of the day: "Higher and Higher"- Jackie Wilson. Heard it at spin class this morning and it put me in a good mood for the rest of the day.

In closing...
It's been fun taking some time today to reflect on what all happened in 2011. It also makes me feel truly blessed and thankful for what I have in my life. It's going to be tough to top 2011 (seeing as it's not like I can get another promotion or buy another house), but I will have a fabulous time trying to outdo it.