Bye 17, Hello 18

Well, we can all see that I did pretty good blogging every day for the first half of the month. Then school got busy and I just wanted to spend time with my family. So, I kind of fell off the wagon, but let's move on.

2017 was a year filled with change and new experiences! Let me go over my highlights of 2017.

• Moved in with my grandparents for 6 months. 
• Completed my student teaching at 3 different schools. 
• Graduated from college. 
• Accepted my first teaching job. 
• Moved into my first apartment. 
• Started figuring out adult life. 
• Set up my first classroom. 
• Began my first year of teaching. 
• Was asked to be a bridesmaid in my cousin's wedding. 
• Had a wonderful girls weekend. 
• Began to make better decisions to be healthier. 
• Saw my best friend graduate college. 
• Was asked to be maid of honor in my best friends wedding. 
• I got to also enjoy spending time with family and friends. 

I cannot wait to see what 2018 will have in store. I cannot wait to continue to focus on making myself better and spending quality time with people around me. 

• I want to continue working on leading a healthier life. 
• I also want to focus on making good financial decisions that will begin to set up my future. 

I have a few ideas for blog posts that I look forward to writing in 2018! Happy New Year to all my wonderful readers. 

Planner Person

I am a complete and total planner person. Over the years I have tried many different planners. I have tried weekly layouts, timetable layouts, desk calendars, etc. I love having the ability to write things down and visually see what I need to do. It helps me feel on top of things and it is how I keep calm and try to not lose track of things.

This November I began thinking about what type of planner I was going to for 2018. In the past I was a college student and then in the begining of the 2017 I was student teaching. This means I was carrying a backpack around with me and had a lot of assignments to keep track of. This changed after I graduated college. I still have dates to keep track of, but I do not as many things to keep track of.

I have always been a writing things down person, but I decided to make the jump into using GoogleCalendar. As an adult I realized that people would ask me about dates and if I was free. Sometimes I would not have my planner with me because of this I decided to make the switch. So far it is going great. I have my phone with me pretty much all the time so I am able to check dates and things. I can also input things in right away.

Some of the features that are amazing are you can color cordinate things. Right now I color cordinate my work calendar and personal calendars. You can also have people use different colors and sync calendars with family memebers. I really think if you are a planner person who is finding it is hard to have your planner with you all the time you should try GoogleCalendar.

Holiday Traditions

Holiday Traditions, everyone has them when you really think about it. People tend to be very protective of their holiday traditions which I completely understand. My parents are both teachers, this means that they get a nice chunk of time off during the holidays for family fun. So, we have at least a week during the holidays to soak in some family time.

I might as well get our first tradition out of the way (I know some of you may leave after reading this). My family (parents and brother) open Christmas on Christmas Eve (gasp). We would always go to Christmas Eve church, then get home and open presents. It also became a holiday tradition that my mom is normally trying to hurry up and wrap some gifts right before we open it. Another holiday tradition is the fact that my Dad has no idea what my Mom got for us. So, we always ask why he brought us certain gifts since he tries to take credit and he comes up with the best stories.

My mom and I also normally watch all the Christmas movies we can. We love watching Hallmark Christmas movies. I know they are all cheesy, but I will still watch them all. I also always have to watch my favorite Christmas movies, The Year without a Santa Claus. 

On Christmas, my family normally sleeps in and we all kind of wake up whenever. We spend the day being lazy, me in pajamas. We normally play a few rounds of cards and just enjoy the time spent together.

My last tradition is I try to not change out of my pajamas over Christmas Break at all cost. I only wear not pajamas if I am leaving the house. As in for a whole week if I can wear pajamas for 20 hours of the day I am very, very happy.

Our Christmas Traditions are not extravagant, but we get to celebrate the birth of our Savior and spend time together as a family. I would not trade them for anything.

My "Diet"

Yesterday you read about my fitness journey I have been on. Today I thought I would write a post to go along with that about my "diet". I put that in quotations because as I said previously I think about this as a lifestyle change. I do not think I could keep to a strict diet for the rest of my life. This means that while I am on a "diet" it is a little different than what other people may think.

I started my healthy eating in August when I started working out. When I got this started I did not have a ton of knowledge about diets and I still do not. My main focus was to make everyday decisions that would help me be healthier. This allowed it to be a lifestyle change. I do not restrict any type of food. If I want ice cream then I will eat ice cream. This might seem like a weird thing to say but I am going to leave some of my tips for my "diet".

1) Watch your portions. I have tried to be very careful about the amount of things I am eating. I focus on eating fruits and vegetables, along with protein. I still eat carbs because that is my favorite thing to eat. I also still eat dessert on occasion. I just make sure that I am eating the right portion. This means eating a tiny bowl of dessert instead of a ton of ice cream.

2) Make a plate. This is something that I have had to retrain myself to do. I do not bring bags, tubs, or containers of anything with me to eat. I make sure to put whatever I want to eat on a plate or bowl. Then I eat it so I do not mindlessly eat an entire family bag of chips.

3) Do not keep things in the house you do not want to eat. I make sure I do not buy things I do not want to put in my body. This means I do not buy chips or a lot of sweets. I still treat myself and have eaten these things, but I do not keep big portions of them in my apartment.

4) Think about the snacks you are eating. I try to consider substitutions I can make for healthier snacks. Instead of chips, I have tried snacking on vegetables. Instead of chips, I have switched to some rice cakes. Just try to think of small choices that are better than the day before. 

5) Drink more water! I have tried to cut out sugary drinks and I try to drink zero calorie drinks. Minus the occasional cup of coffee.

Just remember to make small choices every day that are healthier than the day before. Never get down on yourself for having a treat. You can't live your whole life eating one thing.

Christmas Parade

I accidentally missed day 2! I knew this was not going to be perfect so I am going to catch up and you get two posts today.

I moved to a new town in August and it is definitely a smaller town than the one I grew up in. This means that sometimes it has been harder to get out and do things because there are not a ton of things to do. This means that I have had to try harder to find things to do.

On Saturday, we had our towns Christmas' Parade. This was fun and the first Christmas Parade I had been to. There were a bunch of area groups and business that put together floats for the parade.

The church I attend also put on a live nativity and free soup dinner. It was fun to do something festive to get into the Christmas Spirit. I also had the opportunity to hang out with some of my co-workers which is always a good time.

'Tis the Season

I am going to try to blog every day in the month of December starting today (December 2) and ending on December 31. I am hoping this goes well and I can get a schedule. I love blogging, but I feel like I run out of ideas and do not know what to write.

For this first post, I am going to tell you my December Goals. I am going to keep this achievable and choose three goals. I will update you on the last day of this challenge. 

1) Continue on my healthy lifestyle choices. Starting in August I began to work out regularly and try to make better food choice. I am currently six days into a fifteen-day challenge. It is going pretty well and it has been a fun way to change up my workouts. I want to continue these decisions throughout the holidays when it can be a bit harder to do this.

2) Attempt to try to get out and socialize. I moved to a new city to start my teaching job. I want to continue to try to go out and do things in this area. I am perfectly happy being at home because I am a homebody, but I also need to try to find things to do.

3) This one should not be too surprising, but I want to try to blog every day in December. You guys will obviously see how this third one goes and I will update you on the rest.

I hope you have a blessed December! Please let me know if there are any posts that you want to see.