2011 is coming up, what happened to 2010?

So, I've decided to try out this blogging thing. I follow a bazillion blogs online, might as well join the "cool kids" and start one too.  My husband keeps telling me to post my crafts online, but "who wants to see those anyway" is what I've always thought. But who knows? Maybe I'll end up with a follower or two someday, and my crafts will inspire someone to make something pretty for their house. Or something like that. But, I'm sure it doesn't help that I remember to take pics at the beginning of my craft, and at the end, but somewhere in the middle I forget to pick the camera and take progress pics. Hmmmmm. Plus, I have no idea how to set up this blogger to make it look anything like the pretty blogs I follow online. So hubby's idea of starting a blog = more work for him. You gotta love being married to a graphic and web designer. "Honey, I need you to set up the html on my page and make me a pretty header and some pretty buttons." Add that to your honey do list, babe. :)

2010 was a heck of a year for us. I swear, it went by at warp speed. We had our youngest daughter, Ava in August. This year will forever be remembered as a year of pregnancy appointments, sonograms, and NICU headaches and stresses. Ava was born with gastroschisis, which means her abdominal wall didn't close in utero, so her intestines were outside of her body at birth. She ended up having six surgeries and spending 66 days in the NICU before she came home on October 15th. But that's a story for a different day. We're both so ready for a year where we look back, and think "Not much happened that year."

Everyone talks about resolutions that they want to keep for the new year. I've always been anti-resolution. I mean, why do you need a day on the calendar to make a change for the better? But, I've decided I want to make a change in my life, and it just happens to be the new year. I was on my last bag of sea salt and vinegar  chips (I buy them by the two's, I love those things) and I decided I wasn't going to buy them anymore. And then I started thinking about exercising more. And I decided I was going to start on the New Year, and finish my bag by then. So, I guess I'm not "anti-resolution" this year.

So, my goals for 2011? The same as 99% of the population, I'm sure. I want to lose weight. I mean, I can't keep the "I just had a baby" excuse forever, right? Ava is four and a half months old, and I'm not back down to my pre-pregnancy weight. I fit into my pre-pregnancy clothes, and my friends tell me to shut up and that I look fabulous when I say I want to lose weight, but I don't like the numbers on the scale. Pre-pregnancy weight? 118 normally. 116 on a good day. I got up to 142 when I had Ava (gained 24 lbs) She was born at 35 weeks and weighed 7 lbs 8 oz. The doctor said she would have been a 9 or 10 pound baby if she had gone full term. EEK! So here I am, four months after having her, and I'm chilling at 123 lbs. 121 on a good day. And yes world, a woman just announced her weight. I'm 5 '4 if that matters.

So my goal? I want to get down to 118 lbs. 116 on a good day. In a perfect world, I'd weigh 114, but that's probably not going to happen anytime soon. I love my coca-cola and sea salt and vinegar chips too much. Hi, my name is Jennifer, and I'm addicted to Lays sea salt and vinegar chips.

I was doing kick boxing for a while before I got pregnant. Talk about a work out! Whew, that class would kick my butt, three times a week. But it's such a sense of power to know you finished an hour of it, plus it's great knowing that if I got attacked, I'd hopefully be able to do something about it to defend myself. Either that, or scream like a little girl and run the other way. But we'll pretend that it'll be the first one. Apparently I was pretty good at it too. At my first class, the instructor asked me where I had trained at before.

yes, that's my leg when I kickbox. Apparently I throw knees and kicks pretty hard.

So that's my goal. Working out more. Which is hard to do since we're down to one car, and if I want to use my car during the day, hubby has to have someone come pick him up for work and take him home. Or I have to pack up all these rugrats and take him in. His car has been in the shop for forever, something about the computer going out and the shop is waiting on a new one? I don't know. I have a ton of work out videos in the house (Turbo Jam, P90X, etc) but I'm the type of person who can't work out to a video. I have no accountability if someone isn't there watching. It's too easy to hit the fast forward button if I don't want to do something. At least if I do it when hubby is home, he'll call me out when I'm being lazy, which is what I need. He's been holding the thai pads for me for the past week, which has been awesome. It just feels good to get moving again, and to hit something (not that I'm violent, but it is fun). It's COMPLETELY different to pretend to throw a hit, like on my Turbo Jam video, and to actually hit something. We've been doing two nights on (half an hour) and one night off. He basically takes what he learned in class, and calls out things for me to do, while he holds the pads for me.

So fingers crossed and prayers said that I won't cave in and buy sixteen bags of chips, and keep my eye on the goal, er, scale. Besides the coke and the chips, I eat pretty healthy. I don't buy junk food, because if it's in the house, I'll eat it. I even make sure to buy the girls snacks that I don't like, so I'm not tempted. But those chips, they sure do call my name.

What's your resolution?