Hello 2010!

Hi Delicious-


OK, yes, I am very late and have been unforgivably lax on keeping up with this blog.  But, I'm back!  & *hope* to be much more diligent...

So where to begin?  2010 hasn't necessarily been the sunshiney-er place I think all of us were hoping it would be (yes, that is a new word!).  The economy hasn't magically fixed itself and people are still losing their jobs at a record pace.  Democrats are not keeping their foothold in politics (because everyone keeps rightly asking, "Should they?") and making sweeping changes (or really, changes of any kind).  We don't yet have a utopian universal health care that somehow appeases both the liberals sense of inclusion and the conservatives hope for self-governance (and lack of taxes).  And then Haiti got destroyed by not one, but two earthquakes that ravaged an already poor nation.  

BUT, while all these things are still going on I think what happened as soon as that ball dropped and we came into 1/1/2010 was that the way it was talked about changed.  From news reports to conversations with friends, you get the sense that there is a hope that it will start to get better, that maybe it is getting better and we just don't see it yet.  Like everyone else, I hope that's true.  I certainly have been blown away by the response to the people of Haiti's needs.  Between the social media outlets allowing people to easily raise millions of dollars to the airlines getting doctors there and our military stepping up, I've been proud to watch our reaction while horrified by their pain.  2009 was a year that I have a feeling we're all going to look back on as extraordinarily weird and icky.  But here's to hoping that 2010 lives up to our expectations of getting back on the track to normalcy and a bit of GOOD!

Speaking of getting on track...After the holiday festivities died down and my teenage sister went back home to my Mom's and I got my first business trip out of the way, I decided it was time to really focus on my fitness :)  You all know I run and do yoga but I with my ankle putting me out of commission and then the holidays screwing with my schedule I felt I had really gotten off track.  I was only logging 3 miles a couple of times a week and little more than 7 miles on my "long" runs and there was almost no cross-training. 

As of Friday, January 8th, I've made a pact with myself (and now I'm putting it out into the world so there's no going back!!!) that I will run 5 miles every day---no excuses, except Saturdays when I take off and Sunday when I do a longer run.  Every day I will do push ups and abs (of some form or another) and either strength training or yoga.  It sounds like a lot but I realized if I do it right it shouldn't take me more than an hour and a half.  I am certainly worth that amount of time every day!  And so far, I've kept to it.  The first week of running every day I felt like my legs were spaghetti and they were sore (that hadn't happened in a long time) but I just kept doing it.  One night I didn't feel good, one night I was sore, one night I just didn't feel like it, one night we had a party to go to.  Whatever, figure it out and make it happen (ooh, did I miss Project Runway this week???)  I'm on day 14, 2 weeks and I haven't let myself down yet.  They say it takes 21 days to make something a habit so I'm hoping soon I won't have to lug myself up onto that treadmill.  But I'm going to keep on because when I ran 15 miles on Sunday I noticed a big difference in my stamina, in my strength and my speed.  And I am definitely worth all this work!!!

But as you all also know, I am a big contradiction so when I do plop my butt on the couch for TV time, I'm serious about it.  Over the holidays we caught up on Lost and I am so VERY excited about it coming back on Feb 2nd for the last season.  (but can we talk for a second about the fact that the PRESIDENT switched the date of his State of the Union address because of a TV show?!?!?!!?!?)  I got very involved in the Vampire Diaries (thanks @caboomer!) with the best, hottest bad guy ever (who, coincidentally was also on Lost).  We are still trying to get caught up on Fringe (ah, still love Joshua Jackson and the X-Files-ness of this show!) and we have started watching the first season of How I Met Your Mother, a seriously funny show that has made me fall in love with Neil Patrick Harris. It kind of fills the void Friends left but has a little more guy humor.  And those are just the shows we get on Netflix!  American Idol is back but it's stupid right now and I'm not yet excited about Hollywood Week although a couple of these tear-jerker stories have, in fact, made me well up.

Just to round things off, I've got to say how happy I am to be travelling back to New York City again.  I've had such a love-hate relationship with the City.  I always thought it would be the very best place to live and that I was such a city girl and I would move there and stay for the rest of my life.  And I do love New York.  And living there was an experience that I wouldn't trade for anything.  I always felt at home and invigorated and impressed by New York.  But I also learned that every place has its pros and cons and its just a matter of finding out which things you are more suited to.  It turns out I'm much more suited to friendly people, a slower pace with less traffic and more space.  But I also crave the eclectic food, the variety of people, the energy of the constant GOING of people.  So I'm glad I get to go back every month and get my fill.  I'll take the LIRR and get on the Subway and walk the streets and eat some great Thai food and then I'll get on my plane and come on back to the rolling hills of Kentucky and the sanctuary of my house with a big ole yard and lots of animals---best of both worlds!