A Girl & Her Mutt — A blog dedicated to Food. Wine. Fun!

January Goals Update and New February Goals!

by agirlandhermutt on February 1, 2012

Hello friends! Its officially MY BIRTHDAY MONTH! I love February!

Since it is the first of the month it is time to buckle down and see how I did with those monthly goals and move onwards with new goals!

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January Goals

1. Take lunch to work every day.- Kind of. I didn’t take it every single day, but I only missed about 3 times total. Not bad, huh? This particular goals wasn’t that realistic since there are time where I do enjoy going out to lunch with my co-workers or friends. The all or nothing approach just doesn’t work for me.

2. Practice yoga at least 2x/week.- YEP! I’m so glad to be back to a regular practice schedule. I’d love to try a local studio and The Scientist said he would be into going.

3. Mark 2 items off the 31W31 list.-YES! I need to do a little updating on the page, but I made some progress here.

5. Identify 100 things that make me happy- DONE!
18. Make a font out of my handwriting- DONE!
23. Make a birthday cake for someone.- KIND OF! But with a little bit of a disaster ending. I made a cake for my friend Karen, but it just didn’t work. Waahhhh! It is the thought that counts?

4. No clothing purchases until Feb 1st.- Maybe? Do 2 belts count? I bought them in a moment of frenzy shopping at Target. oops!

5. Find a photography class to take online.- Kind of! I found a great class online that I had heard about, but then my camera broke. Now I am doing a lot of debating on the type and style of camera I want to get. The class starts the beginning of March so I really need to decide. As a bonus, I did sign up for an ASL class!

Overall- A great month! I set out to accomplish some small little goals and I did. Woot!

Next up?! Birthday Month Goals!

FEBRUARY GOALS

1. Stick with NROLFW schedule 2-3x/week. I got the book New Rules of Lifting for Women about two weeks ago and I’ve been doing it faithfully. I’m really enjoying the program and I can already see some progress. I’m also slowly pulling folks into the cult following.

2. Get my Scentsy business up and running! I’m officially a Scentsy Independent Consultant and while I don’t want this to become a part-time job kind of thing, I would like to make the most out of it. Seriously. Who doesn’t love the smell and effect of a candle without all that fear of burning down your house?! I’ll probably do a post on this in the future if you are interested in learning more (or you can email me). If you are already a fan and looking for someone to buy from, check out my site here. Bonus=10% off tons of products in February! No pressure kids. Just doing this for fun.

3. Finish up as much as I can from the 31W31 list before Feb 13th (my birthday). Eek! 32 is around the corner.

4. Come up with my 32W32. Yep, I’m doing it again. Hopefully with even more success.

5. Track my food in the fun little WW program at least 5 days a week. I track in my head on some days but this just isn’t the same as doing it for real. Suddenly I forget that extra piece of cheese or little bite of chocolate.

6. Go to a WW meeting every single week. I’m having a lot of success right now and I find that weighing in at the meetings is helping. Ugh. I can’t tell you how much I don’t enjoy the meetings, but they do work for me.

7. No make-up purchases till March 1st. I bought myself a pretty nice birthday present so I need to lay low in this area.

8. ENJOY MY BIRTHDAY! I love celebrating and I love celebrating my birthday even more. I think this comes from my lifetime of being an only child. I wasn’t spoiled unnecessarily as a kid, but I was raised to think my birthday could be a national holiday. Kidding…kind of.

Phew…quite a few goals, but all doable. Right? RIGHT!

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Do you have any big goals for February? Any other February birthdays out there?

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Yelp Elite Event: Pop-Up Party at SkyZone!

by agirlandhermutt on January 30, 2012

Good morning friends! Everyone have a nice and relaxing weekend?! I did! I was productive and super adult-like. I actually managed to get my car inspection sticker updated BEFORE the expiration date. Normally I just wait until I get a $45 ticket for an expired inspection. Nice huh? Not this time! Woot!

In other news, last week I totally forgot to mention a super fun Yelp! Elite event that I attended. The Scientist and I headed out Wednesday night to a place called SkyZone in Everett, Ma. It is located right outside of Boston in a super sketchtastic warehouse type area. It was dark. It was a warehouse. I felt like I was going to be a part of my very own murder mystery any minute.

Then we walked inside…

Bright, cheery and welcoming. Perfect atmosphere for an INDOOR TRAMPOLINE PARK!

After changing into our trampoline specific shoes, listening to the rules of the park, and a goofy picture, we were on our way to go JUMP, JUMP, JUMP!

(My hair isn’t purple and The Scientist isn’t bald. I promise.)

There are quite a few areas in the park to play including a dodgeball area, foam pit, basketball-type jumping game, and then just regular ol’ trampolining area.

We are both in this picture below but we were doing sooo good that they didn’t want to show us too much so that we didn’t make others feel bad. Ha. In all honesty, it took me about 10 minutes to even get the hang of jumping. I felt like such an uncoordinated old lady!

I skipped out on the dodgeball because I have a serious fear of that game. I hurt my knee hardcore when I was a kid playing it and I’ve been angry at it ever since.

I was most excited about the foam pit. Well, until I actually jumped into the pit. It was great going down, but getting up was a fiasco! I couldn’t stop laughing long enough to get a grip to pull myself up. I spent a good 5 minutes rolling around in the foam trying to figure out a way to get out. This is all while the attendant watched me completely unentertained. The Scientist acted like he didn’t even know me. Oh, did I mention that the next person can’t go until the foam pit is clear? That’s right. People were waiting for me to haul my butt out of that sucker. You can’t take me anywhere.

We were given 30 minute time frames to jump, but if we wanted to jump more we just had to go ask for more time. After 25 minutes The Scientist and I were EXHAUSTED. Jumping around takes a lot out of you! It is so much harder than it looks. It is also so much more fun than you can imagine!

In addition to letting us roam around the joint for free, Yelp also had a couple of really great sponsors on hand to keep us fed and hydrated.

Spindrift Soda, a local company based out of Charlestown, Ma, was on hand to give out samples of their fresh soda. All of the sodas are made with fresh fruit juice, sparkling water and cane juice. “No syrups, no juice concentrates, no additives, no preservatives.” If that doesn’t convince you to give it a try, then how about the fact that OPRAH even likes it?!

I tried almost all of them but my fave by far was the Cranberry Raspberry. A little tart and tingly. I need to get my hands on more of this!

Culinary Cruisers was also at the party to pass out samples of Katalyst Kombucha and gourmet popsicles. Bliss Berry Kombucha and Roasted Banana popsicle FTW! Seriously though, this Kombucha was some of the best I have had. It was strong and intense. Definitely a drink you can’t forget.

I also stuffed myself silly with the new flavor of Popchips, Jalepeno. I *might* have snagged a few bags for the ride home too. I’m a maniac for these chips! At one point I even ripped the bag open with my teeth like some barbarian. Embarrassing? Maybe. The result was worth it though.

To keep myself from keeling over on the trampoline I kept myself hydrated with Vita Coco. The Scientist had never had it before and was pleasantly surprised at how refreshing and tasty the Peach & Mango version was. I like to stick to the classic plain coconut water. You can never go wrong with the original.

Last, but certainly not least, after we had finished jumping I celebrated a night of no injuries for me with a nice cold Magners, an alcoholic cider. This is my ULTIMATE alcoholic drink. If they sell it at a bar, it is what I’m drinking. With ice, please.

They had both the pear and the original on ice, but I stuck with my original the entire time. Apparently I’m not one for change.

As we were leaving we saw that the Pretzel Crisp peeps had shown up in style with their Pretzel Mobile.

How great are these bumper stickers?!

As we were driving home I made numerous No Hummus types of jokes. All of which were extremely funny.

No Erin, No Love. Know Erin, Know Love.

You get the idea.

I can’t wait to go back to jump some more. This time I’m bringing friends to help me out of the foam pit.

Big thanks to Yelp and SkyZone for having the Yelp Elite Boston group out to play. Also HUGE thanks to all the great snack providers!

Also, all of the great photos in this post with the Yelp logo are from the Tatsu. What a fun job he has!

*Just a note…I did get to play, eat and drink for free. However, I wasn’t asked to do a review on the blog or get any type of kickback to praise these people. This is just my honest opinion on a fun night out!*

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Fill In The Blank Friday:Travel!

by agirlandhermutt on January 27, 2012

Friday! Woot Woot! I ready for a pretty relaxing weekend. I have some crafty plans in the works and I’m hoping to get in some good workouts to keep trying out my New Rules of Lifting for Women book. My thighs are a little sore from the first go round, but its that good kind of pain. You know what I mean.

The camera is still out of service, so this week I decided to give Lauren’s Fill In The Blank Friday from The Little Things We Do a try. This one was a travel edition and that seemed to be right up my alley.

1. My favorite place i’ve ever traveled to is a tie between Ireland and Half Moon Cay. I loved going to the place where my family is from and going to a place WITH my family.

2. Alaska is somewhere I’d love to go someday.

3. I pass the time on a plane (or bus, or car ride or train) by reading on my Kindly and napping. Usually I try to do the first one, but end up doing the second. I also like to make up stories in my head about the people around me.

4. My three must-haves when I travel are my iPhone , my camera and earphones/plugs.

5. My favorite travel companion is another tie but between The Scientist and My Dad .

6. The craziest thing that ever happened to me while traveling is when on my first day in London I was invited to go to Paris that weekend by some people I just met. I went. Hello After School Special! Not smart, but it was fun!(Don’t worry. I brought a friend.)

7. The most exotic food I’ve ever tried while traveling is haggis is Scotland. Nope. Not again.

8. If I could live anywhere else, I’d live in Atlanta. I’m desperate to get back to the South and be closer to my family, but still live in a busy city. This is just a realistic place. If I was dreaming I would live in London.

9. I have been to 31 states in the U.S.