New Year Resolution Updates

At the end of December I made 7 goals that I was going to work on this year. I missed giving updates in February and March because I wasn't blogging during lent (It was a needed break to show me how much time I waste online), so we'll just give a month 4 update.

1. Be at work on time every day. I suck at this. Plain and simple. I usually make it in by 9am. I for the most part always work through my lunch, so I'm still getting in 8 hours a day. But it needs to get better, especially with summer coming up and less and less people being in the office.

2. Cut back on 'after school activities'. I'm doing ok at this. I missed a few Bible studies to go to FH dinners and meetings and while I regret missing BSF, I made a commitment to FH as well. And I haven't been going to their exec meetings, which then puts me out of the loop on things. It's a loosing battle. And it doesn't help there are 834,049 activities going on this time of year. And I want to go to as many of them as possible to spend time with the seniors before they graduate and leave here forever. In three weeks it will all be completely different and I won't have these opportunities, so I will just enjoy this season while it's here.

3. Sign up for a half-marathon and get to the gym. I never paid for the Flying Pig Marathon and since there was a $100 fee hovering over my head, I have not been running. At all. So I think I'm going to pay for the half in October.

4. No fast food. I was doing good at this until one day I only had a little bit of time and ran to McDonalds withut even realizing it. And then I've been back several times since that. I haven't had Chick-fil-a, which is probably one of the healthier options in fast food.

5. No social media. This all is back in my life. It all started during Lent, which is odly enough when I was taking a break from social media for realz.

6. Study my Bible daily. I've done awful at this, especially since Molly moved in back in March. And I can tell I just don't feel as good about things when I'm not. And then I go to class and have no idea what's going on. And I'm lost. And can't participate. And just feel cruddy.

7. Be a better communicator. This needs to start happening again. Especially when another person and I just aren't on the same page about things. But there was one moment this month when I was very upfront about something when I could have just passed the responsibility on to someone else. I'm very proud of that and the reaction was good and makes me respect that person a lot more since they respected me.

So there's the update for April. Maybe now that it's getting warmer I will start running more. :)

More Charleston Pictures

Finally uploaded the pictures off of my Canon Rebel that Molly used while we were in Charleston! Some good candids and more 'fancy' looking pictures!

So glad OSU made us friends.

Molly and all of her friends.

Cotton

Having fun in front of the house.

Pink poppies :)

One day I'll learn to ride.

I was nosey and was checking out the restoration of the old Cotton Mill.

I found a cat at Boone Hall Plantation.

Molly being artsy.

Unitarian Church cemetery.

Confederate War Veteran in the cemetery.

Miss this girl.

reinacting #cannonfalls

While I was away

I did my yearly leave from social media and blogging again for Lent. Some parts of the sacrifice went better than others. I did not do well at not eating sweets, although I was very conscious of how much I do eat sweets, which is not necessarily a good thing since I was aware I was eating them when I wasn't supposed to. And I heard about this rule where you can Sundays are a cheat day. I observed that and no, just no. I cannot cheat on Sunday because then I also cheat on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, then am good for a few days until it's "cheat day" again. Never following that rule again. A fast is a fast. All day every day. I failed this year. 

So with the exception of failing miserable at Lent, I did get to do some pretty fun things. Without snapchat and instagram, I don't have nearly the amount of photos on my phone as I usually do.

I went home one weekend to watch Avery play in her final basketball game. Payton would have been playing too, but she tore her ACL for the second time and was out the second half of the season after having surgery. I was so proud of Avery for doing so well during her final game as a freshman.

Payton, Me, Avery

 One Friday night Molly and I went to see Ohio State's "Off the Lake" performance of Legally Blonde: The Musical. I had never seen the musical before and it was so funny. If it was to ever go on tour again, I would definitely go see it as a bigger production. Molly and I were signing the "Omigod you guys" song all evening and the next day.

We ran into some friends while in line for the show.

That Saturday Molly and I went to Shelby County to celebrate the engagement of two friends - Stacie and Derek. Stacie has become a great friend over the past two years and I was honored to have her invite me as a friend to her party. I am so happy for her and Derek and am already looking forward to their wedding. What I am not looking forward is to her moving away from Columbus, but luckily we have another year until that happens.

After looking at all of the pictures from the night, I don't think I have any of just me and her. But I do have lots of other people. It was a fun evening with lots of laughs and despite the majority of the people I knew there being much younger than me ;) I actually ran into a few people that I went to college with too.

Molly was having an awesome hair night. I was not. And I had a really embarrassing moment that I will think of every time I put on chapstick for the rest of my life.

Wickham sisters and Summer. This girl is so funny!

OSU crew watching Stacie's little brother beat everyone in pool. Everyone.

Maybe we should get a group picture with the bride and groom to be. :)

 The next day Molly and I went to the Ohio State basketball game at the Schott. It was my first basketball game since I went to one as a student in 2005, so it'd been a while. We were even really good during that attendance drought of mine! We lost this game to Wisconsin, but they went on to play Duke in the NCAA National Championship, so whatever. Go Bucks!

We had "pretty good seats" aka, one row from the top.

Thanks for taking me sister.

 I also went to a few Columbus Blue Jackets game this season. I went to my first one last year and now two more this year. They lost the first time and won in a shootout the second. So that was exciting.

Shootout!

This guy has a cannon hat. He is a real fan.

All my friends are turning 30 this year. Wah! How are we this old? In early March we celebrated Abra's 30th birthday with dinner and a little dancing downtown. 

Abra and some Ohio State friends.

Abra's cake, which was delicious!!

 One of the real big things that happened during Lent was I got a roommate. Well, a temporary roommate. For a number of reasons, Molly moved out of her apartment and into mine. While I definitely miss the open amount of space I used to have, the move has been going well. I would say the initial honeymoon part is over, but we haven't had any big arguments other than who is doing the dishes (somehow she only does hers, but I do all of them?). I think that's a good start considering we haven't lived together for 12 years and I haven't had a roommate for almost 5 years now.

But good gravy does she have a lot of stuff! My car alone was filled with her pillows. Yes, pillows! The girl is a pillow hoarder. And blankets. And clothes. And stuff. We moved two Kroger bags full of other Kroger bags. -_-

My car plum full of Molly's stuff.

 We had wanted to take a spring break trip again this year, but because Molly didn't have a passport, we couldn't go anywhere that we had on our list. And well, we aren't millionaires to actually go to any of those places. But instead we decided to take a long weekend trip to South Carolina to visit Lauren in Columbia and then go to Charleston. While we were waiting on Lauren to get off work, we talked our way into South Carolina's football stadium. (This is a talent of mine.) And Molly even wore her National Championship shirt inside. Haha SEC!

Fans are so close to the field here!

Go Bucks!

 Friday night we did dinner on the USC version of High Street and then went out with some of Lauren's friends at a bar near her place. It was great people watching as everyone there was so different than in Ohio. Girls were in dresses and looked like they were heading to a wedding reception and a lot of the guys were in khaki's and button ups. Just very different than the Ohio crowd. We also had a great talk with a guy who is an Ohio State fan, but then started telling us how TCU should have made it into the football playoffs over Ohio State. Luckily Molly was there to tell him what was up! Do not mess with a girl and her Buckeyes.

I haven't been to Boone Hall Plantation in Charleston since I was about a year old, so we visited that.It's a beautiful old plantation where many movies have been filmed and Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively event got maried there a few years ago. It was fun to see the different landscape they have compared to Ohio. My favorite part was the agricultural tour we took to see the entire grounds. 

We also watched a presentation on the Gulla culture that was very interesting. I remember watching  Gulla Gulla Island when it was on Nickelodeon a few years back and it was cool to put it all together.  And then we toured the house.

Gulla culture presentation.

Molly, Lauren and I in front of the Oak trees.

Such fun travel buddies.

Oak Alley

It rained all day Sunday, so our plan of possibly visitng the beach for a few hours didn't work out. So instead we just window shopped in Charleston. Seriously, we just window shopped. No one bought anything except I got peanut brittle at The Peanut Shoppe. That I couldn't even eat because it was Lent, but did eat a little.

We also ate a lot - at restaurants, ice cream parlors, snacks. All the food was delicious. And we walked through an old cemetery that was beautiful. i want to be buried in something that looks like this. Just lots of flowers and natural landscape!

 

And then we saw the funniest thing I've ever witnessed. This guy was trying to sit on this cannon and as he was trying to get down he slid off and landed on the frame like Molly is demonstrating here. He was not a lightweight guy either. And he fell hard. I don't know how he didn't break his back. Maybe he did? 

#cannonfalls

Southern Belles

Nothing else too crazy happened after that and before Easter. Lauren came back to Ohio for Easter and she and I met Molly for lunch one day. A nice guy that Lauren knew who was also in the restuarant paid for our lunch! How sweet! And we had this amazing peanut butter and chocolate pie. Seriously, how good does that look?

Awesome pie from G&R.

So that kind of concludes my time away from blogging during Lent. More life updates to come. Work is really busy right now, so it might be May before they become frequent again!