February Bucket List Update

I'm here today to give a quick update on some progress I've made on my yearly bucket list so far in 2015. If you'd like to read the full list or get some inspiration to make your own, go read my last post. After all, time is continuous. Just because it's January 1st doesn't mean a person needs to set some goals. Just because it's not the new year doesn't mean a person might not be itching to write out a fun list of things to see/do/accomplish. Lists are fun year-round. Here are the months in which lists are fun to write:

• January
• February
• March
• April
• May
• June
• July
• August
• September
• October
• November
• December

See? Lists are fun.

Here's some of what I've done so far from my list:

• Read fifteen fiction books. I've read two. 
• Read four nonfiction books. I've read one. It was the New Rules of Lifting for Women book and it is amazing.
• Cook a new recipe for Jeffrey six times. Once! I made some cheeseburger quesadillas. Mmm.
• See my sister's kids once every other month. I've seen her girls TWICE already this year! I still haven't seen my elusive nephew, but he's 18 years old so that's normal. 
• Go to six movies in the theater, one alone. I haven't been on my solo trip yet, but Jeff and I saw the Game of Thrones IMAX experience last weekend and it was so good! Each little detail and every little noise was so much bigger!
• Try the New Rules of Lifting program and track for one month. Success! I've tracked for just over a month, and I've been able to increase weight or progress the movement almost each time I've done the workouts from phase 1. I'm still sticking with the program, though my workouts are more often 2 per week than the 3 suggested by the authors. The objective is to gain strength and I'm meeting that objective, so it feels great!
• Write 10 thank you notes to friends and family. I wrote one. To my sister. For bringing her kids to see me. 
• Write in my journal once per month. I think I actually wrote in my journal like three times last month, which is a lot. I've been using the journal to reflect on the virtue study practice I'm engaged in and just to scribble. It's been a couple of weeks though, and I can hear it calling to me. Well, I can hear all the voices in my head that start to get louder and busier until I finally take care of or accept what's been bugging me.
• Eat at Eckhard's. Finally! We've lived around the corner from this highly-rated German restaurant for several years and never tried it out, since we heard it was expensive. It is pretty expensive. But the portion sizes are HUGE, the beers offered are impressive for our rural area, and the taste of everything we ordered was phenomenal. I had a baked salmon dish that ended up being like a big salmon wellington, wrapped in pastry paper and everything. So good! This was our anniversary dinner a few weeks ago.

The next things I want to focus on from the list are pushing myself to go to more group fitness classes for the camaraderie and challenge, more thank you notes, the language and hip hop podcasts, and continuing my core value/virtue study. This week's virtue focus is gratitude and contentment, so I'm sitting around appreciating what I've got and trying to resist some of my more consumerist tendencies. 

Blessings and love to all!