The taking down of the trees...

This weekend, we will be finally stripping the house of signs of Christmas until it all reappears in November. For the record, we did unplug the lights outside, and we were NOT the last ones on the block to do so this year.

The holidays are always fun around our house with two cats, two kids, two adults, and two Christmas trees. Sounds like a land-locked Noah's Arc, doesn't it? I have to admit that it's better now than it used to be, but finding ornaments on the floor, or hearing a rustling from the other room while you're eating dinner are two things I could do without at the holidays.

Tasty?

One of the cats, to remain unnamed, ahem, but who has only one eye....likes to lick, climb, and play with the trees. The two eyed cat likes to wrestle and fight with the one eyed cat...particularly under the big tree. One might imagine fun and folly to ensue, but what really takes place is branches being dislodged and lights hanging lower and lower as the weeks drag on. And let's not forget those poor tree skirts. How many times do I have to fix the damn tree skirts?!

The fallen...

So this week, two eyed cat has decided that, in preparation for the taking down of the trees, it's time to return to her favorite past time - obsessing over the fish. I think she's trying to prove that she has interests that span beyond tormenting the Christmas trees.

Stalker. Or just dedicated.

Each year, the battle between the cats and the trees has its ups and downs. This year was no different. The cats are always up to the challenge that the trees pose with their sparkly lights, dangling ornaments, and cozy skirts. The trees are undefeated, not falling for the cats and their tricks.

And so, this weekend, it all comes to an end once again.

Dear Cats,
Until next time. We won.
Signed,
The Trees

It's 2017 - now what?

It seems as if the new year's arrival brings about a nice time to make changes and set new goals. It would seem that I should be feeling inspired to set such goals and have a sort of plan for the coming year.

?

I don't.

I don't have a plan. I guess I'm kind of inspired, but not like "fire under my ass" inspired.

After my Whole30 in November, and my last post-W30 blog post in December, I made the most of the holiday season by enjoying sweet treats, imbibing a bit in the drink, and simply doing my best to make the best choices given the options presented to me in a given situation. In other words, I did not try to restrict my diet, but I did choose the lesser of evils at parties and at work, where food and sweets were abundant.

Happy new year!

I finally weighed myself on Christmas Day with our hostess for that evening, and the number on the scale was lower than I'd seen at any time in 2016. The hostess planned to weigh the next day and see what the Christmas dinner gain was, but I did not, and have not weighed since. I don't have a scale.  I kind of like it this way.

The sinus congestion, head cold, icky makes you feel like junk thing that's become so popular this season made its way to our house between Christmas and New Year's Eve and took me down. Just as I was recovering, BAM, the sinus infection set in. I'm on a 10-day course of an antibiotic that's also given to people with acne to clear up their skin. I now have three pimples on my face. On the up side, my sinuses are crystal clear.

Cold. This is fun?

My running shoes are no longer gathering dust like they did for much of 2016. With one race complete, and two future races paid for, I'm feeling like a runner again. Over the holidays when I was off work or working from home, I was able to get out during the week for some early morning runs and build up some miles prior to the new year. I completed, for the fourth time, the horrible, miserable, awful 5-mile S-No-W Fun Run last weekend. In full disclosure, running in the midwest in January isn't really ever promised to be awesome, but this race seems to attract the best of January midwestern weather, with sub zero wind chills and some wind that never seemed to be a tail wind. The plus sides are that it wasn't snowing, so footing wasn't bad, and it was sunny. The resulting party after the race made it all worth it, though, and just about everyone forgot just about everything by 5PM, for various reasons. Good times. I cannot wait to do this one again next year.

Looking ahead, I have a half marathon in March and a 10-miler in May. I'm working toward doing the Fargo Marathon in May, as long as I register by the end of this month, my self-imposed mental deadline. I'm going to begin training next weekend anyway, because that half falls right on a 13 mile weekend on the training schedule for the full. Gotta get to 13.1 anyway! I would love to get a marathon out of the way by summer and not deal with the post-marathon blues that I get in the fall. At the very least, I'd likely recover from that funk better, should it happen, in May than in October. Stay tuned. So far I'm surviving this winter without my usual S.A.D. crap, so that's a good thing.

Our family survived the holidays pretty well, aside from my sinus infection. Not being on our normal schedule for two solid weeks makes the kids feral by the end, but, all four of us managed to sometimes shower, leave the house a few times, and not get entirely pissed off at each other over the two weeks the kids were off school. I'm putting a check mark in the W column.

I'm hoping for a repeat Whole30 in February or maybe March. I am planning to get myself to do some cross training and lose this spare tire and gain some strength so I can break 4 hours in a marathon this year. I thought laughing at myself was good for that. It's not. Turns out, wine also doesn't do as much good as an hour in the gym like those articles all claim.

In all honesty, I'm hoping to make it through each day without causing my children to seek shelter with another family. I strive to make sure they don't tell people at school I if didn't make dinner and sound like it's a habit. Let's be real. Family first.

Do you do resolutions? Do you set goals at the new year? Enlighten me. Should I start?