this year has gone by so fast! this month marks being married for 9 months. if we had a honeymoon baby, I'd be ready to pop!

speaking of babies, I feel like its the season to get preggers! I've got 2 aunts on mat's side pregnant, my sister in law Kacey, and two of my best friends are pregnant, and another aunt on mat's side and one of my work friends just gave birth within the last week. holy crapola! its so fun to have so much new life, but I have yet to become baby hungry. kacey promises it'll come, but we will see. maybe when there are a bunch of babies running around,  I'll start wanting my own. but until then, I am enjoying only having to care for myself and my husband. which brings me to my next point!

mat and I have not turned on our heater yet. well, we did have it on for like three days, until our little srp estimator told us how much our bill would be if we kept it up. and off it went! we figure that while we can, we should save as much money as possible, so the heater will probably be off until we absolutely can't stand it. well, I've turned it on here and there a couple times, mainly for showering purposes. do you seriously expect me to be able to get out of the shower in a 60 degree house? didn't think so! but because we don't have a little one to keep warm, mat and I can just bundle up in blankets and snuggle every night and I am not complaining about the latter. however, I am convinced that it is impossible to get anything done in a cold house. waking up early, for example. I have been going to bed between 8 and 9 the last couple nights and still cannot, for the life of me, wake up on time. every morning, as soon as I reach over to turn off my alarm, I realize that my warm bed and warm husband are far greater options than waking up. the other thing is house work. like tonight, I had big plans to go running, then do a million and one things around the house. well, I went running, but then came home and curled up in a blanket, then decided to blog. whoops! I think I just need to be tougher. whiiiich brings me to my next point!

2012 is just around the corner people, and I've been thinking up myself some resolutions the past couple days. thus far I've got ten. some are cliche (lose weight. yeah yeah, I know), some I realllllyyyy need to focus on (i.e. my resolution to finish everything I start... like my resolutions), and some are just so that I force myself to conquer fears (get up, and stay up, on a wakeboard. I'm a wimp!). I'm also planning on some monthly goals, just to break down my big year-long resolutions into smaller steps.

there are two that I'm most excited about:
1. make our house a home. (already have a million ideas brewing!)
2. exercise a minimum of three times a week (I really do love exercising, I just get lazy sometimes and forget.)

anywho, I'll get a more comprehensive list out later. as of right now, mat and I are still enjoying our christmas presents. which included!

1. lots of clothes for me. wooooo!
2. little knick knacks for mat to use with his phone at work.
3. a canon eos rebel t3 for me :) thaaaank you mat
4. a pistol of choice for matthew.
5. other shtuff that I can't think of right now.

I have always loved christmas, but let me tell ya, christmas is so much better when you're married :) waking up with mat on christmas morning and going to open our presents together definitely is within my top ten favorites as of right now. I've already taken my camera out on a shoot with kacey, and hopefully I'll get confident enough to make enough extra money on the side and be able to dance more. that's the plan, anyways.

I looooove this time of year :)

a good husband leaves a cute note in the fridge for his wife when he leaves for the weekend.

so my october resolutions... thus far I am 2 for 5.

1. running program - I've been keeping on track with my running, although I'm thinking of repeating this week of training because it's been kicking my butt, and I think I need to get better at it before I make it more difficult for myself.

2. morning karve - ehh... okay so I've only been once. but that's because on monday I've been taking 2 dance classes, one of which is technique, which kicks my trash, and then tuesday morning I wake up incredibly sore. I wouldn't say that this goal is a complete bust, though, because I've replaced it with either dance, yoga, or just running a straight mile (which I did for the first time ever two weeks ago!).

3. finish Hunger Games - yeahhh... I started it again. but I'm only in the second chapter. usually the only time I have to read is when I'm going to bed, and I'm usually too tired to get anywhere. I'll have to dedicate more down time to this one.

4. getting a minimum of 7 hours of sleep - getting enough sleep? piece of cake! I've literally mastered falling asleep when I want. and to prove it, thursday night mat had band practice at 8. around 8:05 I realized that I was really tired, but figured I wouldn't be able to fall asleep with the band playing across the hallway. I got ready for bed anyways, and layed down, and decided to try relaxing the way you do at the end of a yoga class - arms to your side, palms up, legs relaxed so that your feet are open, then slowly relaxing each part of your body starting at your head and finishing with your toes. one yoga teacher I had would always have us imagine everything melting into the ground as you relax it, so that's what I did, and by the time I got to my shoulders, I was passed out. didn't wake up a single time, and practice lasted an hour and a half. impressive right? I think so! so I've been going to bed between 9 and 10 every night, and waking up at 5, completely refreshed. I've got to say, being a morning person is awesome. I love having time to relax before work.

5. finding a bridesmaid dress - ahh... the infamous bridesmaids dress. well, natalie changed things up a bit, and now I need to find a brown skirt and a peach shirt. kandyce and I went shopping the other day and didn't find a single brown skirt. seriously! we're gonna have to do some mad hunting in order to find something before the big day. so this one isn't a complete bust either, at least I'm working towards it.

I'm finally starting to see results from exercising so much, and I know its actually because I switched around my diet this week. went to sprouts and got some granola and almonds (cherry vanilla granola? amaaazing!). also got a lot of meats and seasonings to cook good dinners with, and I've actually started eating less. here's the thing, I grew up eating junk food. my family munches, aaaaall the time. well, I feel like this past week I finally broke that cycle! it was tough at first, because I'm a bored muncher, and work tends to get boring after an hour or two, but I've been able to distract myself and drink a heck of a lot more water so that I know I'm not really hungry. as far as feeling results, well I started feeling better almost immediately after I started running. its amazing what endorphins will do!

thursday night at the end of yoga, after meditation, the instructor told us to think of some negative thing in our life that's holding us down, whether it was a negative thought about ourselves or someone else, stress, resentment, anything that was negative, then leave it on the mat as we sat up, and never think of it again. it was the weirdest thing, I couldn't think of a single negative thing to leave behind. I'm not even hating on myself these days, which is huge because I have never been able to just be consistantly happy with myself, specifically the way I look, and not let it ruin my day. this exercising thing has completely changed my perspective of myself. don't get me wrong, I don't greet myself with a glance in the mirror and a, "heyyyyyy, good lookin!" every morning, its just not something that stresses me out anymore. that was an amazing feeling, to realize that I am finally completely and utterly happy with myself.