Please Place Your Seats In the Upright Position...

...because the crazy is taking off.

Remember when I said "let's run a marathon in Donegal in 2013"? Yeah, I don't either but apparently I did. I think I was too busy listening to Ciaran McMenamin's sexy, sexy voice to pay attention to what I was typing. (That man needs to start doing books on tape STAT! It's probably the only way I'd ever make it past the first four chapters of Twilight.) I also mentioned it to a few people in real life, partially in jest and partially in "wouldn't that be fun" until three of them (serious runner types) challenged me back to make it happen. And could I plan a tour of Ireland while I'm at it?

With three actual runners interested in attending the race and two friends who just want to come along to cheer* (and drink in the pubs tour the island), I've started looking into what it would take to make this a possibility. While I know that September 2013 is a looooong way off, getting people thinking about it now (and possibly saving) will hopefully make it easier to get people to commit to it when the time comes. (If the time comes, there are still no guarantees at this time.)

For the reason why I picked Donegal of all the places in Ireland to do a marathon, it's all about the beautiful pub countryside and people. Plus the run looks like a fun, low-key event with hilarious race rules. Also, the eyes of the cow medal light up. They had me at "[a]nyone consistently getting in the way of cows behind them will be be beaten!" and now they've got a light up participation medal? My heart just skipped a beat!

If this does go ahead, please understand that non-runners will also be welcome. My hope is that we can find a nice balance between a small-ish group but making it large enough to be able to work out some travel deals so I'll probably aim for 12 people. Again, this is just to get you guys thinking about it.


As for my current state: back is getting better but it's still slow going. Legs are still very smooth considering what they were like after three weeks of no shaving. I have decided to rewatch all the extended Lord of the Rings** movies because I'm a giant dork and the nights are getting dark so early. This is after I finished watching the entire Underworld trilogy (even the crappy 2nd one which I only watch because Scott Speedman - who can't act, let's be honest - runs around shirtless for most of it). Sadly, that pretty much has you up to date on my life right now!

*and this isn't counting people who've expressed interest but not an actual commitment to coming.

**that's right, extended. I'm a hard-core nerd, yo!

No Pain, No Gain... for Charity

Well, I did it!

Surprisingly, jazz is one of the styles we didn't do.

On Sunday morning I got out of bed at stupid o'clock, dragged myself (and the largest coffee I could find) to the corner of Hillside and Quadra, and then danced for 9 hours. I'd have to check with a certified psychologist, but I think my willing participation may be grounds for committal. AbunDANCE was a great success (and not just because I participated)! I was holding off on this post because I was hoping to state how much we had raised but that's yet to be fully tabulated, so I'll just say that I know one person raised over $800, and two other people raised over $150. Makes my piddly little $90 seem, well, piddly, but $90 is $90 and every bit counts so I'll be happy with that.

The best part about AbunDANCE was getting to try out a million different dance styles (fine, not a million, seven) for a $15 registration fee and minimum $40 of pledges. Even if you just pledged yourself $40 (which some people did), that was a great deal. We started the morning with Yoga Dance (which is yoga set to beats of music instead of number of breaths with some Bhangra thrown in. I don't really count it as a 'dance' style although it was a good workout) so we all had a good stretch before moving on Flamenco, Bollywood/Bhangra, Salsa, Polynesian, Afro-Colombian, Hip Hop and West African. For the record, I'm definitely pursuing classes in Flamenco and (once I'm in better shape) Salsa. I'm holding off on the Salsa mostly because all the teachers I have found in Victoria are thistiny and I don't need a constant reminder that I'm not. (The Flamenco teacher on the other hand was a tall, solid, yet curvaceous woman who is a constant reminder that you don't need to be thistiny to be sexy. I have a bit of a girl-crush on her.) Afro-Colombian beat my a$$ into the ground, but if Danny was to ever start teaching in Victoria again (he's moved up to Shawnigan) I would take a class (but I'd hide at the back because it's hard!) Our final hour of dance was a doundoundba (Guinean circle dance where dancers enter the circle to do a few of their favourite moves and then return to the circle) which was a lot of fun. For the first time ever, I actually entered the circle by myself. It was a great way to cap off the day (well, that and going for dinner with a bunch of the other dancers). Was I tired? Yes. Was I sore? Yes. Did I fear that sitting down would mean I'd never stand again? Yes. Did I fall asleep on the couch, halfway through an email once I got home? Yes. Will I be back next year? HELL YES!!

I'm back from my week off and will be running again. I was hoping to go on Monday, but 9 hours of dance on Sunday made that a big, fat no-way-Jose. To help with the whole 'be healthier' thing, I'm joining WeightWatchers... in about a month. I keeping trying to hold myself accountable for my food choices, but the truth is, I suck at it. I have zero willpower when it comes to food so putting me in charge of it... dumb, dumb, dumb. I've found meetings that work for my carless-wonder self, but with my current schedule I will have to wait a few weeks before jumping in. I 'did' WeightWatchers (which means someone gave me all the books and I followed it) and was very successful at it but then I moved to Germany/Switzerland, the lands of chocolate, cheese, Schwarzwaldtorte (Black Forest Cake), mochas in cereal bowls, Susi's home cooking, the Irish Times Pub, and the Apfeltasche (Apple turnover) breakfasts. I never really recovered. It's time to change that and WeightWatchers seems like the way to go. If I'm serious about the half-marathon in October then I can't just train for it by running.

Just because you're educated doesn't mean you're not stupid

The Gregorian calendar--the calendar system used by the Western World--was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. The Gregorian calendar was created to ensure that all Catholic churches were celebrating Easter (among a few other movable observences) on the same day. It's predecessor, the Julian calendar, had been in use since 45BCE when Julius Caesar (of the 'Et tu, Brute?' fame) reformed the old Roman Calendar to include a leap year. Prior to this change, the Romans would add a month to the calendar pretty much when they (and by 'they' I mean 'the senate') felt like it to realign themselves with the sun. Not only did this allow for years to be extended for political and not seasonal reasons, but a few forgetful Senate sessions and Satunalia was being held in summer (for those who are not as geeky as me, Christmas was moved to December to replace the Satunalia fesitval and entice the pagans away from the old Roman gods). Besides, a degree in advanced mathematics is pretty much needed to understand the old Roman Calendar. The Roman calendar was based on old Greek lunar calendars, those on Egyptian and Persian calendars... There's even a theory that Stonehenge was a giant calendar and carbon dating puts it at 2500ish BCE. It is safe to say then that calendars have played a part in the creation of civilization and that reading one is something any educated person is capable of doing.

Well, I'm not.

Today is April 18th, exactly one week before I'm supposed to run the 10K and exactly two weeks before I thought I was supposed to run the 10K. For some unknown reason, I added a week to the calendar and was completely unawares of exactly when my impending doom is. Instead of pushing through the head cold this past week, I was a complete wimp and am now futher behind where I wanted to be a week before the run. Egads! Crap on a cracker! Please, no! I'm doing what, when?!? It was never my intention to run the whole 10K (just most of it) but after a week of struggling to breath and a Saturday night spent eating pizza (with a salad) and watching Doctor Who (amazing, by the way, Matt Smith is incredible!! I still miss David Tennant, and always will, but I think Matt, critized by many before the first episode for being too young, will succeed in following DT where many other [older] actors would have failed. Edit: I just deleted 13 additional sentences about Doctor Who... I think I need to start another blog called Redorkulous so I can geek out over there and not here), I'm pretty much where I was two weeks ago. I also seem to be having problems with my new shoes and I don't have the time to return them and try a new pair. Again: Egads! Crap on a cracker! Please, no!

What was already a fairly emotionally stressful weekend (a friend's brother died in a car crash, my cousin in Ireland had a beautiful baby girl, I've been up and down all weekend) is now ending with a resigned *sigh* and the knowledge that although I will finish the 10K, I will not achieve my interval time goal. It takes a bit of the wind out of your sails when that happens.

All because I apparently don't know how to read a calendar.

Happy February, everyone!

Ein Royal mit Käse

Someone in my apartment building had McDonald's tonight. I know because that's all I could smell in the elevator as I headed out for my run. The few times I've had McDonald's in the past year (usually a good 4-5 months apart) I always end up feeling sluggish and sick but I keep going back. There is something in their food which holds slightly addictive qualities; perhaps it's the 5000:1 ratio of fat/sodium:actual food, perhaps it's the fries with the sprinkling of what I can only assume is sodium crack, perhaps it's the fact that I have no willpower and it still smells good although it makes me feel like ass, perhaps it's that Ronald McDonald secretly sneaks into my bedroom every couple of months and plants subliminal messages in my head. I may never know why I always feel this need to return to McDonald's. I stood in the elevator straining my mind to think I had forgotten anything so I could ride back up to my apartment, but I had everything so I stepped off the elevator, and headed out to meet THR for my run... or rather walk. I'm still not totally better so I'm slowing down the running for just a little bit.

Despite the fact that I'm not feeling well, there was a couple of times on the walk today when I wanted to break into a run and that made me feel good. The more I run, the more I like it. I'm seeing results; my body is changing, my cardio is improving (although right now it pretty much sucks because I can only breath through 1/4 of my nose), my distances are increasing... it's a great feeling. I have decided that I want to set myself a goal for running. I have the 10K coming up which I plan to "run" (read=run as much as I can) but that's very soon so I can't really train for it beyond what I'm doing, so I've decided that if I feel good running the 10K then my next goal is the Royal Victoria Half Marathon in October. It's scary saying that because I look in the mirror right now and I don't see a runner: I see me, my mouth and a (despite shrinking) large butt. I can't, unfortunately, sass my way through a half marathon so I need to find that runner in there. I know she's in there, lost in one of the rolls of fat and probably slowly suffocating.

I really didn't think I would enjoy running when I first decided to actually give it a try. A random conversation with a friend about the Antarctic Marathon in 2013 and this little idea started to take root. Delays thanks to my severly sprained ankle almost seemed like some sort of warning sign, but here I am and I'm loving it. I want to become a runner and that's more than I ever thought possible. I always imagined that I'd run because it was a good way to get and stay fit not because I wanted to do it. With this world of running opened the world of travelling to run. I loved this idea of centering travel plans around a race. I started searching for races in parts of the world I want to travel to (or back to in many cases) and as a result, I've set another goal for myself: if I ever run a marathon, I want to pop my proverbial marathon cherry with the Three Country Marathon in Europe. I debated about the Jungfrau Marathon but it has a scary altitude change and there's a lovely cog-wheel train all the way up there so really, why run it?

I miss Switzerland. The view from Sami and Susi's front steps.

Cheese with a side of crazy

So I do my big bit about needing to watch what I eat a little bit closer and not giving into cravings every time one occurs and then I get an email from MySwitzerland today (another country for which I often feel great nostalgia) and the subject says "Grüezi, Do You Love Cheese?". What sort of question is that? Of course I love cheese. I lived in Switzerland, I believe it's therefore illegal for me to regard cheese with anything less than love. Asking me if I love cheese is like asking the PussyCat Dolls if they love skanky clothing. Duh! I open this email, knowing that it will taunt me with a picture and I find this:

It's my favourite type of cheese: melted! It also has my favourite cheese side dish: crusty French bread! Oh cruel fates, how dare you taunt me so. This was all made slightly worse by the fact that I decided I would not hold my annual winter fondue this year. Partially because I'm trying to be good about my food and there is no way to make a cheese fondue healthy, and partially because Spring has arrived and a fondue is very much a winter dish. Alas, My Switzerland, you do taunt me and now I kind of hate you. To take my mind off of cheese (specifically, cheese melted in wine) I threw on k.d. lang's rendition of Hallelujah and listened to it five times. I am a huge fan of Mr. Cohen, but her rendition wins me every time; I can't tell you how happy I was to hear that she sang it at the Winter Olympic Opening Ceremony. It did get my mind off the cheese, but it also made me very melancholy. Note to emo bands every where: listen to that song to really learn how to emote while singing. Better yet, just stop singing; you all really annoy me.

I think I might have some issues. The more I start doing active things, the more harebrained schemes (or "goals" as I like to call them, seems less... crazy) I come up with. I haven't even finished part one of my three year plan (do the Juan de Fuca) and I'm already thinking of things to do after I do the Chilkoot... three years from now. Or maybe I will fit these ideas in before then, I don't know, but I think someone needs to stop me from thinking up new ones. Or maybe I just need to write down a list of things to do in the next 10 years and then transpose it onto a stone tablet cut-to-size so I can't keep adding things to it. I could refer to them as my 10 commandments... assuming there's only 10.

Today's plan grew out of the fact that I have never really seen Wales. I have been to Ireland more times than I can count (well, that's not true, I've been there seven times averaging about 2 months a visit... I'm due for another one) and have travelled around England and Scotland, but other than the Holyhead to Manchester train I've never actually seen Wales. I looked out the train window and thought the countryside beautiful, I read the signs with the village names and wondered what the Welsh obsession with with 18 g's, w's and l's but only two vowels in a name is about, but I can't even point on a map where my B&B in Holyhead was. "Why not make it a point to climb Mt. Snowdon (pictured right)?" was the refrain that kept playing in my head as I walked to work.

The crazy just snowballed from there when I learned about the National Three Peaks Challenge in which people compete to complete the three highest mountains* in the UK in under 24 hours. Of course, people partaking in this challenge drive between the mountains, but what if you hiked it? Sure, it would take some time but wouldn't that be a fun trip? The I scrolled down and saw the Four, Five and Six Peak Challenge (although these are not official). "I've never been to the Isle of Mann," I thought to myself. "Wouldn't that be a fun adventure?" I then spent the better part of my work day flitting between work and trying to figure out if a) this idea's even feasible and b) am I really daft enough to do it? The short answers I came up with are yes and yes but perhaps I should look up other possibilites like public transit only or bike the parts 'in between' or some otherway to make it a bit less rushed than the 24 hours idea but not as insanely long as the 'walk the whole thing' idea. I can see I'm going to have to contemplate this a little bit more before I commit it to my 10 Commandments, but it's definitely being add to that list now!

*as a West Coast girl, I giggle calling these large hills 'mountains'. The highest peak is Ben Nevis at 1,344 metres. The 50th highest peak on Vancouver Island (nevermind in BC, on the Island) is still 500 metres higher than that. It's not that I assume they'd be easy because of their height (I know many smaller mountains that are much more physically or technically demanding than higher ones. Mt. Meru vs. Kili being a great example of that), but if that's the tallest peak in the mountain range, isn't it really just a bunch of foothills leading up to one smallish mountain?

Friday's Fantastic Flops

It's been a wild weeks of ups and downs for me at work, but I'm so happy to say that the week ended on an up. There is a problem person at work and they were dealt with; it's been a long time coming, but it has made for a fabulous start to the weekend. It also made for a slightly messy start to the weekend because this good news was greeted with an impromptu social outting with some of the work colleagues I do enjoy. Add to this that I had agreed to another skating session with AB. Apparently alcohol and skating are not the best combination, who knew? At least I wasn't actually drunk, just pleasantly buzzed, and the cold air helped me sober up pretty quickly.

AB had bought herself pretty new hockey skates and, and as I laced up my fabulous rented skates with one lace too long and the other not long enough, I felt that twinge of jealousy creep over me. I want new skates! No, scratch that, I want skates! Alas, being a student and being cheap, this is a purchase that will have to wait until the summer when I'm working fulltime and can justify it (and by justify, I mean 'pretend I have money to burn'). I looked around at our fellow skaters and felt a bit disappointed. Last week there had been a few older people, parents with younger kids mostly, but this week I was the oldest person by a dozen years, maybe even a baker's dozen. Great, just how I wanted to spend my Friday night when I'm buzzed.

Part of the problem with the group skates like this is that you have a collection of the following:
1) Really bad skaters who hang onto the board, and step-step-step
2) People who can go forward and look like they know what they're doing but can't stop (me)
3) People who are decent skaters who can stop among other things (AB)
4) Little sh!t kids who dream of becoming professional hockey players who zip in between people with the speed of a hummingbird but without the awareness that not everyone can change direction as quickly as they can.
Tonight's skate was full of #4. FULL! There was one particular kid who was an amazing skater, but he must have measured all of 4'6"; he would just pop out of nowhere, give me a heartattack, and then continue around the rink. I may have made a snarky comment about tripping him up on purpose, and AB may have agreed with and even encouraged it on a few occasions. But all this was forgotten when the MOOA arrived (Men Our Own Age.)

Unlike last week where the few men our age were with a cow girlfriend, there were five guys around our age all without a girlfriend in tow. Now I'm not assuming that one doesn't have a girlfriend just because she's not there, but if I can't see her then she doesn't exist until you tell me otherwise or she comes racing from the shadows and slaps me.. So here I am, happy that there's finally some eye candy which doesn't make me wonder if I should be on some sort of registry, and I make a complete fool out of myself. This wasn't a surprise to me; as I once said to a friend "my game's so bad it doesn't make it out onto the pitch for a warm up session" and I wasn't joking.

Two of the guys caught my single eye and I kept casually glancing around the rink to see where they were just so I knew when to look like I knew what I was doing. During one of my casual glances, I missed seeing the big divet in the ice. When I say 'big', you could lose a Cadillac in that thing! A Smart Car? Tonka Truck? Fine, a matchbox car. At the very least, it was big enough to lose the front of my pick into. I was going with such speed that I flew forward doing my best angel imitation, came crashing down on my left knee, bounced back up (I know, knees bounce?) to land on my well-padded chest and then slid forward about two feet before my skates reconnected with the ice's surface and stopped the forward momentum. I actually slid foward on my chest; my legs were in the air! And who comes sailing by after this moment of grace? Why one of the hot-hot men. He was laughing... at me. It wasn't an evil laugh, just a 'that was awkwardly awesome' laugh as he cross-stepped away from me. I looked over my shoulder at the divet, trying to figure out the quickest way back to it so I could crawl inside.

I get up and get over myself. So some rather hot but nameless guy watched me make a fool of myself, so what? I've done worse (no really, I have; much, much worse); I'm not here looking for someone, I'm here to have fun with AB. We go around a few more times, every trip around the rink builds my confidence, and we come to the inevitable point where we're behind some slow people. AB pulls to the left of them to go around, I pull right to head between them and the boards. I start swinging my arms to help build my momentum around the slow pokes and my right hand accidentally punches hottie #2... in the groin... as he tried to sneak to the right of the slow pokes as well. He appologizes to me (don't know why, but wasn't that nice? I hit him, he says 'sorry') and skates off a bit slower and shakier than he was on any of the other times he lapped us.

Sadly that is probably the best my 'game' has been in a while, and my friends wonder why I'm single...

Do hockey skates come with Velco?

Like most kids in Canada, I took skating lessons when I was younger but living on the usually snow-free West Coast, lessons don't really mean anything unless you plan to do figure skating. We don't have snowy winters with outdoor rinks like my cousins in Alberta, so what's the point? I had reached the point of starting to learn to do corners and to stop when my family moved to another part of town. We were no longer eight blocks from a rec centre; my lessons were done. Just like that. I'm sure if I had asked 'what about skating?' my mom would have enrolled me, would have driven across town for the lessons (she did for ballet and, before our move, piano), but I never loved skating so I was happy to let it slip by the wayside.

I have skated since my early childhood foray into the world of ice. In my teens in Ireland, my cousin's friends assumed that as an Irish-Canadian I must be good at skating and so off we traipsed, decked out for the disco as I had been misinformed about our destination, to a Friday night skate at a rink in a nearby city (this particular cousin lived in a town). They were asking me for pointers as we laced up our skates; how do I explain to them that I don't skate? I decided the answer was to go as fast as I could. I did go fast, very fast, even lapped them a few times, but any illusions of my ability came to a grinding halt as I tried to stop as I had seen countless hockey players do and landed 'ass-over-tit' with my head between my knees and my skirt trying to be a tube top. Jump forward to me living in Switzerland and the same assumption is made about me being a Canadian. Add five years of wisdom, however, and I'm more than willing to admit that I don't skate and believe that hanging onto the boards for my dear life is the way to go.

So here I am, on a quest to get in shape and the crazy idea pops into my head "why don't I learn to play hockey, a sport I adore? That would be a fantastic workout!" First problem, well, see the above paragraphs. I decide to check out if the Rec Centre closest to me has any adult skating lessons beginning soon. I'm about three weeks too late for that option but now this idea has been in my head for a week, it's festering along with the love of running, and I can't just give up because I missed the start of classes. I will just have to brave the 'everyone welcome' skates on the weekends. I will have to watch children zip by me, practicing their crossovers, while I try to glide forward without falling on my butt... or knees... or hip... or elbow... or face.

I planned to go on my own, saving myself from the embarrassment of friend's watching my attempts at being graceful but then I mentioned it to a friend. She still regularly skates, she'd love to come and teach me (in exchange, she starts hockey this month and knows nothing so I'm teaching her the rules and the basics of the game... in theory). I mentioned it to a few male friends who rent ice time once a month. They thought it was fantastic, might even have a pair of skates kicking around; next time they play hockey, I should come and they could help me work on hockey skills during the warm up. I mentioned it to another friend. Can I let her know when the lessons are, she'd like to join. Suddenly, my crazy idea doesn't seem so crazy.

And So It Begins!

Two thousand and nine is now done and the first day of 2010 has drawn to a close. For no discernable reason, I feel much more optimistic about the year ahead of me than I ever did about last year. Perhaps it is that I have goals I have set and a direction in life which were both sorely lacking at this time last year; perhaps it’s because I like some numbers better than others and ten ranks much higher than nine; perhaps it’s because in hindsight there were some very difficult times in 2009 and I was just glad to see it go. At any rate, the earth has completed another rotation around the sun and for better or worse, we must move with it.

With the end of a month in which I managed to remain healthy and the changing of the year, I find a renewed vigour to attain my goals and so started scouring the web for new sites to bookmark, quotes to save, and ideas to try. Given the time of year, I came across many articles about resolutions—suggestions, ideas, possible resolutions—and I read as many as I could for some trick to help me stick to my plan. I came across a list on Cosmo of Top 10 Resolutions Not to Make This Year. At first glance, there were a few eye rolls but most of the ideas on there seemed like good ones. I walked away from my computer but I kept thinking about this article and I found myself getting angry about certain ideas that were on there. I know that despite Cosmo’s claims of being for the independent, strong, yet fashionable woman, it really does continue to promote a lot of the old clichés and stereotypes of the rolls of men and women. So with that in mind I need to get a few things off my chest about their ‘suggestions’.

1. Quit your job and wait for a dream career opportunity to present itself. Recession shmecession.
Reality check: Suck it up and hang on to your gig for now. Appease yourself by taking a class or picking up a hobby that will make your résumé stand out, like learning a foreign language or starting a blog.
Recession shmecession, quitting your job without a plan of where it will go from there is stupid. Regardless of the current world financial situation, quitting your job to better your life in some way will always be the smart thing to do. Stick to the job you hate and in five years you will hate your life (or at least a huge aspect of it). I know this first hand, and anyone who has properly thought through the pros and cons of quitting their job to pursue other options and comes up with mostly pros should take that plunge.

2. Lose five pounds.
Reality check: Hot chicks like Jessica Biel, Beyoncé, and ScarJo are proof that toned and curvy is the new skinny.
It’s a nice idea that curvy is back in, but there’s a very telling word in the sentence which contradicts the Cosmo stance. The word is ‘toned’. Toned! As in ‘goes to the gym, does cardio, lifts weights’. I agree that five pounds really isn’t something to worry about but if you’re going to tell people not to do it, don’t use examples of people who are actually in very good shape.

3. Finally win back your ex-boyfriend.
Reality check: Move on. We give you permission to engage in some rebound relationship therapy.
Finally, one that I agree with (although maybe not so much the ‘rebound relationship therapy’).

4. Buy into all the latest trends.
Reality check: It's okay to be a slave to fashion...just be a slave to cheap fashion, rather than dropping serious bank on each and every look. Kick yourself later for wearing it, but don't kick yourself for blowing your paycheck on it.
I agree with this one, but the fact that it’s coming from a magazine which makes money off of telling people what to wear... hilarious. Someone in the Cosmo writing staff really should be in stand up.

5. Change your man.
Reality check: While some relationship tweaking is to be expected (hey, few guys are natural-born good kissers), if the words "fixer-upper" and "project" could describe your boyfriend, it's time to get real.
Again, completely agree.

6. Triple the number of friends you have on Facebook.
Reality check: Less time stalking your friends' friends' friends. More time catching up with buddies you actually care about.
Although I am guilty of having people on my facebook I don’t see regularly, don’t have people on there that I wouldn’t gladly chat with if I ran into them on the street. In the same vein, however, I do make an effort to keep in regular contact with the people I care about so if I want to have extra people on facebook, so be it.

7. Don't eat any junk food.
Reality check: Cutting out all unhealthy food from your diet will most likely lead to binge eating, followed by intense guilt, by mid-January.
I agree that cutting out all junk food will eventually lead to binge eating that very item, but why are you not encouraging the readers to be more specific with the resolution. Why not encourage them to resolve to eat no more than one fast food meal a week, or cut a specific type of junk food (or limit it to once a month), or even increase the number of salads they eat? This could have been a great opportunity for a quick lesson on how to make a bad resolution good.

8. Watch less trashy TV.
Reality check: Zoning out and de-stressing for a bit every night with the help of good bad television is harmless.
What if the person making this resolution watches five hours of trashy TV a night? Don’t get me wrong, I love me some trashy TV—have you seen ‘The Jersey Shore’? It’s hilariously sinful times!—but there’s more to life than knowing what’s happening with ‘The Real Housewives of [insert state name here]’. If you don’t like to read, fine, there are plenty of great TV shows which are entertaining and educational, perhaps you could encourage readers to give those a try. Zoning out doesn’t mean it has to be trashy.

9. Save more money.
Reality check: Let's be honest. In this economy, we're just happy to be able to pay our rent, gas, and credit card bill.
In this economy (the same one you are using as an excuse to tell people not to quit a job), shouldn’t trying to save some money be a priority? If money’s tight and you’re struggling to pay the things mentioned above then sit down, figure out your priorities and if part of that is saving money, make it happen. Perhaps stop the daily latte or get rid of those premium cable channels. Even if it wasn’t this economy, encouraging saving money is a good idea. So the fact that this would even be on here is just dumb, dumb, dumb!

10. Keep your number down.
Reality check: Nothin' wrong with notches on your bedpost, as long as you're being safe.
There’s also nothing wrong with making the decision to keep your numbers down. I believe in the sexual revolution and that women have the right to pick who and when, but I also believe that we shouldn’t be encouraging sexual relations just because we can.

In the midst of this list of don’ts are a bunch of additional links, and this one is actually very good. I really enjoyed thinking about the questions and my answers to them. I’ve decided to print them out and write out my answers and then I plan to review them this time next year. As for a list of resolution suggestions that I enjoyed and drew some inspiration from, check out Best Health.