A Guide to Achieving Your Goals this Year

New Year’s Resolutions

· Be reasonable: set realistic goals, don’t expect to drop all the weight in one or two weeks. Make smaller “mini goals”. Maybe chose to loose 2 pounds by the end of each month, instead of choosing to loose 30 pounds by the end of the year.

· Make a plan: come up with a plan that fits into your current lifestyle. Whether it’s exercising twice a week or even once a week, make sure you make it a commitment .

· Find a workout that you enjoy. If you don’t enjoy it, the likelihood that you will stick with it is pretty minimal.

· Don’t be disappointed if the scale hasn’t budged after a while. Do you feel better? Do your clothes fit better/loser? It might just be that you have replaced some of the fat with muscle. Remember fat and muscle weigh the same….but muscle takes up less space!

· Too much cake, candy, and cookies over the holidays can drive anyone to want to swear off sugar for good. But going extreme with your New Year's resolution and trying to completely cut out certain types of food might be too much for you to handle. If you know you have a sweet tooth or can't stay away from the bread basket, make a resolution to cut back instead of eliminating.

· Deciding to eat healthier is one of the best New Year's resolution you can make. It's the broadness of the goal that is the issue. It's best to define that goal with smaller, more specific goals such as "to eat green veggies at least once a day," or "eat fruit instead of ice cream for my after-dinner treat." These defined goals will be easier to follow, making you more successful at your original goal of eating healthier.

 

New Year's Resolutions!!

It's time you guys! It's time to start thinking and writing down what your goals are for 2013!! I made this little guy so that I could have a cute piece a paper to write down my goals for the new year. So don't be afraid, print it out and get started on your goals!

(to print just simply click on the picture!)

Christmas Cards 2012!!

Manly-ish Birthday Card!

It has been a long time since I've created a birthday card, or any type of greeting card for that matter. So in honor of my husbands' uncle I have crawled out of my artistic rut and made a manly-ish birthday card!

The inside reads "it's ok to light the candles on your birthday cake now; I've alerted the fire department."

Hope he enjoys it!

Day of the Dead Altar

So this year I decided to try to create more cultural involvement in our school/club by doing a Dia de los Muertos altar at the high school to share the meaning of this tradition. And let me say that it was a ton of fun helping the students create their first Dia de los Muertos altar. To read about the meaning of this holiday go to this post I wrote last week.

Sugar Skulls & Day of The Dead!



 

So What is the "Day of the Dead? Well the Day of the Dead is a Mexican holiday that is celebrated all throughout Mexico and around the world. In Brazil it's called "Dia de Finados", in Spain there are festivals and parades, and at the end of the day, people gather at cemetaries and pray for their dead loved ones. There are different forms of this holiday and they are all celbrated throughout Latin America, Asia, Africa, Europe, and also in the Native American cultures. This holiday focuses on the gathering of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and family members that have passed away.
In most regions of Mexico it is celebrated November 1st &2nd. With the first day being called the day of the innocents in honor of the children and infants. The second day honors all the adults. During this time people go to cemeteries to be with the souls of the departed and build private altars containing the favorite foods, beverages, and things that ment a lot to the departed. The intent is to encourage visits by the souls, so the souls will hear the prayers of the living. These celebrations can be humorous as people remember all the funny and good times they had with their loved ones.
Mow isn't this a BILLION times different than our holliday here in the United States??!! Halloween is kinda ment to be creepy and scary (don't get me wrong I love creepy and scary), but it's kind of nice to see what other cultures' version of "Halloween"is.
A common symbol of this holiday is the skull, usually made of sugar. Ssugar skulls are inscribed with the name of the loved one on the forehead.
Now, I didn't have a sugar skull mold, or patience to make one out of sugar. So what did I do? I went to Dollar Tree and bought one of their skulls! I then painted it ivory and then painted it with bright colors! So go out there and make your own "sugar skull" this Halloween!

Vacation Time!

Well we did it! We took our first vacation this last week! We flew down to San Diego and stayed for a week! It was so much fun! We tried new food, went to the beach (a REAL one, not like the "beaches" here in Oregon), visited a ton of museums and even went to the San Diego Zoo!! It was great to get away and be somewhere completely new. I don't know why, but I somehow didn't end up taking many pictures of our trip....I know what kind of person am I!!??? well I finally got some of the ones I did take off the camera, and here they are! So if you are ever in San Diego I highly recommend going to Balboa Park and seeing all of the awesome museums there, and of course the San Diego Zoo! As for food, well if you are vegan/vegetarian (although they do have some chicken and fish meals) and you are in Oceanside you MUST go to the Hill Street Cafe! OMG they are amazing! After we found this place I think we ate there three out of the 5 days we were there. If vegan/vegetarian food is not your thing and burgers are more your thing try the Burger Lounge my husband LOVED their burgers, as for me well they did have 1 thing on the menu that I could eat that was vegan, and that was their quinoa salad. Let me just say that it was absolutely delicious! and the portions where HUGE! So I would order half a salad unless you are completely ravenous ;) Oh and did I mention that It was partially a work trip for me too?? I am now licenced to teach Zumba Sentao! Woohoo!!

 

 

 

Quinceanera and the Mountain

OK so I know that I'm like way way late in posting what I did this last weekend but hey I guess later better than never right? right?....So for the past month I was asked by a group of teenagers if I could choreograph two dances that they wanted to do for a girl's quinceanera (sweet 15) and the big day finally came and they did great of course! Then the next day we decided to go out on an adventure once again and go to a big flea market in a neighboring state. It was so much fun! I loved the drive, although I was sleeping the whole way up, but I was awake for the drive back hahaha. Anyway here are some pictures of my weekend!

 

 

Dear Blogger,

Today I tried to write a post and of course upload pictures, when I get this message saying that I can't post any pictures because I have run out of room on Picassa and I will have to buy more storage if I want to be able to post pictures on my blogs. Am I the only one surprised about this? I was totally not expecting to have to pay to be able to upload pictures onto my blogs. So now I'm debating whether I just stop blogging altogether or suck it up and buy storage from Google, OR choose a different blog site provider and still pay for space to upload pictures?

Now I was looking online for a different blog provider that I will have to pay for and I cam across Squarespace. Has anyone had any experience with them?  I am a total sucker for good commercials (or any advertisement really, it's kinda sad. My husband gives me a hard time sometimes because a commercial for ice cream will come up, and two seconds later I'm like "ooo I want ice-cream!"), anyways, I am considering it.

Kitten Update

*Kitten update* As you've read in my previous post we've been super busy taking care of 4 newborn kittens. In these last few days we have learned a ton about being kitty parents (I've done this before, but every time is always different), we have had three of our kittens die. Our fourth one is going strong and it looks like he might make it.

Week in Pictures

This past week has been incredibly busy! Between a performance out of town, baby kittens, and everything else! phew!

the kittens were born on Wednesday sometime during the day, Grandma found them outside with the umbilical cords and placentas still attached. So I cut the cord (my husband cut the others) and got to nursing them. The orange one is not doing too good, I don't expect him to make it much longer.

Another Hiking Adventure, This Time Waterfalls...

I don't know if you've been noticing, but i've been going on a lot of hiking adventures lately. And i've got to say I'm LOVING IT!! I'm so glad that I have a group of friends that love to go on adventures. Here are a few (ok a lot) of pictures of some of the waterfalls we hiked to this weekend. We had planned on hiking to two waterfalls since they were on the same trail but then on our way back home we stumbled upon (we like to think undiscovered) a third waterfall right off the highway a ways.

I warn you there are a billion pictures

waterfall no.1

waterfalls no.2

SO BEAUTIFUL!!

stone castle, it was pretty cool. I secretly live here...

these were our (newly discovered) waterfalls :)

yes, we encountered a rare animal while hiking. We encountered a rare hiking cat. :D

this beautiful compas was on the top of the stone castle!

Rock n' Roll

Yesterday was the first day of the Rockhounds Pow Pow here in town and I kinda went crazy will all the beautiful rocks and gems and everything else they had! I couldn't resist the pretty rocks calling my name saying "Karina, take me home with you!" so I took some home with me! I can't wait to start making things with them!!



I can see A LOT of wire wrapping in my future!

Re-Designed Blog!!

My blog needed a facelift...and I think it looks wonderful now!

yes, I just posted a picture OF my blog ON my blog...lol

My Caving and Hiking Adventure

Today I spent the day hiking, and going into a cave for the first time, It was amazing!

we finished going through the cave!

yes, that is ice in the cave in June!

out hiking a trail next to the river! so beautiful!

we happened to stumble upon a secret beach in the woods :)

I loved this island! the river went through it

finaly we got to the rapids!! so pretty!