Category: Travel

Goals for 2013

Sadie4 Comments

Happy New Year!  So I know it’s completely cliche to do the whole New Year’s resolution thing, but who cares, I’m going to anyway!  I realize that it’s hard to stick to resolutions, but I do think it’s important to take a few minutes every now and then to define your personal goals.  I find defining goals makes it easier for me to focus and make tangible progress.

2013 is a little scary for me because I’m poised to graduate business school with my MBA in May (fingers crossed, because it’s not over yet!).  So I’m not sure where I will end up after graduation(this is my theme song and favorite song right now).  It makes it hard to make specific goals because I actually don’t know where I will be living or what I will be doing after I graduate.  That being said, here are some of my goals for this year:

Personal Goals

  • Graduate with my MBA
  • Find a great full-time job
  • Make at least one international trip
  • Read more books (like maybe 10 for the year)

Fitness Goals

  • Run another half marathon
  • Push myself to run faster
  • Lead a successful Yorktown Victory Run (I’m the race director)
  • Learn the Pilates Reformer (I already love Mat Pilates so I want to take the next step)
  • Add more variety to my fitness routine (try CrossFit? Yoga?)
  • Continue to make weight loss progress, and continue to stabalize my nutrional routine

Cooking Goals

  • Make a successful challah bread
  • Broaden my savory dish repitoire
  • Try at least 3 new techniques like making marshmallows or risotto, or cooking with a new ingredient like tofu
  • Cook more dinners at home rather than using places like Panera as my dinner option too often

Carrie and I are both Virgos, so I thought I would include part of our 2013 horoscope outlook, courtesy of Yahoo Horoscopes.  I have always been amazed by how accurate my horoscope is, and I hope this year is no different:

2013 brings you sweeping change and intensity, Virgo. The biggest transformation takes place in the realm of the mind. Communication, correspondence and courses of new study carry great importance. Saturn, the cosmic taskmaster, is spending a good chunk of time in the sector of your chart ruling the mental realms and communication. If you’re not already a powerful public speaker, teacher or writer, get ready to discover your latent potential to sway the masses with your power of speech! You’re also hungry for knowledge in 2013, and will want to strengthen your skill set and beef up your resume with even more knowledge than you possess naturally.

What are your goals for 2013?  Anything else you think I should add?

Nerd Alert!

Sadie3 Comments

Guess what.  I am a Thomas Jefferson fanatic.  Do you think it’s a coincidence that I go to business school at his alma mater?  I think not.  I actually love US presidents in general. I know a lot of useless trivia about them, but TJ is my favorite by far.

Last year I had the pleasure of visiting his house, Monticello, outside of Charlottesville, Virginia.  I was in Charlottesville by myself for a completely different reason, but you better believe I booked a tour at Monticello before I left.  I’ve done a lot of mansion tours in my day: up in Newport, RI, The Biltmore in NC, Versailles in Paris, the Mark Twain House in Hartford, CT, and several chateaus in the Loire Valley just to name a few.  This tour was different because I knew TJ was there. I loved learning about all of the choices he made in the design, and about his daily habits in the house.  I highly recommend it if you’re in the area!TJ

But I digress, this post is actually about a new book about TJ that I recently bought on tape (well CD actually).  I bought the audio version of Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, because I’m doing a lot of long drives this month, so I thought it would be good for that.  I haven’t even finished the book yet, but I’ve decided to give it a good review. Often times, these types of books are rather dry, and difficult to get through at times.  I find this one continually interesting.  I am filled with little tidbits about TJ and his family that I never knew before and I’m only up to 1784.  Here are a few I’ve learned so far:

  1. Martha Jefferson (TJ’s wife) actually went by Patty
  2. Patty made TJ swear on her death bed that he would never re-marry and he abided by her request
  3. TJ’s relationship with his mother is largely unknown because all of their correspondence was destroyed when her house burnt down, there is question as to how well they actually got along
  4. Sally Hemmings (TJ’s slave and mistress) was actually his wife’s half sister because her father was Patty’s father (the Hemmings served Patty’s family until Patty’s father died)
  5. Though TJ held numerous leadership roles, perhaps his most disappointing was his stint as governor of Virginia, to his embarrassment, his tenure was largely criticized in an official capacity by the Virginia House of Burgesses

The fact that I live in Virginia is an added bonus as I listen to this book.  I am constantly hearing the names of streets and schools in the area, and now I can identify the significance of their namesake.  Who knew there were so many important Virginians!

Have you read or listened to any good books lately?

Success!

Sadie3 Comments

I survived the half marathon!  Thanks for all the well wishes along the way!  I had such a great run!  I had a vague goal of beating 2:10 because I wanted to try to break a 10 min average mile.  But I had a really good race, and I felt like running fast so I ended up at 2:04 which put me at an average of a 9:26 mile.  I’m feeling pretty good about it.  It was a perfect day for racing: warm enough to be comfortable but cool enough to keep you from sweating like crazy.  All in all it was a great experience!  Congrats to all my fellow runners!

Here are some of the songs on my shuffle that got me through the race:

  1. Va Va Voom by Nicki Minaj
  2. I Cry by Flo Rida
  3. 2 Reasons by Trey Songz feat. TI
  4. Hummingbird Heartbeat by Katy Perry
  5. This Head I Hold by Electric Guest (random but awesome)
  6. Girl on Fire by Alicia Keys feat. Nicki Minaj
  7. I Knew You Were Trouble by Taylor Swift
  8. Your Body by Christina Aguilera
  9. We Run the Night by Havana Brown feat. Pitbull
  10. Katy Perry Mega Mix by Katy Perry and Tommy Sunshine

After the race I hung out with my parents who came to Richmond to cheer me on.  My mom is a big fan of the VMFA (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts), so we spent the afternoon there checking out their Chihuly exhibit.  It was mainly all kinds of crazy blown glass.  Here’s just a sample of the stuff we saw:

What’s on your workout mix these days?