Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Tuesday Reflections - Spring

It's here! It's finally spring! The snow is gone, the ice has melted, buds are sprouting on the trees, and the calender says its spring! I love it! While I know that we aren't out of the woods yet, and we could very well have a foot of snow next week, I still couldn't be happier to say good-bye to winter. Even if its just the calender's idea of spring and not necessarily mother nature's. Spring always reminds me of a fresh start - a new beginning. So, that got me thinking...besides spring cleaning and garden planning, what would I like to accomplish this spring? Besides warmer weather and flowers, what would I like to see Spring bring to my life? Two things immediately come to mind: financial stability and personal fitness.

Things haven't been easy financially since I quit work 4.5 years ago. We were blessed to have established good credit before we had children. Otherwise, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to stay home and raise our kids. Unfortunately, back then Josh wasn't making enough money for us to live on one income. At the same time, it wasn't really financially worthwhile for me to continue working. The costs vs. benefits analysis weighed heavily on the side of staying home. So, that's what I did...we quickly blew through our savings and ended up racking up way too much credit card debt. In that 4.5 years Josh was able to work full-time while putting himself through school. He graduated 2 years ago with a degree in Electrical Engineering and was immediately offered a promotion. I am so blessed and thankful for all his hard work and for providing for us so I can stay home with the kids. To make a long story short, we finally have resolved our credit card debt and are ready to start over. No more credit cards and hopefully we'll be building our savings back up. So, this spring I'm excited about a fresh financial start!

The second thing that comes to mind when thinking of a fresh start is my personal fitness. I made a New Year's Resolution to finally reach my goal weight. I have severely neglected my fitness since I had kids. Thanks to Justin and Bear Essentials Fitness I've come a long way in improving my fitness over the winter. I joined the 60 Day Challenge that they were offering at the beginning of the year. I didn't lose any weight, but I have seen some amazing changes in myself. My muscle tone has greatly improved, my stamina and endurance are way up, and I just feel better in general. The 60 Day Challenge is now over. I'm still hitting the gym twice a week and I signed up to run in my first EVER 5K (taking place in June)!!! So, in addition to 2 gym classes a week, I'm running 3 times a week. I proud of myself for sticking with it for so long. In my previous post-kid attempts at getting back in shape, I've given up after a couple weeks. But, I don't want to lose all that I've gained over the last 60 days with Justin and I also want to push myself ahead in hopes to finally get rid of the weight I want to lose. So, I wanted to commit myself to something else...something I'd have to push myself to work towards. That's where the 5K comes in. I'm not a runner...I've never been a runner so this is going to take some work. I'm glad I still have a couple of months to prepare myself! I'm excited to meet my goal and tackle a 5K. I'm also raising money for this 5K so see the sidebar for a link to my page to donate! ;-)

So, Happy Spring everyone! Here's to skinnier mid-sections and fatter wallets! :) Feel free to leave me a comment with your 'fresh starts'!

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