Video Journal: Day 24

Video Journal: Day 17

Video Journal: Day 16

**NOTE: In this video I say that it is Day 15, I was mistaken. This video was recorded on Day 16.

Video Journal: Day 12

Video Journal: Day 7

Video Journal: Day 5

A little too Raph...

If you don't get the reference in the title of this post, you probably didn't grow up in the 1990's. Ha!

Basically, I've been quiet lately. There's no really good reason for this. I've been busy but then, what else is new? I'm always busy. ;-)

I haven't been writing much lately but I have been reading a ton and plotting and planning for the short story I'm writing. It's keeping me occupied and I'm feeling pretty good about writing in general these days.

I thought I'd drop a quick post about one of my recent favorite books that I've read.

Strong Signal by Megan Erickson and Santino Hassell.

OMG. It's truly amazing. I highly recommend that anyone who loves a good romance go out right now and buy this book. Its so fucking cute. Also, hooooooooot! *fans self to prevent spontaneous combustion*

This is a super cute, super sexy story about two men who find love online (and then in person) while playing an online video game.

Check the blurb --> "I was counting down the months until the end of my deployment. My days were spent working on military vehicles, and I spent my nights playing video games that would distract me until I could leave Staff Sergeant Garrett Reid behind.

That was when I met him: Kai Bannon, a fellow gamer with a famous stream channel.

I never expected to become fixated on someone who'd initially been a rival. And I'd never expected someone who oozed charm to notice me—a guy known for his brutal honesty and scowl. I hadn't planned for our online friendship to turn into something that kept me up at night—hours of chatting evolving into filthy webcam sessions.

But it did. And now I can't stop thinking about him. In my mind, our real life meeting is perfect. We kiss, we fall into bed, and it's love at first sight.

Except, like most things in my life, it doesn't go as planned."

I read this entire book in one afternoon. I couldn't put it down. On a scale from 1 to 10, I'd give it a solid 29847928734918734!!!

I'm looking forward to the second book in the Cyberlove series. Can. Not. Wait.

I never dreamed I would be a badass goal-setter but here I am killing it!

New year's resolutions only work if you keep yourself accountable. This is not something I normally do, however, this year I am trying to grab the bull by the horns and continue the gains I made in the second half of last year. After looking at some inspiration on Pintrest, and seeing all the cool crafty ideas people came up with to keep track of their goal, I decided to make my own 2016 Vision Board.

For those who may not have heard of this before, a vision board is basically a visual way for people to display their goals (for everything from travel to finance to fitness) and keep track of their progress toward their goals. There's no right or wrong way to create a vision board for yourself. As you can see here, vision boards can be as simple or elaborate as you desire. It's your vision, make it work for you!

So, I decided to make a vision board. The first step, of course, is locating a board to stick everything  on. I didn't have one handy that I could reuse for this purpose so I bought a cork bulletin (36'x24'.) at Walmart for less than $10. The next step was making the decision as to what the focus of my vision board should be. I found this quote to be particularly helpful in my goal-setting. 

Since my main objective in 2016 is going to be losing weight, it was easy to pick that as my primary vision to make the focus of my vision board.

There are a TON of fitness and weight-loss vision board ideas on Pintrest! It gave me a good place to start as far as creativity. Once I had my creative juices flowing it was no sweat to set some personal fitness and weight-loss goals for the year. I had already lost 25 lbs in 2015, so I wanted to keep pushing and go ever further in 2016. I noted my goal weight (175 lbs.) and then broke that down into monthly goals. Along with that, I set monthly and weekly goals for exercise and activity. Most importantly, I brainstormed ideas for how I would reward myself for my effort. I made a list of rewards I would treat myself to each time I hit a mini-goal with my weight-loss.

The next important task I set for myself was finding some motivating quotes and pulling together some photos of my inspirations for losing weight (photos of my family).

I broke my board down into easily identifiable sections and used my hoard of scrapbooking supplies to make the board as unique as I could.

It took about 2 days of working at it to finish it completely. Then I hung it up in a prominent place (in my office) where I would see it every day.

As the year goes along, I can add to it and keep track of my progress as I mark off my days exercised, pounds lost, trails hiked, etc. This year, I have no excuses not to hit my goals!!