January and February always breeze by, but this year my schedule is even crazier!

Trim Healthy Mama 30 Day Challenge – The eating lifestyle I follow is called Trim Healthy Mama (THM). I sort of apprehensively looked into it as I’m not a mother and the main rules looked like other diets I avoided like the plague because of “no sugar, no flour.”

Long story short, I found that while definitely a lot of work, THIS was something I could do and best of all, IT WORKS WHEN I FOLLOW IT! I haven’t lost much weight because of fuel crossovers too often but my health has improved greatly. No more thyroid meds. No more high blood pressure meds. My blood tests since starting are the most optimal they’ve ever been.

I admin an unofficial group of us that are not purists – meaning we aren’t afraid of convenience items to work the diet to our busy lives. We’re kicking off a 30 day challenge to get everyone on track for the new year. And as admin, I plan to lead by example. 😉 This challenge is all about faithfulness and has nothing to do with most inches and weight lost. Which is something that comforts me. I lose like a sloth and am going for a slow and steady loss.

Apologetics Series “Get a  Grip” – I feel so fortunate my church is hosting such an AWESOME series! We’ve got 6 seminars lined up with some of the best of the best speaking and it’s an area I’ve always been interested in. Reasons that back up my faith more than, “Well, I believe it and feel it…”
Five of the speakers are big names and the last one, which I’m actually most excited for, is a pastor from my church who went from being a passionate Atheist to an on-fire Christian. Greg Koukl, whom I’ve had the pleasure of seeing/reading before, is one of the headliners, as well as J. Warner Wallace. The series starts next week and wraps up at the end of February.

Birthday and Anniversary – My poor boyfriend. He’s a trooper. I’ve never liked Superbowl and football bores me, but he is a big fan. Between Christmas in Dec., our Anniversary in Jan., and my birthday in Feb., he does a lot of gifting and adoring back to back and even puts football aside to make sure I’m celebrated well. This birthday brings me closer to 30 and that is a bit intimidating!

Non-profit Things – We had a meeting this Saturday for H4K. At the butt crack of dawn. There it was on the sheet of contacts – Laura, Print Media Chair. They passed out the postcards and flyers I designed and the founders thanked me copiously for it. I wasn’t sure how to react to having that attention on me, but I was very grateful for their praise. We have a county’s worth of places to display our run and foster fair info and I signed up to do a lot of the posting in my town. When February rolls around, we’ll be meeting every other weekend and then in April, weekly before the event. Things are getting real! I can’t really share what we’re doing outside of the event, but we’re working with the courts to do some exciting things for foster youth. It’s been so neat! My maternity house jewelry project was kind of put aside for the holidays but I’ll be getting in touch soon to work with them on new pendant designs.

Painting and Photoshop Lessons – I hate to say this but there have been several times I’ve been tempted to end my lessons for the sake of freeing up more time. I’ve grown too fond of my painting instructor, however, and enjoy her friendship and chit chatting as much as my lesson. I also can’t complain about our system for payment – we skill share! She teaches me to paint, I teach her photoshop. Most lessons typically run $25-50 per session so we are both saving a lot of money by skill sharing.

Galatians Bible Study – On Tuesday nights I have Precepts bible study. The inductive studies have been wonderful for me to dig deeper but are VERY homework heavy. Kaye Arthur has not made a study book for Galatians so we are doing a smaller book that is a quick study and it couldn’t be at a better time! I need something less intensive as my plate is very full until the seminars are over.

I should have started the gym but I haven’t yet! The boyfriend and I are walking to dinner and back, though, and it’s 1.8 miles each way. That will be my workout today, and Wednesday I plan to get my butt back in the gym.

What are you up to? How’s this new year treating you so far?