Final update on my NoImYoSeMo and 101 in 1001 goals.

101 in 1001: (not much has changed from last week's update)
Stay within Spark calories for the entire week, 4X. (One week) Check!
Post every day for a month. Still going strong!
Link a Flickr account to my website. Work in progress. Still working on backing up everything before upgrading.
Post 10-photo based entries. I'm at 8. I'm not counting entries where I've just included an image... it has to be an actual photo.
Update my address book. Still haven't found one I like. I may look online this week and see what I can find. I want to do this before sending out holiday cards this year.
Donate food to a food bank. Didn't happen last week, but my office building is collecting for the next several weeks so I think we'll buy an extra bag of groceries tomorrow night to donate.

NoImYoSeMo:
Do the dishes and wipe down the counters in the kitchen every night before bed. Did pretty well with this. Helps that we were out of town most of the week. :-)
Wipe down the bathroom counters everyday. Ditto.
Take vitamins every day. I think I missed one of the days this week while I was out of town, because I came back with an extra in my ziploc.
Floss every day. I'm still terrible about this... only did it once while out of town, so I guess only three times last week.
Be better about keeping in touch with out-of-town friends. Sent an email to my high school friends trying to arrange a mini-reunion around Christmastime.
Go to the gym/workout 5X a week. I actually worked out once while out of town, surprisingly. I think I worked out once or twice before that.
Actually bring my bags full of clothes to donate to Goodwill. Done.
Donate my old suits. Still haven't done this. I might just suck it up and do it next weekend. Adam has an appointment next weekend that is relatively near one of the drop off points.
Come up with my holiday shopping list and budget. Just made my Christmas list, budgeted out my gift-giving for my family, and am starting to make a list for the cookie party. I'm trying to stay under $400 for everything, although that may be difficult with my family gift-giving situation. (ugh) Adam and I have decided we are not exchanging gifts this year, but will just put extra money towards the weekend ski trip we hope to take this winter.

I've made it past the halfway point of NaBloPoMo, so for my third weekly update for NoImYoSeMo (November Improve Yourself Month), I'm also going to update on my November 101 in 1001 goals.

101 in 1001:
Stay within Spark calories for the entire week, 4X. (One week) Check!
Post every day for a month. Still going strong!
Link a Flickr account to my website. Working on it. Have to upgrade my MT, so first I need to back up all my files just in case, which is turning out to be kind of a pain in the butt. I really need to take a weekend and thoroughly go through all the files on my website, because there are a lot useless things on there.
Post 10-photo based entries. I've only done two this month so far, which brings my total to 6 (I think). I have a photo for the cheesecake entry I need to add, which means I have three left. I'm sure you'll get at least one photo of Jonah from this coming weekend.
Update my address book. Still need to buy a new one.
Donate food to a food bank. We're planning on doing this this week.

NoImYoSeMo:
Do the dishes and wipe down the counters in the kitchen every night before bed. Did mostly okay. Thursday through Saturday they didn't look great, but they didn't look that bad.
Wipe down the bathroom counters everyday. I skipped a day or two this week when the counters looked fine.
Take vitamins every day. Check!
Floss every day. Ugh, this is just an impossible habit for me to adopt. I missed two days this week.
Be better about keeping in touch with out-of-town friends. Chatted and sent an email to out of town friends.
Go to the gym/workout 5X a week. Nope, only three. I was still too run down to work out on Sunday, was good Monday through Wednesday, skipped it Thursday because of poor laundry planning (gym clothes were left in the washer instead of hung to dry, so nothing to wear). Friday and Saturday I have no good excuse except that I've still been tired all week.
Actually bring my bags full of clothes to donate to Goodwill. Done.
Donate my old suits. This will have to get done the weekend after Thanksgiving, if at all. I hate that charities make it so difficult to donate things they actually need!
Come up with my holiday shopping list and budget. Still haven't done this. I have to make a budget for gifts, a budget/plan for decorating the apartment, and a budget/plan for my holiday cookie exchange party. I can't make an actual gift purchasing list until the wishlists start circulating. I'd like to try to be a little more inventive with my gift-giving, but it's such an ordeal in my family I don't know if that'll be able to happen.

Here's my second weekly update to the NoImYoSeMo (November Improve Yourself Month).

Do the dishes and wipe down the counters in the kitchen every night before bed. Um, not so much. I blame it on the swine flu.
Wipe down the bathroom counters every night. Ditto.
Take vitamins every day. Check! (Although the first year I'm actually taking vitamins regularly, I get the flu? Really?)
Floss every day. Missed it twice. Again blame the flu.
Be better about keeping in touch with out-of-town friends. I really suck at this. Carla and I were trying to figure out possibly meeting up the day before Thanksgiving, but I'm not sure it's going to happen.
Go to the gym/workout 5X a week. Um, not at all. (Yup, flu.)
Donate my old suits. Still haven't found a place to bring them yet.
Come up with my holiday shopping list and budget. Still workin' on it.

As you can see, the flu pretty much got in the way of my doing anything productive this week. As far as my 101 in 1001 goals I'm trying to tackle in November, I'm just starting a Spark week today, I've managed to keep up with NaBloPoMo all month so far (halfway through!), and I've added two more photo-based entries. (I have a photo of the cheesecake to go back and add in at some point too.)

Hopefully, next week will be better. I'm already starting off with a clean kitchen tonight!

Here's my first weekly update to the NoImYoSeMo (November Improve Yourself Month).

Do the dishes and wipe down the counters in the kitchen every night before bed. I've been doing okay with this. It might not get done every night before bed, but we've been putting a lot of stuff away and straightening up, if not actually wiping everything down. Most of the dishes get done, unless they need to soak overnight in the sink or the dishwasher is full and running overnight.
Wipe down the bathroom counters every night. I'm changing this to wiping down the counters every morning before work, because what gets them the most messy is my doing my hair and makeup in the morning. Why have the counters clean only overnight? If I clean them before work, then they are clean most of the day.
Take vitamins every day. Check! (Gummy vitamins ROCK! I've never been so good about taking vitamins until these gummies came into my life.)
Floss every day. Check! This is one where having to be accountable here really helps, because I've almost gone to bed without flossing more than once this week.
Be better about keeping in touch with out-of-town friends. Haven't worked much towards this yet.
Go to the gym/workout 5X a week. Check! Even though it required me getting up early before work on Friday and super early on Saturday.
Actually bring my bags full of clothes to donate to Goodwill. Check! (Well, my friend picked it up and brought it for me as part of a charity drive thing, but the bag made it there and that's the important part.)
Donate my old suits. Not yet. I did some research online to try to find the most local place. I'd rather donate them to an organization that specifically requests suits, rather than Goodwill.
Come up with my holiday shopping list and budget. Not yet, although I'm thinking of some gift ideas.

I am generally not a morning exerciser. Of course, most races we run are held in the morning, but I've been up for at least an hour before the run, usually longer with travel time. But as far as actually rolling out bed, putting on gym clothes and sneakers, and going to the gym? Not so much. My body takes some time to loosen up in the morning, and I tend to feel sick for the rest of the day if I work too hard, probably because I am dehydrated from not having had anything to drink in about 8 hours.

This morning, my alarm went off at 7:10 so that I could roll out of bed, put on gym clothes and sneakers, and go downstairs to the gym. See, I've made it one of my NoImYoSeMo goals to work out 5 days a week. I missed Sunday and Monday, so that meant I had to work out every day, Tuesday through Saturday. Tonight, I'm going out to dinner for a friend's birthday, and because working out on a stomach full of Thai food pretty much isn't going to happen (or end well, anyway), I had to get up early this morning to get my workout in for the day.

It was fantastic.

Now, I didn't work out super hard... just a half hour on the elliptical and a five minute cooldown on the treadmill. I eased into my workout, letting my muscles warm up out of their slumber. But it gave me so much energy in the beginning of the day. I came back upstairs from the gym and was bouncing all over the apartment. So, lesson is, intense workout first thing in the morning = bad, relatively easy get-your-body-moving and blood-flowing workout in the morning = good.

Tomorrow, I have to get up early again for a workout, even earlier most likely, as I need to be out of the door by 8:30 or so, for our trip to the Punkin Chunkin... believe me, it is every bit as awesome as you would not expect it to be. (Heh.)