Happy New Year Again!

It's been a really nice few days, relaxing in LA in the beautiful weather, without work. I almost dread going back on tomorrow. I think many people are still out of the office until next Monday, so I'm hoping it'll be quiet for the rest of the week. But there will  be news about jobs I've applied for, and I'm a little scared to hear what that news will be. It will  involve some big choices and maybe big changes, and I'm just not sure how things will go. But I'm trying to be brave.

In the meantime, this is what I've been doing - hiking and movies. I've hit a few Golden Globe contenders and will likely see a few more in the next couple weeks. August: Osage County was filmed in my home state and has some great acting, but such a messed up family and hard to watch. American Hustle was the only movie that Jihan and I could get into last weekend at the Arclight, the front row wasn't so bad, and it was a pretty entertaining flick. I also saw Her; Joaquin looks different in every movie and always does a tremendous job, and they took what could've been a kooky story idea and turned it into characters I cared about. 

Cher and I hiked at Runyon last Saturday (after I ran 3 miles that morning to get my car, which was parked at a friend's place to avoid street cleaning tickets while I was gone). I was pretty sore after 8 miles that day. 

Isn't this the coolest van?!

On Monday, I hiked at Griffith with Marcello, Brittany, Andrew, and their two friends. 

 

On New Year's Eve, I totally slept in (I took some Nyquil - getting a little cold) and had a leisurely lunch at Mendocino Farms. It's fresh and delicious, and I love their curried couscous. Took a little nap in the afternoon and got ready to hit up downtown LA's first New Year's party. It didn't quite rival Times Square, but it turned out to be a pretty fun scene, and it wasn't nearly as cold!

I got out my fancy new hair curler that I got for Christmas. It's this funky curling iron that has a motorized contraption that sucks up your hair, wraps it around a hot iron, holds for a few seconds, and then spits out this perfect curl. It's a strange, fun thing. I'll definitely use it from time to time.

Got to downtown after debating the drive vs try and take public transportation. Driving won, there was no traffic, and I got a magical parking space two blocks from the event! I wanted to get there by 10, since Daedelus was going on stage then.  Marcello and I walked around and explored a bit. Loooong lines for food trucks and drinks. Glad I showed up with a fully belly.

Long lines to have your photo taken in front of things like this. So here's a random family instead.

Some cool projections onto City Hall. They even integrated the windows and did some trippy stuff.

Ten minutes to go - I almost didn't think I'd make it.

See - wavy and trippy?

And then a ball was projected, all 25,000 of us yelled and counted down, and Happy New Year!

So, in terms of resolutions and goals, what is it I want to accomplish? I don't really know - I think the first few months of the year may throw me for a loop.

I do want to go abroad this year - I didn't use my passport in 2013, whoops!
I want to read more books - I've already started by 2014 Book page on the blog. If you have any book suggestions, I'd love to hear them.
I'm not sure if I want to get back on Facebook. I've been off for a month, and I don't really miss it. However, it seems like a lot of my social life was tied up in that platform, so it's been harder to connect and spend time with people, even ones who live near me and who I text/talk to on a regular basis. I may have to re-join, but I'll do so in a limited capacity. I'd like to connect more in real life.
I want to read the Book of Mormon all year, and this Instagram account is an awesome way to do it. Follow along!

I do want to do things that make me happy long term - I guess that's the big goal overall.  It's fun to see this clean slate below. 2014, I think you're going to be a year of big change, but bring it on and let's see where it takes me.

On Resolutions...

I'm not really one for really a ton of resolutions, but I've been thinking about how life can get stagnant.  I've been meandering through work, church, friendships, relationships for the last couple years since moving to LA, and I don't want to get too comfortable (which is really, really easy to do when you work at home in sweats every day).
 
A few things I'd like to do this year, upward and onward with life:

1) Keep up friendships through phone calls and video calls, not texting and Facebook.  My goal is to connect with someone each week that I haven't spoken with in awhile. Don't be surprised if I call you out of the blue.
2) I should take organ lessons.  I heard some stellar organ performances over the Christmas season, and it's just a cool instrument.  I wish I could unlock the magic.  I could, if I took a few lessons.
3) I saw this idea on another blog, but when nice/good/pleasant things happen, write it down on a small piece of paper and put it in a jar.  Read all of those things at the end of the year for a nice recap.
4) Take a French class.  Or some class.  I kind of miss school.
5) Keep up with scripture study, especially since I'll probably be speaking in church more frequently. I should prepare!

Hard Habit to Break

Lately I've felt the urge to stop looking at so many screens.  Work computer, personal computer, TV, iPhone, in my face, all day long.  I kind of want to disconnect a little bit, at least for a few hours each day. 

CNN has an article this week on some smartphone habits to avoid, and I'm guilty of a few.

1) Don't need to worry about this one!

2) Man, I do this a lot.  We ALL do this a lot.  Every standing next to friends.  I want to cut this out completely.  Really bad habit.  The reason they give for this is pretty compelling.

4) Starting to get to the point, especially when communicating with a few select people.  Bad news.

5) I'm not so guilty of this one all the time, but it bugs me when everyone else can't seem to put the phone down.

9) Eh, I've done it.  But last week I realized I was doing it and I sat down for a minute.

10) Yep, done that too.  

May Day Resolutions - How'd I Do?

So remember how at the beginning of May I made a couple resolutions?

It's been a month - time to check in.

First - the sugar thing.

Well.

I did pretty well for two solid weeks of not eating sugar.  No desserts, no soda, no cereals with sugar, etc.

Then I went to Phoenix, was surrounded by desserts, sugared cereal, family events, and man, it's hard when you're not in control of when and where you eat.

Let's just say I gave in a little short of the 21-day goal.  I took mom out to dinner and the blackberry lemonade had to be ordered.  As well as that salted caramel Madagascar vanilla pretzel cone dessert.  

Do I feel like the no sugar diet helped?  Eh, not really.  Maybe I should've tried it for a longer period of time.  But I'm currently in Italy eating gelato at least twice a day, so it'll be awhile before I try it again.

Second - The Book of Mormon goal.

Well,

I'm not quite finished.  I made it through all of Alma by June 1.  I've made good progress.  It feels good to get over that middle hump that I so rarely seem to pass.  I'm into Helaman now and I'll definitely finish by the time I'm back home this month.  I feel okay about this one.

This trip has so far inspired me to learn Italian and learn to play polo.  Maybe those will be my next goals.  I'll keep you posted. 

May Day Resolutions - One Week Later

You might be wondering how that whole sugar free for 21 days thing is going.  Or how the Book of Mormon reading is going.

Well, let's start with the positive.  To read the Book of Mormon in a month, I need to read about  132 pages a week.  One week in, I'm in the middle of Mosiah, which puts me beyond that.  Considering that I've got a couple flights this month, I am confident I won't have any trouble. And I can have my iPhone read to me when I drive to Phoenix this weekend.  I get to see my mom for Mother's Day!

As for sugar free - man, I have little discipline!  Maybe that's what I'm trying to prove to myself, and I am not doing so well.  Corey visited last week and we did a late night run to Chick-Fil-A in Hollywood.  He ordered a milkshake.  Did you know that you can order a chocolate and cookies and cream, mixed shake?  I didn't.  And I had to try a bite.  Ooops.  Oh, and the next day at the movies, I had to swipe a couple Sour Patch Kids, cause those are the best movie candy ever!

Other than that though, I'm doing pretty well.  Sunday nights are hard, as those are my baking nights.  But bananas with crunch almond butter seem to substitute well.  I can do this!

I'm doing well on the movie front.  Saw Avengers and thought it was fantastic.  Feels good to break out of that foreign drama rut on Netflix and see something fun and exciting.  Saw The Five-Year Engagement because I love Jason Segel and want to be friends with Emily Blunt.  And I finally saw The Hunger Games.  Man, that was intense.