Coming clean in 2012

Posted by Anna Lee Beyer

I feel like any beginning to this new blog must include a quick revisit to 2011 because it was such an eventful year. Professionally, I did two internships, completed a master's in library science, and landed my dream job as a university archivist. That was the easy part! The best thing about this year was taking five vacations. We visited Portland, OR; New Orleans; Cape Cod; Marfa, TX; and Atmore, AL. Traveling is my favorite hobby and a great motivator to stay employed.

A trail in Cape Cod, August 2011

The hard part of this year was suffering from a ruptured disc and recovering from neck surgery. Though I have recovered remarkably well from the surgery, my physical fitness has taken a big hit. While I could easily walk a few miles a day before surgery, being so limited for a few months has left me struggling to get back up to speed.

Some really good lessons came from that down time too, mostly because I had so much time to think about it. I spent two months, at least an hour a day, studying books about wellness/diet/exercise, journaling, and mediating on feeling healthier. My two best lessons:

1.  I always feel better after exercising or eating something good for me.

2.  It is easier to exercise and eat good things when I devote time to working on it everyday.

Oh the miracle of epiphanies, right? It sounds simple, but it's also very easy to string together days and weeks of not working on it. Those days and weeks lead straight to feeling like crap. I'm not going to feel like crap so much anymore because, thanks to my BFF Lori's idea for this blog, I'm cleaning out the pantry, cleaning up the way I cook, and getting into better shape. Watch this space for cooking experiments, exercise goals, breakdowns, and break throughs.