the new 2008

I have kept resolutions to a minimum this year. When the thought of "resolution" crossed my mind, I felt more like this needed to be a revitalization year. I want to feel fabulous this year.

One thing I wanted to do to feel fabulous was to re-connect with my girlfriends. I spent most of my time in 2007 with my family and I lost touch with some important people in my life. Family is definitely my first priority, but I know I have time for friends - I just have to prioritize the other things in my life. Also, I wanted to spend more time reading. I read 2.5 books last year. It's a bit of a poor showing. So, what a better way to combine the 2 than to start a girlfriend's book club!

Our goal is to read 4 books this year - 1 every 3 months. We're all busy women, so I didn't want anyone to feel discouraged from joining us because of the number of books. The response from my girlfriends ranged from "...I'm very busy and don't know if I can read 4 books on top of the courses I'm planning to take..." to "...these 4 books can be part of my goal to read 52 books in 52 weeks!". I have an ambitious group of girlfriends! (And wouldn't have it any other way!)

Our first selection for the book club is Late Nights on Air by Elizabeth Hay. I just received my copy from Amazon, so I'm barely 2 chapters in. So far so good. I have 2.5 months to finish it. I've been reading One Hundread Years of Solitude for about 6 months now and I'm only 3/4 done. Ugh. Wish me luck!

My second resolution requires that for me to feel fabulous, I need to look fabulous! Or at least feel good trying! I've been trying to get back into running since Josh was about 3 months old. I think I ran a total of 6 times in 2007. I decided that I need to get back into running the same way that I got into it in the first place. I need a race. So, I'm going to do the Sun Run for the first time in 3 years.

I also figured since I'm starting from scratch again, I should join a running clinic for motivation, and to make sure I'm doing it right. I've joined the Learn to Run clinic at the Running Room. We are in our second week. The goal is to be able to run a 3K race by mid-March. Seems a bit slow, but I'm betting that they know what they're doing! I'm not sure if I'll be ready to run 10K by April 20th, but at least I'll be injury free while I'm trying.

The one thing that I have realized about myself from the running clinic is that I chose to start running so that I could be alone. I started running in 1999 and I can't remember anytime in the past that I have run with anyone (except maybe Val when I visited her in Elko). Running with a group now is very weird. Especially a group of strangers. I will reserve judgement until I'm further into the clinic...