Day 1: Choosing to Love Myself and Own My Life Day 19. Friday, December 25th. (Christmas) Mira and I don’t celebrate holidays, including Christmas, so this morning wasn’t much different than any other. We got up at 5:30, I made her breakfast and prepped her a lunch, and then I took her to work again. (More driving for me in the last week than the previous six weeks combined!) The best part of today being Christmas? NO cars on the road at 6:20am! I got her to work and got home in record time. Upon arriving home, I got caught up on some emails, filled out my new calendar (we’ve got 10 podcast recordings alone in the next 5 weeks!), did a bunch of organization of to-do list and schedule, cooked up some beef taco meat and some pork cutlets with apples and onions, did dishes, and cleaned the house. I thought about writing a lengthy anti-religion, anti-consumerism diatribe for this post, but decided against it. 🙂  So… if that’s your thing, you can insert something like that right here. If you’re really into the holidays, religion, buying things, etc… then forget I mentioned it… [caption id="attachment_4584" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Ocean Beach Christmas Tree (blocked by palm tree)[/caption] I waited to eat my first meal until around 12:30pm, as I wanted to be full for my trip to the movies! Two in two days! I was going to see Quentin Tarantino’s new western, The Hateful Eight. It was filmed, and would be screened, on special wide 70mm film, which is panoramic and super cool (and rare!). I was very excited about this event, but am very conditioned (like the rest of America) to have snacks during a movie. Since everything at the theater is total garbage, I decided to eat a big meal before I went. I had a big bowl of leftover jambalaya, olives from the market, and leftover seaweed salad from dinner on Wednesday night. That should do it! [caption id="attachment_4586" align="alignright" width="300"] Pre-movie feast![/caption] Marley and I went for a 30 minute walk in the park while I talked with my family back in Illinois, and then I headed over to the theater. I’d never been to a movie on Christmas, so I had no idea what to expect. It. was. a. zoo. Holy crap. I will definitely never be going anywhere near a theater on Christmas again. Then, I get to the front of the line, and the special projector needed to show the movie was broken… and there would be no movie. BOO! Instead, I got two free passes to any movie showing at the theater, which I guess is good. I’ll take Mira to see something we’re both interested in sometime soon. Movies used to be a huge part of my life, as I once owned over 500 (at least) dvd’s and watched (at least) 3-4 movies/week. In the last couple years, I’ve definitely gotten away from watching films, and I kinda’ miss it. [caption id="attachment_4585" align="alignleft" width="300"] Lu Cat in blanket fort[/caption] I went home, cuddled up on the couch with our two furry creatures, and watched a different movie. (The Martian) It was okay – not great, not awful, pretty entertaining. After the movie, I took Marley for another walk, and then created the workouts I’m going to start doing next week as part of Phase 2 of this project! Time to take things to another level very soon! While I slacked on some of my things during the holiday week/Michael’s visit (yoga, morning routine, 100% on diet, etc…) – I did sleep wonderfully, have very low stress levels, walk a TON, play basketball, and enjoy spending time with him! I’m going to focus on the positives! After picking Mira up from work, we had a little dinner (I was actually still relatively full, so I just had some Nick’s Sticks and a mandarin orange), relaxed for a bit, and went to bed. Mira will be off the next 4 days, and it’s going to be time for me to get super organized with work, get back in the swing of normal life, and take things to the next level with this project!]]>