Is This Where I Want To Be In Five Years?

I've been doing a lot of reading lately--have I told you how much I LOVE having a kindle on my phone?!?!  I read while I walk and do the elliptical at the gym several days a week!

A lot of the reading I have been doing are books about reaching goals.

One idea is to write down where you want to be in 5 years, and in 10 years.  And then, of course, the book gave ways to reach those goals.

It's a great idea to write down where you want to be, and then evaluate where you are and what you are doing, to see if your current activities are getting you any closer.

Although I haven't thought so far in the future with my weight, I do want to lose 20 more pounds (down a little over 30 so far!) this year, which will be where I hope to be in 5 and 10 years as well.

Am I doing anything right now to get me there?

Yes I am!

My daughter and I go to the gym a few days a week, and I exercise an hour each time!  I'm also drinking more water.

If I keep it up, I should reach my goal!

I have greater things I want to do, but just used this one as an example.

What about you?  Do you have any long term goals?  Have you written them down to keep your goals in front of you, so you can see them frequently?

This is a great year to start!

5QF!

Good Morning!

I started a blog hop yesterday, and would love to have you add your motivational posts-so far it's just me and my lonesome!  =)  If you have something to add, please click here!

On to the 5QF!

1. Have you set any goals/resolutions for 2013? Yes!  I do every year!  I actually posted on this the other day.  Losing weight and buying a new house are two things on my list-both of which should happen.  I'm down 30 pounds with 20 more to go!  If you would like to see a picture, click here!  

2. Have you made any travel/vacation plans for 2013? No, although I talked to my daughter about going to a ladies' retreat in Texas this spring.  Not sure if that will happen after all.  Not sure.

3. What room is never cleaned in your house?  Since we moved to a house that's about 1,000 square feet smaller than my last home, my bedroom ends up the room for storage, which makes the room hard to keep cleaned up consistently.  No laundry room to store my clothes, and no office to store my ebay stuff!

4. What food must be in your house at all times?  Coffee creamer and milk! lol

5. Are you a hugger or more of a hands off person?  I hug regularly, but get claustrophobic if I'm in tight quarters for too long.


Happy New Year!  And have a great weekend!  =)

What Are You Doing In 2013?

Happy New Year!!!

What are you doing in 2013?  Are you like me-making a goal list and seeing what you can accomplish?  I do it pretty much every year.  I can't say I always do great, but I like making the list anyway.  =)

This year I am going to try harder to reach my goals!  I have some big ones, and I've already gotten started on one or two of them, so I didn't wait until January 1st to try to get started.

Just a few are:
1.  To buy a new house in our new town.  We own a house that we need to sell first, and then, it's house shopping for us!  I've found a few I want to look at, so we'll see what happens!  Here are a few pictures from one of the ones I really want to see:

 Nice, open space!

 Lots of elbow room!

 Master bedroom!

Master bath!  Wow!

2.  Hit my goal weight.  I'm not going to say exactly what that is, and I'm good with it fluctuating a few pounds, but I will say that I have about 20 pounds to go.  I've already lost a little over 30.  Go me!  And to keep moving in the right direction, the family joined a gym, and I can proudly say that I've had several one-hour workouts already!  Over the holidays, we've neglected the gym, but with such a strong start, I'm confident we'll be back on track real soon!

3.  See if I can't get this blogging thing down pat!  I took a looooong break from blogging, but really, I enjoy it, have already put a few years into my blog, and don't want to quite give up yet.  I want to focus more this year!  Less surfing, more purpose online!

Changing my theme from mostly light-hearted stories, into a blog that covers more areas of family life, and a little bit of pastoring life, and some of this and that.  So we will see!  I have 38 followers thru Google right now-I'd love to make a short goal of climbing to 100!  Care to help me out?  =)

What about you?  What are one or two of your biggest goals for 2013?  Leave me a comment and let me know!  Then stop back on January 3rd and join my Motivational Blog Hop, or read the entries!

My New Tag Line and Five Question Friday

Guess what I'm doing?

I am doing a 31 day "workshop"-actually it's an ebook with 31 days worth of exercises for building a better blog.

Today was my first day, and the exercise talked about your tag line.  If someone asks you about your blog, you should have an answer that explains what your blog is about.  Your tag line should also tell this message.

So!  It says to ask your friends and family to describe your blog in a sentence, and so I asked my friends on Facebook.  I got one response(so far), and it has STUCK with me!

So here's my SHOUT OUT to Melinda!  Thanks, Girlfriend!  I think my blog has forever been changed in the eyes of my readers! 

Do you know what it is?  Did you see it up under the title of my blog at the top of the page?  In case you can't find it, it is this:

A Chocolate Bouquet

A diabetic COMA waiting to HAPPEN!

or

Chocolate candy crafts and humorous, personal life stories

I had to put the second part in, so that first time visitors wouldn't be totally confused, like I was when I first read her response! 

Yeah, you know me---those pesky Blon roots of mine!  I didn't link "chocolate" with "diabetic"....I linked "my blog" to "coma"!  I thought, what?  Am I really that boring?  (sniff sniff--think I'll take my ball and go home....and eat worms....)

So there you have it!  My new tag line!  If you like my blog, please tell your friends, and when they ask what it is about, tell them it's a diabetic coma waiting to happen!

This is also Five Question Friday, which I think I'm going to try to participate in regularly.  After all, you all DO want to know more about me, right?

Let us begin!

1. What is your favorite Halloween candy?  What does Halloween have to do with anything????  And since this is a blog called A Chocolate Bouquet, you probably can tell that chocolate has something to do with my answer.  Not that I'm a chocoholic, but making chocolate candy crafts tends to usher in a lot of chocolates into my home, and unfortunately, into my stomach.  We gotta get this stuff back out of the house SOMEHOW, don't we???

2. Do you fold your socks?  This is a two fold question!  (No pun intended!)  I wear ankle socks, so no, I don't fold my socks when I take them out of the dryer.  I lay them flat up against each other.
The other side of this is, I still don't fold my socks, but DO crumple them up when I shove them under my pillow during the night.  For more information on this particular habit of mine, CLICK HERE.

3. What is something that you wish you had been warned about?  I wish I would have been warned that house fires make you gain weight!  I would have put new pots and pans and dishes and lots of lettuce on my first shopping list!  Twenty five pounds later, I am now the wiser!  I wish I would have also been warned that gaining weight at 40 is very bad--it doesn't come off near as fast as when you are 20, and you may not have the energy to do anything about it anyway!  Sigh.....(rolling eyes...)

4. What is the most significant difference between you and your significant other?  He is the thermostat Gestapo, and I am the Frigidaire queen!  We are completely incompatible when it comes to temperature!  He won't let me turn the heater up past 3 in our family room(it goes to 5---what a WASTE of two perfectly good numbers!!!), and he's always asking me, when I mention I'm chilly, if I have socks on!

Well of COURSE I don't have socks on!  Every last pair I own is hiding under my pillow!  And half of his socks are under there too!

What a goofy question!

I will admit tho--I am rebellious when he isn't looking, or if I'm up and he's still in bed. (Heehee!)

5. What are three words you would use to describe yourself? (And, just for fun...if your significant other is around, ask him/her what 3 words they would use to describe you!!)
Compassionate, mellow, warped(slightly)

Dan would say themoststunninglybeautifulwomaninI'veevermet, themostintelligentwomanI'veever met, and thegreatestthingthateverhappenedtome.

I already knew what he would say, so I didn't bother asking him.

=D