Happy New Year! I hope that everyone’s New Year holiday was safe and filled with good friends/family, laughs, and a champagne toast. Like most people, I have my own Resolutions for 2017. You guessed it- Go to bed earlier, workout more, drink more water, and to stop leaving my clothes in the dryer for hours on end (okay, this one’s not typical but I’m tired of wrinkles. The motivation to fold clothes is a struggle). While I hope to continue improving my physical health this year, I think what’s most important for me is improving my overall state of mind. Now that I’ve spent a few years in the working world, I have come to the unfortunate realization that as adults many people spend their time simply living for Friday at 5 o’clock and I am no different. We spend over 70% of our lives in the Monday through Friday groove and if we spend the majority of that time wishing the work week away, that’s a lot of time we could have been enjoying smaller things about those days.
This is exactly why I plan to begin my year looking forward to those smaller things during the week. The top of my list includes trying a new recipe and sitting down to dinner with my husband more than once a week, enjoying my cup of coffee in the morning while writing for STHB, getting excited about my favorite TV shows coming back from their winter hiatus (Anyone else excited for the How to Get Away with Murder premier!?), and spending time with friends during the week- even if only for an hour television show. One of those TV shows is the Bachelor. A handful of my friends enjoy watching the latest Bachelor/Bachelorette’s weekly drama and laughing about some of the occupations these contestants have (ie; Aspiring Dolphin Trainer who makes her first impression in a shark costume). Because we have a mutual love for the hilarity of this show, we have decided to make our own brackets for this season. We spent the greater portion of this week’s episode taking notes and snacking on some healthy goodies in preparation for creating our brackets. To make it a little more competitive, we decided to put $15 in to the group fund and the top two winners based on points at the end of the season will earn some $$$ winnings. While we’re aware it’s going to be hard to all watch together during the week due to different schedules, we’re certainly going to try as much as we can. This guarantees me an hour or two with some good friends each week and I now look forward to our Monday nights.
Making time for things you enjoy during the week is so important. You can spice up your weeks by rounding up a group of people to get together for a common television show or a book club. Pair these weekly get together’s with taking turns providing light snacks or picking up a bottle of wine for the group. Some other easy options include scheduling a weekly workout or long walk for you and a friend, baking some cookies for the office to bring in on Hump Days, or taking turns picking Thursday evening movies with a loved one. It’s so easy to get creative with it and suddenly the work week doesn’t become so daunting.
Here’s to a healthy 2017, a year of looking forward to every day, and of course- winning Bachelor Brackets 😉