Here we are at the Twilight Stroll in the Granite Bowl:

I will say that I’ve only stepped outside once since then to go run, but I have gone to two spin classes! That counts, right?

Next up, I’m headed for the Jaycee’s January Jog 10.2K. (YIKES!)

Moving right along now… With the exception of the fun resolutions we come up with for the Spynotebook Tech Club, I’m not big on personal resolutions.  This year, I decided I should have one.  Well, I take that back, I have more than one.  But really, this is the one I’m most proud of, and I expect you all to hold me accountable.

In 2012, I’ve decided I want to improve my “personal best” – and by that I mean I am going FULL GLITZ, y’all.

Cutie Patootie

Seriously, though, I felt like 2011 was exhausting.  I did a lot, and I feel good about the things I’ve accomplished, but I didn’t do such a great job on rewarding myself.  I also didn’t do such a good job with focusing on what’s REALLY important.

So, in the spirit of Toddlers & Tiara’s, I decided my mantra for 2012 is going to be FULL GLITZ and to reach that goal I want to do the following:

• Focus on what’s really important, and let go of the rest
• Be patient
• Smile more
• Reward myself with pretty things

I expect in the next year I will pass the torch on a few projects, say “no” a little more often, and maybe say “yes” to a few things that scare the pants off me.  I’d like to give myself the breathing room I really need, be patient while keeping my eye on the prize, and smile while appreciating our differences along the way.  If I get a mani-pedi or go on a shopping spree in the midst of things, all the better.  I’m overdue.

Who knows, maybe 2012 will turn out to be a pig-in-the-mud kind of year. If that’s the case, I plan to enjoy it like Miss Piggy.

October 2010

So, Chip and I joked about starting a blog a few years ago called “Freckles & Sweat” about our (mis)adventures at the gym and with food.  It sat on the back burner for a long time (and probably will continue to sit there for many more years to come), but it’s been a recurring joke in our house.  This past year, we’ve been pretty quiet about Project Freckles & Sweat while quietly plugging away, but I just wanted to take a minute to brag about how proud I am of our accomplishments.  It has taken a lot of hard work (and there is still a lot of hard work yet to come), but it would not have been as much fun without each other.

But seriously, y’all.  People who have known Chip for years — including family — don’t even recognize him when they first see him.  And that black & white dress I’m wearing?  It’s my junior year PROM dress.  Oooh, mercy.

I am so, so very proud of our 1 year later picture.

The most successful thing I bought today was NOT the iPhone 4, but rather this packet of candy. Apparently, even though our iPhone 3GS phones were purchased on the exact same day (within 30 minutes of each other!), my husband Chip was eligible for the upgrade and I was not without an additional $200 early upgrade fee or waiting till March. I understand this was totally our mistake. We checked our eligibility before we reserved our phones, saw the "$18 upgrade fee" for both phones, but failed to see the fine print of mine only qualifying for "early upgrade" status. I get it. We goofed. (I’ll also go ahead and say for the record AT&T didn’t make it obvious I wasn’t eligible, either.)

We almost shrugged and took our $200 loss, but I decided to take a chance and asked the in-store AT&T rep if there was any way we could get that fee waived especially since Chip had been a loyal AT&T customer for at least 15 years. To our surprise, they worked their magic and told Apple to sell me a phone at $199. We were thrilled! Unfortunately, that’s when the problems started.

When the Apple store rep started ringing up my new shiny phone and SIM card, the Apple system would bark that I was not eligible for an upgrade. See, instead of changing my eligibility date, AT&T listed me as "upgraded" — as in "this person just received an iPhone 4." If I had gone to an AT&T store, that wouldn’t be a problem. They would just ring up the phone at the discounted rate at the register like any normal business then update my phone details to my account after the sale.  But, you see, Apple isn’t setup that way. The way their system is setup, they can only sell you a new iPhone 4 if you are a) buying a new one without a contract ($499-$599); b) buying a new one with a new contract ($199), which I wasn’t eligible for because I HAVE an active contract; or c) upgrading my phone, which normally costs $199 if eligible or $399 if upgrading early. But according to my AT&T/Apple record, I was already supposed to have a new iPhone 4, so I’m now not eligible to upgrade till 2012!

Translation: AT&T waived my fee with no problem, but Apple had no way of manually overriding their checkout system on the spot to sell me a phone at the new contract or upgrade rate. The only thing they could offer was to escalate the case and have me come back tomorrow and try again. They told me this after SEVEN HOURS IN LINE AFTER AN HOUR DRIVE TO THE APPLE STORE.

To make matters worse, in the process of sorting things out they completely deactivated my current phone. They started to send me home without a working phone, then back pedaled after I balked. They tried for 30 minutes to figure out how to restore service to my phone before randomly trying our suggestion which was "stick another SIM card in and see if it works."

So, long story short: we are going back tomorrow to see if Apple can do math without a calculator, er, I mean, figure out how to manually discount a phone sale. (I tease, I tease.)

I have to admit, I was surprised the AT&T in-store reps didn’t have more rights to handle account questions/details. (Seriously, they had to call customer service for just about everything — including requests to change phone numbers for people. People waited for hours.) But I’m even more shocked that Apple didn’t have ANY method for handling manual transactions/overrides. Crazy.

Hopefully we’ll have better luck tomorrow.

In other news, the garden is full steam ahead (we have tomatoes on the vine ripening as I type!), and our summer travel plans are locked in.  Also, my friend Melanie started a running group. We’ve been meeting three times per week for a half hour (we’re still at the run/walk stage), and so far it’s been a lot of fun.  (Anyone else want to join us?)  Between that, a weekly yoga class, daily walks with Swiffer, and a new gym membership, I should be well on my way to meeting some of my health/fitness goals by fall.

Here’s a look back at April:

1. 365.2.91/SSAD.91, 2. 365.2.92, 3. 365.2.93, 4. 365.2.94, 5. 365.2.95/SSAD.95, 6. 365.2.96, 7. 365.2.97, 8. 365.2.98, 9. 365.2.99, 10. 365.2.100, 11. 365.2.101, 12. 365.2.102, 13. 365.2.103, 14. 365.2.104/SSAD.104, 15. 365.2.105, 16. 365.2.106, 17. 365.2.107, 18. 365.2.108, 19. 365.2.109, 20. 365.2.110/SSAD.110, 21. 365.2.111, 22. 365.2.112, 23. 365.2.113, 24. 365.2.114, 25. 365.2.115/SSAD.115, 26. 365.2.116/SSAD.116, 27. 365.2.117, 28. 365.2.118, 29. 365.2.119, 30. 365.2.120

1. 365.2.91/SSAD.91, 2. SSAD.92, 3. SSAD.93, 4. SSAD.94, 5. 365.2.95/SSAD.95, 6. SSAD.96, 7. SSAD.97, 8. SSAD.98, 9. SSAD.99, 10. SSAD.100, 11. SSAD.101, 12. SSAD.102, 13. SSAD.103, 14. 365.2.104/SSAD.104, 15. SSAD.105, 16. SSAD.106, 17. SSAD.107, 18. SSAD.108, 19. SSAD.109, 20. 365.2.110/SSAD.110, 21. SSAD.111, 22. SSAD.112, 23. SSAD.113, 24. SSAD.114, 25. 365.2.115/SSAD.115, 26. 365.2.116/SSAD.116, 27. SSAD.117, 28. SSAD.118, 29. SSAD.119, 30. SSAD.120

1. 365.2.60, 2. 365.2.61, 3. 365.2.62, 4. 365.2.63, 5. 365.2.64, 6. 365.2.65, 7. 365.2.66, 8. 365.2.67/SSAD 67, 9. 365.2.68, 10. 365.2.69, 11. 365.2.70, 12. 365.2.71, 13. 365.2.72, 14. 365.2.73, 15. 365.2.74, 16. 365.2.75, 17. 365.2.77, 18. 365.2.78, 19. 365.2.79, 20. 365.2.76, 21. 365.2.80/SSAD80, 22. 365.2.81, 23. 365.2.82/SSAD82, 24. 365.2.83, 25. 365.2.84, 26. 365.2.85, 27. 365.2.86, 28. 365.2.87, 29. 365.2.88, 30. 365.2.89/SSAD.89, 31. 365.2.90

1. SSAD.60, 2. SSAD.61, 3. SSAD.62, 4. SSAD.63: The Jock, 5. SSAD.64, 6. SSAD.65, 7. SSAD.66, 8. 365.2.67/SSAD 67, 9. SSAD.68, 10. SSAD.69, 11. SSAD.70, 12. SSAD.71, 13. SSAD.72, 14. SSAD.73, 15. SSAD.74, 16. SSAD.75, 17. SSAD.76, 18. SSAD.77, 19. SSAD.78, 20. SSAD.79, 21. 365.2.80/SSAD80, 22. SSAD.81, 23. 365.2.82/SSAD82, 24. SSAD.83, 25. SSAD.84, 26. SSAD.85, 27. SSAD.86, 28. SSAD.87, 29. SSAD.88, 30. 365.2.89/SSAD.89, 31. SSAD.90

February was filled mostly with friends, trivia, computers and dog vomit. (Three out of four isn’t bad!) Here’s how I documented my February days:

1. 365.2.32, 2. 365.2.33, 3. 365.2.35, 4. 365.2.36, 5. 365.2.37, 6. 365.2.38, 7. 365.2.39, 8. 365.2.34, 9. 365.2.40, 10. 365.2.41, 11. 365.2.42, 12. 365.2.44, 13. 365.2.45, 14. 365.2.43, 15. 365.2.46/SSAD 46, 16. 365.2.47, 17. 365.2.48, 18. 365.49, 19. 365.2.50, 20. 365.2.51, 21. 365.2.52, 22. 365.2.53, 23. 365.2.54, 24. 365.2.55, 25. 365.2.56, 26. 365.2.57/SSAD 57, 27. 365.2.58, 28. 364.2.59

1. SSAD.32, 2. SSAD.33, 3. SSAD.34, 4. SSAD.35, 5. SSAD.36, 6. SSAD.37, 7. SSAD.38, 8. SSAD.39, 9. SSAD.40, 10. SSAD.41, 11. SSAD.42, 12. SSAD.43, 13. SSAD.44, 14. SSAD.45, 15. 365.2.46/SSAD 46, 16. SSAD.47, 17. SSAD.48, 18. SSAD.49, 19. SSAD.50, 20. SSAD.51, 21. SSAD.52, 22. SSAD.53, 23. SSAD.54, 24. SSAD.55, 25. SSAD.56, 26. 365.2.57/SSAD 57, 27. SSAD.58, 28. SSAD.59

I can’t even describe how happy I am that someone is re-opening the
Skate Inn on Atlanta Highway! (If nothing else, maybe the competition
will motivate the Skate-a-Round to do some improvements.) Word on the street is they’re expected to open sometime in March.

It’s hard to believe how much he’s grown up in a year.  We brought him home when he was only 8 weeks old and 7 lbs soaking wet.

Today, he’s a whopping 31 lbs!  Unfortunately, he woke up feeling a little cold and under the weather with a tummy ache. (Don’t worry, he’s feeling a whole lot better now.)  I think we’re off for a birthday walk pretty soon!