The Last Few Days of 2022 and 2023 Goals

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I ended and began the new year with a wonderful 5 day weekend. I haven’t been able to take vacation time in December in nearly all my working years. I’m so grateful I found a new job that I love. There are days where it’s stressful and I still have a lot to learn where I’m just nodding my head along, but I have learned so much. It excites me that there is still a lot more to learn.

Back to the last few days of the year…

Brian came down Wednesday afternoon after I finished work for the day. We went to see the new Avatar in IMAX 3D. It was great, even if it kept me up way past my bedtime. We didn’t get to bed until midnight but luckily we were not rushed the next day.

Thursday afternoon we headed to Longwood Gardens. We wanted to see the Christmas lights we have heard so many wonderful things about. I’m so glad I got a membership because just going twice has paid off. We spent the afternoon walking around to some areas we didn’t cover the first time we visited and also enjoying all the Christmas tree displays around. We took a couple breaks for a late lunch and a snack, but mostly did a ton of walking.

We stayed until it was dark so we could do the loop of Christmas lights. It only took us an hour and a bit to see most of the Christmas lights.

We spent a total of 6.5 hours at the gardens and hit 20K steps for the day. Our feet were definitely dead by the end, but I’m glad we were there during daylight hours to cover areas we hadn’t seen before. It was also beautiful weather in the low 50s and didn’t get chilly until the sun went down.

When we got home, we watched The Proposal, one of our favorite movies, while starting the Ghostbuster’s lego car that Brian bought us for Christmas.

Friday was another beautiful day. We had a slow start since our feet were dead from the day before. We went out to breakfast around 10am and then took the train to center city to walk around. As we were walking around, Brian thought about the United States Mint building and their free tour. I actually had not done the tour before so we went in there to do the quick tour. I loved learning about the process of creating coins and seeing into the factory. It’s also nice that it’s a free tour. I spent $1 at the end for a smushed penny. Those pennies cost more these days.

After that, we found lunch in China Town at Cily Chicken. My chicken meal was perfect with ginger rice.

Then we walked to City Hall to see the Christmas village and tree. Our last stop was Reading Terminal to get the best donuts before heading back to the train station. I ended up with 13K steps this day.

We were back just after 5pm, our earliest night of the few days. I picked up a salad mix and fruit at the grocery store and then we got sucked into the Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery movie on Netflix. I was half watching as I worked on legos, but Brian was totally sucked in. It was a great movie though. Then Brian searched for the Knives Out movie which was available to rent for 99 cents on Amazon and was a no brainer in terms of renting that and watching. I would recommend both.

Saturday morning, Brian worked on the Ghostbuster car while I went through many photos from the past couple days. Brian needed to leave around lunch time and then I needed to head to the grocery store to restock my fridge for the upcoming week. The afternoon flew by and I continued to work on the lego build until evening. Rain came through and we lost power for a few minutes but I was worried it was going to go out again, so I switched to reading on my kindle and managed to stay up until 10:15. I probably could have finished the book that night but didn’t realize how close to the end I was.

New Year’s Day, Sunday, was a pretty chill day. I went to the gym to lift weights because I wasn’t sure the pools were open. Turned out they were, but the schedule must have been put online later. I did an arms workout which I enjoyed. Then I spent the rest of the morning finishing the Ghostbuster’s car which is the largest lego set I’ve ever built and very cool.

I stayed on the futon most of the day reading and finishing season 3 of Dead to Me. It was honestly a perfect restful Sunday. Even better was knowing that I had Monday off for one more day to chill.

With the new year here, I have a few goals for 2023. I’m keeping it simple.

• Eat 100g of protein a day – I’ve fallen off track with this and know my recovery from workouts could be better if I focus on a protein goal
• Do a 1 mile open water swim – it has been exciting being in the pool again and I would love to complete a 1 mile open water swim even though the “open water” concept scares me, but I swim almost 2 miles in a session at the pool so I know I could do 1 mile now
• Find a house in the Philly suburbs – this is the big goal I have for this year so that Brian can move down here and we don’t have to pay crazy rent for another year

That’s all I have for now. Maybe I’ll write more blog posts in 2023 as well.

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