The key to accomplishing goals: aim low

 I just had four full days off from work. Technically, I did a shift at my second job last night, but it's hard to call that "work" since I get to try on cool new running gear and chat with runners. I did scrub the toilet though, so there's that.

Anyway, I didn't intend for that time to go to waste. Like most productive, motivated adults, I went into my Thanksgiving break with some goals.

1. Sleep as much as possible.

Nailed it. Didn't set an alarm once.

I preferred the bed, not the couch during Cards Against Humanity, but to each their own.

2. When not sleeping, spend 95% of my time relaxing, eating, or reading.

Obviously the relaxing and eating was pretty easy, given the holiday. Eric injected our turkey with butter, and deep fried it. That's how you do Thanksgiving.

Every time it's lowered in, I wonder if this will be the time it causes an explosion.

Apparently he looks evil while carving the turkey.

Because otherwise no one would know what a Thanksgiving table looks like.

Forgot about drinking. I made apple cider sangria for Thanksgiving.

I was a little stressed about the reading. I planned to read two books by authors I actually know in real life, and while I was excited, there's some pressure with that.  I could suddenly really relate to what Carrie went through reading Berger's book.

The first was my work BFF Kristin's book. She's an official published author now - you can buy her book Double Sunset on amazon! I definitely started it because I thought it was so cool that my friend was a real live author, but I ended up sacrificing some of my precious sleep Monday and Tuesday night because it was so good and I couldn't put it down. It's essentially a romance but with a little action - hard to describe but I really recommend it!

The second was even more nerve wracking. My aunt wrote a book, and asked me to read it for her and give her feedback. Now it was family, and she was specifically counting on me to be honest about my thoughts.

I'm not done yet, but it's so good. It's been awhile since I had that "I can't wait to get home from work and finish this book!" feeling (sadly, it wasn't there with Allegiant) and that's how I feel about her book. Such a relief!

3. Don't do a turkey trot.

I mean, clearly this isn't that different from the last goal, but it's a bit more specific. I'd done most of my cooking Wednesday night, so I was free to sleep until 9 on Thanksgiving, and then enjoy nice hot pumpkin spice coffee and the parade. Words can't describe the joy I got from looking at my instagram feed, which was nothing but cold looking people at Turkey trots.

I showed them.

Around noon, I did a free, warm, easy 7 miles on the treadmill, accompanied by Buffy and the smell of frying turkey. I even put the incline at 1%.

4. Hang out with friends

I played about 5 solid hours of Cards Against Humanity and stayed up into the single digits every night catching up with friends I haven't seen recently. Perfection.

Thanksgivmukkah

Remember when people used to take group shots at social events? Now every time we hang out with our friends there are much cuter things to photograph. 

 

Thursday

 

 

Friday

 

Saturday. Even I find this dog cute enough to take a picture of. Still hate the species in general though.

5. Get the Christmas decorations up. Done and done. And I played with this photo in my app and made it all weird and fish-bowl-y, because I use my time off wisely.

 

 

Hint hint. Santa.

 Don't worry though, I didn't forget about my Jewish heritage.

 

 

Eric got 8 Hannukah themed chocolate bars and has been hiding one for me to find each day. I think it's pretty clear how I feel about that.

 

My first stop each and every morning.

 

In my tablet - genius.

6. Black Friday shopping. But really black Thursday shopping.

Yup, we went shopping after Thanksgiving dinner, and I feel zero guilt about it. I've worked in customer service since I was 15, which is actually half my life now, which is actually really depressing. But the point is, I've worked plenty of Thanksgivings, especially at Starbucks.

More importantly, my mom manages a movie theater, and those are open 365 days a year, so she's always had to do holidays on another day or stress over getting the day off. I thought that the whole thing about a social media badge telling people not to shop was a joke, because I've never seen a "in support of family values, please consider not seeing a movie on Thanksgiving or Christmas or all the other holidays!" badge.

Apparently it wasn't. And neither is this.

 

We went to Old Navy and Kohls on our way home from our Friendsgiving. We took turns standing in line, got great deals, made a huge dent in our shopping, got home in time for the second half of the Ravens game, and slept in on Friday. Win/win/win/win.

7. Make my own pie crust.

Beautiful

Apparently this isn't the culinary feat I thought it was, because basically everyone I told was like "oh, I know, I always make my own, so easy, right?". Still, I'd never done it, and now I have. Pumpkin dutch apple pie for the win.

 

With homemade whipped cream. Lots of whipped cream.

It passed a pretty tough critic, so I felt proud.

You can't tell, but I promise that's my pie crust in her mouth.

It wasn't a goal, but I ran 7 miles Saturday and 5 Sunday. It took time away from relaxing and eating, but whatever.

Black Friday/Thursday shopping - love it or hate it?

Also - last book that you couldn't wait to get home and read? I'm almost done with my aunt's and I'm kind of considering branching out from YA fiction and trying a novel intended for adults.