Soup to Dutts

Starting out with a couple of celebrations today: 1) Worked out three times this week, in spite of having a nasty cold. 2) Ran on the treadmill for four whole minutes last Thursday! It might not sound like much to some of you, but this is a huge fitness milestone for me. It's been years since I was able to run for even one minute, let alone four. This is not simply due to being overweight; I've also had asthma for over two years now, so being able to run at all without having an asthma attack is a pretty big deal. There have been a few lowlights as well: 1) I'd made some good progress with losing the holiday pounds, but I'm up about half a pound from last week. Could be worse, I guess. 2) Ripped a hole in a pair of jeans I bought less than a month ago. It was a weird rip, too; not on the seam, but kind of started from the seam and went toward the middle. Ugh. I'd like to assume that they ripped because they just weren't very good quality, but it's h...

Happy New Year!!! Who's excited about 2019? I know I am! I don't know about you, but if I were to post my Facebook relationship status with New Year's, it would definitely be "complicated." When I was a kid, I loved New Year's Eve because it meant staying up late, but then I kind of hated New Year's Day because I was expecting to suddenly feel different but never did. When I got into my teens, I grew to hate the whole idea of celebrating New Year's because it was an annual reminder that I had resolved to lose weight and failed miserably once again. In my 20s, I was sort of indifferent, especially when it came to resolutions. I would often try to sound cool by saying things like "Why wait until the start of a new year to change for the better?" (I still feel basically the same way, but I'd like to think I'm less pretentious about it than I used to be.) Now I think I'm back to loving New Year's, but for different reasons. It...