After dealing with blizzard conditions last weekend, DC was gifted with a perfectly gorgeous day today.

And between the snow and piles of homework that kept me cooped up for lots of the week, when one of my friends suggested an afternoon at the zoo, I pretty much jumped at the idea.



We hit my favorites first! The elephants!



And then waited in a ridiculously long line to see the pandas. Bei Bei was asleep, but Bao Bao and mom and dad were there chilling and nom noming some bamboo.



Bao Bao


Momma bear

We also got to see Charlotte the porcupine, who was making her public debut today!



Other highlights include the red pandas (not Rusty!), and of course the great cats and reptile house.







All in all, a pretty solid way to spend a surprisingly nice winter day in DC.

Well that big ol' snowstorm did in fact rock the DC area this weekend. We got anywhere from 20-30 inches depending where exactly you were. And that basically means I was trapped in my apartment from Friday afternoon to Sunday.



Cabin fever is a real thing.

By Saturday afternoon, I was super antsy but there was a full on blizzard raging outside, so I mainly did a ton of homework and read. It wasn't so bad, but I did miss human interaction.



But I built this snowman on my balcony to keep my company.

By Sunday, I was ready to go out of my mind. Since the snowing had stopped, I ventured outside to see if I could walk around the block. LOL at that thought. The like 10 foot piles of snow from the plows made it impossible to walk more than about 10 shoveled feet in front of my building.



So Sunday, I read some more, did my taxes, and squeezed in a treadmill run at the fitness center. I don't think I've ever been so glad to have access to a treadmill in my life. I did an interval workout to keep myself from treadmill boredom. It was also nice to see other humans.



Work was closed today, but I still had to work from home, and it was actually nice to have something really productive to focus on. I also had a conference call in the morning and a video call in the afternoon, and I was again super excited to hear human voices and see familiar faces. (Is the fact that I'm a huge extrovert coming across really strongly in this post?)

I also squeezed in another treadmill interval workout since yoga was canceled tonight since the instructor couldn't make it. Got to break in a fresh new pair of kicks. (This shoes will be seeing only the treadmill for a while I suspect, since the sidewalks aren't exactly run-able at the moment).



DC still has a lot of digging out to do, and I'm not sure we'll be heading into the office tomorrow either, but at least I've been able to get out of the house a little bit and squeeze in a couple of workouts the last couple days. I'm pretty sure that's the only thing helping with the cabin fever.

If you're not from the DC-area or haven't heard, DC is expected to get crushed by a potentially historic snowstorm this weekend. It's been all over the news, grocery store aisles are cleaned out, the city is reaching it's typical "SNOW-MG" fervor.



And yet tonight in yoga class, my instructor focused on the quiet calm that snow brings when it starts falling. You know that time when everything seems to slow down just a little bit and there's that quiet hush?

She challenged us tonight to find that quiet in our daily routines.

You know when you do a workout, any sort of workout, and you finish and you know it's exactly what you needed? That's what tonight's yoga class was for me.



The last few weeks since I've been back at work and classes have started up, I've lost all ability to be able to "find the quiet."

Between a major new project at work, a couple of very tight deadlines, prepping for a handful of speaking engagements and diving into what is going to be a ridiculously time-consuming semester, my inner peace has gone into hibernation.

I've been stressed, I've been anxious and even in my yoga class on Monday, I wasn't really able to block out my increasingly growing to-do list.

It was in that frame of mind that I walked into class tonight. And as soon as the instructor started talking about finding the quiet, something immediately clicked for me. For that one hour, I was able to turn my brain off, block out the to-do list items and just try to find that quiet.

I walked out of class when it was over feeling more centered than I have in weeks. Sure I might not be able to hold on to that feeling for too long (I do have a pile of homework waiting for me tonight), but just for that one hour, I got a little bit of a break from the crazy, and it was exactly what I needed.

Usually I'm pretty good about remembering to replace my running shoes in a timely fashion. This time around though, I think I've failed pretty epically at that.



A few weeks ago, my hip started nagging me. It wasn't actually during a run that it started hurting. I noticed it at work one day and thought maybe it was related to a new pair of work shoes I'd been wearing.

Also, sometimes I sit at my desk with my leg weirdly tucked under me. Definitely not something the ergonomics crowd would approve of.

Recently I've noticed it being more and more stiff in the mornings, no matter how much I try to stretch it out, and yesterday on my run, I noticed all sorts of aches and pains in my legs.

And that's when I realized the last time I'd replaced my running shoes was in July. Yeaaa...that was like 6 months ago. Granted, my running hadn't been at usual levels this fall because of grad. school, but I did train for and run a half marathon, and have been running some three to five milers a couple times each week, so that will definitely add mileage to my shoes.

So I cut yesterday's run short, came home and bought myself a new pair of shoes. Since my hip and knees were still a little cranky this morning, I'm going to stick with just yoga for the next couple of days to let this calm down.



I also had some car aches and pains on Friday. I went to run an errand, and when I got to my car it just wouldn't start. Turns out my battery had died, which was fairly annoying since my car is only 1.5 years old. Apparently that's a thing that can happen though if you don't drive your car a lot. Luckily AAA was able to come and fix it pretty quickly.

Then yesterday my garbage disposal had some aches and pains when it stopped working and then basically leaked all over the place making a giant mess. Goooood times. Maintenance replaced it first thing this morning, but man that was not fun to clean up.

So now, I would like everything to just go back to working like it's supposed to, especially my hips and knees since I have some races coming up.

So in my goals post, I said that I wanted to find a way to keep a fitness base so I could still run races when I wanted to. Racing is the reason I started running in the first place 10+ years ago, and it's still one of the things that keeps me lacing up my shoes today.



Plus during the winter months, having a race on my calendar is usually what helps give me that final push out the door on extra cold days.

I've already thrown down entry fees for a couple of races this year, and I'm eyeballing a few more. Races with stars below are ones where I've actually paid the money to sign up.

Pacers DC Race Pass* - Pacers, one of the local running companies that puts on some of the best races in the area (if you've been reading for a while, you've heard me go on and on about their greatness in other posts), offered a super sweet holiday special on some of their DC races. For $100, I signed up for five races on their 2016 calendar:

• February - First Down 5K - A race I've never done before!

• March - St. Pat's Day 5K and 10K - I did the St. Pat's Day Double last year in miserable sleet and freezing rain. Let's hope the weather is better this year.

• November - Veterans Day 10K - Another race I've never done before.

• December - Jingle All the Way 5K - An annual favorite (2014, 2015).

Here are the other races I'm registered for or thinking about for 2016.

February

Love the Run Your With* - I love this race and have done it several times mainly because instead of yet another race shirt, you get a sweet fleece blanket as the swag. Also, it's another Pacers race.



April
Cherry Blossom 10 Miler* - My coworkers and I got into the lottery this year. I think this will be the first time I've done this race since 2011. (It's also the first time I entered the lottery since 2011).

Parkway Classic 10 Miler - My friend Emily is signed up for this and mentioned it to me the other day. I'm still thinking about it, but I will have a solid 10 mile base just coming off Cherry Blossom, so I might sign up.

June
Baltimore 10 - This race is usually really hot and miserable temperature-wise, but it's so well run and you get some pretty awesome swag. Still on the fence.

July
Seashore Striders Five Miler - Assuming my family is on our beach vacation the same week we usually are, I'll most definitely be running this five miler at the shore. It's become an annual tradition, and two years ago I won an age group award.



August
Annapolis 10 Miler - This race falls on the morning of my 30th birthday. Part of me thinks running a race would be an awesome way to celebrate, part of me thinks this will be a terrible, terrible idea. Part of me wants to tell all my friends this is how I want to celebrate so they should start training now. Internets do you have an opinion?

For now, I'm not planning too many races in the fall besides the 10K and the 5K I'm already registered for. It's going to be my last semester of grad. school and I know I will be busy with my Capstone project, so I don't want to overwhelm myself. If it works in my schedule though, I would like to try to fit in the MCM10K.

So there you have it. My thoughts and plans for racing in 2016. DC friends, are there any races I should definitely consider adding to my calendar? Also, it might be fun to get a destination race on the calendar, anyone have some good suggestions?

I've been struggling to figure out what I want to write for my "goals" post this year. Almost every year since I've had this blog, I've written some sort of post talking about what I hope to accomplish, but this year I'm just really drawing a blank.

It's not because I don't have goals for the year. I definitely do. It's just that they aren't really big or fancy or anything all that impressive.

In the last year or so, I've realized with grad school taking up a very large chunk of my time and energy, that I don't have a lot of extra hours to dedicate to tackling big, hairy audacious goals.

And it's the BHAGs that usually make for good blog posts.

I wasn't sure my smaller, less ambitious goals for the year would be really worth sharing, but then I saw this picture that my friend Adam shared on Facebook.



It sort of nicely summed up the way I was breaking down some of my goals and helped me organize them in my mind enough to come up with a format for sharing them coherently. So without further ado, here's what I want to work on in 2016. 

Physical



Find a workout schedule that works with grad school. Ever since I started grad school I feel like my workouts have been seriously in flux. My running hasn't improved in the last 1.5 years. I mean it hasn't drastically declined either. It's more just plateaued (more on this in a later post). I want to find a mix of workouts that fits in my schedule, lets me blow off stress and keeps me in decent shape. I have big running goals for when I finish grad school, but for this year, I just want to embrace a schedule that works for me, keeps a strong fitness base and let's me race when I want to.

Yoga at least once a week. Part of that schedule that I figure out has to include at least one yoga class per week. Ever since Megan and I started doing yoga regularly right before Thanksgiving, I've noticed a major improvement in my stress and anxiety levels, plus I'm finding all these new little muscles popping up in places from some of the poses.

Financial


I have two things I want to work on in the financial realm.

The first is to reign in some of my discretionary spending. I'm pretty meticulous with my budget, but in the last half of 2015, I just got really lazy. I didn't do anything irresponsible like wrack up a bunch of credit card debt, I just spent a little more on some silly things than necessary. If you saw how much money I spent on Uber in the month of December, you'd probably want to cry. (Or at least I wanted to cry when I saw the numbers). So goal number one is to dial back my spending on some of the little luxuries that I indulged in too much in 2015 like Uber and buying lunch literally every day at work.

Goal number two is to start saving more for retirement. I read an article recently talking about what percentage of your salary you should be putting toward retirement savings by the time you're 35. I have a bit to go until I reach that number, so I want to start incrementally putting a little more toward retirement savings each year so that I can hit the number the experts recommend by the time I'm 35.

Mental



Read more books that will actually make me learn things. I read a ton as it, and in general I read a lot of fiction books, but lately I've been on a bit of a nonfiction/historical fiction kick. I want to expand on that more in 2016. My boss knows I love to read and actually sent me a list of 33 business books to read before you turn 30. I'd like to try to knock out that list before my 30th birthday this summer. If I can't get through them by August, then I'd like to knock them out by the end of the calendar year. I've already read some, so I think it's probably doable.

Social


Take more advantage of all the things there are to do in this city. I live in a great city with so much going on all the time, but I feel like sometimes I take all that for granted. I have a friend who is only going to be in DC for one more year, and he is actively trying to cram in all the DC experiences he can. So I want to take a page out of his book and embrace this city more. Several of my friends have said they want to do this too, so that should make it even more fun. My goal is to try one new thing each month. Even with grad school, I think that should be manageable.

Travel more, ideally with friends, but don't blow my budget to do it. JetBlue literally sends me an email every week with cheap flights to all sorts of places I've never been. I want to see more of the world/country this year. That doesn't mean I always have to jump on a plane, there are plenty of drivable day trips that I'd like to make happen too.

Spiritual



Find more time to be mindful of and grateful for what I have in life. I'm pretty blessed to have a largely happy life. Good friends, wonderful family, a job I'm passionate about, a roof over my head and the ability to put food on the table. So my goal this year is to be more mindful of those things and grateful for the small happy things that happen each day.

So there you have it. Those are the things I'm hoping to work on and accomplish in 2016. Nothing too big, nothing too crazy, just a few things that I think will help me grow as a person this year.

Do you do the goals/resolutions thing? What are you working on in 2016?

I dove into my first week back at work after a two week vacation perhaps a little too intensely. It was one of those work hard, play way too hard weeks.



I don't think I got to bed before 11:30 or midnight any night this week, which is so not like me. And seeing as how I'm usually up by 5:30 to be in the office by 7, it was maybe not the smartest way to start off the New Year.

It sure was a ton of fun though.

But, when I woke up Friday morning with the telltale scratchy throat and stuffy nose signaling a head cold, I can't say I was surprised. Between the lack of sleep and the crazy temperature changes, it's not really surprising I caught a cold.

Getting a cold on a Friday is equal parts awful and secretly not so bad.

It's awful because it means most of my weekend plans (and running plans) were getting thrown out the window in favor of staying home and trying to recover and catch up on sleep.

But it's secretly not so bad because I spent Friday night curled up on the sofa binge watching Making a Murderer. I have so many thoughts on this show. If you liked season one of Serial, you will love Making a Murderer.

I woke up Saturday morning feeling much better, which was awesome since I had my first flag football game of the season. We won by the mercy rule. I also got to meet my brand new baby cousin Tyler at the game.



He's about 10 days old and pretty adorable.

By Saturday night I was feeling less than ideal again, so I canceled my original plans and just chilled and watched football playoffs instead. I probably could have gone out, but figured if I didn't rest up and nip this thing in the bud, I was going to be on a miserable downward spiral of sickness, and quite frankly, I just don't have time for that.

So I mainly enjoyed a low key weekend, and if I can get rid of this last bit of stuffy nose action and actually be able to breath again, I'll be all set to go to start off a new week on a good note.

Today was the last day of my epic 17 day winter break. I am so sad to see my vacation come to a close, and I'm sure tomorrow is going to be a brutal kick in the pants when I go back to work.



But, I like to think all my time off was well spent.

The first week of vacation was mainly spent at home in PA celebrating Christmas with friends and family.



Then I was back in DC for a glorious week-long staycation. I had a few social things on my calendar (like a friend's going away party and NYE plans), but largely my schedule was wide open, which left me all the time in the world to be a tourist in my own city.

Over the past week, I've been to five different museums, walked along the National Mall to see some of the monuments and curled up with a book in the courtyard of the Smithsonian Castle on a particularly warm December day.

I feel like in the past two weeks between the books I read and the museums I visited I have learned a ton (especially about World War I and II) and have been the least stressed out I have been in months (maybe years?).

Here's a peek at some of cool things I saw (and learned) in the museums.

National Museum of Health and Medicine




I never even knew this museum existed until my friend Erin told me about it at book club.

It's tucked up in Silver Spring, off the beaten path and is largely dedicated to military medicine. They have a huge exhibit on military medicine during the Civil War, where amputation was pretty much the answer to everything. The museum actually has skulls and various other body parts with bullet holes and other wounds from combat.

It's insane that these artifacts survived this long and that they're now in a museum where you can see them.

There was also a really cool exhibit on Lincoln's assassination.



Here's the bullet that was recovered from his head.

Freer and Sackler Galleries



These two Smithsonian museums are dedicated to Asian art, and since the Freer closed today for renovations for all of 2016, I wanted to check it out before that.

One of my friends tagged along for this one, and we had a fun time scoping out all the Buddha and Shiva statues, as well as the famous Peacock Room.



National Museum of American History
Terrible picture of C-3PO

This is definitely one of the coolest Smithsonian museums. It may very well also be one of the most massive and most crowded. I spent more than three hours here one day and only got through a fraction of the exhibits.

My favorite by far was the exhibit on the history of America at war. The exhibit, which is really long and winding, starts in pre-colonial times and you basically walk through history from the French and Indian War through the Revolutionary War, Civil War, wars of expansion, World War I and World II all the way up through the modern wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I've always found military history really interesting so I probably spent the majority of my time in this exhibit, but of course I also checked out the super-popular First Ladies exhibit. Nancy Reagan and Jackie Kennedy sure had style.

In July of this year a new exhibit on American Innovation opened. I took a brief walk through it, but by that point was just pretty exhausted and not really processing much, so figured I'd save the rest of that exhibit for another day.

Air and Space Museum



This is perhaps my favorite of all the Smithsonians. Since I had just been there last summer (and again to watch Star Wars when it came out a couple weeks ago), I didn't spend as much time here as normal.

I hit up the couple of galleries they have on the history of war-time aviation and wandered through my favorite exhibit on air-craft carriers where I basically pretended I was in Top Gun watching planes land on the flight deck. (Was all prepared for the Maverick flyby).



Normally I also spend a decent amount of time in the space exploration exhibits, but after all the history I've absorbed this week, my brain couldn't take much more. So I quickly walked through the space race exhibit (it's a good one) before heading on my way.

And that basically sums up the highlights of my staycation. It was seriously just what the doctor ordered, and even though I go back to work and the normal grind tomorrow, I'm going to try to hold on to a little bit of the zen I've found in the last two weeks.

I'm really excited for the start of the New Year -- more so than I normally am, and it's largely because 2016 has a lot of big things in store that I'm looking forward to.



1. I'm going to graduate from my MBA program this year! Whoop! In some ways time with this program has flown by, in other ways I have some major senioritis going on, and I'm ready to be done. As long as all goes well (aka I can get the last couple of classes I need when I need them), I will graduate in December 2016.

2. I'm taking my very first trip across the pond! In May, I'm going to Ireland with friends for a week. I am freakishly excited for this trip (and the ridiculously cheap plane tickets we got). It will be my first time out of North America (I've been to Mexico and Jamaica on a cruise, but to me that doesn't much count as international travel), and I'll be getting my very first passport stamp. Plus I have some pretty strong Irish roots on my mom's side of the family, so I'm really excited to see the land of my people.

3. I turn 30. Yes this is something I'm weirdly looking forward to. I know some people really dread turning 30, but I'm definitely like "bring it on."

4. I think my promotion at work will finalllllllly happen. I've been trying to get this promotion for well over a year now, and I think this is finally the year it's going to happen. I'm crossing my fingers and toes, but I'm feeling like 2016 is going to be the year for this.

5. I'm going to move! No one panic, I'm not moving far. Literally about five miles from where I currently live. And truthfully this hinges largely on that promotion I mentioned above. But assuming it goes through, when my current lease is up this summer, I'm hoping to move to a more fun neighborhood, closer to work and lots of my friends, and I will only have a minor panic attack about how much my rent will increase by doing so.

So yep, for all those reasons, I have very, very high hopes for what the New Year will bring. It's going to be a good one, I can just tell.