My 2012 End-of-Year lists

I decided to make some lists to sort of sum up 2012.  Shows with stars next to them indicate favorites that I would highly recommend!

Happy birthday, Dixie!

Fourteen years ago, on December 30th, 1998, in Savannah, my dog Dixie, a West Highland White Terrier, was born.  My parents brought her home on February 26th, 1999, and since that day our lives have been so much better.

Top Moments in 2012- #5: Getting Back in the Pool

Since I started college, I had been gaining weight.  The only thing mythical about the Freshman Fifteen is that you only gain it freshman year.  Back in the summer of 2010, I did Weight Watchers for a little bit, and managed to lose 15 pounds, but when I went back to school in the fall I gained it right back.  I won't go into specifics, but let's just say that I weigh more than I would like to weigh.  The worst part is that I'm pretty lazy when it comes to working out, especially since I hate running, so I never really had a routine for going to the gym or anything.

After the Olympics this summer, though, that changed.  Watching all of the swimming events reminded me of how much fun I used to have swimming and how much I used to love just being in the water in general.  So I decided that a great way for me to start losing weight and getting back into shape would be for me to get back into the pool again.

I started swimming when I was ten years old, when the neighborhood pool we were members of started a swim team, so I was a founding member of the Rivershyre Tiger Sharks.  I loved swimming in general, and being able to swim competitively just made it even better.  Unfortunately, I was never very fast- I got last or second to last in almost everything, but I always loved going to the pool and going to practice and just being in the pool in general.  I had already basically chosen club soccer over club swimming at this point, so I was just swimming in the summer and the kids who were swimming year-round were getting so much better than me, but I didn't really care that much.

By the time I got to high school and started swimming there, the 2004 Olympics had happened and I had a Michael Phelps poster that I'd gotten at a meet that summer hanging up on my wall and despite the fact that I loved soccer, swimming was my favorite sport to actually do.  I loved being in the water- it was a great way for me to take my mind off everything else and just relax in the pool.  I kept it up all through high school and was a co-captain my senior year.

I went to the first meeting of the swim club my freshman year at Georgia Tech, but I didn't want to make time to go to practices at night, so I just never went back.  Looking back now, I wish I had, because not only would I have been able to stay in better shape during college, but I would have made some more swimming friends too.

So when I was inspired to get back in the pool after the Olympics in August, it was the first time I had been in the pool in over four years.  I started out slow, using some of the beginners Speedo Pace Club workouts of around 1000 yards.  I kept gradually bumping up my yardage until I was doing a mile or more every time I was going to the pool, which was one to three times a week, depending on how I was feeling.

After Thanksgiving, I decided I wanted to kick it up another notch, since I knew I would be eating more and the main reason I had gotten back in the pool in the first place was to lose weight.  With my dieting and swimming combined, I've lost 20 pounds so far.  I've been doing up to two miles now the past couple of times I've been to the pool, and even though I haven't been in a couple weeks due to being out of town and not feeling up to it, I'm excited to get back into the pool after Christmas and diving back into my swimming routine.

The Hobbit

On Thursday at midnight, the day I had been waiting so many years for finally came- I saw The Hobbit in theatres.  And not the creepy animated version, though I do own that- no, Peter Jackson had finally turned my favorite book into a movie, and he did it brilliantly.