Goals and Resolutions

Welcome to 2015, and may it be an amazing year for everyone. It will be one of big changes for me, that is for sure.

I am not a huge resolution-y kind of person, because I find they end up setting me up for failure if I am not succeeding a few months in. So I stick more to goals, and keep them generalized. I do tend to have target numbers, but that is really only to keep me focused on always moving forward.

Goal: Continue to lose weight. Ideally, around 40-50lbs.
Goal: Cook more, order out less. Financially, this one is necessary. Health wise it is helpful too. I want to learn 50 new recipes this year. Even if I only try them once, even if it is simple and three ingredients or involves super low prep. My biggest challenge with cooking is just my lack of experience so trying anything new is a huge help in the long run. 50 sounds like a lot, but really the goal is about one per week.
Goal: Continue to amp up the exercise. I did a great job walking more in 2014, particularly over the summer, and I want to continue that trend of walking more, but also incorporating the couch to 5k program I started.
Goal: Finish more of what I have, organize better, keep cleaner. I have trouble with clutter, and having lots of things around. Particularly makeup, beauty products, and tea. I am already well on my way to paring down the makeup stash even more (a serious win of 2014), haven't bought new lotion in months (thank god), and have made great progress in lowering my overall tea stash. And I have done a great job in organizing my three main hoards so that I use more, more efficiently. This year I began the rule of "if you haven't touched it in a year, contemplate if you REALLY need it" when it comes to organizing. I need to continue that effort throughout my apartment, in prep for moving in the summer.

I believe all of these things are good, attainable goals even among unknown moving situations and job stress and whatever may come.

I am so proud of my progress with my tea. I posted in August about having 45 samples and 59 containers of full size tea. Thanks to amazing deals and a general lack of control, even as I gave away a ton of tea throughout the fall and drank a ton...I currently have 66 full sizes and 47 samples as of December 31. Womp. Why am I proud? Because I reorganized them, have begun purchasing more wisely in general, and am still plowing through my stash at a rapid enough rate that I feel confident I can continue to get my stash to a more manageable level in 2015. My goal is to have all of my tea fit into my cabinets I store them in (post about organization later). Now that I bought some new tins for cheap from New Years sales, my cabinets are about 2/3 of the way full with as many tins as I feel I need.

Overall, I am feeling pretty positive about the new year. Updates on how these goals are going will be regular, I am thinking of making them a monthly thing so I can keep myself on track.

Smitten Hand Cream Review

Anyone who knows me even remotely well knows that my interests pretty much lie in tea, makeup, and bath/beauty products. And my number 1 beauty and bath company bar none is Lush. Lush is a really ethical, mostly natural kind of company that to me creates the most effective products out there. I stepped into one about 6 years ago and it was all over for me. I went through a phase where I bought everything, tried everything, and spent far too much money in general. I still do that, just less frequently.

If you have never been, I highly recommend the soaps. They are cut to order, so I always get roughly five buck chunks. The bath bombs aren't the cheapest, but a lot of fun. The massage bars are quite possibly the best body care discovery I have ever made.

But today, I wanted to talk about Smitten Hand Cream. It was a part of their regular range until a couple of years ago, until it was discontinued. Discontinuing, even though it means bigger and better products, is a horrible part of the Lush experience. It is part of what contributed to the great Lush hoarding that I am still working through now. I may or may not have five Soft Touch body butters stashed from the last time it was offered limited edition. Smitten is now on Retro, but Lush recently announced they are getting rid of the Retro line all together. Normally, this would be super upsetting (as they have my favorite bubble bar, Bathos, on there as well), but I know it means Lush Kitchen is arriving soon. I have been stalking the offerings on the UK site and think the small batch constant rotation of products is a better way to do things...but will probably cost me a lot of money too as things are only available until that single batch sells out.

I am sure Smitten will be featured again someday in the Kitchen, it is so popular with it's Snowcake scent (which is creamy almond, for anyone not already a Lushie), but it is still on the US site now if you need to stock up. I already did. At 20 bucks it isn't cheap, but you get what you pay for. It is effective, full of skin loving ingredients, and sinks in fairly quickly without losing efficacy. Highly recommend.

Smitten: http://www.lushusa.com/Smitten/02356,en_US,pd.html#start=6
Bathos :http://www.lushusa.com/Bathos/00741,en_US,pd.html#start=3