2016 in Review

I’d like to go over 2016 as it comes to a close.  I’m going to do this bullet point style.

• First, I’ve been less than stellar about posting.  Sorry about that.  Genuinely.  And, even when I was posting regularly, my posts were so stale and blah.  Seriously, they were just me vomiting up my daily/weekly stats.  That’s why in 2017 I won’t be doing weekly weigh ins and recaps.  I’ll just kinda post willy-nilly like I’ve been doing the past couple weeks.  Talk about my workouts and runs and mix that in with chatting about what’s going on in my life in general.

• Next up, I wanted to PR everything…and I DID!  My 5K PR is 26:45, 8K (5 mile) is 43:26, 10K is 53:59, 10 mile is 1:34:31, half marathon is 2:03:29, and full marathon is 4:29:53.  That’s pretty phenomenal!  The only thing I didn’t do this year that I really wish I had done was do a 1 mile time trial where I just run 1 mile as fast as possible.  I do know that my fastest mile DURING a race was 8:04, but that was during a 5K race, so it’s not all that accurate as to what I can do if I only had to run 1 mile and 1 mile only.  I’m guessing I can knock out a 7:30, maybe even faster!

• I set an official goal to run 1000 miles this year but had secret hopes of doing at least 1200 miles.  I surpassed my official goal back around the end of October.  I passed up my secret hope in mid-December!  I’m so beyond proud of myself.  In 2015 I set the goal to run 1000 miles too, but fell way short of that goal.  Part of that was largely due to 2 things: temporarily falling out of love with running for about 2-3 months, and being injured and in a walking boot and completely unable to run for 6 weeks.

• I did reach my original goal weight of 160 and then I went even lower and set a new “ultimate” goal weight of 145.  And, I’m sad to say, that while I did get super close to that ultimate goal, I did not reach it and in fact, thanks to an issue with a medication I was taking, I regained over 15 pounds, putting me back above my original goal weight.  However, I did discover that I really like how I look and feel at around 150 and I know that 145 is totally achievable.  I just have to try hard and control myself.

• I’m smack in the middle of the Austin Runner’s Club Distance Challenge.  I’ve already done 3 of the 5 races and I’ve rocked all 3 of them, snagging a PR at 2 of them and a near PR at the 3^rd one.  All 3 of the races so far are new-to-me races to run, so they’ve been really exciting to run.  I’m super excited to run the 3M half marathon, the 4^th race in the series as it’s another new-to-me race and it has a net downhill trend, so I’m hoping to snag yet another half PR and maybe finally finish sub-2 hour!

• I didn’t manage to be able to afford the lifetime membership with the Marathon Maniacs or the Half Fanatics, but I did buy 2 year memberships for each for now.  I’ll do the lifetime when those run out.

• My Norfolk pine died.  I was horrible at remembering to water it or I would over water it.  So I’m not sure if I drowned it or dehydrated it.  Maybe I shocked the poor thing and that’s what killed it.  At any rate, I think I’ll stick to fake plants for now.

• I have totally rocked keeping up with my journal.  My entries at the beginning of the year were fairly short and to the point.  As the year went on, my entries became longer and better written.  Also, my therapist seems to have broken up with me because he didn’t show up to my last appointment with him and then never responded to the email I sent him regarding it.  Oh well, I was thinking of stopping anyway.  My running and journaling and increasing hanging out time with friends seems to be doing me more good than my meetings with him were doing for me.

• I was totally confident enough to run in just a sports bra for the majority of the late summer and fall…until I had the medication issue and regained some weight.  I really love how freeing it is.  Plus, as a result, I met a whole fantastic group of ladies with the Sports Bra Squad, which is a nationwide movement to help increase women’s body image and self-confidence.

• I did manage to finally kick the diet soda habit, thanks to my attempt at going paleo.  Not only that, but I kicked sweeteners to the curb completely.  In fact, I had a GIANT box of the pink packets and I gave them to a friend.  I also stopped using trans-fat laden creamer in my coffee and gave all the creamer I still had in my apt to my supervisor.  I did also cut back on my salt consumption.  So that’s good too.

Overall, 2016 was decent.  It wasn’t great and it wasn’t bad.  There were more ups than downs, I’d like to say…and I believe that too.  I think, on a scale of 1 to 10, I’d give 2016 a solid 7.  Like I said…decent.  I learned a LOT.  I failed a LOT.  I succeed a LOT.  I felt a LOT.  I did a LOT.  This was definitely a year of doing a LOT and making a LOT of memories.  So, I can say I’m mostly satisfied.  Sure there are things I wish I’d succeeded better at…mostly finances.  But I have big plans in that regard for 2017.  And then, of course, I didn’t reach my weight loss goal and hang onto it.

Ambassadorship & Project Life

First things first…back in October, I applied to be an ambassador for the Altra shoe company.  As you may or may not know, I currently run solely (HA!) in Altra shoes.  I love them.  My feet love them.  My running pace loves them.  Oh and my sports therapist loves them for me based on my body mechanics.  Well, they finally got around to notifying everyone that applied (I’m sure it was in the thousands) and, well, I did not make the cut.  So, next year, I’ll up my game and try harder to make my application more appealing to them so that hopefully I get picked out of all the thousands of people that apply for this privilege.  While I’m disappointed that I didn’t make the cut, I suppose it’s for the best.  I just finished up a year as an ambassador for the wonderful and amazing INKnBURN clothing company and, honestly, that gig was a little stressful.  I felt like it was not only expected of me to purchase ALL the new products, but that it was almost required.  It felt like an obligation to buy things that had designs I wasn’t super into just because I was expected to promote them.  heck, I have my cowgirl shirt from the Halloween pre-order that I still haven’t worn yet.  I do love the shirt, I just haven’t had an occasion come up where it would fit in.  But, I do love the company and will always be a customer of theirs.  Just like I’m not going to rage quit running in Altra shoes just because they didn’t pick me.  No, I love the company and their product and it works really well for me.  So there.

So I mentioned the other day that I am going to start doing a Project Life type of scrapbook after the first of the year.  Well, on payday, I ordered a BUNCH of the wallet sized Project Life cards off Etsy.  I am super stoked about them too.  The album I ordered arrived on Thursday while I was at work, so I picked it up in the office the following day.  I really like it a lot.  The cover is covered with sketched cameras of all different types and styles.  I think it’s perfect since this album will be all about capturing life’s moments and lots of pictures (ahem…lots of selfies…cough). 

Another thing I wanted to start after the first of the year was being as frugal as possible.  That means setting some pretty hefty limits on my spending.  I am allowing myself 2 non-homemade meals a month and 2 clothing purchases a month.  And that’s it.  Anything else random that I might want to purchase will not be an impulse purchase and it will require me going home to think about it for at least an hour before decided if I absolutely have to have it or not.  My hope is that the fact that I would have left the store and drove all the way home and then if I decide I just have to have it, knowing I have to drive all the way back to the store will dissuade me from actually going back and buying it.  Another portion of this plan involves saving money.  I mean, yes, I plan to put aside half of what I have left over after bills as savings (the other half will be for the purchases I’m allowing and limiting myself to, and for gas and food for meal prepping), but what I mean specifically is that if I want to eat out…if I really want fast food, then I’ll take $10 and put it in savings…if I want to go to a regular restaurant, I’ll take $20 and put it in savings.  And this is IN ADDITION to the half of what’s left over after paying bills.  Then, once I have a good chunk saved up, I can start knocking off my credit cards one by one and jacking up my credit score to a more attractive level so that I have a chance of getting approved for a home loan later in the year.

Something I’m thinking of doing again…the Shred Diet.  At least in part.  It worked for me when I did it a few years ago.  I mainly like it because I have the option of little 100 and 150 calorie snacks that are easily packed and super yummy.  Plus it was super easy to calorie control myself on it.  So, I’ll flip thru the book and refamiliarize myself with the plan and see if I really do want to do it again or not. 

This week is going quite well with the dropping of what I’m quite sure is just water weight.  It must be since it’s just coming off in large amounts…like 3-4 pounds a day.  So, I think I’ll definitely be back in the 150’s by the start of the new year and that makes me VERY happy!  I’m already really liking how much trimmer and more svelte my body is looking after dropping over 6 pounds since Monday. 

My meal plan for the upcoming week will be…breakfast: 6 boiled eggs, lunch: meatloaf (turkey and pork with almond flour, egg and seasonings), snack: sweet potato dish (undecided which at this point…kinda want to make the sweet potato chip recipe in the new sweet potato recipe book I bought last week), dinner: Greek yogurt, overtime snacks: Skinny Pop popcorn (the cracked pepper one is my favorite!) & sliced apples. 

Princess Leia, Retirement & a 50K

This week, we lost not only Carrie Fisher of Star Wars fame, but her mother too.  For this nerd girl, it was a very sad week.  I was driving to work on Tuesday and was listening to one of the rock music stations on my satellite radio and they played a song by the band Gemini Syndrome called “Remember We Die” and the DJ dedicated it to Carrie Fisher, saying “RIP” afterward.  My immediate response was “noooooooooooooo!” and I started crying.  Not even gonna lie.  I cried over the death of a person I’ve never met.  I do have a friend or two that have met her and they said she was an incredibly kind and funny person.  Sure she had her issues, we all do.  But she was a wonderful person that did so much for so many people.  She was an icon.  As was her mother, who I’m convinced died of a broken heart.

I’d like to switch gears and say I’m proud of myself at the moment.  Wednesday, I CONTROLLED MYSELF!!!  That’s right, I ate ONLY the food I brought for myself to eat.  Even though I wanted to go to Starbucks and buy a Holiday Spiced Flat White, I ultimately decided not to.  I even wanted to go out to my car and get a couple bucks so I could hit up the vending machine for some trail mix.  Also decided not to do that.  So, I ate around 1300 calories and had a deficit of just under 800!  That’s just awesome!  As a result, I showed a loss of 2.6 pounds.  Which, I don’t know how much that means because I had started off on Monday at 167.9, then dropped 3.9 pounds of most likely water weight when I weighed in on Tuesday.  Then there was a retirement party on my overtime shift Tuesday night and when I weighed on Wednesday I had plumped back up by 3.1 pounds.  There were a LOT of salty foods, so I’m sure that the weight loss shown on the scale on Thursday was the same as Tuesday: water weight.  I’m still holding out hope for the scale to say 159 come Sunday morning (New Year’s morning).

 

Speaking of the retirement party!  He’s not just someone I worked overtime with.  The nature of working in a correctional facility is that they rotate staff assignments every few years, so you don’t work with the same people your entire career.  It’s supposed to help with burn out.  Anyway, so I have worked with Jerry a few times over the last 14+ years I’ve worked for our agency.  He retired with 24 years under his belt.  I can retire at the 25 year mark.  That’s 11 years away.  Sooooooo far away.  I’m hoping it’ll “be here before I know it,” like everyone tells me it will be.  Come on 12/31/27!!!

There’s a race in March that I want to run.  The problem with it and why I haven’t already registered is that it’s on a Saturday in a place that is a 3.5-ish hour drive away from where I live.  I am planning to run the 50K and that race starts at 7am.  They do have race morning packet pickup.  So I’d want to be there by 6am at the latest, which means I do 1 of 2 things.  1, I drive up the morning of the race, leaving my apartment around 2am.  OOOOOR, I get a hotel or camp in the park and drive up the day before.  We’ll see if I can get reservations.  Oh, there is a 3^rd option…drive up the evening before and sleep in the back seat of the car.  Not really an attractive option, but it is an option nonetheless.  Honestly, I will probably drive up the morning of the race.  So, anyway, I asked my supervisor yesterday if it was possible for me to get the day before the race off work and he said that it looks good, so I’m going to register for it mid-January.  I’m registering for another race (who’s reg fee goes up when the beginning of the new year) with my end of December paycheck, that’s the only reason why I’m waiting. 

 

I’ve been breaking out all over my face the last week and a half.  It’s so annoying and it makes me very self-conscious.  I try cleaning my face more, but it’s not helping.  So, I stopped and bought some acne spot treatment stuff and I’m hoping that’ll help clear it up.

 

Today’s workout consisted of 3 miles on the track.  It was supposed have eight 100-ish meter sprints, but I could tell before I was even done with the first sprint that 8 sprints weren’t going to happen.  So I settled on 4 sprints.  I warmed up with 4 laps around the track for 1 mile at a 9:07 pace, then I started my four 100-ish meter sprints with 300-ish meter recoveries and finished that mile with an 8:37 pace overall.  My final, cool down mile was a 9:22 pace.  Usually when I do track work, I run the 1.35 miles to the track, do my sprints and recoveries and then run back home.  But today I was little strapped for time, and I was going to the gym after the track, so I just drove to the track.  After the track I went to the gym.  My workout at the gym consisted of:

• Seated dip 85#x8-105#x8-8
• Bicep curl (cable) 65#x8-8-8
• Pec fly 85#x8 8-8
• Seated mid row 105#x8-125#x8-8
• Lat pull down 125#x8-8-8
• Shoulder press 78#x8-8-8
• Ladder machine x10min
• Monster walk (green resist band)
• Sumo walk (green resist band)

 

I know I’ve only been back at the gym for 2 weeks and have only done 3 workouts so far, but I’m feeling really good about it.  I like that I’m moving in ways I haven’t moved in MONTHS.  It feels good to be sore again.  It feels good to realize that I didn’t lose as much strength as I thought had.  That part feels real, real good. 

More After Christmas & Getting a Headstart...I Hope

Monday was the day after Christmas…countdown to the New Year began!  And I’m getting a head start on the New Year and my goals that I want to work on…I hope.  My plan was to start up again with tracking EVERY DAMN THING I put in my mouth.  Which went “well” on Monday.  What didn’t go well was controlling myself around donuts and cakeballs.  Oops.  In response, I just didn’t eat the cranberry sauce (snack) and yogurt (dinner) I brought, but I was still 100 calories over my regular daily calorie allowance PLUS my exercise calories.  Ugh.  I really need to be leaving a deficit.  So that’s something I definitely need to work on.  And frankly, had I not eaten that junk, there would have been one. 

 

Of course, there is the good news that I dropped 3.9 pounds between yesterday and today, so that means I’m holding onto a lot of water weight.  Which sort of makes sense since my weight fluctuates like it does.  Maybe if I was a little more consistent with my water intake it wouldn’t be such an issue?  Not sure.  If anyone knows for sure, let me know, okay?  So, maybe I have yet another 4 pounds of excess water weight on me that I can drop by the end of the week!  Haha.  Maybe.  We’ll see.  It would be fantastic to start the new year back in the 150’s, even if just barely.  The good thing about weighing myself every day is that I’m getting desensitized to what I weigh.  Like, the number on the scale doesn’t mean as much to me anymore.  Sure, of course, I want it to say something favorable, but I’m not as obsessed about that number as I used to be when I first started weighing daily.  So that’s one plus to weighing daily.

 

So far, I’m doing super fantastic about posting on here more often and with actual life content! (hope I didn’t just jinx myself…haha)  I’m not sure what happened or changed, other than the basically taking almost a complete month off from posting on here.  I guess I just needed a small blogging vacation.  Also, I’m really getting into the whole vlogging thing.  But, the videos take FOREVER to load to Facebook when I load them directly from my phone.  Maybe I can transfer them to my computer using the Airdroid app and then load them that way.  Videos seem to load faster on the computer.  Or, even if they don’t, then at least it won’t be sucking the battery life out of my phone while it loads.  I’ll take wins wherever I can get them, even if they’re small.  I’m hoping to figure out how to get my YouTube channel up and running and then I can imbed the videos here for you guys to view. 

 

I forgot to mention something else I bought on Monday while Christmas clearance shopping.  I went to scrapbook.com and found some a BoBunny 50 page variety pack of 12x12 pocket pages for Project Life type scrapbooks that were 50% off, so I bought 3 packs.  That’ll last me a while!  Then I went to amazon.com and ordered an album that will fit the 12x12 pages that I really liked with sketched camera on it.  Oh yea!  On top of that, I bought this anime amazon Wonder Woman costume that was on sale for like 25% off.  Woot!  I’ve been drooling over this costume for a while now, but Spirit Halloween was out of it in my size.  So I was pretty excited to find it for like 40% less than Spirit Halloween AND in my size!

Here's the items I bought Monday morning during the after Christmas sales.

 

Amanda and I exchanged gifts at work today.  And, of course, I completely forgot to take pictures of what I gave her.  I should have at least taken a picture of the collage of selfies on canvas with a neon paint background that I made for her.  She said she loved it and was going to hang it in her room.  YAY!  I LOVE what she made and got for me.  She made me a Labyrinth multi-media collage type thing.  I love it.  I’m going to go this weekend and see how much to have a frame made for it.  I’d really like to get a red or purple frame for it and I do want it to have glass to keep the collaged pieces from falling off as she said one of them she had to glue back on once already.  The other thing was one of those My Little Pony mystery boxes and it came with the dark Princess Cadence.

I was already pretty sore from Monday’s self-imposed ass kicking at the gym.  But I don’t mind.  I actually at least partly enjoy the soreness.  Just tells me that I’m doing something good for me.  It’s not hurt pain, it’s my muscles building themselves back up to their former glory.  It’s also my fat crying and slowly dying and fading into oblivion.  My friend, “Tank” is going to hook me up with some good gym workouts.  He’s a beast and I admire his muscles.  Haha.

The Day After Christmas

The day after Christmas and I am at the GYM getting my workout on!  And let me just tell you, I kicked my own ass fairly thoroughly.  I was going to run but my weather app said a chance of thunderstorms.  When will I learn not to pay attention to the lies it tells?  So, yea, I skipped my run and it didn’t do anything more than sprinkle!  Oh well.  I’m already a good deal over my running mileage goal for the year and I did run semi-long Saturday AND Sunday, so a rest day was due.  And I would have done the same 4 mile route with rolling hills that I did last Thursday.  So that wouldn’t have been very restful.  Of course, not that what I DID do was actually remotely restful.  HA! 

 

On my way to the gym, I detoured to Walmart to hit up their after Christmas sale on decorations.  I got a cute little light up fuzzy cat and a light up flamingo.  I also got a bunch of wrapping paper.  Something you may or may not know about me is that I tend to be OCD when it comes to wrapping presents.  In the past, I had probably, easily, over 100 rolls of wrapping paper.  You can laugh, but I’m totally not joking.  See, the thing was, no 2 presents could be wrapped in the same paper, even if they weren’t going to the same person and even if the people who were getting the presents wouldn’t see the paper that the other people’s presents were wrapped with.  Yea, bordering on psycho present wrapper, pretty much.  So, yea, it was really hard, but a few years ago, I threw away ALL OF MY WRAPPING PAPER.  There was an anxiety attack or 2 involved with that.  For the past few years I’ve mostly resisted wrapping presents and usually get gift bags.  I’ve had a couple rolls of wrapping paper for a few years now.  This year, I bought a couple more under the guise of using it as backgrounds for scrapbooking.  Well, thanks to this Christmas clearance sale, I bought like 7 more rolls.  Plus before Christmas I had bought 3 rolls.  Must cut myself off now.  No more paper!  But, I am super proud of myself.  I have 3 presents for 1 person and they’re all wrapped in the same paper.  Not saying that isn’t stressful for me, but I’m forcing myself to deal with it.  “Hi my name is Sara and I am a present wrapping addict.”  HA!  

 

Since everything Christmas related was on clearance at Walmart, I got a mini-ratchet tool set that I’m guessing is normally $15 because it rung up at $7.50.  Either way, killer deal! 

 

I also stopped at At Home in search of a picture frame.  I did end up in their Christmas section where I bought yet another bird ornament (“Hi my name is Sara and I’m a bird ornament addict”) because I TOTALLY need more of those.  Hahaha.  I also scored some medium sized colored bulb Christmas lights for really cheap.  I did get the frame, in case you’re wondering.  Got 2, in fact.

 

Anyway, after that I made my way to the gym…finally.  I locked my stuff up and plugged in my music with my super cute $5 headphones from Five Below.  They actually have surprisingly decent sound for only having cost $5.  Not GREAT sound, mind you, just decent and doesn’t sound like total crap.  They’re the “bass” version, so they do thump a little.  They’re just a little tinny on the higher notes.  I started off with the Jacob’s Ladder machine for 10 minutes.  Then I did leg extension and curls.  Then I alternated wall ball squats with 24” step ups.  Then I did the glute master machine before making my way over to the kettlebells where I did sumo squats with front raise.  After that, I finished up my workout with some of my PT exercises (monster walk, sumo walk, heel walk and farmer’s walk).  I wanted to also do the push press, but all the squat racks were taken and I didn’t feel like improvising and using dumbbells.

I’m hoping to go ahead and start cutting back on what I’m eating this week…get a head start on the New Year and all that jazz, you know?  Are you getting a head start on the New Year as well?

Merry Christmas!

I haven’t been with my family for Christmas since I was 18…that’s 21 years.  Oh yea, in case you didn’t know, I’m pushing 40.  Haha.  I don’t mind that part though.  I’m looking forward to 40.  Why?  I’m a runner, so that means I’ll be going into a new age group and I’ll be the young and, theoretically, faster one in the group!  Anyway, Christmas has more or less lost its meaning for me over the past 21 years.  I tend to try and work overtime so that the feelings of being alone on this family oriented holiday don’t get to me.  However, THIS YEAR, Christmas eve and Christmas day fell on Saturday and Sunday respectively…my days off at this point.  Did I volunteer to work overtime?  Nope.  I’ve decided in the past few months that I enjoy having my days off be just that…days off.  So, regardless of holidays or whatever, I don’t work overtime on my days off anymore.  I’m much less stressed as a result.  So, seeing as how I’m not working overtime to distract myself from the fact that I’m 2500 miles away from some of the most precious people in my life, I won’t be alone. 

Yesterday, on Christmas eve, I ran with a free running group in the morning.  In the evening I was alone and it was a little sad for me, but I got through it and now it’s Christmas day.  Today’s plan included up early to run.  I like to dress festively and wear one of my Santa hats, but this year I opted to wear some reindeer antlers instead.  INKnBURN (the company I was an ambassador for earlier this year) put out a new ugly Christmas sweater long sleeve tech shirt.  I had planned on wearing it today, but because I live in Texas, it was 70° when I set out for my run, so I had to push the sleeves up in order to be comfortable during my run and not overheated.  I got waved and honked at a few times, so that makes me happy that I made at least 3 people smile enough that they had to let me know!

After my run, Heather (one of my very best friends) came over.  We headed to the Hyatt Regency for their Christmas buffet!  But, when we got there, we discovered that the internet had lied to us (wait, everything you read on the internet isn’t true?  Shocker!) and it wasn’t a buffet at all.  Well, actually, they still had their breakfast buffet open.  But they had a Christmas plate.  It was $44 if you got all 3 items: soup, entrée and dessert.  Which I did.  Heather opted not to get the soup because it was clam chowder and she doesn’t like clam chowder.  It was pretty good…best clam chowder I’ve ever had.  The dinner was delicious, if a little small portioned, but that’s okay.  I do need to start cutting back on how much I’m eating anyway, but for the price we paid, I just wish the portions had been slightly bigger, you know?  The dessert was good.  Kinda wish I’d gone with the seasonal cookie plate for dessert instead.   

best clam chowder i've ever had!

doesn't look like much but it was very tasty!

should have skipped this for a couple reasons, but it was good

We got back to my apartment and she gave me a box with 3 super cute t-shirts in it for my Christmas present.  I didn’t realize that she was going to give me more gifts on top of what she gave me for my birthday.  I would have waited to give her her present had I known.  I felt kinda awkward because I didn’t have another gift to give her.  But I love the shirts, ESPECIALLY the “coffee & kitties” one.  LOVE LOVE LOVE that one!

my favorite...this will get worn a LOT!

2nd favorite...unicorns are my spirit animal!

truth.

Then I grabbed my crafty gift that I’m making for one of my other best friends, Amanda, and got to work on that while Heather opened up her scrapbooking bag and started going through it.  A little side note here, she had no idea what was in it as she hadn’t opened it up in years.  Turned out she didn’t actually have anything to scrap with, but she did go through it and discover what was in it.  After I finished my crafty gift, I started on the 4 running scrapbook pages I need to do.  I felt bad because I was still crafting and she was just sitting there watching me. 

I was hoping Walmart was going to open this evening, but they’re closed until 6am tomorrow.  So maybe I’ll go on my way to the gym and see if there’s anything in the after Christmas sale I want to buy.

I was going to go to the gym today, but as I reminded yesterday, this is a holiday weekend, so the gym is closed and really, there’s not much I can do lower body wise at home, so I’ll just skip that this week and start it up next week.  I mean, I’ll probably do some lower body machines tomorrow along with the combat fitness exercises.  Most likely, actually.  

I recorded another vlog today about the Fun Run Boxes I've gotten recently, so head on over to my Facebook page and give it a watch and give my page a "like" while you're there!  Also, don't forget to follow me on Instagram for all sorts of pictures of my shenanigans!  

I hope everyone had a great Christmas surrounded by loved ones and that you got everything you hoped for in your stockings and under your trees.