Saturday 28 December 2013

Gemswirls 2013 recap: May - June

I don't really feel like I need to write anything more about May, I was lucky enough to spend most of the month with my sister, first in New York, then here in Baltimore, and then on our road trip down to New Orleans, and I wrote blog posts about our New York trip here and the road trip here. That last link also includes what we got up to in June, with me back in Baltimore and the weather getting warmer. So that's it for today! I have a feeling I got quite lax in the second half of the year, so I might have more to say over the next few days!

Friday 27 December 2013

Gemswirls 2013 recap: March - April

N was away either in Europe or Salt Lake City for most of March & April so it was a relatively quiet time, but we/I still managed to fit in some fun times. This post gives a pretty good update of how my March went by, quite heavily food related as usual. And our nephew was born which was exciting, although still sad that we can't be there to spend more time with him.

Easter happened, obviously a perfect occasion for more baking.

The following weekend saw me commuting to Washington, DC for a massive cancer research conference, where I also managed to fit in some cherry blossom sightseeing.

Apparently I was super excited about spring coming, which is funny because right now I'm still enjoying the colder weather a little. Although I'm sure by the end of January I'll be singing a different tune!

Otherwise not much more to say about these lovely spring months, apparently I did a pretty good job of blogging about them! I spent most of the rest of the time working or planning for my sister arriving in May!

Thursday 26 December 2013

Gemswirls 2013 recap: January - February

I feel that I didn't do a very good job of keeping my blog up to date this year, so I figured that this time between Christmas and New Year would be a perfect time to do a recap of my 2013, if I can remember it!

I wasn't too bad at blogging in January (see here) and the year started out well.

2013 Goals

I set some goals for 2013 out in my New Year blog post, and I'm happy to say that I did pretty well:

  • Join Girl Scouts - this actually took a lot longer than I expected, but I ended up starting with my troop of Cadettes (age 12-13) when school went back in September, and accidentally became troop leader!
  • Lose American belly - pretty happy with my health and fitness levels at the moment, got a good exercise regime going and have been maintaining a healthy weight for a while.
  • Plan wedding - happy to say, with 5.5 months to go, that things are well on track. We had a good start with finally starting our savings account in January and then booking our venue in February.
  • Stop scratching my face - not so good with this one, although I did better over the past few weeks when N threatened to take one of Christmas presents away for every time I did!

Baking & Cooking

N got two baking books for Christmas last year, so January last year was the real beginning of the obsession, making tasty simple bread, and Dutch filled cookies. And I started a digital subscription to the BBC Good Food magazine and made lots of tasty meals, trends which both of us continued all year.

Other stuff

I joined the uni gym in January and was super proud of myself for going swimming, and started going to water aerobics.

We watched a lot of Bones!

We spent a day at the Smithsonian Zoo in Washington DC.

The Baltimore Ravens won the Super Bowl!

N & I celebrated our four-year anniversary by going out for sushi.

My sister started planning her trip to the USA.

I finally had my first paper accepted!

We watched some roller derby.

I went to the massive American Craft Center show at the Convention Centre.