Rod and Jess’ Blog

I’m sad to see 2009 go and glad in some ways that it’s 2010. It’s a new year and things can start fresh; but at the same time 2009 was probably the best year of my life. I figure instead of resolutions I’m going to have 10 goals that I want to accomplish at some point in the year.

1. Take the GRE and apply to grad school. I’m thinking I want to get my Masters of Education in Student Affairs at Indiana University Purdue University, Indianapolis (IUPUI). I’m going to look at taking the GRE this spring and applying shortly afterwards.

2. Run a sub-2:35 half-marathon! I ran my half in 2:38:55 back in November so I’m hoping I can shave off three minutes and fifty-five seconds from my time. I’ve got a half-marathon in May so I’m hoping that I’ll be able to do it then.

3. Run a 10k. I have one of these scheduled for March 6th. It’s part of the training series runs for the Mini-Marathon. I’d like to do it in 1:10 to match my split during my half-marathon from November.

4. Run a 15k. I have one of these scheduled for April 10th. I think this will be interesting because it’s SO close to a half-marathon but I have to think of it as just another training length!

5. I’d like to lose one pants size. Currently I’m a size 12 and I’d love to be a solid size 10 again. I’d love to go lower but that’s a reasonable goal for me at this point!

6. Go on two vacations this year. I love to travel and seeing new places with the hubs. He’s great to explore new cities with and it strengthens our relationship to have more special shared experiences.

7. Go to the beach this year. Even if it’s just another trip to the Indiana Dunes I want to take a relaxing day at the beach. It was SO much fun doing that trip and it would be great to make it an annual event.

8. Start my 403-(b) at work! This is an easy one, up to a certain percent they will match and I’m not currently taking advantage of this. We do get also a retirement fund that is equal to a certain amount of my annual salary but it would be nice to also have something that I’ve funded myself.

9. Start tracking my calories better. I’m really good during the day but once I get home at night I tend not to pay attention to portion sizes. It’s not that I’m dieting or restricting myself but I know I am eating more than I really need. I need to be more mindful of my eating and work on making sure I’m actually hungry before standing in front of the pantry/fridge and snacking.

10. Drink more water! I’m really bad about making sure I drink my 64 ounces a day. My skin is better when I get enough water and I feel better overall. Plus I have a flatter belly without all that diet coke!

Some of these goals might not seem like they are that exciting or that impressive but I’m really wanting to push myself not only in big ways but in little ways too. It all adds up to a better Jessica in 2010!

Join me in not making New Year’s resolutions; what are your goals for 2010?

That is all…

That’s right - this is our 200th post here at Rod and Jess [dot] Com!  We’ve bought a house, acquired two dogs, married each other, got rid of two cars and purchased two cars.  It’s been a crazy two years since registering the domain and I can’t wait for it to continue for many years to come. 

Thank you to everyone for being a part of our last two years and giving us so much to blog about! 

We might be saying good bye to the Jeep soon.  It’s only a 2006 with 25,000 miles on it but we just found out that it needs $1600+ in engine work and there’s several other things wrong. We’re not sure if we want the liability of a vehicle that is so young with so many problems. 

This isn’t my jeep, but it’s the same model and year.

I really love the Jeep, but it might be time to move on.  We’re trying to decide between a Subaru Outback:

In this color combination, the metallic blue with the silver panels on the bottom.

Or the Nissan Rogue:

Which one would you choose? 

Over the past few weeks I’ve been test driving new cars, since my Taurus had pretty much bottomed out in value and was racking up huge maintenance bills. I test drove a Volkswagen CC, Acura TSX, Honda Accord, Toyota Camry, Nissan Altima and Nissan Maxima. All the cars had something about them that I enjoyed (except for maybe the Accord), but ultimately the amazing feature package and sporty luxury feel of the TSX won out.

Wednesday night we headed out to the Acura dealership for a 3 hour process of paper signing. Finally, we had everything signed, the sales guy helped us get the Bluetooth hands-free phone stuff set up and we were off! I can only imagine how big my grin was. We immediately headed to dinner since it was 9:30 and we still hadn’t eaten.

Here’s a couple pictures I took this afternoon of my new TSX.  I’m still giddy with excitement.

Oh and if you’re into beer and in Indiana…

(it’s out)

Today was the Butler University Young Alumni event at Hinkle Fieldhouse.  We enjoyed a Pizza and Popcorn lunch (along with soft drinks and beer) followed by the Butler Men’s Basketball game against conference rival Detroit.

At lunch we got to see Blue II up close and personal!

Before the start of the game.  Our seats were pretty decent and we were able to see where my dad had season tickets when I was at Butler!

Butler won 54-50 in a game that came down to the last few seconds!

Rod looks pretty great in that Butler sweatshirt!

It was a pretty close game and we had a great time.  If you want to read about how close it was check out this story on the IndyStar’s website.  Tomorrow we’re headed up to West Lafayette to watch the Boilers take on the Wisconsin Badgers.  It’s a basketball weekend before I start on Monday at the NCAA! 

We really appreciate the input on the new layout from our readers.  You should be able to see who posted each entry from now on.  We also updated Google Analytics thanks to you pointing our that certain things hadn’t transferred over!

If there’s any other features you’d like to see on here or anything you’d like to know more about then please post in our comments and we’ll try to accomodate! 

If you have visited the blog a couple times in the past few days, you’ve seen a few different looks, including this one. What are your thoughts here? I’ll post some individual screenshots for side by side comparison later, but I think this one is Jess’ favorite.