Maintain Don't Gain

My health insurance is pretty cool. They have lots of ideas and incentives to keep employees healthy. This holiday season is the "Maintain Don't Gain" Challenge. We all know that one is more likely to accomplish his or her goals when they are shared with other people, so why not share my goals with the whole damn world? I figured some of you might want to do the challenge, too.

It's pretty easy. Basically you choose one goal from each category (nutrition, sleep, mental health, physical activity) to work on throughout December. Click here for the details and a tracking sheet. I figure if I can accomplish all 4 of these goals, not only will I maintain my weight, but I'll probably feel pretty great by the time the new year rolls around! Here are my goals:

Nutrition -- keep a food journal at least five days each week

Sleep -- keep a consistent sleep schedule (10pm to 6am) on weekdays

Mental health -- read one section of "Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy" at least five days each week

Physical activity -- go to the gym at least twice each week (spin class on Tuesdays plus one workout on the weekend)

I'll be back to let you all know how I'm doing!

Beer School

We went to our third "Beer School" a few weeks ago. Desert Edge Brewery hosts this event the first Thursday of every month. It is SUCH a great experience! Even if you aren't an avid beer drinker, you will learn a lot about what you like and don't like in beer, and the food is amazing!

First, you get a tour of the brewery with the Brew Master, Chris. He shows you the whole beer-making process and teaches you random tidbits about all types of beer. For examples, ales taste fruity while lagers taste crisp. Then, it's onto tasting all 8 beers they have on tap. Their beers change every few weeks, so Beer School is always a new adventure. You learn the correct way to pour, taste, and enjoy your beer. The beers are paired with a special 4-course meal that is never on their menu because it is made especially for Beer School. Most of the courses even contain beer!

Beer School is so popular that it is sold out many months in advance. We make it a point to book all 16 seats one month each year so we can share the night with our friends. We were excited to have some old and new friends join us this year!

Course 1
Quinoa and arugula salad with coriander hefeweizen topped with yams, feta, and red onion
Paired with: Munich Lager and Happy Valley Hefeweizen

Course 2
Smoked Gouda, white cheddar, and gold potato British Mild soup
Paired with: Centennial Steamer and Pub Pilsner

Course 3
Grilled salmon with creamy polenta and vegetable caponeta
Paired with: British Mild and Utah Pale Ale
Kinda forgot to take a pic. Whoops. It was super good, though!

Course 4
Stout-braised bratwurst with potatoes and kale*
Paired with: Latter-Day Stout and Espresso Stout

*Usually the 4th course is a dessert, but the chef told us that people like eating dessert more than he likes making it, so we got bratwurst. It was a little weird, but we were too drunk to care at that point.

From left to right: Mindy's friend, Chris Hass (the Brew Master), Rebecca, Lew, Jordan, Kirtley

Me and Joe (and Dave)

I have to supervise him at all times or else things get weird

Amanda and Dave

Mindy and her crew

Leftover beer -- alcohol abuse!!

We're tentatively planning to attend next December, so let me know if you want to go!

Reading

I'd like to think of myself as a moderately-avid reader and a somewhat-educated person, but this stupid Facebook quiz made me think otherwise. Apparently The BBC believes most people have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here. I have read 18 of them. Does that mean I'm three-times smarter than the average person? Many more were already on my "to read" list -- that makes me feel a little better. I guess I have to admit that my "read" list contains more of Oprah's books than it does classics. So I'm making a New Year's Resolution to read 12 classics in 2011. I figure if I meet my goal, I can justify the tattoo I've been wanting of a stack of books for myself next Christmas.

Key:
Read
Already on my "to read" list
On my "to read" list now!

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6 The Bible - Various Authors & Editors

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34 Emma -Jane Austen

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

36 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Inferno - Dante

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo