February Goals 2016

Posted: February 1, 2016 | Author: Ally Fiesta | Filed under: Goals, Hula Hoop, Instagram, Journal | Tags: #FMSPhotoraphy, #PlanWithMeChallenge, #RockYourHandwriting, bullet journal, hula hoop, infinite circles, Virtual Assistant, writing | 2 Comments »

Excellent month in January on the goals, but one of the most emotionally draining!

“A year from now you may wish you had started today.” ― Karen Lamb

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Review of my goals for last month:

Journal twice a day: HALFWAY I missed about 2 days but every day I had much on my mind so I poured out every night. I had a heavy heart when I went to bed and it felt so good to release onto paper. I also have become obsessed with the Bullet Journal community that I was also making quote inspired spreads. Two days of not journaling – not bad. Journaling helped me not only stick with my goals but to adjust them so I could fit them in.

Track meals’ nutrition: DONE! I keep a food log in my journal – some days I would move it to SparkPeople’s mobile food tracker. I would like to find a better tracker. I used to use FitBit but I gave my tracker to my mom. Today she told me she lost it. (“THANKS MAMI!”) Let me know if you are using a tracker that you like on your smartphone. I know their are a bajillion. Most of my friends like FitnessPal. It is always nice to have friends to keep me accountable.

Post 3 times a week: NOPE. I experienced personal grief for a cultural icon halfway through the month – then complete shock as my best friend’s son passed away. I cried for about two days and it was the first week of school. I had mentioned earlier that I have tried to batch post on the weekends but there was much to do with a memorial. It was hard for me to write just for the blog, but I decided to fall back on making writing for 30 minutes a day to be a goal then pull that writing on the blog.

30/30 hula hoop challenge: DONE! I made hula hooping a part of my daily affirmations in the morning instead of listening to music. I did not post a single video/image to my instagram. I like my account to look polished as possible so I created a 2nd account for challenges but I am already managing 3 different instagram accounts. I decided to set a day aside for each of my accounts so I can plan. There is not a tool that posts directly to instagram AND posts hashtags so this is sticky for me. Either way, I hooped 30 minutes a day.

January Yoga Challenge: Nope. Completely dropped the ball on this.

Now I do have goals for February!

1. Write 30 minutes a day: I learned how to use DeskPM. I will be pulling from blog ideas I have free written and use those as prompts. I am also using prompts from Blogher. I currently have pending posts that require polishing.

2. #BeFit workouts: These are quick 10 minute work outs that I am joining in with #SweatPink. So far they have been intense so I make sure to warm up by jogging or marching in place, then do a 10 minute cool down and stretching. I will be posting a review of these work outs and several other products later on this month. There will be a giveaway so WATCH THIS SPACE!

3. #RockYourHandWriting, #PlanWithMeChallenge, #FMSPhotography: These are Instagram challenge that I am excited about. I enjoy writing creatively. The reason I have kept a journal since I was 9 years old is because my mom said my handwriting looked like “spiders dancing” so she gave me a pink plastic cover journal so I could practice. Lettering is my favorite hobby now. I even pulled out my watercolors so I can start to use them for quotes. Not to mention I spent 3 hours with my planner getting ready for February. Then I wanted to a popular photo challenge. I am lumping these together because they fall under a similar group but are different. I find it even more challenging to create an image that all of the challenges could be in.

4. Infinite Circles Challenge: I am doing this in the Infinite Circles Community Facebook page. I rarely EVER post videos of myself hula hooping so this one is for Facebook. I made a fun spread. I hope I win a polypro hoop from Raye of Rainn!

#ICChallenge spread in my bullet journal

5. Virtual Assistant Website: I bought a domain so I can start working on other virtual assistant projects. I have several clients currently but not enough work to save for some goals I have this summer. I have several mentors who have motivated me to creative a website so I can showcase what I can do. Exciting, that will be completed by the end of the month. I have over a decade of executive level administrative support with a focus on accounting. Virtual assistant freelance work is perfect for me since I’m always on the go but never far from WiFi.

Did you accomplished your goals from January? Have you ever used the Bullet Journal method before? What are your plans for February?

How to start off on a slack line

Posted: October 5, 2015 | Author: Ally Fiesta | Filed under: Active Life, Dallas Outdoors | Tags: Harry S. Moss, hula hoop, parks, Slackline Sunday, snapchat | 10 Comments »

Learning how to balance on a slack line has never been something I’ve been interested in before since I worry about falling off anything that is not attached to the ground! However, I had a free Sunday afternoon and was invited to bring my hula hoops out & learn how balance on slack line a couple of weeks ago!

I really just came out to hula hoop at one of my favorite parks and tried this out. I got across completely once and then balanced on a higher and longer slack line. I’m not worried about falling – look I’m not that far off the ground. I was worried about falling at a strange angle. The slack lines are not line walking across a roof, there is lots of swaying involved so I did not want to attempt to walk across. I kept wanting to just run across but that didn’t work.

Learning to walk a slackline can become a total obsession! http://ctt.ec/af38r+

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Here are tips when you start to learn to walk on a slackline from my experience that day:

One foot at a time. I would stand there with no way of moving forward because I was about to fall. I was told to just keep one foot on the line then move the other one up – see picture below.
Look straight ahead. As much as I wanted to look where my feet were, looking forward helped my balance. That is how I got straight across.
Start a bit from the edges. I wanted to stand on the edge of the line, however, the higher lines do not have this same stand and standing there also tears up the stand itself. The good part is that you don’t start off thinking it is going to be easy. Yeah, the entire slack line is going to be unsteady at first.
Shoes or not shoes? I did WAY better with no shoes. In the picture below I had shoes but eventually took them off. I even like to hula hoop in nature with no shoes – pending it is NOT a dog park! I should probably experiment more with this.
I am going to say keep trying, I was really exhausted when I got on the higher slackline but my friend was OBSESSED with going back and forth.

Learning how to balance on a slack line for the very first time! (photo credit: Katsu Nakayama

I ended up having instruction on how to balance on the longer, higher slack lines from yogi, Woni, and was able to work through that.

Hope there are more of these as the weather is no longer so hot AF.

The video was taken from my snapchat account. I like to string together stories and you can join in on my daily adventures by typing in my user name: AllyFiesta or taking a picture of my snapcode.

About to head into study mode. Join me on snapchat! AllyFiesta or you can take a snap of this funny video. pic.twitter.com/mOsSMTgtaJ

— Ally Fiesta (@AllyFiesta) October 4, 2015

Have you ever wanted to learn a circus art before? Let me know if you have any awesome tips for slacklining! Want to join in? There will be another Slackline Sunday on October 11, details on Facebook.