Step Away From the Cake

 Nothing good ever comes from that. I have noticed a distinct pattern with my sleep though. During the week I'm busy and moving and get lots of activity, both physical and mental, and generally sleep like a log. I tend to wake around 3 or 4 am but that's after having slept really well all night. But on days when I just don't do as much (weekends) I just don't sleep well. Yesterday I didn't do a whole lot and last night was terrible. I went to bed around 8:30, normal for me, and read until almost 9:30, again normal. But then I could not go to sleep. Looked at the clock at 10:30, 11:30, bleh.....Woke up at 2 am then 3 am. Finally at 4:45 I just decided to get up. I wasn't sleeping well and there are things I can do once I get up. So here I am.  I realized yesterday that I have created a situation with the gym that is keeping me away from it. I hired a personal trainer because I thought it would be motivating and get me into the habit of going. I was wrong. I'm

 I don't feel like an adult often. I mean I do, but not really. I generally feel like I'm an imposter. I know, imposter syndrome, but in this case it's true. I said a while back that being an adult is making a series of decisions you are just not qualified to make. And I generally feel that way. I know that I have to act like I know what I'm doing and plow ahead, but inside I generally don't know what I'm doing. Luckily, most of the time things work out okay so that's good.  Thanks to YNAB I have gotten my financial situation in order. I have gone from living paycheck to paycheck to not even looking at my bank balance because I know where all my money is. I have a couple of savings accounts with very healthy balances. But now I'm looking for more. Let me back up a minute.  I have always said that I would never retire completely because I get bored just sitting around the house. And while that is true, I think part of that came from the fact that I never

 They are my Thursdays because Thursday is the last day of the school week. And they are hard. I did not get a lot of my habits done last night. It's my night to stay late at school and then I had to talk to admin and that made it even later, so I didn't get home until almost 6pm. Not really late in the overall scheme of things, but late enough to make me really tired. So I didn't get most of my habit tracking list done yesterday. And the truth is, I'm okay with that because I'm aiming for progress not perfection. I don't have to do it every day, I have to do it more often than not. So I'm good with that.  I don't really have anything else to say, I did have an issue with a student today but I don't really want to go into it here. So I guess we'll call this a post. 

 So for 2 days I have completed all the tasks on my habit tracker. Not a huge thing, but definitely a step in the right direction. I had gotten away from habit trackers years ago because they became a source of disappointment and a chance to beat myself up. I felt that if I didn't do everything on it every day I was somehow not a good person. I have since learned that is not true and I think my habit tracker has evolved. The things I have on it are things I want to do on a regular basis; stretching, reading, writing. These things are all good for my mental health and that really is the point. I fully realize that I will not become some magic person if I do these things for X number of days. I also realize that if I do these things on a regular basis it will help make me happy. Last night I was running a little later than normal. I came home and went for a walk with Mavy. It looked like he might want to do the canal and I was okay with that if he did. I figured some of my habits wou

I started my stretching challenge on Sunday and I think I'm going to like it a lot. We did hamstrings and OMG was it hard. I could hardly get into the positions but that's okay. I have a lot of room for improvement. I have a rather long list on my habit tracker and I was a little concerned that it would discourage me, seeing such a long list, But it's not. I went around last night knocking things off that list one by one. I think it will work because right now I have to be very intentional to make sure I get things done. Once these habits set in, it will be a lot easier to keep them going. Shoot, look how easy it was to fit 10 minutes of journaling in every day. I made that a habit pretty quickly.  My current habit tracker list:  a.m. stretch 20 mins reading Blogging/writing Science of stretching 7,500 steps - had to walk around the pool a few times to get this done 3 days working out Check CTY Review Weekly Focus Mundane Task - this week's weekly focus assignment None

 I hate to say that because this is not like I used to be where I would go off the rails before a new start. It used to be that I would pig out on junk food, do absolutely nothing, and generally do all the things I was planning on stopping the few days before a 'new start'. I am not like that any longer. Yesterday I took a long walk with Mavy. I ate very well all day. I did push my bedtime a tiny bit but then I slept in this morning so it all balances out. So things are not like they used to be I just like to have a solid starting place. I do this in school too so I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing.  So today self care becomes the focus of my days. I will take walks as long as possible with Mavy. I will work very, very hard to get my steps in. I will go to bed on time and get some good sleep. I will eat well and nourish my body. I will go to the gym at least 3 times per week to work my body. I will, most importantly, reduce the value I place on rest and relaxati