Step Away From the Cake

 My word for this year is  INTENTIONAL I want to live my life very intentionally. I don't want to be a victim of circumstances or allow my circumstances to dictate my life. I want to do the things that are important to me and that have meaning to me. I don't want to be a victim in any way shape or form. So let's dig into that word and really ferret out what it means to me and how I will manifest it in the coming year.  I want to be intentional in my actions and my time. Those things are closely related because my actions consume my time and my time is spent doing my actions. I want to be intentional in my thoughts. I don't want my thoughts to control me, I want to control my thoughts and I want those thoughts to have meaning and be intentional. I want to be intentional with my emotions. I want to feel things that are appropriate and fitting to the situation.  I want to be intentional in my actions. I don't want to spend a day or even an hour doing something that I d...

 It must have come in with a bit of a whimper last night because I feel asleep around 10  and didn't wake up until 1 am. That means it must have been pretty darn quiet. That's good. Don't need a ton of noise and light to herald the new year. That's just crazy. Besides Mavy was not handling it well last night at all. I'm just glad for the rain.  So here we are. So many people have their hopes pinned on a better 2022 than 2020 and 2021, I'm not so sure. It's going to be better for me because I'm upping my self-care game and that always makes things better. But otherwise, things will continue as normal. A habit I really want to work on for this year it taking a picture every single day. As I travel through my life I see some amazing things. I need to get better at documenting them.  INTENTION that is my word for 2022. INTENTION. My goal is really to live my life with intention. I don't believe that 'things' just happen to you. Almost every '...

 I now have a sign that hangs over my monitor that says "What are your intentions?  Start Forest"  That reminds me that every time I sit down at the computer I should be 'doing' something and only for a limited amount of time. It worked okay yesterday until I had my 3 hour Zoom. So I ended up on the computer for 3 hours, many times with nothing to do and so I ended up on Facebook. Not great but I did grow a couple of trees so that's good.  I feel like I'm finally on the mend. I don't really feel sick, though I still have a cough, and my knee is finally starting to feel normal. It's still not perfect, but so much better than it was. Which makes me wonder what will happen when we return to work. Will it get bad again because it's not getting as much rest? Oh well, can't let future possibilities ruin my now.  On another note, it's New Year's Eve. Definitely time to get this shitshow over with. I'm looking forward to it just to get out ...

 I feel like I've been in a holding pattern most of this break. I got sick last week and have had this head cold that kind of waxes and wanes. One day I'll feel pretty good, the next day bleh....One night I'll sleep really good, the next night bleh.... So it's been a weird week. I've also been eating too much because I have basically zero activity level. The highest steps I've gotten all week is a little over 5,000. Not great. And yes, I use my knee as an excuse but the truth is my knee feels better when I am up and moving, so that excuse is BS. I have been having dessert every night during this break. We had pie. We had cookies. We had little red velvet bites. Hubby keeps buying them and I keep eating them. Last night I finally had the presence of mind to say no when he asked. Finally!!!! But it really is the small steps.  But I really want to talk about habits. I discovered one yesterday that kind of opened my eyes to a bunch of others. I was reading through F...

 I'm going to post about my habits and habit chains for the next few post as I review them and try to tweak them.  Morning Routine (during break, things are a little different when working):  Get up Put robe on Pee Brush teeth Put on slippers Put on Chapstick Put on glasses Head out to kitchen These are all pretty neutral habits and really done on autopilot.  Blow my nose Empty the dishwasher Make 1st cup of coffee Heat and steam creamer Head to office These again are pretty neutral, they are just a series of things I do every morning.  Set up phone for mediation - I try very hard not to look at any notifications, check email, or look at Facebook but sometimes those things happen anyway.  So this is generally positive but can have negative parts because of checking social media.  Meditate for 10 minutes This is definitely a positive Turn on computer for blogging - this is another area where it can be dangerous. I try to go straight to the blogging site...

Well yesterday turned out nothing like I planned so I really didn't get much of anything done. We needed to run to Costco to stock up the snack cart for school. So we went there and then ran to school to drop everything off. Last week the hallway floors were supposed to be waxed, and they were. But we discovered that they also waxed the science rooms and the art room. Which means that everything had been removed from the rooms so they could get to the floor. No one was expecting that. So thankfully, Hubby grabbed some boys who were practicing to help and they moved all the tables and chairs back into he classrooms. But, we weren't expecting that and it ended up taking about 2 hours longer than we planned. By the time we got home it was almost 2pm and with our head colds we were kind of wiped out. It was the most physical activity we had done in over a week. So, yeah, yesterday didn't go as planned.  The good news is that we do not have Covid. Yay!!! We got the message yeste...

 So first thing is that I never got to the words part of yesterday's post. I was carrying on and on about my goals and my planner and all forms of other nonsense. I never talked about the words.  In my distant past, I used to have a word that guided my year. They would come from a variety of sources and I'm sure if I read through this blog from the beginning I would find some of those words. I decided to go back to that this year. Especially since my goals are all very personal and generally habit based, I think a word to remind me would be good this year. So there is a guy that has a 7-day mini course that helps you pick your word and I started doing that. Yesterday we made a list of words that spoke to us and I'm guessing as we proceed through the 7 days we will narrow that list down to one. I actually think I know what my word will be, but I'll play along. When I get my word I'm going to put it in a lot of places. At my desk here and at my desk at school. In my p...

  I have stated before, I've always been goal oriented. I need to see that I'm working towards something or what is the point of working? I think that is the problem I'm having now with the self-care group I'm in. He believes in goals but they are so nebulous and esoteric I have difficulty buying into them. This is one of his goals:  I want my body to be a direct reflection of my self-worth. Which is awesome and should definitely be true for everyone but honestly, what the hell does that mean?  How do I live that day to day? So, as reflected in previous posts, I've been working on some goals that will work for me for the year. I'm in a headspace where I'm really ready to improve myself and make progress. I think for the last few years I haven't been there. Or more correctly, I've been trying to follow this self-care guy so much that I lost track of me. All of the self-care or self-help gurus in the world won't do a damn thing if you don't fit...

 Reading my book, Atomic Habits, and yesterday he covered this thing called Habit Stacking. His premise was that if you stack a habit you want to have onto a habit you already have, it will stick easier. I thought about that for a bit and realized that is exactly what I have done without knowing it.  When we moved to Arizona one thing we had that we never had in Hawaii, was a dishwasher. Well, that requires a whole new set of habits to deal with a dishwasher. You have to get into the habit of loading it - that's not too hard since I clean up the kitchen after dinner every night. You have to have the habit of starting it - this is something that I still forget every once in a while. So I've been working on switching things up a little. Instead of cleaning up right after dinner and then having to remember to start it a couple of hours later before I go to bed, I've waited to clean up until just before I go to bed. This way I clean up and start the dishwasher right away. Boom,...