Category: me

midday walks

I’ve decided to try and let the Fitbit motivate me again. I wear it for work because we get insurance benefits if we average 5,000 steps per day (which I do), but I rarely hit my 10,000 step goal no matter how many challenges I join. Lately my workouts have been only yoga and weight lifting, so I don’t get “credit” for those. (Although I do plan on adding running back into the mix once I get a little more used to the weights.)

I love the idea of taking a long walk after dinner. Going by myself and listening to a podcast or audiobook would be such a treat, although that particular set of circumstances won’t be happening anytime soon. I would love to take the kids on a walk, even, but they only want to go to the park which is just a block away. So it’s hard to get a good evening walk in.

My solution, for now, is midday walks. We have not been all that busy at work lately, so it’s possible to leave the clinic for a bit. It’s about 2,000 steps to do a full loop around the hospital grounds. And even though it is scorching hot outside, inside it is like an icebox so I need about 2,000 steps to thaw.

August 12, 2015
LIGHT : june
I’m continuing on the fairly positive path I started on at the end of April regarding my journey with the word “light.” I’ve pretty well recovered emotionally from a rough couple of months before that, and now I just have to keep the over-achiever in me at bay.

When I look at each area of life that I’ve been focusing on – spiritual, emotional, physical, relationships, and creative, I see that there are a lot of positive things happening in each one, but also progress to be made. Right now I’m choosing to focus on the positive.

This month was a writing-heavy one, kind of like a mid-year reflection. It was a helpful exercise.

I looked back at the action items I wrote down a couple of months ago, and I was pleased that I had made some progress. I was also pleased that they still resonate with me, even though I acknowledge that I won’t be accomplishing as much as I expected.

I really liked the last couple of questions in this exercise; they asked what one specific action I’d take this month to move forward, and also what three things I’d like to accomplish before the end of the year.

What I did this month was to choose a mantra from a Bible verse that I can recite to myself constantly to bring the focus back to my word. 1 John 1:7 says, “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.” And my new mantra is walk in the light as he is in the light.

The three things I want to accomplish by the end of the year are:
1. Have a solid workout routine involving strength, running, and yoga.
2. Actually clear guest room of items to be donated.
3. More prayer: alone and with the kids.
Here are the monthly reflection cards for May and June:

Halfway through the year and I still feel very connected to my word!
June 29, 2015
LIGHT : may

The month of May has been so good to me as far as feeling lighter. It started out rough, but once I decided to change my attitude, refocus my priorities, and let some things go, everything turned around. Maybe partially coincidence, but I’m going with it!

spiritual

Recently I’ve benefitted a lot spiritually from my revamped morning routine, which I will be sharing more about next week. I now rarely miss my morning Bible study/prayer time and that makes a big difference. I just finished Beth Moore’s study “Stepping Up” about the Psalms of ascent. I really enjoyed it, and now I’m wondering what my next study will be. I am always working on praying more continually throughout my day and noticing the presence of God.

physical

After not exercising for a couple of months, I ran a 5k with a friend last weekend and I was pleased that at least that distance is still easy for me (although we ran quite slowly). I have a plan in mind for my fitness: run twice a week, yoga once a week, and super-slow strength training once a week. Here’s what I need to do to put that into practice: get some good headphones to run with (otherwise I will just skip the treadmill when the weather isn’t nice, which is often), research how to do super-slow strength training on my own, and find a yoga class to attend or figure out how to make it work for me at home.

emotional

Wow, so much better in this area. As long as I am getting decent sleep, I feel good. Meredith’s tantrums have really reduced lately, so obviously that helps, and I just read Love & Logic which gave me a good framework for discipline. There is still some uncertainty at work but I’ve been cross training and so I feel useful. Mostly, cutting back on my personal projects and saying no to new projects has helped me feel so much more in control and able to give attention to the things that need it (like my family). And actually, I have still been able to be quite productive on my own projects as well! I’ve been reading more, and finishing things, and keeping up with the blog and Project Life and none of it feels like a burden.

My current biggest emotional stressors are finances and getting enough sleep. Liam has been sick a lot lately (we are home sick today) so he doesn’t sleep well, and the kittens also disturb my sleep.

relationships

Our little family is in a good place right now. I’ve felt very connected to David recently, although more date nights are always welcome, and I still look forward to the day when the kids sleep in their own beds and we have some time together every night without them. One thing I want to work on is getting back in touch with my out-of-town best friends. We used to email and call regularly, but I let that go when I was so stressed.

creative

My creative life is going strong, and like I said above, it has actually benefitted from reducing the number of projects on my list. I finished my 2014 December album, am cross stitching for fun, keeping up with Project Life via the app, and I even took a second knitting class.

This month in the One Little Word class we were challenged to create cards with “I am” statements. I skipped the artsy part of the challenge (which was to use paint and mixed media to create the base of the cards) and just used some neutral patterned paper for mine, because I’m going for simple.

Here are my statements:

I am letting go of internal pressures + expectations for my sanity’s sake.

I am reading, knitting, cross-stitching, + blogging in my downtime.

I am still finding my footing with this whole motherhood thing.

I am slowly fitting running back into my life.

I am a work in progress. God’s not through with me yet (thankfully).

I am wondering what my job will look like a year from now.

I am loving: our new kitties, audiobooks, Birkenstocks, an extra cup of coffee each day.

I am realizing just how much I can’t do anything on my own.

I am oh so grateful for the good days, for family nearby, and my marriage.

And now it’s almost June and summer! I can’t say that I’m too excited about the oppressive heat and humidity that comes with it, but I do like the long days and reduced traffic. :)

May 29, 2015
LIGHT : april (one little word update)

I don’t have a whole lot to report about my journey with my word for the year except that for most of April I was definitely not feeling light. It was a super hard month of parenting and I wasn’t feeling proud of the way I handled the stress.

However, having the word “light” in the back of my mind allowed me to make the decision toward the end of the month to let some things go and release a lot of the pressure I put on myself. I had to get back to the root of why I chose my word: “light” is how I want to feel on the inside. Sure, I would love to completely declutter our house so the space is lighter. I’d love to get back to a frequent exercise regimen so I’m literally lighter. But with all I have going on right now worrying about those things (and others) was just stressing me out so that I wasn’t able to cope with challenges in motherhood, which is a priority.

So far the shift in mentality has been incredibly helpful, but I’ll report back. :)

This month’s prompt was to capture our word through photography. I simply went back through my photos from the year and chose nine that represented an aspect of what “light” means to me. (Also, to get this done I tried printing my photos on cardstock and they came out really terrible. Old me would have trashed them and ordered new ones, but new me is saying they’re good enough.)

Top left: this is one of my favorite recent photos of me and Meredith. It was a happy day and I want to focus on the good times we have.

Top middle: I love being outside and seeing the beautiful skies, and attending Texas Style Conference was such a positive and uplifting experience for me.

Top right: Liam is at such an adorable age and I want to soak it all in.

Middle left: Updating the kids’ room with string lights made me happy.

Middle middle: This is a photo of me at TxSC where I was really feeling lighthearted.

Middle right: I started a fun little cross stitch project, and as long as I don’t pressure myself to finish in a certain amount of time, this is the kind of thing I want to be able to do and enjoy.

Bottom left: Running is so good for me! I need to do more of it.

Bottom middle: Eating real food contributes to lightness of body and mind.

Bottom right: Our new kittens are so playful. They are what I didn’t even know I needed. :)

I debated giving up on the One Little Word project when I was deciding what to let go in my life right now, but it has been helpful for me so far and even keeping up with the prompts hasn’t been hard. If any of them are too involved I’ll just modify it and make it simple. I’m still really connecting with the word “light” and look forward to seeing how it changes for me.

May 6, 2015
my de-stressing regimen

It’s in my nature to be productive and to pursue many different interests. I truly enjoy so many different things, am highly goal-driven, and am constantly trying to achieve more, learn more, and be involved in more. For the most part I have felt like I have things balanced and under control.

However, I’m honestly struggling as a mother lately. I don’t blame the kids at all, but my reaction to the tantrums hasn’t been good, and I have less and less patience as we go. It got to the point where I felt like I couldn’t handle it at all, and I was considering going to counseling just so that I could move past the rough spots and enjoy motherhood again.

So far, though, I haven’t had to enter therapy because I am following some advice from my mother-in-law instead: to let some things go. As much as I believe in theory that we go through seasons in life, and this is the season where I’m a working mom with young children who are my priority, my thoughts and actions don’t always align with my values. I have about twenty different hobbies (okay, at least ten) and most of them aren’t kid-friendly. So I try to work on all of them in the extremely limited time that I have alone, and when I’m not working on them they are occupying far too much brain space. Even though I don’t realize I’m doing it, I’m putting pressure on myself to accomplish all these extra things.

For example, my monthly goals. I love making them and planning for them and doing them. But most of them aren’t really necessary. I have low-level stress about achieving them and I worry about trying to fit them in. So then if the kids are giving me trouble that stress is amplified and I lose my patience and get super frustrated because my goals are being thwarted. So I’m dropping them.

I’ve made an attitude change, but also some practical changes regarding my hobbies and lifestyle that have made this possible, and I wanted to go over those here.

Blogging

I’m definitely not giving up on the blog, but I’m changing my approach a bit. There are a few features that I’m keeping: book reports, Meredith lately, and Project Life spreads. On top of that, if I finish some sort of project I will probably post about it, and then I want to do weekly-ish personal updates with photos, like the around here or currently series. And that’s it, unless I have the extra time and inspiration.

Documenting

Memory-keeping projects are important to me but are definitely something I can simplify. Starting now, I’m going to be using the Project Life app for my spreads and then printing the 12×12 layout. I think this will save a ton of time and I can do it on-the-go instead of needing dedicated time alone at home. As for any extra albums, I’m going to finish 2014’s December album (since I’m in the middle of it) and then I’m thinking of just doing photobooks for this year.

Reading

I’m in a book club that meets monthly, so I’m going to start listening to the audiobook for that (and I’m cutting back on the number of podcasts I listen to). That way any reading I do is just for pleasure.

Home Life

David is taking on some extra chores that I normally do. I’m going to simplify my meal planning and cooking; I’m still using frugal real food meal plans, but instead of trying so many new recipes I’m going to rotate our favorites and do one new one every couple weeks or so. For now, I’m not going to worry about extra decluttering or decorating unless it just happens organically.

Miscellaneous

I’m reducing the number of days I’m willing to drive to the medical center to work. Other crafts (such as needlepoint, knitting, and sewing) are just going to happen when I have spare time and really feel in the mood. In general, I’m just going to say no more.

I haven’t been exercising lately, but I feel like that’s one thing that will actually improve my mood if I do more of it. So I’m going to make an effort to start running again 2-3 times per week, right after work. I also want to go on more dates with David.

So that’s my plan, and so far I’d say it’s working. I feel a lot less internal stress and pressure, which in turn increases my patience with the kids.

What are your strategies for when you feel like you can’t handle one area of your life? I’d love to know! Tell me I’m not the only one!

April 29, 2015