kapachino

Category: me

  • self-care resolutions chart

    So after I wrote this post last week about how far my reality falls from my ideal in the area of self-care, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. My original intention was to incorporate these things into my monthly goals for next year, but I was inspired so I decided to do something about it right away.

    Most of the changes I needed to make were small and all I really needed to do was get them incorporated into my routine. To that end, I made myself a self-care resolutions chart.

    chart

    Right now I have it hung on a clipboard that’s on our refrigerator, and I glace at it a few times a day to make sure I’m not forgetting anything. I put check marks where I’ve completed a task and x’s when I don’t. I know I won’t have to keep using this forever, but until it becomes habit I am very motivated to fill it out.

    There are three things on the list that are big changes. Daily Bible study, family dinner, and exercise. So far I have made the first two happen (although it’s only been half a week). In order to have some spiritual alone time I’ve had to move my wake-up time back thirty minutes. It’s tough to wake up at 4:30 but I go to bed super early so I don’t notice the difference after I’ve had my coffee, and it’s a much better way to start the day. (More about this soon.)

    As for family dinner, it’s really just a matter of planning ahead. Over the weekend I picked out four meals that are extremely quick and easy to make and we did the grocery shopping. If I leave work on time I get home anywhere from 5 to 5:30 and I’m cooking by 6, we eat by 6:30. If a meal takes longer than thirty minutes to make it has to get saved for the weekend because it’s just not happening after work.

    The last big change is exercise, and truly right now I’m stumped as to how on earth I’m going to make this a regular thing. I already wake up at 4:30, and after dinner it’s time to shower and get ready for bed. I go to sleep at the same time as Meredith which is around 8 or 8:30. I could do some kind of workout on the weekend, but once a week isn’t optimal (although I know it’s better than nothing). It’s sad but this might have to be saved for when I’m at a different point in my life.

    Anyway, the resolutions chart has been working for me so I wanted to make it available to you if you think it’s something you could use. Find it here on Google Docs, then just save a copy and edit away. I don’t have a reward system in place at the moment (nerd alert: the feeling of accomplishment & how much better I feel about myself is reward enough for me) but you could totally do that.

    Note: I have a post coming about how I use essential oils for health. Also note that I am not currently eating all that healthy but I haven’t mentally worked up to that change yet so it’s still to come. :)

  • self-care list: ideal v. actual

    In general I consider myself a healthy person, but every day I think about all the things I should be doing to take care of myself and then I knowingly fail to do them. So even though I’m still healthy, I’m not actively pursuing health. Let’s have a couple of lists to illustrate.

    Things I have every intention of doing to take care of myself:

    1. Get 7-8 hours of sleep each night

    2. Brush my teeth in the morning and at night

    3. Floss daily

    4. Morning and evening facial skin care regimen including cleanser, toner, moisturizer, & eye cream

    5. Weekly facial exfoliation

    6. Body moisturizer daily

    7. Extra sunscreen daily

    8. Drink a bunch of water every day

    9. Take calcium twice a day and multivitamin once a day

    10. Apply essential oils daily and use extra when I feel sick

    11. Eat healthy – less sweets, less carbs, more vegetables & fruit

    12. Eat way less meat

    13. Exercise at least three times a week

    14. Wake up early enough to have 10-15 minutes of spiritual time

    15. Use all natural personal care products

    What I actually do:

    1. Get 9-10 hours of sleep each night (I’m good at sleep)

    2. Brush my teeth every night and a few times a week in the morning when I remember

    3. Get psyched up to start flossing daily a few times a year and make it less than a week before giving up

    4. Wash and moisturize my face during/after I shower, which is about every other day, and frequently sleep with makeup on

    5. Monthly(?) facial exfoliation

    6. Moisturize my arms and legs after I shower on the weekends

    7. Rely on the sunscreen in my mineral powder foundation

    8. Drink hardly any water, don’t drink anything else either though

    9. Take calcium once a week when I remember, forget that I should be taking a multivitamin

    10. Apply essential oils randomly

    11. Eat whatever I want

    12. See above

    13. Never exercise

    14. Wake up just in time to get ready and get out the door

    15. Use mostly all natural personal care products

    So yeah…that’s kind of embarrassing. But as I head into the new year and think about goals (one of my favorite things to think about) this stuff will definitely be up for consideration.

    What’s on your ideal self-care list? Tell me, so I can make my goals even loftier.

  • Friday Things

    I’m home today because last night, after a lovely evening at my in-laws’ house for dinner where I got to read uninterrupted for something like thirty minutes and Meredith played outside, and after she fell asleep all cuddled up to me in bed, Meredith lost her dinner four times all over the sheets, herself, and me. Then this morning after a 3:30 a.m. nursing session she repeated the experience. Something new for the baby book! Meredith’s first vomit!

    ***

    In the blog revamp arena, I’ve been going back through my archives from the beginning to edit and update old posts. A few thoughts:

    >I like me from 5 years ago. And I miss my friends & roommates from that time a LOT.

    >It’s soooo weird to read about about David as my boyfriend. Feels like we’ve been married forEVER.

    >I would write posts with, like, one sentence in them. Obviously this was before Twitter.

    >The focus of my writing has changed a ton, just like I have changed. I like where it’s headed now, but back then I used to put more effort into writing about everyday stuff. Sometimes it was boring, but sometimes it was really funny or insightful.

    Also, I’m super excited that I hooked my brother, the actual web designer, into coming over in a couple weeks to redo my design. Either he felt guilty when he read my last post, or he shuddered to think about the outcome of me designing my own blog. Anyway, it isn’t going to happen unless I’m there in person supervising and forcing him to work, so I got him on the calendar!

    ***

    Things I’m succeeding at lately: work (i.e. being a great nurse and not getting overwhelmed there), getting lots of sleep, brainstorming creative ideas, keeping in touch with friends, spending time with family, not spending extra money even though I really really want to, reading, keeping the house basically clean and decluttered.

    Things that aren’t going so well: cooking, carving out child-free time with David, finding time to work on anything creative, social media, taking pictures, eating healthy, any kind of exercising, my spiritual discipline.

    ***

    Meredith is taking an epic nap right now so maybe I can use what’s left of it to AT LEAST do a little something fun.

  • Wish List

    I keep a fairly extensive universal wish list on Amazon. Anything I see or think of that I want I add to the list, and then periodically I’ll go through it to see if my desires or needs have changed, and I’ll do some deleting. This process works really well to help me save money and buy less stuff that I don’t need. Plus it’s kind of fun – like online shopping without actually spending money.

    But…it’s not exactly like shopping, because I don’t get the stuff. And we’re on a tight budget these days, so lately my wish list has been growing. If we had the funds, here are some things I would be buying right away.

    1. Adobe Photoshop Elements. My old copy of PSE isn’t compatible with my new computer, and I’d really love an updated version so I can do different stuff with my photos for Project Life. Right now I’m using pixlr.com as a free online alternative, but the quality is nowhere near as good.

    2. New Balance Minimus running shoes. I’ve been running consistently for a month now, and I’m discovering that my body is much different than it was pre-pregnancy. I wouldn’t say I have a lot of pain, but I do notice stiff and creaky joints when I run now, and I never felt that before. I’ve heard amazing things about these shoes, and I’m dying to give them a try. I think I’ll complete C25k, sign up for and run a race, and then reward myself with these.

    3. Sheet set. We have one set of sheets that fits our bed, and the fitted has a big tear in the middle of it. I would love to get a pretty set like this, but in reality we’ll probably end up settling for something much cheaper. And in reality reality we will probably just tolerate our torn set for a lot longer.

    4. Coffee syrups. We’ve already talked about how addicted to coffee I am. I can’t drink it straight though, I unfortunately need some cream and sugar. I have a serious distaste for manufactured creamers so I usually use milk. I really want to branch out into delicious, flavored syrups to take it up a notch.

    5. Timex Weekender watch. I could really stand to wear a watch at work because there are no clocks in the patient rooms (so annoying), but I don’t because the only one I have is a loose fancy silver one. This pink one is casual, fun, and will fit snugly on my arm.

    1.. Instax mini. Oh my goodness, this would be so cool to have for Project Life.

    2. Essential oils. I’m totally sold on using these for health reasons. They’re expensive, but a little goes a loooong way. I actually have some money set aside right now and am hopefully going to make the purchase sometime next month.

    3. Project Life page protectors. I could really use this design of page protectors for my inserts.

    4. Scrubs. I’m still wearing the sets that I bought at my higher weight after I had the baby, and they are looking pretty baggy and frumpy. I just hate spending money on scrubs though.

    5. Printer. Our printer technically works, but only if someone pushes down very hard on one corner due to some hardware being broken. If you don’t push down it won’t engage. Printing is a two person job and way too annoying to bother with.

    So, what’s on your wish list? How do you go about making discretionary purchases? These are all things that would be really useful to me, but not essential. My plan is to focus on one purchase at a time. I’ll put the money for that item in savings (or pull out the cash and hide it away) and keep it there until the beginning of the next month when we get paid again. If we don’t need the money before then, I’ll know we can afford the purchase and I’ll take the plunge. I think it’ll work!

  • On Giving Up Coffee, and Taking It Up Again

    Image from jessicaNdesign’s Etsy shop. And now I need these spoons.

    So I gave up coffee for Lent, and it was beyond difficult, and now I’m drinking it again, and things are again fantastic. That is the short version. Now for the full story:

    I used to hate coffee. I thought it was too bitter and I just couldn’t get it down. I didn’t really have a need for extra caffeine for a long time, and I was proud of that. Water and good sleeping habits saw me through.

    Then I became a nurse. My shift began at 6:45 a.m. and I was having to wake up at 4:30 a.m. to get there on time. I still drank lots of water and went to bed super early, but even though I was a morning person, I wasn’t THAT much of a morning person. The main thing that caused me to seek “help” was the fact that I was routinely falling asleep while driving to work, followed by a complete lack of energy for the first half of my shift.

    It was my dad who encouraged me to try coffee. I continued to refuse, because ew, until things got desperate. I started with the free stuff they had at work, dumping in the cream and sugar. I forced it down and noticed an immediate effect. It was magical!

    Over time I branched out. The first step was to get my own brewer at home so I could have my cup when I first woke up. I discovered that the free stuff at work was actually crap. At this point I still didn’t like coffee, but I didn’t hate it either. It was tolerable. But I kept drinking it, and after awhile I noticed that I looked forward to it. Sometimes the thought of it was enough to get me out of bed in the morning, or even into bed at night.

    By the time I graduated to French Press I was a full-blown coffee lover. I had the equivalent of two cups every morning and then I was good to go for the rest of the day. This is how it went until I got pregnant, when I somehow managed to quit (or only have an occasional cup) until my third trimester when I took it up again. I don’t even remember how I got through that, but probably it had something to do with the fact that my stomach was very sensitive and coffee irritated it more, along with the motivating factor of the health of my baby.

    This year I decided to give up coffee for Lent out of solidarity with my husband, who was giving up sodas. I did no weaning beforehand, and the first few days were seriously miserable. Pounding headaches, sleepy all the time, no energy, and just an all around feeling of hopelessness. I had obsessive thoughts about it – I’m not exaggerating. I took Excedrin, then had to wean off that. I found out just how dependent on the substance I had become.

    I drank coffee on Sundays because it’s the traditional feast day during Lent, and every Monday I had to “come off” it again. By the end of the 40 days I had gotten somewhat used to the lack of caffeine – no more headaches, not quite as tired, feeling more like my normal self – but I never once told myself that I was giving it up for good.

    Yeah, I don’t really like being so dependent on something, and I’m sure I might be a little bit “healthier” without coffee, but I don’t think it’s really that bad for me and I know for SURE that I am a better person when I drink it. This week I have had so much energy! I am going above and beyond at work again. I’m way more on top of things which I believe is safer and nicer for my patients. Then when I come home I still have energy to devote to my family. I am happier, more optimistic, and more productive.

    I fully admit that I am addicted to coffee. But you know what? I don’t care. It’s worth it.