Not too bad, really.

I am writing this while waiting on hold for someone to pick up the phone at the doctor's office. My life is just so hectic, this is the only free time I've had for awhile! (If it can be called that!)

February has actually gone better than I thought it would. I have surprised myself and my ability to achieve.

Goal 1- Establish a daily exercise program: I am doing great with this. I'm not exercising daily, but I am at least 3 times a week, if not more. So, that's a huge improvement, since I was not exercising at all before this month!! And, I can see it effecting my body, too. My shape is better, and my energy is much more steady throughout the day. Also, it's keeping 'the crazies' at bay, which is nice. Oh, the benefits of a good work out!!

Goal 2- Foot zoning study/practice: No go. But, the month isn't over yet!! I'll get it going.

Goal 3- Be more aware of what I eat: This is going great!! I've found that when I pay attention to what my body is craving, and stop eating when I am satisfied, I crave foods that are better for me. Once in awhile I am still craving junk food. But, once in awhile is okay with me!! It was the all the time eating junk that was not working!

So, that's it!! I have to say, I've been really impressed with the recent posts by all you ladies. You are in inspiration to me.

Tiff S.

This week...

First of all, Welcome Diana!
Second, sorry I've been slacking in posting...

In keeping w/ Tiffany's "no future in the past" statement... I am not going to beat myself up about the past few weeks. Kezia's sleeping is slowly improving - and so is my ability to get things done, so I am really looking forward to this next week. Here's what I'm focusing on:

BED ON TIME! How come I still can't get to bed before 11pm even when she hasn't been sleeping well?? This is a goal I just need to do. I need to head to bed at 10pm so I can BE trying to sleep by 10:30.

ROUTINES, ROUTINES, ROUTINES: So my routines are, well... far from routine right now. I am still incorporating much of them, but it doesn't happen efficiently and definitely not before the kids get up. My night & morning routines are so important. I am going to try and do most of my night routine right after dinner from now on. I'm just too beat after we get them down & all I want to do is relax. Hopefully that will help. And if I wake up more than twice in the night, I am still going to try & get up, but I'm not going to stress about it if I'm too beat. I'm going to try harder to get my afternoon nap, though.

Feb goals:
1. Seek God early every morning - before the kids get up.
Not happening well, but truly hope to get to bed earlier this week and so I can get up before the kids do & get in my personal study. PLAN B, though is that I still do my personal study - just later.
2. My room cleaned & bed make before breakfast.
Yeahh... not so good. Going to focus on this!!
3. Date night at least twice a month.
We've been once this month - Stake Dance (it actually was really fun!) and hope to have another date this month (mom - I need to e-mail you about this)
4. Home Blessing Hour once/week
The past couple weeks have been pretty mediocre. I haven't gotten the deep cleaning in that I'd like. I'm planning on this for Tuesday morning.
5. Stop eating 2 hrs before bed.
So-so. I'd say I'm over 50% for this, but need to do better. (Also, I need to double-back & work harder on the water thing, too)
6. Run 5 miles by end of February - maintain & improve time
Yeah! I went 6 miles last week & felt pretty good about it. Hope to get to 6.5 this week. Would like to improve my time to closer to 9 min/miles though.
7. Once a week - pamper night - yoga, face mask, nails, etc.
Did a mini-pamper this week - just my nails, but hope to do this Tuesday night this week.

My daily Chart of Progress

Finally I kept up my chart this week! Yea! Here it is:

A Good Reminder

I renewed my temple reccommend on Sunday. Things went well. I passed. However, there was a problem with the recommend itself; the top layer of one edge was peeled off a little leaving a slightly ragged edge. I felt like asking for a new one so it would be perfect, but then I thought, "No, this will be a good reminder for the next two years--progress not perfection. The recommend is still 100% acceptable at the temple--flaws and all--and so am I." So now, I'm glad I have the recommend I do. It's a good reminder that the Lord doesn't expect me to "perfect" to enter His holy house, only "worthy," and that is something I can do--ragged edges and all.

Feb. 7-13

OK, so I do not want to step on the scales because I don't want to know what it says.  Therefore, I am counting calories for a past time today.

Last week if I erase the first 3 days because of neck pain I did make some progress so I will not CTR (Count the right things)
- I bought a another holiday mug so I could do better on my water
I exercised 3 times

I took breaks every hour or so (walk around, do a few minutes of aerobics and stretching then did something fun for a few minutes)

I worked on QB (Quicken budget summaries) 4 times!

That's about it!
Love you all.
Thanks for posting and cheering and inspiring
Thanks Heidi, for creating such a positive space in the world!

A new day - Becka

Well, a new day has dawned at the Thomas household and I'm not sure it's going to be a good thing or bad thing. Let me go back a little to explain.

As most of you know I have an auto immune disease called Behcet's disease. I have been without insurance for a long time and have had a really hard time getting medicine. I also have some really challenging kids and taking care of them has always been my number one priority not myself. I have also been homeschooling for the past year because the way my kids learn doesn't work well with the public school system. My six year old also has Aspergers which makes homeschooling him even more challenging.

A few weeks ago my husband and I were talking about what we could do to take better care of my health. One of the things we talked about is putting our youngest (Clara) in Kindergarten next year instead of homeschooling her. She doesn't have any of the same problems that our other kids have and we both think she would thrive in school. I told him I wanted to check out some local charter schools before I put her into our local school. We have three here in Fort Collins and were really impressed with the Arts and Knowledge charter school. When we went to their open house we realized that they would not only be great for Clara but might be really good for all of our kids. It's a charter school that emphasizes Arts. They have an extra long school day and 2 more weeks of school a year but almost no homework and almost everything is learned through art.

They actually had openings for our older kids right now and after carefully praying about it and talking it over with all the kids we decided to put them in right now instead of waiting until next year.

Now the reason I went on this whole rant is because my goal this year is to get up every morning. Well, I guess I'm not going to have much of a choice now. The hope is that I will be able to heal my body by having the time during the day to myself. I will also say that the whole reason that was my goal is so that I could be a better home school mom. I'm feeling a bit like a failure even though Dave constantly tells me that I'm not. And who knows, this may not work out at all but I feel like I at least need to try.

So, as of next week I won't be a home school mom anymore, at least not for now. I know I need to sit down this week and come up with some current goals to help me to be the best charter school mom I can be. So, I'll be back on soon hopefully with more info on my new goals. I know no matter what they are you'll support me in them.

Where to begin...?

Hmmm... I'm not quite sure where to begin. I had the best of intentions before the new year began but they all fell to the wayside. :( The good news is, there's never been a better time than now and I hopefully only have UP to go.

Here's a quick thought that may be encouraging. When I visited Adam in L.A., there was a guy I talked to in the LONG line waiting to check my bag in. He was friendly and super successful in real estate and investments. He said something I really loved, are you ready??? Okay, here goes: "There is no future in the past." That's it. The great thing about setting goals is the feeling of accomplishment and being able to track progress. However, I think we can all agree by tracking our progress (or lack of it sometimes), we can get caught up in what we haven't accomplished and feel pretty crappy which can turn into a downward spiral.

Anyways, here are just a few goals I'm going to try and focus on over through the rest of February:

• Focus my prayers on others instead of myself and my problems (I do that a lot.)
• Surprise Adam whether it's putting away his laundry for him, offering a back rub, making a nice meal, etc.
• Organize office and file loose papers
• Read one chapter of Get Motivated every other day

Okay, there you have it. I'm not sure I want to reach higher for the moment since this is already a touching the ceiling kind of a stretch. :)

Thanks for contributing to this blog. You all inspire me.

Love ya!

Tiff

Sleep...

Remember at the beginning of this when I said that really all my goals are for naught if I don't get the sleep I need? My motivation goes down the toilet. I get emotional at the dumbest things. In general, I am not myself. And right now, I do not feel like myself. Heidi - are you in there somewhere?
When Kezia was under a month old, she was sleeping longer than she is right now. I'm talking 3-4 times a night I am up with her. I have tried giving her the binki, I've tried feeding her, I've given her Tylonol in case she's teething, I've let her cry it out, I've tried putting her of a better schedule. Still...she has maybe one good night a week & the rest I am up multiple times with her.
The result?
-I am currently still in my pajamas
-My home is not very clean. I have laundry that needs to be folded, dishes put away, the girls' bedroom is a mess, the basement is a disaster.
-I am highly emotional. I cry at things I would probably normally laugh at.
-I do not get up for personal study & it usually gets pushed to the end of my 'to-do' list
-I am a grouchy mom & wife
-I do not get enough exercise

O.K. - I can't completely blame the lack of sleep for all my problems. I do need to be accountable here because it is still my choice.
I'm sorry to be such a downer on here, but that's where I'm at w/ my goals the past week or two. I've had a few good moments, too, but I'm not where I would like to me.
Don't let me set-back mess you up though! Please post your updates. I am hoping you all are having great success!

Another step backwards

I'm feeling bloated this morning.  Maybe it was the twice baked potato with last nights meal...sigh, back to the drawing board.

 Sometimes there are so many conflicting nutritional voices. One is the straight cereal diet (it seemed to work for us), another says NO MILK and AVOID GRAINS!

Maybe it's back to the prayer board...

January, February

January was decidedly a success. Ups and downs, but overall I feel a definite sense of progress and excitement over goal setting. It's maybe the first time in my life I've ever taken an interest in goal setting at all, and I am loving it!

I'll start with my joke of the week this time:

One summer evening during a violent thunderstorm a mother was tucking her small boy into bed. She was about to turn off the light when he asked with a tremor in his voice, "Mommy, will you sleep with me tonight?" The mother smiled and gave him a reassuring hug.

"I can't dear," she said. "I have to sleep in Daddy's room."

A long silence was broken at last by his shaky little voice:
"The big sissy."


February I've decided to focus on physical goals.

1-Establish daily exercise program - I'm trying to make this all about getting healthy, instead of about losing weight!

I've got a certification in something called Foot Zonology, a holistic healing method using the signal system on the feet to heal the body. I haven't been doing it for some time, because of various factors in my life, including caring for small children! Goal #2 is - set up and keep a Foot Zoning schedule and study schedule, to get back into 'zoning'.

3- I'm also into "Intuitive Eating". (an excellent book by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch, by the way!) It's kinda the opposite of dieting. It's all about listening to your body and giving it what it wants. One of the key components of eating this way is that you cannot limit yourself at all. You eat what you want when you want it, and as much as you want. I know that sounds crazy, and you have to read the book to understand why it works for weight control, but it does! Anyway, I wanted to set an eating goal, but that's hard to do when you're not limiting yourself at all. So....goal #3 is to be more aware of what I am putting into my body. I'm not just going to put food in my face. I'm going to think about what it is I am eating, how it will make me feel, how I am feeling while I'm eating, etc...

Sorry I'm so long winded! This month should be an interesting one. Fitness is a hard thing for me!! Wish me luck...

-Tiffany S.

Progress doesn't happen in a perfectly straight, unwavering line

I cut up one of my FIRST-AID FOR FEELINGS books and made notes for Dan's lunches.

I liked the quote on this one "Progress doesn't happen in a perfectly straight, uwavering line...there are some periods of peace and some periods of serious war." - Colleen C. Harrison. pg. 82

Well, I'm about to "wage war" on a few more of my vices. I hope they will give up the fight by the end of the year. I now plan to:
* Really listen more when Dan talks (instead of just impatiently waiting for my turn)
* spend 10 minutes a day on finances. downloading to quicken etc. (instead of avoiding them for 3 weeks and not remembering exactly WHY I spent so much at Walmart!)
* Evaluate my medication/natural suppliments to find the right balance for my body (I am working with Karen Shaw with this one.)

I have added them to the excell page I have in my planner.  I thought I'd check it off each night.  That just isn't happening but even if I review it and make check marks 3x a week I think it will be worth it.

So, there you have it. 
A slice of my life for this day in the year 2010.
Love,
Patricia