April 2014: Objectives and Reawakening

Spring has finally sprung in New York City and, with the input of vitamin D, blossoms, and early morning birdsong, my impetus for doing a little better each month has reawakened.

Usually I try to do a mixture of mental, cultural, and physical objectives to balance out making these only be about working on my body.  But I have been rubbish about doing exercise this year so far and making excuses for myself.  Thus I have only two objectives, and both of them are physical, but next month will be different.

1. Couch to 5k: I plan to do the whole six week program, but April is the month to kick start the plan.  I have completed week one already and my next run is tomorrow morning.  To complement this, however, I will need to make sure I am stretching and doing the old foam rolling trick.  This I will be doing in front of Parks & Rec, which is my new obsession.  I have to have something to justify how much I am watching that.
2. 100 Press Ups Challenge.  A friend issued the challenge to follow this program - she's going to have a party on Memorial Day where we all try to do 100 press ups.  Given that I give up around week 3 each time I do this, hopefully Memorial Day will be the spur to do this beyond halfway.

Happy spring!

New Year, Same Old

Last year, as with every resolution, ever, I managed to tail off somewhat regarding following my resolutions.  Nonetheless, I feel I got a lot out of my mini resolutions, and I'm rather keen to do some more this year.  This year I'm going two a month, and that's it.  

1. Eating - I'm going to try no refined carbs - potatoes, white pasta, white bread, white rice - for the next month, at least Monday-Friday.  Reasons?  I cannot pretend that it's not because I'd like to shift a bit of the timber I've gained over the festive period.  Nevertheless, I'm cutting these things out because they don't have the same nutritional (and happiness) oomph that one gets from cheese (protein, calcium), meat, sour cream, chocolate, coffee, wine, or any of the other things that I refuse to give up.  Something has to give, so why not those?  
2. Environmental - I'm doing the January Cure for the second time.  This time, I'm even managing to do it in January.  BOOM!  I'm not 100% sure I'm going to do all the cleaning stuff because - bourgeoisie alert - we have a cleaner, but I would like to do the rugs and sweep the floor, particularly as we have a Christmas tree that smells glorious and sheds constantly.  I will probably monitor the Cure on my other site, but we'll see... 

October Objectives

It's October already.  ALREADY.  We're over a week in.  So, clearly, I have thought carefully and hard about these objectives and I am NOT just hastily scribbling these now.

1. Accounting.  This will happen, honestly. I will track my spending from yesterday onward.
2. Cultural.  We have a shelf downstairs that is full of library books.  The problem is, I get distracted by my new, shiny, sexy books that I've just got, and I end up renewing and renewing the worthy but older books.  So I've decided that I have to read the most renewed books first.  This led to me reading Police in the Hallways (renewed 15 times), which made me so miserable, so sad, so despairing, that I cried on the subway while reading it.  More than once.  But it's about time to get through this stuff!
3. Physical.  I'm taking swimming lessons on Tuesday nights, and our instructor wants us to practice once a week, so my final mini-resolution is to go to all the classes and practice at least once.  The problem with practicing is that municipal pools in the city leave a lot to be desired.  For example, there's a nice enough pool in Williamsburg that has extended lap swimming and is on my way to work.  Only problem is that you can't just rock up and pay for one swim.  Instead, you appear to need to be a member, which is $150 for a year.  Ahem.  Riverbank Pool, owned by the state, not city, is glorious, and $2.  That's where I found myself last night, sharing the pool with just one other person while I practiced my drills before waiting for my touch football league.  I caught up on my Five Year Diary and watched fireworks over southern Manhattan.  Not a bad Monday night.

September Reckoning

1. Physical:  Body brushing.  I did actually do it most days, albeit not a few of them where I was so sweaty from a morning workout that it was weird and grim. And I think it did add a certain firmness of texture to touch, if not view, and that made me feel good - which is the point, I think, as I have kept it up since. 
2. Accounting: Didn't really do spending.  So see next month's objectives...
3. Cultural:  I have indeed been watching things from the Netflix queue, albeit things that are tv series.  Well, basically, I finished watching Scandal and have started watching The IT Crowd.  But that's more than I was doing before, and I'm enjoying it.  So I think I'd like to keep this up, and it seems vaguely likely, too.

September Objectives

Wait, what?  "Where is the August reckoning?" I hear all two of you cry.

Coming.

But, for now, the September objectives:

1. Physical:  Body brushing.  I have a body brush loitering in the bathroom, dangling on a hook that I use for my spectacularly ugly but durable shower cap (zebra print, giant pink rosette, and generally massive).  I don't use the body brush very often.  But, for the month of September, I shall use it every flipping day.  I shall be doing a highly unscientific test of whether it has any effect on my skin texture.  The fact that this coincides with a plethora of ugly insect bites that need scratching has nothing to do with this resolution.  Nothing.
2. Accounting: Our household is about to return to reality, after a year of sabbatical bliss, and we are doing the long-distance thing again.  Only this time I am on a non-profit salary rather than the big bucks of Big Law.  Therefore I'm on a mission to record each and every expenditure I make this month - where, what, how much.  We have changed spending habits a little but, I fear, I have not altered as much as I should have, given my now far more limited income.  So, this is it.  Time to work out what I'm spending, where, and so what unnecessary expenses can be shed that don't really bring me much joy.
3. Cultural:  Our Netflix queue has 86 titles on it, and we rarely watch titles, but instead just add them.  Time for that to change.  My plan is to watch one a week - one, obviously, that my other household member does not want to watch, or is happy to watch separately.  No (more)* Netflix adultery for us. 

* That is a confession for another day and a different blog.  

August Objectives

For August I wasn't sure.  Apparently I've decided to read all of Game of Thrones (I know, I know).  But, what with running around - work, going for a visit home - I wasn't sure what to do.  Luckily, a friend came to the rescue, inadvertently at least. 

Anyway, she was saying that she always finds excuses not to work out.  Because "punishment" for not working out - i.e. a forfeit, price - was not enough, she'd pay that.  But she's a super dependable, good friend - so what if her not working out punished us both?  Hence the deal:  she and I work out twice a week during August, not counting our soccer games.  It's not much.  But if either of us misses a session, there's a hellish price to pay:  A Kardashian show.  We have to watch one.  With no internet, no breaks, no phones to play with.  Just all Kardashian, all the time.  That's if we miss one workout.  If we miss two, the price doubles, so it's now THREE Kardashians (one for first session, two for the second sessions).  If we miss three, it's seven Kardashians.  So that is some serious incentive.

So far, we're on track.  We're involving others to keep us honest.  It's going to be... horrible if we miss anything.  So we just can't.  CAN'T, I tell you. 

July Reckoning

A pretty simple one, but I did manage not to weigh myself, and haven't done yet in August.  I definitely link how I feel to how I'm eating and exercising, but it's nice to link that to something specific - i.e. how well I'm treating myself - rather than weight.  Going to stick with this one, I hope.