In addition to getting the car taken care of, my nagging task was to pay up my library fines ($4.65 – I had feared it would be infinitely worse). I have many other nagging tasks still lingering, but this will have to suffice for the week. It was crazy-busy at work, plus I’ve been trying to get my exercise in.
It’s sort of amazing, really, how much I’ve managed to accomplish in one month. Well, ok, really six weeks, because I started some of my baby steps mid-December. Still.
1) Vitamins: still taking them most days. Easy to forget, though.
2) Bedtime: I’m still enforcing it, but have not been sleeping well at all these past few weeks. Anxiety, I think, but hopefully this will pass.
3) Reduced electricity consumption: alas, electric bill went up $2 due to rate increase. Boo.
4) Started exercising 3x a week: only third week of this, so too soon to tell whether it will stick. Got some good advice from an ex-boyfriend who is (sort of astoundingly) a certified fitness trainer.
5) Cleaned out bathroom shelves, bedroom closet, and car. Have a good 3 months worth of paper goods and cleaning supplies stocked up.
Some of this stuff has been on my to-do list for YEARS, and so it feels unbelievably gratifying to have finally started tackling them. But what would happen is, I’d see this laundry list of things and get so overwhelmed that I didn’t know where or how to begin. Breaking things down into small steps enabled me to make tiny improvements without getting overwhelmed or stressed out. Right now, I’m struggling to not throw in the towel – like if I miss taking vitamins for a few days, my inclination is to think, “oh forget it”, rather than “start again now”. It’s very much my diet mentality, when I’ll be fine for a week and then one evening I will succumb to my friends Ben and Jerry, and figure well, that’s the end of that…as opposed to starting fresh in the morning.
Another thing not on the official list is that I tried embracing Twitter to capture a one-sentence “happiness journal”. My jury is still out on this one; I have my reservations about adding yet another techie/social media thing to my life. Also? I have to believe that when you start Twittering about the cat’s happiness, chances are you shouldn’t be Twittering. And not 100% of my tweets were happy...but like I said yesterday, only God is perfect.
Mostly, I’ve realized that I can experiment with my life. This is ridiculous, of course, coming from a 38 year old woman who, on little more than a whim, picked up and moved from Boston to Memphis to go to grad school, and who later moved from Maine to NYC...in truth, my entire adult life has been a series of experiments. This feels different, though, although I'm not sure I could articulate how or why it feels different. Something to ponder this weekend as I hurtle myself to Long Island to have dinner with two ex-boyfriends (yes, at the same table). Lovely.
Speaking of which...February’s Happiness Project challenge focus is Love… things will either get really interesting or terribly boring around here as I tackle that one.
1 comment:
I think you are doing great..and you should not put any pressure on yourself to do it perfect or 100% all the time! Focus on the good & positive..and not on the things you mess up on. As you say, we are only human! :-)
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