Tag: change

Note:  This post may contain affiliate links.  Check out what that means to you here.

It’s time for another update!  I would love to tell you that I’ve walked for 30 minutes every single day this month, but that would be a LIE, so I won’t.  I have actually walked every day, but most days I haven’t made it to the thirty minute mark.  Ten minutes here, five minutes there….  Yes, it adds up, but I have to say, when I am consistent with at least 30 minutes I can tell a major difference in the way I feel.

The weather is finally edging it’s way towards Spring.  Yay!!!  Which means, longer daylight hours, warmer temperatures and lovely smells to entice me outside more.  This should help with getting more steps into my day.  In case you didn’t know – I LOVE SPRING!  I want to live where it’s spring all year long, with a long, long fall too.  Just in case you were wondering….

On one of our many quick ten minute walks yesterday, we saw five jets in the sky at once.  I’m pretty sure that’s a record for me.  How many jets have you seen at once?  I said on my Instagram page that these are the burning questions in my mind, hahahaha.

In other news, I have made great strides in my endeavor to put things away.  Honestly people, you wouldn’t believe what active decluttering does for my space.  And my peace of mind.

Example:  I took everything, EVERYTHING off of my bathroom counters and made a specific space for all of that stuff.  If it didn’t have a home, I either found it a place to live or it went to live with someone else.  Now my drawers will actually close, the counter can be cleaned at a moment’s notice – which is amazing – and it just makes me happy to know that my toothbrush is in the left hand drawer (have you seen that episode of Mythbuster’s?!) and that my glasses are hanging on my magnifying mirror because otherwise I can’t find them when I take out my contacts.

It’s very, very satisfying for everything to have a place.  I am slowly going through my entire house, which will take me approximately forever, but it’s still progress.

Three months into this year and I’m still doing my dishes.  It helps that I have made a huge dent in the decluttering in this area too.  If I don’t own it, I don’t have to clean it.  Which makes me happy.  My routine at this moment, which could change, is that I make sure each morning to run my dishwasher.  This does many good things for me.  It gets all the dirty dishes out of my sink, which can be clean for the day and it ensures that we will have beautiful, shiny clean dishes to eat supper from that evening!  Winning!

Is it a perfect system?  Nope.  Do I do it every.single.day?  Most days, I do.  Which is shocking to me, and horrifying to most of you, I know.  But, it’s my reality and I’m happy with a kitchen that is clean 95% of the time.  Also, my family isn’t complaining which is a good thing, because my response would be “go clean the kitchen”.  They are keeping mum about it.  I take that to mean that they are happy with my system too.

So.  I am reporting success with my habit building so far this year.  It’s not perfect, but that’s life.  I’m happy with the progress I’ve made in all the areas I’ve tackled so far.  Also, this could be spring fever talking instead of my brain.  Either way, I’m happy.

---

---

Do you have plans to make simple changes in your life this year?  I would love to hear  about it!  How’s it going so far?

You can find all of the posts in this series here.

Note:  This post may contain affiliate links.  Check out what that means to you here.

I wanted to do better with updates this month, so here we go!  I’ve been walking for at least 30 minutes every single day so far this month.  I have to say, having a dog that needs exercise has helped tremendously in this endeavor.  If Oreo wasn’t so gung-ho every day to do our mile and a half loop, I would definitely be sitting somewhere comfy with a book in my hand.

It is COLD here in Virginia right now.  I’m not complaining too loudly, because – SUMMER is coming.  Lord help me.  And as long as I dress correctly, I don’t even feel it most days.  One of the ladies in my neighborhood who I meet almost every time we are out, either in the neighborhood or on the trail, pulled up beside us yesterday and rolled down her car window to talk to us.  She said, “Girl, you are dedicated!” and I responded, “No, no I am not.  Oreo is!”  Hahahaha.  It was 19* I think.  But it looked so beautiful.

Rain, sleet, snow, sunshine, warm or cold, Oreo is ready at least four to five times a day to go find an adventure.  You never know what you are going to see.  Or what friends you will find.  He loves the new golden doodle that lives down our street now.  But he does NOT love the wrinkle dog that loops around our way sometimes.

I can’t wait for everything to start greening up.

One of the benefits of getting outside every.single.day is that my pants are slightly looser.  I hope by the end of the month that they are a LOT looser than they are now.  It would help if I didn’t shove an Oreo cookie in my mouth while I’m cooking supper, but.  Most days I just feel like I need an Oreo cookie.

If you want to keep up with our  daily walks, you can usually find a photo on my Instagram.  I love it over there.

So, are you walking or running or doing something completely different to make your pants looser in the month of March?  I would love to hear about it.

---

Do you have plans to make simple changes in your life this year?  I would love to hear  about it!  How’s it going so far?

You can find all of the posts in this series here.

Note:  This post may contain affiliate links.  Check out what that means to you here.

I cannot believe that we are entering a new month.  This year is flying by.  Another month means I need to teach myself to stick to another habit.

I’m doing pretty well in the dishes department.  I manage to run my dishwasher at least once a day, which has changed how clean I can keep my kitchen.  It’s amazing.  I also am beginning to be able to put things in their place now that I am getting rid of the chaff in my house.

Now that we are entering March, I am going to start building a routine that I am dreading.   It involves my Under Armour shoes.  I am not looking forward to this month, which is why I chose one of the months this year that actually has 31 days in it.  I’m going to need every single one of them to turn this into a habit that I will be able to stick with.

I also wanted to wait to start this journey because I didn’t want to be a cliché.  Again.  I’ve made promises to myself over the years where exercise is concerned; started things at the beginning of the year and fizzled and burned out before the end of January.

Every.single.time.

As I’ve said before, this year I want to make permanent, sustainable changes in my life.  So for the entire month of March, I am going to walk.  Every day for at least 30 minutes.  If I can’t do it outside with Oreo –

then I’m going to have to buckle down and use the dreaded treadmill.

I actually like our treadmill.  It does exactly what it’s supposed to do and it does it well.  I just seriously dislike walking on it in the house.   I know that doesn’t make any sense – Hi, I’m Tracie and I’m a walking, talking contradiction most of the time.  Walking outside with Oreo doesn’t quite feel like exercise.  EVERYTHING about walking on the treadmill feels like exercise.  Which I hate with a passion.

One thing that I have found that makes is slightly less traumatic for ME is to actually dress for it.  I used to just wear whatever I had on at the time (more than likely my comfy yoga pants and my crocs 🙄), and let me tell you, that makes it much, much worse.  If I change into workout gear – and my supply is pitiful – it does something to my brain.  It doesn’t make the actual exercise any less horrifying, but it switches something inside me to say “Let’s get this done and over with!”.

Also, listening to a podcast or watching a YouTube video dramatically cuts down on the torture for me.  I can take myself out of the misery slightly, and I am not constantly looking at the time shouting “3 minutes!!!!  It has to have been an hour already”.  Never mind the fact that I set the timer for 30 minutes, but you get the point.

I am just the opposite if I’m outside with Oreo or the kids and Denton.  I am trying my hardest to be present.  That means paying attention.  To conversations, either with the family or the dog.  Don’t you talk to your dog?  To nature, even now in the dead of winter there are things to see.  Yesterday we saw six white tail deer.

They walked across the street right in front of us.  This is the only one I caught on camera.

Things are already getting ready to burst into Spring and I can’t wait.  The trees are getting buds on them, and everything here is getting a faint green sheen to it.  It’s lovely.  But you have to look for it right now.

I take my phone in case I want to snap a photo, but I don’t scroll through Instagram because I can do that another time.  I’m soaking up the last of this cool winter weather.  I know that Spring is going to be short and sweet.  I can’t wait!  Also, I figure that if I make walking every day part of my routine NOW while it’s still cool, when the weather turns into the boiling, roiling surface of the sun we call summer, it will be ingrained in my brain and I’ll do it anyway.  At least that’s the hope with these routines I’m developing.

---

Do you have plans to make simple changes in your life this year?  I would love to hear  about it!  How’s it going so far?

You can find all of the posts in this series here.