Day Two – – Jan 2nd.
As I look over The List, I realize there are many things in here that are either daily or ongoing. There are a few that I can’t start working on yet (growing the pumpkins and the sunflowers) and there are a few that will have to happen on a specific day (handing out daffodils and flags). Some of the things like try 40 new recipes or writing 40 letters will take some strategic planning – unless I want to be staying up until the wee hours of the morning on Dec 30th to cram everything in at the last minute. Many of those I should probably try to attempt on a monthly basis – 3 – 4 new recipes a month, 3-4 letters, 3-4 calls to my sister.
I see these items on The List more as projects; projects that I will learn from nonetheless.
The daily ones like spend time outdoors or uninterrupted time with my boys or drink 40 oz of water – those are really the habit breakers. Here’s a confession – – I probably drink 3-4 cans of Coke a day. YIKES!!!!! And my first one is usually around 9:30am. I justify it by saying “well people drink sweetened coffee this early, and coke is just caffeine and sugar – not much different.” I used to be a Dr. Pepper drinker but gave it up a few months ago – and replaced it with Coke. I can’t tolerate the diet stuff, so all those calories are now sitting in my gut and my butt. (Hence #1 – lose 40 pounds).
Likewise, I’m ashamed to admit, I don’t spend a lot of time with the boys. Now, that doesn’t mean we aren’t together a lot. I work from home so I am lucky to see Little T (the seven-year old) get on the bus, I take J (the three-year old) to preschool and pick him up. I am here when they get home, unless I have a meeting, we eat dinner as a family every night at the dining room table. I take them to their extra stuff like swimming, basketball and playdates. I’ve got the taking care part down to an art and science. The fun – just hanging out part – not so much.
That’s why I put those sorts of things on The List. Realistically, I know it would be almost impossible to drink 40 ounces of water of day and between school, homework, dinner, baths, practices, etc…it is hard to get 40 minutes of uninterrupted time each and every day. But my goal is to make an honest to goodness effort to change these things about me.
So – today – I didn’t have one soda. And surprisingly, I didn’t have a headache nor did I walk around like a zombie all day from no caffeine. I didn’t drink all 40 ounces of water, but I did have about four glasses worth.
And I’m also happy to report, as a family, we played a game of Hi Ho Cherrio, then J and I played a round of chess against Little T. Really Little T and I played, and I quizzed J on the names of the pieces. What he really wanted to do was drive his Lighting McQueen car across the board and knock everything down.
That would have been OK too.
More tomorrow – – -~amy
40-Love 