I saw this on the Nanowrimo forums and I thought I would make one of my own here, so I have a place to keep it. My BIG, FUN, SCARY List of thing to do. Now, I know it's getting on towards 2014, but I don't want this to be a list of resolutions. I don't want this to be just one more list of things that I will "try" to do, but a list of things I plan on actually doing, things I can set in motion, make plans for, make a goal for and just.. you know.. be awesome at! Nanowrimo is sort of the end of the year for me and the beginning of being motivated. If I can write 50,000 words in one month on one story (and not even finish it, but it is there, in a file, waiting to be opened on Martin Luther King Jr. Day where my Writing Monster can cry out "Free at Last" since I have put her away for 6 weeks to let my writing ideas simmer and see what comes to fruition), I can do just about anything I really set my mind to, as long as I break it into smaller chunks.
See, that's the nice thing about Nanowrimo. I took it day by day. I didn't look at 50,000 words and have a panic attack. I looked at 1667 words a day for 30 days. So I can't look at the nearly 200 pounds I have to lose as 200 pounds (and believe me, that's a lot of butter!), I can just take it a pound at a time (probably by not eating pounds of butter).
However, this list, this BFS list, is the beginning of the lists, the start, the "Where do I go from here" of lists that may look BIG and SCARY, but will also, ultimately be FUN too! So, while this list may be a list of BIG things, (though maybe not quite yet a BIG list, I do plan on adding stuff to it), all of these can be broken into smaller, achievable, day by day every day I try this and it works for me goal list. A list of "I can do it" not.. "I want to do it!"
So, here's my list (in no particular order)
1. Finish my pink and brown quilt that I've been working on since before my divorce.
2. Track my calories and exercise daily.
3. Exercise daily.
4. Record weight, blood pressure, blood sugar and exercise in a chart so I can see my progress.
5. Write an outline for each of the three (so far) books that are in my San Francisco Friends novels.
6. Rewrite/Edit one novel into a publishable draft by August.
7. Work hard and be an awesome teacher!
8. Help my district and my school transition to Common Core Standards and be a great on-campus leader!
9. Help my adorable, loving, wonderful husband get through the next year of college!
10. Complete the next 12 weeks cycle of Julia Cameron's 'The Artist's Way'.
11. Meditate every day.
So, those are things I can do! Let's get crackin'!
Love and Lollipops,
ToryLynn
Showing posts with label challenge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label challenge. Show all posts
Saturday, December 7, 2013
Saturday, June 8, 2013
Episode 83: My tools
My school year has finished up. The grading and the reading and the meetings that have kept me from blogging and writing and just finding my place in the world are over and I can be selfish... at least for a little while.
For the next two weeks, I will covet my time, since little of it will be mine. The little bit of time I get to myself, such as now, in the early morning hours, I will cherish. I will use this time to clean up my office (which badly needs it), work on some craft projects and read and rest and reflect and hopefully do a lot more writing. I want to do morning pages. I want to read Sophie's World. I want to get healthy, not just physically, but also mentally. I want to be able to dance at my wedding, play with my eventual children and live a good long, healthy and happy life. And I can do it, with the help of some tools that I need to pick up again.
Tools are good things. They help you maintain, reflect, become better. I am a a huge supporter of tools, and I use a few on a semi-regular basis. Well.. anybody who really knows me knows that I do very little out of habit or on a regular basis. I can't even really seem to remember to take my meds every day. Hmmm
Anyway, here are a few of my tools that I have picked up as I go along my merry way...
Tool One: My big pink notebook. AM calls it my "bible" and it's sort of an apt description. I keep everything in there. It has 5 sections right now. The first is my planner, second is food stuffs, third is blog ideas and random writings, fourth is wedding stuffs, and fifth is financial stuffs. If I lose the thing, I won't be able to remember anything. It has a nice loop for my pink fountain pen and it is wonderful. I carry it with me nearly everywhere, though it does need to get cleaned out and replaced sooner or later... probably sooner.
Tool Two: My pen. I have a hot pink Levenger True Writer fountain pen with Hope Pink ink in it. (you may be noticing a trend.. it is my favorite color). I almost put Morning Pages as my second tool, but I don't really write them as habitually as I am supposed to. One of my summer goals that I will be writing about in a later post (probably tomorrow). My pink pen, like my pink notebook, goes with me everywhere. It is a reminder that I am supposed to write. It is a reminder that I can jot down a note and my weird kinesthetic brain will remember it more readily than just reading it or asking someone else to remind me.
Tool Three: Our big freakin' white boards. We have two in the house. One of them is our calendar, which we write up every month and our To Do List for that month. It hangs next to our front door in a prominent place near the table in the kitchen. The other, much more neglected one, is in my office, full of project ideas that never really get done. I have to work on this this summer.
Took Four: My phone. In this day and age, I couldn't live without my phone. AM is constantly saying that I am always on my phone and I'm afraid he's right. I use my phone to help track everything. It is my backup calendar which I coordinate with the planner in my pink notebook. It my food tracker, my mood tracker, my link to other people through Facebook. I use a few fitness apps, and am trying out new ones all the time (most of them are free).
My final and Fifth (and best) tool: AM and my friends circle. I cannot say how much these people have helped me. From my online big brother, RO, to our Stockton Writer's Group, I have so much support. Having a live in personal trainer and personal chef helps, as AM is constantly helping me be a better person and reminding me that I am so much more than I think I am and I can do so much more than I think can. These people have helped me and made my life amazing. They are supportive and give me great suggestions and kudos and high fives and big hugs and I appreciate and love them all for it.
Anywaysssss.... before I get too sappy... I am going back to bed. I walked 3.74 miles yesterday and I am SO feeling it right now. Now that I'm off for the summer, I plan on making writing part of my regime, as well as some reading, some exercising and a lot of snuggling from my wonderful AM! :)
Love and Lollipops,
ToryLynn
For the next two weeks, I will covet my time, since little of it will be mine. The little bit of time I get to myself, such as now, in the early morning hours, I will cherish. I will use this time to clean up my office (which badly needs it), work on some craft projects and read and rest and reflect and hopefully do a lot more writing. I want to do morning pages. I want to read Sophie's World. I want to get healthy, not just physically, but also mentally. I want to be able to dance at my wedding, play with my eventual children and live a good long, healthy and happy life. And I can do it, with the help of some tools that I need to pick up again.
Tools are good things. They help you maintain, reflect, become better. I am a a huge supporter of tools, and I use a few on a semi-regular basis. Well.. anybody who really knows me knows that I do very little out of habit or on a regular basis. I can't even really seem to remember to take my meds every day. Hmmm
Anyway, here are a few of my tools that I have picked up as I go along my merry way...
Tool One: My big pink notebook. AM calls it my "bible" and it's sort of an apt description. I keep everything in there. It has 5 sections right now. The first is my planner, second is food stuffs, third is blog ideas and random writings, fourth is wedding stuffs, and fifth is financial stuffs. If I lose the thing, I won't be able to remember anything. It has a nice loop for my pink fountain pen and it is wonderful. I carry it with me nearly everywhere, though it does need to get cleaned out and replaced sooner or later... probably sooner.
Tool Two: My pen. I have a hot pink Levenger True Writer fountain pen with Hope Pink ink in it. (you may be noticing a trend.. it is my favorite color). I almost put Morning Pages as my second tool, but I don't really write them as habitually as I am supposed to. One of my summer goals that I will be writing about in a later post (probably tomorrow). My pink pen, like my pink notebook, goes with me everywhere. It is a reminder that I am supposed to write. It is a reminder that I can jot down a note and my weird kinesthetic brain will remember it more readily than just reading it or asking someone else to remind me.
Tool Three: Our big freakin' white boards. We have two in the house. One of them is our calendar, which we write up every month and our To Do List for that month. It hangs next to our front door in a prominent place near the table in the kitchen. The other, much more neglected one, is in my office, full of project ideas that never really get done. I have to work on this this summer.
Took Four: My phone. In this day and age, I couldn't live without my phone. AM is constantly saying that I am always on my phone and I'm afraid he's right. I use my phone to help track everything. It is my backup calendar which I coordinate with the planner in my pink notebook. It my food tracker, my mood tracker, my link to other people through Facebook. I use a few fitness apps, and am trying out new ones all the time (most of them are free).
My final and Fifth (and best) tool: AM and my friends circle. I cannot say how much these people have helped me. From my online big brother, RO, to our Stockton Writer's Group, I have so much support. Having a live in personal trainer and personal chef helps, as AM is constantly helping me be a better person and reminding me that I am so much more than I think I am and I can do so much more than I think can. These people have helped me and made my life amazing. They are supportive and give me great suggestions and kudos and high fives and big hugs and I appreciate and love them all for it.
Anywaysssss.... before I get too sappy... I am going back to bed. I walked 3.74 miles yesterday and I am SO feeling it right now. Now that I'm off for the summer, I plan on making writing part of my regime, as well as some reading, some exercising and a lot of snuggling from my wonderful AM! :)
Love and Lollipops,
ToryLynn
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Episode 77: 60 days
60 days ago, AM challenged me to a walking challenge. Today, I have completed the challenge. Because I messed up my knee (something about bursitis), my doctor recommended that I walk for 20 minutes a day, as just light exercise to get the knee going and work out some of the muscles. AM said that if we created a routine, a daily regime of walking, I could buy myself one small fitness item that will help me continue to get healthier. That item is a FitBit.
I have been trying to track my steps, exercise and diet on my phone, but I am beginning to find that it drains my battery pretty quickly and it's not really all that constant. I have to have the phone with me, it can't be on the charger, if I want to track the steps that I take. While they have apps for it, there are no really good apps to track your sleep patterns and sleep quality. The Fitbit promises to do all that. It's a gadgety thing that goes in a wristband that you keep on you at all times and tracks everything you do and then syncs wirelessly to your phone or computer or whatever to help you track. And I get this neat little gadget probably tomorrow (if I can find money in my budget for it) because I kept a goal and I stuck to it for 60 days.
They say that it takes 27 times of doing something in the same way to create a habit. 60 seems excessive, but it works for me. I feel wrong if I don't do my walking every night now. In the last 60 days, I have walked. Sometimes I walked during the morning, sometimes I walked in the evenings. Sometimes, after coming home from gaming or a movie or just hanging out with our friends, we have walked past midnight. The track that we take is simply around our apartment complex, two laps, which equals roughly between 2/5 and 1/2 a mile. I didn't always walk in the apartment complex. Sometimes on rainy days I would walk the same approximate distance twice around the grocery store from the produce section to the bakery section and back. Most of my random zombie walks down to the market and back counted for my walk for the day. Some days I exceeded my half mile by a lot, and sometimes I barely made it, either because of injury or illness (when you can't breathe for coughing, it may not be the best time to walk). But I made it.
I finished my challenge tonight with one last walk past the mostly brightly lit windows around the apartment complex. Inside, families and friends were going about their business, most of them watching television, or gathered in some other fashion. Some were using computers, and some were cooking a late meal. Over the last 60 days, I have gotten to know some of these people. The gentleman in the balcony on the opposite building always smiles and tells us to have a nice evening. A young mother yesterday told us that she felt it was a strange day when she didn't get a chance to say hello to us. Though we don't know names, only faces and location, our walks have helped us get to know our neighbors and our neighborhood better.
My next challenge is not to end the walks, but to continue them and add some more to them. Another lap perhaps, or some weight training that my doctor recommends for weight loss. Perhaps I will do both, but I know that I can create and maintain a habit for 60 days, and I plan on making more plans to become even healthier.
What do you plan to do with the next 60 days?
Love and Lollipops,
ToryLynn
I have been trying to track my steps, exercise and diet on my phone, but I am beginning to find that it drains my battery pretty quickly and it's not really all that constant. I have to have the phone with me, it can't be on the charger, if I want to track the steps that I take. While they have apps for it, there are no really good apps to track your sleep patterns and sleep quality. The Fitbit promises to do all that. It's a gadgety thing that goes in a wristband that you keep on you at all times and tracks everything you do and then syncs wirelessly to your phone or computer or whatever to help you track. And I get this neat little gadget probably tomorrow (if I can find money in my budget for it) because I kept a goal and I stuck to it for 60 days.
They say that it takes 27 times of doing something in the same way to create a habit. 60 seems excessive, but it works for me. I feel wrong if I don't do my walking every night now. In the last 60 days, I have walked. Sometimes I walked during the morning, sometimes I walked in the evenings. Sometimes, after coming home from gaming or a movie or just hanging out with our friends, we have walked past midnight. The track that we take is simply around our apartment complex, two laps, which equals roughly between 2/5 and 1/2 a mile. I didn't always walk in the apartment complex. Sometimes on rainy days I would walk the same approximate distance twice around the grocery store from the produce section to the bakery section and back. Most of my random zombie walks down to the market and back counted for my walk for the day. Some days I exceeded my half mile by a lot, and sometimes I barely made it, either because of injury or illness (when you can't breathe for coughing, it may not be the best time to walk). But I made it.
I finished my challenge tonight with one last walk past the mostly brightly lit windows around the apartment complex. Inside, families and friends were going about their business, most of them watching television, or gathered in some other fashion. Some were using computers, and some were cooking a late meal. Over the last 60 days, I have gotten to know some of these people. The gentleman in the balcony on the opposite building always smiles and tells us to have a nice evening. A young mother yesterday told us that she felt it was a strange day when she didn't get a chance to say hello to us. Though we don't know names, only faces and location, our walks have helped us get to know our neighbors and our neighborhood better.
My next challenge is not to end the walks, but to continue them and add some more to them. Another lap perhaps, or some weight training that my doctor recommends for weight loss. Perhaps I will do both, but I know that I can create and maintain a habit for 60 days, and I plan on making more plans to become even healthier.
What do you plan to do with the next 60 days?
Love and Lollipops,
ToryLynn
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Episode 71: Challenge accepted
I post this picture for a few reasons. One, to motivate me to get my ass moving, and off the couch. I look awful and I look fat and I have bingo curtains. I mean really!! BINGO CURTAINS!! I cannot believe I let myself get this big. I post this picture because I am ashamed of the way that I look. I am ashamed of who and what I have become over the years through unhealthy eating, lack of movement and a great deal of depression that I haven't been willing or able to accept over the years.
Another reason I post this picture is because it is real. I am not hiding behind a gorgeous, thin avatar. I am not trying to be someone I am not and I am not trying to fool myself any longer. In my head, I am a much much thinner person, but I have to honest with myself about who I am and what I look like if I want to start to lose the weight. I can't fool myself and eat another doughnut or have another soda thinking "oh, I can work this off later." It's not going to happen. I have to put down the carbs and be realistic about how I got here in the first place and how I am going to get myself out of it. I packed on this weight, this fat, this body and it took me years to do it. It is going to take me a long time to get it off, but putting it on took a lot of work too.
The last reason I post this picture now is that it will be different in a month's time. When I weigh in again in 31 days, at the end of the challenge, my friend, TechnoDude (henceforth referred to as TD) will take another picture of me and I will post that one too and I will be able to see the awesomeness shining through under a much thinner layer of fat. I don't expect it all to go away in a month, but a month is a good start for starting new habits.
Look out world, here I come!
Love and Lollipops,
ToryLynn
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Episode 67: The SNAP Challenge
In an article I read yesterday on Flipboard (which means I can't find the link now that I want to write about. I must remember to use my media more wisely), Cory Booker, the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, agreed to take on the challenge of a fellow Twitter user. This Twitter user, who goes by the handle TwitWit, challenged Booker to what is being called the SNAP challenge. SNAP stands for Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, what we commonly refer to as Food Stamps. This challenge asks that people live on what the government mandates is the minimum allowance for food. In California, the maximum amount you can receive is $167 a month per person on average. If you do the math for a 31 day month, that is $5.38 a day or approximately $1.80 per meal.
I know... that was a lot of math for me too...
So, AM and I were sitting down, talking about what life would be like if we had to live on this, and we decided to take the challenge. What would it be like to live on an average of $1.80 per meal, and could you do it?
What this means is that there is no eating out, no little extras. If we want something that we don't make ourselves, we have to fit that into the budget, but it also means that a lot of what we eat should be or will be made from scratch. My bread machine is nice, and makes a good 1 pound loaf of bread for a bit under $2, but what does that mean? How long will that bread last? Can I live a full, nutritious successful life, making sure that I eat healthfully and still keep within that budget?
I think we're going to start with just a week and see how it goes from there. Many people who are doing the challenge (and quite a few are blogging about it), talk about how the lack of food is affecting their concentration, the constant hunger they feel is affecting how they interact with people and their job performance. I'm curious to see how it will affect me.
The point of this project for me is to gain perspective on what that type of lifestyle is like. I come from a middle class background. I have a decent job, but I work with many students who come from low income houses. Some are on the Free Lunch program. Sometimes, kids come to my class complaining of hunger and if I had a piece of fruit or something, I will offer it up to them and I know that many of them appreciate it. I know I will never understand what some of them go through. By doing this challenge, I hope to maybe gain some insight. I will never say that I want to walk a mile in their shoes. I will never know what their lives are like, what they experience or what they go through, but to gain some insight may be helpful.
AM and I were talking about this challenge. He pointed out that for the cost of the coffee that I get from Starbucks or the little coffee shop where we go to write, a person on Food Stamps is supposed to be eating two whole meals. One venti white chocolate mocha = 2 meals. I was floored when he pointed this out to me. This idea that I could spend $4-5 on a cup of coffee, full of milk and caffeine and sugars that I don't really need really struck me as a difficult one to swallow, and made me look at myself closer. Is it selfish of me to want to drink that $4 coffee (which I honestly don't really need) when someone else in the world goes hungry for one more day?
I'm not going to completely give up the coffee forever, but this is the month where we really begin to think about charity, helping and giving to those in need as well as showing our family our appreciation. If for at least a week, I can try to learn to understand this experience and it gives me a greater knowledge and compassion, I will be a better person for it. If I get a chance, I will blog about it here. I invite others to join me, or follow me or just learn more about it.
Love and low fat foods!
ToryLynn
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