life worth living weekly update – July 12th

Tags

28 day challenge, building a life worth living, DBT, getting creative, goals, health, stress management, taking charge of my finances

If you’re just joining me for the first time, I’ve got a list of 10 Major Goals I want to accomplish before I turn 40 in 2016. That’s what I refer to as my Life Worth Living; it’s a DBT thing. If you don’t want to stay stuck where you’ve been in life, you have to figure out where you want to go and what it would take to truly make your life worth living.

Every week I do a Creative, Stress Management, Health, and Financial goal that tie back to my Building a Life Worth Living project. I’ve also added a Simplifying goal that ties into my plan to declutter my life this year. Bit by bit I’m reaching for the stars.

Update from last week:

Another strange, but entirely awesome, week. WOOT!

Creative:  I want to finish the knit shrug. Trying this one again. Not yet, but I have joined the second sleeve to be worked in the round so the end is in sight.

Stress Management: I really want to start water aerobics again so I’m going to focus on finding a place. I’m also on vacation this week so I’m going to do my very best to relax. Got in plenty of relaxing, still haven’t for sure found a place to do the water aerobics.

Health: I got some new vitamins, new shampoo/conditioner, and I’m going to try to find a different moisturizer. I need to just get back into taking care of my physical health. Picked up even more vitamins and I’ve been using the new moisturizer every day. I like it even better than the first one.

Financial:  I need to make sure that I can cover what’s left for this month including paying for the divorce paperwork. I’ll be selling the Honda so that’ll help. When I sold the Honda I paid off a small loan that I had with Mom, my line of credit at the bank (and then closed it), and my credit card (kept that open for emergencies). I also spent some time looking at what my finances should be now that it’s just me and things will be soooo much more comfortable.

Simplify:  I don’t think I really even need this anymore. YAY! Yay!

 

Goals for this week:

Turns out I do have to report for jury duty, at least tomorrow morning. I’m not pleased by this, but there isn’t much I can do. It does mean that I’m going to try to get some of my work done at home, assuming I can get back into my account. I put in a request to have my name changed back to what it had been before I left on Thursday and they actually did it.

Creative:  I want to finish the knit shrug, seriously. It shouldn’t take more than a few more days, tops.

Stress Management: I’m aiming to get back on the treadmill at least 5 times for a minimum of 15 minutes each time.

Health: I really need to get back on the healthy eating bandwagon. There’s been a bit too much crap in my diet lately.

Financial:  Even though my situation is more comfortable now, I have got to quit buying shit like I’m loaded.

 

how many pillows do you really need?

Tags

bipolar disorder, building a life worth living, creating myself, divorce, life, mental health, mental illness, moods, motivation, projects, random shit that falls out of my brain, sleep, taking my life back, you need 5 pillows

That’s the best shot I could find of the north end of the room as it looked while Josh was here. It was cluttered, which you can’t too much see, and it was kind of one dimensional. I have since turned that into…

this. And this is much more me. It’s very organized and more streamlined. There are flowers everywhere but they don’t make it feel too busy. The colors are a little softer and it’s all very warm and cozy. I love being in this space now. And Evie Cat seems to love it, too.

Things are still going really well. I’ve lost another 1.5lbs since Friday and that really excites me. I slept good again, about the same as the night before, so I think that’s really good. And Mom and I are getting some things done we had wanted to. Maybe not the vacation I had thought I would have but it’s certainly not turning out bad at all.

life worth living weekly update – July 6th

Tags

28 day challenge, building a life worth living, DBT, getting creative, goals, health, stress management, taking charge of my finances

If you’re just joining me for the first time, I’ve got a list of 10 Major Goals I want to accomplish before I turn 40 in 2016. That’s what I refer to as my Life Worth Living; it’s a DBT thing. If you don’t want to stay stuck where you’ve been in life, you have to figure out where you want to go and what it would take to truly make your life worth living.

Every week I do a Creative, Stress Management, Health, and Financial goal that tie back to my Building a Life Worth Living project. I’ve also added a Simplifying goal that ties into my plan to declutter my life this year. Bit by bit I’m reaching for the stars.

Update from last week:

It definitely wasn’t the week I thought I’d have, but it was pretty fucking awesome.

Creative:  I want to finish the knit shrug. No, but I did work on it.

Stress Management:  I really REALLY need to get back on the treadmill. I didn’t do this, but I’ve been pretty damn active the last few days.

Health: Skin again. For some reason my hands are just trashed. I sort of did this but not as well as I should have.

Financial:  Pay day is tomorrow, time to get serious. It’s amazing how much more money I have available now that I’m truly only paying MY bills.

Simplify:  ??? Not sure about this one this week. I got rid of a TON of stuff. I loaded the Jeep full 3 times with stuff we took to Goodwill.

 

Goals for this week:

Creative:  I want to finish the knit shrug. Trying this one again.

Stress Management: I really want to start water aerobics again so I’m going to focus on finding a place. I’m also on vacation this week so I’m going to do my very best to relax.

Health: I got some new vitamins, new shampoo/conditioner, and I’m going to try to find a different moisturizer. I need to just get back into taking care of my physical health.

Financial:  I need to make sure that I can cover what’s left for this month including paying for the divorce paperwork. I’ll be selling the Honda so that’ll help.

Simplify:  I don’t think I really even need this anymore. YAY!

 

quick picture post

Tags

building a life worth living, getting back my mojo, getting creative, goals, life, mental health, mental illness, motivation, normal, projects

That’s the black and white vest that plagued me for so long. It’s done and I wore it to work this morning. I was teaching a brand new class, my third of the summer, and wanted a little something to make me feel pretty. You can’t really see it but I also made the necklace and earrings I have on. Hopefully I’ll be back later with a slightly longer post. ❤

life worth living weekly update – June 29th

Tags

28 day challenge, building a life worth living, DBT, getting creative, goals, health, stress management, taking charge of my finances

If you’re just joining me for the first time, I’ve got a list of 10 Major Goals I want to accomplish before I turn 40 in 2016. That’s what I refer to as my Life Worth Living; it’s a DBT thing. If you don’t want to stay stuck where you’ve been in life, you have to figure out where you want to go and what it would take to truly make your life worth living.

Every week I do a Creative, Stress Management, Health, and Financial goal that tie back to my Building a Life Worth Living project. I’ve also added a Simplifying goal that ties into my plan to declutter my life this year. Bit by bit I’m reaching for the stars.

Update from last week:

The nicest thing I can say about last week is that it’s over. (I think I said that last week, too.)

Creative:  I need to start, and keep, cranking away at my 28 Day Challenge projects. I FINALLY finished the black and white vest and I did make good progress on the knit shrug.

Stress Management:  Continue walking on the treadmill as often as possible, at least 5 sessions of 25 minutes minimum. Nope. Because of the severe issues with my legs I only managed one time and only for 10 minutes.

Health: Back to working on a healthier diet. Tomorrow morning I’m trying the soaked chia seed breakfast again with some tweaks. I got the chia breakfast thing figured out and it’s amazing. My diet did some up and down things last week but I managed to lose one pound. So yay.

Financial:  I need to look at the budget again, closer, and see where I can make changes. I want to get things paid off. This didn’t happen because of all the medical shit with Josh. I simply didn’t have the energy or inclination.

Simplify:  I actually went through my printed patterns last night and got rid of the ones I knew I wouldn’t ever actually make. I think going through the craft supplies is probably my next stop. I don’t have too much excess of anything, except maybe yarn, but if nothing else it’ll refresh my memory of what I’ve got. I didn’t get rid of anything but I was able to straighten up the yarn storage and figure out what all I’ve got.

 

The challenge is officially over and I officially did not do well. I’m going to keep plugging away at finishing the other two projects. I’m thinking the next time I do this sort of challenge that it’ll be just a little easier, like maybe not shopping for anything but groceries or something.

Goals for this week:

Creative:  I want to finish the knit shrug.

Stress Management:  I really REALLY need to get back on the treadmill.

Health: Skin again. For some reason my hands are just trashed.

Financial:  Pay day is tomorrow, time to get serious.

Simplify:  ??? Not sure about this one this week.

 

life worth living weekly update – June 21st

Tags

28 day challenge, building a life worth living, DBT, getting creative, goals, health, stress management, taking charge of my finances

If you’re just joining me for the first time, I’ve got a list of 10 Major Goals I want to accomplish before I turn 40 in 2016. That’s what I refer to as my Life Worth Living; it’s a DBT thing. If you don’t want to stay stuck where you’ve been in life, you have to figure out where you want to go and what it would take to truly make your life worth living.

Every week I do a Creative, Stress Management, Health, and Financial goal that tie back to my Building a Life Worth Living project. I’ve also added a Simplifying goal that ties into my plan to declutter my life this year. Bit by bit I’m reaching for the stars.

Update from last week:

The nicest thing I can say about last week is that it’s over.

Creative:  I need to start, and keep, cranking away at my 28 Day Challenge projects. There was some progress made. See below.

Stress Management:  Continue walking on the treadmill as often as possible, at least 5 sessions of 25 minutes minimum. Didn’t go as well as I wanted it to so this goes back on the list. Again.

Health: Skin care (hands, feet, and now my face – yes, I bought moisturizer finally), new crud for my hair, and back to eating healthier. We took a trip to the farmer’s market yesterday morning and I’ve got some great veggies to keep me company. Mostly good with this one, though not entirely. I did manage to lose weight last week, which was a damn miracle. Still working on a balance.

Financial:  I need to get my spending under control. Seriously. It’s really hard to spend what you just don’t have. I did take the time to go over our budget and print a copy.

Simplify:  Even if I don’t manage to get rid of anything, the closet needs some love. This actually happened almost immediately after I posted last week. We didn’t get rid of much but Josh did manage to move most of his winter stuff in his cedar chest to free up some room in there.

I made great progress on the knit shrug last week, as evidenced by the one pic I shared. I need to bind off that sleeve and then start the other half. I had the kid frog the crocheted vest yesterday. It was sad, but it needed to happen. There was no fucking way to salvage that damn thing.

I have yet to get back to the black and white vest and I still haven’t touched the dragon cross stitch. I honestly don’t think there’s any hope in hell of getting this all done in time.

Goals for this week:

Staying out of prison is a legit goal, right?

Creative:  I need to start, and keep, cranking away at my 28 Day Challenge projects. This is rolling over from last week, AGAIN. Sweet Ceiling Cat am I tired of this bullshit…

Stress Management:  Continue walking on the treadmill as often as possible, at least 5 sessions of 25 minutes minimum.

Health: Back to working on a healthier diet. Tomorrow morning I’m trying the soaked chia seed breakfast again with some tweaks.

Financial:  I need to look at the budget again, closer, and see where I can make changes. I want to get things paid off.

Simplify:  I actually went through my printed patterns last night and got rid of the ones I knew I wouldn’t ever actually make. I think going through the craft supplies is probably my next stop. I don’t have too much excess of anything, except maybe yarn, but if nothing else it’ll refresh my memory of what I’ve got.

 

life worth living weekly update – June 14th

Tags

28 day challenge, building a life worth living, DBT, getting creative, goals, health, stress management, taking charge of my finances

If you’re just joining me for the first time, I’ve got a list of 10 Major Goals I want to accomplish before I turn 40 in 2016. That’s what I refer to as my Life Worth Living; it’s a DBT thing. If you don’t want to stay stuck where you’ve been in life, you have to figure out where you want to go and what it would take to truly make your life worth living.

Every week I do a Creative, Stress Management, Health, and Financial goal that tie back to my Building a Life Worth Living project. I’ve also added a Simplifying goal that ties into my plan to declutter my life this year. Bit by bit I’m reaching for the stars.

Update from last week:

This week was really pretty odd. Josh started back to school and was gone three nights. This is good but it always takes a little time to adjust. And evidently one of my meds doesn’t like me getting a whole lot of sun. I have a rather wicked rash that looks horrid. But it was a good week overall.

Creative:  I need to start, and keep, cranking away at my 28 Day Challenge projects. I did work some on the crocheted vest though not as consistently as I had wanted to. My plan is to get the black and white vest done today.

Stress Management:  Continue walking on the treadmill as often as possible, at least 5 sessions of 25 minutes minimum. I walked four times on the treadmill and I can’t remember if I got 25 minutes in each time or not. I am adjusting the speed and incline so that my workout sessions are a little more intense.

Health:  I’m going to focus on my skin this week, primarily my hands and feet. I need to continue to do this so it’s going to carry over. But… I’m also going to get back to eating better. My habits over the weekend kind of went to shit. I want to lose a little weight this week so it’s back to eating salads for me. This was a little hit and miss though I feel like I did really well with the skin stuff. The only night I did do everything was last night and I had a mani/pedi yesterday. The eating better was mostly better. It would have been great if I hadn’t gone for ice cream twice. But I didn’t gain any weight last week and that’s good.

Financial:  I want to try to take a long hard look at what I’m doing with my money and where I need to make changes. (other than just not going shopping) Didn’t get to this.

Simplify:  I’m not sure right now what makes the most sense to do with this right now. And actually, I may just put it off in favor of spending more time with my 28 day challenge. I did manage to take a small load of stuff to Goodwill. There’s much temptation to dig into the closet again and get rid of a few things, just not sure if that will happen this next week or not.

This isn’t much of an update, but I guess it’s better than nothing.

For some reason I just haven’t been able to stick to the plan I had laid out for myself. I am still making progress, which is good. I also made another vest yesterday that just needs a few tweaks and then I’ll call it finished and that one wasn’t part of the original plan. But it was super quick and very funky. Anyway, I’m going to try to get back to this today.

Goals for this week:

Creative:  I need to start, and keep, cranking away at my 28 Day Challenge projects. This is rolling over from last week, AGAIN.

Stress Management:  Continue walking on the treadmill as often as possible, at least 5 sessions of 25 minutes minimum. Trying this one AGAIN as well.

Health: Skin care (hands, feet, and now my face – yes, I bought moisturizer finally), new crud for my hair, and back to eating healthier. We took a trip to the farmer’s market yesterday morning and I’ve got some great veggies to keep me company.

Financial:  I need to get my spending under control. Seriously.

Simplify:  Even if I don’t manage to get rid of anything, the closet needs some love. The shelf above the rod is where Josh and I keep our t-shirts and it’s an utter mess. I’d like to get him to go through his clothes sometime this week, just not sure if it’ll happen.

 

what the hell man?

Tags

building a life worth living, goals, health, life, limits, mental health, mental illness, moods, motivation, projects, random shit that falls out of my brain, recipes, school, stress, stress management

So evidently I went and blew off my own damn drawing challenge. And no one noticed. Or gave a fuck. Hard to tell.

I’m also not making the progress that I had hoped on my 28 day challenge. I’ve made some progress, just not the kind I know I’m actually capable of. Additionally I have apparently blown off most, if not all, of my weekly goals.

In summation, I suck.

However, in my defense, Josh started back to school this week and is in class 3 nights. Like out of the house from 5pm until 10:30pm. It’s sort of glorious but it’ll take some getting used to again. Last night I drove home planning to get all kinds of shit done and when I got there the only thing that really happened was an amazing impersonation of a slug.

I’ve been trying to be a good kid, really I have. And I’ll keep trying. I get that the only person imposing any sort of strict anything on me is, well, me. And, while I haven’t necessarily completed the things I had originally set out to do, I have done some other really interesting things. Like I tried using coconut oil as an overnight conditioner on my hair. (it’s awesome) I used it to cook some shrimp to accompany an Asian coleslaw. (the oil and a little soy sauce made delicious shrimp) And I made fudge with coconut oil. (totally not sharing it, get your own, bitches)

I’ve been taking better care of my skin, and I walked 4 of the 5 days so far, and I’ve eaten mostly reasonable most of the time.

So really, not too fucking shabby.

On an only slightly unrelated note, if anyone is interested in any of the recipes I’ve mentioned or in the recipe I use for my special salt scrub to deal with rough heels, just holler.

life worth living weekly update – June 8th

Tags

28 day challenge, building a life worth living, DBT, getting creative, goals, health, stress management, taking charge of my finances

If you’re just joining me for the first time, I’ve got a list of 10 Major Goals I want to accomplish before I turn 40 in 2016. That’s what I refer to as my Life Worth Living; it’s a DBT thing. If you don’t want to stay stuck where you’ve been in life, you have to figure out where you want to go and what it would take to truly make your life worth living.

Every week I do a Creative, Stress Management, Health, and Financial goal that tie back to my Building a Life Worth Living project. I’ve also added a Simplifying goal that ties into my plan to declutter my life this year. Bit by bit I’m reaching for the stars.

Update from last week:

So evidently I didn’t bother to change the title of last week’s post. Wow…

Creative:  I need to start, and keep, cranking away at my 28 Day Challenge projects. Well, sort of. I did this for several days, but not every day. I did make some nice progress though.

Stress Management:  Continue walking on the treadmill as often as possible, at least 5 sessions of 15 minutes minimum. I lost track of how many times, but I did at least the 5 and often longer than 15 minutes, plus I got a lot of walking in Friday evening at the art festival and then a ton of exercise this weekend in the yard. And this morning I did 25 minutes.

Health:  I’m going to focus on my skin this week, primarily my hands and feet. I think I neglect Friday night and Saturday night but that was it. The results are wonderful.

Financial:  The bills for all of Josh’s medical stuff will likely start rolling in any day now, so I need to get back to pretending I’m super poor and stop thinking I really need new shoes and more Legos. Um…

Simplify:  We did a tiny bit of purging at home this weekend and I brought a few pieces home from my office, mostly because I’m getting a new adjustable desktop thing that will allow me to work standing up and I didn’t figure it would be a good idea to have things hanging on the wall behind that. Anyway, I’d like to keep trying to streamline things a bit. I redid some things on my desk last night to try to help. Visually it was just too much. I think what I’ve got setup now is better, but we’ll see.

Goals for this week:

Creative:  I need to start, and keep, cranking away at my 28 Day Challenge projects. This is rolling over from last week.

Stress Management:  Continue walking on the treadmill as often as possible, at least 5 sessions of 25 minutes minimum. Turning it up a little from last week.

Health:  I’m going to focus on my skin this week, primarily my hands and feet. I need to continue to do this so it’s going to carry over. But… I’m also going to get back to eating better. My habits over the weekend kind of went to shit. I want to lose a little weight this week so it’s back to eating salads for me.

Financial:  I want to try to take a long hard look at what I’m doing with my money and where I need to make changes. (other than just not going shopping)

Simplify:  I’m not sure right now what makes the most sense to do with this right now. And actually, I may just put it off in favor of spending more time with my 28 day challenge.

So you’re getting a two-fer today. Yay!

The black and white vest has the outer binding pretty well done. I need to go back and fix a few spots, trim excess fabric, and cut off the threads. I have measured my sample piece so I know where to cut for the arms.

The crocheted vest is getting there. The back is done and I’ve started the arms/collar stuff. I’m guessing that’s not going to take a whole lot longer. I hope.

I’ll do my best to have progress pics to show next week.

life worth living weekly update – May 24th

Tags

28 day challenge, building a life worth living, DBT, getting creative, goals, health, stress management, taking charge of my finances

If you’re just joining me for the first time, I’ve got a list of 10 Major Goals I want to accomplish before I turn 40 in 2016. That’s what I refer to as my Life Worth Living; it’s a DBT thing. If you don’t want to stay stuck where you’ve been in life, you have to figure out where you want to go and what it would take to truly make your life worth living.

Every week I do a Creative, Stress Management, Health, and Financial goal that tie back to my Building a Life Worth Living project. I’ve also added a Simplifying goal that ties into my plan to declutter my life this year. Bit by bit I’m reaching for the stars.

Update from last week:

Creative:  I will get that black and white vest finished before starting or going back to anything else. Almost. I have the whole outer edge done I just need to do the armholes. Hopefully tomorrow night.

Stress Management:  Continue walking on the treadmill as often as possible, at least 3 sessions of 20 minutes minimum. I lost track of how many times, but it was at least 3. So yay!

Health:  I will figure out how to easily add my food intake in the Fitbit tracking app. Oh I figured it out just fine, and learned that I’m really mostly lazy. Doh!

Financial:  Friday is payday for both of us so it’ll be time to pay the piper. Until then I need to minimize how much goes out. I did really pretty good with this.

Simplify:  One of the tasks on my list is to make another go through my jewelry armoire, so that’s up for this week. Done!

Goals for this week:

Creative:  I need to start, and keep, cranking away at my 28 Day Challenge projects.

Stress Management:  Continue walking on the treadmill as often as possible, at least 5 sessions of 15 minutes minimum.

Health:  I’m going to focus on my skin this week, primarily my hands and feet. Because I wear sandals so much my heels are trashed. And my hands are usually all dried out and cracked as well. I’ve found some stuff for my heels that I put on before bed and then yesterday I gave in and got a jar of coconut oil. I’ve been having so much trouble again with everything else that I figured it was worth a shot. It absorbed right in and smelled great. So I need to do my hands and feet and every night before bed.

Financial:  The bills for all of Josh’s medical stuff will likely start rolling in any day now, so I need to get back to pretending I’m super poor and stop thinking I really need new shoes and more Legos.

Simplify:  We did a tiny bit of purging at home this weekend and I brought a few pieces home from my office, mostly because I’m getting a new adjustable desktop thing that will allow me to work standing up and I didn’t figure it would be a good idea to have things hanging on the wall behind that. Anyway, I’d like to keep trying to streamline things a bit.