Lundie's Life

[The continuing story of me and minimalism. I'm working through a not-quite-real-time version of a "21 Day Journey into Minimalism" as illustrated by TheMinimalists.com]

With your vision firmly in place, it is time for you to plan your journey into minimalism. You will spend one to two hours today planning your journey into minimalism.

— Day 2: Planning

So…Day 2. Most of today was spent working from home and taking care of a sick kid. Seems I’ve been doing a lot of that lately. I read through bits of the Day 2 post several times throughout the day and got progressively frustrated. I was expecting each day to have a full set of instructions, and no matter how many times I read over it, I was just not “getting” it. What was I planning? A schedule where I did things to support my “musts”? It didn’t seem to make sense. Then I decided to step out of my OCD shoes for a moment and go ahead and “read ahead” through the next few days. BINGO!

Now I can see that I’m going to need to plan some time to do the Day 3 stuff. Mine won’t happen all tomorrow. It might happen a little bit, but as I am not the sole occupant of this home, I can’t just start something so drastic without some level of buy-in from J4!

My main plan is this: since I can’t just pack up the whole house, I am going to start in 2 places – the bookshelf in the living room and my side of the closet (and if I’m doing well, my dresser space). I will box up all the books in the living room, leaving out only the items that I know I will not be rid of in this wave (photo albums, new books I haven’t read yet, but must — the ones I bought and never will can go — I’m ready to be rid of that guilt-on-a-shelf). The clothes are already bagged up into smaller sizes for when I lose the weight I’ve been trying to lose for over 10 years now. We’ll see if they ever return…

On Friday, the 7th, I believe I will start in the kitchen.
Next Tuesday, the 11th, I will finish up in the kitchen.
The following Friday, the 14th, I will work on the basement pantry shelves.

This is my first guess at a timeline. I will take pictures. I may even post pictures. Here’s my bookshelf for inspiration to keep me motivated tomorrow. (BTW, this will probably be difficult for me tomorrow. I love books. I love to own them. I love to see them. I like to hoard them. It is painful for me to be rid of them, but they also hold a great deal of weight and guilt in my heart for not reading them. Time to shed some of that kind of weight too.)

Oh, and on a side note, I dragged myself and my recovering kid out on a walk today, thus supporting the “must” of exercise. Go me!


Good night.

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G+

…had a rockin’ bod.

The writing prompt for today asks:

If you could change one thing about your life right now, what would it be?

Without hesitation, I wish I weighed about 100 lbs less and had muscles to die for. Physical health and fitness is an arena of emotion and chaos for me. I feel like I have spent a lifetime with this “If only…” in the back of my head. If you could lose weight by thinking and talking about fitness, I would have blown away like dust in the wind by now.

So, I guess that begs the question, if this is my split-second absolute first-thing-that-pops-in-my-head thing I want to change about my life…what’s stopping me?

• Fear of working hard and it not working
• Fear of losing out on pleasurable things (couch loafing, TV & Snack relaxation)
• Fear I’d do exercise wrong and hurt myself
• Fatigue and malaise
• Insufficient timely motivation (my motivated feelings come at midnight, or on the way to work…)

It’s not gonna happen until I move from thought to action. Enough with the thinking already. It can be done!


And that is why I have this as one of my rotating desktop images:

Like it? Find more here

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Writing this evening inspired by the November 2012 NaBloPoMo Writing Prompt: Friday, November 9, 2012 – If you could change one thing about your life right now, what would it be?

My G+ Profile

I have had a bit of a mental breakthrough. I’ts sure been a long time coming. There are some background things that have moved me along the way:

• feeling stalled at the age of 41 – finding that as J5 gets into first grade, the rhythms of school life are less traumatic, and require less direct interaction. I’ve pretty much accomplished the main life goals I’d set – finish college, get a job, get married, have a family.
• seeing my unhealthy habits replicated in my 7yo – There’s nothing as sobering as seeing J5 facing some of the same challenges I’ve always had: sedentary hobbies, love of carbs. If I’m going to help my kid live a healthy life, I am going to have to demonstrate it.
• realizing I needed to get a basic understanding of my calorie intake – as someone recently told me, “what is measured can be managed”. I can’t really begin to improve what I’m eating if I can’t remember and don’t track it.
• seeing my husband train for the Tough Mudder, and finish with all his crazy friends – The lazy me always wanted J4 to “help” me get fit, but it hasn’t been until he did his own thing fitness wise that I was inspired to figure out what worked for me – to really look for where *I* struggle, and for what will work for *me*.

So, I signed up for SparkCoach, SparkPeople’s paid program. I have used SparkPeople’s free tools off and on for a few years now. The extra daily guidance and feedback that SparkCoach offers has been nice. The right program at the right time. Some of the basic things I’m doing:

• Daily check-in with SparkCoach
• Some kind of cardio exercise for 10 minutes every day – I use the RunKeeper app on my phone when I walk outside, otherwise I just hit the treadmill.
• Tracking my food – Of course, the goal is to reduce my # of calories, but my baby steps at this point is to just track everything. Once tracking is a habit, then I’ll worry about total numbers. (Of course the side effect of tracking is that I am getting a feel for what things and what quantities are healthier than others, and I am starting to make different choices without the stress.)

Only time will tell, but for the first time in a long time, I’m feeling real hope. Not just wishing, but actual hoping!

If you think you might want to give SparkPeople a spin, click the link below to sign up (and it will give me super fun points for the referral!)
 

I did it! I started an addiction! This past weekend I walked in a 5k! A friend (and neighbor) and I joined with 142 other people to walk/run in the New Thing 5k. It was awesome! We shaved 8 minutes off our previously walked times and actually enjoyed it!

New Thing 5k	My 5k ID Tag
My Walking Buddy

The Stats:

• Place in age group: 22
• Bib #: 107
• Age: 40
• Overall: 133
• Total Time: 52:25.2
• Pace: 16:55/M