I’ve been keeping up with my commitments and managed to loose another 2 1/2 pounds in the last couple of weeks.  I have officially lost 41.5 pounds since all of this began.  That number is somewhat astonishing to me.  I have never lost that much weight in my life. Then again, I’d never gotten as heavy as I had before either.  To think that I’ve lost nearly as much as my daughter weighs is just… wow.

Things are crazy busy around here right now.  We have a lot of various events to attend in the next couple of weeks with the family commitments and things for the kids.  We just took Baby Girl to see her first Nutcracker and that was the most fun I’ve had in so long.  Getting to experience it anew through her eyes was just amazing.  I’ve also got a ton of stuff on my to do list that I need to get done before the end of the year.  Getting all of my websites upgraded is just a fraction of what is on my plate at the moment.  In an effort to not overwhelm myself, I’m going to take a bit of a break until after the first of the year. Both with blogging and with keeping rigid track of my calories.  I want to be able to spend this time focused on family and not what I’m taking in.  I’m not letting go completely, but I’m not going to spend an awful lot of time and stress over trying to keep track of it all.  If I find a few minutes here or there, I may stop in.  If not, I wish all my wonderful friends an amazing holiday season full of wonder, joy and magic.

Weight loss or no, I’m having to really spend some time thinking about why I have chosen to make these commitments to myself.  The better choices commitment is obvious.  It is about becoming a healthier person and to feel better overall.  The movement commitment of my daily challenge is supposed to help me with that, though this one seems to be my hardest one to consistently meet more than my minimum goal every day.  The outdoor commitment falls into an entirely different area.  It is supposed to be more of a spiritual goal, something to help me to reconnect and to appreciate all of the beauty and magic of the world around me.  I am also struggling with this one.  I’m not having too much of a problem of getting more than my minimum goal of 5 minutes a day, but I rarely get all 30 of my ideal goal.  It also feels more like I’m just doing what I need to do to endure that time rather than finding something in it to enjoy and appreciate.

I knew it wouldn’t all be easy.  If it were, I’d already be doing it all and wouldn’t need this challenge and commitment to myself.  I am beginning to see what of all of this is really important to me when there are certain aspects that I become more frustrated with myself over for not accomplishing or feel really good about when I do meet those goals.  I have a feeling it is going to be a very interesting year if I’m having all of this going on this early in the challenge.

The first half of the week, I still kept track of what I was eating, though I wasn’t really trying to stay within a calorie goal.  I don’t think I did horrible since I was really aware of what I was doing.  The last half of the week (pretty much Thanksgiving day and on), I didn’t keep track at all and I did a pretty poor job of making healthy choices.  Hubby wasn’t a whole lot of help with the constant reminders of “You’re on vacation!  You can have another dessert!”  I realized it didn’t take much convincing on his part for me to just ignore most of the good habits I managed to get myself into.  I ate several times when I really wasn’t all that hungry just because it was there.  Many times I found myself thinking “I better eat this now because come next week, I won’t be doing this anymore” even if I really didn’t want something, hungry or not.  In all of that, I ended up with a horrible case of indigestion by the end of the week for the first time in months and I’d gained a pound and a half. Overall, I felt pretty crummy by the end of the week and it seems to be taking a bit to get back to feeling decent again.

I know now that I will have to change my typical holiday routines and baking as I really don’t want or need all the extra stuff around the house.  It doesn’t matter if it is a holiday or a special occasion, there really is no reason to not still try and eat healthy.  There is also no reason to deny myself the things I enjoy, but I’m not going to enjoy them much if I’m eating too much of them or forcing myself to eat them just because they are there.  I really am much happier and much more satisfied if I just stick to the smaller amounts and be done.  There really is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

I didn’t do horrible on my daily challenge last week.  With all the decorating for the holidays getting done, I had no problem reaching my movement commitment.  The outdoor commitment was about as easy to meet with the exception of the day we were working on the indoor decorating.  I didn’t even realize that I hadn’t stepped foot outside all day until we were getting ready for bed.  I was really frustrated with myself that I couldn’t even manage the 5 minute minimum that day.  I am struggling to remember to connect while doing either of those so I need to figure out something that keeps that in mind.

I knew the daily challenge would be difficult on some days, but I really didn’t expect it to be quite this difficult to get myself outside.  The cold is still having a pretty big impact on me, even with all the layers, though they do help.  I’ve gotten to the point where I’m almost constantly in two shirts and a zip up sweatshirt kind of thing and I’m still cold.  It isn’t very easy to be able to appreciate nature when you are shivering and cursing at it.  I am beginning to wonder if starting this challenge at this time of year was the wisest thing for me to do, but I’m in the middle of it and will keep going.  I may look like an idiot sitting on the front porch bundled in 10 blankets, but I’m determined to do this.

For now, it will be a week of shopping, decorating, eating and just enjoying family.  A lot of which is already going one.  I hope all my blogging family has an amazing Thanksgiving!

I lost another pound and a half this last week breaking me through one of my smaller goals.  I’m flirting with numbers that I haven’t seen since Hubby and I got together 11 years ago.  I’m so very close to that, but probably won’t see those for another month or so.  It is interesting that I feel like I look better and feel healthier now than I did back then even though I’m still a little heavier.

I managed to meet my daily challenge commitments last week, but I found it rather difficult to do more than just my minimum on the movement challenge.  I think it has been a couple of weeks since I’ve gotten downstairs to do any kind of weights.  I did manage to get in a couple of walks last week, even convincing Hubby and the kids to go with me, which was really nice.  It wasn’t all that long ago that I really didn’t want anyone with me when I was walking because I hated feeling like I was too out of shape to keep up.  Now, I really enjoy having the company.  It has been hard to drum up the motivation and desire to get up and move.  I’m doing a little better with the cold now that I’m doing more layers and the weather has been nicer, but those cold days are still the hardest.

I’ve been doing a lot of sitting on the front porch and reading in the mornings after my daughter gets on the bus.  I’ve found that I like the quiet of that time of day.  I do wish that our house faced East so that I’d be sitting in the sun or watching the sun come up while sitting there, but we don’t.  I could always move to the back after she gets on the bus, but I’ve really enjoyed watching the tree out front go from green to a vivid brick red and then shedding all that lovely color.  We don’t have any mature trees in the back yet.  At least none close enough to really enjoy.  The trees that are well beyond our property have all been bare or nearly there for a few weeks.  All of the color seems to be out front with the Maple in the front yard and the Barberries that are also going through some dramatic colors.

Sunset on the Farm - TJFox - 2011

The next week is going to be interesting to see how well I do with my commitments and trying to stick with making better choices with Thanksgiving and Hubby potentially being home all next week.  At least I’ll be hosting the family dinner here this year, so I have some control over the menu and how everything is prepared.  Our dinner tends to lean very heavily towards lots of really starchy foods, so I’m going to have to see what I can do to modify that enough to make it a bit healthier.

Since beginning this whole getting healthier thing, I’ve really seen how my choices and actions are impacting those around me.  My kids are now asking at meals if something is whole wheat and being all excited about the fact that it is, even the brownies I made this week, and tell me that they like the whole wheat/whole grain versions better (which I think is just absolutely hilarious).  They are more excited about getting outside and going for a walk or riding their bikes.  Hubby has commented on how good he is feeling overall.  Even my mom, who has also been attempting to loose weight, is starting to try and implement some of the changes I’ve made to help her as she has seen how well it has been working for me.  It is really exciting to see that my choices to be healthier are not just working for me, but are sinking in and making an impact on my family.  I especially feel good that my kids are watching and getting some positive influence from it so that maybe they will already be making healthy decisions and have healthy relationships with food by the time they are my age.  It is so much easier to be doing things the right way from the beginning rather than having to make major changes mid stream and have to break lots of bad habits later.

My weigh in this week was on the surprising side.  I honestly didn’t expect to lose much if any weight as I didn’t really get in the exercise that I’d wanted to, so it was a bit of a shock to get on the scale to discover I’d lost another 2 pounds.  That is 35 pounds now.  Just wow.  I’m at a point where it is really tempting to say that it is all good enough and stop, but I know that I really am not at that really healthy point yet.  I do feel immensely better than I did when I started this particular journey, but I want to feel even better.  With it starting to get much colder (depending on the day, Mother Nature is still acting somewhat like a woman going through menopause at the moment), it is becoming harder and harder to get the motivation to get up and move.  It will take even more determination than I’ve had up to this point to keep it going.

I had kind of hoped that the daily challenge would help with that motivation, but the movement part of my goals has been the hardest to hit.  Granted, this last week has been kind of crazy with Halloween and the mess that created and needed to be cleaned up and other random things that always seem to crop up as the perfect excuse to not get up and move.  I did get in a nice walk earlier in the week, but that was about it for any extended moving.  I did meet my commitment every day on the minimum of at least 5 minutes by doing some stretching.

The outdoor part of my commitment and the connecting part has been a bit easier.  I managed to meet my ideal goal in both every day last week with the exception of one day that it was just colder than I could stand that day.  I did get out there for a little over 5 minutes, but not the full 30.  The cold has been really hard on me this year.  More so than normal even though I’ve always been cold when everyone else is comfortable.  I guess not having that extra insulation is having an effect.  I picked up a couple of shirts and some tights to give me some layering options to hopefully help with that.

I am really hoping that I can establish some sort of a routine that helps me to meet and stick with all of my commitments a little better, but I haven’t quite figured out how to do that yet.  It would also help if I didn’t have 50 million other problems distracting me that have decided to rear their ugly head over the last several days.  I really, really didn’t need to hear that the water that came into the basement with last night’s rain wasn’t actually due to something the window guys did but was just part of a much larger problem that has been ongoing for quite some time.  That I did NOT want to hear today.

Haunted Garage - 2011 by TJFox

Halloween Pumpkin - 2011 by TJFox

Today is the beginning of my year long challenge.  This is inspired by Robin at Life in the Bogs.  The purpose of the challenge is to find something that you would do every single day for a year and helps to improve or enrich your life in some way.  I have three separate goals I’ve come up with that I’d like to accomplish each day.  I structured those goals on different levels, with a minimum goal and an ideal goal to help ensure that I can actually meet them, even on days that may seem too difficult to do much of anything.  I’m going to try really hard to not let any apathy or grumpiness allow me to slack and just do the minimum on a regular basis, but rather to reserve those times for when I just cannot do more than that.

Goal 1:
Minimum Requirement:  Spend at least 5 minutes outside each day.
Ideal Goal:  Spend 30 minutes outside each day with a few focused minutes on trying to connect with nature in some way.

Goal 2:
Minimum Requirement:  Move for at least 5 minutes every day.  Even if it is just something as simple as 5 minutes of stretching, it is getting off my duff and moving.  I figure if I can force myself to move for at least that 5 minutes, I may just feel like doing more than that.

Ideal Goal:  Do something sustained for 30 minutes like walking, riding my bike or dancing at least 3 days a week.  I don’t think it is realistic to expect a full workout every day, but if I can shoot for 3 days with a workout and the other 4 days of each week just focused on getting up and moving, those 3 days will be easier to do.  I’d also like to work up to the point where I’m doing some sort of strength training a couple of days out of the week, but that is something that will have to come over time as I go through this.

Goal 3:
Do something every day to focus on the moment and connect with everything around me.  Something as simple as greeting or saying farewell to the day, the sun or moon, grounding and centering, or even some form of meditation.  Anything that will get me a bit more “in-tune” spiritually than I have been lately.

I don’t think I’ll start posting about my progress on a daily basis, but rather keep it to a once a week update similar to what I’m doing with the better choices posts.  I will already be trying to log my daily progress on Journeys along with several others that are participating in this with me, so I doubt I’ll be wanting to post in both places.  Besides, I’m sure there is only so much of that I can post here before beginning to bore some of you to tears.  I am really excited and a bit nervous about this as I tend to get bored rather quickly.  It will be a very interesting journey to say the least.

For now, I’ve got to spend the day in the garage again, breaking down and packing away all the spooky fun for the year, so I doubt I’ll have any problems meeting my “movement” goal today.  It will feel nice to have the house back to normal for a while before I start all over again with the Christmas and Yule decorations in less than a month.

The project I spent last week in the studio on was a pendant for DragonFae.  It is a project that has been in the works since March when I ran across one of the stones at the gem show.  It is such a beautiful piece and I really loved getting to work on it for her.  It is made with Green Tourmaline and Bytownite.

Green Tourmaline and Bytownite Pendant - Shades of Midnight 2011

Having spent almost all year working on custom projects, I have started to really find the styles that I prefer to work in as an artist.  I really love the look of the combination of structured and organic looks and this piece is one of several that I’ve done this year that pull those two together.  I first got a really good taste for that style when I was working on my previous two pieces.  Both had that controlled chaos feel to them that appeals to me.

Citrine, Pyrite and Garnet Argetium Silver Bracelet - Shades of Midnight 2011

Rose Quartz, Garnet and Amethyst Argentium Silver Bracelet - Shades of Midnight 2011

Both of those pieces also pushed my skill boundaries by working with a new material, Argentium silver.  It is still technically sterling silver, but it has a slightly different mix of metals besides the silver that prevents it from tarnishing.  It also changes how you work with it a bit and it took me a little while of frustration to figure out the differences.  I love the concept of the material and think I will learn to enjoy it, but I think I need a bit more studio and play time with it first.

I have plans for so many other pieces, but I still have a few more custom projects on my plate at the moment.  I may not actually get around to any new pieces for the shop until after the first of the year, though I did list a couple of simple ring bands today.  I also have another gem show coming up (which will kill my checking account, I’m sure) in a few weeks.  It is really interesting how differently I approach the shows now than I did when I started.  I am no longer focused solely on the bead vendors and often just skip them all together if they don’t have cabs.   The last couple of shows, I skipped over all the vendors that had only faceted stones, but I think I’ll be spending more time with them this go round now that I’ve had some experience with them as well.

Right now?  Life is good.