Changing habits

The rule of thumb with habits, good and bad, is that it takes 40 days to make a new habit, or kill an old one.


That means forty days of being diligent, persistent, and conscientious of your actions.  Paying attention.  Being engaged with your own actions, and not just operating in a haze.  (HA!)


I'm bringing up changing habits NOW because I LOATHE the whole "New Year's Resolutions" thing.  I turn 33 this year, and I've wasted enough time in my life lamenting at how I wasn't able to keep up with my NYR this year, BUT NEXT YEAR!!!!  Good gravy.  I've been of the frame of mind, for about the last 7 or 8 years or so, that I don't do resolutions, per sé.  I do GOALS.  Why?


Because setting goals WORKS.


And my goal right now?


To change my habits.


I have a list the length of my leg of habits I'd like to change or develop, but since I'm the type of person, that in order to not get totally overwhelmed, then stressed, then have debilitating anxiety attacks, which THEN result in hideous depression - *breathe* - I have to take baby steps.  So, because 90 days seems to be "THE THING" right now (P90X, Vitality for Life, etc), and yesterday was the 1st of February, I made a commitment to develop a couple of new habits, and to COMMIT to persistence and diligence and engagement with these habits for the next 90 days.  That will take me to 30 April, 2012.  (I will then be 33. :D)  Because, realistically, I know for me, 40 days?  Probably not enough.  Besides.  GO BIG OR GO HOME. ;)  And changing a couple of actions for 90 days seems like a good enough baby step for me.


I'm really excited to see what 2012 holds for our family.  We have faced some MASSIVE adversity and challenges as a family, financially, emotionally, physically, you name it, over the last 4 years most specifically.  And I personally have battled for years with stress/anxiety, depression, and most related to being a housewife: inadequacy.  I LOGICALLY know that these feelings are bunk, but feelings don't have to make sense.  And I know that logically, in order to deal with them, I need to address my actions - and create new habits.  Hence, I'm changing habits.


I'm going to be posting in the coming weeks about my commitment, in addition to other things, and I'd love to hear what kind of things that you have committed to - either now or in the past.  What things have you battled with in your commitment?  What challenges have you faced to keeping those commitments?


Cheers,
Dinnae ;)

Reality check

I'm expecting my FIRM Express DVDs to arrive this week, so I thought this weekend would be a good time to take my "before" pics.  Today I got dressed in a sports bra and workout capris, and got dh to take a front, side, and back view of me.

What a reality check. :(

I KNOW that I'm big.  I KNOW that I have more rolls than I ever have.  And I KNOW that I'm actually clinically obese.  (Wii Fit tells me that every time I do my body test. :P )  But to see that picture... that person is ME???  It's humbling.

Today (well, technically yesterday, as it is currently 12.30am Tuesday) is Thanksgiving day here in Canada.  We went to a couple-from-church's house for dinner, and I was very careful with what I ate.  I STILL went 500 calories over for the day, because I allowed myself a butter tart, but I had had a good week DESPITE a trip to Red Robin when one of my BFFs came to town. (ACK! Mesa chicken salad is YUM, and healthy-ish, but 1000 calories!!!)  I felt ok after dinner, not over-stuffed like I usually am at the holidays.

***Note: I'd like to say here that since I am a breastfeeding mama, my daily calorie goal of 1900 might be a bit low anyway, so I'm not HUGELY concerned if I'm 100-200 calories over -- I *DO* weigh 200 lbs.  I read somewhere that in order to maintain your weight with a sedentary lifestyle, your weight in lbs x 10 is how many calories you need.  Add in breastfeeding (200-500 MORE per day), and light activity, 1900 is a pretty low amount. (but still within safe levels for milk supply.)***

Which is good.  VERY GOOD.  Because here I am uploading before pics to my profile on the FIRM Believers Club, and I'm feeling horrendous and disgusting right now.  I'm disgusted with myself mostly that I've allowed myself to get to this point.

Tomorrow I will take my measurements, and I'm sure that will be another reality check too.  The myfitnesspal.com app allows you to custom-pick which measurements you want to track, so I will be putting in the ones from the FIRM's Goal Setting article... and checking those once a month.  Realistically, knowing my history with working out and losing weight, I won't see the scale move as much as I will see those numbers on the measuring tape move, so I need to get those recorded before I start my FIRM Express DVDs.

NO MORE EXCUSES....

A sad day...

I've had a hard time stopping the tears for the last 4 hours... I'm thankful it's not due to a loss in my family, but just the same, my heart is broken for my dear friend who is going through the loss of a child.

On the evening of 5 January, a car accident occurred in NSW that left the driver and one of the 4 children in the car seriously injured.  Later that night, the 9 year old girl lost her fight.  Her auntie is still in the hospital, still in critical condition, so she needs prayers.  The other 3 kids are ok.  But Kate and Matt lost their beautiful Liv...

To pay tribute to this sweet little angel who was taken from her loving parents too soon:  she was a gorgeous redhead... shy sometimes, but others, take you off guard with how bubbly she was when she was warming up to you.  She was thoughtful and intelligent, and so so sweet.  And this all from a lady who really didn't know her all that well.  I was lucky enough to meet this gorgeous girl more than once, and lucky enough to have her over when my oldest was a newborn.  I can't imagine what they're going through right now, but Kate, if you're on the net trying to take your mind off things (as I know you do dear girl), please know that I'm shedding buckets for you, Matt and the kids, and that Liv has a special place in my heart...

Grab your kids, your parents, your brothers and sisters, your friends.  GRAB them, HOLD them, and tell them how much you love them.  Because it's not just a cliché - we really don't know how much time we have left.

Much love,

d.

ps: Kate has a blog, and just a few days ago did a lovely slideshow of pics of her kids in 2009... have a look-see over there:  The 6 of Us

Meant to be ...

Life's events over the last two or three years have had me saying that phrase... A LOT.

"It was meant to be this way..."

"Everything happens for a reason..."

I've had a BUNCH of horrendously crappy stuff happen to me/my family.
- I almost lost all of our family belongings when our moving company declared bankruptcy
- said bankruptcy then cleared out our savings in order to NOT lose our family's possessions
- a friend from my IRL mum's group lost her battle to cancer
- my husband has had to deal with being estranged from not only his mother (long long time), but now also his father
And that's just in the last 9 months, and just the really MAJOR ones... these aren't including the littlies.

Keeping positive has kept me floating; some days, barely. But, since finding a home church, and coming back to God, I've started to realise that I'm not really being "positive" per se... but more, well, not immaturely laying blame... heck, I'm even BEING MATURE about our situations.

- our moving situation was meant to keep us on a certain path, that we had been HELL bent on deviating from
- estrangement from his father has helped my dh see that maybe while he'll NEVER be close to his family, maybe having a distant (not as in distance, km, but distant as in, not close) relationship with BOTH parents is better than none
- for WHATEVER reason, Dee was needed in heaven, probably to protect her awesome little boy, and be his guardian angel

Don't get me wrong, I'm not happy about losing my mate to cancer, I sobbed for two days straight until she actually passed... and 2 months later, I still look at her photo on a regular basis, and shed a tear... but I feel happy knowing that her ds has his mummy protecting him from heaven.

And don't get me wrong, dh's fight with his dad was UUUUUGLY, and it will probably never be resolved, but hey, he learned that his dad will never change, and that in order to have a relationship, he's gotta deal with it, and just never take for granted the close relationships he DOES have... nor EVER let his relationships with our 2 ds be like that (not difficult to prevent, tbh). AS WELL, he's even mentioned contacting his mum... (but I'm not holding my breath for that just yet).

And our moving situation... ha! Again, don't get me wrong, because I honestly hope the people that took our money and our stuff, and knew FULL WELL that their insolvency application was to be granted in two weeks, well, I hope they rot in hell... but, in the big picture, we NEVER EVER would have thought to stay here in small town WL, BC (where I was born, and where I had refused to entertain the thought of staying here, btw)... but yet here we are, looking forward to getting some land, and building a house here. Through staying here, finding a church, and meeting new people (remember, we weren't going to stay here - this was TEMPORARY - we were gettin' out ASAP!), we've had opportunities present themselves that we would never have had, had we actually "gotten out." No, no monetary gain. YET. In two years? I get giddy thinking about the projects that we have bubbling atm. And yes, that's projectS.

Meant to be??? I honestly believe so. I honestly believe that in order to make sure these opportunities were available to us, God HAD to push us, because we just WERE NOT budging on our own.

We've come to the realisation that we NEED to be able to raise our boys *free range* as one of my new friends, A, puts it. I LOVE that thought. My boys, able to run around nuts, on 10 acres, with no worries.

We've decided to give home-schooling a go. I'd ALWAYS wanted to be home-schooled as a child.. now here's my chance to give that to my kids. We'll always give them the OPTION to go to a school, but they won't have to if they want to learn at home.

These are things that God has put in my heart... and all things that came as a RESULT of my prayer and soul-searching after/during our periods of adversity... Life is hard, but He's helping me through it.