Navelgazing

March 2018 Roundup

I committed to doing these posts as part of my 2018 Goals and even though I have accomplished almost none of my original three daily goals this past month, eh, it’s OK. It’s now April and it’s a waste of time looking in the rear view mirror. Oh, except for when I’m doing a retrospective. My rear-view mirror look at March is a mixed bag.

March 2018: I did not walk daily, work on my language lessons, or plank.

March 2018 Also, Though: I recovered from the flu and a sprained ankle, I made a lot of dresses and went on an awesome trip to London. And I went to work and knocked a few to-do items off my list and overall feel good about my attitude and my progress.

The key word in that last sentence is “attitude.” My mentor Wayne Dyer used to say, “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” He meant that you can look at a challenge as either a horrible tragedy or an interesting opportunity, the choice is yours. I’m generally trying to complain less and appreciate more.

My right ankle got some mysterious injury when we were on that (slightly cursed) trip to Madrid and I only made it worse walking a zillion miles in London so I am now rocking a brace and getting lots of questions at work when claiming to be a shark bite victim.

I am only mentioning this new snafu because it seriously puts a crimp in my 2018 goal to walk daily. AS LUCK WOULD HAVE IT, I have a side table exercise bike in my living room, and when I am cleared to pedal push my heart out I will change up my goal from daily walking to daily bicycling. (This is the bike I have but it was under $100 when I got it several years ago.)

For April my only goals are to be positive and productive and healthy. I am also doing my daily language lesson and sewing all the things.

My next projects are a Cashmerette Appleton wrap dress, a Cashmerette Harrison shirt (terrifying! so exciting!) and maybe some pants to wear with my sexyass leg brace. I am thinking the Sew Over It Ultimate Trousers might be a good fit. I’m REALLY into the Cashmerette patterns right now, because you don’t have to do a full bust adjustment to get a great fit on top even if you are a D+ cup. If the wrap dress works out as promised it will be the first ever wrap dress to actually fit me, so we shall see. Live in hope, I say!

 

April 5, 2018 6 comments
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InternationalTravel

I Ate All The Fish & Chips In Jolly Good London, Dare I Say!

I was only on the ground in London for two and a half days but that was enough to have three full meals of fish & chips and touch all the pretty fabrics at Sew Over It. In other words, an awesome mini-trip!

We took the overnight flight from LAX-LHR, which is usually our connection to farther flung places. Having Heathrow as the final stop made the trip seem faster and easier than usual. With carryon baggage only, we sailed through passport control and customs and were on the way to the hotel in a blink.

The Hotel

Artist Residence London
Address: 52 Cambridge St, Pimlico, London SW1V 4QQ, UK
Phone: +44 20 3019 8610

This cute little place was the coziest. The room was small but clean and it had a nice window and came stocked with a coffee maker and a kettle for a proper cup of tea. The bathroom was tiny but had the ultimate nicety: a heated towel rack in the bathroom. Heated towel racks are probably not a big deal but to me they seem very luxurious and fancy. Clearly I am easy to please 🙂

The hotel also has a nice-although-very-hipster restaurant at the ground floor. The millennials of London must also be spending their house payments on avocado toast as well, because it was on lots of menus! I was a Typical American and ordered a Diet Coke and it came in the cutest little mini-bottle. This seemed very Europe-y.

The hotel is located in a quiet neighborhood not far from Victoria Station. I would 100% recommend it, but be warned there is no elevator so if you don’t want to haul your butt up and down several flights of stairs you now have that info.

The Stuff We Did

The three non-fabric-shopping activities we planned while we were in town all ended up being thoroughly enjoyable.

1) B-Bus Afternoon Tea

This is a vintage red double-decker bus tour of the city that featured three custom gin cocktails and a whole spread for afternoon tea. I was nervous about spending so much money on a bus tour but it ended up being so much food it was a full meal, too, plus drinks! This was one of the things I was most looking forward to and it did not disappoint. To get the tour with the gin drinks, look on their schedule for the Gin Lover’s Tour.

Details: B Bakery London Afternoon Tea Bus
Website: https://london.b-bakery.com/
Price: (For the Gin Lover’s Tour) £55

 

2) City Lights River Cruise

This same company offers a dinner cruise, but we picked the sunset river cruise which is shorter but fit in at the time we needed. It was super fun! We split a bottle of bubbly, yum, but I have to give a hard pass on the rather horrible finger foods that were passed (cold round pizza bites, anyone?) and we even danced a little bit which was beyond goofy fun.

Details: B Bakery London Afternoon Tea Bus
Website: http://www.citycruises.com/london-thames-experiences/evening-cruise
Price: £29.00

 

3) Tate Modern Context Tour

On every trip I try to book at least one Context Tour — it’s like taking a three-hour college class on whatever subject interests you. Each docent is a PhD-level scholar or a professional in that area of expertise and you get a small (or private) tour curated for you. They’re a little pricier than your average group tour, but the experience is so much better than any other tour company in the world.

Modern and contemporary art are my favorite styles of museum art, and the Tate Modern has an excellent collection in a stunning setting right near the river. Our tour was really excellent, and it ended up just being me and the Captain and our docent, Alan. We got a thorough overview of the building and the collection and even a recommendation for fish and chips.

Details: Tate Modern Context Tour
Website: https://www.contexttravel.com/cities/london/tours/tate-modern
Price: $127

 

Visit to Sew Over It!!!

My one big “sightseeing” event was at the new Sew Over It store in Islington. I had a big old time deciding between all kinds of stretch cottons and jersey fabrics and a wild silver French terry. I also snagged three meters of some new Lisa Comfort fabric and a matching cardigan in navy blue. It’s the most cheerful, happy store and I wore my newly made Heather Dress like a big dork on pilgrimage to the shrine of sewing, and the Cap was patient and carried all my many bags and I was in seventh heaven.

Website: sewoverit.co.uk
Address: 319 Essex Rd, London N1 2BD, UK
Phone: +44 20 7326 0376

Every trip has some special aspects to it … on this one we danced together in public for the first time ever! I also used compression bags for all the fabric treasures and somehow we got it stuffed back into the carryon bags, so that was a miracle of alchemy and precision.

London is a HUGE place and it sparked lots of interesting ideas and conversations. What is remarkable to me is that pretty much everywhere you go, people are people. Parents are scolding their kids to just walk straight already, and couples are puzzling over menus, and folks are hopeful the rain lets up.

Travel is a great way to remind yourself that no matter what the news says, the world is full of basically decent human beings all just living their lives.

I am certain that by now I could have saved up and purchased a home and remodeled a kitchen twice over but I decided many years ago to save and spend on travel. There were a lot of years of solo trips, scouring the internet for bucket fares and traipsing out alone and I felt like a weirdo for much of that time. Everyone I knew back then was getting married and buying a house and having kids. But even when I got lonely (and I did get lonely), I still knew I needed to see something out there.

It was on this trip that it finally occurred to me that forcing myself to go out into the world, sometimes totally alone, pushed me to stop living in fear. I’m not scared of strangers or strangeness the way I used to be when I was young and sheltered. I’m more confident in my skills to make the best out of whatever comes my way. I’m capable and I know it because I have had to figure stuff out on the fly.

This is my main reason for trying to push people into traveling even when they don’t feel ready or feel like they have enough money or whatever. If you can make it happen, make it happen soon. The world is vast but it is also good.

 

 

 

April 2, 2018 7 comments
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Sewing

Apparently I Want to Make All The Things … But Also Solve Crime

It’s Wednesday and finally sunny and perfect in Los Angeles and what I really wish I were doing right now is sewing or knitting indoors with the Scottish show “Shetland” streaming off Netflix into my living room and surrounding me with the chill North Sea air and all the wee bonnie crimes.

Also I have decided that the Shetland island (islands?) is on my short list for relocation, and I just need to visit first to be sure I don’t get island fever like that time I went to Maui alone and got off the plane, rented a Jeep, and drove the entire circumference of the island and was ready to return to LA by noon.

Our next trip is in the same general direction, we are off to London for a long weekend and I’m beyond excited. Our Madrid trip in February was cursed and we are ready for a do-over trip. Everything that could go wrong went wrong starting with WE ALMOST MISSED THE PLANE which seriously NEVER happens. I am one of those arrive-three-hours-early types, I love my time sitting in the lounge drinking champagne or pretentious mixed drinks while eating stale party mix and eavesdropping on tourists.

I’m already packed for the London jaunt and I’ve been practicing speaking British all week by saying, “Hi there, tossers!” in traffic and welcoming folks to my office with an offer of tea and wankers. See how well I speak British!

When I’m not doing this dreadful thing called “making a living to pay for all this” I am also sewing all the things. I started with the Cashmerette Turner Dress and then spent all of last weekend perfecting the Sew Over It Heather Dress in honor of my upcoming trip to London whereby I will also be shopping until my credit card weeps in sorrow.

Honestly I am a weekend sweatshop of one and I could not be happier.

My next project is probably a wrap dress, although who knows what I will buy on my Sew Over It shopping spree so all plans could change depending on what treasures I uncover in England.

Oh, and CRIME. Let’s not forget all the crime I need to solve while I am there. Fairly certain I would make a right sassy detective, sort of a Columbo-meets-Clarissa-Explains-It-All character who always gets to the bottom of the mystery. If you haven’t seen “Shetland” yet I highly recommend it, it’s a wonderful show and it will make you want to knit and wear all the hats and scarves and sweaters and chunky socks. Also, I have maybe been telling people that I am watching this incredible documentary about my future home Shetland, so I’m taking it awfully seriously, perhaps?

Everything else:

My spiraling depression of late February/early March 2018 dissipated along with the crippling flu. It is a reminder to me to never make sweeping life decisions when I am sick. I was ready to quit my job and sell all my stuff and start a cult. Plus I did some ill-informed ebay-ing. Ugh. Really glad that’s over! My ankle is almost back to normal, and I am well and alive and happy and not telling porky pies. (So good at British!!)

In preparation for my upcoming trip I tried adding milk to my tea but it was godawful and I gagged. Go home, Britain, you’re drunk. Maybe it was the wrong kind of tea. Does anyone know what tea real British people drink? I don’t want to embarrass America by ordering a Long Island Tea with milk or something. Oh, the humanity.

That’s it for today. Unless you have a crime you want me to solve, in that case DO TELL in the comments.

xo LP

 

March 28, 2018 18 comments
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Navelgazing

February Scorecard On March 19 Tells You What You Need To Know

The fact that I am writing this February round up on March 19th pretty much sums up my February. Here’s the headline: AND CHAOS ENSUED!

I was really doing great with all my goals and walking every day and keeping all my commitments until February 16th and then:

1) I went on vacation to Madrid.

2) While on vacation, I sprained my ankle.

3) On the plane ride home I began feeling a bit poorly. And then worse.

4) By the time I arrived back to my house I was in full thermonuclear flu meltdown AND

5) I somehow got bronchitis while fighting the flu.

YAY! BE EFFICIENT! Get all the things in one month!

I’m recovered now. I’m fine. I have only now resumed my almost-daily walks and my general health is almost back. One thing no one tells you is that when you get the flu (or are sick for any period of time) you get depressed. It spirals down into a dark place, friends, like the day I told Drew I wanted to know if my life had peaked and I just wanted to burn it all down and move to Mexico under an assumed name and never bother doing boring things like taxes and laundry ever again.

Good times.

So it’s March and February is but a dark memory (thank the Lord) and the true test of me and my goals and my momentum is whether or not I give up OR if I pick up where I left off. I am choosing to pick up where I left off.

It’s going to take me a while to get back to my longer daily walks, my foot and ankle are still healing. But I’m going slow and making it happen. Today I did walk divided in two parts with a rest in between. And I’ve been making clothes like a crazy person, obsessed by cutting out dresses and sewing them up and wearing all my new stuff to work and stopping people in the hallway to proclaim, “I made this dress!”

We’re going on a super brief trip to London in a few weeks and my #1 top sightseeing location is the new Sew Over It shop on Essex Road where I plan to buy all the things. Between now and then my #1 goal is to make a Sew Over It dress (either the shift dress or a Heather Dress) that I can wear to the shop. Because obviously the best way to pay homage is by wearing their designs, right? Or I’ll end up tossed out for stalking, whatever, it should be a fun adventure.

Other stuff:

• Bob and Frankie cost a small fortune at the vet this month, and even though I want to believe they are tiny baby kittens, they are turning 16 years on in May! Is that crazy or what!

• My poor plumbing karma continues on into this new year. Today I went to the hardware store at lunch to buy a TOILET AUGER, don’t envy my life too much, folks, that shade of green is not good on anyone. And I know you’ll be wishing you could have a live video feed of me at home this evening trying to wrestle that thing into my clogged downstairs bathroom. I feel like I just swapped car problems for plumbing problems but truth is, I used to have both, so this is … better?

• My work-life-balance thing is a little better these days. Part of that is thanks to getting so sick I couldn’t physically attend work and then I realized nothing broke or caught fire, so maybe the flu was useful after all.

I still do occasionally think about running away and resurfacing in Mexico or Europe under an assumed name but March has been a marked improvement over February and for that I am relieved.

March 19, 2018 9 comments
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Navelgazing

There’s Not A Prize At The End For Self-Deprecation

This week, one of the ladies at work showed me her artwork. It took a fair amount of cajoling (me) and a fair amount of constant self-deprecation (her) but finally she opened up her portfolio and the work inside was staggeringly beautiful.

She draws in a street style, influenced by graffiti art and tattoo art, but her pencil strokes are so delicate and precise that each drawing also has a heartbreaking softness to it. I loved all her pieces, and I told her that again and again.

And each time she found a new way to defer the comments. “I’m just self-taught.” “I wasn’t born with any talent so I have to practice a lot.” “I have a friend who is actually really good, you should see his work…” and so on.

I felt so much compassion for where she was in that moment, because I get it so completely. It’s not really about self-esteem, entirely, or about self-confidence, entirely. Some of it is fear. And some of it is this socialization we get as women to start sentences with, “I’m sorry, but…”

People can tell you to stop putting yourself down (or in my case, it was always making myself the butt of the joke) but it’s hard behavior to quit until you reach that place where it no longer jives with who you are.

It no longer jives with who I am.

AND STILL over the past year I have found myself more than once talking about my current passion for dressmaking and on the very tip of my tongue are the words, “Well I’m not an expert or anything…” or “I’m just self-taught but…”

I stop myself from saying this things, because the sentence that comes after is the only one that counts:

Well, I’m not really an expert or anything and I am just self taught but I LOVE SEWING SO MUCH, IT JUST MAKES ME HAPPY AS HELL RIGHT NOW.

So I edit out all the italicized bit in my mind, because there is not a prize at the end of all this for being humble, or self-deprecating, or modest.

We don’t get to our deathbeds and discover that a committee arrives and tallies up the times we were full of ourselves vs. the times we properly self-deprecated and dimmed our own light just enough so that others wouldn’t see our true brightness.

This applies to all the things: Slim girls calling themselves fat, lovely girls calling themselves ugly, smart girls pretending not to know the answers. You do not get points for diminishing yourself in the presence of others. We only have this one life we are living. Why deny yourself the pure pleasure of having a talent or being pretty or smart or being really passionate about something? And anyway who is the judge of these things? Who is the panel of human beings fit to determine if we are talented or smart or pretty or successful?

How would our lives be different if today, right now, we gave up the self-deprecating talk and the weird self-imposed moratorium on giving ourselves compliments? What if I told you it doesn’t matter one bit if I’m self-taught or if the young woman at work thinks she was born with talent or not. It simply does not matter.

Does it give you pleasure? Do you enjoy it? Do you like yourself when you’re making that thing you make? Can you be kinder to yourself? Can you just for today indulge in the luxury of liking your own work, your own reflection in the mirror, your own talents and ambitions? What’s the worst that could happen?

I know what the worst is: Yes, someone could try to put you in your place. Someone might think you’re awfully full of yourself, or stuck-up, or not nearly as great as you think you are. Someone might even say something to take you down a notch.

Guess what? You will survive it. You may also discover that other people don’t have as much power as you once thought to take you down a notch or two. In the words of my mentor, Wayne Dyer, “What other people think of you is none of your business.” For every person who thinks you’re full of yourself, there will be two who are inspired by your unapologetic approach to life.

Oddly enough, this is a lesson I have learned through knitting and sewing. When I first learned to knit I was so on fire for it that I was not even one bit deterred by the fact that I had no idea how to bind off my first scarf. All I knew was the cast on method and the knit stitch, so I went out to the store and bought more needles and yarn and did the only thing I could do: cast on for another scarf! In three weeks’ time I had six scarves all waiting to be bound off because I could. not. stop. knitting.

It didn’t matter how much I messed up or how ugly the finished objects were. I just loved doing it.

Sewing is really the same thing for me, I love everything about it. I love tracing patterns and cutting fabric and winding bobbins. I love walking past my sewing machine and seeing it sitting there on the table. It makes me so happy. I’m proud of being self-taught. I love that sewing (much like knitting and art) is something you could practice your entire life and still learn something new every day. It does not matter if I am great at it or if other people are better than me. I can still feel satisfaction and happiness and proud of my finished objects even if I am not the best dressmaker on planet earth. HUH! Imagine that!

There’s no prize at the end for dimming your light, your passion, your happiness. Try it today and see how it feels. Say you love something and don’t qualify it with, ‘I’m just a novice…” or “I’m not as good as so-and-so…” or “I’m sorry, but…” or any of the things we say to keep ourselves in check. Just be wild with your ownself. If you are feeling really crazy, boldly give yourself a compliment the same way you do with a friend.

Let me know how it feels. ♥

February 10, 2018 17 comments
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Sewing

2018 Sewing Goals In Action (or why I greeted everyone in the office today with, “Hello I made the shirt I’m wearing!!”)

One of my goals for 2018 is to make my own clothing instead of buying ready to wear. I love this goal. I’m sure my coworkers were amused today as I stopped them in hallways, elevators, and even in meetings to announce I was wearing a new top I HAD MADE MYSELF! My new fresh-off-the-sewing-machine criss-cross front sweater top thingy was quite a topic of conversation, largely because I was talking about it nonstop.

I love making stuff and I am totally on fire for sewing right now. This goal to make-not-buy is a little personal challenge to myself to be more invested in something that I’m really passionate about.

My co-worker Kennon was perplexed by my 2018 clothing goal.

“Why, though?” she asked. “Do you just not want to go shopping?”

It’s a fair question. I can see how in some way it may even sound like a restriction or a punishment. It isn’t really about shopping at all (in fact, there can be a fairly serious shopping element to sewing! Have you been to a fabric store? Those places are addictive!) I simply love the experience of making clothes. I love looking at fabric or re-purposing old garments, I love tracing new patterns and adjusting the fit, and I especially love making clothes that fit me better than ones I can buy off the rack.

Ultimately, I hope this year of making gives me the creative breathing room I have been craving. I’m also excited to really refine my tailoring and dressmaking skills, and learn all kinds of new tricks.

Already I have experimented with different stitch settings on my machine, tried out the walking foot (and it is my new favorite thing), and I even did a slash-and-spread pattern alteration to turn my homemade T-shirt dress pattern into a cowl-neck dress pattern. It’s not all the way finished yet, and it may become a shirt, and also I may have only now remembered I don’t look great in cowl necks, but WHATEVER! I am learning!

The Captain and I leave for a trip soon and I want two new tops to take with me. Usually I’m browsing through online shops and making a trip to the mall for a cute top or a new dress, but this time I plan to make my new pieces. I spent last weekend on experimenting (I made the cowl neck dress and this crisscross-front sweater that surely you have heard about by now. No? LET ME TELL YOU, I MADE THIS TOP I AM WEARING!)

Over the weekend I need to get serious about my travel makes. Tonight I’m going to spend some time planning which fabric/pattern I want to use and tomorrow night I’ll do some cutting. I prefer to do the actual sewing on weekends when I have more time to relax into it.

For one travel piece I’m thinking maybe a raglan sleeve baseball-style top in contrasting fabrics… or a tunic with an open back detail. Or maybe a pink miniskirt to go over leggings. See? There’s all this creative possibility! When shopping, I end up picking whatever fits, looks like it will hold up to machine washing, and doesn’t break the bank. But in sewing I can pick my shape, my fabric, and my finishes, and custom fit it to my figure.

So that’s a goal I forgot to tell you about back in January, making all my clothes in 2018. I’m not going to stress myself out about making my own undies and bras and tights because the point is not to make myself crazy. And anyway, I’ll probably get fired walking around saying HEY GUESS WHAT! I MADE THESE PANTIES I’VE GOT ON TODAY! 🙂

February 7, 2018 4 comments
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Navelgazing

Feelin’ February Vibes (Mainly Because It Is February)

Some wise person who I probably found on YouTube said something that stuck with me: People tend to be cautious about giving money away, but when it comes to our time we give it away (or let it seep out) left and right. Yet money is something we can always make more of, while time is a finite resource.

Time is a finite resource.

That’s how it’s already February when just two minutes ago we were complaining about the Christmas rush. Time is not something we can make more of or get on a Buy One Get One spree. All of my current ponder-the-navel thoughts are about this main subject — not putting important goals off until tomorrow, using today to make progress, prioritizing what really is important, setting boundaries.

February is a short month and I’m going to experiment with getting the most time out of it possible. That means less time on Twitter and more time doing things I love. Right now I’m in love with sewing/designing stuff, and going for walks, and traveling, and spending time with the captain. I’m going to consciously NOT volunteer for extra credit activities at work. I’m going to delegate more. I’m going to shut my door at work when I need to power through tasks quickly. And I’m going to add a few days on to the end of my mini-trip so I can work on passion projects.

My daily goals are staying the same, except for the planking. I plan to keep doing it but not as a rigid goal, which was seriously stressing me out.

Daily Goals For February

  • Walk each day for a minimum of 10 minutes
  • Do one language lesson per day (at a minimum do one Duolingo lesson)
  • Deep stretch/yoga for minimum of 5 minutes daily

Overall February Goal

I need to take care of my paperwork problem.

This month I’m going to use my new love of small-but-consistent action to take on my paperwork issue. I’m going to break the task into chunks and work it like a puzzle. It’s not a daily goal because that would make me cry. But I’m going to schedule in time here and there to address it. I have so much unsorted mail and paper and old stuff that needs to be shredded and thrown out it makes me crazy to know it’s hiding in bins all over the house.

Last year when I was reading books on minimalism and listening to podcasts and YouTube videos on the subject, I couldn’t quite pin down what it was I hoped to achieve. Now I think I get it. I want that clean feeling that comes with having no outstanding to-do items on the list. Or just a manageable amount. My life is a big old DIY project in every way right now and I want to have that clean, light feeling that comes with being able to enjoy watching a movie in bed because you know your chores are done and the room is clean and all is well.

I hate having undone tasks hanging over me. I have identified some of them and started tracking them (in Asana, yes) and this is the year I either decide to address them or let go of them forever. I don’t want to wake up when I’m 90 years old and realize I spent the past 60 years carting around two boxes of CDs I meant to burn back in the early 2000s. Those damn CDs have been on my list of things to do for literally ten years. I’m so done. Either I burn them to a hard drive or drive them to the Goodwill or buy them all digitally and then donate the CDs or something, anything, but I have got to get it off my list.

That’s just one example. I have at least ten examples of this same issue that I could list off for you. And I do not want to carry these undone tasks with me any more! People, I am tired. Who knows — maybe that’s why the universe gave me this stressful job and weird schedule. Maybe it was the only way I would ever be forced to confront all the stuff cluttering up my mind and my home and my energy.

So paperwork is next on the list. It’s more urgent than the CDs because of tax season and I want to just be done with it already.

That’s the real minimalism I was seeking last year, having less stuff/tasks/chores hanging over my head. Yes, I needed to clean the guest room. Yes, I needed to declutter some stuff (and still do more). But more than anything I need to declutter my tasks, my commitments, my expectations, and my time.

February is the shortest month, and I am hoping to make it the widest yet.

xo L

February 1, 2018 9 comments
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Navelgazing

January 2018 Retrospective

Los Angeles, 5:54 a.m.

In about an hour, the sun will rise and I will go for my 31st walk of the month. Thirty one walks in thirty one days! I think that is a new record.

These haven’t been massively exciting or athletic walks. It’s ok, that wasn’t the point of all this. My goal was to establish daily habits. I hoped to focus more on the now-and-present moment, and stop putting things off until the elusive and magical “tomorrow.” I also suspected that undertaking a daily practice of self-care would start tiny rippling changes in my life (yup, it did.)

My January Task Scorecard

• Daily Walks (ten minutes minimum): Check!

My only requirement for this goal was to walk at least ten minutes per day. I have accomplished that goal daily, and many days I have averaged between 15-20 minutes of walking. It wasn’t easy to keep it up some days, especially in the beginning of January. There were two or three nights when I came home from work late and walked up and down the driveway for ten minutes.

One memorable evening I got out of my car, grabbed my phone to use as a flashlight, and walked up and down my street in a swing dress and boots because I knew that if I went into my house to change into sweatpants I would feel the siren call of pajamas. There were several days when I felt myself trying to wheedle out of my goal (“I can do an extra long walk tomorrow…”) but I held to my daily practice and that in itself is the accomplishment.

And it IS an accomplishment! Even if you only count each walk as ten minutes, that means I will have walked for 3100 minutes this month (edited to add: HAHA I meant 310 minutes but I guess at 5 am it felt like 3100 minutes!)  Not too shabby!!

• Daily Language Study (minimum is at least one Duolingo lesson): My daily Duolingo language lessons are fun, and I feel like my Spanish is improving. It says I am 41% fluent (hahahaha). This was probably the easiest task. I can definitely tell you in Spanish that my elephant drinks all the milk.

• Daily Planking happened but arrrrrgh. The daily plank thing was my most dreaded daily task, and a few days ago I figured out why I dreaded it so much. The idea of holding the pose for one second longer each day made the task feel harder and harder and suddenly failure became imminent. As it turns out, Imminent Failure is not the vibe I was going for. Having said all that, I did figure out the best/most comfortable planking posture and probably I used a muscle or five that had long been forgotten. I’m going to switch this one up in February.

Here’s What Clicked This Month

  • If something is important to me, I need to do it early in the day. If I wait to walk after work (or do anything after work) I am a zombie and I will deeply resent my to-do list.
  • Another reason to check tasks off early in the day: Having things hanging over me all day creates negative energy. On the days I put my goals off until after work, I felt like I was being followed by an anxiety cloud.
  • Asana is working great as a tracker.
  • Committing to daily goals made it pretty clear right away that I have gotten into a bad habit of putting my wants/needs last. For the first two weeks of January I kept putting off my three daily goals until after work. WHY!?! Because I had trained myself to put work first. If I’m going to have balance, I cannot prioritize my job before my health/sleep/life goals. I know this intellectually and yet I had been doing the exact opposite. I’m getting better at this. Slowly.
  • Doing my daily personal tasks no matter what felt like success because I kept a promise. Keeping a promise to yourself is probably the best way to build self-esteem. This felt great.
  • The planking challenge showed me I’m not programmed to enjoy tasks that get harder and harder each day until I fail. I need to have plateau moments, where I can simply enjoy the place I’m at. HMMMM METAPHORS FOR LIFE ABOUND!
  • To achieve my goals, I need to de-complexify my life. It’s something I am actively working on. It may take a while.

A lot of other stuff started bubbling up, too, thoughts about my longer-term goals and overall health and ideas on how to make improvements. I’ve been really out of whack for over a year and obviously I prefer to be deeply in whack. It’s not going to happen overnight, but I’m happy that I am making progress.

It’s really, really small progress …but it’s 310 minutes better than last month. And that is the final nugget of January learnings: small tasks, repeated daily, can add up to something significant. I used to constantly dream of taking two weeks off to get it all together, or a long weekend, or wish for some elusive break between projects. But that’s just fantasy. The real life I have is being lived daily. All the good stuff is happening in the right now.

If all I have is ten minutes then I need to start exactly where I am and make the most of them. Speaking of which… gotta go. Sun’s up. It’s time to walk.

 

 

January 31, 2018 8 comments
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