Tag: early

One Week Resolution Challenges

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So I decided to try something new this year for “Resolutions”. Instead of coming up with some radical change that I won’t keep up on throughout the year, why don’t I challenge myself to a radical change for one week in the month of January? For some reason it just works for my brain. I think it’s because the ending makes it “a fun challenge”? Like more of a game with less pressure?


So these are the week challenges that I came up with. (Also try to refrain from judging me too much. I just struggle with these specific things even when others don’t.)

Week One – January 1st – 7th: WAKE UP EVERYDAY AT SIX O’CLOCK


So, I’m a bit lucky. My children have been very well trained with this magic dog alarm clock (here is the link, I highly highly recommend this or it’s equivalent.) So they know not to come out of their room before seven o’clock. On the weekends after seven o’clock, they tend to cuddle in our beds and play on their tablets. So sleeping in isn’t totally unheard of at our house.
And I know you’re like wait, excuse me, don’t you have a five month old? Yes, I do. She’s a miraculous child who often sleeps in until nine or nine thirty. She really loves to sleep I don’t know. It’s incredible.
HOWEVER… I know I would be a lot more productive and get to spend better quality time with my children if I woke up earlier.
If I got up at six, I could potentially clean or write before my children even leave their rooms. (At first idea, I was going to challenge myself to wake up at six and ‘go for a run around the neighborhood’. But it’s winter. So it’s really cold and pitch black at six. Maybe I can do another challenge month in the summer… when my excuse for not doing it can be that it’s one hundred degrees outside haha!)
One of my biggest qualms for waking up early… okay, besides the fact that my natural rhythm seems to be that of a teenager… is that I would have to go to bed earlier. And that cuts into my best friend time with Dan. You know what I mean? Like after the kids go to sleep that’s OUR time.

Week Two – January 8th – 14th: NO SUGAR OR CHEESE


Not to sound so American, but I have no idea what I’m even going to eat haha! I’m just going to try my best with the no sugar thing. I know there’s added sugar in almost everything here like even milk. So I think that’s okay for this particular challenge. Like if I have some ketchup or whatever and that has sugar in it. That’s okay as long as I’m aware and trying NOT to eat sugar. I think if I meal plan this week. I’ll be okay. It’s just a week… right?

It’s going to really hard haha! I am legitimately addicted to sugar. So I’m going to plan on having a lot of natural sugars in the house like fruits I can snack on when I get those cravings. And healthy salty alternatives.
Just… pray for me. Hahaha

Week Three – January 15th – 21st: TAKE MY KIDS OUT EVERY SINGLE DAY


A lot of parents don’t seem to have this problem. But keep in mind that I am a hermit basement dweller writer type. I am such a homebody that maybe the home is actually my body and I’m just an organ of it (short story idea?!?!?). But I do see this as something that my kids would benefit a little bit from. Particularly my four-year-old who is not in school yet and gets REALLY BORED during the day. So I do aspire to give him more structure. I don’t know WHY taking little kids out and about gives me so much anxiety but dang it, I’m going to fight this. And I’m going to prove to myself after this week that I can TOTALLY DO IT!*
*Saying this now or forever hold my peace. If I or any of the kids get sick, this challenge will be rescheduled. We’re not spreading germs or forcing our bodies to overdo it.

Week Four – January 22nd – 28th: INCORPORATE A REGULAR READING (OR LISTENING) ROUTINE


This is most likely an ADHD disability. Which has been really painful for me, since stories are my greatest love in life. I either hyper focus and burst read or the most common problem for me is starting and not finishing a book. Of course, the horrific TBR pile, which for me is an entire bookcase. So I really WANT to overcome this problem in my life. It would improve my craft tremendously and I know that I would really enjoy being able to participate more as an audience in the written word.
So I’m planning on trying a routine. Every day for seven days. What that routine will look like, I’m not sure yet because I have teeny little kids at home, but I feel fairly confident that it might include Audio books. I’m hoping that whatever it is, I can prove to myself that it’s doable and incorporate more of it into my daily life.

These are all my challenges. I will check back in February to tell you how they went. And just in general, how week long challenges were vs. indefinite resolutions. Because I wasn’t totally kidding about a second summer challenge month IF this deems itself to be a successful venture.

Life Update: Hi! So, it’s been a secret disaster

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Hey, remember when I had a weekly blog and then dropped off the face of the planet for a couple of months?

So it’s been more than two months. I feel bad about that. This is literally the longest that I’ve ever gone without posting anything since I started the blog. (Even after having a kid.) I was secretly hoping for things to settle completely before coming out and having to talk about this. BuUuUUuuUUuuut that hasn’t quite yet happened, so … I’m just gonna talk about it, I guess.

 

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My husband and I play this game when we’re stressed out. I call it, “Lay the Cards.” When we’re anxious about something we come up with four different outcomes.

  1. The absolute best dream outcome that could ever happen in your wildest imagination.
  2. A good outcome that’s also realistic.
  3. A bad outcome that’s more realistic.
  4. The absolute, complete worst outcome you can think of suffering through.

We look at all the outcomes and try to come up with how we would respond to each scenario, therefore ‘laying out all our cards’ and preparing for anything.

Well, one night we played that game… and the absolute, complete worst outcome that we came up with… ENDED. UP. HAPPENING.

Of all the times we have played that game, that has never happened to us. Never ever.

I don’t want to get into the details of things, because overall I just feel like that’s unprofessional. (Even if it’s not my profession.) But basically what I can tell you is that a situation got to a point where it was completely out of our control and Dan was forced to end his residency only ninety days shy of graduating.

We were told from multiple sources that an early termination from a residency would result in being “blacklisted” from ever getting a job at a hospital or clinic. And if that doesn’t seem so bad, let me concern you by phrasing it another way… You could spend five years of your life, get into an unbelievably massive student loan debt and be told you’re not getting your dream job only 12 weeks away from qualifying.

BUT YOU KNOW FREAKING WHAT?

It’s been six weeks. And Dan GOT A JOB. AND IT IS IN A HOSPITAL BY THE WAY. Let me just rewrite that for any abused lil’ pharmacist. MY HUSBAND GOT A JOB IN A HOSPITAL WITHOUT A RESIDENCY. IT IS POSSIBLE AND REAL TO DO SO. The coolest part about the job is that it’s the exact same company that he wanted out of residency anyway. The un-coolest part about the job is that it’s part-time so… Foot in the door, but we’re still looking to take another job. 

Um. So yeah. It’s been hard to write. Upkeep simple things like this blog. In theory, it seems like I should have MORE time to write now that Dan is home to help with the kids. But I’ve been spending all of my free time elbows deep in Google job searches and ad posts. I’ve actually developed a long term twitch in my both my left eye and right eyebrow soooo… yikes? Daniel keeps telling me to write, but it’s been hard to motivate myself to do ANYTHING lately.

 

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It sucks. We have a lot of dreams and plans now idling behind a blockade. We’re likely going to be staying in Arizona for a good long while. But that’s hard to say as we’re still interviewing for full-time positions right now. So, sorry for anyone hoping for the Manwill return to Utah. And sorry for being a buttface and not updating this blog. But lots more news and interesting(?) posts to come.