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Unfortunately without the help of Taye Diggs...then again, anything could happen in the next few weeks! Those of you who've been with me for a few challenges have seen me fizzle out a few times. Traveling, getting used to a new full-time job, and working on finishing my master's thesis got the better of me, unfortunately. Besides a trip I got back from yesterday (which is why I'm only now writing this), I don't have any travel planned during this challenge. I've gotten much more used to the new job and managing my time around it. This weekend will be my last big push to make those final little changes to my thesis, and then that'll be taken care of. That means that I really super duper don't have any excuses this time around. I'm focusing on goals that are somewhat basic - because that's what I need to get back to during this challenge to build up a foundation again - but that have the potential to motivate me to go beyond the basic. 1. 10,000 steps a day (on average) Working full time at home makes it easy to barely leave the house, much less get a good amount of exercise in. I need to get outside and move. I got a Misfit Shine (anyone else? I need friends!) and am keeping track of those steps - 10,000 is a somewhat arbitrary number, but it's good to have a goal. Really I'm shooting for 70,000 a week because I know that some days it'll rain or something else will come up - as long as I walk or run more on the other days of the week, I'll still be good. I said that these goals are basic but allow me to go beyond that, and this is a good example of that. 10,000 steps a day is a good basic level of movement, so that's the minimum I'm shooting for. But I can get way more than that in a day, or I can run a few times a week instead of walking to get those steps in... (I'd also like to join my boyfriend on more bike rides [once I get my bike fixed - booo, flat tire!]. If I go on a longer bike ride with him, that can certainly count as my 10,000 steps for the day, and I'll lower the weekly total goal accordingly.) 2. 30 days of yoga I stole this one from Briniel! She did 30 Days of Yoga with Adriene in the last challenge, and I thought it looked like a great series, so...now I'm doing it! Thanks, Briniel! Yoga's one of those things that I do off and on and always wish I did more of. I need more flexibility, more awareness of my body, more calm strength. The goal here is just to complete all 30 days before the end of the challenge, which gives me a few potential days off, but I'd love to not take too many of those days off so I can get them done even sooner and maybe restart the whole thing again (or move on to another series) before the challenge ends. I know some of them are shorter, so I might occasionally even do one in the morning and one in the evening. Who knows! 3. 3/6/10 3 vegetables per day: That's the minimum. More is good! 6 glasses of water per day: I've been really feeling the effects of not drinking enough water lately. Time to hydrate. No (computer/smartphone) screens after 10 p.m.: Sleep hygiene! This will also encourage me to use that time for productive things like reading, cleaning, playing with the cat so he's tired out and sleeps through the night... This is mostly about the computer - my boyfriend and I usually watch TV while we're eating dinner, and we often eat after 10 (I'm trying to change this, but it's often just how our schedules work out), but I feel like the computer is probably more harmful to sleep hygiene because I'm sitting so much closer to it. Am I just making that up? It's definitely more harmful to productivity! I don't usually spend too much time watching TV besides during dinner. (This particular one will kick in next week - this week I'm still catching up from the trip! And it's mostly just for weeknights, but bonus points for also doing it on weekend nights!) 4. Kitchen counter zero (life goal) This is like inbox zero, but for dishes. Each night before I go to bed, the kitchen counter has to be completely clear of dirty dishes - they're either washed or in the dishwasher. Sometimes I let dishes pile up, and they get more and more intimidating (even though I actually sort of like washing dishes), and then it's no fun to cook or bake because there's no room and no clean dishes, and whenever we want to work on cleaning the house, I always feel like I need to focus on the kitchen first and don't actually get to any other part of the house...augh! So keeping the kitchen counter clean at all times will give me some peace of mind and give me more time to actually clean other parts of the house when we get the cleaning bug. --- I've already written a lot, so I'll leave it at that for now! Guys, I'm excited!