Juliebarkley gets back in the habit

[juliebarkley]

Juliebarkley lay in bed for a moment as the sun slowly brightened the room. Her travel things lay in a heap where she had dumped them the night before as she stumbled half-asleep from the wagon into the house. She sat up in bed and stretched. Her shoulder and neck ached from the long journey. She glanced around the room, rediscovering the familiar surroundings that she had been away from for so long. She thought about what she needed to do today, and drew a blank. That was concerning. So much had changed in the last few months. It was going to take some effort to find "normal" again.

 

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In my last challenge, I acknowledged the trouble that I have with habits vs goals. I am good at goals, but they are things that you work towards and then are done. I need to keep the habits that underlie them going, and I have been poor at that. Plus, habits keep the rest of my life on track so that I don't end up, for example, unable to post on my own challenge (let alone those of others) because I have to fold a mountain of laundry that I have ignored. You know, just as an example.

 

I tried to make my habits more like goals, but that was a miserable failure. So this time, I am going to simplify and focus. I looked at the habits that I do have established, and noted how it feels to remember them, and also how it feels to not do them. This is my ultimate goal for the habits that I am working on. It will take more than one challenge, and it will take discipline. The only goal that I have is my fitness goal, because the program I am on tells me what to do and when. Other than that, it's all habits, baby!

 

I took my task list in my todo app, put everything into Someday other than my established goals and the goals that I am working on. Now I can see my focuses very clearly.  I'm also reducing the number of items in my challenge to aid focus, and themed them around Ramadan both to help remember and because it's an extra reason to work on them. The goal is to do them every day. No misses. I think this is going to be necessary in this habit establishment phase.

 

1. Post every day to NerdFitness - once to my own thread, and once to someone else's. A recurring challenge. It provides accountability for myself, while also helping me support others and keep up with what they're up to.

 

2. Pray every day. The goal is to do the noon and night prayer every day, and the others are a bonus. I am always home from work for these, so they are the easiest to target.

 

3. Read scripture daily. Five minutes is fine. It's about the habit. Target time: right after supper.

 

4. Weekly worship time. I can't make it to religious services, but that doesn't mean that I have to be a slacker! Set aside some time on Friday for deep reading, Arabic practice, etc. 30 minutes minimum. Target time: after lunch.

 

5. Pushups and squats! I have restarted my pushups on a slightly higher level for more improvements. I am very happy with my progress so far. So, I started up a squat program as well. In my initial test, I did 39 ATG squats. The program is supposed to take you to 200 squats, but the program also only wants you to squat to parallel. I am pretty sure I could have done more than 39 if I had only done parallel squats. So we'll see; 200 may not be realistic. As it stands, at the end of week 1, I only have to do 18 in a set (but go to max on the last set), so it's pretty easy right now. Goal: keep on keeping on: Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday.

[WhiteGhost]

Challenge look great, I really like your focus on habits (long term) over goals (short term).   also Skwaaaaats!!!

 

Will be following along

[juliebarkley]

15 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

Challenge look great, I really like your focus on habits (long term) over goals (short term).   also Skwaaaaats!!!

 

Will be following along

 

Habits are just so much harder than goals. Seriously.

 

Woo for squats! I use the "third-world squat" all the time as a sitting position, so I have never lost the ability to get all the way down there. It seems like a great complement to pushup pushup time.

 

I'll be following along with you as well! Sorry I was so unreliable on your last challenge.

[juliebarkley]

Day 2:

 

1. Post every day to NerdFitness - once to my own thread, and once to someone else's. 2 out of 2.

 

2. Pray every day. 2 out of 2.

 

3. Read scripture daily. 2 out of 2.

 

4. Weekly worship time. 0 of 0.

 

5. Pushups and squats! 1 of 1. Requirement for pushups today was 18, which I made (barely). My arm muscles do not even feel super tired, like they did with partial pushups, but they just won't work any more. I really hope whatever muscles are holding me back here get their act together soon! Regardless, I succeeded for the week, and will advance to week 3. For squats, the max required was 18, which was easy enough. I went to 30 last time, so I knocked it up a bit and went to 35. Onward to week 2!

 

One of the things that makes the NF posting a failure sometimes is that I have bits of my challenge that don't get completed until right before bed. By the time it is done all the way, I do not want to head back to post, I want to go to bed! So I'm gonna try posting earlier in the day and just assuming that I did my evening things right, then going back and editing (or fixing it in the next post) if I did not in fact do the things. So for now at least, the achievement scores in my challenge are a bit wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey!

[WhiteGhost]

36 minutes ago, juliebarkley said:

One of the things that makes the NF posting a failure sometimes is that I have bits of my challenge that don't get completed until right before bed. By the time it is done all the way, I do not want to head back to post, I want to go to bed!

I have this same situation, so what I end up doing is posting on a last 24 hours type of schedule rather than on calendar days.  I usually post sometime close to noon, so my update period is for the previous day afternoon, evening and then the next morning.  Then I track by actual calendar days because it makes it easier to go back and see how things went. 

 

It felt a little strange at first having a mismatch between reporting and tracking periods, but I got used to it pretty quick.

[Teancum]

Hooray for habits!! I have a bed time goal this challenge that I quickly realized I'll have to report the next day. Oh well I guess! 

[juliebarkley]

I had an unexpected adventure today. I got to work, all ready to wash the water bottles I have been collecting and get my craft ready, when I realized that my water bottles were gone! Disaster! I phoned the community centre, who do the cleaning, and they do not seem to know if they took them or not. So, I dropped by after work to check it out. And my "dropped by", I mean that I was planning to have a peek into their dumpster. One was locked, but the other wasn't, and it looked like it had a white bag in there that could be my bottles. The dumpster is really deep though (6.5 feet maybe) and I am only just over 5 feet tall. To get enough height to even see properly, I had to stand on the handles. The dumpster was almost empty, so the bag I wanted was right on the bottom - a long way down. I leaned over as far as I could, and reached, moved the bag, yes, almost... tablecloths. Darn. Not my stuff. But as I pulled myself back up, I heard a clink. I looked down, and saw my nametag from work in the bottom of the bin. Disaster the second! I have been in trouble for not wearing it, so I need to get it back. I can either 'fess up to the community centre that I have been snooping in their dumpster and need help, or I can get creative. I opted for number 2 :). The badge is a magnetic type, and after a bit of searching, I found the magnet portion near the rim of the bin. Good thing too - if that part had fallen in, it would have been hopeless. I stuck it to the metal on my lanyard and tried to fish it out, but I couldn't reach. I was already straddling the rim at this point, so now I had to lean over and hold myself up with the crook of my leg, like some sort of malodorous monkey bars. I could *just* reach, but the magnet wasn't making good enough contact. Could have been because the badge was under a couple of inches of water (did I mention it was raining?). Anyway, I leaned back up to readjust and try again, when the lanyard swung and the magnet stuck to the side of the bin, just far enough down that I couldn't get it up with my foot. In retrospect, I'm very lucky it didn't stick to the bottom of the bin while I was fishing. Now I needed a stick of some kind to pull the magnet up, so I could fish again. Fortunately, I had an umbrella handy! It wasn't the best magnet-pushing tool, but with persistence, I got it up enough to drag it to the top of the bin. It also had a curved handle - arm extension! I hung the lanyard from the  handle and carefully, oh so carefully, fully aware of the dangers of losing the powerful magnet (and also falling into the dumpster and not being able to get out again), I lowered the lanyard down to the bottom of the bin. This time, the two parts clipped together like they were old friends, and I recovered them easily. Mission accomplished!

 

Now I just need to find 35 more empty water bottles.

[Scaly Freak]

I'm going to spend the rest of the week trying to work the phrase "malodorous monkey bars" into a conversation. I just know it.

[WhiteGhost]

That is certainly an adventure!  I'm glad you were able to get the name tag in the end  

[juliebarkley]

Day 4:

 

1. Post every day to NerdFitness - once to my own thread, and once to someone else's. 4 of 4.

 

2. Pray every day. 4 of 4. *still unfinished*

 

3. Read scripture daily. 4 of 4. *still unfinished* Must get better at that "right after supper" thing that I was planning.

 

4. Weekly worship time. 0 of 0.

 

5. Pushups and squats! 2 of 2. I always seem to struggle a bit more on Tuesdays than the other days, but I hit what I needed to hit. The last pushups were really rough, and the squats over 30 were tough, but I did 35 anyway.

 

Work flew by today. I was swamped with customers and got nothing noteworthy done, but I did find the missing water bottles! Someone moved them way in the back of the craft cupboard and didn't tell me. But that doesn't matter, because now the kids will be able to make this craft. We made it in Beavers last month, and they all came out really beautiful.

 

I overheard someone telling someone else how it looks like I've lost weight "or am wearing a corset or something", so I weighed myself when I get home, and I have indeed lost between 5 and 10 pounds (it's been quite a while since I visited the scale, so not sure what the number was). This is not good news. If anything, I was hoping to be putting on a little weight in muscle. I cannot afford to lose any more weight; that would be scary to be honest. Any suggestions for high-calorie stuff that's easy to prepare and quick to eat?

[WhiteGhost]

23 minutes ago, juliebarkley said:

I did find the missing water bottles!

Nice!

 

25 minutes ago, juliebarkley said:

Any suggestions for high-calorie stuff that's easy to prepare and quick to eat?

One of my go to foods is chili.  I can batch cook up a bunch and then just warm it up when I get home from work.  Adding some cheese when I heat it up adds some additional calories (plus everything is always better with cheese  )

[Teancum]

21 hours ago, juliebarkley said:

Any suggestions for high-calorie stuff that's easy to prepare and quick to eat?

 

Nuts and nut butters are a big healthy calorie bomb if you can use them. 

[juliebarkley]

On 6/6/2018 at 2:53 AM, WhiteGhost said:

One of my go to foods is chili.  I can batch cook up a bunch and then just warm it up when I get home from work.  Adding some cheese when I heat it up adds some additional calories (plus everything is always better with cheese  )

On 6/7/2018 at 12:13 AM, Teancum said:

Nuts and nut butters are a big healthy calorie bomb if you can use them. 

 

Those are both great ideas! I had thought of cheese, but I find it hard to eat much of it on its own, but chilli is a delicious vehicle that I don't make often enough. And I had totally forgotten peanut butter!

 

Day 5:

 

1. Post every day to NerdFitness - once to my own thread, and once to someone else's. 5 of 5. *not yet completed*

 

2. Pray every day. 5 of 5.

 

3. Read scripture daily. 4 of 5. *set out to do, then realized when I woke up that it didn't happen*

 

4. Weekly worship time. 0 of 0.

 

5. Pushups and squats! 2 of 2.

 

No work tomorrow, so I'm super looking forward to lying in bed with my novel, listening to the rain, and cuddling my cat. Bliss!

 

[juliebarkley]

Day 6:

 

1. Post every day to NerdFitness - once to my own thread, and once to someone else's. 6 of 6. *not yet completed*

 

2. Pray every day. 6 of 6.

 

3. Read scripture daily. 4/1 of 6. *new streak begins today!*

 

4. Weekly worship time. 0 of 0.

 

5. Pushups and squats! 2 of 2.

 

So there was no rain today, but there was cat and book time. Also - election results and popcorn time. I love watching election results come in. I'm also going to relish poring through all the results in the paper tomorrow, comparing each riding to last time, seeing which small parties gained vote share.... Mmm, numbers.

[Scaly Freak]

Cat and book time is some of the best time ever.

 

 

[juliebarkley]

Day 8:

 

1. Post every day to NerdFitness - once to my own thread, and once to someone else's. 6/1 of 8. I chose bedtime over posting. It was the right choice.

 

2. Pray every day. 8 of 8. Woo!

 

3. Read scripture daily. 4/3 of 8. *not yet completed*

 

4. Weekly worship time. 1 of 1. Watched a nearly hour long lecture about just the first two words of the Fatiha: "alhamdulillah". It was actually really interesting and inspiring, and I'm looking forward to the next lecture in the series!

 

5. Pushups and squats! 3 of 3. Success on pushups and squats. Squats were not too bad, pushups rough as always. I may be putting my hands too close together; I seem to be relying on the muscles in my lower arms too much. I am not sure I will pass these next week. We shall see. Worst case, I repeat the week. But! Both squats and pushups were better than my initial test, so progress!

[juliebarkley]

Day 9:

 

1. Post every day to NerdFitness - once to my own thread, and once to someone else's. 6/2 of 9.

 

2. Pray every day. 9 of 9. *not yet completed* Yeah, need to do this earlier...

 

3. Read scripture daily. 4/4 of 9. *not yet completed*

 

4. Weekly worship time. 1 of 1.

 

5. Pushups and squats! 4 of 4. As I suspected, I was unable to pass pushups this week, performing even worse than on Friday. This is only the second time in two go-throughs that I have ever failed a week. Squats were not a problem; got to 45. I did freak out my son though, as he realized that when my heart is beating hard, you can see it through my clothes. Though that does sound pretty freaky, to be honest.

 

Totally unrelated to challenge: I had a real hankering for Bohemian Rhapsody the other day, so I introduced the young'un to it. I heard it again today when someone across the river was playing it outside. It really hit me in the feels. I don't listen to music much for that exact reason - I don't feel feeling strongly in the day-to-day, and it is weird and uncomfortable when music stirs them all up because I am not used to it. But this time I really enjoyed the emotional trip. I've never sought it out, but now I feel like I'm missing out. I'd like to find stuff that I'd enjoy, but I have so little to compare to, and to my untrained ear, the songs I like best have very little in common. Like, I understand how to browse books, but how do you "browse" music? It seems like trying to browse novels with no descriptions and with the covers all plain. I honestly don't even know where you would start doing such a thing. Lost I am, before I have even begun.

[WhiteGhost]

38 minutes ago, juliebarkley said:

I did freak out my son though, as he realized that when my heart is beating hard, you can see it through my clothes.

Yeah, that would freak me out too

[juliebarkley]

Day 10:

 

1. Post every day to NerdFitness - once to my own thread, and once to someone else's. 6/3 of 10. Much posting! Still not caught up with everyone.

 

2. Pray every day. 10 of 10. *not yet completed*

 

3. Read scripture daily. 4/5 of 10. *not yet completed*

 

4. Weekly worship time. 1 of 1.

 

5. Pushups and squats! 4 of 4.

[juliebarkley]

Flurry of multi-reply as I have been rude and not answering:

 

On 6/4/2018 at 2:35 PM, scalyfreak said:

I'm going to spend the rest of the week trying to work the phrase "malodorous monkey bars" into a conversation. I just know it.

If you managed it, please to share?

 

On 6/4/2018 at 11:41 PM, WhiteGhost said:

That is certainly an adventure!  I'm glad you were able to get the name tag in the end  

SO AM I.

 

On 6/8/2018 at 10:19 AM, scalyfreak said:

Cat and book time is some of the best time ever.

 

 

It was. It is. It ever shalt be.

 

On 6/11/2018 at 3:21 AM, WhiteGhost said:

Yeah, that would freak me out too

What can I say? I'm terrifying.

 

Day 11:

 

1. Post every day to NerdFitness - once to my own thread, and once to someone else's. 6/4 of 11.

 

2. Pray every day. 11 of 11. So proud of myself! I interrupted something I was doing to make sure this got done. I hate hate hate not finishing things, so this was a win for me!

 

3. Read scripture daily. 4/6 of 11. *not yet completed*

 

4. Weekly worship time. 1 of 1.

 

5. Pushups and squats! 4 of 4. This should have been done today, but I am going to delay until tomorrow evening because that will work better this week.

 

At work today, I was painting like a madwoman, but had to stop when I was almost-but-not-quite done (hate hate hate not finishing...), which left me on an adrenaline high, but also mentally tired. The evening perked up, though. On the way home, in the last maybe 100 metres of the trip, I saw a raccoon scamper off: the first of the year. Next, a bunny (maybe a hare): not the first of the year. Then, right in front of my neighbor's house, FOUR little baby bunnies on the road! I've never seen wild baby bunnies - I legit squealed with excitement, then did the sensible thing and got out of the car and shooed them off the road so they didn't get squished. I got within about a foot of one of them. So cute! Now they just have to stop eating my pea plants. But... so cute! Put me in a happy mood for the rest of the evening.

[juliebarkley]

Day 12:

 

1. Post every day to NerdFitness - once to my own thread, and once to someone else's. 6/5 of 12.

 

2. Pray every day. 12 of 12.

 

3. Read scripture daily. 4/7 of 12. *not yet completed*

 

4. Weekly worship time. 1 of 1.

 

5. Pushups and squats! 5 of 5. Two successful sessions. I am repeating the week for pushups, but it is still feeling hard. It'll be a wait and see to find out how the week will go. The squats were a bit rough, too - I was getting tired way before normal. But I still beat my max, so yay improvement.

 

More cool nature to report. On the way out to work, a coyote came running across the cornfield, then across the road. Well, I think it was a coyote. It was too big to be a fox (my first thought), and not really moving like a deer (second thought). Then, on the way home, there was a big turtle by the side of the road. This is egg-laying season for the snapping turtles. This one must have just arrived, and I think she was pretty young. She was not that big for a snapper (about 50 cm long), with a really pretty dark green shell. By the time I see them, they are usually mud coloured, as they have gotten very dirty from the digging.

 

And my town appears to have angered the gods of electricity, as we had yet another outage (must be about eight in the last three weeks; very unusual).

[WhiteGhost]

26 minutes ago, juliebarkley said:

2. Pray every day. 12 of 12.

I love that you are rocking this goal.  I remember it was something that had been a real struggle in previous challenges

[juliebarkley]

12 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

I love that you are rocking this goal.  I remember it was something that had been a real struggle in previous challenges

 

Thanks! It has been a struggle for me for a very long time. I really want to get to the stage of not having to think about it, like I have with some possibly less beneficial habits. Time and consistency will be key.

[Teancum]

Love all the animal sightings! I don't think I've ever run into a wild land turtle

[juliebarkley]

Day 13:

 

1. Post every day to NerdFitness - once to my own thread, and once to someone else's. 6/6 of 13.

 

2. Pray every day. 13 of 13. *not yet completed*

 

3. Read scripture daily. 4/8 of 13. *not yet completed*

 

4. Weekly worship time. 1 of 1.

 

5. Pushups and squats! 5 of 5.