Action Always Generates Inspiration. Inspiration Seldom Generates Action.

Completed:
103. Wash my face twice a day for a month (30/30)

Started 1/2/08
Finished 1/31/08

And I've been doing it every day since. XD

I used to be in the habit of washing my face every day. But then I'd get out of the habit of doing it because I'd be sick, or away, or for some very valid reason. But then when it came time for me to pick it back up, I wouldn't because I'd be too lazy. But this on my list was my way of forcing me to get back into the habit. And it has! Even if it's meant that I'm washing my face at near 2 in the morning instead of dropping into bed like I'd want to.

Oh, and I'm definitely feeling the benefits of putting #'s 99-102 on my list. After I finished drinking all that water, I pretty much dropped back to getting almost zero water on a daily intake. Big no-no. With how dry my skin gets, it was only a matter of weeks before my hands, which had almost gotten back to normal after having really bad eczema on them for over a year, were as bad as before I'd started drinking all the water, if not worse. Immediately put back the daily water regiment in, and even tried to get a little more. And I still can't let a day go by without drinking my water now.

I guess if nothing else good comes out of doing this massive list, I can at least say that getting into the habit of drinking water daily has been a very good thing. XD

And speaking of water... *goes off to go and get some more*

No not really. But close enough!

Yet another one finished! Of course, this one was finished at the beginning of the year. I just didn't have an LJ to put my entries up in at that point, and am only getting around to it now.

Can cross off:
058. Learn to knit.

Can cross off:

After a discussion with the loverly traceria, I decided I would try giving up crocheting this year. Completely random of me, and actually very hard to do. I've gotten hooked on crocheting, and I didn't realize just how easily I become obsessed with it. That to me seemed like a bad thing, so that's the main reason it was chosen.

I did a little research on Lent before attempting it, and noticed that there are actually 47 days during the Lent season. What I came up with was that traditionally, the Sundays in between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday are viewed as mini-Easters. I don't know if one is allowed to partake of their 'vice' or whatever you want to call it on said days, but I took it as I could, and so it wasn't a complete 40 days in a row without crocheting. But on the days in between each Sunday, I didn't crochet, so I did do the entire 40 days. I did use the time wisely, learning and trying other various means of being creative while I wasn't crocheting. But I think I'd much rather stick to my preferred method of craftiness. XD

I think if I ever try this again, I might refrain from partaking in something else, like giving up salt, or chocolate or another food vice. 

Copied from my other journal, as it's easier to do that than to type something else up again. Went to see them in concert on 4/3/08!


And there's talk of going to see Death Cab for Cutie in June with smor101. We're just not entirely sure yet because of wedding we're both supposed to be in that's two days later, and we may have bridesmaid commitments.

I thought this week would be a good one to attempt getting to bed by 10 o'clock every night. And thus far, it's been successful, or at least, relatively successful, with me upstairs and in my bedroom by the allotted time, and usually with me asleep within 15 to 20 minutes. But my body is so used to only getting six hours of sleep (read, I usually go to bed at midnight and wake up sometime around 6:30). Which means that just about every night this week (with the exception of this morning), my body automatically wakes me up around 4:30. Usually telling me I need to go to the bathroom (because that's typically what wakes me up in the morning anyway). I don't really mind it too much, because it just means that I still have two entire hours left where I can close my eyes and continue to rest. I didn't wake up last night, but I believe that's because of feeling off-kilter yesterday.

But of course, it was upon waking up this morning that I won't be able to finish this week, as for one thing, I usually don't get home until 10 o'clock on Wednesdays. That can be readjusted to fit my schedule accordingly, as I can always leave early, not go to the grocery store, etc. The other reason this weeks wouldn't work is because it's kind of hard when you, without thinking about the logistics of it, schedule a meeting for 9:30 p.m. on Friday night. *shakes head* What was I thinking?

The other good news is that, albeit the getting to bed at 10 o'clock isn't working this week, thus far, I've been good about getting up every morning when my alarm clock goes off. I am allowing myself just a few minutes of give in between the two alarm clocks that I have in my room. One of them is set to go off over my head, and I allow myself one hit for that. I have it set to go off one minute before the second one goes off, which is across the room, and the alarm over my head is my signal that the time to force myself to get out of bed is coming.

I hadn't realized just how hard it would be to force myself to stay out of my bed once I got out of it. Right now, I'm getting up at 6:45, but I'm hoping to push that back to 6:30, so that I can have more time to myself in the morning, and so I don't have to feel rushed about getting in to work. That's yet another one I have to try and tackle - getting in to work 15 minutes early. But I figure that, rather than trying to attempt all of these at once, if I take them one at a time, and build them into habits (which was the whole point of writing those goals as I did), then I'll gradually be able to have them all in there. Already, I've built water-consumption and washing my face back into my daily routine. If I can do that, then I guess I can get these things going, right?

Weeks of 1/9/08 to 2/5/08

I decided that it would be worth my while to just jump straight to the last one of these instead of doing them in order. Because who wants to follow order? ;-)

It ended up working out almost perfectly, with the last day of my fourth week being the day before the family left for Florida. I think I might have drank almost the required amount the next day, but not quite because of the plane ride. And then when I was down in Florida, I was an extremely bad girl, and hardly drank any water. I hardly drank anything at all, except for maybe coffee. I didn't do it on purpose, but my grandmother didn't have much by way of liquids, and her water both smelled and tasted funny. What can I say? I guess I'm spoiled by Poland Springs water.

And in other news, it would appear that all the water drinking is working. I've had several people comment to me that they think I've lost weight, and were absolutely thrilled when I told them I was drinking lots of water every day. One of them, a married girlfriend of mine who used to be in my Bible study, swears by water for weight loss, encouraging me with the story that she lost close to 100 pounds because of all the water she drank (which was of course over a period of several years). Not that I want to loose 100 pounds, but I do want to loose quite a bit, so any help I can get I'll take.

Week of 1/2/08 to 1/8/08

In an effort to help myself loose more weight, to get myself hydrated, and just to be more healthy in general (I have a tendency to want to drink a lot of diet soda), I set myself 4 different goals for drinking water. This was the first of those goals completed. I'd been drinking some water off and on before this, but nothing consistent. This is my way of making the water drinking a habit. Especially since last winter, when I was so dehydrated that the skin around my lips, and my lips themselves, remained swollen, cracked, and bleeding for the better portion of the month of January. Um, painful. And no thank you.

Rule of thumb is: If I don't drink at least of 64 oz. of water that day, I need to start the count over again. Drinking water in other forms, such as juice or tea, does not count, because I drink those normally. Nor do I have a guaranteed way of measuring how much liquid is in each cup (since we have so many different sized cups at home, it would be a pain to try and measure it all). With my Nalgene bottle, I have a guaranteed way of hitting 64 oz. of water every day. I can drink other things, but they do not count towards the water count. On occasion, a little substitution is allowed, such as putting about an inch and a half of cranberry juice at the bottom of my glass and filling the rest in, but that is very seldom.

And so I drank all my water. At the end of the week, I remember feeling a little water-logged, but a whole lot healthier for it, and so I guess that's the idea, right? :)

Well, I've been back, but haven't had a chance to really get back to updating on a regular basis. Here's hoping that will change. XD

026 -- was changed to "Read all the Newberry Award books"

I decided that I didn't need to read them all in a row, at least not right now anyways (one day, though, maybe). For right now, I just want to read them. This decision was based partly on the fact that I already own a good number of them, partly because I've decided I want to eventually come to own all of them (rather than borrow from a library), partly because I realized that this list will continue to grow with each year (when I originally decided to do this, it was only 86 books, but because 2008's was just released, it's now up to 87, and by the time I am done, there will be 89), and partly because when I tried to find van Loon's The Story of Mankind, I came up with quite a few options, one of which might be the one I need, the most common one of which indicated that it was over 700 pages in length; I'd either have to order it online, or else order it through the local bookstore, and I'm impatient to get reading, especially since one of my other goals is to read 75 books in a year, and if I'm going to do that this year, I need to pick up the pace (need to be at a pace of 6.25 books per month; thus far, I've only read 3). And if you can understand that sentence, you get the gold star for the day. XD

Besides, I already own quite a few of them, having acquired four more today in a Borders run using Borders money from my birthday from friends and family. 

056 -- Visit my grandmother in Florida once

Well, as of this point, I am packed and ready to go. I wasn't kidding when I put on the list ".allow myself the freedom to make any changes to this list as life happens – for things can change in an instant, and I want to be ready for them when they do," for my great-grandfather passed away unexpectedly over the weekend. He wasn't in the best of health, but we weren't expecting him to leave this world right now. He lived down in Florida, near my grandmother's. She was his caretaker. Our family is headed down for his services, which are Friday and Sunday. We fly down tomorrow afternoon and come home late Monday night.

I wasn't expecting to accomplish this goal any time soon. But I am going to count it, as my main reason behind setting this goal was to go down and help my grandmother out with sorting through all the stuff my great-grandparents had. My original intent had been to maybe do it over a summer, make it a working vacation of sorts. There had been talk prior to when Grandpa Kirtland passed away, of Gramma moving up closer to our house should and when Grandpa did pass away. Seeing as that has now happened, there's no guarantee that she'll stay down there. Seeing as we're leaving on Wednesday, and the only commitments I have are my grandfather's services on Friday and Sunday, I will have plenty of time to be of whatever use Gramma needs. 

It will be a hard goal accomplished, but it will still be accomplished.