by Tish MacWebber | Apr 9, 2017 | Weekend Warrior
Here we are. Another weekend is over. If you are reading the other stories I post, you may know that I did a little shopping last week. I have tried and tried to get myself into that kitchen. This week, I chose another fight. I decided to fight some inner demons.
I have been working hard on this blog. I am pouring my heart and soul into it, and it is having positive effects in my life. This weekend, I took a much needed break from my routine.
I have given myself a deadline for starting to work on my book. I hope to be done with my Spring Cleaning on or before July 1st. This way I have given myself a full 6 months for each project I am working on this year. If I finish early, bonus. I have no doubts that when I sit down to write, it will happen. I am doing well with the consistency of the blog.
A discussion online made me stop and think about my progress. I have not finished yet what I have resolved to do this year. I am making lists and getting some of the things done, but I never finish the list. The approach thus far has been to make the list, get done what I can, and start a new list the next day. Or continue the same list. The discussion I was referring to was when someone alluded to feeling like a fraud because they have not written a book yet.
I am not a fraud. I work hard at things all the time, even if the progress is made only inside of my head. I am also working on making myself healthier, and that is a project that has no deadline. It is ongoing. Deciding what is best for me to tackle on a weekly basis is moving towards completing something. Progress is progress. No matter how it appears to anyone else.
I did a small amount of puttering. I did not do anything that is picture worthy. So the progress pics will have to wait another week. I have a few vacation days coming up in April, and I plan to use them wisely. I am hoping to catch up in the kitchen this month and be able to move on to the rest of my home. I am going to have to force the issue, with myself, if I am ever going to get it accomplished. That is why I have had to give myself a deadline. At some point, I DO have to finish the Spring Cleaning and move on to the book writing.
Writing this series is helping. I am planning and seeing what needs to be done, and I have ideas of what I will be sharing in the pictures as I progress. Tomorrow after work I have plans to work on a small section of the kitchen while making supper. As I wrote somewhere earlier today on social media, the house does not bounce itself.
This weekend I caught up with some friends, and we had a fantastic time at a local board game cafe. We hung out for the whole evening, and that included the taxi driver being pulled over by the cops for making an illegal left turn while driving us to my friend’s house. If I had a cell phone (what! she doesn’t have a cell phone! the horror!) I would have been able to join in with the Pokemon Go the rest of them played last night. I tried it, and we had fun just hanging out.
Today I spent some quality time chatting with family. Then I went to see the new Smurfs movie with my husband. It was SMURFTASTIC! So familiar, and positive, and full of all the Smurfy jokes and Smurf magic.
I worked on myself this weekend. I recharged my batteries and am ready to take on the next week. I will be working on the Spring Cleaning over the next weekend, and hopefully a little bit all week. I know it will all add up and I will get there. So no, I am not a fraud, by any standard. I am a person that is a work in progress, and I am going to keep working until I accomplish my goals.
#WeekendWarrior
by Tish MacWebber | Apr 6, 2017 | Trust Your Gut
The names here may or may not reflect the person’s real name. If someone wants to remain unknown, we will choose a different name for that person’s story. The goal is to help people, and anonymity is a valid personal choice for contributors. I will use a person’s name only if they give permission to do so.
This week I am pleased to share another of my own stories.
Here is Trust Your Gut: Tish’s Story; Part 7
The importance of happiness is not something that should be ignored in dealing with weight issues. If I am unhappy, I will eat my feelings, and not make healthy food choices. When I am happy, I tend to be smarter and more conscious of what I am eating. It is not always so straightforward, though.
Happiness is linked to positivity and optimism. Energy is higher when I am happy. Happiness can, therefore, be linked with motivation. When I have the motivation, nothing can stand in my way. Except for dessert. How do I stay motivated? The first trick is to set reasonable goals.
I am not talking about the scale, although anyone that has weight issues has a love-hate relationship with the bathroom scale. We love it when the number on the scale is favourable; we hate it when it is not. It is best to not weigh yourself every day, but if the scale is right there, and you are just going to peek…that can be a depressing habit. Because we all know that weight fluctuates. If the scale shows a plateau or a change in the wrong direction, well there is a reason to just give up and go eat everything you want. So if you avoid the scale completely, or weigh only once a week or once a month, it is sufficient, and the number on the scale does not become an unhealthy obsession.
I am talking about doing little things to make the journey worthwhile. Allow yourself to buy something nice once in a while. Not food. That is not a productive treat unless is a healthy choice. But you’re going to eat anyway, so food is not necessarily the correct reward for someone with weight issues.
A new tube of lipstick or a new nail polish is a way to treat yourself without worrying about size. One size fits all gifts are perfect rewards for people like me because they do not have to be fit into. It is great to find out that you are down a size when you need to go buy a new pair of jeans or a new dress, but it can be counter-productive because the size of clothing also impacts our self-image. If it is a larger size or the same, it implies that what you are doing is not enough, and it can also make you want to stop trying.
Grab your favourite music and go for a walk. Music makes me happy and motivates me. I get so many more things accomplished when I listen to music. Buy a new album and support your favourite artist. If you listen to that album while exercising, you are benefiting from your treat, and it is helping you on your journey. There are lots of ways to listen to your music now, but I still buy CDs from the bands I want to support. I buy them at a live show if I can, they get a bigger slice of the pie that way. Food analogy. I can’t escape desserts no matter how hard I try. There are no calories here, though.
Last Saturday I had an errand or two. I wanted to get a clear plastic tablecloth. A protective cover for my pretty tablecloth and some new placemats. I ‘ve purchased two new pieces of art (I found them at the dollar store a few months ago) for my kitchen, which I can hang up when I finish spring cleaning it.
I found the stainless steel straws I have been looking for, (PLEASE IF YOU BUY THESE ONLY DRINK COLD BEVERAGES WITH THEM). Hot drinks ingested quickly into the stomach…that can’t end well. The straws would possibly increase that heat, and the only way I can think of treating a burn on the inside of your stomach is aloe vera juice. I do not know if that would even work.
The reason I have been searching for the stainless steel straws was for a Trim Healthy Mama drink I make from the plan. It calls for apple cider vinegar, which can be nasty to the enamel on your teeth. It is good to help with weight loss. So I am helping my weight loss, adding less waste to the environment by using straws that I can wash and use forever, and I am saving the enamel on my teeth.
I could not pass up the sale I found on coffee. Keurig K-cups, 75% off. That worked out to $3.00 a box. I stocked up. That is a treat for me that I can be happy about. I drink 3 k-cups a day. Black. I am trying 3 new kinds of coffee, and if I don’t like it, I can give it to someone else and not feel like it was an expensive thing to give away. I hope I like them because I plan to be drinking my bargain coffee for a while.
Soul food isn’t food. It is what makes you feel good. Music is my soul food. I am glad I have it because it helps me snap out of a mood, and kick into high gear. Which is what I need to continue on my not so straight and completely not narrow path. Stop reaching for comfort food, and stock up on your soul food. Find whatever makes you happy, and make it a part of your new routine. Not your meal plan.
#TrustYourGut
by Tish MacWebber | Apr 1, 2017 | Weekend Warrior
Well, I decided it was time to give a progress report. The tunes are cranked. I am motivated. So what did I get done?
I have decided to publish this first thing Saturday morning so I can keep the momentum going that I found last weekend. I worked on my kitchen DURING THE WEEK! I am really happy with my progress.
I moved the dish drainer out of the way to create a new Coffee Station. I blogged about that on Monday, because I was so excited that I had to share what I did. For a recap of that short story, here is a link: Coffee Station Complete!
I washed the curtains, and they are all hung back up. I also had to flip the windowsill decorations to match the flip of the coffee station. The curtain has to be at the opposite side of the window, which caused the rearrangement of the items. I have put the dish drainer on the other side of the sink. It is a better place because the dishes are on that side of the kitchen. Most of them. Then I continued to the last section of the countertop. Breadbox, toaster and blender are shuffled. The electric stand mixer is by the dish drainer now. It meant I could tuck the toaster beside the breadbox, instead of it being in front of the breadbox like it was before.
Then I ran out of steam. My husband helped during the week, which can help me to get going. I have plans to start my day with paying it forward. I am off to help another friend in the land of blogging and website design. I will do what I can to help, and we will see how far we get. The last friend I helped has 2 blog posts published and is still figuring it all out. I plan to help her again when our schedules align, and also to share her blog in the future when it is developed further. I am also planning to share blogs from others that I help, even if they do all the work and I just gave them ideas to run with. There is at least one person I know that is doing this, and it is nice to see them happy about their progress.
After I finish helping my friend today, I am going to go back into my kitchen, and get the house bouncing again! I need to keep the momentum going so that I CAN finish, otherwise I will NEVER finish, and that is just not acceptable to me. I need to do this cleaning challenge, more than ever! I need to prepare my home for neglect while I am writing. I know, it will still need maintenance cleaning, and I shall be looking into that when I am at that stage. For now, I will leave you knowing I am fighting through the procrastination and laziness, doing good in the world by helping friends, and getting my kitchen ready for spring, with a promise of more pictures as I complete different areas.
I am rethinking storage in my kitchen. I sense more reorganization in my future of 4 areas. I have very little room for storage, so I have to plan any changes in detail before tacki\ling them because any changes are critical, and need to improve on how things are now, rather than just add more confusion and not maximize the storage space that I have available. I am preparing to take this project on this weekend.
Have a productive Saturday! Who knows, maybe that next Weekend Warrior will be tomorrow’s story, with those pics I am preparing to share.
by Tish MacWebber | Mar 25, 2017 | Weekend Warrior
Well, look at that. I made it to another weekend. It is unplanned, as of yet, and that could be dangerous. In terms of making the most of my weekend off, that is.
Looking around, I can get overwhelmed at the amount of work I still need to do. But just looking at it won’t fix that.
So I have to make a list. It will be for both days, as I never seem to finish the list I make in one day, so I’ll be realistic. Then I will pick some small things to get me going. It is motivating to cross things off of the list.
Eggs and Avs (THM) A nice filling breakfast. I love poached eggs, but you can fry them if you prefer. I love this quick, healthy breakfast on weekends.
We do have to run errands today. So I’ve filled the Overthinkin and Coffee Drinkin mug to sip my coffee while I Brunch and write. Tomorrow I’ll need to prep cook, and my husband doesn’t know it yet, but there is a package of bacon for tomorrow’s breakfast. He wouldn’t eat this with me, but he loves bacon and eggs.
I am still struggling with the cleaning challenge. I feel like this weekend might be when I get back on track. I set the goals at the start of the year, and I intend to keep them. But where to begin? I am overwhelmed by a number of things to do on an exponentially growing to do list and underwhelmed with the energy to attack it. How do I fight my way to doing instead of dreading?
The lists and music are the answer. Even if I take an hour to make the list, it is a start. Do I write down everything, share it with my husband, and tackle it with him? Will we bicker if we tackle the same thing together? Sometimes that happens. If we are both working in the kitchen, there is not a lot of space when we are doing the dishes. My kitchen is deceptive. It looks spacious but has very little cupboard space. I have had to be creative in what I have and where I store things. I have a bookcase, an open pantry, and a large standing shelf with a door on it.
This is the final result of the only thing I really accomplished in the first year I joined the Cleaning Challenge. I need to tidy it up this year, but for the most part, it is still in good shape, and just needs a good dusting job. It is my Open Shelf Pantry.
We have often talked about how to get more efficient storage in the kitchen. We are planning to get some furniture “someday” at Ikea. It will be mostly to set up the living room, but the kitchen will get a boost too. It will happen, it is hard sometimes to make do and stay motivated, but it is what it is.
This afternoon we went to get our taxes finished up. Done for another year. We then made an afternoon trip of going to two local SPCA animal shelters. We are starting to think about getting our first dog, and saw a lot of cats too. We will get another cat too, someday, but we needed a break, after having been a cat only home for so long.
This evening we went to visit some friends. It was nice to get out and socialize as a couple with another couple that we are friends with, but haven’t been to visit in quite some time.
Another productive day outside of the house. I will have to work really hard tomorrow to catch up. It can be done. It will be done. It has to. I hope the energy is still with me tomorrow. The house needs a bouncing!
by Tish MacWebber | Mar 19, 2017 | Weekend Warrior
Today started with Scotch Lick and grab and go. I had scheduled my morning to help a friend look into setting up her own blog. I am in no way an expert at blogging, and I don’t claim to be. But as a few friends helped me get this Blog up and running, I decided to pay it forward.
It was really neat to see someone else put their own creativity into action! We started with some basic conversation, and she figured things out. She has some work left to do and is capable enough with her own experience and training to move forward on her own. I am only a message away if she needs any more help.
I am fighting to stay awake. Waiting to find out the plans for the evening. If it is a Game night, I will have to start preparing snacks and get done what I can here in the meantime. If it ends up being a guys gaming night, I will work on the cleaning challenge. Either way, I will be busy. I have the kitchen to clean, a grocery list to make, and general cleaning to do.
I have had 2 cups of coffee with breakfast. I am having a sugar free vanilla iced coffee now. I AM STILL TIRED! So I have cranked the tunes and will make 1 more coffee. Soon it will be too late to have any more coffee, but if I am busy enough, I can still tire myself out enough to sleep tonight. I need the help today. I am a night owl with a day job. So I tend to be more active in the evenings. Sometimes a little too late. I struggle with it, but my health is better with the 9-5 schedule, so I try to go to bed early when I need to. Sometimes I even make it to bed early. Not on the weekends, though. That is the problem I am having right now. So I am going to make 1 more coffee. A power snooze might have to happen, though. When my body wants sleep this desperately, I have to consider if it is necessary or not. A power nap may just what I need, followed by that one more cup of coffee. Then I’ll head into the kitchen, and unload that dishwasher, that I ran last night. I need to focus, and that is a good place to start.
Had the nap. Never found any energy. I have spent some time on Linked In today. It was time for an update, and it is another way to share this Blog. I am disappointed that I did not get more accomplished around the house today, but the networking has to be worked on also.
My Linked In Profile
Tomorrow is a new day, filled with possibilities. And a new To Do List! Enjoy your weekend!
