Challenge Accepted

I started a challenge with Ruth Soukups 31 days of Living Well & Spending Zero and 31 Days to a Clutter Free Life.  Yes, I'm doing both at once.  I'm pushing myself to get my home and life organized and prepared for the next chapter in my life.  If you don't know who Ruth Soukup is you can check out her website Living Well Spending Less. I saw one of her books at Barnes and Noble and thought, "I need this in my life".  After reading Living Well, Spending Less I bought all her books.  I don't own the journal though.

I attempted the challenge last summer but was unsuccessful due to work.  Things have changed and I'm so ready for the challenge this time around.  I'm working through two of her books but starting them at different times.  Day 1 of Living Well & Spending Zero started Wednesday, unfortunately day 2 I worked in Oakland and when I got home at 6:15, I fell asleep as soon as I laid  on my bed.  I didn't realize how tired I was.  So, Here I am working on day 2 before work and my daughter will finish it tonight.  We are organizing the kitchen pantry.  It looks like we will be eating a lot of canned veggies and pasta for the next 30 days.  I buy my pasta and canned goods when my store has them on sale. You know those sales, 5 for $5 and so on.  I also bought a lot of soup.  My freezer is pretty empty at the moment and my fridge needs to be completely cleaned out.  I'm afraid to see if there is a science experiment in there.

Day 3 (tomorrow) will be easy. Meal planning.  I want to start meal prepping, but looking at what I have to use, it's not going to happen.  I can however make lunches for work.  Not as healthy as I would have liked.

Day 1 of 31 Days to a Clutter Free Life is just getting the basics down.. Days 2 will be a breeze as its the Entry way of our home.  We don't really have one but there is a closet at our entrance that I will clean and organize tomorrow when I get home from work.  Seems easy, right?

Well I'm off to work.. It's gonna be a long night.  Graduations and Memorial Day weekend.. Bring on the party people looking for beer...

My Spending Habits Suck.

Unknown Source :(

I had a financial goal for 2017 and I've already put myself behind.  So here I am reminding myself that I need to buy only what I need.  As I look at the new bikini and socks I bought today.  I did need a new bathing suit and socks for work.  Still, I bought a scarf and junk food for my kids.  We didn't need those. I recently spent money on fans for the house.  After I bought them I felt regret, but I'm hoping they will save me money in the long run. Fans are better than air conditioners, right?

I've been reading Ruth Soukup's book Living Well Spending Less. I also bought her other books, 31 Days of Living well & Spending Zero, and 31 Days to a Clutter Free Life.  I bought them last year and read them all.  Taking notes and planning my own financial overhaul.  I hit a road block when work became hectic with long hours.  I let it all fall to pieces.  I am going to give it a go again.  I'm sure the reader is supposed to do each challenge one at a time, but I'm going all in and challenging myself. I'm cracking the whip and putting my finances, spending, and organization in check.  I have 3 goals with this challenge.

1. Meal Prepping - Going to wing it this week, hopefully I can find good recipes to use. 
2. Buy necessities ONLY.  I keep buying things that I don't need right this minute.  Including junk food at work. 
3. Remove the clutter and reorganize.  What's that phrase?  "Messy house, messy mind" or something like that.  

Now that work isn't needing me 12+ hours a day I can focus on myself and what is needed at home.  Tomorrow is my day off and I will start with my meal prep and organize my fridge.  I also need to clean out my closet and storage closet.  In order to get the rest of my apartment organized the storage closet has to be ready for the items worth keeping.  I can't remember the last time I actually looked in the closet.  Maybe I should be afraid haha.  No, I'm so ready for this change in my life.  

What a Waste of a Good Day

Today I had an appointment with an oral surgeon about my jaw and a tooth that may need to be extracted. It was an all day venture because it was in Alameda and I had never been there before. I personally feel it was a complete waste of my time and money. I lost money and time to be told nothing about my jaw (main reason I was there) and that "If you have a toothbrush and floss, you don't need dental insurance." What??? Crazy talk, right? Well, at least I think so.

Worst part of the day. I did not have enough water today. No where near a gallon and I can feel the difference. I also ate McDonald's, Samantha and I had the 20 piece nugget meals. I couldn't eat all of mine. I am surprised as I love their fries. I had a few sips of my soda and tossed it, ate half my medium fries and 6 of my 10 nuggets. I later fed my leftovers to some seagulls. Besides the fast food, I have not eaten anything else. I did buy some water while I was out and had plenty of water at home. Just not enough. My only exercise for today was walking a little bit of yoga. Once I am done with this post I will meditate before I go to bed. Space tomorrow I will be better as I will be buying two gallons of water for work.

Today I started something new called personal push goals. I got the idea from a Facebook friend named Diva Val. I have chosen four goals for February; working out for 30 minutes, drink one gallon of water, meditate 15 minutes and, blog daily. I think it will be a great way to keep up on small goals I want to accomplish. Also, I feel it will be a way for me to have personal accountability of my actions.

I said I was going to share some links with you today. I am not going to explain each one as I am still looking through them and deciding what I will use from each.

30dayfitnesschallenges.

Neilarey.com/

For some reason when I try to add links on my tablet, they get messed up. Grrr

Well I'm off to bed. Good night

Hello February 2015

Hello hello. My first day of the water challenge went well. Unfortunately I lost cost after 60oz. I do believe I made it to a gallon. I feel like it. My body is weighed down by it and I peed a lot today. I have noticed when I drink large amounts of water I lose interest in food. I only had two plain ham sandwiches today and that's it. I had no desire to make myself anything to eat nor was I really hungry. I only ate the second sandwich because I was making one for my kids and I needed to eat.

I weigh 165.  I still need to measure myself. I did take photos of myself but will not share those until the end of the month. I can't even explain the horror, embarrassment, and amount of tears that happened during and after the pictures were taken. My eyes are closed in them because I could not bare to look at myself. I am disgusted and horrified that I allowed others to see me in less than jeans and a oversized T-shirt. I feel like shit. The disgust and embarrassment is more of a motivation than my health right now.

I have some links I want to share with you next time.  I hope you will like them.

Saturday Night Boredom

It's Saturday night, woohoo! Congrats on making it through the first month of 2015.

I'm sitting on my little old love seat watching Bones and Numb3rs. I should be in San Francisco having a great time with the Walker Stalker Convention, but no. Oh well, life goes on.  I'm feeling better today. My cough isn't choking me. I finally have some energy but I'm sitting my butt. I think it's safe to restart my fitness challenge tomorrow. Perfect for the beginning of the month. I will be doing a water challenge with my fitness challenge. This water challenge is for me to drink 1gallon of water a day. I need to drink approximately 80 ounces a day at the moment and I am at about 60 ounces. So it seems I need to step up my game on water drinking. Dropping soda from my daily habit will help for sure.

Though my water challenge is supposed to be only a month, I'm hoping to keep it up. The same with soda removal. My goal is to reduce or remove processed foods (mostly sugar). Junk food and bread are my best friend. I am an emotional eater. Stressed, bored, or depressed, food is how I cope. This is a habit I hope to break.

Well I'm tired and its my bed time. Good night.

Well That Didn't Get Far.

I'm sick. So sick that I'm coughing till I can't breathe. Throat itching and feels like it burning. I dry heave and gag a lot, not to mention I just realized how old i am getting when I just about peed myself coughing. Say what??? Yup, I've hit that darn age where pee will become an issue; no matter how much I keep up on my kegel exercises. Gonna have to speak to the doctor about that.

Since I am sick and have no desire to function, I am postponing my fitness challenge. This cough I have is a workout; it exhausts me. During this time I will do research and share some ideas with you. Until then I will rest and just babble on about nothing. I'm good at that.

I'm off to sleep... Hopefully

The Fitness Challenge.

I am horrible at fitness challenges. Anything where I have to give up carbs and other yummy garbage food makes me cry. I have to do this, if I dont, I will live a short painful life. I can't have that. I enjoy life too much to kill myself with food. I love food too much to kill myself with food.

The challenge:
90 days of healthy eating, meal replacements, detox/fasting and 30-90 minutes of exercise a day. What does that mean for me? Giving up soda, bread, and candy? Not really. The first week I will give up most sugars and carbs. But, I'm not giving up bread or ginger ale. I may switch to tonic water and add fruit or juice to it. I need to learn to not overindulge when eating. Moderation is key and learning to stay within my limits. If not, the food will have to go permanently.

This is week 1- detox from garbage foods.
Breakfast- Body by Vi smoothie with fresh fruit and almond milk.
Lunch- Salad and a rice cake with peanut butter and banana
Dinner- Open faced tuna sandwich with tomato on whole wheat bread, Chicken fajitas, Pork chops with brown rice and steamed veggies
Drinks- Water with lemon or cucumber and tea with honey
Fitness- Walking at least 30 minutes and light exercise till my foot feels better.

I'll try to post as often as I can about my progress. Sadly I did not measure myself today. I did however weigh in at 165.

I will leave it here for now and tell you more in my next post. It's such a pain typing on a darn tablet.

Boredom Strikes

Doing some writing while watching Labyrinth

I'm sitting on the floor, watching Labyrinth, while eating my half burnt Digiorno supreme pizza. Okay I'm eating half and that's a whopping 700 calories... Yikes!  I think I may give up frozen pizza.
And maybe a lot of other foods I don't really need. I started using myfitnesspal and Endomodo this week.  I was using them before but my old phone wasn't able to keep up with the updates.  I may switch to a different fitness app to link to myfitnesspal. Anyway, back to the pizza calories.  I now need to work off 400 calories this evening.  I know I will have to start planning my meals and make a fitness plan to keep me on track.  Though I have these two apps to help me along, I also decided to use a fitness journal to keep up on my emotions and other habits.  I'll have to participate in some fitness challenges or make up some of my own.  

Speaking of challenges, I found some nice 30 day challenges I want to try, also I think I will make my own challenges to keep things interesting.  I want to combine photo, writing and music challenges together to keep me from getting bored.  I don't understand why I become bored so easily.  There is plenty to do and yet, I am bored.  

I need to get my ass in gear... work out, find a job, and get my shit together. I've been so unmotivated, lazy, and bored.