Last week was insufferably hot and this morning my fingertips are freezing and I have long sleeves on. I would prefer a place between the two however if I have to pick, I’m taking this morning’s chill over last week’s sauna.
Funny with the weather change at this time of year, it always makes me think of erasers. Well, erasers and pencil crayons and new shoes and tights and that line in the sand (back to school) where you feel like you have the option of making a bit of a rebirth and changing the things that you don’t like about yourself and your habits. As a kid, that never worked, it lasted maybe a month (maybe) and then everything sort of drifted back to the way it had always been. I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that as a young person, when you tried to make a change, you were still greatly influenced by the people and circumstances around you. Now, as an adult, I realize that in order to revise yourself you probably have to revise various circumstances or surroundings.
So with my fresh new eraser in hand, I get to eliminate things that work against me and put into place things that work for me. One of those is time management. I would always have said that I had good time management skills, in that I can cram a lot into a short period of time. But that’s not proper time management, that’s more like efficiency on crack. The reality of it is that I have a full schedule of things that all take up a certain amount of time and if something new is to be added (getting back to the gym) then something else has to be removed. I feel like in order to get up at 4am to hit the gym, I need to remove about an hour of chores/tasks at the end of the day so I’m going to review some stuff this week and see what can be removed, shared or revised.
Another thing that I’m going to use my eraser to try and scrub out is my self-defeating and very negative habit of being a martyr. The only person that hurts is me although I don’t think it’s great for the health of a relationship either. I feel like I have to do everything because I’m a perfectionist and if I leave chores undone then I’ve failed. I’m taking a page from my hubby’s book for awhile though. If he wants to sit and watch a movie, he does. And when I ask if something got done, his answer is “No, I didn’t do ___ “. He doesn’t automatically make excuses or rationalizations or get defensive about it, he just answers the question. Not to say that I don’t wish he would try harder or do more, but it’s his reaction when asked a question that I’m going to adopt.
People, in my experience, go with whatever the flow happens to be. So I’m changing my flow because I have to take care of me. I’m going to do what I can in the time that I have, realistically and schedule in some chill time each evening whether I use it or not. I’m going to ask for help and share chores. I am only responsible for my own actions and those actions and lack of action is starting to make me unhappy. I do NOT want to go into the winter months already unhappy and with malcontent so I’m going to start making some changes now.
Wish me luck!
Here’s my picture of the day. A big, wet kiss!
A wet one, right on the lips!
Fitty vs Fatty 