The Accountant and I are doing a home renovation project. It smelled like a construction site so I decided to try burning a candle. The candle didn’t work. I tried opening up all the doors in the house. That didn’t work either. I finally came up with a perfect idea. I burned a bag of microwave popcorn. It worked wonderfully. I only have one problem. My whole house now smells like burned popcorn.
I need ideas for a new challenge. Please send me your ideas.
Yesterday, I had a stomach ache. It wasn’t serious enough to stay home from church, but I felt grouchy and sorry for myself as my stomach rumbled. As I was puttering around the house, I got an idea. I should make a sign to tell the world how I felt.
It was a brilliant idea. I started imagining sitting in the church pew with my little sign. Some nice lady might even cook me dinner, because that is what nice church ladies do. My stomach ache eventually went away so I didn’t need to wear my sign. It got me thinking though. Things might be a lot easier if people wore signs and said what was really going on in their life.
What might your sign say?
After walking tonight, I looked down at my exercise shoes. They are kind of beat up. That’s great, because it is means I’ve been using them.
The Accountant and I went hiking today. We saw this warning sign next to a few rocks by a small creek. I started giggling. The poor man in the sign looked so dire especially when compared to our current surroundings of a handful of rocks and a creek that I could hop across. While I was laughing, I stepped on a loose rock and wobbled a bit. I’m fine and quickly recovered my footing. Lesson learned. Pay attention to the warning signs, even the silly ones.
I’ve been so busy with my day job the last two weeks that my blog had to take a back seat. But never fear! I am back now and ready to start my next 13 day challenge. My eighth challenge is to keep a food diary. Now, I’ve kept a food diary in the past so this one is different. Instead of writing down my food and portion size, I’m going to just write down the time of day I eat and any emotions connected to when I ate. My goal is not really to stop myself from eating ice cream ever again or to only eat carrots. Who wants to only eat carrots? My goal is to track how I feel about the food I eat. I might learn something along the way.
The Practical Reason
Many studies show that tracking helps you recognize patterns. In fact, I have read that you don’t have to track forever. You just need to track long enough to get a true picture of your habits. I think 13 days will give me a good picture.
The Philosophy Reason
The whole idea for this challenge came from this cool quote. “Freedom from obsession is not about something you do; it’s about knowing who you are. It’s about recognizing what sustains you and what exhausts you. What you love and what you think you love because you believe you can’t have it. We don’t want to EAT hot fudge sundaes as much as we want our lives to BE hot fudge sundaes. We want to come home to ourselves –Geneen Roth.
I don’t really consider myself obsessed, but I do like the idea of being true to myself and recognizing what I really want out of life.
I have curly hair which means that I’ve had a lot of bad hair days over the years. Recently, I’ve had more good hair days than bad days. Let me tell you my story. One day, I saw a woman at the grocery store with beautiful curly hair. I followed her for ten minutes from isle to isle until I got up enough courage to ask who did her hair. I walked away with a phone number for a fancy salon. When I called to set an appointment, a woman with a European accent answered the phone. “We are running a special for new customers. It is only $100”. I’m the type of girl who clips coupons so the price seemed absolutely scandalous. I was even more shocked when the receptionist told me that in this salon your hair will be cleansed and cut by a true hair artist, but all the styling is done by the patron. “What”, I cried. “I’m paying a $100 to do my own hair”. “It is part of our philosophy”, said the receptionist. “How will you do it at home if we style it?”
My appointment took three hours at the salon. Apparently, my hair artist had to spend longer with me than the typical client, because the receptionist kept coming in to let the artist know her next appointment was here. In the end, it was the best $100 I’ve ever spent. I have been much happier with my hair and I’ve learned two life lessons.
Lesson one: When you see people who have what you want, ask them how they got it.
Lesson two: It is okay to spend $100 on yourself.
About two weeks ago, my hubby discovered that we could watch all the Star Trek episodes ever created on the internet for free. We signed up for one of those 30 days free internet streaming specials. We are determined to only do 30 days and not get stuck paying $20 a month. We kind of joked that my next challenge would be watching science-fiction. Although it sounds very enjoyable to do nothing but watch Star Trek for the next 13 days, I have a day job and a life full of other obligations. We are enjoying watching one or two episodes a day though.
Today I went to a holistic health care conference with a friend. We had a good time looking at the vender booths and going to the different workshops. I attended a workshop about the power of positive, happy thoughts. The speaker told everyone that they could improve their health and make more money by changing their thinking. I agree with the health part, but I was a bit skeptical about the money. After the presentation, I went to the bathroom. While I was sitting there doing my business, a quarter came rolling in from another stall. I was pretty excited and cried out loud. “It works. Happy thoughts. Happy thoughts”.
We got a package in the mail. Boxes are not just fun for little kids. I just had to know how much of me would fit inside of it. After the picture was taken, I started thinking. How many times have I put myself in a box? How many times have I told myself that I couldn’t do something or say something or be something based on the box around me? Whose box is it anyway? Have I ever stopped myself from being healthy based on my thoughts and feelings? The box really got me thinking about my thinking. For my next 13 day challenge, I’m going to make a concentrated effort to analyze my thoughts related to my physical and emotional health. Here is the plan. I’m carrying a little notebook around with me. If I catch myself saying anything negative about my body, mind or path in life, I’m writing it down. I will then try to rephrase the negative thought with something more positive.
The Practical Reason
I read somewhere that the average human has 50,000 thoughts per day. If I can make some of those little thoughts more happy and positive, I’m sure it will help with my physical and emotional health.
The Philosophy Reason
“Thinking is the talking of the soul with itself”–Plato
You can’t get more philosophical than Plato.
I’m coming to the end of challenge number six. It has been a good experience to be more conscientious about planning meals. Here is what I’ve learned.
1. Simple is better.
When the Accountant and I got married, we received 10 cookbooks as gifts. My Grandma gave us a red cookbook with a note that said we would use her gift more than the other cookbooks we got. Don’t argue with grandma. How many times have I opened up Fancy Dinners with Martha Steward in the last ten years? Once. I opened it up and realized that I would have to make a trip to the store to buy dried porcini mushrooms. Book closed. Thank you Grandma for the great lesson. Simple is better. We’ve survived just fine with our old faithful red cookbook and the internet.
2. Cooking together can be fun
The Accountant and I are one of those couples that go grocery shopping as a date night. And guess what? We’ve found that it is kind of fun to plan, shop, cook and eat together.
Here we are at an apple orchard pretending to be farmers. Don’t we look cute?
my 13 day challenge 