This March I Will...
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Finished my water than yesterday but it's done. Just a quick check in.5
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Log every bite:
3/2: 😊
3/3: 😊
3/4: 😊
3/5: 😊
3/6: 😊
So far so good!
I’ve noticed I am making much healthier choices, and scale is going in the right direction! Yay!!!6 -
I read a few poems by Christina Rossetti “Who Has Seen The Wind,” “Colors,” and “A Better Resurrection.” I wrote one about sleep.
Well done @PackerFanInGB and @barbaraharmon1 !4 -
Had about a cup of water left in my pitcher. I took too long of a break before lunch.
I will do better tomorrow3 -
I read “When I Have Fears...” by John Keats and wrote a poem called “Doubt.” A whole week of reading and writing poetry so far this month.5
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I am really enjoying reading your updates! We have a great mix of habits that we’re working on and some very creative rewards.
I wanted to update you all both on my February goal (to get more daily steps in) and my March goal to get more sleep. I’m using the StepBet game to reach my step targets and the game doesn’t conclude for another two weeks. The fear of losing my $40 entrance fee has definitely prodded me to move more. I’ve met my daily and weekly targets and now at the end of week 4, I am still in the game. The daily target set for me are just the perfect nudge. More than I had been walking but not so lofty that it won’t be sustainable.
My sleep goal is off to a slower start, but I am getting more sleep. I need to work harder at taking my shower earlier and getting to bed at 11 or so. One complicator is our woodstove. It needs to be filled at 11pm so that there’s enough coals at 7am to restart the fire. The stove has an 8 hour burn cycle so if I did fill it at 10 PM I’d have to wake up at 6am to refill and I’m reluctant to do that. But this is really a temporary challenge. With the warming weather, we plan on shutting off the stove for the season in another week or two and then I won’t have any impediments to getting to bed at 11pm.
I realize the above paragraph isn’t likely to boost wood stove sales, but it’s not as onerous as it sounds. Living in a forest with animals and weather events that routinely bring down hardwood trees, we harvest all of our firewood on our property. It’s a huge savings in heating costs over the winter. My husband does the hard work of chainsawing the tree and splitting it into pieces, and I take over once the wood is in the house. A fire on a snowy January day is just perfect! But I’m done for the season. I am looking forward to shutting off the stove and returning to our regular home heating system (heat pumps).3 -
Log every bite:
3/2: 😊
3/3: 😊
3/4: 😊
3/5: 😊
3/6: 😊
3/7:
3/8:
I'm down 5 lbs just from paying very close attention to what I'm eating. It's been 7 days of no-added sugar and protein-based evening snacks. Yesterday I had a very tough day at work, was feeling very emotional (hurt and angry) and I wanted to eat so badly. I wanted to grab the candybars out of the candy dish and eat the tootsie rolls and hit the vending machines. But I didn't. So that was a really awesome NSV for me.
Happy Saturday everyone!
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themedalist wrote: »I am really enjoying reading your updates! We have a great mix of habits that we’re working on and some very creative rewards.
I wanted to update you all both on my February goal (to get more daily steps in) and my March goal to get more sleep. I’m using the StepBet game to reach my step targets and the game doesn’t conclude for another two weeks. The fear of losing my $40 entrance fee has definitely prodded me to move more. I’ve met my daily and weekly targets and now at the end of week 4, I am still in the game. The daily target set for me are just the perfect nudge. More than I had been walking but not so lofty that it won’t be sustainable.
My sleep goal is off to a slower start, but I am getting more sleep. I need to work harder at taking my shower earlier and getting to bed at 11 or so. One complicator is our woodstove. It needs to be filled at 11pm so that there’s enough coals at 7am to restart the fire. The stove has an 8 hour burn cycle so if I did fill it at 10 PM I’d have to wake up at 6am to refill and I’m reluctant to do that. But this is really a temporary challenge. With the warming weather, we plan on shutting off the stove for the season in another week or two and then I won’t have any impediments to getting to bed at 11pm.
I realize the above paragraph isn’t likely to boost wood stove sales, but it’s not as onerous as it sounds. Living in a forest with animals and weather events that routinely bring down hardwood trees, we harvest all of our firewood on our property. It’s a huge savings in heating costs over the winter. My husband does the hard work of chainsawing the tree and splitting it into pieces, and I take over once the wood is in the house. A fire on a snowy January day is just perfect! But I’m done for the season. I am looking forward to shutting off the stove and returning to our regular home heating system (heat pumps).
I totally understand the woodstove conundrum! We used to live in the country in the middle of the woods and we had one in our basement that we heated our whole house with. We had the same issue but my husband used to get up really early for work and he stoked it before he left. I got home earlier from work than he did and I stoked it when I got home, and then we stoked it at bedtime. It was totally worth the savings in propane and totally worth it to live in the woods. My husband and I used to cut, split and stack the wood every year. I actually miss it.
Sounds like you are doing great with your StepBet game! Go Denise!
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Denise, congrats on still being in the the StepBet game! You can make it to the end now! I loved using a wood stove years ago. We don't use it anymore but I remember how it made the house feel so cozy. It was worth the extra work.
We turn our clocks ahead tonight so I'm going to bed when the clock says 11 even though it will only be 10. I'd like to get up earlier in the morning from now on so I can get more sewing time in in the mornings. Every time I finish one project, two more pop up that I want to do. I started cross stitching a Harry Potter picture for my granddaughter for her birthday in May and I listen to podcasts while I do that. I spent 2 hours editing pictures tonight. It takes too much concentration to do that and listen to podcasts at the same time.
More snow, rain, and wind on its way next week. 😝3 -
@nebslp, I love working on sewing early in the morning, that’s sounds like a fun plan. @PackerFanInGB , Wow, logging seems to be magical for you. @themedalist you are doing great! It sounds like tStep Bet is a great motivator, maybe there’s a sleep bet.
Today I wrote a poem named “Hide and Seek” and read “ I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William Wordsworth and spent some time dancing with the daffodils 🌼.3 -
Daily intake of water
(3-1) 4 bottles
(3-2) 6 bottles
(3-3) 5 bottles
(3-4) 4 bottles
(3-5) 5 bottles
(3-6) 7 bottles
(3-7) 5 bottles
(3-8) 5 bottles
(3-9) 3 bottles
(3-10)3 -
Today’s attempt at poetry is “Just Sports “I read a lot of poetry by Blake and Worthswoth. Here are some favorite lines:
Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy: for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith that all which we behold
Is full of blessings.3 -
@77tes I just had a little dance with the daffodils myself and it lifted my spirits exactly when I needed it. I am so glad you are sharing your poetry choices. It’s nudging me into a world that I had always passed by before without a second glance.
@PinkyPan1 and @PackerFanInGB and @barbaraharmon1 Your accountability and follow through is inspiring.
I’m really struggling to “get” my camera settings and the why of using different ones. I was feeling discouraged today, but I won’t give up. I need to take a class! I am improving on my organization and editing skills😊2 -
Today’s attempt at poetry is “Just Sports “I read a lot of poetry by Blake and Worthswoth. Here are some favorite lines:
Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy: for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith that all which we behold
Is full of blessings.
This is lovely, @77tes. I'm glad you are sharing your poetry with us!3 -
PackerFanInGB wrote: »Log every bite:
3/2: 😊
3/3: 😊
3/4: 😊
3/5: 😊
3/6: 😊
3/7:
3/8:
I'm down 5 lbs just from paying very close attention to what I'm eating. It's been 7 days of no-added sugar and protein-based evening snacks. Yesterday I had a very tough day at work, was feeling very emotional (hurt and angry) and I wanted to eat so badly. I wanted to grab the candybars out of the candy dish and eat the tootsie rolls and hit the vending machines. But I didn't. So that was a really awesome NSV for me.
Happy Saturday everyone!
5 pounds down is fantastic, @packerFanInGB! Logging every bite is tedious, but it works!2 -
Daily intake of water
(3-1) 4 bottles
(3-2) 6 bottles
(3-3) 5 bottles
(3-4) 4 bottles
(3-5) 5 bottles
(3-6) 7 bottles
(3-7) 5 bottles
(3-8) 5 bottles
(3-9) 3 bottles
(3-10)@77tes I just had a little dance with the daffodils myself and it lifted my spirits exactly when I needed it. I am so glad you are sharing your poetry choices. It’s nudging me into a world that I had always passed by before without a second glance.
@PinkyPan1 and @PackerFanInGB and @barbaraharmon1 Your accountability and follow through is inspiring.
I’m really struggling to “get” my camera settings and the why of using different ones. I was feeling discouraged today, but I won’t give up. I need to take a class! I am improving on my organization and editing skills😊
We know you won't be giving up, @nebslp. You are making real progress. Are there You Tube videos on your specific camera that might help? I'm now trying to learn something about Apple's GarageBand software and I'm pleased with how many helpful You Tube videos are out there.2 -
@MadisonMolly2017, here's one of my favorite legume recipes. Easy too!
https://www.geniuskitchen.com/recipe/curried-chickpeas-and-black-beans-low-fat-736790 -
Back in January I mentioned that one of my goals for this year is to improve my memory. It’s my overarching focus for this year. I wanted to update you on how it’s going. I started by reading the book Moonwalking with Einstein. It’s a fascinating account of how the author, Joshua Foer, went from having just an average memory to winning the US memory championship a year later. The author says the difficulty we have in recalling things that we want to remember, such as people’s names, addresses, and other information, is because that information is a poor fit to the information our brains latch on to naturally: visual information. Our brains have an evolutionary ability to remember pictures and images. If you close your eyes right now, you can likely trace a path from your driveway to your front door through the rooms in your home and the contents of each room. But a list of five things you were asked to pick up at the grocery store? That’s a lot harder to recall. The basic idea of memory techniques is to convert harder to remember information into visual images. The book focuses on specific techniques for doing that, so if you’re interested I highly recommend the book.
This week I got to put into practice some of the things I’ve learned. I had an All Team meeting on Thursday where I met about 50 people I hadn’t met before. I created a cheat sheet of their names and faces and university affiliations as well as their research focus. I studied this document for a couple of hours over the course of several weeks before the meeting while I walked on my treadmill. Really focused on committing their faces and names to memory. That’s another take home of the book: memory is rooted in paying attention. It takes focus and concentration. It’s not a quick task. When it came time for introductions at the meeting, I knew about 90% of the attendees. One woman who was photographed sitting next to a tree with medium length brown hair threw me because she didn’t bring the tree and she put her hair up in a ponytail.
But overall, the prep time and techniques made a big difference. And I am now a big believer that visual information is indeed stickier for the brain to remember.
Surprisingly, the main benefit I got from reading a book wasn’t learning the memory techniques, although they are certainly helpful and give me a direction to pursue in the future. No, the most useful insight was also the author’s biggest benefit from his year long memory expedition: that we human beings are capable of learning almost any new skill if we practice and apply ourselves. He was really struggling the few weeks before the memory championship and turned to his mentor for guidance and suggestions. His mentor asked him if he was really working on the things that were hard for him to do or was he simply practicing and putting in the time he thought was required? Joshua admitted he was avoiding doing practice exercises he found difficult and taxing, preferring to spend his time doing the things he already knew how to do very well. He calls this the “OK Plateau”— when we’ve mastered a skill to an acceptable level but aren’t progressing beyond that. There’s really only one remedy for the OK Plateau: buckling down and directing our time and practice to our weak spots. James Clear calls this deliberate practice.
Oh, do I know about the OK Plateau! As some of you know, I started practicing the guitar several years ago and I’ve made real progress. Mostly, I enjoy it immensely. Granted, not every hobby has to be optimized, but I am trying to be a better guitarist. If I’m honest, I definitely avoid playing a few basic chords that are hard for me to play. And that’s been fine as I can almost always find a workaround. But this OK Plateau got me thinking. What would happen if I stopped avoiding these tedious chords and actually started working through them? I started with one chord about a month ago, the D chord ("D" is for dread), and every day I’ve been working on it, focusing on songs in the key of D. Guess what? My chording is much improved and a whole slew of songs that were previously unplayable are now on the table. Hey, Jude....I can play you now! So. Much. Joy! Yes, what we focus on gets improved. Even though on some level I knew that already, Moonwalking with Einstein drove the point home and made it unforgettable to me.
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@themedalist Your post is so meaningful! And, after reading @77tes poem, I was wishing for a LOVE button!
Denise, I think you've just labeled my behavior during the past couple of my photography "work" sessions. It's so much easier to edit and organize my photos than it is to learn and then to remember so many new things about my camera. I've been doing necessary things, but definitely taking the easy route. My OK Plateau has got to go! There are videos I can watch but there's so much information I don't know what to start with and I feel overwhelmed. I will systematically break it down into sections and then take notes and then practice, practice, practice. I've got this...it just hasn't sunk in yet!!3 -
Wow, spring must be in the air with those hosts of golden daffodils--everyone is going gangbusters!
@themedalist , thank you for the fascinating insights into memory--I'm so impressed by your work at learning names ahead of a meeting--that's amazing!
@PackerFanInGB , good for you for the logging--it sounds like it's really making a huge difference for you. Your posts are a great nudge for me, as I've been logging consistently but maybe getting a little sloppy about remembering to log little things like the afternoon coffee or the extra fruit in the salad.
@nebslp , digital cameras are the most complex pieces of technology I've ever tried to use! Good for you for not giving up--my camera just sits in a drawer because it's too complicated, and I always just end up grabbing my phone. And sticking with this photo project when you've got other projects going on is great; I'd like to see your cross-stitch.
@77tes , your immersion in poetry is so inspiring, especially all the Wordsworth--"I Wandered Lonely..." always comes into my head at this time of year, and it's one of my favorites, but I haven't looked at "Tintern Abbey" in ages, and it is so gorgeous. I'm curious about your own poetry-writing--are you experimenting with different forms, or are you more of a free verse lady? I love playing with meter, but I'm awful at it. (A few years ago--well, quite a few years ago now I worked through a lot of the exercises in Stephen Fry's The Ode Less Travelled [which I highly recommend if you don't already know it]), but I never got beyond very clumsy efforts.
@pinkypan1 , you are amazing!!! You are so consistent in your accountability!
My habits have been mixed--the new skincare routine is lovely, a very relaxing wind-down before bed. However, for the keeping-a-nice-dining-table goal, I made a mistake by not getting my husband on board before committing to it, so although I've been doing a better job of setting the table properly, I'm still having to shovel clutter off of it, or to a corner of it. And now that I articulate that I see that there is a simple remedy, which is just to tell him that that's my goal for the month! Sheesh!
Oh--we are also woodstove-stokers here, and much as I love the coziness, I'm looking forward to the end of the burning season--still at least a month away for us, I think.3
