​Here is my list of goals for October:

1. Continue to walk 25 minutes a day for my #walk20in20 challenge; plus get 9,000-10,000 steps five of the seven days per week.
2. Post in blog and in Facebook group daily.
3. Track food and blood sugar/drink water
4. Devotional/bible study/prayer journal
5. Continue having fruit with breakfast and supper and vegetable with lunch and supper.
6. Working on creating classes: due to all that’s been going on the last couple of months, I haven’t been very consistent with this so I decided to re-focus in October and put it on my goal list to work on each week day.
7. De-clutter daily/clean an area of the house each day/paperwork (as needed)
8. Private: this is a goal that I am keeping private for now. I may discuss it later on, but for now, I’ll just list it as a private goal and mark whether I am meeting it or not.

 
Tomorrow, I’ll post my weekly wrap-up and my September wrap-up. 

Monday: 11,128
Tuesday: 5,264
Wednesday: 10,027
Thursday: 11,309
Friday: 11,057
​Saturday: 10,441 (I decided to make up for Tuesday lol)

I love listening to podcasts while I walk, but I also enjoy taking short walks where I am not listening to anything (except the sounds around me). I have found that I get many creative ideas while I am doing this and I think it gives my mind a break. I had been carrying a small notebook to write down thoughts and ideas on my walks, but found that I sometimes could not read my writing later lol, so I have been taking out my phone and trying to jot a few words down to jog my memory. So far, that has been working well. 

How do you remember ideas that pop into your head? 

​Gretchen Rubin talks a lot about larks and night owls. Are you a lark or a night owl? A lark is someone who naturally likes to get up early and get lots of things done and a night owl is a person who functions better in the evenings or late at night. There isn’t a right or wrong answer, I think we all are what we are. But the world is definitely set up more for larks than night owls.
I have always pretty much been a lark. I have found that I accomplish much more if I get up and start my day early. By late afternoon, I am pretty depleted and ready to relax. There have been exceptions to this of course (especially during my teen years), but my mom talks all the time about how I was such an early riser as a child. She would even let me stay up late on weekends to try and get me to sleep later the next morning, but I still woke up at the same early time every single day. Having been a parent who had two early birds, I certainly empathize with her now. Tom was more of a night owl; when we first got married, he could sleep the day away. He used to think it was so weird that I loved getting up early, even when we were on vacation. I just wanted to enjoy the whole day off and not spend half of it sleeping. He learned to accept my lark ways and I (mostly lol) learned to except his night owl ways.
Which one are you? Let me know in the comments! 

Like the hollow tree,
Inside, I feel empty.
They say it takes time,
But I miss when you were mine.
Like the hollow tree,
I am broken inside,
I don’t think I’m coming back,
But there is nowhere to hide.
Like the hollow tree,
I feel dark and lonely
No growth in me,
Just emptiness and alone.
In the hollow tree,
Time marches on,
Just like with me,
Even though you’re gone. 


By Tracy Hinton 

​How do you view your past mistakes? Do you regret making them? Do you look at them as lessons learned and think they make you part of who you are today? Do you still beat yourself up and feel a lot of guilt over your mistakes?
For me, I’d say it is a mix of things. I struggle with guilt over past things I’ve said or done. But then I also look at them as a way of making me who I am today. One example of this is my first marriage. Looking back, I see that there were lots of red flags that I should have seen and not ever got married in the first place. But then I think about my life today. If I hadn’t been married that first time, I would not have my two oldest children. I might not have ended up in Enid managing a Wendy’s, so I might not have ever met Tom and got to spend the next almost 29 years with him and I would not have my youngest daughter. I know without Tom’s encouragement and support; I would not have gone back to school and got my degrees and I don’t think I would have the strength and the confidence I have now. So how can I regret that mistake? Maybe I shouldn’t even call it a mistake; maybe it was just a step in my path to the person I am today.
So today I am just curious how other people look at their past mistakes. Let me know in the comments or through e-mail. 

You guys know how much I love listening to podcasts. Reba McEntire and Melissa Peterman have a new podcast on Spotify called "Living and Learning with Reba". I have listened to the first couple of episodes and really enjoyed them. In the first one, they talk about friendship (including their friendship which started when they starred in Reba together). They also talk to Leslie Jordan and Lauren Alaina. In the second one, they talk to Dolly Parton about forging your own path in your career. That one was especially fascinating to me. If you love Reba and you like podcasts, check it out! 

Well, this week's update is, I am struggling. Everything just feels so hard. I know that's normal, but it still sucks. Today I am just trying to break my day down into 15 minutes at a time and trying to accomplish something in each of those segments. 

Walking 25 minutes a day/9,000-10,000 steps five days per week: I did walk each day and I got 10,000 or more steps on four days. 

De-clutter/paperwork/house/create classes/write: I did at least two of these items four of the seven days.

Write in blog/Post in Facebook group: I missed one day (yesterday) on the blog and posted in the Facebook group each day. 

Tracking food/blood sugar and drinking water: I did that every day. 

Devotional/bible study/prayer journal: every day

Fruits/veggies: met my goal five of the seven days

Reading self-help book: three of the seven days. 

Last week's step counts:

Monday: 10,034
Tuesday: 10,469
Wednesday: 10,214
Thursday: 10,150
Friday: 10,840

​20 for 2020 Changes
These are the items I decided (or had) to change on my 20 for 2020 list:
#3: Chicago concert: Well, I am going to replace this one with a not at all fun, but an important one. I need to talk to an attorney and get the Power of Attorney/Advance directive paperwork re-done since Tom is gone.
 
#2 and #7: Blaze and Zoey for a weekend and science museum: There is still time for these, so I am going to try hard to get it done. If I am not able to have them visit for a weekend, then I will make sure I get to go see them as frequently as possible.
 
The other ones I am going to keep trying to get done and re-evaluate again at the end of October to see if I want/need to make any further changes.