Since my word for this year is “healthy”, I have been working on ways to curb my emotional eating. I spoke to a wellness coach who gave me some ideas to try. So this morning I created this paper to hang up on my refrigerator as alternatives for eating when I am not hungry:

1. Read a book
2. Take a walk
3. Call or text a friend
4. Write in journal
5. Write a blog post
6. Do short exercise video
7. Say some affirmations
8. Take deep breaths
9. Wait 15 minutes
10. Most importantly: be kind to myself!

So here's a true confession. I realized after I wrote this out last night that I forgot the most important thing of all. Pray about it! So I've added that to my written list. 

I finished my first non-fiction book of the year: “How to be fine: what we learned from living by the rules of 50 self-help books” by Kristen Meinzer and Jolenta Greenberg. Kristen and Jolenta host a podcast called “By the Book” where they live by the rules of various self-help books. Fair warning, they use what they call “barnyard” language in their podcast and some of that carries over into the book. But I really enjoy their podcast and the book was a great read. They discuss what worked, what didn’t work, what they found to be complete BS, and what they wish more self-help books taught. If you’re looking for a funny, irreverent podcast and book, I encourage you to check them both out. 


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​Week one Daily Aims check-in
Friday was the end of the first week of 2022, so I thought I would write about how I did on my daily goals for this year.
Clean for 15: I did this every day
Daily Aims:
Walk 20 minutes a day: every day
Devotional/Journal: every day
Read/Rest: every day
Track blood sugar and food: every day
Eat two fruits/two vegetables a day: every day
Drink water: every day
Thankfulness walk: every day
Listen to positive affirmations and say something positive to myself in the mirror each day: I said something positive to myself in the mirror each day, but I did miss listening to the positive affirmations one day.
 
So overall, a great week on my goals. The next couple of weeks will be more of a challenge because I will be gone overnight a couple of times. 

​1-6-22
Dear Tom,
I still have a travel size bottle of your favorite body wash in the bathroom. Sometimes when I am really missing you, I open it and inhale the scent. It brings back memories of snuggling up next to you in bed after your shower. I miss the feeling of safeness and contentment I felt in those moments.
I love you,
Tracy

​A new habit I am working on for this year is “Clean for 15”. The idea is to clean something each day. It does not necessarily have to be for 15 minutes, but that is my plan for most days. However, as long as I do something, I am giving myself credit! I chose an area of the house for each weekday and digital stuff for the weekend. I also made a plan for if I am not home as I find that I tend to do better if I do something everyday. After this first week of just cleaning (because a lot of my house just needs cleaning lol), I will do a tiny bit of decluttering in each of the areas of my home each day. I figure if I do a bit every day, it will add up.
 
Here's the plan:
Monday: kitchen
Tuesday: bathroom
Wednesday: Living Room/Dining room area
Thursday: Bedroom
Friday: Yard/garage/upstairs (I will rotate between these)
Saturday: emails
Sunday: computer files
If I am not home, I will work on clearing out old photos or text messages on my phone or cleaning out computer files. 

This year instead of doing a new resolution chart each month, I am creating a “Daily Aims” chart of things I want to do each day. Most of them are a continuation of the things I have been working on turning into habits the last couple of years.

1. Walk 20 minutes a day
2. Devotional/journal
3. This year’s challenge from Happier with Gretchen Rubin is to #rest22in22. I decided to keep up the reading and combine it with the rest, so my personal challenge is to “Rest and Read 22 in 22”. I usually did the reading right after my workout as kind of a way to cool down and catch my breath before I showered, so it was already a form of rest.
4. Track my blood sugar and my food intake. I found an app to use to track my blood sugar and I am using my FitBit app to track my food intake.
5. Eat two servings of fruit and two servings of vegetables a day.
6. Take a thankfulness walk every day. This is a walk where I repeat to myself all the things that I am thankful for as I walk.
7. Drink at least 80 oz of water a day
8. Say at least one positive statement to myself in the mirror each morning and listen to a positive affirmation recording each day. 

I have created my “22 for 22” list.
 
22 for 22 List

1. Get new living room furniture (this is one of the things I want to save for this year).
2. Have grandchildren for at least one weekend
3. Have each grandchild for one weekend alone
4. Get the pecan tree trimmed (another thing I am wanting to save for)
5. Go visit Tasha in Texas at least once
6. Find a new purse. I swear, I must be super hard on purses. It’s so aggravating!
7. Go through boxes of pictures. #7 and #8 are repeats from last year.
8. Go through digital pictures
9. Get a futon or sofabed for the back room (this can be new or used; wanting to set up a play/sleep area for when the kids visit)
10. Get the painting of Tom framed
11. Walk a 5k? I am not too sure about this one, lol. I would like to participate in an actual 5K walk, but at the least, I would like to do my own 5K walk.
12. Finish cleaning out back bedroom
13. Clean/organize old office area
14. Do a monthly budget
15. Choose a glucose tracking app
16. This is a private one that I may share later.
17. Get a necklace with my word of the year on it?
18. Check credit reports
19. Read or listen to one non-fiction book per month (and write them down)
20. Figure out how to help Josh sell his paintings
21. Go back to church
22. Room to grow….(this one is for me to add something that I think of later.

​This year’s Word of the Year for me is “Healthy”. I feel like it can cover so much: my physical, emotional/mental, spiritual, and financial health. I am excited to see where this year’s word takes me. To recap, I first came up with a “Word of the Year” in 2020. However, I was an overachiever and instead made more of a mantra which I called “My Three Be’s”: Be loving, Be thankful, Be happy. With all that happened in 2020, it was a very helpful phrase for me and helped keep me on track through a lot of tough things. In 2021, I boiled it down to one word and chose “Rebuild”.
Here are some of the things that I am going to do in the name of my Health this year:

1. Physical: continue walking, track blood sugar and food. Continue drinking water.
2. Mental/Emotional: Continue reading every day. Reading is my favorite form of play and reading every day helps me keep my peace. Write every day. Writing is another thing that helps me process my emotions and keep my peace.
3. Spiritual: I am going back to church this year.
4. Financial: I have some things I want to save up to purchase so I will be making a budget and creating a savings plan for those items.

 
This is my personal Word of the Year. I am considering choosing one for work as well, but that one is still up in the air.
 
Happy New Year to each one of you! Have you considered choosing a Word of the Year? 

​My word of the year for 2021 was “Rebuild”. I felt like it was an appropriate word because I am rebuilding my life after losing Tom. When I look back at all that I did this year, I feel like I have accomplished a lot. I got a new to me car; paid for with cash using life insurance money. My previous car had over 240,000 miles on it, so I truly needed something else. I kept a one sentence journal for the year and I am excited to start on it for 2022 and get to see this year’s moments and accomplishments. I continued the #walk20in20 challenge and joined the #read21in21 challenge. I both read and walked every single day this year. That makes two solid years of exercising every single day. I sold Tom’s music equipment and used the money to buy myself a charm bracelet with some very special charms on it. The kids and I went through a lot of Tom’s stuff and cleared out a bunch of it. I attended GriefShare meetings and made some new friends who have really blessed me.
Probably the biggest step in this year’s rebuild was getting a “normal” job with regular pay and benefits. I get to work at home when I am not out in the field and I have a work car, so I do not have to put the miles on my car! I love my new job so much and am excited to see where it takes me in 2022.
My rebuilding will continue into 2022, but I do have a new word of the year coming, which I will reveal tomorrow. 

21 for 21 list
Here is my final report on my 21 in 21 list. Currently working on my 22 for 22 list and will post when I've completed it.

1. Personal & Spiritual

1. Blaze and Zoey for a weekend-They came for a weekend and stayed back in March plus Serenity and the kids have come and visited for a couple of weekends.
2. One sentence journal each day-I think I only missed one or two days during the year, so I am going to say done!
3. Devotional/prayer journal-Everyday!

1. De-cluttering/cleaning

1. Finish cleaning out basement-There are still a few odds and ends, but I am going to call this done.
2. Go through Tom’s stuff-also mostly done. Have a few things I need to figure out what to do with, but overall the big stuff is done.
3. Go through boxes of pictures-Nope
4. Organize digital pictures/get them printed?-not even a little bit

1. Health

1. Increase steps to 20,000 three days per week-Did not make this one
2. Develop  or find healthy eating/living self-talk scripts, record to listen to daily. Well, I found some but never listened to them consistently. ☹

1. Facts of Life book

1. Will/power of attorney/advance directive (this is done; just need to decide best way to store it: fireproof lock box? Safety Deposit box?)-Got a lock box for the paperwork have gathered most of the info listed below, except for the house info and I am not sure how/where to get that.
2. Bank information
3. Recent tax returns
4. Original deed of trust for home
5. Car titles and registration
6. Credit/debit card
7. Personal records: (full name, social security, legal address, date/place of birth, Names/addresses of spouse/children, birth/death certificates, marriage certificates, divorce paperwork, adoption papers, medication list…)

1. Business

1. Take a class on using MS Office/365-No
2. Take a class on using Zoom technology-I’ve watched some videos and read some books/articles on it so I’m going to say kind of for this one.
3. Create a signature for my gmail-completed
4. Pyramid Model training-completed 2-15-21
5. Create 18 new classes-No