I’ve been working on my resolution list for March’s happiness project. Here’s what I’ll be doing:
 
My theme for March is “create”. Part of that is a focus on creating classes for my child care training business, part of it is a focus on creating peace in our home by tackling the paperwork monster and de-cluttering.
 

• Continue recording blood sugar and food
• Continue walking/moving 25 minutes a day
• Continue drinking 80 oz of water
• Continue posting on the blog and writing in my book each day

This month, I’m kicking it up a notch:

• To improve my eating; I’m going to be adding a fruit to my breakfast each day and a vegetable to lunch and supper each day.
• Spend 15 minutes a day brainstorming/creating new classes. First up is to finish a class I started before Tom was hospitalized back in December.

 
On days I’m home, I’ll be undertaking the following challenges:

• Paperwork/tax challenge: 15 minutes a day working on paperwork and tax prep
• De-clutter challenge: My de-clutter challenge in March is going to be the upstairs room that has all my daycare toys stored in it. I sold a lot of the big stuff right after I closed but have never gone through and got rid of toys and books. Since most of it is upstairs, I need to tackle that project before it gets too hot as the upstairs is “slightly” warm during the summer months and the window units up there do not work anymore. 

For February, I decided to write down something I love about Tom on a heart each day and post it on our bedroom door. Since we are out of town for me to work this weekend, I went ahead and finished the project before we left yesterday.I was going to attach a picture, but I'm having issues getting it e-mailed from my phone to my laptop, so check Facebook for the pictures. I'll post them later. 

If you've known Tom and I for many years, you know we've always been kind of over the top in love with each other. We've been married 27 years but we still love each other as much (or even more) than we did when we first met. I remember people telling me early on in our marriage that the feelings would fade, but they did not. By no means is our marriage perfect, but I've never stopped being crazy about Tom. He has loved me unconditionally from the start. He has helped me become the person I am today. I would not be a college graduate or doing all the things I"m doing today if it weren't for his love and support. I only hope he has felt the same support from me. 

We learned yesterday that Tom will be stopping his chemo treatments. We are heartbroken, but we also know that no one knows what tomorrow brings anyway. So we plan to enjoy whatever time we have left together and continue loving each other as we have every step of the way. 

I got distracted with my de-cluttering post yesterday and forgot to do my Week 8 update. So here we go:

I've walked/moved everyday this year! 

Blog/book: still posting on the blog and writing in my book everyday.

Food/Blood sugar: writing down food and blood sugar everyday

De-cluttering: This week, I did it all the days I was home after I implemented the "no games on my phone" until I de-clutter rule. 

Acts of love for Tom: I'll have a picture to post of that soon

Reaching out to friends/family: I've e-mailed or texted a different friend or family member each day

Water: I drank at least 80 oz of water each day last week!

We are almost to the end of February so in a few days I'll be posting my February wrap-up and my plan for March. I'm planning to kick it up a bit in March, can't wait to share! 

I spent my de-cluttering time in the pantry today throwing away expired food. My goodness, I don't even want to say how long some of that stuff had been expired. So the shelves look a little bare in there after throwing so much stuff away lol. I didn't even get started on the other clutter that is in there. That's for another day.

Do you have a system for keeping track of your food and making sure it doesn't expire? 

I used to subscribe to Flylady's e-mails. If you aren't familiar with her, she's basically an organizing guru who has helped tons of people get their lives together. I got overwhelmed at the amount of e-mails and eventually unsubscribed. But one thing I did take from her is "You can do anything for 15 minutes at a time". I have used this so many times! When I am facing an overwhelming task, I often tell myself "You only have to work on it for 15 minutes, then you can do something else". Then at the end of the 15 minutes, if I'm making progress, I might work on it a little bit longer. If I'm not making progress, I get up and go do something else and come back to it later. This is how I"m working on my receipts/tax stuff-15 minutes at a time. That is currently my daily de-cluttering goal is to go through and get all that paperwork sorted out and ready to do taxes. 

I've mentioned how much I've learned from Gretchen Rubin's writing and podcast. So today I want to tell you about what first got me interested in and reading/listening to her work. I took the Four Tendencies Quiz. In this quiz, you answer questions and then it determines whether you are an upholder, an obliger, a questioner, or a rebel. The difference between the four has to do with how you best meet expectations (whether outer or inner). I learned I was an obliger, which means I tend to do great at meeting outer expectations, but struggle with meeting inner expectations. So in order to help myself meet inner expectations, it's helpful to create some kind of outer accountability (which I've done with this blog and posting on Facebook). The framework is really interesting and I strongly encourage everyone to take the quiz and learn more about the Four Tendencies. Once you take the quiz, come back and let us know what your tendency is!

You can take the quiz here: https://quiz.gretchenrubin.com/

Saturday's seem to be my day to get over 10,000 steps! I did it again yesterday! Not only that, I was active for 9 hours (which means I did over 250 steps for 9 hours of the day). 

I got to the place and got my class set up early yesterday and did my 25 minutes of walking before any of the participants arrived. I walked around the inside and the outside of the building. It felt great to have it done and not have to worry about it later in the day!

I didn't have time to walk at home before we left for McAlester this weekend yesterday. I planned on walking on the treadmill when I got to the hotel, but it was out of order. So...I put on my headphones and just took off walking. In front of the hotel is a very busy highway and I didn't want to walk there so I went behind the hotel and walked down a side street to a couple of shopping center parking lots. Not going to lie, I felt pretty adventurous doing that lol. But most of all, I felt proud of myself for not letting the broken down treadmill keep me from my walking goals. 

 Earlier this week, Tom wasn't feeling very well and so I didn't want to go out on a 25 minute walk, so I decided to pull out one of my Leslie Sansone Walk at Home DVD's for the first time in quite a while. Since I'd been doing 25 minute walks, I decided to go for the Walk Away the Pounds two mile 30 minute walk. Phew! It was quite obvious that it had been a long time, but I made it through. 

If you haven't checked out Leslie's DVD's and videos, she has a lot of different versions available and they are a great workout. Her website is: https://walkathome.com/. She also has a few workouts available for free on YouTube. 

Today I went to a training in Moore. I left at 6:00 this morning and got home around 7:00. I was tired, but I still did a yoga workout when I got home. I also drank all my water for the day (plus some). Not sure I'm going to be able to muster the energy to de-clutter today. 

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