Somehow it is already April 👀 …
I’m proud to say I’ve been working on my goals and making great progress. I’ve learned it’s important to recognize accomplishments and congratulate myself (and also rest sometimes) which I’m working on too 🙂
Some key learnings I’ve got from my coaching classes and silent time reading are the following reminders:
I am not in control of anything but myself. Luckily, God is in control. And I am a better person when I put myself in my place.
Change is constant. I’m still trying to sit with that and live and breathe it. Change happens and it’s tiring and overwhelming to fight it.
These two learnings combined remind me to be flexible and roll with what life brings.
But if change is constant, what about the stuff that should stay the same? In daily life, the “stuff” that stays the same are routines. For me, I review my routines (what I do and spend my time on) and see where they fit in my goals. After ensuring that my routines do align with my goals, I block time for them, make recurring tasks for them, and protect and maintain them so tides of change (or tiredness or busy-ness) do not through them asunder.
Entropy (aka chaos) happens. (That will be the only reference to any law of thermodynamics you get here).
So if I am not intentional about my routines, they will go away. Like seeds sown, I must feed routines that are valuable and remove weeds (distractions) that pop up. And then once I finally have that down, I need to continually look for areas to prune in order to generate new growth.
As it were, coming out of a pandemic is a GREAT time for pruning. I have decided it’s very possible I was a closet introvert my whole life, or perhaps this new level of self-reflection and introspection has made me more content and happy with myself and grateful for time with my thoughts and with God. My newfound joy of reveling with my thoughts in the quiet means that I know that is the sacrifice I make for my free-time-without-kids. So what I do with that time has to really count.
Some things we have grown recently are as follows:
The Rosary – We listen to the rosary in the car on the way to Mass. We used to pray the rosary every night for a few months of the pandemic, but we realized it didn’t always calm the kids down, they didn’t always pray it well, and it ended up taking some time that we desperately needed for ourselves during the work week. I know we’ll reconsider frequency again when we’re older but there is where we’re at today :¯_(ツ)_/¯. I have the Messy Family Podcast App and so we pray along with that family. It’s great for lots of reasons:
- I love it because it is a scriptural rosary, which means that scripture verses are ready with each mystery.
- My kids can hear the whole prayer really well in surround sound, even if they don’t 100% know all the words or what they mean.
- The Family’s kids pray the rosary, so they hear kids praying.
- There is a picture of each mystery on the app so the kids (and us) can visualize what is happening.
I have a history of my rosaries being destroyed just due to normal wear and tear, so I social-outsourced recommendations and we got BEAUTIFUL rosaries that I could PERSONALIZE from Rugged Rosaries. I was able to choose colors, beads, the crucifix, and medals for each of my big kids (I am gonna wait on the baby until he’s older to get an idea of what he’ll like — for now he holds daddy’s rosary since daddy is driving).
The Sabbath – Saturday evening Mass is our go-to and we try to get all the boring, mundane tasks done on Saturday before or on the way home from Mass. We reserve Sunday for getting to play together at home and rest, or going on play dates. My parents have been so amazing as to watch the kids on Saturday night so my husband and I can have a Sabbath “date night”, which is as simple as eating our regular dinner at home with our fancy plates and being able to hear each other speak.
Eating – I started on the Keto diet a few years ago and it really worked for me. I wasn’t focused on staying in Ketosis as much as on following the diet. I did it and it worked and I have kept pre-diabetes and the standard few-pound-gain a year at bay. Now that I know I can do the food, I am opening up to being less strict with it but being more strategic about what foods I eat. Kind of like how if our eye causes us to sin we remove it, I “proved” to myself that I can control my eating but the food itself is not sinful and I am comfortable tracking to manage that it doesn’t change! I’m using CarbManager to track my food most days so I get an idea of my overall trajectory. Nothing amazing or fancy, but again, I have to build up the chops to make this a routine.
Exercise – Intentional exercise hasn’t been a routine for me since before my kids were born. Unfortunately, exercise was never effective as a weight loss strategy and that’s what I wanted it to do. I’ve learned that for my body healthy eating (see above) is more effective for me. However, exercise has benefits that I want to enjoy, including being fitter, stronger, and happier (the mood benefits!). I am back on track with regular exercise in my house with my now-dusted-off elliptical. I have also got a bike (hat tip to my employer’s wellness program that paid for it!) and a free bike trailer (thanks to my local “buy nothing” group) and have started slowly embracing biking with my kids.
Whew. This ended up longer than I thought it would. And this post has more links to things than all my posts this year so far!
To wrap it up, make your prioritize and celebrate when you achieve them. And when you find yourself meeting your goals in your day, turn them into habits.
Lord God,
By You alone to I rise and breathe and think and move.
Let me use this gift of life in ways that are pleasing to you.
Help me grow as you would want.
Help me to make the most of the soil and sun I have.
Protect me from pestilence, and prune me toward a more plentiful harvest.
All I am is yours!