12/20/2011

New Year's Resolutions: Uses and Excuses

"You'll fail at a 100% of the goals you don't set". - Mark Victor Hansen

Christmas is around the corner, and it blindsided me as it always does.  How is this possible when I haven't worked since Wednesday?  That I don't know.  I did spend a lot of time catching up on appointments, reading, working on this year's handmade presents and watching documentaries on my one month free Netflix account (the world is scandalous, yo!).

 Christmas is, well, Christmas.  Usually it's wonderful and sometimes it's a stress-filled nightmare.  But what I'm really excited for is the week after Christmas.  There's this beautiful lull in my world in between Christmas and the New Year: no work and a lot of time to think.  And to what end does all this thinking lead?  (<--Please read in uppity, nasaly voice in your head...yes, friends, this sentence I DID revamp in order to not end in a preposition...although really we do it all the time, and it's really not a bad thing, but grammar nazis would notice, as they will surely notice this run on sentence.  I <3 linguistics.  And grammar nazis.  <-That phrase dressed as a sentence is for you, from me, with love.  Mmmmk, let's get back on track.)  Where does all this thinking lead?  To New Year's resolutions, of course!

I used to dismiss New Year's resolutions as a waste of time, citing what I'd heard others say...if you want to make a change, you should do it at any time of the year.  I concluded, before ever trying, that resolving to do something at the New Year would ultimately end in failure.  (And by failure, I mean giving up and going back to the old ways.)  Why?  Because that's what I observed happening with my friends, in the media, with the mass numbers of people crowding into my 24 Hour Fitness all of January...only to be back to normal sized herds in a month or two.

Well, that all changed for me about five or six years ago, when I was dating a fellow who was smart, driven, quirky, and who annually sat down, reflected on the last year and wrote New Year's resolutions for the upcoming year.

12/19/2011

Sunday Revelation

"Don't think about your food.  Feel your food.  Let your body be the expert." -Krista Scott-Dixon

Krista Scott-Dixon, author of e-book, Fuck Calories and Other Dietary Heresies, just blew my mind!  Please, please, please check out her e-book here, I guarantee you will be inspired, learn something new, or at the very least have a great giggle at her delightfully crass yet compassionate writing style.  

Her call to action is hard to ignore.  Do your body a favor and spend twenty minutes reading it.

That is all, lovies...have a wonderful Sunday afternoon.  Go Broncos!!!

12/12/2011

The Truth.

"Good writing is about telling the truth."  -Anne Lamott

Holidays are hard.  Which seems weird because my brain is filled with all these fuzzy, warm, cider-scented memories.  But in the moment, those memories only seem to increase my anxiety in comparison to the reality of the holiday season as it engulfs me.  For me, holidays are lonely, stock-full of nights being the odd-numbered wheel of the gathering/event/party wagon, too often a reminder of what my life lacks instead of all the great things it is filled with.  (<--Dear Grammar Nazis, please excuse this sentence ending with a preposition; I briefly considered rewriting it as "...instead of all the great things with which it is filled" but discarded the idea as I would then feel compelled to add that you must read that uppity-sounding sentence in a British accent or something equally nasal.)

This season is writhe with expectations: my own and those I perceive others to have.  Expectations, more often than not, end in disappointment.  Holidays are filled with family time, which can be wonderfully warm and laughter-filled...but can just as easily be uber emotional, stressed-filled, draining and yucky.

Do you know what stress leads to in my life?  Crutches.  But not this year, right?  Wrong.  I reached a breaking point this week and fell off the wagon.  For three days, I ate sugary crap.  That's right, three days.  Much like I was digestively exorcising a demon whose holy water is sugar, I consumed things I haven't touched or even thought about for months.  What the crap?  (Literally.)  I rounded off the diabetes binge with a full-caff latte.  Just cuz.  And remembered why I love that crack-drug.  Danger.  Maybe I should've gotten drunk too...just to make it a crutchy hat trick.  I have yet to let a drop of alcohol hit my tongue.  Mother-lover, I thought that would be the hardest one.

After three days of self-medicating and failing to fix the problem of seasonal stress and yuck growing inside me, I find myself here.  Although it's hard to do, I have to take my own advice and be gentle with myself.  I have to remember that "...failure is not making mistakes.  Failure is not trying something new and crashing and burning.  Failure is quitting.  Period."  So, let's go on a journey.  Let's figure this sh&* out.  Let's make it so this doesn't happen again.  Ready?  Here we go.