Goals, March 2013

I'd say I was not one for long term goals but that's not quite right. I think it's more that I really need to set some short term goals as well in order to sharpen the focus on achieving the long term ones.

Lori over at Finding Radiance lists her goals for the new month on the first of each and every month. I like this idea so much I'm absolutely borrowing it! Why do I like her format so much? She only lists a handful of goals in a simple format and they're relevant and achievable. Lori also does a recap at the end of each month to see how she went so I'll be doing that as well come March 31. Soooooo:

March Goals

1. Lose 5 kg - I have a new trainer, new program and a renewed sense of purpose (more details to come on that). I also have an official starting weight (shudder). All of this combined leads me to believe that 5kg is possible as it only a little more than a kilo a week.

2. Exercise a minimum of 6 days a week - again entirely doable and practically a 'must' given what my aspirations are. Exercise encompasses walking and gardening as well as training.

3. Stay on the Primal/Paleo eating plan - this is going very well again and I need to continue as it makes me feel good.

4. Work mindfully - distractions and interruptions come with my job so I need to accept them for what they are and go straight back to work after they're dealt with. That would be instead of checking email, Facebook or Twitter or all three *cough*.

5. Continue with the Autumn clean - why I have a sudden urge to deep clean I have no idea. Well maybe I do actually - life is perhaps back on track after injury and therefore I need to start anew in all facets including a purge of 'stuff' and deep cleaning. Looking to get rid of a garbage bag of 'stuff' every week and 2-3 hours per week in additional cleaning.

So that's it! Looking forward to the month in spite of the fact March means Autumn and one can sense the slight change in the seasons already.

A dose of cute to finish. You'd think butter wouldn't melt in her mouth but you'd be so very, very wrong.

Goal 1a 2013 - Grocery Shopping

I've made this Goal 1a because it really does (to me anyway) belong with Goal 1 of Menu Planning. My preferred time to shop is early am on Sundays - early enough that you miss the crowds but late enough that they have completely restocked. For me that's between 8.30 and 9am. I'm home by 10.30 at the latest and still have the majority of the day available for more desirable pursuits than grocery shopping. Not that I mind grocery shopping actually, I just loathe it when it's crowded.

The current week's list starts after the previous shop is done. Items are added during the week and then Saturday night or early Sunday morning I look at the menu for the next week and add any necessary items. I also do a round of the cupboards checking levels of such things as soap, toothpaste, toilet paper etc. D laughs at me for the way I write my list:

Top right hand corner - pantry items such as tuna, eggs, bread
Top left hand corner   - household items such as toilet paper, laundry detergent, cat litter
Bottom right hand corner - cold items such as meats, cheese, milk, deli items
Botton left hand corner     - fruit and veg

I don't know why I started doing it this way but I've done it like this for as long as I can remember and it suits me. I don't undestand how people shop without a list - as far as I can see you'd always be forgetting stuff you actually need and/or buying stuff you didn't actually need or want. I very rarely go back to the shops during the week because a. I've planned ahead and bought what we need for the week and b. grocery shops at 5-6pm on a weekday when everyone is in there 'getting something to cook for dinner' are just small little hells on earth.

So far so good with both the meal planning and grocery shopping in 2013. Definitely giving myself an A for effort so far ths year.

Goal 1, 2013 - Meal Planning

After the first couple of months, meal planning using a calendar system becomes a 30 minute exercise once a month. Yes, the initial stages can be a bit time consuming but I can't stress enough how, once the setup is done, just how easy and quick it all becomes.

1. Write down a list of the meals that you and your family like. Flick through your cookbooks, take out those scrap pieces of paper and ask! There is only D and myself and I'm the only cook so this part was easy for me. I kept the list on me and wrote down meals as I thought of them.

2. Type up the list and keep it as a reference file on your PC desktop. This makes it easy to refer to when doing the month's meals and it's also easy to access for adding new meals. I split my list into the following categories:

• fish/seafood
• beef
• pork
• lamb
• chicken
• pasta
• other

The first six are self explanatory. The last contains dishes which can be made with any number of the other options. e.g. roast (chicken, beef, lamb or pork) or fajitas (chicken or beef). This allows a bit of flexibility to either use up something bought in bulk and/or to move the options around a smidge to suit what's happening in a particular week. For example, I may put in fajitas for the last Wednesday of the month but until I get to that week I don't know which variety they'll end up being.

3. Use a decent, customisable calendar. I have a gmail address so I use the google calendar associated with it. You can choose the time frame you want to view (for me, monthly) and you can set events to repeat automatically which is a huge time and flexibility bonus. We have fish at least once a week but who knows what's going to be available 2-4 weeks in advance? So I have fish in as a repeater 'event' every Monday night. Sometimes I chose from my list of fish dishes but often I will just buy whatever I fancy during the grocery shop and serve it baked/fried/grilled with vegetables.

4. Don't be afraid to use the repeater option. If you told someone they were going to have fish every Monday night for the next 6 months, they'd probably turn their nose up at the idea BUT the concept works. If you have enough recipes you are not likely to repeat the same dish quickly and that fact that it's fish/seafood AGAIN on a Monday night is hardly likely to be noticed.

5. There are things which we each like that the other can't stand and with only two of us it's really easy to account for this. How it would go with fussy and/or diverse eaters I'm not sure but I just plan in a double meal maybe once a fortnight and we're both happy. The same goes for dinners out or takeaways. We don't eat out a lot nor do we eat a lot of junk food so 'treats' are usually planned in or happen spontaneously when I forget to take something out of the freezer.

It's back to working well again. January fell apart a bit towards the end but February is progressing well.

The Bad of 2012

- no meal planning
- casual grocery shopping habits
- fell off the Paleo-eating wagon
- too much weight put on
- very little exercise (see: synovial cyst below)
- no tracking (food, supplements, exercise) 
- too much stress
- too much alcohol
- too much work
- too much time on the PC
- not enough time outdoors/in the garden/in the sunshine
- too little crafting
- too little, but then again too much, sleep
- too much clutter and messiness

- not enough self care
- too little happiness


All of these were, of course, related to the three major events of the year. Whether some of them should have escalated to the level they did is another matter but in the end it all distills down into the last two points.

The majority of it relates to weight, food and exercise - an indication of just how much all that means to me. The cyst made exercise impossible (hell some days I couldn't even get my knickers on without crying in pain). No exercise led to indiscriminate and bad eating habits (quantity as well as quality).

Too much work and too little play (in the form of gardening, being outsoors and hobbies) led to too much alcohol, the wrong sort of sleep and too much stress.

Just not enough self care and too little happiness.

Still, writing down the bad has clarified what needs to be done to make me feel good. This week is still quite quiet at work so one by one I'll attack and discuss the list above in order to create some Resolutions (or goals if you dislike the term) for 2013.

2012-2013

I think there must be a certain number of people every year who, for various reasons, can't wait to get to the new year. This year I'm one of them. Not because the year has merely been 'blah', but because it's been downright awful. Bowel cancer (husband), intraspinal synovial cyst (me) and setting up a new venue (me). Sickness, worry and stress have consumed our lives since April 2 and yes, I'm just about done with all of it.

In 2013 it will continue on - 1 more chemo treatment for D followed by a scope at the end of January to see how things are healing and the stoma reversal sometime in Feb/Mar/Apr hopefully. I finish clinical Pilates next week as well then there'll be a session to evaluate my progress and take it from there I guess. The new venue is settling in, a couple of big points still to be resolved but (again) hopefully the days of working 6 days/70 hours a week are over.

That's a broad overview of what's going to happen but of course there's so much more to go along with it. There are some broad goals for the year, some fairly specific ones but mostly I need to 1. get back in control and 2. live in the moment. Point 1 will help lead to Point 2 I think. In what's probably a weird way to go about it, I'm next going to list what's WRONG with life in order to find ways and means of making it RIGHT.

Duh!

Who forgot to buy gin and diet tonic water tonight? Idiot. The last thing I want to drink is beer but it may come to that because it's Friday night, I've worked a long week and I'm very weak willed anyway. Oh well. So let's just see how this blogging caper goes. I'm hoping to post every day during December and that will indicate whether I can keep it up or not. Happy Days!