Life Alterations

I've been just itching to get back to blogging here, and after my brief hiatus (read birth of second child), I think I might be ready to do it. In January, I wrote about our winter cleaning. It wasn't nearly as thorough as I would have liked, but we have sold around 40 books on Amazon (making something in the realm of $300 doing so) and sold our hutch and our loveseat on Craigslist. We bought a large couch which didn't exactly help to lighten things up, but certainly made sitting down a lot more comfortable. And since sitting down is what I do a good portion of the day (read feeding second child), I am grateful daily for that purchase.

Anyway, fast-forward eight months and we find ourselves in September, our motivations re-awoken, eager and alert. The Blairs are ready to tackle life. I don't want to bore you with specifics, or maybe I do, but I can't right now because I've got other things to take care of, but I'll just say big things are afoot in the Blair household.

Over the last several weeks it has slowly been occurring to me that my life just doesn't fit right. It's a little too baggy in spots, loose around the middle, and I like things put together - trim and orderly. I've decided to happen instead of letting all the happening happen to me.

Here are some of the alterations in the works, in no particular order:

- Drinking more water
- Losing weight
- Paying off all of our student loan debt
- Not watching TV
- Getting off of Facebook
- Reading more
- Not spending money out of boredom
- Not "rewarding" myself, giving myself a "break", or thinking I "deserve" food or other purchases
- Drinking less pop (soda, for all you soda-sayers)
- Practicing delaying my stress (each day has enough worry of its own)
- Having a garage sale
- Budgeting monthly, and sticking to it
- Making intentional menus/grocery lists
- Not eating out, or only eating out with a purpose, like a date with my husband
- Not using credit cards
- Drinking coffee

"Drinking coffee?" you ask.

Why, yes! I have never been a coffee drinker before, so for me it is not a nasty habit or addiction. And let's hope it remains so. Instead, I have recently discovered the pure joy of allowing a good cup of coffee (mine severely milky and sugary) to usher in my day. It's a way for me to say, "Hello, day! I greet you and invite you to stay." This is in contrast to what I did for the entirety of my pregnancy which was to try to keep my eyes closed as much as possible while Bea played on the floor next to me in order to pretend I didn't actually get out of bed yet. Some days I would keep that up until lunch time. Not a good way to live.

I have a theory about life alterations. It's that you should do them all at the same time. If you choose just one, like "I'm going to lose weight this year!", but don't change the way you treat food, money, or your time, you will not change at all. But if you realize that all of those things are linked together and that in order to start making good, healthy, responsible life choices you need to rethink your whole philosophy on life, you will find the ability to change areas of your life you never thought possible. It's a theory. I haven't exactly proven it yet.