Family Time
Before Everything
The following week we had a friend in town and had a race and brunch that took place of the hike. My friend and I ran the race while Dan and Harley cheered us on. While it wasn't the same as a family hike, we did what we could while balancing our other plans.
After Everything
The idea of family time just including Dan and Harley seems so faulty in perspective of losing my mom so I think it's good to remember what I meant by this. Obviously, all family is important and I really feel that I made an effort to see my mom quite a bit in the past year (and of course, I could have gone more too). In the time after her death, I spent about two weeks in LA with the rest of my family - my brothers and my dad and that was very important time too.
So it feels wrong to call this goal family time anymore. I'll have to think about what the right word is so for now, I'll describe what I meant.
In the time just after our wedding, I felt disconnected from a lot of my friends. The ones who were visiting went home and the ones who lived here were busy with their own lives. I had someone tell me this feeling is normal - everything is about you for so long that after the wedding you feel this missing and it's somewhat true - people want to focus on themselves and their other friends for a while. As someone who is really social, this made me feel really sad and lonely, but I was a newlywed and there was no reason to feel this way. Instead of trying to fill all my free time with my friends, why not fill it with my husband? So I decided it was important to carve out some time each week for him and to do something together to build that habit and remember that our marriage and our relationship is so important and needs to last even when friendships are faulty or kids are annoying or any of life's obstacles happen.
The real reason for this goal then, was to strengthen our foundation becuase the time after you get married, things are good, but so much can happen in life. When my mom passed away, I really needed Dan to be there. We had this huge hurdle so early in our marriage and it's effect on me causes strains on a day to day basis. That's why it's important to be strong together when things are good - you need that base to help you when you lose a loved one, when you have kids, or when any other thing that could go wrong, does.
Stick to a Regular Fitness Schedule
Before Everything
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| weight on, stress off |
When you are stressed and tired - it's easy to want to drop your routine and just get your shit done but man, did I feel better after working out. One day, I was so close to just not going but I decided to make it a game time decision. I had a shot of coffee and made a smoothie and dressed to go to the gym... and that was enough to get me into it. I went and I had a great workout and it was just the stress relief I needed. Afterwards, I was able to go home and get back to studying with a clearer head.
It may seem counter-intuitive to do more when the thought of how much you have to do in so little time makes your head explode, but taking a break helps your brain reset and having my breaks be something good for me made it feel like it wasn't a waste.
After Everything
The news of my mom passing away was obviously a little shattering. While some people might throw their emotions into working out at a time like this, my muscles all felt like jello. I didn't want to be completely inactive though and went for a walk most days so I was doing some sort of exercise. Can I just say how much I love walking? Even thought my legs were shaky the first few days, it was such a good release. When I walk or run, it's really thinking time for me. I wanted to be sad those first few days and I would walk and I would tear up and it was really therapuedic for me.
By the next week, I was feeling better but we were now days away from our trip and I just couldn't find the time. However, while it Europe, Dan and I walked SO much. According to my watch, we walked about 100 miles in those 2 weeks. Honestly, even though we're in really good shape, my legs hurt by the end of it. If you ever need an excuse to workout - travel. I feel like traveling was so much easier since we were in shape. All the walking, all the stairs, all the hills, all the suitcase lugging - it was so much easier than it could have been. Walking instead of cabbing also saved us money AND helped us justify those extra courses during our cruise ship dinners. I also hit the gym a couple of times during our "at sea" days but it definitely wasn't up to my usual standards and I know I'll have a lot of work to do now that we're back.
Here are the first of many steps we took to get up to the Campinile in Florence so yea, we weren't really slacking despite being on vacation!
Meal Planning
Before Everything
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| Meat and veggies!!! |
I also saw new clean eating challenge that is being put on by the makers of my favorite fitness class. It started a few days before our trip which felt like not the right time to go on a diet but I think we might try it next month. It also provided me with some new recipes and meal ideas. While we aren't doing it quite yet, I've been trying to steer our meals in that direction and just going crazy with the amount of veggies I'm buying and cooking.
After Everything
Eating is weird when you lose someone. I didn't have an appetite most of the time so I just wouldn't eat and then eventually I would get SUPER hungry and have to eat immediately (while still not having much of an appetite) which led to lots of eating out and fast food. Obviously, if you read this, that's not normal for me. After a few days, this evened out thanks a lot to my brothers. They took charge on the meals and I would pop in to help when they gave me something to do since I wasn't feeling my usual cooking passion.
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| Not really a meal plan but we ate WELL |
I decided to just completely let go of any restrictions while we were in Europe. We were on a cruise and walking so much and the previous weeks had been so hard - I just wanted to enjoy our trip. And I did! We ate so much and so well. We basically had a 4 course meal every night for dinner and amazing lunches while we were in the ports as well. I don't think I've had dessert so many consecutive days before ever.
In the days that we've been back we've been trying to re-adjust to our normal eating. Obviously, it's much lower calorie than we had been eating so I feel like I'm getting hungry all the time. I'm trying to balance between giving in and eating regular meals but I know easing off the sugar and richness from the cruise meals will be an adjustment.
Take an Annual Trip with My Husband
Before Everything
I have a really bad personality trait - I don't usually trust people to do something for me that I know I can do really well myself. Planning trips is one of those things. There's really only one person I've let take the lead on planning my vacations and she wasn't coming with us on this one (although I did copy her itinerary for a city on our trip that she'd recently been to) so it was up to either me or Dan.... and I had a test to study for. I realized I was going to need Dan's help a lot.And he did an AMAZING job. His schedule isn't as flexible as mine so he broke up the planning and decided to do a city at a time whenever he had the free time. He did a ton of research and mixed in with some recommendations I got, we went into the last leg of our planning together and made some great lists and maps for our trip.
After Everything
Anyways, we both started making lists of trips we want to take and what makes sense to trip to do in the immediate future, what we think we could do with little kids, and what might have to be shelved for a while. I like the idea of having a list of several things we really want to do and here's why: travel costs are so finnicky. One day there might be a deal to India and the next to South America. I think being flexibile and locations and timing could help us go some cool places on a discount. We had a really cool trip to Europe but we wanted to go specific places in a specific timeframe and we paid for it. Our next priority is more "see as much as you can" and we can be more flexible which will allow us to do more.
Read a Book a Week
Honestly though, I thought I'd do better here. I had a lot of trouble concentrating on reading just after my mom passed away but the library helped out there. I had a couple of books that had to go back by a certain time and since I was in San Diego so little of the month, I really had to get it done. While on vacation, I didn't finish as many books as I felt like I was reading. I finished two books and am partly through three others (two for one, and one study guide that I abandoned through everything) so maybe that's it also. I'm definitely going to finish my fun books before I dive back into studying though so hopefully I'll have at least 3 books to add for May but really I better do more than that.
And I bet you're wondering why I'm still studying. Wasn't my test planned for last month? Well, yea, it was. It was scheduled for the day after we ended up having my mom's service. That's just about the worst time to take a test. The good news is that it wasn't a firm "once a year" type of exam and I was easily able to push it back a month. I haven't picked up that study guide in the last month since my mom passed away but now that I'm easing off of the jet lag, it's definitely time. It basically gives me a week to get back in the study mind set and then the same week of crunch time that I would have had. I'm definitely having trouble getting back into it and part of me feels like I should push it back some more. Luckily, I always have that option but I really feel like I need to just do this thing.
Me Time
Before Everything
Studying for an exam and planning a huge vacation meant zero me time. It actually meant negative me time. What does that mean? It means I realized there weren't enough hours in the day and decided to make more... by sleeping less. I started setting my alarm an hour earlier, staying up later, and drinking more coffee. I liked to pride myself on getting a full night's sleep, but something has to give when you're trying to do it all. |
| Actual Picture of me in April |
After Everything
I think a cruise is entirely composed of me time. In hindsight, I kind of wish I brought my study guide or some video games or something. There is so much downtime on a cruise, especially without a beverage package. It felt really weird to just relax, but I think I really needed it. I was definitely burning the candle at every end in early April and then that just exploded when my mom died. The little focus I had after that went to planning her service and the rest of my time I just wanted to sleep. The vacation really came at the perfect time to just not have anything I needed to do.Being back at work and just out of the jetlag, I'm noticing the benefits of taking some time off. In the weeks before I left, issues at work were feeling hazy and I was having trouble wrapping my head around things. Now that I'm back, I'm feeling more creative and ambitious in the way I tackle issues at work. It feels like some time off was exactly what my brain needed.
Unplugged April
Before Everything
I feel like I had been working on a good compromise here. All the time I spent studying really took me away from social media as much as I'd been checking it before. I probably could have separated more though but early in the month was supposed to just be gradually working up to not having cell service on my trip.
After Everything
If I was addicted to my phone before, it really got worse after my mom passed. I did receive a lot of phone calls, texts, and messages which definitely was part of it, but really I just hid in internet world for a while. I found it hard to concentrate on anything serious like reading or studying so the fluffy distracting world of the internet was perfect. I was extra glued to my phone and I needed that escape.
So the trip really was needed even more. I definitely wasn't going to spend the small fortune it would cost to stay connected full time but we did have to ease into it. Almost every cafe in most of Europe has free wifi so our first stop would usually be an espresso and some internet time. It was nice to have to limit our internet to short bursts throughout the day. It also meant I was really just reading texts, messages, and quickly going through emails. Dan and I also found that Facebook and Instagram would download a little bit of the feeds so we could check them when we were bored later on the boat and our likes would send back when we were connected again. It would only do like the top 10 posts but it was nice to kind of save a little bit of it for later.
I don't really feel like I learned anything here though. Once we got internet again, I was as connected as ever. I still feel like I need a lot of distractions and it's still my safe escape. I definitely need to build better habits to disconnect more.
My Best Me May
This goal had been my plan from the beginning but I think it's more fitting than ever. I think that when you experience a loss, once place to go is to get angry or let yourself fall into bad habits. Luckily, I've never dealt with loss that way. I don't know what happens after we die, and I've always felt the possibility of our loved ones "watching over us." Maybe they are, maybe they aren't, but, just in case, I'd like them to look down and be proud.
This goal was originally meant as more of a way to get back on track after the vacation but it also is fitting that I don't want to lose sight of my goals and the things my mom encouraged me to do. She lived her life SO HARD and I want to keep doing the same. So this goal is really a lot of little goals - passing my test and working on my next projects, training for my races, keeping up with all of my habits, and of course, making my bed each morning (in case Mom is watching).
It might feel that with all my other goals, this one is hard to wrap my head around and I feel that too. Sometimes I feel like it made more sense when my other goals were still on track, but maybe when we get a little off course, we need to remember the goal more than ever. It almost has a "Happiness Project" feel to it - remembering all your past goals as you keep making new ones.
May is also the month I turned 31. Last year, I wrote the post about the 30 things I learned before turning 30 and after this year, I feel like I could write another 30 things I learned in the past year. This is about remembering those lessons and continuing to grow and that's really the goal for May.
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