Pages

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

The New Year

I didn't mean to not blog for a month but the holidays really walloped me this year!  There was lots of back and forth and changing plans and work all mixed in, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't glad we're back to our everyday routine.  How were your holidays?

I'm not a New Year's resolution kind of girl, but there are few things that have been weighing heavily on my mind that I'd like to work on:  Peace with my body, and peace with my mind.

I am ashamed about the amount of time I spend obsessing and worrying over my body and my weight, and I'm tired of carrying that around with me.  I also am stuck in the "its never enough" cycle (that my 30 minutes on the elliptical wasn't good enough because I didn't do a crazy hard workout, for example) and want to get out of that.  Actionable items to achieve this include focusing on being active to feel good and appreciating what I can physically do as opposed to looks.  I'm also adding some toning into my cardio-only workouts (Blogilates and yoga) and having 1 meal a day be grain-free (I LOVE BREAD so much but the No Carb Left Behind diet makes me bloated and I feel better about myself if I lay off just a little bit; there is no paleo or Whole 30 in my future, just some simple moderation of grains should do the trick).

I've always been a worrier, but my anxiety has turned into more and more of a daily issue in the last few years.  Just turning on the crock pot at lunch yesterday turned my entire afternoon into a worry fest of the house burning down with my dogs in it, completely negating the convenience of dinner being done when I got home!  This one is harder for me to tackle, so I did what anyone else would do...I Googled that business.  I looked up some books that had specific, actionable things to help take my anxiety level down a notch and will be reading these soon:

The 10 Best-Ever Anxiety Management Techniques:  Understanding How Your Brain Makes you Anxious and What you Can Do to Change It by Margaret Wehrenberg

The Gifts of Imperfection:  Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are by Brene Brown

I'd welcome any advice from you all on either front - books to read, something that really helped you, etc!

On a less serious note, I wanted to learn how to crochet in 2013 and that didn't happen so I just rolled that over into 2014.  A new yarn shop opened up here and they offer crochet lessons!  I'm getting it all set up this week.  Trying to learn from books and youtube has only gotten me to a certain point, I always get confused when you start crocheting into your foundation train.  I'm really excited to get going on crocheting!  It looks like such a nice thing to do in front of the TV.

What are you looking forward to or working on for 2014?  Are you glad to be back in your routine or missing the holidays?