Today is the first Workin’ It Wednesdays link up with Shay and Erika. I’m determined to try and keep up with some of these link up topics, mostly to keep me focused and accountable. The planning and scheduling will teach me the discipline that I need to make sure there are more than a New Year’s post and nothing more in the year 2017. Too often, it seems, I have good ideas that never bloom into anything published.
So what more appropriate topic this month than how I’m keeping those New Year’s goals together.
Goals.
The Gym
Usually, the New Year brings a snicker from our 6am gym rat group about the newbies that will fill the gym for a month. Two if they’re really determined. We sometimes welcome a few new members into our classes, knowing that most will fade away by the time the snow melts.
The end of 2016 brought a pretty rough patch into my life; physically and emotionally. I had major shoulder surgery in the beginning on November which has put a temporary stop to most everything that I do. The SLAP tear, Bankart Tear, AND bicep split that I had repaired was much more serious than was initially thought. The surgery itself took about 4 times longer than planned and my recovery – as typical as it could be – has been rough.
Two and a half months later, I am now just beginning slight active movement. Yeah! My sling is off and I have been back to the gym once since I left the hospital.
Once.
My schedule has flipped completely and the 9:00-bedtime-so-that-can-get-up-at-4:00am-to-be-at-the-gym-by-5:00am-so-that-I-can-lift-and-run-and-be-home-by-7:00 is a thing of the past. I sleep late, Greg walks the kids to school (I’m still a little hesitant of walking on the ice and snow, especially without the sling to protect my shoulder) while I’m still drinking coffee in my pajamas. After dinner, I thoroughly enjoy vegging out on the couch to Top Chef or Shameless until midnight before heading off to bed.
I was still in the sling when I went to the gym that one time, and decided my shoulder just wasn’t up for the movement of the treadmill, no matter how gentle I was. Now that I’m starting regular movement, strength training will be next and I’m trying to mentally prepare to get myself back on my regular gym schedule. I was deadlifting #225 before heading into the hospital, so this has been a shock to my entire system. I’m enjoying the respite, but the scale and my clothes are not enjoying the outcome of this new routine. The thought of being so far behind where I was with lifting is pretty scary. The thought of now running 6 miles takes my breath away, knowing how difficult it is going to be for now.
So for the beginning of 2017, I will soon be joining the rush of gym goers (san matchy-matchy new spandex and sequins) that set their resolution to get healthy. My goal is to get back into the gym on my regular schedule, reset my nocturnal clock to where it was before surgery, and get a handle on my eating. Not being able to use two hands makes a salad about the last think you would want to prepare at lunch time.
More like a
bowlful
handful of yogurt-covered pretzels, a Larabar
or two
, and some M&Ms.
How do I manage two-hour sessions at the gym, four/five days a week? Making the gym a priority is important. I love my sleep and I love my couch, but knowing that the early morning is the only time that mentally and physically works for me to be at the gym makes it easier to stick with my schedule. I usually crawl into bed right after the kids go to sleep. I am a voracious reader, but reading makes me fall asleep, usually pretty fast. I read on my Kindle for as long as I can and fall asleep, usually around 9:30-10:00.
My alarm is set for 4:00am. I’ve played around with different times and this is what was working for me recently. It gives me enough time to hit snooze at least twice (sorry, Greg), get my gym clothes on (that I put out in the hallway the night before) and brush my teeth. It also gives me enough time to warm up my car (we’ve been at -26° recently here, people), check my email and even a few Facebook minutes if I feel it’s necessary.
Waking up so early, just to have some downtime before leaving for the gym might seem silly to most, especially if those precious few minutes could be spent snuggled under the covers. Lately, I’ve found that I like the extra time to wake up a bit and putter around before heading off. If not, I would find myself doing it anyway and getting to the gym late.
I usually open the gym, although there are a few other early birds like myself, and sometimes the doors are already unlocked before I make it into the parking lot. Before surgery, I lifted heavy three times a week for an hour and then ran for the other hour. On off-lifting days, I would either incline walk on the treadmill while watching a TV show on my phone (currently Prison Break) for the whole two hours or run for an hour and then join in whatever 6am class was being offered that day.
My crazy gym schedule doesn’t work for everyone. Heck, it’s not even working for me right now, but before my shoulder work, it was working for me great. Once you wake up early, you’re ready to get to sleep early, so it evens itself out after awhile.
The Blog.
My other main goal for the year is to really keep up with this blog. I recently went through my Bloglovin’ feed and deleted long-lost blogs that I grew up with but that are no longer posting. It was bittersweet. I felt good cleaning up the list of people who wrote their last words on that specific platform over 3 years ago and adding new blogs that have caught my eye. However, the years leading up to that were ones where I fell in love with blogging, watched people’s families grow, read how their words developed. I was engrossed with their view of photography, the feelings they were able to evoke, the inspirations that they created. I watched bellies grow, babies blossom into toddlers, and countrysides outside of my own, from one coast to the other.
As I was visiting each blog for the last time, it was a nice reminder of those people who invited me into a little glimpse of their world when blogging just started becoming a thing. I wanted to be a part of that, to provide someone the feeling I got when reading someone’s blog. I tried when my babies were little. I failed.
I tried when my babies got bigger. I failed then, too.
However, I’m okay with continuing to try. I’m okay with maybe not making all of my planned posts in a month. I’m also okay with not trying to be perfect.
My goal for this year is to really keep up with documenting my family’s daily life. I’m going to attempt to keep up with the Link Ups through a few select bloggers that I have really found interesting. Pre-planning my posts were something that I never did find my groove in, and these Link Ups will hopefully get me to pre-write a majority of my ideas. Instead of trying to remember and plan as many as I can find, I am going to participate with the ones from my favorite bloggers for now.
Before cleaning out my Bloglovin’ list, I also cleaned and organized my blog files on my computer. This was another area that was too cluttered and in terrible disarray. I was never able to find a good workflow for gathering pictures and thoughts and my process often stopped after trying to process days and days of photos. I also never took my photos off of my cameras, so current events were never easily accessible to add to a post while it was still fresh.
This year, I am trying to process and edit a select few pictures that will be posted. Those will go immediately to the blog post folder. I am trying to remember to get my pictures onto my computer at least one a week, but am also trying out Amazon Prime Photos to help facilitate getting my iPhone pictures onto my computer. Amazon Prime Photos creates a backup of my iPhone photos so they can be instantly retrieved on my computer while I’m writing or gathering items for a blog post.
I’m trying not to get too hung up on photo editing at all times. Many of my day-to-day pictures are just that – our day-to-day life. It’s okay for those to be imperfect. That’s the story of my life. Some special occasions were taken for that reason, and I’ll make sure to spend the time editing those as needed.
The release of some of the pressure I felt in year’s past will hopefully allow me to spend more time adding content and creating the posts I want to create instead of getting hung up on making sure it’s just so.
My best writing is done in the day, when everyone is at work or school. I’m not the typical blogger night-owl (Hello, gym at 5am! Bedtime 9pm!) that stays up well after everyone else goes to sleep tidying up the kitchen and packing lunches and blogging. If I’m going to stay up late, it’s to sit on the couch and binge watch Project Runway or The Last Alaskans. Currently it’s 10:23pm and the toddler inside my brain is whining about wanting to quit because they’re tired.
So there you have it. I don’t know if I showed anyone my special powers to Work It Out. I don’t know if I made it seem like I’ve got my act together in this crazy world. I don’t know if this is what the Workin’ It Wednesday crowd is all about. This certainly isn’t titled Five Things To Make The Perfect New Year’s Resolutions.
But these are my top two goals for the year. And for someone who’s main goal in the beginning of Physical Therapy was to be able to actually put a bra on, I’d day this is progress.
If you’d like to join in the fun, there are some great topics to cover throughout the year. Come and talk about some or all, it’s a great way to have an advanced plan for some interesting posts.
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