Another fresh week, and the first full week of a new month. I don’t mind Mondays. They always feel full of promise and optimism to me. Nothing has gone wrong, yet! 🙂
The weekend was nice. We had “swim Saturday” and “soccer Sunday”. Ethan had a game around ~1 hour away yesterday morning. It wasn’t far from my parents’ house, so they met up with me. (Ivan stayed home to take Asher to swim practice.) It was a very crisp morning, but sunny and the drive there was gorgeous. Leaves are really starting to change around here- not peak yet, but lots of pretty hues.
Another special moment was just before sunset when I went for my 20 minute walk. Asher tagged along. He was very chatty, and it was some nice connection time.
I had a much needed, quiet evening too…Ivan was away with a friend, so I spent time quizzing both boys for tests that they have today, eating some leftover mole de olla that my sister-in-law made (mmmmm!!) and went in the hot tub with the boys.
I think it might have been <40 degrees outside!! We all sort of ran out there, squealed at the cold as we dropped our towels and jumped in as fast as we could. Hahaha! Once in, it felt amaaaaazing!! The air was so clear and steam rose off the water. We left all the outside lights off, and the stars were BRIGHT and the moon was, too. It was so peaceful!
The mole de olla
After the kids went to bed, I started watching the Netflix documentary A Social Dilemma (revealing lots of inside details about the social media corps and impact of social media on society as a whole). I didn’t finish it yet, but WHOA! Eye-opening, and freaky. (Though, as I always do with one-sided documentaries, I’m trying to take it with a grain of salt and keep an open mind.) More on that to come.
Habit Tracking:
I also finally got my October habit tracker all set up (on Friday). I’ve been tracking habits this way for probably 3-4 years now, but never 100% consistently. I’m proud to say that as 2020 starts to wind down, I have habit data from every single day for the whole year (excluding vacations). It’s just for fun, really- for my own accountability/ interest purposes. But I still enjoy it.
A few clarifications:
- I don’t have to do all of these items every single day. (Some of them I do aim to, but not everything!). It’s just so I can see a snapshot of how often I did various things throughout the month.
- I have my #75 easy challenge items mostly grouped together at the top. I would say from “Read 10 pages” down to “highlight journal” are all items I want to have checked off every single day.
- Walk inside (TM= treadmill) is an old item I used to track, but I still jot down when I use the treadmill. Just because. 🙂
- Amazon photos –> corresponds to my goal of slowly transferring all of my old photos from my external hard drive to Amazon photos so everything will be in one place. This is just for accountability, to see that line item and have it remind me to do it.
- Same for “storage room”– an ongoing goal that I am chipping away at. If I work on it, I record it.
- SM (social media) Screen time= Where I record the total of FB/ IG use for the day. More self-accountability!
- Ivan= A fairly new tracking category. I was feeling like too many days were going by that we weren’t necessarily taking intentional time alone to connect, so I decided to track how many days we spend some kind of quality time together (a meal together, solo hot tub time, or even just watching a show together). We did spend time on Friday night but I took this pic on Friday morning. 🙂 Last month I was pleased to see we did actually spend some time together most days! The hot tub helps, too. 😉
- Work blocks = did I pre-plan and schedule in my deep/ uninterrupted work blocks for the day or not? My days go better when I do this, but sometimes I forget/get lazy and then wonder why my day felt off. This helps remind me to do this and can help me pinpoint why a day might have not gone so well after the fact.
Daily Gratitude:
I am grateful for amazing music. I have been going crazy over this pianist I discovered the other day on You Tube- Valentina Lisitsa. She is playing Franz Liszt’s “Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2” (a piece I wasn’t familiar with) and it is out of this world. It made me feel…..in awe, and also kind of terrible that I will never achieve anywhere near that kind of greatness in my lifetime! Both the composer and the pianist blow my mind. If you have time, I’d highly suggest a watch/listen…minute 6:00 to the end are the best, in my opinion. Link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdH1hSWGFGU&list=RDLdH1hSWGFGU&start_radio=1
GRATEFUL KAE 
I love the hot tub story! So fun. And the pianist is great. I could work to the music after 6:00 cause it's so peppy! It actually reminds me of a silent movie score. I love it!The habit trackers are hard for me but I really like the simplicity of yours. I overthink things and don't like to track everything I do because of it. I like the idea of doing a habit tracker but just haven't done it cause I feel like it will bog me down. BUT, If I get it just right, I think it can be beneficial for those things that I also want to focus or work on. Then it's more realistic in terms of how much i'm actually doing.
LikeLike
I feel like this is prime hot tub season. I like being in a hot tub when the air is chilly as it feels extra extra good to be in the warm weather! I bet you'll be using it throughout winter! I used to have a habit tracker in my bullet journal but stopped doing that. I think I want to add one back after I come back from maternity leave. I'm kind of giving myself a pass during maternity leave as I know this will be our last baby and I want to really soak up the time with him as I know how fast they grow out of the cuddly stage! But come April, I'll probably be ready for some external motivation. I remember struggling big time coming back from my leave w/ Paul – I was really questioning whether I was supposed to be a working mom. So I am hoping my return to work will be better this time since I'll be WFH (which will make pumping so much easier) and I'll know that I'm meant to be a working mom!
LikeLike
Haha you are so right!! I listened again and it seems like it totally could be silent movie score, or like Tom and Jerry should be running by in a chase scene or something! LOL!Re: the tracker…definitely recommend trying it!! It doesn't have to be fancy. Just even a notebook with a checklist works. I track lots of items bc I think it's fun, and also in part because it annoys me to see lots of blank spaces on the page! Haha. So over time I have added more items to track. The list grows and changes depending on the month and what my goals might be at the time. You could certainly focus on just a list of 5-6 items for a month, or even less. Once you get started it gets easier to keep going, at least for me, because I don't like to see gaps in my tracker of days I missed recording things! 😉
LikeLike
Agree- there's definitely a time and place for these types of things! I'm at a stage in my life where my kids aren't so demanding any more and I can turn a bit more focus to my own self, so this works. It might be frustrating with a newborn at home! But obviously, tracking this many items isn't necessary either- you could certainly track just a couple key items that are important to you, too!
LikeLike
I love walking with my girls, either with one of them or both. They either make me think when they say something casually or they make me laugh by their silliness. Even 10 min walk makes me feel better and definitely something we will remember for long if we make habits of it. I also track time spent with husband alone, which i find if I don't, i often ignore him if there's too much in my mind. Somehow I feel I have duty toward my girls (spend quality time with them everyday) but not so much with husband. hahah…
LikeLike