the laanba blog

Bed Time

Remember my "one week" projects?  Yeah, I haven't done so well with them either.  Well I'm starting back up today, or at least trying.  This week I am setting the goal of being in bed by 9:30 p.m.  Looking at my schedule I should be able to accomplish this every day but Friday.

Why so grandma of me?  For one I'm not getting any younger and I never really get enough sleep.  I generally go to sleep around 11:00 p.m. if I'm lucky.  When you couple that with getting up at 5:20 a.m. it makes for a short night.  This is also the time of year where I always get sick and I feel it coming on.  I think it is a combination of being back with the students, working 11-12 hour days every day and just generally running myself into the ground.  I need more sleep!

I always have the best intentions but one thing leads to another and before I know it I'm crawling into bed at 10:45.  Notice I didn't set the goal of being asleep by 9:30 p.m., but if I can be tucked away by then I have a good chance of being asleep by 10:15.  That's not a huge gain, but if I do it consistently I think it will make a difference. I want to try it for a week anyway. 

And how did I happen to have a photo of me sleeping on a mattress?  This was taken for one of the numerous times I tried to do a 52 weeks self portrait project. This one is from back in 2007.  Glad it came in handy today!  Here's to a good week of sleep.

New Year!

I should have been in bed an hour ago.  I suck at this go to bed early thing.  Let me just get a couple things that have been rattling around my head down and then I'm off to bed.  

These last two weeks at work have slowly helped me to sort out how and when I am going to handle my renewed interest in blogging.  I realize for sure that I have to process all photos for the upcoming week during the weekend before.  I don't have to write the posts all that weekend (I've done that before) but the photos do have to be processed and exported.  I just don't have the time to do it otherwise.  If I'm smart I'll set up the post the night before so my morning is free.  I'm also going to be going back to every day posting at least for a while.  I still have a lot of photos to get through.

As for Assignment: Houston posting I haven't figured that one out yet.  I need to find a time to write over there the way that I want to.  It has already fallen into the neglected pile as soon as I started work.  Those posts take more time and research and I'm just not sure where it is going to fit into my schedule, but I must make it fit somewhere.  As for this blog I've gotten way better at just dumping everything on the page and getting it posted.  The flow feels good here.

A couple of other things for the new school year.  I'm starting up the One Week challenges again and my 52 week photo project.  For the One Week challenge I try to change one habit for one week.  I'm not too worried about whether it carries over or not.  I just want to try a week with the habit.  This week I'm cutting sugar out as much as possible.  I mean cookies, candies, cake, sweets, ice cream.  All the things I adore. This one was partially spurred on by the fact that prednisone really does a doozy on you if you are eating too much sugar.  That is one seriously wacked out medicine.  As for the 52 weeks project, I am going to take a self portrait once a week.  My particular spin on it is that they will be mirror project photos so they will be reflections and all the photos for the project will be taken with my iPhone.  I'll post those here and at Flickr.

No big school year resolutions.  Just trying to get my life back into a routine.  Happily.  I love setting up routines.  I'm just not so good at following them.

Peek a Boo

I have been falling behind on all kinds of projects including the 52 weeks reflection project, my once a week resolutions and my long time project of blogging.  Spring Break was not relaxing in the least.  Instead it was a whirlwind of activity and two late nights last week and a high stress load seems to have continued the trend.  This weekend was mostly whirlwind with a couple of hours of watching TV and feeling guilty for not being a whirlwind.  I'm not even sure I know how to relax anymore.  Sounds like I need to put it on my list of resolutions.  But first up.  My blog.  This week's one week resolution is to blog every day this week.  Even if I just put up a sentence or two or a random picture.  I need to get back into the habit.  So here we go.  Peek a Boo.  Hopefully I'll see you all this week.

Limbo

I came back from San Antonio completely energized (hey I took pictures) and had a great Sunday with the beautiful weather.  I had plans to write a blog post on how flying made my trip so much better, but when I got home I found out my aunt had taken a turn for the worse.  I am currently in a holding pattern.  Going through the motions of things I need to do, but really just treading water.  It's a very strange thing to be waiting for someone to pass away.  I'm not sad right now and I'm not happy.  I'm just here.  

In other news I'm thinking of revamping my new year's resolutions.  The whole beautiful life thing is still my goal but I need more concrete steps.  I really like the idea of the one week resolutions and I'm going to focus on doing those.  The other over arching things I'm going to work on is making eye contact and drinking more water.  The one week resolution was just kind of a whim but now that I'm committing to it more fully I think I will be more serious about following through. 

Adios January

Feel like I'm crawling out of a dark hole that was January.  1/12th of 2011 is already gone and I'm not sure I made that much progress on my big "beautiful" resolution.  I do recognize even more often when I am being negative AND when I'm doing things that are part of the "beautiful life" that I see in other people but don't seem to see in myself so I guess that is progress.  And I like my one week resolutions and no doubt those will also help me towards my goal.

I did pretty well with the no sweets, until Saturday that is.  Then I went a lemon bar binge.  But I'm going to try again to reduce the amount of sweets I eat randomly.  I think I'll feel better about a lot of things if I can curb this sweet tooth even by a little.  

This week I am going to get my clothes ready the night before.  A lot of times my wardrobe is determined by what is the least wrinkly thing hanging in my closet.  This shouldn't be hard but even as I'm sitting here now I just want to put it off until the morning.  But I know I can make this happen for one week.  That's the beauty of the one week program.  Anybody can do anything for one week.

The apartment is clean, the refrigerator is stocked, the meal list is prepared, the bills are paid and things at work are mostly caught up.  Things are good.

Scared Sweet

Last week was completely obliterated with my crazy long work hours.  I worked until 7 or 8 most nights trying to get things on track for a successful spring semester.  I still feel the knots in my neck from all the work (almost 3 more hours as well today) but I truly believe that all that work will show benefits starting this week.  My music folders are organized, my seating charts are written, my music accompaniments are sequenced into the computer (that alone takes an hour per song and I have lots of songs), my grades are entered in the gradebook and my desk is clean.  Whew.

I really wanted to stick with the meal plan goal that I did the week before but half way through the week I just chucked everything out the window and started picking up food on the way home.  I had also tried having leftovers for lunch the next day and while that worked well a week ago, it meant more cooking every night and when my life got crazy as it did last week, thinking of cooking every night was daunting.  This week I'm going back to sandwiches for lunch and cooking every other night so I can eat the leftovers the next day.  I think it will work out better but of course that means I have to stick to my lunch plan as well and I get tired of sandwiches quickly.  

And on top of all this I have a really radical goal for this week's one week goal.  No sweets.  If you knew what a sweet tooth I had you would know that I'm actually scared about trying this one.  I'm not big on candy but cookies, baked goods, and to a lesser degree chocolate are my favorite things to eat.  This idea came into my head after a conversation with my assistant.  She was lamenting how much soda she drank while simultaneously loading up the refrigerator with more soda.  I told her that she should just stop buying it but she said she was addicted and it would be like asking me to cut out sugar.  The more I thought about it this weekend the more I knew she was right.  I don't know where I got the idea to cut it out cold turkey, but I have tried to moderate in the past and I've failed miserably.  Surely I can do this for one week.  I'm prepared for headaches and grumpiness and feeling hungry.  I'm not exactly cutting out sugar because my cereal has sugar and I have some trail mix that has chocolate pieces in it, but I'm cutting out on the cookies, bread, candy that somehow invariably finds its way into my hands even when I deliberately don't buy it.  I would love to say that I'm going to do this forever but let me just start with one week. 

For one week...

I'm toying with an idea, but I don't really want to say for sure I'm doing it because then I'll be committed.  And then every time I think that I think I'm being a lazy bum and to just do it.  

I'm thinking of setting one week resolutions.  I hesitate because I already have personal resolutions and photo resolutions but my personal resolutions are so vague.  A beautiful life?  I like to think I'll know it when I see it, but I'm not so sure.  I think that there are a lot of beautiful things already that I just take for granted so one thing I have started doing is writing down what I did each day that fits that "beautiful life" idea in my mind.  

But I still want to have some concrete steps I take to move myself forward.  So I'm thinking about setting one little goal each week.  At the end of the week I can drop it or try to continue, but at least I can say I did it for a few days in a row.  Last week I made a small change in my morning routine.  Usually I would stumble out of bed, curl up on the sofa, turn on the TV and pull the laptop towards me, surf the web, watch the news and slowly wake up.  Last week I set the TV on a timer so it would turn on at 6 a.m.  I was up at 5:20 so until the TV came on, no TV and no computer.  I made tea, I got my clothes together, started my morning bathroom routine.  It seemed to make it a more peaceful start.

This week I want to make some minor adjustments in my evening routine.  Usually when I finally decide it is time to go to bed is when I do the evening bathroom routine.  There is no reason I have to wait until right before bed to do some of those things.  If I'm in for the night I could take my contacts out a few hours before bed.  I could wash my face and take my medicine at 7 or 8 at night instead of 10:45.  The later it gets and the more tired I am I start skipping things.  This should be an easy one, but old habits die hard.  We'll see.