Wow I don’t know how time is slipping away so quickly… I was able to post nearly every day in October, but at the cost of everything else kind of being put on the back burner… so when November hit I was trying to catch up in all the other areas in my life.  I have a month and a half worth of photos to try to cull, process, and possibly post.

Mid-November I apparently didn’t think I had enough balls in the air and decided to make a few life changes… Specifically eat more healthfully and trying to find a balance between hobbies and work.  This was sparked by two things…

Feeding my Mitochondria…

My memory is starting to freak me out (hopefully it’s just a side effect of perimenopause), my husband remembered a TED talk we had watched years ago about feeding your mitochondria by a doctor who had MS and was able to get out of her reclining wheelchair by changing her diet.  As vegans, we liked the idea of eating 9 cups of fruits and vegetables in a more scientific way (eating the right foods for your brain)… so mid-Novemeber I started to implement eating 3 cups of leafy greens, 3 cups of sulfur vegetables, and 3 cups of colorful fruits/vegetables each day, even though I hadn’t fully read the book (Wahls Protocol)… but soon I realized that as a short woman this was more food than I could comfortably consume and figured out, thanks to Google searching the protocol, that petite women should only eat 6 cups (rather than 9)… and I am much more comfortable now.  I was eating salads this size plus fruit for breakfast and cooked broccoli or cauliflower for dinner to meet my 9 cup requirement…

Soon after starting the 9 cups, my husband had to travel to Portland… and he was able to go to VooDoo Doughnuts AND bring them home on the plane! Woohoo!  When my husband got home we would split a doughnut or two… unfortuneately, I was overly affected by all that sugar… I would be super hyper and then crash really hard… I missed my days of salads — haha 🙂  But was really pleased by the gift of voodoo doughnuts which I haven’t had in 3 or 4 years. 🙂

Thanksgiving dinner leftovers (with 2 cups broccoli over 1 cup spinach, 1/2 sweet potato, and 1/2 cup homemade cranberry sauce — 4 cups towards daily goal; Gardein holiday roast w/gravy over stuffing) and the start of my drawing silly faces on my husband’s mug of tea…

Mini Habits…

The second thing I was trying to change was how I balanced my hobbies and work… I read the book Mini Habits and have been much happier implementing the ideas presented in that book.  Now I end my days feeling like I accomplished my goals for the day and go to bed feeling proud of myself, rather than berating myself for ‘getting nothing tangible done today’.  I have 6 Mini Goals that are ‘stupid simple’ and have been able to put a simile face on my calendar every day for a month 🙂

My Big Goals that the Mini Habits were created for:

• Happy Husband
• Happy Pups
• Healthy Eating (Happy Brain)
• Healthy Body
• Be Creative/Learn

My Mini Habits are:

• Hug my husband/ daily
• Reward the pups/ daily
• Eat leafy greens/ daily
• Do Savasana for one minute/ daily
• Draw 4 dots on a zentangle tile OR watch 5 minutes of an Art Class video/ daily
• Take OR Process OR Post a photo/ daily

I found that by hugging my husband first thing in the morning I started my day on a positive note… next came giving a little treat to the pups — another positive note to the day.  Leafy greens for lunch helped with the afternoon slump.  Savasana either lead to a few yoga poses or some meditation… I’ve found that laying on the floor for a minute really helps when I feel pulled in every direction… it calms me to feel gravity pull me down and then slowly I feel lighter.  Four dots on a tile is the beginning of a zentangle session… but since these are my rules, sometimes drawing on my husband’s mug counts.

And finally I felt that I wasn’t giving photography the attention it deserved… I wanted it to become part of me just like the other goals, so I added the last habit to help that along.

Some days I find the time to do quite a bit of drawing, or 80 minutes of an art video, or spend some time at the beach with my camera, or do a whole yoga routine… other days (especially after my father-in-law passed away) I literally get only the mini habit accomplished… but that’s the point, I still did my goals for the day, even on crappy days.  And that’s a win.

Overall, I’m feeling much better, I have more energy and I don’t beat myself up for not accomplishing things at the end of the day.

I have a ton more photos to post and stories to tell, but for now I need to go take care of other things.  I plan to post again very soon.

Until next time…
~nic