Girl on a Journey: Me Month: Day 28

Well, this month was great! Some things harder than others, and some things not completed, but overall I feel a success. I will say that in some ways this month felt very selfish. I would never spend this much time on me if I wasn’t spending the month focusing on it. There are some things that have now become routine, and I am happy about that… but others (though blessed to experience them) I definitely won’t be doing for myself every month. So the fast is at its end and here is how it played out…

1. Pray in bed- I did this everyday! Sometimes it was short and sweet, sometimes it was long and drawn out and brought me to tears… but it was done every morning and every night. I loved this one!!! This is one that will continue on, even though the fast is over.

2. Bedtime routine- –wash face, brush/floss teeth, take meds… Also completed this one every day. Some times this was a wake up at 1am on the couch and have to go do all of these things before I climbed in my bed, but they all got done every day (though I often thought about skipping them when exhausted).

3. Daily Devotional- I slacked on this one during week 4 I am sad to say. I had just come home from MOPS convention and was on overload from 3 solid days of workshops and used it as an excuse… when in all reality I was probably just lazy. This one I am going to try to carry over and do again with more diligence during next month’s fast.

4. Stick to the designated food plan- I did this (minus the one M&M cheat) but is was so hard! I don’t know why food is such a struggle for me, but it is. This is something I will have to continue to work on.

5. Stick to the exercise plan- This one I kind of slacked off during week 4 too. I had told myself that I would just do stretching and 1-2 short runs the week after the marathon (which I did), but then it was hard to get back into it. I always feel better when I exercise, so this one will be carried over to next month also.

My new fun shirt from Fellow Flowers!

6. Eat breakfast everyday- I missed 2 days of this. One was the morning of the marathon (when I had been throwing up) and the other one was a lack of planning on my part and ran out of time. But overall… huge improvement from any other time in my life.

7. 9 hours (at least) dedicated to crafting. This one did not pan out as expected… but I did get 9+ hours of crafting! My original intent was to have an entire day to scrap… I really miss it, I haven’t done it in a really long time (almost 2 years). When trying to justify it, council made me feel ok about it by saying that it was something that my family could benefit from (later in life)… so my crafting time ended up being lots of costume making and cupcake/birthday cake decorating. So the family (kids) benefited…and I loved doing it! Win-win!

Astronaut costume for school project.

Werewolf cupcakes for birthday treat at school... these took way longer than I care to admit for what they looked like.

Landen's Chima birthday cake!

Vegetable costumes for our family theme!

8. 9 hours (at least) dedicated to a musical project. This did not happen at all. I am really sad about it and hope to be able to dedicate some time to it in the future. But I added so many extra things that weren’t on the list, and there were only so many hours this month. As I was being really bummed that I didn’t finish/attempt this one… my 5 year old was in the kitchen with me while I had my music playing on the speakers… the child can hum the entire Adagio for Strings, sing all the words to Barbara Streisand’s New York State of Mind, plays a mean air guitar while singing along to Bon Jovi’s You Give Love a Bad Name, will sing along to any song that comes on to JOYFM, and her entire life is a musical… she has quite the musical pallet. Though sad I didn’t dedicate the time to a project for me this month, I feel like I am doing a decent job at passing on my love for music.

9. No yelling/raising my voice in anger or frustration. This one went so much better than expected! After the first couple of weeks, I really didn’t have to try so hard. I think just making yourself aware of how often you are doing it makes all the difference in the world. I know I slipped up some, but on the whole… the yelling it down by leaps and bounds!

Our family memorized this verse during the first week of "No Yelling" and it was repeated many, many times!

I spent so much time doing things that fulfill me this month it was ridiculous! Not only did I do the marathon and MOPS convention (which I already blogged about), but I went to a running meeting in the city where I got to hear the authors of Run Like a Mother speak! They were awesome, hilarious, and very inspirational. I had lots of girl time, family time, and date time. It was a great refreshing month!