Welcome to the thirteenth check-in for the Spring Shed!
Here is the back story about this support group/blog hop for those trying to be accountable for the positive changes we are making in our lives in 2013. After ten weeks of doing the Winter Shed, we moved on to this Spring Shed. Whether you are trying to shed weight, find more balance or let go of something else that is dragging you down in this second season of the New Year… We can do this — together!
Before you read on, just a heads up/reminder that this is last week of Spring and thus it is also last week of the Spring Shed. However, I do intend to continue with this support group/blog hop in the Summer (next Friday and every one thereafter), I will just have a new button and will be referring to that round as the Summer Shed.
For those who want to continue on, feel free to take a look at your goals for this Spring/New Year and adjust them as you want or feel the need to, in effort to better represent where you want your focus to be during this next season.
For anyone new, who might want to join us for this round/season, by all means, please do! I have really enjoyed the connections I have made through and the accountability it brought for me doing this during this Spring Season in 2013.
Now to report on how I did during week thirteen of the Spring Shed and week twenty-three in 2013:
1) Healthy Eating
A. Try to follow the U.S. government’s “Eat My Plate” recommendations (with emphasis on 3 servings of veggies & 2 fruit)
I did well this week, but still could add an additional serving of veggies most days.
B. Continue to practice portion control and count calories.
I did well with this too.
C. Limit my intake of sweets, soda, alcohol and other pelvic floor flare up triggers.
I did well with this and experienced very few food related flare ups.
2) Keeping Fit (Physically/Emotionally/Spiritually) & Shedding Weight
A. Get 7 – 8 hours of sleep every night
I think there was only one night this week that I did not get at least 7 hours of sleep. But since I had a bad cold, I didn’t sleep very soundly most nights, since I had a runny and then stuffy nose, as well as a cough later in the week.
B. Drink enough water
I did fairly well with this.
C. Exercise 5 – 7 days each week
I exercised 4 out of 7 days this week. Though I didn’t do any formal exercise last Friday, I did do a lot of walking and steps while chaperoning Sean’s 3rd grade class field trip to our state capitol, Springfield, Illinois. I didn’t do any formal exercise on Saturday or Sunday, but did have an active day on Sunday straightening/organizing in the basement and walked to/from a grocery with a friends. On Monday I participated in a High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) group fitness class at Beverly Bodyworks. On Tuesday I walked to/from Abby’s summer camp at her preschool while pushing her in the stroller with friends both way (for drop off and pick up). On Wednesday I taught Step n’ Sculpt at Beverly Bodyworks. On Thursday I rode my bike while pulling Abby in the trailer to/from Abby’s summer camp at her preschool bot ways. I might have run one or more days, but in part because of my bad cold, I chose not to.
D. Train for a few Spring 5K races
I did not run at all this week and am not currently training for any 5K races.
E. Shed 1 – 2 lbs. per week
I held steady this week, for a total loss 10.5 lbs. in 23 weeks (since Friday, December 28, 2012)!
One day this week I was down an additional 0.5 lbs., for a loss of 11 lbs. since the end of the December, with 2.5 lbs. left to my goal weight. But then I bounced back up a bit, possibly in part because my period is due at any moment and I tend to get bloated at this time in my cycle.
F. Meditate & pray daily
Again I did not formally meditate much, but I did focus on my breathing some when I was stressed and I did pray a lot.
3) Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy (& Other Health Issues)
A. Go to my physical therapy sessions (&/or other doctor appointments) as scheduled
My PT was still on vacation this week.
My ENT issues were magnified by having a bad cold this week.
B. Watch my dietary triggers
I did well with this as far as muscles spasms/flare ups in my pelvic floor regions. I am trying to also be aware how foods might be impacting my nausea/vertigo issues.
C. Do my “homework” (i.e. PT exercises, stretches and such and now also keeping track of what could be contributing to vertigo issues)
I did not do well with this and know just because my PT is on vacation, it is not an excuse for me to drop the ball on this.
4) Housekeeping
A. Basics Daily (dishes, laundry & straightening)
With my bad cold this week, I did very little in this area.
B. Weekly Cleaning (dusting, sweeping, scrubbing & mopping)
Last Sunday as a family we spent a lot of time cleaning and straightening in the basement in preparation for the plumbers to come and install our new water heater, among other things.
C. Organizing & Purging (sorting, filing, selling &/or donating)
I did pretty well with this, as we gave/sold a lot of our baby stuff, including 2/3 of my maternity clothes to a friend who is expecting. It was bittersweet to let all of that stuff go, but it also felt good literally begin to move on from that stage of/time in our life, as I continue to do my best to appreciate our family as we are now, as opposed to thinking too much about what might have been/the size of our family.
5) Family & Faith Focus
A. Bob: Hanging out together with my husband at home, on date nights and spending quality time and have fun together with our family (including family meals, game nights, movie nights, day trips and vacations).
It was another very busy week for our family, which did not leave us a lot of Bob and me time. However, we did get to relax and hang out together at a BBQ at our friends’ home last Sunday and watched some TV, including Chicago Blackhawks hockey games, together (though I am not nearly as into the Stanley Cup Championship playoffs as my husband is).
B. Sean: Spending quality time and have fun together when he not in school, activities or doing homework. Helping him to learn to manage his time well, take care of his belongings and keep his room and the basement play area clean and organized.
The biggest highlight this week was chaperoning Sean’s 3rd grade class school trip to our state capitol, Springfield, Illinois! It was a long and exhausting day, but so much fun! At the end of the day Sean said it was “the second best day ever!” I asked what was the first and he replied, “my First Communion!” Later he said it might have even been better than that! 🙂
C. Abby: Spending quality time and have fun together when she is not at preschool, playdates or other activities.
The biggest highlight this week with Abby was getting to see her perform in her first dance show! She got to perform in three shows last weekend, one on Friday night and two on Saturday and loved every moment of her experience on stage and hanging out backstage with her dance classmates!
D. Molly & Babies Benson: Honoring their lives and memories, as well as trying to minister to other bereaved families and friends who have lost loved ones.
I continue to wrap-up details related to Team Caring Connection and hope to bring the knitted baby hats that a family member’s friend’s knitting group made to donate to the hospital where our perinatal bereavement support group meets soon so they can be given to families who have lost babies to stillbirth or neonatal death, as well as babies in the hospital who are very sick.
D. Extended Family: Appreciate the roles they play in my family and my life, be patient with the areas in which we don’t always see eye to eye and prioritize spending quality time and having fun together when possible.
We got to see and spend time with both of our families this week because of Abby’s dance show.
E. Friends: Keep in touch, check in and show them I care. Get together when possible to spend quality time and have fun together.
I enjoyed getting to chat with some neighborhood friends/fellow parents who were chaperoning Sean’s 3rd grade class field trip on Friday, as well as getting to know some of the fellow dance moms of Abby’s dance classmates backstage before the shows. On Sunday we went to a BBQ at our friends’ home, which was also nice.
F. Faith Community (Parish, RE, MOPS & CRHP): Stay actively involved in our parish church community. Fulfill my responsibilities and enjoy the last two months of my involvement with the second grade religious education program, as a catechist, and the MOPS group I am a part of, before I transition out of both to focus more of my time and energy as Co-Spiritual Director for the Women’s CRHP retreat program at our parish.
Not much here this week… We tried to go to church on Sunday, but our kids were not in good moods and we ended up leaving before the Gospel, which is rare that we leave church like that. But it was not going well and we felt it made sense to go. We ended up going home and getting a lot done around the house, especially cleaning and straightening in our basement, in preparation for the plumbers to come on Monday and do a lot of work, including installing at new water heater.
6) Writing & Reading
A. My Blog: Aim to write at least two – three posts each week.
I shared two blog entries this week.
The first was a part of my monthly blog hop/writing exercise: Time Warp Tuesday: Decisions. I was so excited to have 9 other bloggers participate/link up, as I think that is the most we have ever had! 🙂
The second was another blog hop, as part of Melissa Ford’s new GRAB(ook) Club, discussing Mel’s new novel Measure of Love (the sequel to Life from Scratch): GRAB(ooh) Club: Measure of Love.
B. The Today Voice: Fulfill my weekly writing responsibilities through the end of June, which I have committed to and enjoy the process of writing about the weekly prompts.
This week, week 50, I shared My Top Twelve Favorite Today Voice Prompts/Thursday’s Voice Posts. I can’t believe there are only two weeks left of this year-long writing project that I have been participating in!
C. Exhale: Continue to serve as a Contributing Editor helping when I can with the publishing our website, as well as also writing reviews and/or essays each season.
I scheduled pieces for our new Summer issue about “Scars and Marks” to post in the coming week and months. Our first piece went up on Tuesday. I am also working on my own essay for the issue about my experience with scars after dealing with secondary infertility and loss.
D. Special Projects (First draft of my book & other freelance writing): Aim for 15 minutes a day, as when I have done that in the past I have been amazed at the incremental progress I am able to make.
I did not do anything in this category this week.
E. Read (books, blogs, magazines & other online news/articles of interest): This always seems to be at the bottom of my list of priorities, but is something I get so much out of when I find/make time to do.
I did read my Us magazine, finished Melissa Ford’s new novel Measure of Love (the sequel to Life from Scratch), which I really enjoyed and high recommend. I also downloaded and a sample of the next GRAB(ook) Club selection for July, The Fault in Our Stars by John Green on my Kindle, but have not committed to participating yet, as our summer, especially next month, is so jammed packed I am not ready to decide.
F. Comment on others’ blogs: Prioritize this, with emphasis on return comments and then trying to check in and keep up with other blogs that I follow.
One silver lining of my bad cold this week, was I took it easy/rested a lot and thus had the time to catch up on a lot of blog reading and commenting! 🙂
As I shared in the intro to my Winter Shed Series…
When I reflect on what has helped me to shed weight, get/stay in shape in the past, prioritize housekeeping tasks and find more balance in my life, accountability is huge! I have kept myself accountable various ways in the past, but this time I am finding doing so publicly here on my blog have been effective.
Once a week, on Fridays, from now until at least mid-June/Summer, I will continue to check in and share how my week has gone in the key areas I am working on. My hope and intention is that knowing I have this self-imposed report card to file will continue to motivate me to stay focused on my goals.
For those who want to join me in this “Spring Shed,” I will add a Linky Tool to my weekly Friday posts and you are welcome to link up to your Spring Shed blog entries, and/or you can comment here on how you are doing from week to week, so we can support and encourage each other, as well as share what works and what doesn’t for each of us when it comes to striving towards our goals.
Please join me and we can cheer each other on as we kick off the second season of 2013 strong (and stay the course long past February 16th)!
We can do this — TOGETHER!
You are welcome to grab the code for the Spring Shed button by clicking here and put it on your blog. The link will take you to a Google Doc where you can copy the code. If your browser does not allow access to your computer’s clipboard, you can use Ctrl-C for Copy and Ctrl-V for Paste, or use your browser’s Edit menu.
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