Week 13: Day 92

The Almost End 

A year from Now you may wish

You had started Today

-Karen Lamb

I sometimes wish I had an expert to come and help me plan and organize all the things that are effing up my life.  Of course since I know all this shit has to start with me, I continue to struggle with the trying live healthier, be creative, and feel accomplished at the end of the day or week, with middling success.    

When I started this blog, I was in a really bad mood.  Last week I wrote my downward spiral mood away.  That was not my plan today but it seemed to be working along with music.  I am listening to music and Lily Allen’s Fuck You came on and yes it made me feel ten times better than I have in hours.    I thought I would be listing all my failures but that is not what is going on today. 

On Tuesday, I will initiate early morning again.  This will be mean early nights.  I was good for about 3 weeks.  I stopped last week for reasons I will not go into.   There are more things than this project that I am leaving undone.  There are at least 5 audio books I have yet to finish listening too.  More than 10 books I have started and haven’t finished reading, over 100 book bought digitally that I have yet to read. I also have a million magazines hard and soft copy.   I also have a large number of writing projects in various stages of development.  This is my career dream life.  Completely on the fritz. 

My health is also something less than desire.  I am overweight, if I go by the charts, I am

grossly obese.  Obesity is a factor of sicknesses like diabetes hypertension and heart failure. 

In my real life, the domestic chores are a pain in my ass and piling up.  I never wanted to be a housewife.  I have issues with being one with no damn husband, but that is essay for another blog.  

Some might think I am writing out my failures again.  Actually I am just writing out my state of being.  Everything above are true facts.  I am writer with little and no support on being a writer.  I would like to take a grammar class to be a better reader.  I wish my minor connection with certain people would flow into paying employment.  It might happen, it might not.  I am upset that when I sit down to write.  I feel guilty or I am made to feel guilty.  It is not fair. 

I am tired of not liking my life. This is the honest truth of everything.  Lifestyle change, weight-loss, and organization are things that I believed will help me like my life again and improve my wellness.  At this point my wellness sucks. 

I should insert a lotus flower in here somewhere.  Not going to happen.  Except at the end which is the signature lotus for the blog. 

These woes and middling successes are my call to arms to myself for myself.  I am the only one that can make a difference.  A year from now I want to be happy with my accomplishments.  I am again starting from scratch.  The project will begin again in November in line with National Novel Writing Month or the popular name nanowrimo.  The place writers go to find out how much self-abuse they can take.   I want to talk to a smart person lay out all my woes and get some advice.  I will be looking into it. I will also be praying more.  I don’t do it enough.  It that is the only time I can meditate I have to take it.  I have to fix me or else terrorist win.  No one wants that least of all me.

Week 10: Day 73

Week in Review 

Something went wrong ... Again 

A year from Now you may wish

You had started Today

-Karen Lamb

I lost track of time again.  The 100 days project got disrupted with life.  So I am a week or so behind.  I have a planner and a general idea of when the project will end the second week in October.  I have a rough idea that 100 days equals to 3 months, today I have realized that it also equals to 14 weeks.   100 days used to sound like so much time for me.  Now I am looking at how big a misconception this was.  Week 12 will definitely be a reassessment of what I am doing.  According to my calendar, this is week ten, if counted from my last post this is week 11.   I am breaking the rules somewhere.  I also don’t want to obsess about the time lost.  I want to work on progress.   Full disclosure there is little progress.  Getting back into the routine has not been easy, actually there isn’t really any routine.  There is the acknowledgement that a good or poor choice is made.  This sounds confusing but this is what my life.  I know I want the project to succeed. I know that maintaining motivation is a problem for me as well as keeping to schedule.  The concept of time has also become an issue to be dealt with.   

The focus of this essay I think is mindset.  It is safe to say that the weekend has affected

my week more than I will like. My desire for a positive Well-being was derailed, along with the essays for this blog.   Since doing the math, it has been realized that I will have to make a schedule and keep to it diligently.   I need flexibility and I have to find ways to make the right choices, when the unexpected occurs.    

This week has been shortened since it was the Labor Day weekend.  I didn’t attend any events celebrating Caribbean culture.  I had a small barbecue that dovetailed with my neighbors.  All was going well up until a certain time, there was an incident. I won’t go into it because I don’t know how to write it out objectively.  One of this essays maybe, I don’t know if I can bare myself like that with anyone and I doubt I can do it with the internet. I don’t want anything haunting me in the next 10 years.

 There has been little or no progress as mentioned above.  This is week in review essay.  So I will say the most interesting this is that sleeping routine has changed.  In attempts to find a golden time to work on writing projects.  I am waking up at 4 or 5 am in the morning.  This also means I am going to sleep earlier at night.  I have yet to organize myself b/c once I am awake so is everyone else in life, it is a little unsettling.  The good thing is that I am sleeping.  I have been able to get some reading done.  Now the trick is to get writing done as well.

I am living this post-it right now.  I have nothing I promised myself 10 years ago.  I take full responsibility for my actions and non-actions.   I am grateful that I have the opportunity to continue to change my life.   The goal is to stay positive pursue the things that will make life easier for all involved.  The weekend is looking meh.  I am hoping the next week along with analysis will be an improvement.  

Week 8: day 52

Week in Review 

A year from Now you may wish,You had started Today

-Karen Lamb

I am feeling those words harder today than any others.  Last year I was optimistic about my future.  Today I am not so sure.  It will no doubt affect my well-being.  My birthday was a mini-deadline.  I didn’t accomplish it and I don’t think I can make 300+words out of this essay.  I am testing myself to write something, if not insightful then introspective.  I don’t do a lot with this blog except write.  I talk about changing and have done little.  So I have little results.  I know I need to make big changes for better benefits, I am trapped in what is easier and faster to accomplish.  This is not a great idea.


The return home was more uneventful that I would have liked.  I sunk into really bad habits.  Not sleeping at night, food journal was lost.  I kept up with the water drinking because it is too not to be hydrated.  I vowed to find an exercise routine and do it; I haven’t been able to do that either.   I have too many things to do and no motivation to  do any of them.   This is disappointing, my vacation was supposed to energize me.  I think because my plans went to shit, financially.  I came back feeling unsettled.  No I want to energy to do the things I need to do and also have the mental energy to create the fictions and essays that I like to write.   Usually this is not supposed to be part of this blog.  Since wellness is a major topic for me here I have included it.  I write for peace of mind and eventually to sell my work to others who will  read and like it.  I have struggled twenty five years almost just to realize this was what I want to.  I was always told that I would need something to fall back on.  While trying to establish the something to fall back on job, I got afraid, lost confidence and desire to show people my work.  

These feelings changed for me last year.  Last year I was in a Do or Die mode and I was ready to put it all on the line.  Whatever I had, I posted some of my fiction and then my mother began the hospital roulette.  She is ill and almost everything month beginning in November 2014, we stayed at the hospital for at least a week.  If that pattern hadn’t changed I wouldn’t have gone on my trip.  I don’t want to write too much about this it because fate may change and we will be there tonight. 

The weather had run our house ragged.  We have had a few heat advisories and it has been a frog-killing temperatures (a story for another blog). We have also had decent weather, it can feel livable outside but inside I wonder if I am in bikram yoga or something. I have sweated a lot but I don’t think it has affected my weight at all.   Even though weight-loss is supposed to be side benefit.  It is the one of markers I have to prove success.  This something I have to work on extensively, there are only forty-eight days left to this challenge.  I can’t let me lose to bad habit me again.  She is a gloating bitch. 

Thinking of success, what are the marker proving that I am improving my life? I have to seriously consider what I will call an achievement and what will be an epic fail.   This post has nothing to review in the week because I didn’t really do much.  I stayed up all night on Tuesday, crashed really badly on Wednesday afternoon.  I have been worrying about a personal problem I will not talk about here. At least I got some of thinking back.  I hate being so exhausted my mental process no longer works.  Most likely on my birthday I will attempt to make the house more livable.  It is driving me insane.  Part of a better lifestyle is a better environment.  I have to fix that almost everywhere in my life.  Yikes where do I start? One day at a time right. Dang that sounded optimistic.  I blame on the movie trailer music I am listening to right now.  I am closing this post with hopes that best wishes are coming my way.  I am ending this post with the desire to fix my life for the better.  

Week 8: Day 48

A year from Now you may wish

You had started Today

-Karen Lamb

I  went on a mini hiatus, there was no essays for week 6 or 7 because I was not in NYC.  Actually for week 6 I was preparing to go to leave and week 7 I was in Takoma Park MD.  It was the mini break I give myself for my birthday.   I would prefer the time closer to the b-day but circumstances did not allow it.  I needed this vacation, like a starving person needs rice to eat.  I was getting stressed I think it was beginning to show in the things I do.  My writing and my attitude about everything was not good, I was heading for the break down and it would not have been pretty. 

In MD, I didn’t keep to any specific food guidelines.  I don’t think I over did anything either.  However feelings of fullness have plagued me since I arrived home, so a cleansing might be the next big move I do for my own sense of wellness.  The water challenge was a little difficult to achieve. Water in different states have a unique taste to them.  It is different from NY’s water.  I don’t know if that is a good or bad thing.  Bottled water was used and they too have a unique flavor, strange because water is not supposed to have a flavor.  But how else to describe the nothing taste of water.  Sometimes it more than just bland. I first thought it was the brand of water but I am tasty the blah in a brand of water I always drank.  I don’t know why that is, perseverance is a must though, I want to reap the benefits. 

In the time I have been away, I have received two boxes of graze snacks.  The Ady*graze

company promotes themselves as having tasty, healthy and proportioned snack foods for the conscientious person sent through the mail.  So far I have only seen some interesting combinations of crunchy and soft foods. I got roped in the free trial box.  This is not an endorsement or disapproval, only my humble opinion.   

The goals for this week is to begin the food journal, measure water intake and come up with an exercise routine even if it just walking up and down my drive way or block.  It has been avoided enough and without it tangible success will be limited.

Week Two: day 8

A year from Now you may wish

You had started Today

-Karen Lamb

Not sure yet how to make this work.  The original topic of this post was something about the mind, I think. It was also supposed to be out on Monday. I didn’t get lost.  I just don’t have an angle.  I don’t feel I have the information that I would like to impart, didn’t have the time to research, understand and write about in an inspiring and entertaining fashion.   So this essay is late and random, very very random.   I call these post free write essays in reminiscence of my elementary school days.  The teacher would write a topic on the board and we, the students, will have 10-20 minutes in the period to write about it any way we wanted to.   Those last two sentences might seem a little off, but the teacher would also give a general idea.   The general idea for this essay is what I am doing to acquire lifestyle change.  What does this mean for you the reader?  You will be entertained and mildly inspired by a body of work with no plan.   The main idea will always be wellness, health and lifestyle change.

Usually I have a paragraph or two jotted down in composition book dedicated to the project.  The definition of wellness mini-project is still in the mixed up stages, still gathering information. Considering looking for a book on the subject.   Nothing has been decided yet. I scratched the first three paragraphs on Monday.  So is this still a free write essay?  That is something else to think about.

The 100 days project is well on its way and although most of what I am doing now should have been done on hiatus.  Research on the various subjects of each essay, so that I can write a better body of work.  Here is an example of what was done over the weekend.  I have written about establishing an exercise plan or routine over and over again, if not here on this blog then on another.  With the exception of walking 15 city blocks, last year for 3 months, I have not tried since.  Starting an exercise plan and routine was something that is very important to me.  It is a part of implementing a healthy lifestyle change.  I never actively looked into exercise plan the way I should have in the last two project that focused weight loss and lifestyle change.   I thought about doing the Insanity or Zuma programs but I can’t sit down and watch any of the routines to the end.  I get bored.

For a brief time I joined the online gym called Gym Box.  The most exercise I did on the gym box was a stretch class, before the 15 block walk, it was very beneficial. However I didn’t know where to start at the gym box, which class minus the stretch will be useful for me.  Many of the classes, I found had an equipment requirement needed to participate in the class, things I didn’t have money or time to buy.  Was that self-sabotage?   Should I have looked harder to no equipment classes, not sure?   I wonder if the Daily Burn is the same way, something else to research.  

Anyway to continue with this story.  I have recently become a fan of Youtube for various reason entertain, education and encouragement.   I did a search and came up with over several videos on how to start an exercise plan.  Of course these were targeted for weight loss instead of just being healthy.   I decided to continue with them anyway, because even though my main goal is life style change weight loss is the valuable side effect for me.

I watched the short videos by two women, not using their names now because I am attempting to see how effective their programs will be with me.  Do they clash or can I utilize parts of their programs to improve?

These are the wayward things going through my head right now.  Attempting to write it out in comprehensive story took more out of me than I would like.  I am still glad I made myself adhere to the 300+ word count rule.  Otherwise, my essay would be twenty useless words and most likely an apology. Instead of posting an essay 3x a week, it may have to be 2x a week, for my sanity.  I may increase the posting as I develop this skill.  

Please leave a comment.

Day one

A year from Now you may wish

You had started Today

-Karen Lamb

The Hundred Days Project Infinity

This picture has nothing to do with the fourth of July.  Independence Day is an important holiday for the nation but this is about my project launch.  Starting today July 01, 2015 and ending October 19^th, 2015, I will conscientiously choosing better lifestyle choices, in food, environment and other things. This is the next 100 days project.   A benefit to this lifestyle make-over is a more productive life, I want to spend my time efficiently.  I have other plans for the website blogs and my writing and my personal life.  Family is very important to me.  I wouldn’t have survived ‘til now without family.  To do right for me I have to do right by them. 

My household needs a lifestyle change and we need it like 2 years ago. I can’t change myself and expect others to follow.  We have to be an example to the young.  Studies show that when a family takes up the task of changing lifestyle through eating habits and etc.  It is better for the children overall.   Obesity is a major problem for people in “first world” nations.  It has hampered my family for generations, but it runs deeper than that.  Because even the supposed “skinny” relatives have effed-up lifestyle habits.  I want to be healthy.  I also need to be healthy.  Many of my post might sound like this in the next 100 days.  The method is repetitive.  If I keep typing and reminding myself of the purpose I should be able to reach a goal.  Plan to be reach your goals not the other way around. It worked with twitter and it worked as a writing exercise I gave myself last year.   On Twitter, I began requesting followers and giving reasons why.  I wanted to see how many I can get simply by asking for a whole year.  I mentioned my reasons and the campaign every time I asked for followers.  In a month I have over 200, many of them writers like myself.  Others were artist of a different medium.  I was impressed.  Of course I am not famous enough yet so that my following out numbers those I follow.  But that is okay.  I expect better when I begin publishing, my stories and the Red Mushroom. 

Last year I realized my word count was sickeningly low.  I had lost my creative will to write.  I partly blame listening to audiobooks but they were only 1 part of the problem; the other problem was that I just didn’t have anything to say or I thought there was nothing to say.   My solution was to force myself to write 300 words or more on each entry.  I stated my cause and reasons until it no longer became necessary.   I will be stating my desire to change the bad habits in my lifestyle until I see and report positive sustainable change and benefits.

Specifics

In the next three months and a half, I will be writing about lifestyle change.  The pros the cons.  I will be writing about changing eating habits, healthy choices, and exercise routines and where to find them.  I will do my utter best to trick myself into a better healthier lifestyle.  I will write about the mental, emotional and spiritual sides of these things.  How lifestyle, wellness, health and well-being go together to be an overall better human being.  I will do my best to be entertaining, informative and inspiring. 

Geronimo!

Changed Plans

A year from Now you may wish

You had started Today

-Karen Lamb

In the last essays, I stated that I would be writing about what wellness means to me. The subject is very popular.  There are many sites on it.  There are many people claiming to be an expert on Wellness, health and well-being.  The information is vast, so the search continues.   I don’t think my definition will be a two sentence group of words.  I also stated that the new 100days project would begin in June.  I had to suspend those decisions.  The vague plans were weak and would most likely fail miserably.  Then I would be back in the spiral of apologies and pessimistic optimism.  It sounds like an oxymoron but it isn't.  That is one of many awful truths. 

The next date for the project to begin is July 1^st of course.  So in four days I will relaunch the 100days project, sans the number.   I have even contemplated

starting again at the number one.  This 100days project should be amazingly different from the others because now I am seeking the information to make my lifestyle change better. Although the reeducation is going to be tough.  Old bad habits die hard.   The posting plan is 3 times a week.  Something for the mind, spirit and body, Monday, Wednesday, Friday.  There should also be an exercise schedule and food plan.  This is where things go wrong for me.  What I plan to eat isn’t always what I eat.  What I plan to cook isn’t always what I cook.  The other people who live with me don’t always want to eat what I cook.  The overall plan is to put my foot down and adhere to the household meal plan.  We all need to change the lifestyle but we are dragging our heels. 

Another ugly truth. 

Someone said something about success coming after or because of failures.  If that is the case then there will be a time when this project will be an overwhelming success.  I keep the faith because I don’t know how else to be.  Many times I have been told to give up on the dreams that help me get through the many hard days.  I have not yet.  I don’t have it in me to give up on them or this project.  So here I again typing Wednesday July 1^st 2015 to October 19^th 2015.   Cross your fingers.

Please Leave Comment