I can't talk but I can type, so here we go...

So today I'm feeling very chatty but I can't really talk so I decided it's time to finally revisit my blog.  Although I decided I'm a bit too OCD to set weekly goals and actually end up happy I figure a general idea of taking each week to strive towards health and happiness is an umbrella I can be under.

So let me start off with this... Eric and I have been hoping to start a family for a little more than a year and that hasn't happened quite yet so I finally decided to get a procedure done to address an issue that may be holding up the show and that I've needed to do for a very long time but always put off doing.  Warning men, this may be more than you want to know about female stuff.  I had two procedures done yesterday, laparoscopy for endometriosis and a hysteroscopy to see if there are any other issues.  My doctor is Shahrya Kavoussi and he is simply the nicest doctor I have ever met!!  The reason I can't really talk today is because these required me to be put under general anesthesia which has resulted in a very sore throat.  Another interesting side effect that one would not typically expect from a surgery on your abdomen is a very sore shoulder.  Actually my throat and shoulder are bothering me much more than my abdomen but it's not too bad and my sweet husband is taking good care of me.  As for the results of the surgery, here is the scoop.  It's a really good thing I had the hysteroscopy because I had polyps in my uterus that can get in the way of pregnancy and would increase my chances of miscarriage. So he removed all of those and then moved onto the laparoscopy. I did have quite a bit of endometriosis on my right ovary, in fact my ovary was stuck to my uterus, so they cleaned that all up and removed one cyst and deflated another.  So I should have a much easier time getting pregnant now and in fact it would be very good for me to get pregnant because it can help prevent these issues from returning.  So we are praying for a baby!

Well I thought I would cover more than just that but it seems I am ready for another nap so I will wrap this quickly with a few thanks.

Eric-Thanks for taking care of me and loving me like crazy!

Roger, Holly, Paul, and Eric-Thanks for praying over me on Thursday night.

Kelly-Thanks so much for the beautiful flowers! I was pretty out of it when I got home but still managed to say "Eric...picture" and pointed to them as a stumbled in the house.  And I'm looking forward to a date to the Olive Garden with my caretaker as well, it's one of our favorite places to eat.

Lianet-Thanks for the soup! It's delicious and just what I need, it's healing my throat nicely.

And thanks to all the rest of my wonderful friends, family, and church family for praying for me.

Oh yeah...I knew I was forgetting something

So about all those goals...
1. Water-No Problem!! Fruit-Most days and taking Juice Plus
2.Daily Flosssing-Take out the daily and make it weekly... I'm knocking it out of the park but daily does still elude me
3.Meal Planning-I'm always just about to do it but never getting it done
4.Daily Reading-Oh darn, I seem to have gotten a bit behind!!
5. Daily Walk- I did this really good until I went on vacation but have not resumed this week. Now that I am training for a triathlon I am running/walking for about an hour at least 3 days a week.

It drives me crazy that it's like the 22nd week of the year and I planned to have 22 well established goals by now...but seriously what was I thinking?!? LOL Actually I still think it's a great plan, I have found some flaws in my execution though. I started out picking daily goals (except one that's more weekly) and I think I should have either picked less frequent goals or easier things. Let's face it, I'm a crammer and I go to sleep early which makes setting a lot of daily goals that I ultimately will probably put off until the last second in which I am falling asleep a bad idea. So to give myself a boost I am going to list out 17 things that I do that I can go ahead and consider accomplished goals, so here we go....

1. Put lotion on from head to toe every time I shower- Eric thinks this is unusual, ladies is not normal procedure? If I don't bathe myself in Aveeno it hurts, this is a must do!
2. Use smaller plates- I usually do this when I just cook dinner for Eric and I
3. Put in Restasis drops twice a day
4. Take fish oil before bed
5. Take Juice Plus Fruit, Veggie, and Berry everyday
6. Put in Xibrom drops
7. Hug Eric
8. Kiss Eric
9. Eat a daily breakfast taco-currently on hiatus due to a cleanse and a recent out of country vacation in which it was just not an option...I feel sorry for those people that can't get a great breakfast taco from one of many good options on any given day, it's just not right. And by the way, isn't salsa critical to a breakfast taco? Eric doesn't use salsa at all, I find that strange. A breakfast taco without salsa, well that's just putting stuff in a tortilla... don't call it a taco and I don't want it! If you are thinking this wouldn't lead to a healthier happier me then you don't know me at all.
10. Weekly dinner with neighbors-my neighborhood is awesome, I always look forward to this!
11. Keep track of all our $$'s with my insane excel budget-oh how I love excel, I really do want spreadsheets on my bedsheets Weird Al, where do I buy them?
12. Go to church on Sundays-I wish almost all churches didn't go on at the same time so I could go to more of them, so many great pastors, worship leaders, and people in this city
13. Swing in my hammack chair- I need to do this more!
14. Check my email
15. Check my snail mail- I hate to hand write anything but it's so cool to get an envelope with your name handwritten.
16. Leave work on time, I'm getting much better about this
17. ....Sit on my couch with my laptop and coordinate the details of life

Okay so week 23 starts in just a few days but I've already got my goal in mind, it does go against 2 standards I wanted to apply to all goals but it's good enough to trump them. The standards were I didn't want to set goals to NOT do things and my goals are suppose to be something that continues indefinitely, this is neither of those.

I am giving up following all my weekly tv shows for at least 6 months. For those of you that aren't familiar with my insanity let me tell you how I watch tv... From Series premiere to Series Finale consecutively. This means I don't just catch episodes, I don't start on Season 2. If I happen to see a show that I like I go back to Season 1 and start from the beginning. If I miss an episode I have to watch it before I can watch any others. I'm a little obsessive if I do say so myself. Well 6 months will take me into the next season of all my shows and I don't have a dvr so this goal is likely to effectively take me out of the weekly television show following for quite some time. It's a very difficult task to catch up once you get out of the game, believe me, I have done it before, imdb really helps in identifying when you can catch the next air date on repeats, hee hee.

This doesn't actually mean I will never watch tv, but it will be significant cutback as I'm pretty much left with sports and news and those both usually put me to sleep.

Okay, I've rambled on long enough....................

Am I still doing any of it? And other stuff...

Well yes, I am getting back on track. I have not been keeping things up but I have not given up or forgotten. I just finished flossing (goal 2) and I'm gonna try and get back on track with my fruit and water (goal 1) tomorrow. I'm not going to call it a weekly goal but I'm going to start counting calories tomorrow to try and get trimmed down enough for my wedding dress to go back on in a few months. One of the things I said I wanted to do when I got married is to put on my wedding dress every year that if fits, with hopes that the first year it did not fit would be the first anniversary after announcing the expectation of our first child. Since we are not currently making that announcement I have a bit of work to do. With the lovely weather we have been having, I am hoping to get my hammock chair put up to do my reading (goal 4) from in the afternoons. I had intended to plan out our meals and shopping today (goal 3) but I didn't get that done so i guess that will be on tomorrow as well. I did take up daily walking for 30 minutes but didn't ever get around to writing about it. My co-worker (and sister in law Cindy) and I have been walking during the middle of the day. We actually did really great for about 2 weeks then we got to consumed in work but we did get 1 day (maybe 2 I can't remember) this last week and I'm gonna try really hard to get back on a daily midday walk break starting tomorrow. So I suppose this can be my blog announcing my 5th goal, a daily 30 minute walk. I'm also planning to start training for a half marathon with some of my neighbors. I still need to ask the doc if that's a good idea for me considering my back problems but I'm thinking he will probably encourage any regular exercise I will actually do.
Along the lines of a happier me, I have a number of spoils I am planning to do in the next few weeks. I will be getting a facial, a manicure & pedicure, an eye brow wax, and a massage.

Oh I have a new addition to my daily eye care. It's just an exercise for my muscles that control focus. So now I am suppose to do the following each day for my eye care:
Warm compress
Restasis Twice a day
Xibrom Once a day
Soothe XP and Blink drops as often as needed/remembered
5 Fish Oil capsules
Pen Exercise

All that is in addition to wearing glasses all the time, having plugs put in my eyes (to keep tears from draining out since I don't produce enough tears), getting glare screens on my computer monitors at work, and changing my work setup to make sure that I sit at an angle that has me look down at least 10 degrees on my monitors.

Well with all that said... my eyes are burning so I'm gonna get me a warm compress and call it a night.

Thanks for reading!!

Week 4- Reading the One Year Chronological Bible

So this weeks goal is a daily reading. A couple of times I have started reading the One Year Chronological Bible but I've never stuck with it for very long. So I decided to give it another try but to take out one of my primary obstacles, I started on Monday which is 25 days in and I told myself that's okay, and then I feel asleep before reading the last paragraph on Tuesday night and again, I told myself that's okay. I am trying to go back and read a bit of the first 24 days of readings after finished the daily reading to catch up. I often forget how exciting the book of Genesis is so I've really been enjoying the reading the past few days. I started with Jacob and Esau being reunited and then moved on to Judah and Joseph (Jacobs sons)...good stuff!

And for last week I did eventually set myself a goal but it's not really one that has to be done daily. I am writing out my full weeks menu and shopping list so that I can go to the store once at the beginning of the week and get all the food I need to make dinner at home each night (that there are not other plans taking us out of the house) and also to have our fruits on hand.

So here is some rambling on everything so far:

1- Water and Fruit--Doing pretty good but still room for improvement. Thankfully a friend has shared with me about a great way to take care of getting all the good stuff from fruits and vegetables even if I don't eat them all. It's called Juice Plus. It's all the nutrients from lots of fruits and vegetables in a capsule. I am super excited about this nutritional addition to my daily regime and I am planning to share it with my parents as I happen to know my dad could use a super easy way to add lots of nutrition to his diet, so Mom is you are reading this I can't wait to tell you all about it!!!

2- Daily Flossing - My dentist will be so proud!!

3- Weekly Meal Planning and Shopping- Well I did it this week :-)

4- Daily Reading- Since Monday I'm at 100% and I am pretty impressed with my 3 day record, hee hee.

So one thing that makes picking attainable goals a bit more interesting is that I don't want to pick goals that are about NOT doing things because that will just make me want to do them. I figure if I add in healthy things that eventually that will start pushing out the bad. We'll see how well that works. Oh and my partner Eric, yeah he only meant he was going to do the water and fruit with me so I'm all alone on my journey. I guess it's a good thing I decided to let this be what I blog about. So if you are reading let me know your out there with a comment so I won't feel so lonely :-)

Until next time....

Week 3- Not throwing out the baby...

I'm sure everyone has just been dying to know (yeah right)...where is the week 3 goal? Well, me too...as Emily would say I tend to throw the baby out with the bath water on things that I don't feel like I am accomplishing to the standard I would like, which is how I would evaluate my success with my first few goals, but I'm not gonna throw out the baby on this one, not yet at least, eek. So I decided that adding a new goal this week would not be a good idea since I have yet to get a good handle on my other goals. It seems silly to admit that, I mean really?? I can't drink enough water, eat enough fruit, and floss my teeth every night?!?! Actually I can, but I fail to do so when I don't plan my day or week well. I will just forget to drink water because I'm drinking other things, I will not have the fruit sliced before I need to leave or I will forget to bring it to work so it gets pushed back to being something to have as an after work snack or dinner and then I forget and fill myself up with other stuff, and flossing happens if I think about it before I am too tired. All these things can be easily fixed with a bit of planning, so I guess if I need to give a week 3 goal, it's to start making a plan for myself so that drinking, eating, or doing other things don't get left by the wayside as the hours of my day pass me by.

So I'm thinking a new thing I need to start doing is taking a daily vitamin? So ladies, if you take a daily vitamin I would be interested to know if you think it really makes a difference and how you chose the one that you take.

Until next time...

Week 2- Daily Flossing

So today is the day to start a new goal, I gotta say, I'm a bit concerned about being able to start a new goal each week. It seems like a rapid pace when I think about adding more to what I have barely started doing each week but I'm not going to think about all that right now, just water, fruit, and ....

New goal: So this weeks goal is daily flossing. Ya know that thing all dentists say to do but barely anyone does. In fact, I'm interested to know, if you can truly claim daily flossing so please comment and tell me.

Previous goals success/fail?: Well I definitely didn't accomplish my goal on at least one day, maybe two, it's hard to recall now. I figure it's best for my sanity if I just deal with the goals each day rather than keeping a tally on myself. I tend to be obsessive so I very well may throw this whole project out the window if I don't give myself some room to mess up and not feel like a failure.

Have a great week!

Week 1- 8 8 ounce glasses of water and 2 cups of fruit

So everyone is asking "What is your New Years Resolution?", well I've decided to try something I read about...rather than setting 1 huge goal that I am unlikely to keep for 365 days I am going to pick 1 new goal each week of the year to add on to the previous weeks goals that all collectively will help make a Happier and Healthier Me. My sweet husband is going to be my partner in this and I've decided to create this blog just for this yearlong (hopefully) adventure. So week 1's goal actually has 2 parts. We probably already drink our recommended daily water most days so we felt like making that our first goal was kinda cheating so we are just going to make sure we actually do each day and also incorporate the recommended daily fruit servings into our daily diets. Here is a website that I am going to use to help get a variety of fruits in the right amount.
http://www.fruitandveggieguru.com/ExtraSections/ProduceandYourHealth/DailyIntake/tabid/92/Default.aspx

If you have suggestions for healthy habits we should add in please feel free to suggest them, I'm sure some weeks we will have a really hard time picking the next weeks goal. Also, if you already do what we are trying to start each week and have tips, bring it on.


This month I would like to try to add habits that will help boost my energy so please feel free to leave suggestions if you have them.

And one final note, by healthy we mean all areas of health, physical, mental, spiritual, relational, or any other area I'm not currently thinking of. And although the year didn't start on Monday we are going to start with our first goal this Monday and pick a new goal each Sunday to begin the following week.

So that's my New Years Resolutions.

LOL I just realized I put the wrong amount of fruit in the title when this was originally posted...now fixed, just 2 cups.