You'd have thought with all my manic bouts of exercise that I'd be slim, taut and terrific. Unfortunately only the terrific part is true.

Hah! Not even that!

But, no. I am still carrying 8-10 kilos more than I'd like (and given that I did successfully get to an ideal weight just before I fell pregnant with #3, I know that a better weight is achievable post-babies. I also remember how much better I felt about myself back then.

My current weight comes in just above my supposed healthy weight range, so I really do have a health inducement to do something proactive.

But I've been deluding myself. Somehow I think that I SHOULD be able to eat and drink what I want IF I do all this mad exercise. But it's not working (probaby because it's not every day) and I'm really getting quite annoyed with myself, and my lack of willpower, when it comes to what I eat and drink.

It doesn't help that after I've done what amounts to a good exercise session - whether it be cycling a reasonable distance, or doing swimming training for one hour, then all I want to do is shovel ENERGY back into my body. Tasty, reward-type energy, if you know what I mean.

I also find it hard to go a night without a beer, or a glass of wine. I'd got to the point where I'd convinced myself that I really, really needed it to relax and wind down, and I'd never make it through dinner if I didn't have 'just one'. Even though I know all about Empty Calories when it comes to alcohol.

I'd whittled myself down to generally lite beer, and only one a night. (With the occasional wine - or two... the occasional following-day-headache had really been pretty rare.) But I couldn't even manage to get it down to every second night! How pathetic is that?

And the recalcitrant part of my mind kept saying surely I deserved it. "Come on! You've never exercised this consistently in your life! There must be some kickbacks to all this bike riding and stuff you've been doing?"

Sadly not. The scales have refused to budge, and despite the fact that I look "OK", my weight and figure is not befitting the cycling and swimming junkie within. And I don't look "OK" in clothes shop fitting rooms! And I don't have the range of choice of cycling clothes because the biggest standard women's sizes are touch and go for me. I have a jelly belly that is likely not-unrelated to the terms 'beer' and 'gut'.

Time to really do something about it. I have quite a few bad habits to change, but the easiest thing to do first is to cut the empty calories.

So, goodbye beer for starters. I thought I'd have to wean myself off it slowly - really try for the 'every other night' bit for starters, maybe?

But I have quite surprised myself this past week.

I'm up to 6 days straight without! As long as you don't count a few sips of Marc's wine on Thursday night. But I did decline a glass of my own, and I just drank water with the Thai meal we had out with a few others. So I reckon it counts.

Probably the two cans of coke that I drank because it was too damned hot at the school swimming carnival yesterday rather blot the copybook, but still.. I could have come home and had a couple of beers as well!

Except that I am SO not Catholic or religious, it did strike me as rather amusing that I decided to do this in the middle of Lent. (Like, isn't that where you give up things? For forty days or something? And if Easter is in a month, then it must be that Lent thing around now?)

The thing is, it's got to be a long term lifestyle thing, and secondly, I am hopeful that down the track I might still enjoy the odd beer or wine here and there. Particularly once I rein in some of my other bad eating habits.

I think I can do it this time.

Labels: Resolution

School holidays. Two weeks of them. Done and dusted. It's a bit scary how fast the year is going. I mean, Term 2 already?!! Before we know it it'll be the end of June, half way through the year, and into another 2 weeks of holidays. It's just not right!

Today was a pupil free day "staff development day". This varies from school to school. My kids are back tomorrow, then Wednesday is a public holiday for Anzac Day, and then, huzzah!, they are back at school for Thursday and Friday. At least that means we get to ease back into the madness a little more slowly, with no netball stuff on Wednesday - and a day 'off' for Marc. Which I like, of course.

I had had grand plans to make the most of Sunday and today - as if to make up for my lack of domestic achievements during the past two weeks. So much for all the grandiose plans to get the kids involved in a mega-cleanup while they had holidays (and we weren't gallavanting around the countryside on some holiday adventure or other.)

Instead Caitlin all but reinvented the term 'sloth' :

How? You sleep in as long as possible - if you get past midday, you're a legend. You drag yourself up, then plonk in front of the TV or computer the rest of the day. If you're really good you can stay in your PJs till dinner time. It's called pushing the envelope far enough that your mother just couldn't be bothered harassing you about it. Much. ie. if you keep ignoring her, she gives up in the end, because there are things worth arguing about, and things that aren't worth arguing about. Even if she is kind of bothered by it.

Alison seemed to work all holidays on my mother-guilt gene, expressing daily disappointment that every day she wasn't going somewhere or hanging with a friend. I was working on the concept of self-determination (ie. organise your own things), and the fact that kids shouldn't need to be taken out and entertained constantly. She didn't have a bad holiday. Really.

Zoe was obviously working on her magic skills - I saw her practising card tricks a few times. And the rest - she was working on invisible' - by disappearing upstairs for hours at a time so that I would easily forget she was around. She has always had the amazing ability to entertain herself with toys. She has a hideyhole under the upstairs stairs (an open type of stairway), and she can sit there playing with stuff for hours. When she wasn't doing that she'd be reading a book. And, thusly, tugging at that mother-guilt gene because she wasn't outside being active.

And me? I've practised my procrastination tendencies to perfection. School holidays where you stay at home are the perfect training ground. If there was a Procrastination Olympics, I'd be in it.

Take yesterday - Sunday - for example. Oh how I was looking forward to that day. Nowhere we had to be. A glorious sleep in after our efforts on Saturday.

Marc was a man on a mission. He had a lot of bike tyres to change - chunky ones he'd put on the tandem and triplet for the last day of the Big Ride (because it involved a bit of dirt), and so, because we are likely to do more bitumen riding, he wanted to put the smoother tyres back on. He then swapped my really chunky tyres on my mountain bike for a set of the relatively less chunky ones from the tandems. (Everything is relative!) He said it was pretty 'tiring' - a pun that would work better in print if we spelt tyres the north american way.

But! At least that was a job that would stay done. (He didn't get to the car tyre changing jobs he has as well - I guess he has another tiring weekend ahead.) I tend to get a bit envious of many of the tasks he sets himself to do, because they will stay done longer than, for instance, cleaning. Or ironing.

So I fiffed and faffed most of the day, finding reasons to talk a lot to him about our bike riding/holiday plans for the rest of the year (and next year), thinking of related stuff to look up online, and only managing to do a bit of a clean up of the 'clean' laundry that had been adorning our room. Like- putting sheets and towels away in the linen press. What a novel concept, hey. Only problem is, everytime I scrunched more sheets into the linen press I would groan to myself about how badly it needs a clean out.. but a clean out of the linen press? I couldn't face it. It seems like too big a task to tackle 'right now' (and the problem is I always use that excuse.) Besides, it would involve decisions. Decisions on what to throw out (and where to 'throw' it to). I threw it in the Too Hard Basket. Again.

So a big BZZZT to the 'spring cleaning' resolution. And, the exercise? Well, the moral to the story there is to Seize the Day Harvie.. Tracey. Or rather.. Seize the Morning when the Weather is Fine, Tracey. Because if you leave it till the afternoon to do your exercise bit for the day, and then you get a storm roll in at around 3.30, then, BZZZT, you've missed your self-promised endorphin hit and daily exercise dosage for the day. (And then today you compound that by stuffing around so much that before you know it it's nearly 4pm and you have to drive kids to town for netball, and call into the shops for something for dinner, then, strangely enough - given the shorter and shorter daylight hours thing that happens in Autumn - you run out of light. (So, bugger it, have a glass of wine, with crackers and dip instead...)

Just as well, then, that it's back to business tomorrow. No slothing, guilt-inducing kids hanging around. And, theoretically, plenty of hours in my day to exercise AND clean. Bring it on.

Labels: daily, holidays, introspection, Resolution

82.7 km this morning (already), thank you very much. On the bike (the tandem) that is. We left home at 5.30am. It's not really light at that time now. Marc has invested in a super duper bike headlight, and a flashing red light that you'd have to be blind to miss, but it was still a bit disconcerting riding down the highway.. I don't know where all the traffic was coming from this morning compared to three weeks ago. (Perhaps people returning from school holidays, but being on the road at dawn is pretty keen. Says me, who is on the road at that time on a bloody bike!)

The community ride was more enjoyable than usual - we rode in a group that broke away and went a bit faster, further, and a varied route. The change of scenery was good, and riding faster was good too.

With, by the end of that, about 60km under our belts before 8am, I was feeling a bit peckish! After the ride we sit and have coffee and a bite to eat at a cafe in the city centre square, and this morning I wolfed down my half of the BLAT (bacon/lettuce/avocado/tomato), then paid for it all the way home, with a gut ache. Ech. That didn't stop Marc aiming to crack the 30kph average speed mark by the time we got home. (I wondered why we were really pushing it, even once we turned off the highway! - but I wasn't game to complain.) We did crack it, but I staggered off the bike once we arrived home, and then collapsed on the front lawn for about 20 minutes. Next time, hopefully without pain, we should do it with ease. Nothing like a setting yourself a challenge to make you work hard. And nothing like riding on the back of a tandem to make you put in, when on your own bike you might just slacken off because "ohmigod, my gut hurts"!

We had a few compliments on our tandem riding today, which is nice, as the hyper-sensitive part of me (yes really!) usually feels like other cyclists don't think much of them, basically because they have had no experience of them. (Like they think the one on the back - me in this case - is just luggage, and I always get the "vibe" from women 'roadies' in particular that riding stoker on a tandem is second rate. And - like - why would you relinquish control - to a male! - and not having control of the steering, braking etc.) Someone today, though, told us we looked really professional! LOL. Well, it is easy to look good on a tandem, as you have no choice but to pedal in synch, but, hell, I'll take any praise and bask in it. We blow the single bikes away on the flats and downhills. Yee ha. Yes, perhaps I am a speed junkie. Certainly the speed factor is what attracted Marc to tandems in the first place. And, given that tandems are not as abundant in Australia as they appear to be in the US, for example (where they have tandem rallies of several hundred tandems at once!), then it is a process of educating our bike riding community. And I can take every chance I can to explain the team process involved in tandeming.

I wish we had a photo of us riding it - but so far I guess we've not ridden it where other people have cameras. (And we're going so fast, we'd just be a blur... ha!)

Yesterday afternoon I was true to my re-resolution, and bolted out for a half hour/40min walk up the beach and back as soon as I'd 'got rid of' the kids' friends who came to play for the day. How lucky am I to live where I do - where going for a walk is such a delight to the senses. 150 metres from my front door and I am on the sand and striding up the beach. It is a flattish beach, so at half to low tide, the sand is hard enough to walk on easily, and you can walk half an hour (to the north) without getting to the next headland.

Last night there was an awesome cloud formation which I realised was a storm cell. The top of the cloud was illuminated in a reddish/pinkish glow from the light of the setting sun, and with lightning flashes within, I felt privileged to be witnessing one of nature's light shows. Oh to have had a camera with me, although I know it wouldn't have captured it fully - certainly not the lightning.

On the way back, just as it was getting dark, I even found something in me to break into a jog. I am cautious about attempting to run, as last year when I was determinedly thumping my way around a 2.5 km cross country course I gave myself a lot of hip 'issues'. So I tried 10 jogging steps, 10 walking, 20 jogging, 20 walking.. and increased it by 10 each time till I got up to 70 jogging steps. It felt good. So I will see how I go. It did occur to me last night that if I avoided throwing my back/hips out by attempting to run, the money I'd save per month on chiropractic sessions would help fund my private trainer sessions, which are probably better for me in the long run.

I know, I must sound obsessed with the exercise thing at the moment. Plenty of woman out there way more hard core than me though. I am just determined, this time, to keep doing it enough to reap the benefits, and I am chuffed with myself that this year (after the Big Ride) we are not losing our bike riding fitness, but continuing to push the envelope. The weight loss is only part of it. The zingy-zing-zing endorphins you have jumping around the rest of the day are a more immediate reward - just as long as you don't scoff your BLATs.

Labels: bike riding, endorphins, go me, losing weight, Resolution

Three and a half months on. Time to revisit/revise the Resolution that I made. No point getting to Jan 3 next year and saying 'oh bugger'. Or to Jan 15 - the full year on from another post I made about goals and objectives and finding that I didn't stick to any of them.

So how have I done?

Just to remind myself:

Tracey's Goal for 2007:
To lose 10kg and get fit for the Big Ride (a 9-day, 500km bike ride) in March.

Sub-goal:
Lose 1 kg per month.

Objectives (or how I am going to make that work; wishful thinking is not allowed):

Exercise: Every day. Half hour walk each morning. Bike ride every second day. Make appointment with trainer, and invest approx $100 in 3 or 4 private sessions before hopefully joining a group class.

Eating: More fruit. More vegetables. More multigrain. More 'low GI' choices. Less fat. Less sugar. Less alcohol.

What have I actually achieved out of that?

I didn't stick to my walking everyday.

But I signed up to the personal trainer. I've spent twice as much as I initially intended, but it is working! And it feels good! Money well spent, in terms of self esteem etc.

I did get fit for the Big Ride. And we are still riding our bikes - something we didn't do last year!

On April 4 I was on track with the weight loss, and got the lost centimetres thrown in for free!

A bit more low GI/multigrain/fruit has been consumed, but I'm not doing too well on the alcohol front. I have reduced my caffeine intake - mostly I don't have a coffee after dinner anymore (occasionally I'll have a 'half-caff').. and I am sleeping better for it. It also shows I can make changes, so I shall have to direct some of that willpower to the alcohol issue.

In the last couple of weeks, things like it being school holidays, relationship issues, Easter chocolate, and unkind monthly "women's problems", have been throwing up challenges that have thrown me off track a bit, and I feel like I've taken back at least a kilo, and quite possibly some of those centimetres. If I am not careful, I'll lose what I have gained (Well actually, gain what I have lost - you know what I mean!) With things going back to 'normal' next week - well, in the everyday routine department anyway (ie. thank god the kids are back at school!) - I thought it was time to regroup, get back on track, and maybe revise the sub-goals.

The weight loss resolution still stands. A kilo a month.

Exercise? - I'll revise that to doing some form of exercise everyday. Cycle, walk, swim, trainer... those are my options. But I must attempt to do a minimum of half an hour of something.

Eating? - Keep cutting the caffeine. Try to cut the alcohol, kiddo. You regret it every night, so why do you use it as a crutch? Back to the low GI stuff - which pretty much incorporates everything you should be doing. Basically try to make good decisions. Got rid of the last Easter egg today! so no more chocolate temptations. (Damn the kids for making another cake! )

I am still kind of drawn to the idea of lots of exercise so that I can cheat a bit on the intake department.

In the meantime I have a few other goals to achieve in other areas, but I probably should stick to my resolution to have just One Resolution! I will chip away at other areas, though.

Some ideas:
* go see a bloody counsellor and sort yourself out.
* dejunk or clean one area or one 'thing' in the house each day. Doesn't matter how small.
* address a couple of bigger 'projects' that I keep putting off. Like hemming curtains. OK, I'm giving myself one month to do the curtains.
* start back on the extension plans. It will give me a project to work on.
* less "talk" more action. Says it all really.

Labels: introspection, losing weight, Resolution

Seriously, the house is in such a mess, it pretty much needs one of those reality shows where they haul everything out into the front yard, embarrass the crap out of you, but you start from scratch in the house again. I swear we could throw out half the Stuff! that we have in here, and we wouldn't miss it - because half the time we can't find it when we want it anyway! (eg. this week we were looking for a packet of brass picture hanging wire that I know we have because the mirror in the ensuite fell off the wall (again). Could we find it? No. Did I have to buy another roll? Yes.. So does that mean we actually now have 2 rolls of picture hanging wire in the house? Why yes! Of course! Somewhere.)

Once the house had been stripped of all the crap, it could then be cleaned properly, because I am such a pathetic cleaner that it is now all beyond an average clean. And it is so hard to clean around everybody's Stuff! that I end up just poking the vacuum cleaner, broom, duster, mop, or sponge at and around things, which, of course, leaves corners of copulating dust bunnies, and cobwebs in the (exposed) rafters that would out-cobweb Miss Havisham's house (as I always imagined it from the book.) - Actually, take your pick from the "Fictional squalorees" on that link I just found! - some I don't know, but could probably quite aptly be compared to!)

It might be Autumn, but baby, this house needs a spring clean. No, that's not enough.. it needs some sort of 'Of the Decade' scale clean out. Snow White!!! Where are you?!!!

I am lucky most days to get beyond making the kitchen barely presentable. And I am lucky most weeks to manage to clean the bathroom basins and the loos. And now to really make any inroads into any area of the house, I know that the dust will get up my nose, and it'll be sneeze city. (Hello Sinus & Hayfever tablets!...)

So gross. It's di-a-bolical. But I just ...don't ...know ...where ...to... start.

(Actually, I've just read the home page of that last link (amazing what you can stumble upon on the internet isn't it?!) and I realise that I perhaps haven't sunk quite to the depths yet... and realistically, I am exaggerating slightly - it's not quite Miss Havisham level. I think perhaps I am just at First Degree Squalor Level) (And OMG, I just read about C.H.A.O.S. - Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome - which I feel that I have the first symptoms of!.. oh scary thought!)

I guess it is all doable, and with the school holidays starting, and we aren't going away anywhere.. then it might be appropriate to get the whole family involved. And for me to then make some changes - to myself, as well as to the habits of the family - so that the rest of the year sees an improvement, instead of a slide into the Totally Out-of-Control or Second Degree Squalor!


After getting a haircut this morning, and then doing the duty attendance at the school's Easter Hat Parade, (yes it was pretty ho hum, but I was THERE)... I'm running out of time to do anything constructive... again... as usual.... because I tend to fill in the gaps between 'appointments' with blog reading, online newspaper browsing, coffee drinking, morning tea, then lunch... and .. another coffee... and... well.. blogging. Like I am now! (Do you see any time management issues happening here?)

I am getting that teary PMS-ish feeling welling up in me again too, so I know that I would probably feel better if I took myself out for some exercise - a walk at least - even if I am feeling all stiff and sore from the weight training yesterday! (A "good" stiff and sore, but sheesh...)

I am considering suggesting a visit to the library with the kids after school for us all to pick up some holiday reading. I approach even this with some trepidation because I know that it will mean more Stuff! to lie around the floors (and to have to track down when the books are due again... the nooks and crannies Zoe manages to find to secrete (and forget) books in is quite impressive really...) But we haven't done any local library borrowing for a while, so it is probably time we did so.. so as I can be a "good" parent and all that.

Oh well.. wish me luck! I have shown that I can make some changes in my life. The weight/centimetres loss! And I can now get up at 5 am to go bike riding! (We are going to go again on Saturday!) I have stopped drinking coffee after dinner! I CAN CHANGE!!!

Labels: clean ups, daily, Resolution

In our household, some things seem to take forever to happen. Things like house maintenance, and gardening, clean ups (and yes okay with me it's the everyday cleaning...)

Some things, I have to say, happen only because my meritorious Other Half makes them happen. I am the dreamer, and the follower. And the Personal Assistant. In some instances I get carried away with an idea (like "Yes, let's do the Big Ride again"), and I push for it to happen. But I rely on him to supply the logistics, the technical know-how, and the motivation. Particularly when it comes to motivating the whole family, because sometimes I have trouble just getting myself going.

Sometimes though (and less often than I would like, actually, because I am lazy that way), things just land in your lap. Those palm trees - that dropped the fruit that lay over the ground that Tracey raked and shovelled and did her back in because of - are 'gooorrrn'. Over the weekend. Already! Gone, gone, gone. And there was me saying that was yet another of our 'get round to it' jobs.

The neighbour's 21 year old son works for his uncle who does tree lopping. While he doesn't get to do much 'up in the trees' work, he has a chainsaw. And so, because there were quite a few other branches and foliage from trees on our side of the fence which had grown too far over onto their side (dropping leaves in their gutters etc..) his Dad thought it was an excellent idea to get him up out of bed on a Saturday morning to earn himself some extra 'pocket money' for half the price it would cost to get the uncle himself to do it.

We thought that sounded ok.. and while we were talking about that.. we suggested while he was at it he could also lop off the offending fruit and dead branches of the palm tree .. and, actually, why not get rid of the damn things entirely? Them and the annoying other branches along our fenceline... all for $170. We're happy, he's happy, his dad is a bit of a slavedriver it turns out, but seemed happy, and we got to chat and get to know each other a bit more. (He's a nice "kid".) And Marc took 3 trailer loads of it all to the tip, which turned out to be a lot cheaper than getting a 'professional' to cart it away.

It's a bit strange - the gap where they used to be. They did block out a bit of the western sun, but they were only going to get higher (and thus even harder to maintain...) So.. it's OKAY. Geez, it hadn't even made The List, and it has already happened!

I wish more things could happen serendipitously like that.

Reality is, of course, that with most things you have to put a bit of effort.

Satisfyingly we did 'make things happen" in other areas of our lives over the weekend. The important area, which is the Big Ride preparation.

It did take Mr Dad to get us going.. with a 5 am rise on Saturday morning to go into town for the 6.30 am community bike ride. (6.30 - 8.00, then you get to sit and have coffee, and something nice for "brunch".) We only rode about 26km (a bit more for Marc and the two on the triplet, they rode in a faster group, which Cait and I haven't been able to keep up with.) But it was time in the saddle, and it made us do it. (And it made us practise getting up.) And, amazingly, after the previous weekend's 130km, no bum amongst us felt saddle-sore on such a 'small' ride. The merits of training. It's not just about the aerobic and muscle fitness.

So Sunday he scheduled another, bigger, training ride, with some hills. 63km total.. including a 3 km long hill winding up through the banana farms, and then some ups and downs for the rest of the way. We learnt last year that we would have been better off if we'd done more training. And now that we know what sort of riding days to train for, Marc is intent on getting us better prepared in what weekends we have left. (He will have another trip to KL between now and the Big Ride.) Just as well we've got him to make us do it.

It wasn't easy. Hills can be hard! (Especially on a tandem.) I was feeling it. To my shame I was even doing a few Sharipova imitations.. though apparently I sounded more .. disconcerting... Not so much "grunt", more "wail" perhaps. I did feel like crying a couple of times.

"You need to get more aerobic training, kiddo" said he. "You're the one that wanted to do the Big Ride again." I held back the tears of frustration, knowing he had a point... and as I continued riding I thought the answers I should have come up with immediately:

"Well, what do you think we're bloody doing right now if it's not training?" and

"Yes, I pushed for us to sign up again, because sometimes it actually is me that makes things happen and I do believe it was you and Cait who were the first to say you wanted to do it again", and

"Last Wednesday I couldn't walk without my back hurting, so I think, under the circumstances I'm doing pretty well riding this", and

"I haven't had swimming squad for 6 weeks over the holidays, which definitely helps my aerobic fitness (I went to my first session back last Friday and had to ditch because of my back..) "...AND

"I had that cough for 6 weeks, so, again, under the circumstances, I think I'm doing OK."

And .. "Yes, thank you for making us do this training because I know we need it AND we're all frigging MAD doing this, what in god's name possesses me to want to do stuff like this?"

[I know the answer to that last question, of course. It's the RETROSPECT. The Explaining Of Which would be the topic of a whole new blog post entirely. ]

Meanwhile, on the 'making things happen' front, I am wondering how much money I can feasibly sink in to my fitness, and maintenance of my dicky back. The alternative, though, is to sit back and vegetate, so it is probably not an option.

Weights with the trainer today. Swimming squad. (The back did twinge still, so I am thinking one more chiro session might be necessary to get me over this latest 'attack'.) I've a solo bike ride with a friend scheduled for Wednesday. More weights and more swimming on Friday. And more bike riding on the weekend.

I'm sure that goes some way towards making things happen. We'll just not go into all the other stuff I should be making happen.

Labels: bike riding, introspection, Resolution

Today I have spent too much time just writing about How to Achieve my Goal for 2007, but I am a bit pumped, so I am reporting back in.

I rang the Personal Trainer whose card I've had for a while, and I have decided to invest $240 in about 7 one-on-one sessions, and then most likely join a group of 3 class that would only cost $10 a time (probably once a week.)

Marc won't think it's value for money, but I do. I need the discipline of reporting in to someone, and if I achieve, by the end of the year, my goal weight of 10kg less, with a fitness programme to suit me, then I think it will be money well spent. (She will also cover nutrition and food choices so that's another area covered.)

I'm booked in for my first session next Monday (gives me some time to get over this chest infection), but already we've agreed that I will walk every day as a build up to it.

Already the commitment is helping me make more sensible food choices today, so I am optimistic.

Now for the rest of the stuff I should have been doing today!

Labels: Resolution

I'm not sure where this post is going. It could end up being a list of resolutions I swore I wasn't going to make. Or it could end up being worthy of submitting to the Write Away Contest that I noticed Misc Mum had made a contribution to today. Or quite possibly neither. Let's see what happens. (Note to self: bad start in the setting of goals department!)

I had determined that today was to be the First Day of the rest of my ... year (well der!) Our 'goals' for the first two weeks of January - with The Breadwinner being on leave for two weeks - came undone. Thank you respiratory infection (mine), crummy beach weather, and dislocated shoulder (his). Back to work for him today. As we lay in bed last night, contemplating sadly what we hadn't achieved during his leave, I opined "Well, it wasn't action-packed like we planned, but at least it was Restful." Silver lining? Or moving the goalposts retrospectively? As we can't turn back time, all we can do is look to the future.

I am almost better (despite starting a repeat course of antibiotics yesterday) and so today seemed like the obvious day to start again. To revise the goals for the year, and start work on achieving them. NOW.

Goals, goals, goals. What are they? Short-term aims? Long term aims? They are just pie in the sky ideas, or virtuous but vague resolutions of the kind made over a champagne or three, without a realistic plan of attack. As I strode up the beach this morning (ticking off in my mind one thing off my 'to-do' list, and mulling over "Goals") I recalled the theory from my Recreation Programming units at college. Teachers will know what I am talking about. Project Managers surely will too.

If I recall the theory correctly, you need Aims and Objectives. Aims (or Goals - for the purposes of this post) are the general things you are aiming for at the end of your lesson/project/unit... But then you need Objectives, which specify various steps/actions which in the end will lead you to fulfilling your goal.

Goals have more vague time frames - short term/long term.

Objectives are more specific with time, but as our first 2 weeks of this year have demonstrated, they need to be flexible. To work around interruptions like kids, accidents, health, weather, etc.

OK. There's the theory. But can I make it work? Or will I get bogged down in the detail, and subplots? I swore I was making but one Resolution/goal this year, and that was to lose weight (I lied. There are a range of other things I want to change or get on top of, but I am going to try very hard to focus on this one, and hope there is worthy spinoff. Don't ask me if that's a goal or objective, I don't really know).

Here we go:

Tracey's Goal for 2007:

• To lose 10kg and get fit for the Big Ride (a 9-day, 500km bike ride) in March.

Sub-goal:

• Lose 1 kg per month.

Objectives (or how I am going to make that work; wishful thinking is not allowed):

• Exercise: Every day. Half hour walk each morning. Bike ride every second day. Make appointment with trainer, and invest approx $100 in 3 or 4 private sessions before hopefully joining a group class.
• Eating: More fruit. More vegetables. More multigrain. More 'low GI' choices. Less fat. Less sugar. Less alcohol.
• Write post about how to set these goals and objectives. (Hmmm.. slipped that one in, do you think anyone will notice?)

Ah there.. I am finding goals within objectives, and objectives within goals, and potential sub-objectives (like how the hell to drink less alcohol) and I am basically tying myself in knots. I knew this wasn't going to be as easy as I thought, and I also have to keep pushing away the other goals and resolutions crowding into my conscience (ok, ok, it's getting on top of the brothel that is my house.. now shut up!) It's a start though, and it is open to revision, and further detail.

I have one other objective to list, and it's a one-size fits all variety. It's not new. It's something I already know. It's something you already know. And unless your primary goal is to spend all day blogging or reading blogs, you know what it is.

• Get up, push away the chair, and walk away. Walk away from the computer. And go and do all those other things that you have listed in your objectives.

Wish me luck. And good luck to you. We probably all need it.

(And look! Without even trying I have written a post about 'Goals'. )

Labels: introspection, Resolution

I think I was waiting for a defining moment when I could say "Eureka! I am completely better". But it's not going to happen that way, and if I wait till there is not one ounce of snot or phlegm left, and I don't cough at all then I might be waiting forever- or go insane in the meantime. This
"Rest" tactic is all very well, but I now feel like a blob. Which is not unsurprising, seeing I have been acting like a blob. And now, having been a blob for a few days, it feels harder than normal to get going again. (And that's saying something - you know I'm the master of procrastination...) And I have more work to do to get back to normal because I feel fat, look fat - and I really wonder whether I would have been better off to have kept up some sort of exercise.

It would help if I didn't have to fight through everyone else's lethargy as well.. It's nearly midday and Caitlin is still in bed. We slept in till 10ish (we're in this stupid cycle of going to bed after midnight, then sleeping in big time.) And now it's midday and I've had breakfast, sat here, and not done another thing.

Marc keeps sitting at his laptop doing work stuff - which is fairly normal for holidays - but it feels I have to fight for his attention even more than usual because he is disappointed or cheesed or something because we haven't been able to bike ride. He is at the goddamn laptop the minute he comes downstairs in the morning... (At least I have the good grace to eat my cereal before I get on the computer!) He is there now.

It's not like we don't have other Stuff! to do other than bike rides. Yesterday I finally got him to talk about our extension plans - after glaring at him when he said he had to ring someone at work. Just now I've reminded him that I have a chiropractor appointment at 2.30, and I reminded him that I'd suggested we all go into town. (We'd told the girls we'd buy new boogie boards after christmas..) He denied all knowledge of that suggestion!!

So I am sitting here in a bit of a "NOBODY EFFING LISTENS TO ME" funk. The kids are bad enough.. but when I know I've spoken to him about something and it's gone in through one ear and out the other, then I wonder why I bother saying anything at all.

Enough! Time for some action. A bomb under me, and a bomb under each and every other person in this family...

Labels: aarrrgghhh, daily, Resolution

* Conditions apply.

I am not making New Year Resolutions. Plural. Not even funny, clever ones! I'm not funny or clever enough. I could make none.. but I need a catalyst for change. After all, I've been whingeing about myself online for a good year or so now. (Only a few months here, but I was elsewhere before this.)

So.. I'm making just one. One resolution for this year. If I only make one, then I might have a hope in hell of achieving it, and if I achieve it, then there should be spin-off.. and all these other resolutions that I would be making if I was making a list (and make ad nauseum anyway) will be resolved without me even making them. Self-esteem and energy and fitness increased.. and the rest will follow. That's the plan.

My One Resolution:

To lose weight. 5 kg by mid year - to get below my nemesis 70kg mark. If I can do that, I'll aim for the next 5 by the end of the year. Pre-baby weight thereabouts..... but a weight I also achieved just before I got pregnant with #3.

No, I probably wouldn't qualify for The Biggest Loser.. but these extra 10kgs (20ish pounds) that I'm carting around are having a negative effect on my life. Yes, I am fitter than some.. many... and we do all this bike riding... but my size is such that my choice of cycling jerseys is limited because so many aren't made big enough for me! I cull most of the photos of me because I want to cry.

Theoretically it shouldn't be hard.. I'm already committed to a certain amount of exercise. But I need to do more, and I need to stop feeding myself all these kilojoules. That's the biggest challenge. And a big challenge when you are feeding a family of 3 kids who have no need to lose weight, you are a chocoholic, addicted to at least one alcoholic drink per night, and try to eat your way through any down feelings.

Despite rolled eyes and scoffing (by Himself), I am going to pay for a few private sessions with a local fitness trainer I've heard about (and then hopefully move to a cheaper, shared class.) I know from past experience that paying someone does make you more accountable (I saw a nutritionist that other time) and to date my willpower to do it by myself has been woeful. I hope I can do the food thing by myself... if I can get the exercise thing under control with some help.
Marc said he can be my personal trainer.. but it is not going to work if he frowns at me for having a beer when he has one in his hand!

* The fine print? I should have started already, right? It's already the 3rd January. I just can't face it when I'm coughing and blowing so much snot out of my nose, and with a sort of blocked ear. And with an itchy you-know-where... (TMI!!- soorrrry, but it's driving me up the wall, and yes I've treated it.)

Please, please, please... let me be BETTER so I can start this bloody Resolution. Singular.

Labels: introspection, Resolution