January | 2015 | BulgingButtons

January 18, 2015
by BulgingButtons 12 Comments

Starbucks Success and a New Challenge: Fruits and Vegetables

Well, I did it. I challenged myself to give up Starbucks cold-turkey and I did it. I haven’t been there since I issued the challenge, and I’m pretty proud of myself for that. So proud, in fact, that it actually feels good.

That good feeling got me thinking. What if I issued myself a new challenge each week? A healthy living challenge, like the no Starbucks challenge. If I could continue the old challenges while incorporating the new ones I could make some real progress.

Oh sure, these are things that I should be doing all the time, but the fact of the matter is that I don’t do them. Honestly, I was living a much healthier life back when BulgingButtons began than I am now. I don’t even want to think about trying to button up that red shirt you see at the top of the page. I have a feeling those poor buttons would pop right off.

I do like challenges, so here’s the challenge for the upcoming week: eat fruits and vegetables every day. That shouldn’t be too difficult, once I stock up on some. Maybe some baby carrots to dip in hummus and some apples to slice up. Oh, and it’s tangerine and orange season, so I might pick up some of those too, along with a couple of pre-made salads for lunch. I can do this!

If you’re someone who finds they don’t get enough produce in their diet, try it with me. Munch on some grapes or serve up some squash. Maybe add some peppers and onions to your marinara or better yet, try a veggie stir fry for dinner. I’d love to hear your ideas. Here’s to a healthy week.

January 12, 2015
by BulgingButtons 6 Comments

Quitting Starbucks Cold Turkey – Again

I’ve come to the sad realization that with just one week of work in the 2015 calendar year under my belt, I’ve visited Starbucks no fewer than 4 times (or was it 6?) and spent no less than $30. In fact, I”m sure it was quite a bit more, since I had my son with me twice, and that ups the bill considerably. Let’s see, 52 weeks in a year times $30 a week equals $1560.00 . That’s quite a bit to spend on coffee drinks and pastries.

Still, I have a good job, and if I really want to spend $1560.00 per year on something I can, but this? At the end of the year what will I have to show for that investment? My first response is “nothing,” but that’s not true. I’ll have the effects of a year’s worth of sugary, fatty drinks and pastries settling into my ever aging body. I don’t need that. I don’t want that. So why is it so hard to resist?

Now this isn’t an anti-Starbucks post. I love Starbucks. Too much. That’s my point. If I could handle it I wouldn’t have to go cold-turkey, but I can’t. For me, Starbucks is like some giant lab experiment and I’m the rat. I cheerfully get in line and hand over my hard earned money in exchange for items that I know are not beneficial to my health. Then I consume those items happily, temporarily satisfied until I begin to crave the next fix. Sometimes that craving hits the very same day, and yes, sometimes I give in to it the very same day. Too much is too much.

Unlike the lab rat, I have a choice. I can voluntarily leave the experiment. I have options. But damn, I love my Starbucks. I crave it. I don’t care about the money! I don’t care about the health issues! I just want my frappucino!

Oops, sorry. That just kind of came out. I can handle this. I can come up with better alternatives. I’ve done it before and I can do it again. Starting today I will avoid Starbucks. That extra $30 per week might just come in handy, and I know I’ll feel better after the first couple of days. I may even stop shaking as I drive by, after a few weeks anyway.

Now I’m going to brew a pot of tea to take in my thermos and fix myself some toast for breakfast. There was life before Starbucks, and there is life after it.

January 1, 2015
by BulgingButtons 4 Comments

I’m Back! Happy 2015

It’s another New Year, and so it feels like a fresh start. It feels like a brand new clean sheet of paper waiting to be written on. At least that’s what I wish it felt like. The reality is slightly different.

The reality is that my house stinks like pork ramen that my teenager apparently made in the middle of the night, and there’s the remains of a partly finished bottle of champagne on the counter along with two dirty flutes and some cracker crumbs and leftover crunch-n-munch in a bowl, and there are clothes in the dryer waiting to be folded and put away, and there’s over a week’s worth of mail to be read and sorted, and bills to be paid, and suitcases to be unpacked, and yes, still boxes from the move back in July to be dealt with. Oh. My. Gawd.

Throw in the fact that the heat isn’t working properly and that we currently have no power to the master bathroom, and all of a sudden the New Year is feeling sort of overwhelming. In fact, I don’t think I have six square feet of space anywhere in this house where I feel like everything is as it should be, even if I disregard the cold factor.

I wanted to start 2015 with a bang. I wanted to refocus and reenergize. I wanted to make it the BEST. YEAR. EVER. But here it is, not even 9 am and I realizing that maybe that goal is just a little too lofty. I need to readjust. So here’s what I’m going for instead. I’m going to do the best I can. And some days maybe even not that. I’m going to focus on the small victories, like the fact that just this morning I managed to get all my music into my new phone. Man the learning curve on that thing is steep!

I’m going to celebrate each time the dishwasher gets emptied. I’m going to feel satisfaction every time laundry is completed. I’m going to congratulate myself each time I lace up my sneakers and go for a walk. I’m going to rejoice in the love of my family. I’m going to focus on living in the moment while still keeping an eye to the future. It’s coming up quickly. We’re already halfway through my son’s junior year of high school, and once he finishes there will be huge changes for all of us. This is both exciting and terrifying, but I know we’ll get through it.

In the meantime I will keep writing, I will keep reading, I will keep teaching, I will keep living and loving and learning and trying to see the world through a positive lens. I will keep moving ahead, one step at a time. For my first step, I will clean up the kitchen. It may not be much, but it’s a start.