47 for 47 Challenge | BulgingButtons

December 3, 2013
by BulgingButtons 24 Comments

Establishing New Habits

Welcome to December. The most ~~wonderful~~ fattening time of the year. I have a confession to make. I have regained some of the weight I lost back when the blog was new. Maybe all of it. I’m afraid to get on the scale. I know, though. My clothes are tighter again and I don’t feel as energized as I did.

Oh sure, there are lots of reasons. The first and most compelling reason is the change in weather. I was in my pool nearly every day exercising and I LOVED it. Weird. But then it got cooler out and the water became too cold so there went my favorite workout. Boo hoo, poor me.

There there was my commitment to spending most of my free time in November writing. And write I did! Many many words poured from my brain through my fingertips. A post a day (sometimes more than one) and a rough draft of a novel came out of my head. Amazing. But writers need fuel (I find that Hot Tamales candy makes me particularly creative), and writing is a sedentary activity. My musings on that topic are here. Yep, I know, excuses, excuses.

So there it is. The weight is back and now it’s holiday time and frankly, I’m not feeling all too pleased with how I’ve been taking care of myself. Or rather how I haven’t been. Oh sure, November was a kick ass month and I’m thrilled with some of the results, but now December calls for some changes.

Besides being holiday time, December is the time of year when I remember a friend who died far too young. She was healthy and vibrant and wonderful and capable. She was a wife and mother and daughter and sister and creative tour de force. That bitch cancer got her and had its way with her. She begged her friends to take care of themselves as best they could. I’m not doing that. I’m sorry.

I’m not saying I want to get healthier out of fear of cancer, per se, but out of respect for it, and heart disease, and diabetes, and all the other nasty complications of obesity. Yes, I’m obese. I know I am, and I don’t love it. (Read some of the reasons why here) I don’t beat myself up over it, because that’s counterproductive, but I do acknowledge it. Intellectually I know I have to get going, but emotionally I’m feeling a little stuck.

I think what stops me in my tracks is the knowledge that I’ve done this a million times before. I get fed up, I shake things up, I make some changes, and I improve my health and fitness levels to a greater or lesser degree. The problem is that I never take it far enough. I lose momentum. I need to develop new habits. Fortunately, November has shown me that I’m perfectly capable of doing just that.

Writing has become a habit for me. Instead of writing once or twice a week (if that) I’m writing once or twice a day, and for longer periods of time. I’m exploring different ways of expressing myself, and I’m not afraid to tackle topics that might have intimidated me previously. I need to take that determination and drive into the battle for my health. This is a fight I need to win. I must create new habits. I better warm up the treadmill and dust off my awesome pink boxing gloves. I have proven to myself that I can take on and complete a challenge. My new challenge is taking care of myself. Anyone care to join me? One step at a time, one change at a time, one day at a time.

December 1, 2013
by BulgingButtons 3 Comments

Scrapbooking and Fitness – When Worlds Collide {plus Fabulous Freebies}

Happy December! How odd to wake up with no pressure to post anything, no word count to worry about, no impending deadline looming. Yes, there’s lots of schoolwork to be caught up on waiting in my every present tote bag, but I’ll get it done. I aways do. Still, I had a few extra minutes to take my time as I read email, and I came across a gem by one of my favorite scrapbook divas of all time, Cathy Zielske. If her clean lines and graphic style aren’t enough to hook you, maybe her tag line on her blog will, “Taking the crap out of scrapbooking since 2001.” I love that.

Cathy has taught classes for quite a while, and I have been fortunate enough to take some of them. She has published books, and done all sorts of other super cool projects over the years. Well, this year she designed some terrific subway art printables for Christmas and Hanukkah (yay, cool Hanukkah stuff!) that she’s giving to her subscribers. In the email she also mentioned a class she’s teaching online at Big Picture Classes in January. The class? Move More Eat Well Jumpstart. Does the woman know her demographic or what?

Of course I had to click the link to check it out, and I have to say, for the $31 sale price I’m seriously tempted. It’s good eating, sensible movement, and cool scrapbooking in a motivating online community with a super cool real woman spearheading it. I could forgo a couple of Starbucks trips for that.

Here’s the thing, though, even if you don’t take that class, they have others, and some of them are FREE. How can you beat that? If you don’t like it or life gets in the way and you don’t finish it, NO GUILT. I love that! With holiday season here, maybe a quick class on organizing or streamlining techniques might be for you. There are also tons of e-books, and I downloaded a FREE one of those, too. Love it!

I swear, I get nothing for telling you about this super cool stuff, just the knowledge that maybe you’ll find something that tickles your fancy over there.

If anyone does sign up for the Jumpstart class, let me know. Wouldn’t it be fun to have a little group doing it together? I would like my buttons to bulge slightly less, and this might be a fun motivating way to get going again.

November 17, 2013
by BulgingButtons 19 Comments

NaNoWriMo Freak-o

So here we are, just past the midway point to November 30. I’ve been diligently working on my Young Adult novel for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo in case you’ve missed it elsewhere) and so far I have about 23,400 words. Not quite halfway to the 50,000 word goal, but not too far off either.

I’ve been adding to my novel each day, and I’ve watched my word count steadily rise. I have been religious about backing up my work, and I’ve created a PDF or two, just in case. Everything has gone just fine. Until tonight.

Picture this, my fiance has run out to the grocery store, so I decide to add one more scene before he returns. On his way out the door he reminded me to back up onto the snazzy Peter Griffin flash drive he bought for me for just this purpose. No problem. I backed up and was ready to go. Except for one thing. I couldn’t open my document. What? Wait, I just had it. I just backed it up. Except that what I’m now looking at is about 6,000 words shy of what I had just produced.

I was stunned. I was panicked. There were tears. I told myself to calm down. I reminded myself that there were no fatalities involved. I clung to the notion that I had a PDF that was only about 2,000 words short of the version staring back at me from the screen (better than 6,000 lost, right?). Then I put on my logical reasoning cap. I was able to unearth the most recent version of the book in a relatively short time.

Just then my sweetheart walked in the door. I told him of the narrowly averted disaster, and he was properly concerned. He also admonished me to keep backing up. Grr, backing up started this whole issue. I understand its importance, and I believe in it, but I had clearly done something wrong. Later in the evening I tried again to work on that scene. My computer met me with a snide little message saying that there was no such document, and would I like a blank one instead? NO, I would NOT like a blank one. I want the one with 23,400 words in it, thank you very much.

After a second freak out session (no tears this time) and a second round of calming down, the document was found in the same place it was found before (go figure). My sweetheart spent a few minutes backing up all the relevant bits and pieces (this is way more complicated than just a plain old word document, in case you’re wondering why I’m such a dummy about this), then he showed me the correct way to get my work stored on Peter Griffin. Aha! Now that I know the correct procedure I think I’ll have a lot more success. Hopefully no more freak outs are in the near future. I don’t have time for them. I have a deadline.