Welcome to 2014 January 12, 2014
Posted by mareserinitatis in family, older son, personal, younger son.Tags: chores, cleaning, dissertation, goals, grad school, housekeeper, new years day, older son, resolutions, younger son
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Despite all of my good intentions, it’s taken a bit more to get back into my routine. The youngster went back to school on Monday. I was relieved not to be teaching this week (or this semester), but I had a paper deadline this week along with a lot of other anomalous stuff.
In particular, a friend of mine passed away at the beginning of the week. It’s made this week seem a bit surreal.
That’s given me an opportunity to think about my priorities, which was something I had started reflecting on over the break. I’m not one to make resolutions, but it’s good to reflect on goals. And nothing will make you think about your goals more than realizing they can be cut short.
My thesis has been weighing heavily on my mind. I definitely reaffirmed that I want to finish my PhD, but it’s been hard and frustrating this past year, particularly the past three to four months. I really anticipated being farther because I didn’t anticipate how rough the fall semester would end up being. So I’m working on getting my schedule set up to have more time to devote to that.
Realistically, that’s the one thing I’m really not happy about. It’s a big thing, so it’s not something as simple as, “I can put in 15 minutes a day on it.” But I’m making an effort to rearrange a few things, particularly with kid schedules, to facilitate getting more time on things.
I also want to be blogging regularly again. The holidays and grading threw an awful crimp in that one. One day isn’t a data point, but you need that data point to start a trend.
I’m happy to report that our housekeeping effort is going well. That is, the kids are doing a great job. I gave up on trying to have them get things done before the weekend. We just schedule a time for them to work on it and, when we tell them it’s time to, they do. (We’ve found that it seems like we can’t get to it every week, but we’re holding steady with every other week at least.) We pay them according to which jobs they do, and we match everything they earn with a deposit into their savings account. The house is staying cleaner than when we had a housekeeper, and I think we’re actually spending less.
This is actually much more about the kids than it is about the house, though. I’m really happy that they are both at a point where they are taking responsibility for their chores. I hate breathing down their neck about anything. I also really am happy about the fact that doing chores is one thing they do cooperatively. They have a system worked out – older boy does the tall stuff, younger boy does the floor stuff that older boy hates, etc. They worked it out themselves and, even better, they seem to have fun doing it.
At the same time, the older son is getting ready to go to college this fall. I anticipate that there will be a lot of changes despite his plans to live at home. I’m impressed that he’s trying to move forward cautiously and not bite off more than he can chew. I also have no idea how the big changes over the next couple years will affect the younger son, who quite adores his older brother.
I anticipate there will be a lot of bumps in the road this year, but I’m hoping that it will be uphill from here. I guess I’d rather start the year on a sad note so that I can look forward to how much better it will get.
New year’s…ahem…goals, Pt.1 January 1, 2013
Posted by mareserinitatis in personal, running, younger son.Tags: goals, health, new years day, resolutions, running
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It’s very easy at the end of every year to look at the numbers on the scale and feel disappointed that they aren’t smaller. Or I can take measurements of my body and be upset that my diameter is definitely not where it should be.
It’s frustrating to me because I watch my diet fastidiously and am very physically active (well, when I’m not in front of the computer). But here I am.
Granted, this year has been been better than most as a result of my celiac diagnosis. I’ve been on the diet about 4 1/2 months, and it’s unbelievable the amount of positive feedback I’ve gotten about how much better I look. So obviously things are going well on that front. However, progress, as always is slow.
I also am not one to make resolutions as they can be easily dropped. So instead I set goals.
I never try to set the goal of reaching a certain weight or size. It turns out that since I started the celiacs diet, I haven’t really lost more than about 5 pounds. However, people tell me constantly that I look it. And, from what they’ve said, they think I’m lighter than I am. Mike has made the observation that I appear to be denser. However, after that comment almost resulted in physical violence, he amended it to “more compact”, which was, in my opinion, a more agreeable euphemism.
My goal, therefore, is to continue to improve my health by watching my diet and running. (In fact, I have already signed up for a half-marathon in May.) I am hoping that my efforts toward these goals will result in weight loss, but I will try not to shoot for a particular number.
There is one thing that makes me sad about my becoming “more compact”. When the younger boy was about 4, I remember him wanting to cuddle on someone’s lap. He decided to try dad’s lap as it had the closest availability. He went and sat down on Mike’s lap…and proceeded to wiggle around for five or ten minutes, obviously unsettled. He got off Mike’s lap, looking disappointed. Then he came and sat on my lap. With just a few minor adjustments, he ended up completely still with a contented sigh.
“Mom, you’re soft.”
I want to be healthy and will work toward that, but I want to be soft enough for little boys to want snuggle on my lap.
Big plans for the year January 2, 2012
Posted by mareserinitatis in family, grad school, personal.Tags: resolutions
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Last year I wrote about how I don’t make resolutions. And I don’t…but I did try to make some plans and set some goals. On the other hand, I was supposed to check up on those every three months and failed to do so. Despite that failure, I still did fairly well.
1 – Making significant progress on my dissertation. I hope it’s realistic, but I’d like to be done within 2 years.
In a year’s time, I cut down my estimated completion date by 6 mos. That’s not terribly good. On the other hand, I’m actually making some real progress now. I’m hoping that by the end of this year, I will be to the point that I can get into the heavy duty data analysis, if not further.
2 – Significantly reducing credit card debt. Having two separate residences for two years is not cheap, but neither is the interest on a credit card.
This was done…mostly by some refinancing magic. Still, no credit card debt is a good thing, and in the months since we’ve done this, we haven’t put anything back on. Even better, we’ve paid off a couple of other obligations as well.
3 – Plans to finish a half-marathon (walking) and sprint triathlon. This is because I need to exercise regularly, and I find that having a goal to work towards makes it much more likely that it’ll happen. If things go as scheduled, I actually have two triathlons on my list, but it depends a lot on finding another place to swim since NDSU took out it’s pool. If I have to wait for the public pools to open in June, I will probably only do one triathlon in July or August.
I didn’t do so well on this front. I had anticipated walking a half-marathon and did a 10k instead. I also didn’t do either triathlon. On the up side, however, I’ve started running in the past couple months, something which I really did not think I could do. (Past attempts have caused my fibromyalgia to flare up.) Today I signed up to do the 10k again, although I plan to run this time, and I signed up for a triathlon I really want to do. I’m much more committed to these things when I’ve actually paid money to do them. I also am thinking about running or walking/running a half-marathon in the fall…but I haven’t decided which one yet (Bismarck or Fargo).
4 – A more structured approach to time with family in order to make sure it happens more often. Spontaneity is great, but it reduces to the likelihood that things will happen as we’re all going different directions, even moreso with an independent teenager. We’re trying to schedule a weekly time with family as well as a couple trips.
We did well on this front until the older boy went away for the summer. Then we got out of our routine. We did go on a nice camping trip in the fall and a couple trips down to the Cities, but not anything terribly different from the normal trips we take. We’re actually planning a real vacation trip for this summer…although it’s a bit more tricky with a big dog.
5 – I have some personal goals that involve reading for fun, finishing up some crafting projects, and finding a new violin teacher so that I can start lessons again.
I didn’t get a violin teacher, but I determined that I really don’t have time for lessons. I am just playing a bit every day, working on getting back in practice. Maybe once that dissertation thing is done.
Most of my goals are similar for this year, as you can see, although I have a couple new ones pertaining to Gigadog. We’re resuming obedience classes this week, and I’m hoping that by the end of the year, she will have earned a canine good citizen award and a companion dog title. I’m also going to be showing her, and, if time permits, maybe starting on working toward water dog and draft dog titles. As you may have guessed, this will probably be a fairly time consuming effort. However, she’s happiest when she’s busy…and so am I, as it keeps her out of trouble. It’s amazing how much trouble a 100 lb. dog can get into.
So do you have any big plans for the coming year?
I resolve not to make any resolutions January 1, 2011
Posted by mareserinitatis in family, grad school, personal.Tags: planning, resolutions
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I’ve never been one to make New Year’s resolutions. That’s because the couple times I did, I never kept them. This is because resolutions are somewhat ambiguous, lacking deadlines or steps to achieve them. (At least, the way most people do them.)
I am, however, an INTJ, which means I inherently love to plan things. I mentioned a couple days ago that I was intrigued with this post on conducting an annual review. It’s so nifty, it even has a spreadsheet you can use to do your planning.
I spent some time over the last few days working on it (much to the chagrin of the younger child, who wanted to use my computer to play games on the Bionicle web site), and I came up with a few things. I won’t bore you with everything, but some of big plans involve:
1 – Making significant progress on my dissertation. I hope it’s realistic, but I’d like to be done within 2 years.
2 – Significantly reducing credit card debt. Having two separate residences for two years is not cheap, but neither is the interest on a credit card.
3 – Plans to finish a half-marathon (walking) and sprint triathlon. This is because I need to exercise regularly, and I find that having a goal to work towards makes it much more likely that it’ll happen. If things go as scheduled, I actually have two triathlons on my list, but it depends a lot on finding another place to swim since NDSU took out it’s pool. If I have to wait for the public pools to open in June, I will probably only do one triathlon in July or August.
4 – A more structured approach to time with family in order to make sure it happens more often. Spontaneity is great, but it reduces to the likelihood that things will happen as we’re all going different directions, even moreso with an independent teenager. We’re trying to schedule a weekly time with family as well as a couple trips.
5 – I have some personal goals that involve reading for fun, finishing up some crafting projects, and finding a new violin teacher so that I can start lessons again.
And of course, I plan to keep blogging!
Part of the review process is to check every three months on the progress you’ve made. I’m curious to see how this goes. :-)
So what are your plans for the new year?
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