New Year, Same Old Me

Happy New Year! It's okay to say that, even if it's the fifth, right? I spent the first in the wilderness of no Internet (isn't this 2014? South Mississippi will never change...), the second hurdling through space from MS to NC (16 hours in the rain), the third driving to Greensboro and back for an appointment at the FAA for Dennis, and the fourth recovering...including restocking the pantry and doing some cleaning. More cleaning scheduled for this morning before church, and more cleaning scheduled for every day this month. Maybe I'll get ahead of the routine winter scrub down of all the house surfaces and actually get some organizing accomplished!

Anyway...it's the fifth, and I feel like I need two more weeks to start this year "right." More plans than time, and more interests than one person can juggle. Or what I like to call "Normal Life."

Top priorities for this month include a new quilting schedule and a new exercise routine. Continuing on from my regular habits will be the Life Journal Reading Plan, over-consumption of all the books I find to read (LOL--although I am attempting to be more intentional), regular meals and sleep schedules, and many hours devoted to my business at Island Time Quilting. I have four of my own projects on the calendar to complete this month, which of course leaves time to quilt several for clients as needed.

My new quilting schedule begins tomorrow. Sugar Creek Quilters meet here at the Manor on Mondays, and for the new year, we are meeting in the afternoon AND in the evening. So, Mondays will be primarily a personal sewing day for me to piece new projects and fellowship with my dearest friends. With six hours of my day set aside to sew, I hope I can accomplish a lot of new work this year. Our group has decided to start by piecing Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt Celtic Solstice. We have a few beginners in our group, so it will be a learning and growing opportunity for them. I'm going to test several methods, including Inklingo, a fascinating technique of printing directly on fabric for the pattern pieces. Look for pictures and reports of progress after each Monday!

My new exercise routine for the next 90 days is P90X3, a 30-minute intense aerobic and body sculpting program from Tony Horton and the folks at Beach Body. Today I will take my before pictures (but will spare you from that image) and my fitness test (will share the statistics). Dennis and I enjoyed P90X last year when my brother John gave us his set of DVDs. I lost 70 pounds last year, and Dennis lost 40! Or, as Dennis says, we lost 16 gallons of fuel...everything is airplane math here. For once, though, it was nice to enjoy the holidays as the treat they are intended to be. I over-ate sugar, enjoyed breads and cookies, and mainly just loved my family. And my clothes fit, and I didn't have any guilt.

Yesterday, though, I restocked our Paleo pantry with lots of veggies, fruit and meats, and we are resuming our clean eating habits. We've been Paleo for the last 6 months, though not religiously. We read _It Starts With Food_ by the Hartwigs, and it changed our attitudes toward processed food. We now describe our food choices as "single ingredient" or I tell people my grocery list sounds like a second grade spelling list (apples, asparagus, bananas, bacon, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower...). We don't buy many things that come in a box, bag, or can. Today, Dennis cooked breakfast while I blogged, and we had two eggs, a piece of bacon, half an avocado, a handful of raspberries and half a banana. I ate one egg, and only part of my avocado (it wasn't ripe enough), but otherwise cleaned my plate. OH, AND BIG NEWS...we have switched from coffee to tea!!!! We were destroying a pot of coffee together each morning, and Dennis cannot drink his black, so he was still dealing with some added sugar and dairy. But, tea is easy for us to drink plain. We bought an electric tea kettle to interrupt our habit of making coffee, and so far it's delightful.

I'd share all the books I've read this month, but it would sound like boasting. I found Scribd, the online library that is like NetFlix for books. I am still on my free month, but it will replace my nook for all my "fluff" reading, and quite a bit of my intentional reading, too. I think my latest book count on Scribd is over 50. (It was Christmas break!) But by far, the best book of 2013 was _Island of the World_ by Michael O'Brien. It is in my top five of all time. READ IT.

So, same old me. Did I make a stack of resolutions and plans? Absolutely! Am I satisfied with the way they are written (on the right paper, in a poetic and pleasing format, with the best motivation and schedule attached)? Of course not! But here comes 2014, ready or not. 

I think I have more grace with myself now that I have established the habit of the Life Journal Reading Plan. It's a read-through-the-Bible and journal about what you read strategy that anyone can use. For me, it means I preach the Gospel to myself every day. It's like combining artist's pages (which I tried for a while) with meditation and prayer. I am taking better care of myself as a result of spending more time with my Savior. He is teaching me about love. And patience. And kindness...and a lot of that is self-directed. It's good.

Time to wrap up this and get to the business of the day. And the irony that it's the day of rest does not escape me. Clean, church, lunch, fit test, pictures, clean, AAC meeting/dinner, quilt fabric selection for tomorrow's SCQ, and anything else I can squeeze in. Ready, set, go!