May Day! May Day! May Day!

Happy May Day!

I feel like it's a new beginning. Anybody else? And it couldn't be more perfect that today falls on a Friday. It feels even MORE like a new beginning as I have the weekend to recharge & start fresh. Fresh, fresh, fresh.

I know fresh starts are usually reserved for New Years and birthdays. But I just can't help it. It FEELS fresh. Maybe it has something to do with the change in the weather. I feel springy. And with the brighter season, I'm dusting off my new years resolutions and brightening my outlook. To memorialize this event, I'm picking the areas where I am committing to do a little better:

1) working out. I was doing well before, but then we threw in the wrench of transitioning to working full-time AND waking up an hour earlier. This threw my desire to WORK out... WAY out... the window. I think its symptomatic of the fact that routine changes take a lot out of me. I need adjustment periods before I am really able to juggle the new changes along with everything else. Now that I have been working full-time for a couple weeks and am finally waking up on time refreshed and no longer need to nap when I get home, I think I'm ready to get cracking again. Woohoo!

2) I am reaffirming my commitment to cook so Ben and I eat at home. And eat HEALTHY at home. Left to his own devices, I believe Ben would live off of cream cheese, salsa, chips, hot dogs and licorice. And maybe some Taco Bell. No Quiero Taco Bell! We've been doing well so far, even with the fact that we both work now. We just have to keep it up ....and diversify the lunch menu a little bit more. Canned soup and lunchmeat sandwiches are going to get old really fast.

3) A new affirmation -- ramping up preparations to buy a house. This involves many things, but the most pressing is for me to be the monkey on Ben's back, nagging him to finish working on the jeep. We can't move until we have a second car and he will never finish the work on the jeep to get it to drive-able if I leave him alone. I have the last.... oh, year or so of the non-finishing of the jeep as proof of this. And I am a believer and a hoper that I do not nag about much else. But I'm willing to resort to almost anything to become a two-car family. A woman needs her vehicular freedom!

4) we must budget like fiends so we have enough money to buy the darn thing. Good thing I like budgeting. But it's getting harder and harder as I am seeing that my clothes (especially my shoes!) are less and less updated and more and more worn looking. I know, I know. I'm hard-pressed to make convincing argument that I'm needy in this area. But I really DO need a good, reliable black handbag. Don't you think? :) And Coach makes the loveliest handbags..... I think my christmas list is going to be long this year.

One cool tool we found to watch our monthly expenses is this website called Wesabe, if anyone is interested. I think it rocks, and is a lot easier to use than Microsoft Money (granted I've never tried Quicken. But we're cheap and Wesabe is free and online.)

4) Finding a fitness goal. What should it be? Another 1/2 marathon? Maybe I'm getting to old and I should scale back to 5 and 10k's? I'm totally jacked up after 1/2's. Or maybe forget that and do all of the above? Or starting out a new sport -- the triathlon? I kinda wanna do a triathlon, but I wanna get a bike for it, and THAT is probably going to be a "hold" item till we get the house(kinda like my black coach handbag. :)) But I need to do something for motivation's sake. I miss these little mile stones. I want to pick one, commit, and get to it.

5) list-making. I used to make a lot of lists. I found these lists to be incredibly helpful in getting things done. Now, I do not make lists so much, and I get LESS done. I will write lists again. Maybe. :)

6) using my free time more wisely. This is coupled with the list-making goal. I don't know what exactly I will do with my free time, but sometimes I waste it not doing anything. And really I don't even ENJOY not doing anything. Admittedly, this problem is a little new to me. I don't think I've really HAD free time over the past few years until we moved to Ohio. So, it's no wonder I don't know what to do. All the more reason to capitalize on using it well.

Now, I do realize that "fresh start" is a total misnomer for anyone who has been alive for more than a day. I am a creature of habit and the fact that I'm not already in the habit of having these things mastered speaks strongly against my ability to do these things and for them to stick. But I believe I have hope. I'm a work in progress. See Sharon Run. See Sharon stop running for a couple weeks. See Sharon run again. See Sharon make a list. See Sharon make a list twice. See Sharon make progress.

I think this makes for a lovely easy-reader for 1st graders. And if they can get it, I too should be able to get it.