January Challenge

I have, as predicted, decided that my resolution for 2010 is to choose a challenge for each month. The point is to work on some aspect of my life that I'd like to improve on as appropriate for each month, given weather and special events during the month. Also, given my attention span, it makes more sense for me to do it this way rather than to try to do something all year.

So, for January, I've decided on two aspects of my challenge; food and exercise.

For food I will eat a set meal plan most of the time. For non holiday weekdays, I will have steel cut oats with fruit, flax meal and cinnamon for breakfast. Lunch will be a salad and a wheat berry/corn/bean/kale Tex-Mex dish. Dinner will consist of the usual variety. One day a week - Saturday night - will be dessert night, during which I can have a homemade dessert of some sort (no bake cookies made with nuts and dates, a smoothie, oat bars, even a bowl of cereal - whatever homemade treat we'd enjoy). Otherwise, after dinner snacking may include fruit and/or air popped popcorn. Any other between meal snacking that I might feel the need for will be raw veggies. Weekends and holidays are different because we do special breakfasts - pancakes or muffins - and I will continue to participate in those meals. Also, our meals are often off on weekends, timing wise, so, other than the dessert rule, weekends and holidays are set apart from the food plan.

I'm keeping my exercise challenge simple. In addition to the time I already spend exercising, which I'll just keep up with, I will do 500 pull ups over the course of the month. I'll track them on the white board next to the door with the pull up bar. Any pull up is acceptable - hands forward or backward, kipping, whatever.

That's it. I'll keep you posted on how it's going or, at least, give a summary at the end of the month.

Anthony tells me that he is going to do a monthly challenge this year, as well, and is thinking he'll do the pull up thing, but I don't know yet if he'll do anything regarding food yet. I'd like to hear that he is going to say no to the candy dish at work for the month, but I'm also trying not to nag.

Davan made a list of all the things she'd like to do or work on this year and, of those she felt like sharing, it includes becoming a better cook, continuing to work hard at Do Jump, read a lot (like she doesn't already), create her own tea to brew and make some new friends.

We're doing a simple family celebration of the New Year this evening. I've got beans going in the crockpot for Mexican beans to make nachos with this evening for dinner (baked tortilla chips, of course). Davan has asked to have time to reminisce about other New Years, to talk about hopes and dreams for this year and to look at all of our pictures from this year and talk about the highlights. We'll also play some games and watch a movie. Anthony wants to watch the ball drop at midnight.

Tomorrow we're going to go snowshoeing up on Mt Hood to start the New Year off right, provided that the weather cooperates at least to some extent. It's raining like crazy here right now, which, although I haven't checked to make sure, probably means that it's snowing like crazy up there, which means that road conditions could be pretty bad tomorrow, as the storm is predicted to stay with us for a couple days.

At any rate, Happy New Year's Eve and I hope you are all planning something fun, be it low key or not!