Tag: future self

Kicking butt in 2021!

My coworker that I share an office with told me today that I’m super annoying. That may offend many people. But I wasn’t offended at all. Do you know why I’m annoying? I am getting stuff done and checking off my “to do” list items one after another. Apparently, that is really annoying to people who are not doing anything.

She said it’s like being trapped for 8 hours with a super peppy cheerleader. I told her in my defense… I was one in high school. I feel awesome so far this year (even though we are only a week in). I am getting stuff done. I am getting up and exercising before work every day. I am eating healthy. I am cleaning closets and purging old toys and books. I am organizing my business and revamping my social media strategy and website. I have a LONG to do list and I’m ticking off items one at a time.

Accomplishment is annoying. When did that happen? I find people who are smashing goals as inspiring. I see someone who lost 100 lbs in a year and is now wearing a sexy cocktail dress at their 50th birthday party as inspiring. Their smile is contagious. It makes me want to put down that cupcake and hit the dance floor! If someone overcomes obstacles and achieves greatness it’s inspiring, not annoying. That’s why they write books and make movies about things like that. But you know what all those people at the top have in common? They all had nay sayers in their lives who told them they couldn’t do it or that it was stupid or they were annoying and should just settle in like everyone else.

I don’t want to be like everyone else. A boring life of mediocrity sounds like an absolute nightmare to me. I have goals. I want to achieve things. I want to travel and see things and do things and inspire other people to rise up out of the muck and dare to be annoying. I hope to someday inspire others to do the things they dream of no matter what that dream is. They don’t need to be anything special or different to do great things they just need to try. Then if you fail regroup and try again. Keep trying and modifying and trying until one day you did it! Despite the nay sayers and the people who thought you were annoying.

I know some people are thinking about their dreams as they read this and think…yeah, right. That’s easy for you to say you have done so much already. Well, I started out with nothing…twice and rebuilt my life. Nothing was handed to me either time. In fact both beginnings were full of drama. Both times I had a job. My clothes, some personal stuff and that’s pretty much it. Both times I was super broke. Here I am now. I worked hard for everything I have achieved by doing what most people are not willing to do… work for it.

Who am I really? I’m a woman in my 40’s. I’m a mess. I’m overweight. I’m a wife and a mother to two little boys. I’m a special needs mom and a heart mom. I’m a working mom. I’m a photographer, an artist and a writer. I’m not anyone special. I’m just someone with goals and dreams who isn’t afraid of working hard to achieve them. If I can do it, you can be annoying to people around you and achieve amazing things as well.

Be annoying… Achieve great things in 2021.

Dare to (travel) dream

One of my best friends lives in Australia. We talk almost every day. I know it sounds crazy but with modern technology it’s possible. She has a friend that lives in the UK that I have never met but have gotten to know in group chats with the three of us. The three of us travelers and we are all struggling with the lockdowns of our countries. So we have started to make plans for the three of us to get together on two different trips based of when our countries free us to roam again.

One of the trips we are planning is for the two of them to come here to California. I will be their lovely tour guide and we will enjoy a few days here in the wine country before starting our road trip north. Talking about where we can go and what we do will largely be figured out by what our UK friend wants to do since I live here and my Aussie friend has been here several times.

The other trip we are talking about is a meetup in the UK. No big plans there yet but it will be a shorter trip of 5-7 days. The two of them will be working some of the days leaving their evenings free. My Aussie friend has a branch there with a team she supervises so she will plan it as a work trip. We will coordinate schedules and I’ll probably play tourist while they are working and meet up with them for lunches and evenings.

I’m looking forward to us all being together. It will be interesting to see how people react to 3 women who are obviously really close but who all have very distinctly different accents. I know when my Aussie friend and I are together we get a lot of people who ask how we know each other. It really confuses people. We are 3 strong, independent women who travel well. We have all traveled the world alone. We all love food and wine and a good laugh with friends.

So even in a pandemic you can close the borders, but you can’t stop people from dreaming about their next trip.

Oh, when I go to the UK for our meetup; I will be bringing as much wine as I can for those evenings together. It’s my job. Well, that and Levi’s in their sizes. 😁

My weight loss journey-the January push

I decided 2 months ago that January 4th $hit gets real and I put together all my rumblings and bad starts and struggles into a solid diet and exercise routine. I had a lot is struggles to overcome with stores being out of stock of items I wanted for my meal planning, gyms being closed, our garage being full of boxes for our Christmas decorations and the list goes on and on…

I knew there was going to be challenges. So I planned for it. I think I worked out most of the kinks now although, I’m sure I will face others as time goes on. Last night I did my meal prepping for breakfast and lunch. I put my workout gear out. I set my alarms. I made sure the garage was clutter free and ready to workout. I also made sure that the heater I plugged into the WiFi plug was on so it will actually turn on in the morning. (Seriously genius. I can even program it to come on automatically so it isn’t actually freezing at 5am when I’m in there trying to workout.)

I joined a DietBet to keep me on track and track my progress. Then yesterday my sister joined the extreme hip hop 90 day challenge. I like Phil’s step workouts and it was only $25 for 3 months so I joined too. I don’t plan on adding in the step workouts for a couple weeks but it’s ok. He only does workouts 4 days a week and I workout 5. I like to start them late so I always have new workouts.

So, you might wonder how today went? Well, it went great. I hit all my exercise goals. I need to find shoes that work well for rowing and I need a playlist with songs that have a good cadence for rowing as well. So that’s a kink, but not a bad one. My meal planning helped out when I was running late for work. I was hungry when I got home from work for sure but I still stayed in my calorie range. I still want to fit in yoga tonight after my kids go to bed. But overall, I think it’s a success.

Weight loss-Accountability Month 2

Well, one more month down and another 7.5 lbs are gone. 7.8+7.5=15.3 total so far. Not bad. I swear I still can’t tell. But I’m hoping that changes soon.

I saw this and could not think of anything more appropriate for this post.

So I did better on some things and failed at others but it’s a work in progress. My diet overall is getting better. I’m meal planning and logging my foods. I also increased my water intake. I still need to get 32 more ounces down to be at my goal. I can do 64 in a day pretty easy but I want to double that. Again, a work in progress.

My exercise is still hit and miss. My goal in 30 min cardio in the morning, a 10 min walk mid-morning and another mid-afternoon (I’m pretty much sitting chained to a computer all day at work so I’m trying to break it up) and 15 min of yoga in the evening to stretch. It seems pretty easy, but I’m still struggling to get all of them in and fail in at least one of those 4 each day. I told my co-worker Monday $hit gets real and I’m setting an alarm for our walks. Whomever has a scheduled patient at 10:00 that day goes for a walk as soon as they finish. When that person gets back the other person goes for a walk. I’m setting an alarm for 10:15 and 3:15 to remind us.

You might wonder what changes I’m making this month. Well, I joined a diet bet to try to keep me on track. I do this periodically to challenge myself. I’m working hard on trying to get my exercise to become routine and I’m going to work on refining my diet more to make it healthier.

Overall, I always hope to just wake up one morning and be at my goal weight. I’m a very long way away from that. I always hope for more of a loss but I’m loosing at a nice 1-2 lbs a week pace so I can’t really be upset about that. I also lost 15 lbs through the holidays, in a pandemic. So that’s pretty awesome.

What the hell was I thinking?

Yeah, I ask myself that a lot. I would love to be one of those people who can just chill and be happy exactly as they are and never aspire for more. It could be anything… more knowledge, more experiences or just overall a better life. Ok, I’m sure pretty much everyone on the planet wishes they had more of something. But how many people actually hustle to make it happen? The answer is different in different cultures but here I see people hustle until they get a good job then they just stop and get stuck.

I want more. I have traveled to more places than 99% of the people I know but I still want to see more.

I actually took a step I have dreamed about and I’m making my dream of actually making money as a photographer a reality. Now, I’m not quitting my day job any time soon but a couple hundred dollars a month is pretty good for a side gig that I have only been at for a year. (I have over 30 years experience as a photographer, but selling my photos is new). It’s work and it was hard to get going but getting surprise checks that something sold is exciting.

The other step I took is writing a book. I wrote a travel book but while it was with a friend to edit when covid hit, the world closed and now I pretty much need to redo most of the book. So, while I’m waiting for the world to open again to see where the dust settles on travel, I’m working on a couple other writing projects. I have a series of books that I have had in my mind for a while now that I’m writing the first book now. I am also talking to a friend about writing a book together and tossing ideas back and forth on that.

I have health and fitness goals. I have self care goals. I have goals for adding in meditation and yoga back into my life again.

I have dreams and an ever growing list of places I want to go. I want to find another dance group to be a part of again. I’m looking forward to being able to have a book club again. I look forward to someday taking my kids to Disneyland.

I have an insane amount of things I want to do. I have goals. I have a vision of my future self enjoying a glass of wine with my husband watching the sun set over the Pacific Ocean from our balcony with a light coastal breeze bringing in the smell of the saltwater with it. I see a gallery of my own with half of it my photography and half of it artwork from those on the Autism spectrum and disabled artists. I see that gallery as a place for those on the spectrum to have a place to work as well as display their art. I see myself traveling with my family as I continue to write and take photos from all over the world enjoying the differences in other cultures and cuisines as I learn the languages and make new friends. I hope to someday be an inspiration to others in leading a positive life where all my hard work has paid off to the point that I am invited to speak to groups about things I am passionate about. I hope to teach photography workshops someday instead of the one on one sessions I do now. Someday I hope I inspire someone to do something amazing that changes the world for the better.

But until that day when it all falls into place… I’ll continue to slowly work on my goals and dreams until one day they have all come true.

Screw burning the candle at both ends! Just make a giant bonfire and toss the whole candle in.

There is a saying that you should do something today that your future self will thank you for. I try to do just that. I put in a little extra into every day to make life better for my future self. But sometimes it starts to feel like too much.

This is how I feel. I know, I did it to myself. On a scale of 1-10 my to do list is at a 472. I just do not understand how so many people actually just do nothing. Like how do you do that? I try to meditate and my mind has a punk band playing in a crowded club with a few mosh pits going.

I never have been able to clear my mind. The closest I can get is to picture an empty beach. I can hear the sound of the waves and smell the salty breeze. But that is as clear as I can make my mind. Yep. After 32 years of yoga and meditation I am still unable to completely clear my mind.

Clearing my mind may be like clearing my calendar and to do list. I am the last one to go to bed and first one to get up every day. Even as I write this post I’m making a mental note of all I need to accomplish tomorrow and prioritizing all the items. I did it to myself. I know why I put every item on my “to do” list and my distant future self will thank me for all the work I put in now one day when all the pieces fall in place. But for now, I am barely hanging in there working nearly every waking moment on something.

This chaos was not all my fault. All of these irons were in the fire pre-covid and I can’t stop now or I loose my momentum. Unfortunately, with the kids out of school my husband isn’t able to get anything done while I’m at work because he is busy with the joke that is distance learning. So now we tag team it all when I’m not at work giving me less time.

Oh and that one day a month I was taking off work to get my stuff done while the kids are in school…yeah, the kids are not in school so that isn’t happening. Oh and I’m often the only adult human contact my husband has so he is a little needier than usual as well.

So what do I give up to have some peace? Sleep? Time with my kids or husband? Writing my blog? My photography business? Writing my book? Donating plasma? Seeing my friends? I can’t just not go to work. I never thought of myself as essential, but apparently I am. Who knew? I need roughly 4 more hours in the day to fit everything in. Because of that I feel like my candle had just been tossed in a bin fire.

I hope my future self appreciates all the work I’m doing now to make a better future for my family. I know I appreciate how hard my past self worked to get me where I am today. I’m just tired and overwhelmed and feel like I’m all work and no play with everything canceled or closed. Maybe someday I can be at peace and enjoy traveling again or even taking my kids to playgrounds or having a date night with a nice dinner with my husband INSIDE a restaurant and not have to wear a mask. I look forward to needing to get dressed up again. I miss charity events and festivals and concerts. But with literally no plans I just keep working and try to be as productive as possible.

This is all for you future self. I hope you enjoy it.