Routines – Morning & Evening

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One of the best decisions I ever made for myself was to implement both a morning and an evening routine. I first read about these two routines on the FlyLady website.

My morning routine is quite simple, which meant that it was easy to adapt when my daughter’s school shifted to online learning for the remainder of the semester.

This cat makes me smile

Morning Routine
Wake up
Take a shower
Wipe down the shower
Get dressed
Enjoy a cup of coffee while playing a computer game
Make breakfast
Brush my teeth
Make the bed
Tidy my bedroom

My evening routine is also fairly simple, though I’m still trying to figure out the best time to run the dishwasher. For a long time, we’ve set the dishwasher on a four hour delay so that it runs in the middle of the night. However, I think this is interrupting our sleep. I am trying to remember to start the dishwasher immediately after dinner so that’s done before bed. This isn’t quite a habit yet, though!

Evening Routine
Set the oil diffuser
Brush my teeth
Change into pj’s
Set out my clothes for tomorrow
Wash my face
Brush my hair
Read until sleepy

My husband and I have recently started heading to our bedroom by 8:30 at the latest. This way, we have time to complete our evening routine and then read for a bit before falling asleep. This evening reading has allowed me to finish several Agatha Christie novels over the past two weeks! I find this bedtime reading to be so much more relaxing than a last minute Facebook scroll, especially these days with all of the coronavirus news.

I don’t have any firm routines for the daytime hours. I know that my best mental hours are between breakfast and lunch. This would be the ideal time to work on my business, write blog posts, and study languages. After lunch, my mental powers drop a bit and I find this is the best time for me to clean, take a walk, or do something else active.

My lack of routines during the day is because I have let my husband’s conference calls control my activities. He’s been working from home for years, so this stay-at-home order is nothing new for us. Some of his conference calls are regular, daily calls. Others are random and unpredictable. When he’s on the phone, I have to be quiet so his clients can’t hear me in the background. I have allowed this challenge of random periods of silence influence my ability to create a routine.

I need to set up my routines and then be willing to move my computer to my room if necessary. This way, I can continue writing or studying without worrying about being able to concentrate. I also need to be more flexible about my cleaning schedule, working around my husband’s conference calls instead of getting frustrated and refusing to clean at all.

Journaling

I think the best place to start is to concentrate on my mid-morning routine. After cleaning up from breakfast, I would like to establish the habit of journaling my Best Decade Ever dreams (more on these later). I’ll do some brainstorming over the next few days to figure out where I should concentrate my morning mental work/studies and then start developing a routine around those goals.

The beauty of routines is that I don’t have to worry about what comes next. I always know! This tends to lower my anxiety and help me feel more confident about my abilities to get things done. Even when I’m having my worst days, I’m still able to complete my morning and evening routines because they are so ingrained. Developing additional daily routines will also help.

What daily routines do you have?

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Six Months of Changes

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My last blog post was written exactly six months ago. In that post, I talked about how changes were coming. I was correct! I had no idea how drastically different life would be in six months.

Let’s address the obvious first – the coronavirus. We’ve been staying safe at home for over a month now, venturing out only to buy groceries, pick up coffee (drive through!), and take walks. My husband is working from home and my daughter’s school is conducting online classes now. I knew that the time would come when my entire family would be home 24/7. My daughter graduates from high school in June and my husband has been working remotely for the past eight years. Come this summer, everyone will be home unless my daughter is able to obtain her first job. What I didn’t expect is that everyone would be home 24/7 starting in March!

Another big change is that my husband was offered a new job. He shifted from an IT jack-of-all-trades to an IT security position at a huge company. This has been a bit of an adjustment for him as he now has a niche. The position came with a noticeable pay raise and lower health insurance premiums. The two of these things combined led to our third major change – huge debt payoffs.

In the past six months, we have eliminated over $22,000 in debt. We paid off our car and received the title in the mail (woohoo!). We also paid off our last two credit cards. Between these three debt payoffs, we have eliminated over $400 in monthly payments. This has really helped our cash flow. We still have a personal debt to pay as well as two student loans. We started to pay off the student loans but decided that with the shaky economy, it would be better to redirect all of our extra funds into savings. We are now building our six month emergency fund.

The final change is that I enrolled in a free online class during the month of January. This class was titled Best Decade Ever and was taught by Mel Robbins. I am rather in awe of how much this class has shifted my mindset and has given me something to work towards. Mel taught me how to dream again. These aren’t just small dreams but massive dreams that can be worked on over the next 10 years. My dreams are simple but challenging at the same time. I plan to expand on this more in upcoming blog posts.

I can’t believe how much can change in six months. Our finances have dramatically improved. My husband’s career has been given a much-needed burst of energy. My mindset has been expanded and I feel like I am finally working toward emotional healing. Something in our lives shifted six months ago and we declared that we were ready for change. Change has come and I am grateful.

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Changes

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I sense changes are coming. I can’t say anything specific because nothing is confirmed. Doors seem to be opening and I’m hoping that we can step through each of them in faith that this is the best course of action. The biggest impact these changes will have is financially.

In the last few days, I’ve begun to voice aloud the hope that our family will be able to pay off all of our debts before my 40th birthday. (It seems so monumental to be using the word forty in the context of my life. I just graduated from high school!). My 37th birthday is on Sunday and I’ve been in a goal mindset lately. Is it reasonable to think we might have some financial freedom within the next three years?

We used to be consumer debt free with only student loans to our name. However, adoption is expensive and we had to rely on credit cards to get us to China. Then our car broke down and we financed a used, reliable vehicle. All of that debt adds up and now we are saddled with extra payments that we don’t want.

We currently owe $38,500 to several different creditors. We pay over $700 per month in minimums to these creditors. I know what life is like without consumer debt. I dream of a fresh slate to build wealth instead of pay off debt. I have plans to make a difference through child sponsorship. We sponsor families now but we could make so much more of an impact without the monthly burden of debt.

I am going to be bold and set a goal to reach debt free status by my 40th birthday. There. I’ve proclaimed it to the world. Debt free by 40.

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Just Clean It – Day 2

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Yesterday was day 2 of the Just Clean it Challenge. Kendra challenged us to work on the living room. She emailed a huge list of cleaning tasks and said to pick five. Here are my five:

• Dusted the entertainment center
• Cleaned behind entertainment enter
• Vacuumed cat hair from inside living room heater vents
• Vacuumed couch
• Vacuumed underside of the couch

Cleaning the heater vents took the longest because I had to figure out how to remove the covers and then how to put them back on. There was a massive amount of cat hair in there! So gross and probably not very safe.


Before


After

It’s not a huge change but I’m happy. Everything has been dusted and straightened. Someday I hope to declutter our DVDs and video games but that’s a bigger effort and will have to wait.

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#JustCleanIt

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This week, I’m joining a five day cleaning challenge hosted by Kendra from Mother Like a Boss. I’ve attended one of Kendra’s free webinars and thought that she has some great advice. So why not join a quick cleaning challenge?

Kendra emailed a list of cleaning tasks and challenged everyone to choose five and spend five minutes on each task. It’s amazing how much I got done in just those 25 minutes. These are the five tasks I chose:

• Clean out expired and bad food from the fridge
• Wipe down refrigerator shelves (warm water and soap works just fine)
• Clean out junk drawer
• Sweep the kitchen floor
• Make a natural deodorizer with a cup of baking soda and 5-10 drops of your favorite essential oils. Put the baking soda in a small glass dish, add the oils and mix gently. Leave out to deodorize the kitchen and keep it smelling lovely. 2 minutes of your time well spent.

I feel like I’ve accomplished something today and I’m so proud of myself!

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Happy Un-Birthday to Me!

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Happy Un-Birthday to me!

Sabbath was super busy with non-birthday events. Our entire church volunteered at a local nonprofit for two hours in the morning. Then we had lunch and a wonderful social time at a friend’s house. Power nap in the afternoon. And then my daughter had her first Homecoming dance in the evening. There was no time to celebrate my birthday!

Instead, I made plans ahead of time to celebrate on Sunday. It was a day full of my favorite things!

Coffee at my favorite coffee shop

Three different kinds of cheesecake!

A favorite movie

First fire of autumn

Thai food from a new-to-us restaurant. The green curry was amazing!

Even though I celebrated a day late, I made sure to do many of my favorite things. It was totally worth the wait!

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Birthday musings

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Today was my 36th birthday. I don’t mind, really. When I talked to my mom this afternoon, she mentioned that I’m almost 40 years old. I’m not sure how I feel about 40 but I’m ok with 36!

I feel as if birthdays are a sort of reset, a chance for a new start with new resolutions and goal planning. I love New Years for that very reason. I know that every day can be a chance to make good decisions and work toward goals but there’s something special about defined dates to do so. First of the year. First of every month. My birthday.

I really don’t know what specific goals to choose for my birthday. My days are still so variable, struggling with depression at times, anxiety other times, and a seeming inability to allow myself to feel happy. I cannot predict my ability to be productive or embrace self care or even feel a smidge above just daily survival. Each day is different and it can change so quickly. I am slowly learning to quickly jump on any motivation, any drive toward feeling productive or doing something positive.

So in general… I would like to work on these goals.

Health – making healthy choices as much as possible. I have gained a lot of weight the past three years from stress eating, wrenching my knee last summer, and low motivation. I need to make good choices as much as possible as I go through my day. More water. More mindful food portions. Healthier meal selections. More exercise. I could make 15 goals from this one general idea but I really just want to be more mindful and do my best moment by moment. Right now, that’s all I can ask of myself.

Spiritually – I am really floundering here. I attend church every week. I pray over every meal. But I still feel distant from God. I tried joining a Bible reading group last month and only made it through Genesis. I struggle to read the Bible. I would like to read some memoirs of people’s spiritual journeys and see if I can learn from them.

Home – Here I actually have a very specific goal! I want to jump start my FlyLady routines again. I have a long standing habit of my morning and evening routines (hurray for wins!). I need to add in the weekly and monthly cleaning schedule so that I feel my house is presentable. A clean, uncluttered home really lowers my stress levels.

Emotional health – I have a specific goal here as well. My therapist has me working through a PTSD workbook. Right now I’m supposed to be writing a narrative of my life story. Assignment – Write your narrative. My response – Where do I start? These extremely general instructions left me floundering and I have made zero progress in the past month. A dear friend sent me a book for my birthday that guides you through writing your narrative! Now I have a specific place to start.

I’m also toying with the idea of getting involved in a (very) part-time volunteer position or starting my own business so that I can set my own hours. My therapist wonders if I have so much down time that I get stuck in cycles of negative thinking and thus contributing to my depression and anxiety. It’s quite possible that if I get involved in something for a few hours a week, I’ll find some purpose outside of my life and thus feel better.

All of these things together feel like massive changes and are rather overwhelming. But I remind myself that I don’t have to tackle all of them at the same time. Small changes here and there, embracing those moments when I feel like I can come up to breathe… those moments may make a big difference and help with my healing.

Happy birthday to me! I hope that when I revisit this post on my 37th birthday, I’ll find that life has improved, that I’ve been able to make some positive changes that will enable me to better find my place in the world and maybe even make a difference for someone else.

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Small victory – dining room table

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I conquered it! It only took three days but I was able to completely clean off our dining room table. I didn’t just move the piles elsewhere. I sorted, put things away in their permanent homes, scanned paperwork, paid bills, and basically processed every single item that had accumulated over the summer. I am so proud of myself.

Next up… this small corner where paperwork tends to multiply.

One small step at a time and I will conquer the chaos.

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Coming back to life

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My daughter returned to school last Thursday. Not so coincidentally, I suddenly started coming back to life. Full time parenting drains me; I really have no idea how parents of littles can handle it. Having almost six and a half hours to myself every weekday is such a blessing and so very needed.

My motivation and energy levels are still minimal. But I feel like I’m coming back up for air. The difference is startling and makes me painfully aware that I have some emotional work to do. I shouldn’t (there’s that word my therapist doesn’t like – shouldn’t) lose all emotional energy and drive when my daughter is on school holidays. I put everything into parenting her and leave nothing for myself. To have that time during school hours to recharge, to spend time doing things outside of parenting, is vital to my well-being. Hopefully someday I can figure out how to survive both during school and during holidays.

Last week I started working through the backlog of my email. I finished on Sunday. I’m happy that I was able to unsubscribe from a few more newsletters, respond to personal email, and delete everything that I really didn’t need. My inbox is now at zero emails and I’m hoping to stay on top of it.

I also finally scanned all of the photos my daughter brought home with her from Taiwan. She has photos of age four or so through the end of her time at the orphanage. My goal is to create and print a photo album for her, merging together her time in Taiwan and her time with our family. I would love to give it to her for Christmas, but I also know how unlikely that is. I would love to be able to complete it that quickly, but it’s hard to predict how much effort I can make from day to day.

I’m also putting a priority on decluttering a couple key areas of the house. Over the summer, the dining room table turned into a complete disaster. That surface has almost been reclaimed. Maybe tomorrow? My clothes closet has also gotten extremely messy and it’s difficult to find things in there. Getting some of these things done will hopefully reduce the anxiety caused by clutter, which will in turn allow me to focus on some of my healing.

I want to find healing. I am slowly gaining determination to find healing. I still struggle with anxiety and sometimes with depression. I still have PTSD. I am discovering some buried and some not-so-buried religious trauma due to negative religious foundations. I really, really want to find some confidence and self-worth. I want to let go of my need for control and my perfectionism fixation.

Life can be more than survival. I need it to be more than survival. One small step at a time, right?

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Nutberg Drinkable Meals – a review

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Normally I am only requested to review books but Nutberg reached out to me and asked if I would be interested in reviewing their drinkable meals. Yes, please! I browsed their website and was thrilled to discover that Nutberg has created a drinkable meal that is all natural ingredients, healthy, and vegan. Vegan! It’s so hard to find convenient meal options that are vegan.

When I opened the package and showed my husband what I had received, he immediately commented that these look like MRE’s. The presentation could be more pleasantly designed but the information and instructions printed on the package were incredibly easy to understand and follow.

I decided to try these flavors in order of expected enjoyment – highest to lowest. We started with Cocoa, then Classic, then Banana. The directions stated that I could blend each packet with either water or milk. I chose almond milk because I always use almond milk in my mochas. Almond milk adds more flavor and substance to drinks than plain water does.

Cocoa flavor

I expected that we would like Cocoa flavor the best because chocolate is always best! Unfortunately, I couldn’t really taste the cocoa flavor.

Jeff – “Yuck. It needs a sweetener.”
Me – “It has an ok taste but the texture is too grainy. I could drink maybe half of this with my meal but not as a full meal replacement.”

We were unable to drink the entire serving.

Classic flavor

Jeff – “It smells sweeter than the Cocoa flavor. The smell reminds me of cinnamon oatmeal. Of the three, this one was my favorite.”

Cassandra – “Classic flavor is also my favorite of the three, even though it seemed like I was drinking my morning oatmeal!”

We drank an entire serving. The flavor was fine but the texture was off-putting after half a cup. We drank it at 10:20 in the morning and waited to see how long it would satisfy, especially since the meal was 560 calories with the added almond milk. After three hours, we started getting hungry for our next meal. I was surprised at how full I felt for the first two hours, very satiated but not overly full. The Nutberg website stated that you would feel full for 2-3 hours and my experience slightly exceeded their promises!

Banana flavor

My husband hates bananas so I didn’t tell him what flavor this was until after he had tried it. I didn’t want to bias him against the drink. Surprisingly, he couldn’t tell that this was banana flavored!

Jeff – “It’s palatable but doesn’t taste much different from Classic flavor.” When I told him this was Banana, he said that he could detect a hint of something different but didn’t think “banana.”

Me – “I agree with Jeff’s opinion but thought maybe I could detect a hint of banana.”

Overall, this was not a huge success with our family. The Classic flavor was ok but it’s not something that I would want to drink on a regular basis. I could see keeping a couple packets in my cupboard in case of a food emergency. I think these are worth trying at least once, especially if you’re looking for a meal replacement.

Thank you so much for Nutberg giving me a free product to try in exchange for an honest review!

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