Pay Attention - Mid Month Recap

Okay mid-month let’s recap:

I have been doing well with my tutorials.  I did a half hour on Sunday, and hour Monday, an hour Tuesday, a half hour at noon on Wednesday and another hour that evening as well as an hour and a half Thursday night.  I was lucky enough to have the kitchen/living room area to myself Monday and Tuesday to do my tutorials but Wednesday night Melissa was watching the hockey game so I thought I’d try doing them in my room.  I fell asleep a couple of times so lesson learned, do your work at a work space not in your bed.  I’m trying to get as much done during the week so that I can take a break from it on the weekend instead of using the weekend to play catch up.  I think I’m most successful when I do intense short term goals, such as the try a new meal every night for a week goal I accomplished several months ago.  One week or two week goals work for me.  I struggle with trying to be perfect at something day in and day out.

My supervisor, J, has been on holidays for the past two weeks.  I figured things would either be really busy or really slow in her absence.  They have been slow, painfully slow.  I’m reminded of how I felt at my last job sitting around with nothing to do day after day.  It’s so draining to have nothing to do and be trapped at your desk and have to make yourself look busy.  I have felt more drained these past two weeks doing nothing than I do when I’m go go go.  I don’t know what to call this feeling, but I felt it all the time at my other job.  Wasting your potential perhaps, or just plain bored.  I know that on Monday when J is back I’ll be busy again, but if I ever second guess my decision to leave my other job I’ll remember this feeling.

I have completely forgotten about my food diary.  Yesterday it dawned on me that I was supposed to be writing down what I ate.  Fail.  I record my spending by keeping receipts as well as a running tally on my phone’s note pad of small purchases that I don’t have receipts for.  It works really well and I plan on doing it for a long time.  It absolutely makes me more aware of my spending.  The trouble with the food diary is where to record it.  This is something I struggle with in general, finding effective ways of tracking and recording things without having seven notebooks.  I eat decently healthy meals.  I could probably cut back on bread and cheese but I’d rather not.  It’s my snacking that’s bad.  I find it hard to remember to always jog down every handful of chips or can of pop.  I’m a nibbler; it’s not uncommon for me to pull out a half-eaten bag of candy from my purse and nibble away at it.  My food log would read 7 chips, Michellina’s pizza, 1/3 a bag of Skittles, 6 sips of Dr. Pepper, 1 chocolate granola bar, 11 Gummi Bears, half a box of KD spirals, 1 glass of water, a half glass of milk.  Like, hello schizo.  I might just commit to do it for one week (short term intense goal) in the hopes that it’ll gross me out and I’ll become more conscious of my snacking.

Journaling is a work in progress.  I’m trying to be more effective with blogging, been doing some serious camera research so I can add a visual elements.  I’ve printed out inspiration pictures for my office wall (also known as the side of the fridge) as well as for my sketchbook.  I have written in my journal a few times, but I have a tendency to use that as a place to whine and complain so I’m limiting that.  I like the idea of trying to record positive things.  I feel like if in a couple years I go back and read my journal it will be a collections of my low days and bad moods.  Uh, hello depressing.  Recorded some dreams, and have become more conscious of them in general.  I will wake up and repeat a summarized version of my dream in my head in the hopes that I’ll write it down. 

I also downloaded MacJournal and am trying it out.  It’s whatever, not in love with it, don’t hate it.   I want an all-encompassing program that has a detailed schedule/calendar, stores photos, keeps detailed to do lists, as well as written text documents.  Is that so much to ask?  The calendar is kind of useless and it was supposed to allow me to post to my blog but so far it can’t seem to figure that out.  Back to the drawing board.