January 2012 Wrap-Up

My January certainly didn’t turn out AT ALL as I expected and the confusion of it is blurring into February.    I’m quite overwhelmed by it all and am taking it day by day as they say.  At quiet times it was nice to have my goals listed and when I could, I would focus on them and that I was still moving forward a little each day even though it didn’t feel like it.  

My year started out with my dad learning he had cancer, it is moderately aggressive but the prognosis looks to be extremely good.  The stress of the C word and having to learn quickly about the situation so that informed decisions can be made at a minimum is very emotional.  This news was followed by my grandma falling ill and passing on in the last few weeks.  A wonderfully kind and loving lady, she was the sweet grandma that I envision we all dream about.   She will be missed by many and many of us grandkids and great grandkids will try to live up to the unconditional love she shared with all. As I have posted before, in the mix of this I had emergency gallbladder surgery.  I seriously thought I would be down only a few days and at most a week.  Right! This has not turned out to be so, the doctor recommended I needed 4 weeks of recovery and not to push it and she was right. Slow healing, but still glad the surgery occurred.  As if this wasn’t enough to handle, in the mix of surgery my company downsized and eliminated unneeded positions, and yep one of them was mine.  My thoughts are, are you serious?  And if the cloud storm wasn’t enough, hail had to pour down as well because my son finally told me he wasn’t going to college this semester  (read no health insurance now for him & no wiggle room now that I have lost my job) and the icing on the cake, my landlord informed me he was raising my rent.  All I can say in passing is, so how’s your January?

January 2012 Goals

·    No soda – Yep complete. I came close to caving especially with all the stress this last month.

·     No coffee – Yes completed.

·     Attend weekly weight loss program (4x) – I say yes, but I did miss the day after surgery.

·     Lose 2.5 pounds – Yes, yes, yes, the total for the month 11.6 pounds and going strong.

·     Track my daily food intake (at least 80%) - Awe this I failed; I did start to track but then stopped when I had surgery.  I mean seriously who wants to track that I had 5 bites of mash potatoes and 3 bites of jello. That’s my excuse and I am sticking with it, even into February, which of course has to stop because now I am eating real fatty high-calorie food like Claim jumpers and Chili’s…

·     Take body measurements – Yep completed.

·     Take my vitamins - Nope, totally blew it off.

·     Exercise 20 minutes 3x a week - Failed, I started out well, but haven’t started again since surgery.  Maybe next week I will feel well enough to start again? I have started to clean, so that’s some movement.

·     Sign up for 2 exercise classes – Yep, signed up and one class starts this week. I may just show up and stretch because my belly is in no position to be shaking.

·     Make annual health appointments – No I didn’t do this. With losing my job I need to figure out what appointments to make and take care of. 

·     Get rid of 52 things – Failed, but I did get rid of 14 items, mostly bathroom items clutter.  I will catch up in the year I am certain.

·     Determine what my outstanding debt is – Yeah I did this, and OH MY freakin GOSH is all I can say.  I knew sort of what I owed in each area individually. It’s amazing to really stare at a total sum number.  $44K, this is for just me, one person and it doesn’t include property (okay partial is for my son but I am responsible for it).  The really scary part is two thirds of it was accrued in about one year, starting at the end of 2010 with my accident. 

·     Have conversation with darling son with regard to where he’s headed – Yeah this happened and it didn’t quite turn out how I expected.  I am still trying to wrap my head around this one.

·     Investigate PM credentials – Yep, completed.  I looked into the MS program, the PMI program and the extension program.  Now I need to decide how to proceed.

So I successfully completed 9 out of 14 objectives for January, which isn’t too bad considering how my month went, the fact that I started late in January, was gone traveling for a week for my grandma’s funeral, and was down and in bed recovering from surgery.