Just Jot It January is led by Linda G. Hill.
The Just Jot It January 12th
prompt, brought to you by Tessa of the blog Always A Writer, is:
“Tingle.” Use it any way you’re inspired to. And make sure you stop by
and say hi to Tessa as well! Here’s her blog: https://finallyawriter.com/
Here is one of my Christmas presents - the electric toothbrush. It makes my teeth tingle. Next to it is a night cream. It claims to firm the skin. My skin definitely needs firming. Age waits for no one except perhaps those who can afford a visit to a plastic surgeon. I have no desire (or the funds) to do so but this year one of my aims is to take better care of myself.
The toothbrush is certainly giving more attention to my teeth than my old brush did. The night cream is not working so well. Of course it might help if I remembered to put it on! That's why it's by the toothbrush - hopefully seeing it there (as opposed to being with all the other products that I also don't use very often) will prompt me to use it.
Yes, I've read that when instigating a new habit it helps to form associations. Googling will tell you that it will take me about 21 days to master this new habit. Time will tell. Now I just need to break the association of biscuits with a cup of tea. That could take a lot longer.
Oh it feels strange writing 2016. It always takes me a while to get used to writing a new year.
Today things have returned to normal - no visitors in the house and hubby back at work. My decorations are still up - I will take them down on Wednesday - Epiphany.
It hasn't been the best of starts to the year though. My mother-in-law stayed with us Saturday night as we had planned a family meal yesterday with our son and his wife now that they are back from the states. Unfortunately yesterday morning my MIL fell in the bedroom and fractured her hip. She had been sitting on the end of the bed, stood up and either just lost her balance or maybe the hip just went but she toppled over onto her side and the damage was done.
Fortunately I can report that she has had surgery today to repair it and has come through the operation. At 87 years old surgery is not to be entertained lightly but she's one tough lady. Hopefully she will soon be up and about and I hope it won't have dented her confidence too much. She fell down the stairs a few weeks back and has been very nervous tackling stairs since. This new complication may make her wary of visiting anyone, like us, where coping with stairs is a necessity. It's a good thing that she lives in a bungalow with her eldest daughter and son-in-law living in.
As for progress on New Year resolutions I am now the proud owner of a Fitbit tracker so I will be trying to increase my step count to improve my fitness etc. I'm also trying to implement ways of improving my habits.
One of the things recommended in the book I read about this recently was pairing habits. I have to take medication each day and I usually take it with my breakfast so the medication was down in the kitchen. Except of course some days my hubby brings me breakfast in bed. This means remembering to take the tablets when I go down. But the change in routine meant that sometimes I didn't end up taking the tablets until later in the day or not at all!
I now have the tablets by my bed as I always have water up there and I have a reminder set on my phone so that I can take them first thing in the mornings. So far that is working well.
Another thing I used to do was sit in the bathroom and waste away time either looking at stuff like Facebook on my phone, or doing crosswords or just generally taking more time that I need. I hope I'm painting the picture for you here because I'm not going into any more detail!
Of course I could apply the Just Do It mantra here and move out of the bathroom but it was always a haven when the kids were younger. You could lock yourself in and get a few minutes of peace. Still works for me especially as I'm sitting right next to a radiator so it's quite cosy.
Anyway I decided that it's ok to loiter in the loo but it must be productive so I have moved my copy of Catch 22 to the bathroom. We have other books in the bathroom but I am trying hard to finish Catch 22 (well I'm trying and it's hard!) so I've resolved to only allow myself to read Catch 22 when I'm loitering. I managed a chapter today so I have now read 23 out of 42 chapters. Hopefully this pairing will produce results. No pun intended!
My blogs are getting like London buses - you wait ages for one, then four come along at once!
Actually that's not been my experience of buses recently. Generally they run quite well and frequently but of course they are subject to traffic problems, roadworks etc.
As for the blogs, well I want to keep them coming. They need to be one of my good habits. One of the books I read recently was Better than Before - Mastering the Habits of our Everyday Lives by Gretchen Rubin. It's an interesting study on habits although it didn't give as much in the way of practical tips as I hoped it would.
I have lots of habits. But most of them are not good. I waste time playing Facebook games. I eat too many biscuits. I watch TV for the sake of it. I could go on and on .... Apparently I'm an obliger - I respond to external needs but not my own internal ones - things that require self-motivation. Couple that with losing the structure and external needs of a job with a lot of responsibility it's no wonder that I've been rather aimless. So I'm trying to establish good habits.
Making sure I remember to take my blood pressure medication EVERY day. Exercising. Keeping on top of things. Not allowing my inbox to get backlogged. Getting enough sleep. Remembering all the birthdays in the family.
I read somewhere that it takes a month to establish a habit so starting this in the run up to Christmas is probably not the best time but I could always come up with excuses as to why I should wait until tomorrow. But tomorrow never arrives so today I have to Just do it! (And tomorrow and the next day and the next and.......)
