We will be cutting out gluten, dairy, added sugar, alcohol (me, not my daughter since she doesn’t drink), coffee, soy…it is very similar to Whole30 in many respects, but a little more forgiving.
We will be increasing our vegetable intake, finding better choices for snacks and beverages, and doing an overall clean out of our system.
Upon reflection of this present week, I’ve been trying to figure out what will be the hardest part to do. When I did Whole30, I had the least difficulty with the elimination, and my biggest challenge was adding in “good” foods. So here’s hoping I do well.
But I’ll be heading into the weekend with a sense of enjoyment – not binging – and planning to enjoy delicious foods both before and for the following month.
invested in an Apple Pencil, and used it with her iPad and the app Good Notes. She had mentioned that she wanted to start bullet journaling, but needed the pencil for school, and so, she took the time to create a digital bullet journal.
The results were beautiful. I wish I could share some of her pages, but the bottom line was…she inspired me – as my kids most often do. However I had recently invested in some notebooks, and planner inserts of my own, and couldn’t justify the cost of the Apple Pencil (although it is on my wishlist should I ever find myself in a higher paying job).
So, instead of dropping $99 on the pencil, I dropped about $15 on a few Micron Pigma Pens and a small stencil. From all the blog posts and tutorials I’ve read, I was becoming overwhelmed. So many options, and so much to choose from. But one underlying message held true from all the bloggers. Use a practice journal, expect mistakes, keep it simple and add embellishment later.
And so I have. I found that a notebook I purchased last year for actual note-taking, was the perfect option to be a practice journal. I started by making a list of the different types of pages (Index, Future Log, Monthly, Weekly, Daily, Collection) and determining what I needed to do first. As any good bullet journaling blogger will tell you, take it slow.
So I started with an Index page. This is my first page, and will allow me to update regularly. My second page is titled the Key. I expect to use this for note-taking symbols (To do, Complete, Migrating, Cancelled), but at the moment, all it has is a title. Next is a Future Log. This has all the upcoming important dates for the next 6 months. I don’t know if the journal will last six months, or nine, or twelve, but we’ll start with six. Lastly, I started outlining a 90-day goals spread. This includes a personal goal and a business goal, and Pampered Chef is the business on which I am focusing.
I haven’t fully fleshed out this 90-goals spread, but I hope to update this blog, weekly, with how my bullet journal is progressing.
Anyway, I have kept it to pencil. There has been no ink, no color added. I used one stencil for the Future Log. But beyond that, it’s pretty simple.
As is common this time of year, blog posts abound where wannabe bloggers such as myself write a post that indicates that said blogger will be more prolific in the new year, write more, do more, whatever goals they may have. Every year, I try not to write a post like this because they seem so, well, cliche.
Then I was listening to an interview. The topic was brought up, and the interviewee (I can’t remember who it was) mentioned that it was done more for accountability. This struck me as quite eye-opening. People use blogs as journals, or diaries of sorts.
So, for accountability’s sake, let me tell you what the new year brings for me.
My Pampered Chef business. I am on the verge of reaching a sales milestone – and hopefully I will reach it this month. So, as much for accountability as for sales, if you’d like to be a part of this, let me know if there is anything you are interested in learning more about, or if you’d like to host a party, or, better yet, if you’d like to join my team. One of the goals I have for this business is to build a strong team this year.
Bullet journaling. Have you heard of this? I had heard of it randomly, and then over Christmas, my daughter mentioned it. She picked up an Apple Pencil to use with her iPad, and created her own digital bullet journal. I’d love to do that as well, but since I had all these tools on hand to have a hard copy journal, I felt that saving a little money would be to my benefit. If I am lucky, I will be documenting my experience with bullet journaling here on my blog.
Getting healthy. Last year, I joined a gym. I was inconsistent in my attendance, at best. I do hope to be more consistent this year. The coaches at my gym are awesome!
As part of my “get healthy” plan, I am taking on a 30 day nutrition challenge with my middle daughter. We will be eating healthier, and cleansing ourselves of all sorts of bad things. This is more of a plan to learn to eat healthier (very similar to the Whole30 I did a few years ago) and less of a weight loss regimen. Assuming I maintain consistency at the gym, and learn healthier eating habits, a little bit of weight loss should come with the territory. I won’t complain about that.
