Day 6: What's Intended for January?

As promised I sat down and come up with the outline for this the first month of living on purpose.

January Focus: Spiritual
As I previously mentioned, this month will have a spiritual focus in that I will determine an overall picture for 2013. Today I started jotting down some notes about what big things will happen this year and when they will happen. I was trying to get a broad view of the schedule; see if I could figure out which  months will have which foci (I looked it up: focuses or foci is acceptable). I found it rather simple to fill in the early months, January, February, March... and then October, so I've got a few big gaps in my schedule that I have yet to define. Thankfully, I've got plenty more month to work it out. Once I nail down the process, I may leave a few months empty and wait for the appropriate inspiration.

Physical 
So my physical aspirations for the month are somewhat laughable to the me of a few years back. My main goal is to simply run 2 miles under 20 minutes. Ever since my torn ACL my exercise program has been touch and go. I'll do well for a while and quickly taper off for some excuse or another. Last year I did a pretty good job training for the Bolder Boulder in Colorado. I ran the race, I was marginally happy with the results and then I quit training. This year I'm going to follow in the footsteps of my brother and plan more events through out the year. In so doing, I hope to have a continuous reason to keep training. I have often made the excuse that I don't know how to train without a team. Well it's time to learn, Lydia.

In conjunction with running a little faster a little longer, I'm going to ride a little harder. Today I set up my bike in the living room and spent some quality time kicking off the 2013 biking season.

More biking to come in future blogs.

Also, in the physical stream, I'm making a concentrated effort to eat better. I think this may shed some light on migraines; or perhaps living a healthier life will just ward them off all together! We can hope! Pictured below are some of my adventures into eating healthier. Please note that I still prefer to eat with the smaller fork. :)

Above is the delicious black bean and quinoa burrito bowl. Below is a week full of breakfast oatmeals and lunch salads. I also made some homemade snack/energy bars today, but they don't look particularly appetizing so I'll save you the pain.


Intellectual 
This month my intellectual quest is to live by the budget. I have already spent every dollar on paper before I will spend it in a store or in bills this month. We are now one week into Candis's college education, which means the income has dropped pretty substantially while the outgo trends towards the same. Having everything planned out in advance gives me the confidence to say, "Don't worry, I got this." In the meantime, I get the distinct selfish joy of knowing I'm helping another person follow her dreams. This gives me such satisfaction; I can't put it into words.

To help meet the goal of living by a budget, we started using the envelope system for groceries, entertainment and other personal expenditures. Yesterday and today were the first official days of the envelope system. Knowing that I have this X amount of money to buy food really helps plan out the grocery trip, and because of that planning we saved 27% on our groceries just by using coupons or looking for the sale. We chose to buy our produce from locally sourced West Seattle Produce, and I think we saved significantly there over Safeway. We have also investigated the option of Amazon Fresh for delivery and we may try that another time.

Social
During college, social and spiritual goals were more difficult for me to define versus physical and intellectual goals. Not much has changed. I can look at my life and easily say, "I want to learn that!" or "I want to run/jump/play that!" But when it comes to being social, well I'd really rather not. As an introvert I have to really focus on being more outgoing, more friendly... more social. This month my social goal is to blog at least 10 times. You might say I need to step it up, but having let the blog go by the wayside before, I think this is a pretty hearty goal.


Well that pretty well sums up day 6, the progress I've made and the goals I've set. I'd like say a sincere thank you to you my readers. Hearing from you really encourages me to keep writing; with every comment, fb message, text message and phone call I renew my promise to myself to live 2013 intentionally. Thank you!