My Wellness Journey 05.2022

Bienvenidos to my wellness journey 05.2022, friends.  Today’s post is the fourth installment of my monthly journey toward achieving improved health and wellness for the year, and for life.  I stepped away from blogging during part of April and much of May.  This post reflects how I progressed on my wellness journey during that time.

It’s been over 3 years since I began journaling about my wellness goals here.  And doing so has helped keep me more accountable.  Even when I wasn’t blogging I was eating, sleeping, moving, breathing!!  But I have to admit, talking about those things with you inspires me to do better in every category.  By sharing my journey here with you, I might even – hopefully – inspire you to begin or continue your own journey!

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MY WELLNESS JOURNEY 2022

 

The goals I set for myself the last 3+ years have been pretty well all encompassing; goals for exercising, diet, staying well in addition to mental, spiritual, relationship and financial wellness.  This plan has served me well in the past.  So, at the risk of being redundant, I’ve embraced the same wellness goals for this year.  And as in years past, I am rating my progress on a scale of 1-5.  I began in February by giving myself a 5 in each area.  Which wasn’t accurate but wanted to score myself as if these goals were a rubric where I start at a perfect 100 and work to try to maintain it.  Here’s how I’ve done since my last post, here.

 

“What you think, you become. What you feel, you attract. What you imagine, you create.” ~ Buddha

 

WELLNESS GOALS 05.2022

 

Again this year, I am dividing my wellness activities and aspirations into a handful of categories.  My friend Juhli at A Boomer Girl’s Guide talks about finding the right exercise program or combination of programs to suit her needs.  I think PC have figured out a pretty good mix, too.  Some weight training, aerobic activity, walking.  It all works best when we do it!!

Weight Watchers has been my preferred weight management tool since 2010.  I get results immediately – within a week of tracking my points and increasing my activity level.  Glad to be back to tracking right now and seeing improvement.

PHYSICAL HEALTH (up 1.0 to 3.5)

• Lose Covid weight:  about 5 pounds would be perfect.  Woo hoo!!  Back on track.  As in Weight Watcher’s tracking.  I have a good week of tracking under my belt and the scales kindly reflected that on Saturday.
• Workout 4 times a week:  have sadly gotten away from any regular exercise other than walking since autumn.  Thanks to our purchase of 2 Oculus Quest virtual reality headsets early this spring, I am back to exercising regularly.  Enjoying workouts through an Oculus app called Supernatural, and back to running on the treadmill, doing sit-ups, leg work, taking walks, riding my stationary bike.  I feel so much better when I am exercising.  Supernatural helped to remind me of that.

The images below are ‘clickable’ for a closer look.  They are an example of the wellness summaries my Samsung phone provides me weekly.

• Walk every day:  walks in nature whenever possible.  Participate in StepBet challenges. Hikes. I try to walk and talk to my mom while doing so 3-4 times a week and listen to whatever title my online book club has selected for the month.  I pledged to walk in the 2nd Annual 40 Mile Cancer Research Challenge in May which I’ve completed.  And another 6-week StepBet challenge.

So, I started at a 5, then gave myself a 3.5 in this category for February, a disappointing 2.5 in March, then didn’t update at all in April. But hallelujah, I have rallied in May.  Awarding myself a point for this category.

NUTRITIONAL HEALTH (up 1.0 to 3.5)

• Track weight Watchers points:  track my points at least Monday-Friday.  Was hit or miss with this in February.  Was nothing but miss at tracking in March.  More miss in April.  But back to this again in May.  And with results. Down 2 pounds.
• Eat more fruits and vegetables:  incorporate new recipes for vegetable side dishes to our menus.  Reach for fruit rather than carbs.  Yes, I am really doing this.  A couple of nights lately I have made a fruit and veg smoothie instead of reaching for a carb-filled snack.  Having salads must days for lunch.
• Alcohol and sweets on weekends:  return to making Saturdays my indulgence days.  Yessiree Bob. Haven’t visited DQ a time this month.  And except for the few days I babysat for Lucia and Cami while Lauren and Francisco were on vacation and alcohol was a necessity, I have had very few other adult beverages.  However, the partial bottle of Mesa Vista blanco dulce is calling my name right now.

I started with a perfect 5 in this category, bumped myself down to a 3 in February and went with a 2.5 here in March.  But I’m baaaaa-accck…back up a point to 3.5 this month.

SPIRITUAL HEALTH (holding steady at 3.5)

• Quiet time:  at least M-W-F, getting up early to do it first thing. Continue with my gratitude journal at night.  Doing both but not as regularly as I should.  Hard to get up extra early on the days I sub to do my quiet time.  And on the days I am home, I tend to jump into projects around the house and forget to start my day with devotional time.
• Get back to church:  I want to get back to going at least twice a month.  Have only gone twice since Easter.  The recent messages haven’t inspired me.  But in general, I feel much better when I go to church.
• Add verses (and quotes) to blog posts: find Bible verses (and quotes) to support the themes of my blog posts whenever possible and share them on my blog.  Have been doing this just haven’t been blogging much.  But there is a quote in this post…did you see it?

Room for improvement here but maybe a little better than the earlier categories.  In February, I gave myself a 3.5 out of 5.  Going to give myself some grace for this one, it is spiritual wellness we are talking about here.  Going to keep this one at 3.5.

MENTAL HEALTH (holding steady at 3.5)

• Wednesdays We Write:  making this the year I write.  Participate in #write28days challenge.  Write on Wednesdays.  Use Adventures in Writing: The Complete Collection, HopeWriters and prompts from Maria at the Krafty Planner.  Did fairly well with #write28days until the final week. Haven’t written much in my journal in the last month.  But I miss writing and hope to get back to it over the summer.
• Weekly artistic activity:  Bible journaling, collage crafting with Jennifer Chamberlin, scrapbooking with my sister, 365 Days of Creativity, photography with Photzy.  Have done a little Bible journaling.  Created this collage bunny based on one my sister saw on Facebook.  Haven’t done anything with 365 Days of Creativity.  Hope to get back to it this summer, too.

• Goodreads goal:  meet my Goodreads reading goal for 2022.  Always seem to be reading and trying to follow about a half dozen books.  There was a tie in the voting for my online book club’s May read so we read 2 books this month.  My favorite of the two was The Immortal Lives of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot ($1.50 on Amazon).  A true story and one that was made into a movie by Oprah.  The other book we read was What Happened to the Bennetts? by Lisa Scottoline.

Also reading or finishing up the books below.

  

Finally, the books below are titles I am reading slowly as part of my quiet time.

Most of the year, I’ve felt like I was blowin’ this category out of the water.  Especially considering I am not the fastest reader.  But according to my Goodreads challenge, I am 2 books behind, at 35% of my goal for the year.  Going to leave this category at 3.5.  Room for improvement.

RELATIONSHIP HEALTH (up .5 to 3.5)

• Plan a vacation or at the very least weekend getaway with PC:  we are long overdue a special time together.  Not only have we planned this but our getaway is happening on Memorial Day.  Here are a few photos from our Tucson trip to Loew’s Ventana Canyon Resort.  As I am typing this we are still there relaxing and enjoying for one more day.

• Planned local activities with PC:  plan purposeful activities and not let weekends come and go without having fun.  Continue creating bucket lists. We are stuck in a rut of doing the same things again most weekends.  Really need to create a summer bucket list so we more intentional about our date nights.
• Strengthen relationships with Mom, my daughters and grandbabies:  especially need to show love and spend time with Cady and Declan on Facetime or phone calls. Have dates with Lucia and Cami.  Set aside special time for calls with Brennyn and Lauren.  Call Mom every day on Viewclix.  I continue to focus on this.  Brennyn, Declan and I Facetime almost every day. Most mornings, I call Mom on the Viewclix so she can see me and put a face with who she’s talking to.  Then I call her on the phone for the remainder of our visit.  I babysat for Lucia and Camila for 4 days while Lauren and Francisco went to California on vacation.  If that won’t strengthen relationships, I don’t know what will.

In March I deducted a .5 from this score, giving me a 3.0.  With our little vacation on the calendar for this weekend, and my babysitting time with Lucia and Cami this month, I think I’ve earned that half point back.  Going to give myself 3.5 in this category for May.

PREVENTATIVE HEALTH MAINTENANCE (holding at 4.0)

• Monday manis:  give myself a manicure every Monday.  My cuticles and nails thank me every time I do this.  On Monday or any day of the week.  Really wanted a pedi before our little weekend getaway but think I will slap on some nail color here at home and save the $$.
• Skin care:  sunscreen, bedtime complexion routine, occasional facials.  No facials yet.  Have done better about my sunscreen and bedtime skin care regimen.
• Routine health care:  make appointments for routine checks – dental and vision checks, mammogram, cardiologist follow-up.  Mammogram was normal.  Holter monitor results came back normal, too.  Praise God.  Dental cleaning the first week of June.  Just need to make an ophthalmologist appointment.

Not bad in this department.  Let’s keep this at 4 out of 5.

FINANCIAL HEALTH (holding at 4.0)

• Continue saving each month:  saving a little each month.  Yes.  Yay!!
• Save for Christmas and birthdays:  invest in Christmas Club and save for birthdays.  Have been making deposits in my Christmas club account with each paycheck.  Once I get my Amazon card paid off, want to save my Rover.com (pet walking/sitting) money for Christmas. Have been subbing once a week at Lucia’s school on average.  Worked both Tuesday and Wednesday. Wednesday was a difficult day after the disturbing mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas the day before.
• Watch spending:  don’t pull the trigger on impulsive purchases.  Keep Amazon spending to a minimum.  Purge clothes to post on Poshmark.  Been behaving myself pretty well as far as Amazon goes.  Registration for the Get Your Pretty On (GYPO) summer capsule wardrobe has just opened.  Looking for a fun, easy way to freshen and update your summer wardrobe…this is the thing for you.  Please use my affiliate link to register and join me!!

Going to give myself a 4 out of 5 for this one, which is where I was in March.  Now to get that Amazon card completely paid off…once and for all.

Feeling like I am back on track.  Hope with the next update I will have even more good news to share.

YOUR TURN

 

How are you coming on your wellness goals or resolutions for the year?  Hope you will please stop by to check out the progress of my friend Juhli at A Boomer Girl’s Guide on her goals. She and I started this journey together until I flaked out and needed to step away from blogging and social media for a bit.

Stay well, my friends.  Thanks for coming by to visit.

Hugs and kisses,