A few minutes for myself

I got the baby down for a nap and stole a few minutes for myself.

What did I choose to do?

Play on the internet? NOOOO....
Watch any of my DVR'd shows? NOOOO....

So, what did I do?
Got on my exercise shoes (the ones I forgot at Zumba the other night, but picked up on Wednesday) and did 40 minutes of exercise. Then I got on the computer. Hahaha!

I feel fantastic. I need 40 minutes of this type of time for myself every day. :)

Now to change and pick up and figure out what we're having for dinner, besides some leftovers from last night.

Reinforcement and choices

I was thinking about what to write about today, and my thoughts went down the path of how I feel when I exercise and eat healthy. I don't know if this happens to anyone else, but when you are on a roll, good or bad, whatever it is seems to reinforce itself. Think about it....if you make poor food choices for breakfast, many of us think "well, whatever, the day's shot anyhow" and what do we have for lunch-McDonald's! And dinner? Pizza! Then the next day we wake up and feel poorly because we put unhealthy stuff in our bodies to nourish it, and we often feel guilty because we made poor choices for the whole day. But when you make healthy choices, they often beget healthier choices later in the day, and the next day and so on. Same thing with exercise-it may take some momentum to get the ball rolling (heck, sometimes it feels like you're trying to push a boulder up a hill), but once you get over the crest, its hard to stop!

I have found that I need to focus on making healthy choices, and really make a conscious effort to exercise. My goal is approximately 40 minutes of exercise a day, PLUS at least two healthy meals, striving for three. And healthy snacks.

Hopefully I will continue to see and feel results from the effort that I am putting forth, and that will be reinforcement enough to keep me going!

Finding the time...

Today is Monday. Normally the baby and I go to Sensory Swim at the therapy pool at a local nursing home. Usually after the hour long session, we are both tired and we come back home where we eat and the baby either then goes down for a nap or plays. I usually do some straightening up and play around on the internet after lunch.

Today is such a gorgeous fall day, I decided that I needed to find the time to take a walk at some point today...I planned out my morning so that I could take the baby for a walk after swimming. I even brought a banana and a bottle of water and my walking shoes.

Boy, I am so glad I spent the 45 minutes that I did going for the walk with the baby! We walked along the Canal, did a total of 1.88 miles. The sun was shining, a gentle breeze was blowing, and baby and I got to explore a local resource which I hadn't used before. It was a very nice walk-we saw three people on bikes, and that was it. We walked past Lock 20, and saw some boats. The only downside was getting bitten by mosquitoes. I probably would have walked a bit more if it weren't for those stinkers.

The title of this post is "finding the time". There are so many things that this can pertain to-finding the time to exercise, to prepare healthful meals, to do something special for a loved one, to clean the house, even to write an email or note to a good friend. Those things are all very important, yet how often do we say "oh, I just haven't had the time", yet, we're find the time for Facebook (which sucks hours out of the day), or we find the time to watch our favorite television shows (another time stealer), yet we don't think we can find the time to do something that would make ourselves or someone we care about happy.

I am going to make a conscious effort to find the time for what's really important in life, and I hope you do too.