Category Archives: Life Plans

In The Zone.

A while ago I mentioned that I had some resolutions for the new year and I intended to write about them. Here’s a quick recap:

1. Empty my house. I’m just so tired of owning stuff.

2. Writing. Word by word, the memoir is getting written.

3. Health. Well, sigh. That’s a tough one and the main focus of this post.

In general, I haven’t been living a healthy lifestyle these last few years. As a working mom, it’s hard to find the time to get everything done and exercise is usually one of the first things I let slide. Cooking a healthy dinner is another. And the snacking. Oh, for the love, the snacking. I have a lot of changes to make and an opportunity arose to work with ZonePerfect in their Blog Forward campaign. Naturally, I jumped on it.

The great thing about ZonePerfect bars is that they are quick fuel for those times when I’d otherwise forget to eat. You would think someone like me (that is, overweight) doesn’t forget to eat often, but on weekends when I’m running like a chicken without a head, stopping for a meal or a healthy snack doesn’t happen. I probably would not have purchased a giant box full of bars, mostly because I wouldn’t want to spend the money and then find I didn’t like them. I received a box of 25 bars as part of the campaign and I got to try many varieties. I have to tell you, they’re pretty tasty.

In particular, I liked the ones with coconut. The yogurt and fruit flavors are also delicious. Fudge Graham was another hit. They pack a nice amount of protein and the calories aren’t out of control. They certainly satisfy hunger. There is one line, the Zone Perfect Simple line, that boasts fewer ingredients. The cranberry almond one and the toasted coconut are definitely ones I’ll pick up in the future to keep on hand.

Since I’m a complainer, I will tell you what I didn’t like about the bars. First, and I know this might sound crazy, but I’m not a huge chocolate fan. I mean, I like chocolate, but I’m not all gotta-have-it about the stuff. So given that there are so many chocolate varieties and less non-chocolate (or so it seems to me), the options that would be my favorites are a little more limited. But if you like chocolate, there are definitely many flavors for you to choose from.

Second, peanuts. I hate peanuts and I hate peanut butter. I find all snack bar brands to be big on the PB. Again, if this is your thing, then you will be happy. It just isn’t mine.

Finally, and here’s where you’re going to think I’m crazy, there is just so much chewing. These are hearty and satisfying bars. They are hefty. There were some times when I couldn’t finish a whole bar because there was just so much chewing. Yes, I’m that lazy. But they hold up nicely to finish the bar the next day, so even my negative isn’t really a negative. Maybe I’m losing my complainy touch!

All in all, I think the bars will be a helpful addition in my journey towards healthier eating. Having a quick and satisfying snack at the ready certainly can’t hurt, right?

Another part of the Blog Forward campaign is to include a letter to my future self. I am not one to write letters to myself, so I’m just going to dive right into that challenge and pretend I don’t feel awkward doing so. Here goes:

Dear Future Me:

Hey, what’s up? I hope you’re not still fat. Haha, kidding. Sort of. Seriously, did you get your act together? I hope so. You need to be strong and healthy to watch your kid grow up, write your memoir, and empty your house.

Wait a second, how old are you now Future Me? If this is 6-months from now Me, it’s fine if you didn’t accomplish this stuff yet. But if you’re 5 years from now Me and this stuff still isn’t done, what the what?! Come on, Me. You had 3 goals in 2014. I’m disappointed in you.

Oh. This letter was supposed to be encouraging. If you did the stuff, yay you! And I know you did because Present Me was pretty adamant that this stuff would get done. Past Me was the one all about slacking off. I hope you’re on to newer goals and newer challenges. You better be.

Don’t let us down, Me. Keep growing, or some other inspirational message. Also, work on your pep talks.

Kind regards,
Present Me.

And now the other obligatory thing:

Mandatory disclosure is required for every program-related post. Although I have entered the program and received complimentary product and ZonePerfect promotional items, I am free to comment about ZonePerfect in a positive, neutral or negative fashion.

What do you think? Have you tried ZonePerfect bars? Do you have a tried-and-true tip for balancing health and all the other stuff in life? Start a conversation in comments.

Featured image credit: zoneperfect.com

Goals and Stuff.

I’ve been kind of light on the blogging lately. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times, I don’t know how people find the time to blog daily when they do other things. Since I do a lot of other things, the blogging has been a lower priority.

So if blogging isn’t number one on my list right now, what is?

I hereby present to you The Goals and Stuff for Two-Thousand-Fourteeeeeeeeen!!!!!

1. Writing. Wait, what? But you said…? I know I said blogging isn’t a goal, but writing is. This isn’t to say blogging isn’t writing, of course it can be. I just mean I’m focusing my efforts elsewhere: the memoir. It’s getting done this year, people. I mean DONE. If you’re newer to this blog, I’m writing my story of growing up with an alcoholic father who was never around and life with my mother who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when I was 14 and died when I was 34. It’s a lot of ground to cover, some of it is pretty tough to write, but this story has been trying to burst out of me for years and I’m going to finally let it.

That means the blogging might be a little light at times. I don’t want to use all of the material for the book on the blog (I’ve done some of that, and if I ever get around to categorizing these posts you might even be able to find them!). And some days, after writing for the book, I’m tapped out. I also still have my yeah write gig, so that’s another different kind of writing that’s zapping my writing energy. I hope you understand.

2. Empty the house. I know, you think I’m kidding. I’m not. My goal is to empty this house of every single non-essential item. Obviously the people who live here will have have say and my non-essential is probably going to look different from your non-essential. But we have a lot of stuff and by the end of the year I want to have significantly less stuff.

It’s a purposely vague goal. I can’t say I will get rid of 1,000 things, or that I want certain rooms empty, or that for every one thing that comes in one thing will have to go out. What I can say is that my goal is to have what we need and no more. What we have will need to have it’s place and if there’s no physical place for it, it’s relative need will have to be examined. It’s not small undertaking, I assure you, but I do think it’s possible. My main targets at this point are my attic and basement. Both are filled with things set aside for a yard sale we’ve yet to have (it’s only been 3 years…) and at least a dozen bins and boxes are things of my moms that I need to sort through. So, yeah, it’s a lot.

3. Health. (Yes, I’m still on this one.) I still need to lose about 50 pounds. I still need to get into a regular exercise routine and make it stick. I still need to make eating well a daily thing. I still need to cut back on the caffeine and I still need to get more sleep. More about all that another time.

I have other things I’m working on, but those are the top three and they pretty much trump everything else right now. If I get where I need to be on any one of them, I’ll add something to the mix, but for now this feels like more than enough. I’ll keep you posted on my progress, I’ll still be here with some amusing anecdotes and I might even throw in a tear-jerker post every now and again. But if I steal away for a week or two, know that I just have my head buried in other things.

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The Urge to Purge.

It’s December 29. It’s time to really think about what I want from the new year so that I can start it out on the right foot.

I don’t want to have 1,000 emails in my inbox. That’s 1,000 messages that I should have paid attention to the day each showed up, but I didn’t. I’m letting too much in. I’m not selective about what I promise my time to and then I wonder why I have no time. Next year I will be more selective about who I let in. I will delete the email subscriptions that are no longer important to me. I will not be bullied by my gmail.

I don’t want to have a house full of things I don’t need, want, use, love. I don’t want to have a house full of someone else’s keepsakes. I don’t want to feed into the culture of materialism or buy into the notion that if I just get more containers it won’t feel like I have so much stuff. I’m done with stuff.

I don’t want to be overweight, filling my mouth and stomach with fat and sugar and salt. There’s no pleasure in food for me anymore and, arguably, there shouldn’t have been from the start. At least not in the way I expected there to be.

I’m so tired. I think 2013 might have been my most tired year yet, despite the fact that I slept more this year than I have in the past six. I’m tired because of all of the excess. It’s weighing me down, both literally and figuratively.

On the road to minimalism, the road to simplicity, 2014 is going to be the year of the purge.

I’m submitting this post to the final moonshine grid of 2013. Click through to check out what other writers have shared.

Featured image credit.

Thirty Days.

This is it, the last day of November. Thirty days of straight blogging is coming to an end. This was my second year, and just like when I finished last year, I am going on record saying I’m pretty sure I’m not going to do this next year.

The writing went pretty OK. I didn’t miss a day. Last year I had a post 99.99% done and then forgot to publish it, so I finished 99.99% successfully. I think bumping that up to a 100% success rate is pretty good.

What I learned from this is that I can make time – EVERY SINGLE DAY – for a regular writing practice. I wrote when work was hectic, when my kid had activities, on nights with a PTA meeting, when my kid had a virus, when I had a virus. I wrote on days when I opened the grid at yeah write (which, incidentally, meant I did two posts that day). I managed to read the grid at yeah write, which was generally 20-30 posts per week. I posted when my husband was away on business for a collective seven days. I posted when I cooked Thanksgiving dinner.

The biggest impediment to my writing was waiting until the end of the day. I feel like I should have known that, since I rarely get anything done after my kid goes to bed. Because my days are GoGoGo all the time, sometimes that was all I had. It would be ideal if I could get out of bed early to write before Nathan was up. How often do you hear of someone doing something ideal though?

Thankfully no one remembered and called me on the fact that I said I was going to also work on my book every day in November. That would be more of living in that ideal world. There is no way I could have pulled off everything else I do, plus blogging every day, PLUS working on a larger work in progress. Basically I didn’t touch that all month.

The other part of NaBloPoMo that didn’t go so well for me was the reading. Reading the posts of others is supposed to be part of the fun. But since I didn’t get to open my laptop until 8 p.m. some nights, reading and writing didn’t both happen often. I wish I could have read more of everyone’s stuff. If I didn’t get to you, I’m sorry.

I think what I’ve learned is that just because I can post every single day does not mean that I should. Not all of (or much of) what I wrote was quality. I really enjoy blogging, I love getting the comments and I love making blog friends, but what I love most is writing. If I’m not writing quality work, then I’m not using my time wisely.

So where do I go from here? I’ve made a pact with a friend to continue a daily writing practice but with one catch – blog posts don’t count. The focus is writing every single day, not necessarily for someone to see. It’s working on the memoir or another longer work in progress, or just plain getting the butt in the chair and doing it. Even in if it’s crap, even if it’s going to be revised a thousand times over before anyone else ever reads it. But making the time to do it is the essential thing.

I’ll still continue my blogging schedule of one to two times each week, plus my regular Tuesday post at yeah write. There’s nothing wrong with blogging every day or with NaBloPoMo or any of the other blogging challenges out there. I just don’t think they’re for me.

If you followed my blog throughout November, thank you! If you’ve followed before that or you’re planning to continue to follow after, thank you!! It’s been a fun, interesting, exhausting month. Thanks for sharing it with me. To December and beyond!

This is NaBloPoMo Day 30. You can read more here.

Someday I’ll Have Very Little.

The house I grew up in was small. I shared a tiny bedroom with my brother until I was ten and he was twelve. There was a tiny living room, a medium sized dining room and my parents had a room. Their room was eventually split in two so that they could separate us. I’m certain if we were the same gender we’d have shared that room far longer.

In rebellion against my upbringing, I wanted a big house. I wanted a room for every whim with lots of space to spread out. Basically I wanted a McMansion.

(photo credit: www.nachi.org )
I guess this size house would do.

We did not buy this type of house. We chose a modest three-bedroom bilevel. It was a good size for our family of three, but would be too small should we have another child. The layout also wasn’t working for us, so we decided to move. Our current home has the same number of rooms, but with better flow and bigger rooms. If we had more than one child, I suppose this house could feel smaller, but for just the three of us it’s more than enough room. I’m not complaining and I know I’m fortunate to have the space that I do. Growing up in an overfilled small house, I don’t take for granted the breathing room I have.

Just the same, someday I will downsize. I dream of a small house, one that will hold just the essential things I need and nothing more. I am borderline obsessed with the notion of owning a Tumbleweed Tiny House. They are super cute. They are so small some are portable. I couldn’t inadvertently acquire extra things because there would literally be no place to put them. There are cottages ranging from 264 to 884 square feet. The Houses-To-Go, as they are called, range from 117 to 172 square feet.

Harbinger Cottage, 1 bedroom, 404 sq. ft.
Image Credit: www.tumbleweedhouses.com

I find that in most aspects of my life I’m drawn to the extremes. The in-betweens, though seemingly the thing that would make me more comfortable, leave me anxious. It’s almost like I don’t know where I stand. I’m sure it will be decades before I live in such compact quarters, but in the meantime, I need to start getting rid of my stuff.

This is NaBloPoMo Day 10.

Michelle Longo

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