I'm nearly 49 years old. My girls are in their teens - I have an adult and a 15-year-old.
I work full-time - retiring in six and half years.
I run a theatre company with over fifty kids in it, that takes up almost enough time to be another full-time job.
I'm hosting a Japanese exchange student for the school year this year.
I volunteer at church in the nursery. Just once a month.
My kids are involved in extra theatre, in swim teams. They tutor. They're busy. Nothing is ever in walking distance.
I don't have TIME for myself. I just don't. And I say it all the time.
But recently, I started thinking that in the long run, I really need to plan for me. I need to plan for my empty nest when the girls are gone, and I still want to be healthy and energetic enough to enjoy the rest of my life and my retirement with my wonderful husband.
I need to be more fit and happy and healthy and rested to enjoy life with my girls.
I need to be more spiritual - to spend more time with my God. I dropped the ball on that one by mid-February last year and never picked it back up. Not okay. Church every week (almost every week) really isn't enough.
Yes. Life is busy. It's probably too busy, and although I love everything I do rather a lot - I need to make a few changes.
I started in the fall, by joining a book club. I go out once a month with "the girls," most of whom I barely know - didn't know at all when I started. I love that. We go out for dinner and talk.
I want to spend more time with my hubby. We went away together for our 20th anniversary to New York City and I remembered, all over again, how much fun he is when we aren't just ships passing in the night handing off assignments and pickups with one another!
And I need to be more active. More and more I am just seizing up, getting old before my time, and certainly quite overweight. I move so much more on vacation and love it. At home, it's too easy to go from car to chair to car to couch to bed with little in between.
Read more. Move more. Spend more time with my hubby. Enjoy myself more. Maybe occasionally, try to eat more responsibly, but enjoying myself often means cooking, so I'm going to focus more on activity level.
And it's January - yawn. New Year's Resolutions are tiresome, but they do queue a fresh start.
So...
January 1st, I took the dog for a walk at Ojibway Park for a couple of hours. 4.5 km, and the dog loved me for it.
January 2nd, John and I went for a walk on the new Parkway Trail, walking a total of 9km. We went to the Outlet Mall and spent some money we possibly oughtn't to have spent, but we're okay - got some workout clothes and a few new tops for work (which I really did need). I managed to get another .3km in, lol, at Costco last night.
Today - January 3rd, the real test. First of all, I was fairly uncomfortable. I was in a lot of pain last night - discomfort - after the long walk - and I slept poorly. It was my first day back to work after the Christmas holidays, which is NEVER fun. And it's not the nicest weather out (though it could CERTAINLY be a lot worse). It's cold and misty. But there's no snow, no rain, and the road was clear. I actually TOOK A LUNCH HOUR and went for a walk. 5.8km, with another 0.8 on the way to work from the parking lot and the same back again, will give me about 7.4 km today - definitely not shabby.
Cheryl, my sister, will be helping me to hold myself accountable. I don't know how much more accountable I will be yet. I'm considering signing up for a 5K or 10K thing in early May...not a lot of pressure, but something to move forward with.
Here's to living life for the long run...
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