It’s April, and that means we have moved into the second quarter of 2019. Spring is in the air, and it’s a good time to check how we are tracking on our 2019 goals. I love using my Rituals for Living Dreambook and Planner to plan my year, and it is conveniently formatted by quarters to help break your long-term projects into achievable tasks. You might recall that my focus for the year is ADVENTURE, and I planned to embody that word through three avenues: attitude, activity, and (of course) books. Let’s review each of these and I will give Read More
Tag: Bright Line Eating
Adventure 2019!
Do you pick a word or theme for the year? I started this practice several years ago. It is part of an effort to be more intentional and create the life I want to have rather than just letting life happen to me. It started as a casual effort but became a more serious endeavor once I started using the Dragontree Apothecary Rituals for Living Dreambook and Planner (affiliate link.) I love the thought-provoking exercises in the Dreambook section and the practical application of breaking my goals into tasks and scheduling them in my planner. I always feel as though I Read More
2018 Annual Review
Welcome to my year end review of 2018. My first instinct at the end of the year was to go through my journal and make a list of all the cool things I did in 2018. There were so many things! While I was making my list, I received an email from James Clear with his annual review. I decided I liked his format. He got the idea from someone else, and I have seen a few others use it as well. If it works for them, it can work for me, so here goes…. What went well this year? Read More
Not So Empty Nesting
A few months ago, I started a blog post about my struggles with my youngest going to college and leaving me with the proverbial empty nest. I never got around to publishing that blog. Now it has taken me several attempts to hit the publish button on this one. Despite my usual tendency to overshare, something in me doesn’t want to put this out into the world. But here goes…. Honestly, I felt like I handled the empty nest better than anticipated. I was sad, don’t get me wrong, but I had spent months preparing for the sadness. The struggle Read More
Audiobooks I Solemnly Swear to Listen to Once Each Year
My first blog post was about some of the books that have changed my life. I have also made it known that I rely on audiobooks to help me reach my reading goals. (BTW, as soon as I finish my current audiobook, I will have met my goal for the year.) I know there are endless podcasts and playlists and other things that I could be listening to… but I often find myself returning to some of my favorite audiobooks time and time again. Naturally, I love fiction audiobooks. Some of my family’s road trip picks have been Mary Shelley’s Read More
Excellence is Not an Act, It’s a Habit
This adage from Aristotle gets kicked around a lot. We all want to be Excellent, right? Then again, some of us want to spend a lot of our time watching Star Trek reruns. I have to believe that there is space in my life for both. At my previous job, I had this quote posted at my desk. I had that job for a long time, so I am not sure when my fascination with habits started, but I began following James Clear and Gretchen Rubin several years ago. I just finished the audiobook of James’s new book Atomic Habits. Read More
A Discovery of Witches
Empty Nest Update I have been in a reading slump. You might remember that I spent most of the year preparing for an empty nest. I was really worried about what life held for me when I no longer had kids at home. When the time came, I took it pretty well. This was largely due to prepping and planning and important connections with people who made sure I had plans on my calendar. The kid, on the other hand, did not fare so well and will be moving home in December to consider Plan B. Disappointment happens. I went Read More
How I Lost 100 lbs in 500 Days – Bright Line Eating, Part 1
My most personal blog yet… How I Lost 100 lbs in 500 Days The problem… These stories always start with, “I’ve struggled with weight loss all of my life.” I’m not sure that’s true for me. Sometimes it wasn’t a struggle. I lost a lot of weight without trying while I was going through my first divorce. (“It was really easy once I lost the first 200 lbs!”) Then I started to gain weight when I got my first desk job. I didn’t hate myself or struggle with it every day. I was doing pretty well. I just ate out Read More