State of the April

Dear April,

You sucked. You were not kick-ass, as my friend Bikinime had hoped. In fact, you were downright lame. I know what you're thinking, April.

"It's not MY fault you unofficially declared April 'International Ice Cream Month,' Briy."

And you're right. But you certainly didn't help. So I'm declaring you over. I know it's only the 27th, but frankly, I've had it up to here with you. We're finished. It's not April anymore. It's pre-May. I'm turning the calendar over to that lovely blank slate and writing your remaining days onto that page as May -4, May -3, May -2, and May -1. You sucked so much, I don't want to see you again for a whole year. Okay?

No offense.

Love always,

Briy

p.s. Another reason I hate you: Your offensive combination of R and L were very difficult for my adorable Asian students to pronounce. Jerk.

Okay, now I know what you're thinking-- My God, Briy's completely gone off the deep end. Which is possible. But I'm feeling better, and that's what matters to me. Thanks and ~hearts~ to everyone who left kind comments on my last post. You were all right, of course, and in the light of day, I feel better. April is over for me, and I'm starting fresh.

I woke up early this morning and started in on my to-do list. I've had a healthy breakfast and lunch, fruits for snacks, a lot of water, and no ice cream. My back feels a little better today, although still pretty tight, so I'm going to take it easy, and stick to walking and stretching for few days, at weelittleme's encouragement. Depending on how I feel, I'll try to hit the gym for a shortened weight lifting session on Wednesday, and try running on Thursday. But I'm no longer seeing my inability to run for a week as a death sentence for either my future May progress or my dreams of running the 5k. As long as I'm healed by May 18 I'll be out there doing it, running as much as I can, getting my t-shirt, and knowing that I went from being a 3-minute burst jogger to a 30-minute runner in under two months.

And in the spirit of a clean slate, I made two changes this morning.

1. I got a haircut. I've been trying to grow my hair out long, but it's been a little shaggy and unhealthy lately. Plus, I've got some weird colors left over from a purple bleaching extravaganza a few months ago, so I decided to just go ahead and get a big cut. I needed a change, and I'm happy with it, despite the fact that it vaguely resembles a mushroom. I'm not sure how to describe it otherwise. I wanted something short, because I wanted to show off my New Shapely Neck and Collarbones (in stores now). I also went and bought some sparkly hairclips and long dangly earrings to distract from that whole mushroom thing. Pictures will follow soon, I'm sure.

2. I went and bought new stickers. April started off well, and I found the stickers really motivating at first, but I made a crucial mistake. Other sticker-users I'd read about were smart--they had two (or more) types of stickers. I took an all-or-nothing approach, which led to disappointment. I had to eat well and exercise to get a sticker, so if I had a little slip-up, but exercised hard and ate mostly well, I didn't get anything. It also led to a lot of rationalizing and having to make judgments. (So the little bit of chocolate doesn't invalidate the sticker, but an ice cream cone does. Okay, one ice cream cone is okay, but two is definitely not.) You get the idea. I think this is actually how eating started to get out of hand last month. So for this month, I have two sets of stickers. I get a little heart for exercising, and a Winnie the Pooh character for eating well. (I'm sort of a purist, so I'd sort of prefer colored stars, but I'm working with Korea here.)

All today I've been toying with my vision for May. I have a good reason to want to make some serious progress this month. Our 4-day school field trip starts on May 28, to the lovely and sunny southern island. I'm going to want to wear my shorts and t-shirts comfortably, and I even have dreams of *gasp*... a sleeveless shirt. I think my experience during March vs. April proves that the scale is a powerful motivator and controller for me, and so is setting a goal that will be difficult to achieve, so I'm going to go ahead and shoot for about 9 pounds in 32 days. It might be closer to 8 pounds. There's been a lot of fluctuation lately on the scale, so it could also be as low as 7. But I want to break into the 160s before our field trip. That's my numerical goal.

I'm fully aware, up front, that I might not be able to do it. It's ambitious. But I think it'll push me, and that's what works for me. And I'm not going to measure the overall success of May by numbers. That's what monthly goals are for.

To recap April's goals...

1. Read 50 pages every weekday, and 100 on weekend days. (This actually turned out awesome. I can honestly say I did it almost every single day, and on the 2 or 3 days when I missed it, I caught up the next day. I read 7 books, and I'm on pace to finish an eighth during pre-May. It helped fill a lot of time that I might otherwise have spent snacking, and got me caught up on my New Year's resolution to read 50 books this year--I'm at 16 total, which is right on track.)

2. Blog on a regular basis. (Did it, and I'm so glad I did. Setting reminders in Google calendar and making blogging a prominent part of my to-do lists made this easy.)

3. Three vegetables a day, and at least one fruit. (I probably ate the fruit everyday, and maybe at least one vegetable, but this definitely fell off in the past two weeks. I blame science. If only scientists could rearrange ice cream's DNA to make it more vegetable-like, I'd be set.)

*** I feel confident in saying that numbers 1 and 2 are solidly in the habit category, so I'm retiring them. If they fall off this month, I'll bring them back for June.

Monthly goals:

1. Get at least ONE sticker every single day, and TWO stickers 16 days (half).

2. Eat a vegetable at every single meal, and a fruit everyday.

3. Write three victories every day in my mantras book.

Side note, a few days ago I hit day 50 of writing my mantras eight times every morning. It seems wild that I've been doing it for 50 days now, but I think it made one of the biggest differences during March Madness, and helping me at least maintain during Lame-Ass April.

So yeah-- I'm making May count. I'm not going to try to be perfect, but I'm going to work with every scrap of motivation I can muster, and make every meal and exercise minute count.