Devotion and Motivation

Two things. First, sorry that I skipped last week, but my entire household caught some kind of bug. No, I was not entirely impervious to it as I usually am and ended up feeling a little rundown, what with the holiday weekend, my grandmother’s 100th birthday party, my son getting sick at the beginning of the week (I now know that seeing and feeling beans that are thrown up are among the grossest two things ever) and my husband getting the same virus at the end of the week. I will definitely endeavor to at least complete two blogs so that I can release one immediately and time release the other, or at least stay one week ahead to kind of buffer this kind of mistake from happening again. After all, I won’t continue to have a somewhat steady, if imaginary at this point, readership if I can’t manage to maintain a current blog. I can’t have you depending on my “Unchained Thoughts” megablog or shortly lived “More Unchained Thoughts.” Second, I know that the next series of blogs was supposed to be about those habits I have changed/cultivated toward being a better me, but two more pressing themes came up. Today, in an effort to stamp down my work email into a more manageable beast, I endeavored to clean out my inbox. This in and of itself is a monumental feat because besides the fact that I have twenty plus emails respectively from The Chronicle of Higher Education, Dictionary Word of the Day, and my spiritual Word of the Day, navigating through Outlook, while seemingly more organized than GroupWise, is proving more difficult. Outlook doesn’t have the same sense of comfort (a sign of getting old is often being uncomfortable with change), but in my defense the college has had Groupwise almost as long as I’ve had a desktop computer at work. Today, I was determined to slay some of my email dragons. I now have only 262 pieces of mail in my inbox, which pales in comparison to the 1000 plus that I’m sure I have in my Yahoo! account. However, I do have two gmail accounts that I manage to keep rather clutter free (less than 20 in the inbox). It’s part of one of my yearly goals of de-cluttering my environment and the sub-goal of completing something almost every day. Last week, with my family’s illnesses, I barely completed anything with the exception of two books. It’s almost the end of February, and it’s time to kick it up a notch in the area of goal fulfillment. But back to the point of today’s blog. While I was rummaging through my email, I kept coming across two definitive themes. The first was to keep the romance alive in my marriage. And truth be told, the romance should not even be anywhere but with us. But I think last week’s illness left something more than fatigue; it left a void because while he was sick and I was nursemaid to our son, we weren’t communicating. And one of the things that my husband loves to try to drill into my brain is the fact that communication is key to any strong healthy relationship. So today’s theme was just to imbibe a little impromptu love note into my husband’s day to say that I appreciate him. It all started with coming across one that he had written me back in November that was in my inbox. I saved it to a more permanent locale on my flash drive. Then I finally opened the presidential inauguration slide show. I’m telling you nothing is more inspiring than seeing the genuine love that our president and first lady share. Even though they were in a crowded ballroom and their pictures were being taken to share with the world, they were in their own private bubble of love when they shared that dance. Next, I came across a bunch of emails from The Nest that thematically talked about 15 things to do before having kids, activities couples could do together, and how to keep the relationship fresh. I’m happy to say that we did accomplish a lot of those 15 things prior to Ayden. I’m still considering what kind of activity we can do together (while I would love to do cycling, the reality is that the lazy sport of bowling was more our speed), even though at some point exercise will be involve. As for keeping it fresh, one of the suggestions was a love note placed inconspicuously for your mate to find. After that, I listened to a Yolanda Adams Morning Show Point of Power segment that talked about the roles in marriage. And finally, the inspiration for what I could do came from my husband himself. He called to ask me if I had any notebook paper. A few minutes later I came up with the idea of writing a love note and slipping it in between the pages for him to discover at some future time, whether that’s at his meeting today or some other day. I like the fact that it was handwritten, and I realized that this note was one of the few times he’s actually seen a lot of my handwriting, so this can and will not be the last time I write my husband a handwritten note. Hmmm…maybe a week’s worth of notes my do the trick, especially in light of the fact that he has not found the first and still brought me a nice huge lunch. The second theme for the day was fitness, which really is tying into the theme that I’m working toward. This weekend I started the Nike Fit program that is under the auspicious moniker of “game” for Xbox 360. And let me tell you, nothing lets you know how out of shape you are more than seeing a digitized outline version of yourself on screen. Add to that the fact that you’re in workout gear, and you really (or at least I really) look humungous. Saturday, I started with the fit test, where this handsome avatar motivated (and I use that term loosely) me to push as hard I can to see where my fitness level was. After his “assessment,” he gave this mini-pep talk about making a small commitment to three days a week, with a 19/23/19-minute schedule that consisted of two days (19 minutes) of cardio and one day of strengthening. And it’s set with the short-term goal of one month (four weeks). Realistically, I know it doesn’t happen overnight: I’m not going to wake up skinny tomorrow, and that I didn’t get this fat quickly, so taking it off won’t be fast either, and that I have to start thinking of this program and any other regimen that I set up as a long-term commitment to be better and stay better. But my mind’s eye is saying, “Come on fat! Melt off! Shouldn’t I have lost a pound after a month and a half of cutting calories and two days of jumping around in my basement?” Unfortunately, it is my scale who has given me an emphatic no. Again, good old realism is saying, you know it’s not so much the pounds but how your body feels and how your clothes start to fit. But that mind’s eye is shouting for realism to shut up and show some results. Which finally leads me to today’s other theme inspiration. First I came across a Washington Post “Lean and Fit” segment that I’m subscribed to. I only read these sporadically, and usually just for the recipes. But today I read the full article about the 50-fitness guru who wrote a book that combines the physical and spiritual health and motivation. Naturally, as a book nook, I located her book on Amazon, read a few pages, and added it to my Wish List. This spiritually holistic approach goes right in line with one of my other goals for the year of reading the Bible in One year. The biggest message I received from this is to keep your motivation going strong and not give. No, the journey will not be easy, but it will be worth it. To reinforce this, I also opened up a life coach blog email that I again seldom read or let sit in my inbox until I feel compelled to just delete it. But this time, I opened and read it, and what do you know, it was the same message of keeping up motivation by starting small habits one at a time and mastering that before moving onto a new one. The life coach even quoted the very fitness guru I had read about this morning. These two messages are further affirmation that I am on the right track with life in general. Now I promise that my next blogs WILL tell you those small habits that I’m mastering.