I have three of them and I've been working on them since the beginning of June.
1) Yardwork and gardening. Work on our landscaping and finally plant a vegetable garden!
2) Start regularly exercising again.
3) Read lots of books for pleasure.
I'm happy to report that I've been doing quite well on the first two. I will post pictures soon of the work I've done in my yard and the vegetable garden that I successfully planted. In June I worked about a half-hour a day in the yard and now I'm doing about 20 minutes a day, except for Sundays. It's good to be out in the sun working with nature and attempting to beautify our surroundings.
Exercise!: After years of not working out, I got tired of my increasingly untoned bod and finally started exercising again. I love it! I get pretty quick results from exercise, which is gratifying and helps me continue going. I've been doing about five days a week, just 20 minutes a day. I use a wonderful Pilates video that I bought at Target back in January. My focus has been on strengthening and toning my arms and shoulders, and I'm really happy with the results. They've never looked better in my whole life. Not only do I feel better physically, but I think it's also helping me emotionally and spiritually. Plus I feel like I'm fighting off lots of diseases and sicknesses.
Reading: I have a bad habit of not making enough time to read for pleasure in my life, even though reading has long been one of my greatest joys. I try harder in the summer to loosen up and read more, but old habits die hard and I find myself always trying to get things done or work on a project so that I can get it done. So far this summer, I'm still letting too many other things take up my time and attention over reading (I read newspapers and magazines daily, but I'm talking about good old-fashioned books--the best kind of reading out there). I've read three books so far this summer. One of them was a potty-training book so I guess that doesn't really count, since that pertains to my job of mother rather than a book for me. I have a stack of the ones I want to read before the fall on my desk. So I'm going to focus on reading for pleasure more. I think it's just as important as the previous two things.
As I said earlier, I'll post pictures sometime soon of my yardwork and garden. Maybe if someone begs me I'll post a picture of myself flexing my increasingly awesome arms and shoulders. Ha ha! I'm kidding about that one. And I'll report in August if I got through my stack of summer books. I hope everyone who reads this is having a good summer!
