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Or better yet…how do you motivate yourself and your significant other to do things they know they should.
Examples of the dilemma:
1) How do you not nag your husband when he promised to do some things, but won’t follow through with any level of consistency?
Like…keeping up with his side projects, making requested phone calls, throwing things away in the kitchen as opposed to leaving them on the counter, taking out the trash when he knows it’s piling up, straightening up common areas, putting some of his stuff up on eBay, walking the dogs like he says he wants to, working on taking care of his health, to name only a few. I find myself on his case about most of the above and him reacting to me with either apathy or like a truculent teen towards a parent.
I tried to do the “positive modeling” many times in the past whereby I’d be a dynamo at getting my crap done hoping he’d feel inspired to do the same…but it doesn’t work and I get angry and decide to engage in the Mexican standoff as well (i.e. I mentioned these standoffs in the family blog too – perhaps I need to buy some chips, salsa and guacamole and see if we can’t reach a peace accord).
Anyway…I’m at a loss.
2) As for myself (and I am in no means without sin in this situation), I find myself doing some positive things but not following through with them either. For example…hooray for me finally realizing I need to NOT take on anything else new and FOCUS on the projects I’ve started. Like, I want to make this year the year that I really lose weight so I can start dancing again fully. I want to really learn German this year. I want to do more at my current job as far as reaching the wider East TN community about our cause.
Yet, I still look for ways to do anything I can to eat the whole box of Klondikes in an effort to soothe myself rather than stick to my eating plan. I pass by the gym in the mornings because I can’t get myself to bed early enough to wake up and organize myself. I do anything I can to avoid studying my German. I find other tasks at work to keep me from my mission. I look at the ever growing mound of laundry and still think we have TOO many clothes so I don’t do anything about washing them.
Truth is…I’m working to change it. I just downloaded The Beck Diet Solution, which focuses on using cognitive therapy towards weight loss efforts. I’m hoping to re-train my brain to think more like a “thin person”. Hopefully, it will give me some inspiration to retrain my brain to make me feel like a goal directed achiever?! I’m not sure if the apathy that I feel is part of the culture I live in now that I’m here in TN, or if it’s a country-wide issue.
I know it can’t be just me and my hubby.
We moved into this house over 1 year ago and most of the stuff we said we’d do – WE HAVEN’T. We have a bathroom with hideous, Don Ho-meets-the-baroque-period wall paper still in it, and we haven’t painted a single wall a color we really want them to be. Partly, I think we’re both lazy about it. Partly, I think we have a delusion that the dogs and cats might one day decide to watch DIY and take up the projects themselves. Partly, I think we’re fearful that plaster walls and an older house will lead to these projects being more complicated. Partly, it becomes a Mexican standoff (i.e. “If you don’t do it, I’m not going to do any of it.”). Truth is, it’s about time to make the house more “us” and “ours”. Perhaps we’re lackadaisical about it because we found a “dream house” in Nashville only to realize that we’d move out 2 years later because of circumstances and new opportunities. Perhaps when we cross the 2 year + margin on this house, we’ll feel like we’ll be staying here and will “nest”. Our good friends, Jon & Allison recommended a person to help with fix ups at the house and we started back in the spring with him – but his busy schedule and ours seems to have kept us from moving forward on working together and on the house. Hopefully, we can start making this house more of our own, and less of a model of our fears and anxieties about life’s insecurities.
I may be hastily putting us in the above category without an appropriate assessment of our cool-factor or hipness, however, October brings us our 5 year wedding anniversary. It’s funny, but we both hesitate when people ask what date we were married. It’s the 18th. I think we’ve figured that we’re intending to be married forever so why quibble over the actual date right?
Anyway, we decided to try to plan a little getaway every anniversary and this year we decided to do a good effort to disconnect from our fast-paced and overly-gadgeted lifestyles and go camping. We’ve been camping 3 times so far in the beautiful Great Smoky Mountains which are blessedly only about a 45 minute drive from our front door. The hard part is that our anniversary falls in the the time-frame when most people are jamming the national park to catch a glimpse of the fall foliage. So, book your campsites early if you’re ever wanting to do this.
We ended up booking at another campsite in the park that I’ve never been to before, but Jim can vouch for since he and our friend Pete have been on recon missions to scout out the best tent-pitchin’ parts of the park for our friends and us. So we’ll be going to Smokemont and got a site near the restrooms (there are pluses and minus to that locale), and the creek so it should be beautiful overall. Best thing is that we can bring the dogs! However, due to Uli still learning the puppy routines, we’re going to see if one of our friends can take her for the weekend. Easton is now a camping pro (having gone with us before), so he’s game for a good weekend outdoors (trust us, he’s told us so with a raised paw and an excited doggie look). Now, I have to just get out of 1 meeting to assure a completely restful and relaxing trip. We’ll keep you posted!
It’s official. I admit it. I’m entering into blog-ular self help for it. I frigging OVER-DO. I do! I am the poster-girl for “Jackie-of-all-trades, Master-of-More-More-More and None.” What am I avoiding? I supposed that should be the real question.
Currently, I’m:
- the project manager for a program at my company which is never a 9-5 gig;
- the United Way campaign lead for the company;
- attempting to stick to Weight Watchers and work out 5 days a week;
- enrolled in German classes every week;
- taking sight-singing classes at my church; and
- teaching Sunday school.
Recently I thought, “Hey! I need to resurrect my party planning business but keep it smaller scaled and more boutique. I want to help people be more social – to help them connect with their inner Martha Stewart or Rachael Ray.” When today it hit me…I need to slow down and put into practice what I want to say I hope to do for others. I’m a fool to think I could feel comfortable helping others with their organization and over-the-top extras without doing for myself and my family.
I want to master some things before I start thinking I need to tell other people how they should do it. I need to slow down…cause I’m starting to half-ass some of those things above and as a perfectionist – that’s not cool. So…in the interest of slowing down, I’m sticking to the above for now – ONLY. I will have an occasional party of my own, but that’s it. Once I get the hang of those above, then I’ll branch out.
I need to knock it off. The north has taught me to GO GO GO! I multitask myself to death. I need to let the slower southern pace calm my worried mind. Here’s to trying – wish me luck.
Uli Bear is our most recent addition to our family, and we are so thrilled that she’s all ours. We even got her represented on the Mid-South Eskie Alliance website even though she’s a true mix breed. She’s our troublemaker at times, which actually is due in the most part to her age. Look, she’s a puppy. If you’re not prepared to manage puppy behavior (i.e. chewing, potty training needs, etc.), don’t start with a puppy. There are plenty of amazing, older dogs that need a home – walk in any ASPCA or humane society…most shelter dogs will be the best animals you’ve ever met. I write this as I mourn a favorite pair of shoes that got chewed last night while Jim and I slept. It’s okay. It’s our responsibility to put UP things that are tempting to little puppy eyes. Jim and I have agreed that we’re going to get Uli into some training like we did with Easton…we’ll keep you posted!
We got to spend some quality time again this past weekend with our favorite kiddo, Taylor (who gave me permission to use his name – HI!). It was a jam-packed weekend full of a sillier-side of us which I really love. So, what happened? Well…
1) He got his hair re-dyed at Lox Salon – we agreed on a retouching of his platinum with a stripe of black on the side so he’ll not look like a reverse skunk. Turned out actually kinda nice!
2) We all got silly and stuffed at Wasabi – why do we always get the “non-showman” hibachi chefs. To quote from a Fear of Pop song “I paid my money…and I want to see all the movie!” This was his second outting to the hibachi show and again we had a subdued chef. However, we did find out that Jim can catch a rice ball in his mouth on the first try and teens can actually like Sushi.
3) Teens inherently know how to play video games like they’ve been programmed from birth. He got hooked on Wii’s Carnival Games and we found out that we both sound goofy singing Wii’s Boogie karaoke…just trust me on that one.
4) We found out that if drop off a teen at a pizza party buffet for 3 hours, they will only finally eat when you’re there to pick them up. Seriously. We were there to retrieve him and he had just sat down with his first slices…can you say – to go box?
5) Teens can stay up way later and still function the next day. God bless…we’re getting older.
All in all – it was a blast! We’ll get to do this again in a few weeks when the new growth starts to show and another trip to the salon is scheduled!
So yes, I gave in and went to the fair again this year…which remarkably is one of the first few things I really remember doing in Knoxville when we moved back here from Nashville. I had complained that I wouldn’t go…I mean, you can tune into a number of TV channels and see livestock right? However, we recently purchased the beauty that is CARNIVAL GAMES for our Wii (the only thing that sucks is the low number of possible characters you can pick to be and no ethnic options – but I digress), so I was in the mood and we went.
You know what; in spite of myself…I like it. I mean, I’m not going to ride any of the rides because well, they scare me and you actually have to purchase tickets to ride the rides above the admission. However, you are assured of two things: good-but-bad-for-you-food and people watching galore. Both of those are sure bets at the Fair! I always felt that county fairs brought out the other side of the cultural divide that I often don’t get to see which makes the people and behavior watching fascinating…but perhaps it’s the psychology major in me that likes it. Seriously, there are a lot of walks of life at the fair: the big, the small and the ginormous; the bleached, the roots and the bald; the crest-kids and the toothless – and we all, for the most part get along due to our shared love of the midway and surrounding distractions.
Not much is immensely different at fairs down south other than the vast majority of people having thick southern accents – but the one thing that struck me funny was there was a difference in degrees of “psyched-ness”. Allow me to explain. Up north – we tend by stereotype to be fast-talkers. When you have fast-talkers who are announcers, we usually sound pretty excitable just for the sheer fact that we’re fast-talkers. However, the slower pace of talk in the south means that you have to pump yourself up to make something sound a bit more exciting right? Well, the man who was announcing the fireworks was either pretty tired or bored or just plain not thrilled with having to announce fair activities, lost children announcements or the what-have-you that goes with fair announcing. However I laughed hysterically at his rallying cry to let everyone know the fireworks show was about to start. (Think monotone and bored sounding), “Um..The fireworks show is…well, it’s about to start. Um…okay, well…that’s about it”. Brilliant!
As always, the food was great, but let me tell you – try adding up your Weight Watchers points after a night of fair-food. I mean, I got a turkey leg thinking “Hey, its turkey! That’s got to be less damaging to the diet right?” HA! Try 27 points – for 1 leg, which happens to be some people’s total points for the day! Add to that cotton candy (a magical monster-sized bag no less), and an elephant ear (for those up north: a non-swizzle designed funnel cake), which together were still less points than the turkey leg!
Either way – if you liked the fairs up north – you’ll like ‘em down south. It definitely lets you indulge in the characters and sub-cultures a little more down here and is worth the high blood pressure and cellulite increase!
Yea!!! Your blog-connecting-flight actually made it on time and no luggage was lost. Yes, we’ve moved here to wordpress.com so we could have a bit more creative control over our blogalog! Enjoy!
Okay, so it sounds more elaborate than it really is right? This is our little slice of internet nonsense, which basically is our on-going effort to keep our friends and family up-to-date on our lives, our love and our continuing pursuit of pomegranates. In this modern age of movement, we’ve realized that distance is not an excuse to not keep everyone posted, so please - stop by anytime - in person or internet-ly and know that you are all never far from our thoughts.
