what's in you wednesday

I read somewhere recently that if people want to significantly reduce stress in their life, they need to do away with their to-do lists and schedules. That bit of advice really surprised me since I didn't see how any one could function without a to-do list and schedule. But because I've had a lot of stress in my life lately, I was willing to give this new approach a shot.

Suffice to say, the first 12 days of 2010 haven't been very productive for us.

While we get the kids to bed before 8:00 every night, Charlie and I go to bed whenever we want to go to bed. Usually very late and after several games of Guitar Hero. As a result we wake up late. It's like our old days in college, except there are four children running around demanding that we feed them food that we don't have because shopping was on my to-do list.

During the day, everyone roams about not sure of what to do next.

Except me. Because I'm usually busy at work in my awesome pajamas.

Granted, we've all been very sick with a bad case of bronchitis and at least twice this week, I've been in a hot steamy bathroom with a hacking child in the wee hours of the morning. And we're slowly recovering from our Christmas vacation, which always seems to take a month. Even though I made a concerted effort to get everything down and put away, as I look around, there are still a few rogue decorations scattered here and there and I'm wondering if maybe I should just leave them up until next year?

The moral of this story is that after 12 days, I came to the conclusion that I can not and do not want to live without a to-do list. If having a schedule means that I will carry more stress than the average human, so be it. I'd rather have a little stress than feel like everything is totally out of whack and I'm living among a colony of slugs.

In an effort to combat this onslaught of crippling New Year atrophy, I bought a spanking new calendar for me, for Charlie, for our house, and I also bought a variety color pack of Gel pens. And I then surmised that there are very few of life's ills that cannot be instantly cured by an afternoon shopping for office supplies.

I then signed the children up for several classes through our local recreation center because they need structure and we need structure. They now have karate on Mondays, gymnastics on Tuesday, tap and ballet on Wednesdays and basketball on Fridays. Elizabeth also has speech therapy on Thursdays, so every single day during the week, something is happening.

I love it.

And our brand spanking new color coded calendars love it, too.

In addition, Charlie and I sat down last night and had a major talk about what we need to do to kick some major ass in 2010. Because as it happens every so often, we both felt like we had reached a point where our priorities were out of alignment. Our house was suffering - we were suffering - and most concerning to both of us, our children were suffering due to our inability to get our heads in the game.

You're up. You're down.

You're hot. You're cold.

You're on. You're off.

Such is the game of life. But we both recognize the importance of keep our eyes on the prize of satisfaction and contentment and feeling like we are living our lives the fullest we can. So last night, with glasses of ice cold water between us, we jotted down a few things to take on this New Year with gusto.

For starters, we are going to focus on our physical health. We are both going to lose weight. Not just because we're getting a bit chubby, but because we feel unhealthy. We're in the process of doing a COMPLETE overhaul on our diets. We are eliminating reducing our sugar intake and are bumping up our consumption of protein and fresh produce.

Here are some STAGGERING statistics that I recently read...

100 years ago, the average person consumed 15 grams of sugar a day. Today, our daily sugar intake is 189 grams ~ approximately 47 teaspoons ~ that are hidden in a wide variety of foods that we consume. Cookies. Soda. Cereals. Energy Drinks and Bars. The average healthy person should be consuming 32 grams a sugar per day, or approximately eight teaspoons.

In our family, Charlie drinks about three cups of coffee everyday and in that coffee, he puts no less than two teaspoons of sugar per. Sometimes, he'll have a Coke with dinner. Boom, that's another 10 teaspoons of obvious sugar for a total of 16 teaspoons, or twice his recommended daily allowance. This doesn't even take in to account the other foods that he's had throughout the day that are undoubtedly loaded with sugar. As for me, I can easily put away a box of Joe-Joe's (chocolate chip cookies, bag of M&M's, Dove Squares - insert your sugary poison here) without blinking. Considering two Joe-Joe's contain 13 grams of sugar and there are approximately 60 Joe-Joe's in a box, in three days, I've exceeded my two-week sugar allowance.

And then I wonder why my pants are tight.

It's because sugar is hidden (and not so hidden) in many of our foods that the average person is 10 to 30 pounds overweight. Did you know that the number of obese people has more than doubled since 1980? Excess weight can cause a host of health troubles including but not limited to diabetes, heart disease, cancer, sleep apnea, pregnancy complications, osteoarthritis, gallbladder disease and fatty liver disease - just to name a few - and studies indicate that in the United States alone, more than $100 BILLION dollars are spent on health care needs related to obesity each and every year.

Say WHAT?

So yeah ... in addition to signing up for several physical challenges including a triathlon for Charlie and at least one, possibly two 3-Day walks for me, we are making it a PRIORITY to eat healthier. For instance, just tonight, I threw out all of our cereals that contain more than three grams of sugar per serving. We'll largely be eating oatmeal and Cheerios for breakfast from now on, with sliced fruit on top. And if I can find the time, I honestly promise that once a week, I'll do my absolute best to share a new healthful recipe that we've cooked up.

Now we're also planning to exercise our brains and improve our overall mental health by signing up for a class that interests us. Charlie wants to get back in to classical guitar and I really want to learn more about photography. Since both of us are busy during the day, we're looking for classes that we can take one night a week, on alternating nights, at a local Junior College.

AND THEN, we're planning to participate one day a week in a small group through our church. In the past, the time that we've spent with other people reflecting on spiritual matters has provided an excellent boost for every facet of our lives, including our marriage - our careers - our relationships and best of all, our overall family unit.

This might seem like we're taking on a lot.

But it's easy to make time in your life for things that you enjoy. And it certainly makes you feel better about yourself when you can look back on a day - a week - a month - or a year and think WOW, I really accomplished something!

Last, but certainly not least, we are tackling our financial health. While we are able to survive off of my income, we definitely took a hit in the wallet when Charlie was laid-off from his job last summer. And while money has slowly started to trickle in from his very part-time business venture, we recognize that overnight success definitely doesn't happen overnight.

It dawned on me as I was doing our bills last month that never in our entire lives have we ever really stuck to a budget. If we want something we buy it. Sure, we've always religiously (and aggressively) put money away for retirement (and more recently, savings), but for as long as we've been married, we've never done well harnessing our wants with our means.

Did I ever tell you the story of the 3-seater Sea Doo our first semester in Graduate school? Or the brand new Honda Accord our second semester? Or how about the beautiful cherry bedroom set our third semester? And then the beautiful cherry living room set our fourth semester?

Come on! Isn't that what financial aid is for?!

What about the bright red BMW convertible that we bought soon after I landed my job in the oil business and almost immediately before becoming pregnant with triplets and taking a year off of work? There is no doubt that if we had managed our resources better up until this point in our lives, Charlie and I would have ZERO debt. But we didn't and so we do. (But we also have some awesome memories and the same beautiful cherry bedroom set, so not ALL is lost.)

This year our goal is to throw, at a minimum, six extra payments in to our mortgage and pay for as much as we can with cash. Not credit. Not even debit. But cold hard cash. Or any coins that we can dig out from between our sofa cushions. I'm still not sure how exactly we are going to do that without a money tree in the backyard, but if the budget that I calculated last month is sound, there is absolutely no reason we can't.

It will take some very savvy planning and living on a TIGHT budget but I want to do it so badly that I wrote it on my list. And my new line of thought is that if it is on my list of things to do it shall be done. On earth as it is in heaven.

So, what kind of life changing goals do you have in store for yourself - or your family - this year?

Do you think it would be harder to live on a strict budget or give up sugar?

Personally, I think both will be extremely difficult. With any luck, I won't be driving a new Range Rover and supplementing my diet with Bon Bons come February.