November Goals Update

It’s not even winter yet, and my family is already going stir crazy. We were all a little under the weather the week of Thanksgiving, except for Andrew, who had a nasty stomach flu and sinus infection. That, it turns out, is a really fun combination!

In the two and a half years since the boys moved in, neither one of them has ever really been sick. Especially given the stress of moving in with a new family, that’s really quite remarkable. We’re lucky that they’re both always so healthy.

This also means, though, that Austin and I are pretty inexperienced when it comes to taking care of a sick child. But throwing up in bed in the middle of the night multiple times over the course of two weeks has given us some excellent training, and Andrew seems to be feeling much better now. (I am fighting the urge to grab a bucket and run every time I hear a cough.)

Onward to my goal progress in November.

Big successes first!

As of this morning, I have officially lost thirty pounds! That’s pretty much my entire goal. I’m really happy with what I’m seeing in the mirror these days. It’s like I’ve turned back the clock ten years, with a couple of notable exceptions …

I’m in better shape than I’ve ever been. (That’s not a very high bar!) I’m running for twenty minutes at a time, three times a week. What surprises me the most is how short my recovery time is now. When I started working out, I was exhausted, and the day after my workout always meant aching, tired legs. That’s all gone. I come home from a run, eat breakfast, and by the time I get out of the shower, I’m back to full capacity. (I’m even considering expanding my exercise efforts, which I really didn’t think I would do.)

My skin looks great. I’ve been on medication for acne for two months, and the difference is like night and day. My skin is looking better than it has in more than twenty years. I had totally given up on this.

And I had the barber completely clipper my hair. Two weeks later, I’m still getting used to it, but I think it works. I no longer look like I’m trying to hide the fact I’m going bald.

I’m also feeling pretty good about my writing, though that required a little bit of reevaluation this month.

I wrote 25,000 words in the month of November. That’s pretty good, although it obviously falls short of the 50,000 I was aiming for to meet the National Novel Writing Month goal. But I learned a lot this month, and I think in the long term that’s going to be very helpful.

For the first week of November, I met my daily writing benchmarks every day. That’s no small task, considering that I have two hours between dropping the boys off at school and picking Jordan up at the end of preschool.

What I learned, though, is that raising my sons is currently very much a full time job. And sure, I could add a second job to that by writing two thousand words every day, but it just wouldn’t be sustainable. (Nor would those two thousand words be very good ones.) Instead, I can be happy with slow progress and the knowledge that when my available time increases, I’ll have a pretty good idea what to do with it.

That’s not a change in my goal. I’m still going to write, but I’m going to keep in mind the parameters I have to work within.