Bright-Eyed and Bushy-Tailed

is not what you want to be at almost midnight on a random Tuesday evening.

So, I’ve been trying to prove my non-addiction to caffeine, by not having any. The result? Predictably, my first day I had a major headache by mid-morning. That sent me into a panic – and since then, I’ve been in an on-again-off-again separation with black tea and coffee.

Yesterday was good. Although the white ayurvedic chai from teavana felt pretty caffeinated.
Then today: I had a great morning at the park making paper-mache lanterns with a bunch of moms I really like from my attachment parenting meetup, and when I got home I was just beat. So beat, that at 4 pm, I turned tail and ran to the kitchen to brew myself a strong black cuppa.

About an hour ago, my husband kicked my chatty butt out of bed, with a, If you’re so awake, why don’t you take your laptop out and post?
I grabbed a pile of books (good reads) that I’ve been meaning to post about and bounced out to the dining area.
But there is so much other stuff to write about, than the books I finished a month ago.

I told Chad today that there are going to be some changes around here. Life changes.
1. I’m going to clear the surfaces in my bedroom and keep them cleared.
When I got home from Korea this summer, I woke up one night in a fog. I was sure that I was in somebody else’s room, but I hadn’t the faintest idea whose. The room was awesome. It was dark, but I could see the outlines of all the furniture. The room was clean and uncluttered. It felt like a room that had been designed or spatially mapped out by an interior decorator. (I envy people with excellent spatial design skills and I’m always on the look-out for a friend who might want to come over and just completely critique my house and help me redesign my living space.) The strange thing was, that in some corner of my mind, I knew logically that this room was my own bedroom – I just couldn’t see any of the clutter.
When I woke up, I determined to re-create that room.
Of course, I’ve ALWAYS meant to declutter my bedroom, but it is always the space I neglect, because when guests come over, I focus on the living room and kitchen. Bathrooms must get deep-cleaned regularly, guests or no guests. The bedroom where my office resides pretty much gets ignored, even though in reality, most of my guests end up seeing it and I spend a lot of time there. This time I mean it. It’s going to happen.
Besides which, I really do believe in creating a more peaceful serene environment for Christian.
So, this is the plan: there are three major surfaces to tackle. Each one needs to be cleared (and it may be easiest to just leave them empty), which means going through every item and finding its home. The top of the chest of drawers will be done by Nov 1 (gulp – next weekend). My desk and accompanying file cabinet by Nov 15. And the top of the bookshelf will be clear by Dec 1.
Warning: I’ll have to get rid of more stuff, so anticipate parcels and gifts.

2. I’m going to start exercising twice a week and doing yoga twice a week. I think that needs to happen from this week until the end of my life, because I am growing old and I CAN FEEL IT HAPPENING. For somebody who has always been in pretty good shape and very limber in her youth, it is frightening to feel that strength and energy slip away.
I read in a Real Simple magazine that it takes 10 minutes a day to maintain your current level of flexibility. BUT if you do nothing, you can lose up to 7% of mobility A MONTH, in your hips, for example.
When I was young, in my teens, most stretches that people did to warm up, did not feel like stretches to me.
Scarily, now everything feels like a stretch. It feels like a stretch to simply reach up. My back hurts all the time. The reality is that I haven’t exercised or stretched properly since before I was pregnant with Christian, so three years ago.
Ideally, I need two walks/jogs around the lake each week. I need to figure out what mornings are good for that. I’ll start with once a week, by walking to playgroup every Thursday. That’s an easy way to sneak it in.
And yoga – I’m thinking every Tuesday to start. There’s a handwork and Waldorf discussion group meeting at a park every Tuesday – and I’d like to do an hour of yoga at the park before that begins at 10. Maybe the other jog and yoga session can happen on the weekend. Hmmm. Better set a deadline…
I’ll try another yoga set on Saturdays or Fridays and another run on Sundays by December 1.

If you want to join me for any of this (sit on my bed and chat while I organize?), let me know. Maybe I’ll start a weekly walk/jog meetup? Accountability to others seems to work for me (better than a monetary carrot, which is my husbands preferred method of encouragement).

I think this might constitute a minor mid-life crisis.

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