Jennifer Groft

1. Word in. Work out. Work plan. There are many great life lessons to be found in Ann Voskamp’s post 25 Point Manifesto for Sanity for 2013, I have been reading that post for a year and half and practically have some of it memorized. In facing the chaos of this year, I decided to start being disciplined about putting it into practice. I have chanted “Word in, work out, work plan.” to myself to try to get on track many days, but I haven’t’ been so good at following up with it. I am making that my focus right now, to focus my days, to calm my spirit, to feel less frazzled and disorganized. Onward!

2. Word in. This part is no longer hard for me. I used to struggle to fit in bible study and prayer in random parts of my day, but you know how that goes… I began to toy with getting up earlier to do it then. That didn’t work great until I added coffee to the mix. Just having that little treat for myself helped me to get up and sit at the table. Still, it took me the better part of six months of on again, off again to really get it to stick. That was two and a half years ago. I have come to cherish this time in the early morning, and seldom skip it, even on the weekends and vacations. I crave this time now.

I am currently working on two different Bible studies, and no it really doesn’t get confusing. I focus on the readings for the upcoming Sunday for a few days a week and I am doing a study with a Facebook group on the Gospel of Matthew. It might sound super-scholarly, but that is not my goal. I am not up to intellectual study at 5am. I usually work through a guided question or two and journal a tiny bit.

3. Work out. Ugh. I am adding this one in. I haven’t been a regular exerciser for nearly a year now, and I can tell. I hadn’t realized how weak I had become until I tried to change the sheets on the top bunk a couple weeks ago. I couldn’t pull myself up! Between that and noticing that the stress pounds are starting to add up again. I am diving in.

Why did I quit before? Two reasons primarily: exhaustion, and over-tracking. I seem to have some sort of fatigue thing that pops up every couple months that just wipes me out. (Yes, I’ve gone to the doctor, only to be told that I have 9 kids, so that must be why I’m tired. I know. It’s ridiculous.) That was especially bad last November and I never got started again after that. The over tracking part is another story. I thought that if I was going to work out, I needed to quantify every little thing. For running, that meant following a progressive distance and speed plan. For strength training, it meant adding a rep as often as possible.

Right now, I am going to head out the door most days and walk for 30 minutes. The number of steps I take or distance I go doesn’t matter. I will be dressed so I can run if I feel like it. (I did run the first day, and I did better than I expected!) And that’s it. Begin. That is my whole fitness plan.

4. Work plan. I am so good at planning. I can plan circles around the most organized people I know. I set goals like a boss. Following through, though, is not my strong suit. Part of the problem is that I overplan, and part is just because – oh look! a new book! (Or other such distractions.) I have followed different planning systems over the years, always tweaking them to fit m situation. Currently I am using a variation on GTD for Homemakers (it looks like this was renamed to Declutter Your Head), and relying on keeping things digital instead of writing it out and having a paper to check in with multiple times a day.

I have a love/hate relationship with paper. I love to write things down, but I hate to keep track of it.  I’m working off of a daily plan in Evernote, my google calendar, and a running to do list (which I need to stop ignoring) using Remember the Milk app and website. This way everything is on my phone, computer, and kindle.

But setting up the system and planning my day is the fun part. Where the rubber meets the road is where I slack off. Work the plan! I have to keep redirecting myself to work the plan.

5. I have curly hair. I will be in denial no longer. Growing up, I had mostly straight hair. It had a slight curve to it, but it was easy to blow dry and looked nice straight. Not anymore. With each child my hair has curled more and more, to the point where it is really difficult to get truly straight. The trouble is that it is not uniformly curly. Underneath in the back there are beautiful fat curls:

Then on top of that the hair is just wavy, not quite curly enough to be truly curly, and frizzed out because of the under layer pushing it out. I was going to post a picture but I decided against it, because this is just turning into me whining about my hair.

I finally accepted defeat and stopped trying to have a straight hair kind of haircut, so that has helped a little. Still, I just can’t make friends with my hair.  I’ve read Curly Girl, I’ve tried the tricks. They helped a little. What can be done with unevenly curly hair? Besides a pony tail or clip.) You know what the problem is? Curly hair is out of control. It’s messy. It has it’s own idea of the direction that it needs to go each day. That is what makes me crazy. Maybe I need to take a lesson from my hair and find the beauty as it happens. This seems to be a little contrary to the “Work the plan” part above, but it is really not, because I have to make reality part of the plan or the plan will fail. And that includes my hair.

6. Stupid house update. STILL not on the market. My poor husband has been working so hard to get the drainage situation fixed.

Whoever buys this house will never have drainage issues to deal with. In the mean time, I think both Home Depot and Lowes have given my husband his own honored parking space.

7. The mornings and evenings are finally cooling off! The days are still in the the 90s, but it is gloriously cool when the sun is down. I’m really enjoying the weather and the prospect of someday wearing jeans without regretting it all day.

That’s all for today, folks. Go see Jen @ Conversion Diary for more Quick Takes!
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