Tag: Personal Goals

If it’s not broke, don’t fix it!

~ msgracefulnot ~ 1 Comment

On October 4, 2017, I received the following in a letter from my neurologist:

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After reading this the first thing I thought was

“DAMMIT” ! Stop trying to change my medication!

I have made my decision, I don’t want to change. It works for me!

My roommate overheard my exclamation, and immediately offered his unsolicited opinion “I don’t know why you’re taking a drug that you know will probably kill you.” Followed by, “Exercise more, eat better.”

This only served to make me more angry.  While for me anger is an excellent motivator, it is not a healthy place to stay.  So I decided to try to interpret the reasons behind my anger.

I have spent the last week in my head trying to sort that out.

Why did I get so angry?

Because I didn’t make my decision without weighing all my options.

Having MS means I have to adjust to changes all the time

  • changing my plans because I am too tired, or my legs won’t work, or the weather isn’t cooperating
  • selecting the type of clothing I am “allowed” to wear.  I have to wear easily removable bottoms because of my incontinence issues.  I don’t like pants because they aggravate the pins and needles feelings in my leg.  Most things don’t match the one pair of shoes I own that accommodates the AFO or orthotics I am supposed to wear.

This is working for me I don’t want to change it!  It makes me remember and feel that dark place I was in when I made the decision to start Tysabri.

As for now, the blood test will wait.  I have other goals to accomplish this week and have spent enough time being angry.  But YAH I walked a mile so far today and have a friend coming to push me for another walk.  Yah being active!

I think it would be healthy for me to work on letting go of some of those memories.  Writing really does help, whether you publish or not.  I am going to spend some more time this week writing about my decision to start and stay on Tysabri.  At the very least, putting it out there will free up some space in my head 🙂

 

 

The STRUGGLE is real

~ msgracefulnot ~ Leave a comment

As if adulting wasn’t hard enough, try throwing technology into the mix.  Last week I posted a list of goals for October.  They were:

  1. Losing weight and improving my health
  2. Continuing to learn word press and webpage design
  3. Clean out my closet (finishing something I started a long time ago)

I ended my post saying that when you make a tremendous list you set yourself up to fail.  I was only going to make baby steps to make a few areas of my life more manageable.

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HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

In an effort to try to be more organized, I have been trying to use my phone to help me keep track of all these projects, but in an effort to have more free time and be more organized, I feel like my face is stuck in the phone ALL the time trying to learn how to coexist with technology.   OMG!  I am becoming one of THOSE people!

While I still have my previously mentioned goals, I have slightly revised them.

  1. Walk one mile every day (even if it’s a total of a mile, not a full mile at a time, it’s still more than I am doing now)
  2. While I still plan to continue learning wordpress and 10,000 other apps, I need a bit more structure to my plan. A schedule perhaps?
  3. Continue working on the cross stitch since it has actually been a major stress relief when I unplug technology for the night.
  4. Remember to laugh

This morning so far, I have walked a mile, drank 32 ounces of water, signed into wordpress, and laughed at myself for over an hour.  I think I will spend this week blogging about some of my technology faux pas.  Please feel free to read, share, and even comment on some of your own!

Personal Goals

~ msgracefulnot ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes I feel like my brain is a blender, random thoughts going around at high speeds so that I can’t focus on any one thing.  To combat the craziness, and try to slow my thoughts down, I write notes everywhere: on my phone, on post- its, in any number of notebooks….I call them Ramblings.  I do believe the actual ACT of writing things down, does help to slow things down a bit.

I have spent the last week gathering all of my Ramblings, and compiling them all into one GINORMOUS list.  After having a minor (ok it was major) panic attack.  I have chosen a few items to focus on during the rest of the month.  You have to start somewhere right?

My focus for the month of October:

  1. Losing weight and improving my health
  2. Continuing to learn WordPress and webpage design
  3. Cleaning out my closet ( finishing something that I started a long time ago)

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Losing weight – The goal is to weigh less than 150 lbs by the end of October.  I plan to follow the Grapefruit Diet at least 2 of the 3 days out of each week, drink a minimum of 64 ounces of water a day, and to walk everyday with my ultimate goal of being able to walk a mile a day.  (I’m still pondering if the goal is one mile without taking a break or just walking at LEAST a mile every day but I figure some movement is better than none right?

Continuing to learn wordpress– I WANTED to make this a page.  I think that’s what is called.  I wanted to make a link to this in the bookmark bar with a child page? of October goals maybe post my status or results?  I haven’t learned how to do that yet, so that simple feature is my goal for this month. Oh yeah and how to move pictures and headings around, I’m still playing with that.

xstitch goal

Cleaning out my closet– I own 4 of these seasonal cross stitch patterns, one for each season.  I used to do cross stitch a lot while waiting at doctors appointments and when I was in the wheelchair to try to keep my mind busy with something other than feeling sorry for myself.  Since I have been more active, they have lived in a shoebox.  It seems sad to let all the time and money I spent on them to go to waste, so I pulled out the Autumn one and made the goal to finish the part I TRIED to outline ( somehow I ended up with an eraser to do it but it will work for my purpose) shrug.

I believe that making goals, even if they a small goals is a positive start.  I don’t want to make a tremendous list and set myself up to fail.  So I have baby steps on making a few areas of my life more manageable.  Wish me luck?!