the happiness project

it's another cold + rainy day here in Hsinchu. I'm sitting here with cold toes and a sniffly nose, waiting out the weather for a chance to scoot off to buy a space heater. and I've been reading the happiness project [still, I know] and decided that I'm not going to wait for 2013 to roll around. I'm not going to wait until the end of the year or until I have the perfect plan in place. I'm going to start my project now.

I'm not sure how much of this whole thing I'll be sharing, but I can tell you that for December I've decided my theme will be ENERGIZE. yep, I'm copycatting right out of the book. I think that since the scooter crash and my forced inactivity, I've adapted a more lethargic lifestyle. and I'd like to reverse it. cold weather typically means bundling up and staying in, and I don't want to waste my time here doing that. three of the things I am going to focus on [and the reasons why] are below.

DECAFFEINATE: hello, my name is Jamie, and I am addicted to coffee. at some point during college, I began drinking coffee. but it wasn't until I entered the workforce that it became a daily habit. I used to drink 3 or 4 throughout the day, and a 3pm diet coke on top of that. combined with the stress of my job, I started having eye twitches and heart palpitations. so I gave up the DC and tried to cut back on the coffee. earlier this year I had several unpleasant [mostly for Husband] mornings where I did not get my cup of joe. and I realized that having my ability to have a good day dependent on a caffeine fix was not the best trait. so I weaned myself off it, and spent most of the summer not drinking any at all. then we moved to Taiwan. adjusting to jetlag "required" coffee, and I picked up the habit again. I'm currently at 1 cup every morning [not terrible] but have recently been getting headaches [whether from too much or too little caffiene I don't know] and I think it's time to stop. I want the occasional cup of tea or dark roast to be a comfort and a pleasure, not an obligation or necessity.

GO TO BED: if you know me, you probably know that I am NOT one of those people who can function on 4 hours of sleep a night. me without enough sleep is worse than me without my morning coffee. cranky, irritable, and short-tempered. being unemployed a full-time housewife/part-time substitute, most mornings I can [in theory] sleep as late as I want. knowing that, it's hard to make myself go to bed at a decent hour. but more than getting to sleep earlier, I want to sleep better. that means: no caffeine in the afternoon, turning off the computer/tv an hour before bedtime, and getting that space heater. [and maybe buying a foam pad for our mattress.] I have not been sleeping well as of late, and I'm hoping these changes will help with that.

EXERCISE: my knee is still recovering from the scooter crash, but it's time to get moving again. I'm back at yoga [with some minor pain] and have been doing some spinning on the bike at the gym. all the rain lately has made me knees extra-achey [thanks old track injuries!] it's a little depressing to think that I was supposed to be running a half marathon 2 weeks from now. I don't want to push myself to hard too fast, but I'm hoping to graduate from the bike to the elliptical to finally hitting the pavement for a run by the end of the month.

I'm also going to work on getting a full plan for the project set, finalizing my "commandments" and "universal truths" and some kind of a tracking system.

and with that, the weather has decided to break... so it's off to get that space heater.

happy weekend, friends ♥