May 2013: Day 1

This month's challenge is to walk for 30 minutes every day. Timed walking to and from the car doesn't count; it has to be half an hour of on purpose walking. Minutes do not rollover to the next day.

The weather in Wisconsin can't decide what it wants to be right now, but I have access to our apartment complex's fitness center, which has two treadmills. The semester is almost over (halleluiah!), but last night Josh and I went together and each did a treadmill session. I read school stuff while doing mine.

One day in observances:

• Having a bigger surface on which to set papers on a treadmill's screen area would be great. My 8 1/2 x 11 pages were able to stay put but they bent. I needed to underline some things, so this was tricky.
• Half an hour goes by fast when reading articles!
• Easier to read articles on the treadmill than it is to read on the elliptical. The latter is bouncy.
• Good time to drink more water.
• The "weight loss" program on the treadmills is 33 minutes, including cool down.

May 2013 Challenge Contenders

I went out with a friend this afternoon and talked about my idea for this blog a little. She suggested a few challenges, including going locavore for a month. My husband and I have signed up for an every-other-week CSA through the Crossroads Community Farm, so I think that would be a decent idea for next month since we're supposed to start receiving produce in May. It's been such a long winter in Wisconsin, though, that I'm not sure what will be available, and since this is our first time trying a CSA I'm hesitant. I'm reminding myself that the purpose of this blog is to challenge myself to improve, so just because I'm feeling a little trepidation doesn't mean this isn't a good idea. The hesitation might mean it's a great idea. This idea would still be a significant change without being overwhelming if I made it "every dinner with a local food as its main ingredient." Don't know if there are any quinoa, brown rice, or mashed potatoes from a packet farms in the greater Madison area. 

Another change I think would be really beneficial and that I'm a bit anxious to challenge myself to incorporate is adding a dedicated period for walking to my day. Getting out of the apartment and being able to appreciate the trees and bunnies and NATURE, yadda yadda, is good, and in spite of the long winter spring appears to finally be getting started here so it's a great temperature to be outside and walking lets me think and sort things out. For the first two week of the month I would still have my night classes, so that would make things a little trickier... But it's not as though I don't have a half hour each day where I can walk around. I feel like maybe this call of the wild is something I need to get to carpe-ing and this monthly challenge is an excellent opportunity to start.

I'm not the only one in my apartment who could use some exercise. The cats are both overweight by a few pounds per their vet, and while we play with them once a week or so more would be better. Maybe a nice in-house challenge would be to play with them for a bit every day? We already have a laser pointer and I've been meaning to make a long, dangly toy with one of their biff mice and some monofilament...

 These are far from the only options. Decisions, decisions. :)

Hello, world!

This blog will be my chronicle of monthly challenges to myself: get up at the same time every morning for a month, eat a raw food lunch every day for a month, work out on a regular schedule for a month, floss every night for a month... whatever. Whatever for a month.

May is just a few days away, so that will be my first challenge month! My first challenge is TBA. Feel free to comment with suggestions.

The plan for each month is to post by the first day what the challenge is, and update weekly with costs incurred, challenges met, challenges run away from, and so on. The idea of keeping a Julie & Julia style year long project doesn't exactly give me the confidence to say "Challenge accepted," but individual months of different challenges have worked well for me in the past. The best example of this was the meatless month I did a few years ago, which helped me decide to become a vegetarian.

A bit about me, the challengee (and challenger; the power has already gone to my head): I'm a 27 year old female living in Madison, Wisconsin (USA, USA!), with my husband and two cats. We live in an apartment and are planning to buy our first house this summer. I'm studying Library and Information Science, working on the graduate degree I need to be a librarian. I have two part-time jobs and usually take a low full time courseload of three classes each semester. I'm an ovo-lacto vegetarian--I use almond milk for drinking/cooking but eat yogurt, eggs, cheese.

Strengths: I'm hella devoted to my causes and feel like my ethical core is solid. I don't let problems fester even if fixing them is hard. I can make pretty good fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants presentations. I can make people laugh. I'm able to work on very minute projects/crafts (like my wedding invitations).

Weaknesses: Doughnuts. I suck at trying or re-trying foods I hate on principle or didn't like the first time I tried them (onions, mostly). Sleeping in. Doughnuts. Getting distracted on the internet. Worrying. Not a lot of cash on hand.