The Plan: Month 2 check in

Here I am for month 2 of the borrowed plan:

Scenario 1 - Health

• Exercise - I have made the commitment to walk 5 days a week. I am probably actually doing this 2 times a week on the average. 30-45 minutes. It's more consistent then last month but not entirely where I want to be.
• Food - Here I am doing 100% better. I am journaling my food daily. I am eating more fruit and re-discovered banana's. I am very happy with my overall food choices. I need work still in restaurants. I want to start including more veggies.
• Journal - going really well. More days than not. I have 5 days down consistently and the weekends get shot to hell. So my goal is every single bite gets marked down.
• Overall Health Management - My skin looks amazing. I am even back to wearing makeup. I had my eyelashes permed and tinted. I have the humidifer going daily 24 hours. I started an internal cleanse and that is going really well. I am resting when my body says to rest. It's a lot lately but that's OK. When I don't need it, I won't take it. My water and fluid intake is excellent. I am taking baths in baking soda, dead seal salt, ,baby oil with aloe and vitamin E and a touch of Blue Food coloring to make me feel like I am in a Spa every night. It's really relaxing. I have started doing Yoga again - though I just literally started so the benefits aren't quite there yet.

Scenario 2 - Job/Career

• I have started managing my boss better. Boss no longer manages me, I manage Boss. Things are different now that I ( and my team) know that Boss is not competent either as a manager or as an employee. That's fact not opinion.
• I am starting to keep the communication lines open more for the 5 other people on my team. I have one new person and one person who has trouble managing workload. Given that one my major responsibilities is to load balance the workload of the team, I took back this task from my manager. Boss doesn't know enough at this point to do that job and isn't interested in learning.
• We as a team have started giving boss busy work to do so we can get our work done.
• I am just doing the best job I know how and taking the lead away from boss as often as possible while making sure that anything that has to have boss's name attached to it as actually done by Boss.
• I decided that I will not be doing Boss's job anymore unless it is to back him up in his absence. If my projects are dependent on Boss doing some task, then boss has to ante up and get that task done. Either Boss gets the job done or Boss has to answer to Herr Direktor.
• I'm taking my lunch when I am supposed to. I am taking random 15-20 minute breaks to get my brain focused. I am shutting down at 5 and I no longer work weekend, after hours or holidays unless I am on call.

Scenario 3 - My home

It's clean and neat and that's all I can ask right now. This month I have things to start doing in terms of organization and interior design.

Scenario 4 - finances

• Paid off one credit card. Have less than 100 left on the other
• Last payment on 401K loan is pending the end of this month
• Started making the payments to the IRS on my tax adjustments from a prior tax year
• Continuing to add money to my investment portfolio
• My bank ( Bank of NY) was bought out by Chase so I am now interviewing new banks to see if moving my money makes sense. I hate JPMC. And I'm doubly pissed that they bought out my bank that I have been with since I am 10.
• Working through my debt and bring that number smaller and smaller. It's so manageable right now that I am thrilled.

Scenario 5 - Education

• Getting my kids ready for Solo festivals in this state.
• I am taking the courses required to become certified to adjudicate in these festivals for next year.
• Still studyding voice and doing well. My next performance is 3/18.

Scenario 6 - Family & Friends

• My mom threw a wonderful reception after my recital. It was excellent.
• My brother chose to go to the baptism. It's not OK. I'm over it now.
• Communication is still going well with the family. My sister is having a baby shower, and though I was late in RSVP'ing, I still did.
• I am putting a lot of effort into my relationships with my friends. I had lunch with a bunch of them on Saturday morning. That was just lovely. I have 3 people that I met in the past 2 years that we are still getting to know one another. I am, as always, grateful to my college buds, who are there for me no matter what. If I do something stupid, the worst thing I ever heard from them was "We tried to tell you..." I love them for it. We cultivate each other through Blogging now. I love that, but I miss them.

Scenario 7 - Self esteem

• I had hit a really really low low low low low point. If you can even believe how it revolved around Chinese food. The delivery boys at the local restaurant miss me. I no longer do takeout. Or anything else there. I can't stomach it any more. I overate and hit rock bottom. Once you are there - there's nowhere else to go but up.
• I am taking some life lessons from the young ones that I am friends with. Yes they are in their early twenties., but I think that's a bonus actually. The things I take away from the two of them is that they are very self assured in the capabilities and when they are not they are not afraid to get the assistance or do the work needed to improve. This impresses me about both of them and I have started believing in my own abilities and seeking assistance where needed. It was the belief system that was flawed here, not my ability. Identification in such a specific form was helpful
• I am working really hard to play back new inproved soundtracks in my head. A new one that I like these days is "You are only human. There isn't anything that has happened that can't be corrected" and the other one I like is " You can't please all the people all the time". Trite? maybe - but they are helping a lot. slowly but surely
• I am making more of an effort when I walk out of the house. Now I don't mean my appearance so much ( I always look fabulous! wink wink) but how I carry myself and my attitude.
• I am doing my life Makeovers. This is a great help for putting my life in order.

NEW Scenario - Faith

• Effort being made to make it to church every week for 10:15 service. It's tough as I need to start at 8AM so this is a long haul of a day for me. But it's my favorite service, its the family service with the most ( and best) music.
• I am taking more time to reflect during this lenton season. I chose to make the effort to exercise 5 days 30 minutes rather than give something up.

There it is - month 2. I think I have made a lot of progress in some areas and I know there is work to be done in others. I need to develop some behaviours and then get them into practice so that they are second nature before taking on smaller things. I have made mini goals and these monthly check points are just that check points so you can see how the plan is coming along.

As usual my credit line goes to Post - Doc for "the plan" and the inspiration to adopt it!