Feelin’ SoFabulous for #SoFabCon2014

I’m hoping, hoping, hoping to attend SoFabCon 2014.  My experience at SoFabCon2013 was fantastic and more than worth the cost, the travel, the everything! I really really want to attend again this year – what’s potentially holding me back? My daughter gets married just two weeks after the conference. Honestly, that’s the only thing that could EVER keep me away! But for now, I’m staying positive that I WILL find a way to do it all and get myself to SoFabCon 2014!

Me on the left, looking SUPER tired and run down. Let’s call this my “BEFORE” picture.

So with that in mind, I’m taking part in Feelin’ SoFabulous – a wellness journey focusing on mind, body, and spirit! After spending the last three weeks ill, even having had to cut my trip to California short and come home early because of it, I’ve come to the realization that I NEED to pay more attention to my wellness. After being in a car accident that changed my life, I spent some time focusing on “self-care” – little ways I could take care of myself and my wellness despite the health issues I was facing. In fact, I used to lead workshops and do some public speaking on the topic. I’m all about finding easy little ways that will fit into my lifestyle without having to invest so much time or so much money, that I’ll just abandon it all within a week or two.

Me looking refreshed and ready to take on the world. This is the “AFTER” picture I’m hoping for!

So here are my Feelin’ SoFabulous wellness goals for the next few months:

1)  I’ve fallen into a really bad habit. For the past 3 months or so, MANY of my meals have been eaten while I work. This means that a lot of them are “grab and go” type foods – which doesn’t always means junk food but certainly doesn’t mean balanced eating either. It also means I’m not putting much thought into what I’m eating – other than, is it quick, easy, and convenient for eating while hunched over a keyboard.

So, I want to focus on healthier eating. If I lose some weight, fine, but really, I’m a plus-size woman who’s pretty comfortable in her own skin. The only reason I’d like to take off a bit of weight is because of my hip and knee injury – it’s a permanent injury that I’ll have to deal with for the rest of my life and placing extra stress on my joints with additional weight will simply exacerbate the problem.

 Because I like my goals to be SMART ones (in particular, specific and measurable), I want to increase my fruit and vegetable intake so that I’m getting the 7 daily servings recommended by the Canada Food Guide. I also need to increase my intake of water. I’m not always a big fan of drinking water so for now, I’m aiming for 6 glasses (8 oz) a day.

2)  Along with this sedentary life stuck in front of a computer that I’ve been leading, of course, I haven’t had nearly enough physical activity.  I do have to be careful with increasing my activity – overdoing it has already caused me to fall and I now have a bone tumour in my knee because of it.  BUT I don’t want to use that as an excuse for doing NOTHING.

Prior to the last few months, I was really good at doing my doctor-approved physiotherapy exercises (basically a set of stretches and Yoga-based movements).  I even have some sets of exercises that can be done from my chair or while in bed so there’s really no excuse for not keeping up with these!. Right now, my goal is 15 minutes of stretching in the morning and 15 minutes at night.

3)  Those two goals take care of “body” and honestly, I predict that I’ll start feeling better in general so they will help with mind and spirit too. But I know that another area I really need to focus on is getting more “me time”. I LOVE my job – it’s a blessing and I guess, in some ways a bit of a curse. There’s just SO MUCH I want to do with my business that I can spend hours upon hours working on it – and loving it!  I mean, that’s a good thing, right? But I think I need to remind myself that there is a world outside of blogging and social media.

So, to start with, I’m establishing a new rule for myself. No work after 8 pm. No, maybe 9 pm. Ok, ok, 8 pm.  (Do you know how hard this is for me? I’ve been known to start working at 7 or 8 in the morning and continue on right through midnight!). I started as a craft blogger – it’s been FOREVER since I was able to craft, just for the fun of crafting!  Every craft post I’ve put up recently has been because I was under deadline to do so. Those hours after 8 pm each night are going to be devoted to doing things (outside of work) that I WANT to do – crafting, reading (I devoured some books while I was sick in bed – I shouldn’t HAVE to be sick in bed to get some reading done!), reconnecting with my family (hanging out with the ones nearby and Skyping with the others), and just getting some much-needed R & R.

The other thing I need to work on is getting enough sleep. Lately, I’ve been staying up (working, of course) until at least 2 am, then lying there for an hour or two with a million thoughts racing through my head, unable to fall asleep.  Then the dog wakes me up at 6 to go outside. Usually, I can go back to sleep for a couple hours but lately, I lie there thinking about all the things I should/could be doing instead. I finally give up, reach over, grab my laptop and start working. I know that I function best on 9 hours of sleep and that’s my goal from now on.

See? Nothing too difficult – just a few easy tweaks to my current habits to bring things back in balance. I’ll probably establish some “mini or interim” goals as I go along.  Or I might add in a few things once I feel like these are under control but for me, this is enough to start with. Do you have any wellness goals that you’re working on?  Are you headed to #SoFabCon2014 ? There’s still time for you to join in on Feelin’ SoFabulous for it!  You can sign up here.