It’s March tomorrow so it’s time to talk about things I’d like to do in March. As ever, let’s have a look February first.

Despite the feeling that February was my own personal trash fire of a month. Circumstances have dictated that I’ve done pretty well with these..

70,000 steps a week to equate to 280,000 for the month.

I busted through this, on Sunday night I was at 305,285. I didn’t hit 10,000 steps on six days in February, three of those days were Sundays (which is my traditional day of sloth and on the other three I was busy at work and got the Drain from Waterloo to work and even so was at over 9,000). I don’t think that it’s made any quantifiable difference, I didn’t lose weight and my mood is still grumpy but I have noticed that my feet, particularly my right foot, were not happy. The bunion has started to ache which is not a good sign and I need to investigate the private healthcare I get through work to see if it’ll cover an osteotomy, given the great leaps we’ve had in work from home, it won’t be six weeks off, but we’ll see. For now it’s probably time to get some new inserts and splints for the toe.

Stretching every day

I was less consistent about this, Ma did help with some of the hamstring stretches and I could feel my knee re-arranging itself. These did have a quantifiable effect and I need to make this a daily habit, so this will be on the list for the rest of the year.

Food prep

I was very consistent about this because I was at Mum’s and there is no opportunity for mucking about, I shopped and prepped all my breakfasts for Monday to Fridays and all my lunches for Monday to Thursday, Friday was sushi day. I haven’t done that for this week for being at home with a kitchen but no kitchen equipment unpacked (for this week, I’m eating fruit for breakfast and hummus, carrots and rice cakes for lunch!). I’m eager to get back to the routine of it because it’s really nice and I feel better for it.

10pm bedtimes on school nights

I know that as a childless person, I’m not supposed to complain about not getting enough sleep, because apparently, you’ve never truly experienced tiredness until you have children. However, I am cursed by really needing sleep to function and struggling to get enough. I do know that consistency in getting your sleep to sort itself out, while I was at my Mum’s a 6am wake up was going to be enforced on workdays because Ma would worry if I wasn’t up and I needed to get the 7.27am train. 6am wake up makes 10pm an 8 hour sleep window – I never hit that but I was trying to give myself a fighting chance. At the beginning of the month, I was getting about 6h 20 to 6h30m sleep. Up until last week, it had settled to about 7h sleep a night. Last week, it was decreasing a bit and it’s been 6h 22m for the last four nights. I know, it’s odd and I’m tired. Having said that, I’m not struggling with wake ups at 6am as much as I was. That could be the habit of the 10pm bedtime, 6am wake up, it could be the changes in my diet, it could be the added walking. I have no idea. I do know it’s a habit I want to keep, I’ll like to work with it and see if it does sort itself out or if I start to feel less tired.

Office days

As the kitchen work stretched out, so did my days in the office. I’ll be in office all five days this week and as I have been for the last 4 weeks (with the exception of one Monday, I had holiday for a haircut). It’s been tiring but it’s been good. Don’t get me wrong, I still don’t enjoy getting out of bed at 6am, I don’t enjoy the commute either but I haven’t had a choice and so I’ve done it and as with most things you have to do, if you face it head on, prepare for it and just get on with it, it’s not terrible. Even when the flat is done, I want to restrict the days I’m home to one or two days a week because I’ve noticed that things are easier if I’m in the office.

Sort out the flat and have it unpacked

This goal had the major caveat of ‘builders permitting’. They have not permitted. I have ‘painted the bedroom’  but although I’m home, I’m basically living in the bedroom and the only actual furniture is my bed. I can’t even do laundry right now. So this was my only real fail this month and it wasn’t my fault, it’ll move to next month.

Lent – Ash Wednesday kicked off Lent last week and I gave up sweets, chocolate, cakes, biscuits and crisps. From my perspective of only 7 days of doing this, it’s been alright, I’m eating more fruit and some nuts. I’m grateful right now for that promise because it would be really easy to eat junk right now and while giving up those things doesn’t mean I couldn’t eat junk, (I didn’t give up ice cream) it feels against the spirit of what I’m trying to achieve. This is something I wouldn’t have noticed without the Examen. I’m not doing it every single day but I am doing it four out of seven and it does highlight where I’m being a drama queen and interestingly, I’m slightly more grumpy on the days I don’t do it. So I need to keep making time for this.

So let’s talk about March.

The point of small goals for me, has been to try and turn some things into habits, to make them things I just do, like making my bed, brushing my teeth and taking my make up off before I go to bed. I always do these things, I know people who don’t but it doesn’t occur to me not to. At some point they just became things I do and put into my day and week without thinking about it. So now in the third month of the year, I’m going to take them with me and set some one off goals.

So continuing on from February are the Lent promises, 70,000 steps a week (310,000 for the month), stretching every day, 10pm bedtimes with 6am wake ups (on worknights) and food prep (once I have a kitchen I can do that from)

Sort out the flat and unpack it.

Not a continuation but a moved goal because it’s a one off.

Declutter the living room.

Although the living room is full of my stuff, it didn’t get any significant sorting out done before I filled it up with furniture from other rooms. It needs it, so I need to do it.

Seed starting.

One of the reason there needs to be less stuff in the living room is because I’m about to fill it up with plants. I have a whole new set up to talk about and I can’t do that, until I set it up. Also everybody else’s seed growing is making me jealous! This month is the time for peppers and aubergines.

Bedroom furniture.

Order it, assemble it, have somewhere to hang my clothes.

Yes, March is busy with goals…