Seven Quick Takes Friday

Welcome all Company Girls!

--1--

The resolutions are going pretty well.  I have pretty much stopped eating after 8 pm, with one exception one night when I grabbed some chocolates from a tin that Alex had left in the living room. And last night I gave in to a fruit and nut bar in my bedside table, just before bed. Without even thinking about it.  But I'd received it from Santa in my stocking, so I should get some credit for over two weeks of self-control.   But to be honest, I'm not really missing no food after 8.

--2--

I've been getting a brisk 30 minutes of walking in every day with Wilson.  He's a pretty good companion, although he does a lot of recreational peeing and doesn't like all the salt they put on the streets.  I bought him some little balloon-like slippers called Small-Pawz at my local pet store.  I haven't tried them on him yet though...maybe today.

--3--

I've been hitting the sack every night at 10 pm, although not turning the light off.  I can't fall asleep without reading before bed, and can't seem to get myself INTO bed before 10.  Maybe I'll try for 10 minutes earlier per day, so that I'm prone by 9:30 and lights out by 10.  But I"m really liking the extra sleep and am much more energetic.

--4--

I've been successfully keeping a running to-do list on my iPhone and feel like I'm accomplishing things in a more timely way than before.  I"m using an app called Task Pro from the iTunes store and it's working well.  It allows me to split larger tasks into sub-tasks which is great.  I'm working on remembering to put stuff in it, to keeping my brain empty of to-dos and having them all in the list.

--5--

Organizing:  This is going a little slower, but now that our house guests have gone, I'll be able to get down to business.  I'm using ideas from the weekly Clutter Diet program, Home Sanctuary's Small Things, and My Simpler Life's Declutter Calendar.  My resolution is to do (at least) one of these things each day.  I'll also be participating in a Declutter online group starting January 18th.

--6--
My hypertension management goals are to reduce salt, go down to one cup of coffee per day, and ditch the alcohol for a couple of week.  So far, it's been four days and I"m feeling okay.  I wasn't a big coffee drinker to start with, so it wasn't a huge deal to reduce my intake from two cups in the morning to one.  I felt mildly disappointed that I couldn't have a glass of wine at 5 pm yesterday, but had a(nother) glass of ice water and the feeling passed.  I'm avoiding my regular trail mix snack (for the salt), dropping deli meat and reducing cheese.  We don't eat a lot of other processed food, and I don't add any salt at the table, so I think I'm okay there.

--7--
This has been a fun week for contests.  I only enter those that are really easy and don't require onerous activity on my part.  I won a family 4-pack of tickets to preview the new Jackie Chan movie The Spy Next Door.  It's tomorrow morning, and we've invited some friends to see it with us as our kids are otherwise occupied.  These were courtesy of a new radio station that I'm enjoying, Vinyl 95.3.

Then yesterday, I won a pair of tickets to a preview of High Life, a Canadian comedy set in the 80s that looks really funny.  Except I have a Catholic Women's League executive meeting that night, so probably Z and Michael will go.  A hard call:  toker-movie vs Catholic service club meeting.  LOL!  Here's the preview.