31 Candles

I'm celebrating my 31st birthday tomorrow! I love birthdays. I don't mind getting older and I love any reason to celebrate, really. I actually considered titling this post something very vague and ominous though, because interestingly, significantly fewer people read my posts about happy things. Sad or difficult things get the highest view count. Case in point:

Healthy Oatmeal Banana Breakfast "Cookies" - 119 views
The Colic Days - 357 views

And honestly, 30 of those views on the cookies were probably just me going back and looking at my own recipe. Speaking of view counts, here's a fun fact, my highest viewed post is this one about our IKEA step stool. A whopping 30,376 views! Isn't that wild!? If you want my autogr- just kidding.

Anyway, back to the point here. 31 is not a traditional "milestone" year, but it was a year of many positive changes for me. When I turned 30 last fall, I was in a dark place with a 3 year old and a 6 month old. I wasn't sleeping and we were all crying a lot. But as the year carried on, I did several things that really helped bring me back to a place of peace and happiness. Some of them were small and some of them were big, but every little thing counts. As I celebrate this birthday, I am so incredibly grateful for my beautiful family, my simple but special life, and the opportunities that lay before me for the next year.

Without further ado, here are the changes I made this year:

1) I organized my closet. This may sound ridiculous, but it was a real pain point in my life. So when we moved, I took a few hours and went through every single item in my closet. Well wait, before I did that, I made a detailed list of all my "categories" of clothes (i.e. casual tees, sweatshirts, work clothes, long sleeve blouses, etc) and I designated a spot in the closet for every category. Then I painstakingly went through every item, assessed it for size, fit, and actual likelihood of wear, then either hung it in the correct place or put it in the donate bin. Now it's easy to find what I'm looking for and I'm actually motivated to keep it all in order. Plus I pared down my wardrobe to items that I truly enjoy. And another fun fact, several of the sections are actually organized by color :) because I'm Type A like that.

2) I bought a gratitude journal. Taking the time to give thanks for the many blessings in my life just puts me in such a happy, peaceful place. The journal I bought has quotes and prompts and pretty floral pages. I had lofty goals for how often I would journal and I'm nowhere near where I'd like to be, but I figure I've got to start somewhere. Also sort of related to this, I'm doing Rachel Hollis' #last90days which also had a gratitude component. Haven't heard of #last90 days? Look it up on Instagram for some great motivation! 

3) I started exercising again. I'm only 4 months in on this, but wow, exercising has had such a positive impact on my health and well-being. Running regularly has improved my energy levels and self-confidence. I already wrote in detail about how I started the new habit of running, but I'll just quickly say that making very specific plans for exercising has been key for me.

4) I wrote out an entire monthly meal plan and weekly grocery lists, printed all the recipes, and organized them in a binder. This task sounds daunting, but it was actually really easy. And incredibly helpful. Before I did this, I used to write out a meal plan every Sunday, along with a list of groceries I needed. I had a running list of meal ideas, but every week I would start from scratch looking through that list and choosing every breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the week (trying not to repeat chicken meals 3 nights in a row, making sure we hadn't had that meal the week before, ensuring we didn't eat Mexican food at every meal, etc). I hated it. I dreaded meal planning so much. Finally I had an epiphany- what if I created an entire month of meal plans and then just keep repeating it! If anyone is actually interested in my process here, I'll gladly write a separate post about meal planning. I'm sort of proud of myself on this one ;)

5) I'm on my way to really embracing my hair. I did several things this year: I cut off 8 inches for a fresh start, I stopped heat styling 90% of the time, I loosely follow the Curly Girl Method (thank you to my cousin Haley for introducing me!) and I decided not to hide my grays. Some days I still feel embarrassed by my frizzy waves and my silver streaks, but most days, I'm really happy with my low maintenance, natural hair. Will I ever go back to straightening? Probably not. Will I ever dye my hair? (It's NEVER been dyed!) I'm not sure. I've heard many women say, "I've dyed my hair so much, I don't even know what my natural color is any more!" And I don't want that for myself right now. I've always liked my brunette hair, and I'm pretty curious what it will look like if I let my grays grow out. So for now, I'm embracing it.

6) I rearranged the app icons on my phone. This is another one of those little organizational things that was such a face-palm moment for me. For literally years, I accumulated apps on my phone and arranged them in absolutely zero order. Some of the apps I used daily were on my 3rd screen over. So I went through and removed apps I no longer used, and then arranged the remaining apps in order of use or in categories. Everything I use daily is on the first screen, because, duh! That's so logical! And apps I rarely use but don't want to get rid of entirely (like the Domino's pizza app) are on the 2nd and 3rd screens. It probably took me an hour to do, but it's so great having everything I "need" on my home screen! Sometimes it really is the little things in life.

7) I unfollowed people on Facebook/Instagram. Have you ever done this? Oh my gosh, it is SO liberating. You don't have to completely "unfriend" them if you don't want to, but you can secretly and quietly just unfollow their posts. I've spent some time this year really cultivating the type of online community that motivates me, helps me grow, and makes me happy. While I do think it is important to have a broad base of friends and perspectives, I also think there is something wonderful about choosing the content you want to see. If someone's posts just irritate you to your core daily, simply unfollow them. I promise you, you will not regret it one bit and you will not miss them one bit. 

And as I move on into the next year, I have a few more changes I'd like to make to improve my overall health, happiness, and fulfillment. First, I want so badly to adopt an "early to bed, early to rise" approach to sleep and productiveness. I waste ridiculous amounts of time in the evenings doing stupid stuff like scrolling through Facebook and online shopping, but when I do wake up early, I use my time much more wisely. For some reason, I just cannot kick this habit of staying up late. Perhaps I need to make more specific goals for myself. Second, I want to be a more patient parent. This may surprise you because I seem pretty mild-mannered, but man my kids know how to get under my skin. Or maybe my expectations of them are unrealistic? Maybe they need more undivided attention? More boundaries? More affection? I'm not entirely sure what's going on here, but I'm striving to be a better parent. I have a stack of books I'm planning to read and I'm going to prioritize it this year. And third, I want to be more altruistic. Not necessarily in monetary terms, but more so in my actions. My heart is already there, but I want to ensure my behaviors are reflective of my heart. I feel sort of limited with this because I stay home with the kids and they're always with me, so there's not a ton of free time for volunteering, but I'm brainstorming.

Anyway, if you've made it this far, thank you for "listening". Most of my writing is more for me than you but occasionally I come up with something that I think others might benefit from too! So I hope you at least got one idea that might make your life better/easier too.

Here's to 31!

How I Created a New Healthy Habit [A Running Update]

The 5K I've been training for is less than 2 weeks away. To recap real quick, I started running again back in July, and my goal is to run the 5K in 31 minutes (3.1 miles in 31 minutes for my 31st birthday, which is at the end of this month). I do realize that a 10 minute mile is not very fast, and a lot of people would find my goal laughable. But the last time I worked out regularly was in the spring of 2012 (before my wedding), and between then and now, I've carried and birthed two children. So, no, I'm not starting out with a goal of getting the first place prize in a marathon. I need my goal to be realistic and achievable, but still challenging and fun for me. So smirk if you want, I don't mind, I'm ok with starting slow. I'm proud of myself, my plan, and my progress.

Since July 15th, I have run at least 3 times a week every single week. I've met my first two milestones: run 2 miles in 20 mins by 8/20 and 2.5 miles in 25 mins by 9/20. And I'm currently working on my third milestone: run 3 miles every run in October. I've run over 85 cumulative miles so far, and by the time I finish the 5K, I will have logged nearly 115 miles. If you know anything about me and my history with exercise, you'd know that it's pretty much nonexistent. My biography would read, "During her 20s, Casey was quite sedentary. She had a brief but successful stint with Camp Gladiator before becoming pregnant with her first child, and subsequently abandoning any and all rigorous physical activity."

Joking aside, I really was a total flake on any exercise plans I set out for myself. In between pregnancies, I sort of had this "what's the point of exercising now? My body is just going to balloon again" attitude. I'm not a morning person, so waking up before the kids to work out sounded like a terrible idea. And if I exercised in the evening, I had a hard time winding down. For a while I did some at-home cardio stuff in the living room while Maddie napped, but that didn't last long either. Basically I was lacking in motivation, will power, and confidence. But it's not that I didn't care. It loomed over me all the time. I knew I should be taking better care of my body and I was always frustrated with my weight and shape.

So what changed? How did I finally kick my butt into gear? How did I convince myself to go running even when I didn't sleep well, and it was hot outside, and it was dark outside, and my head hurt and my feet hurt and I just washed my hair yesterday?

A few things changed, really. First and foremost, my kids started sleeping better. I don't do well on limited sleep, and I was a zombie for quite a while during the phases in which my kids were waking multiple times in the night. Second of all, maybe this is cheesy, but I read a really great book called "Girl, Wash Your Face" by Rachel Hollis. I highly recommend it. One of the key themes that really resonated with me is this idea that you are in control of your life. Certainly there are things that happen to you that are out of your control, but you are in control of so much more. The decisions you make every day contribute to the person you are and the person you'll become. And no one else is going to do it for you. No one but me can make me run in the morning. It's completely on me. Another thing Rachel emphasizes is that you should never break a promise to yourself. Because when you build a habit of continually flaking on your own plans, your brain subconsciously learns that you can't be trusted, that you'll never complete what you started, and that you'll never succeed in your plans.

Step one for me was setting a goal and making a plan. I ran one mile to see just how out of shape I was, I spent some time researching couch-to-5k plans, and I wrote out all my ideas. I was really specific in my goals and plans (like when and how many times I would run, where I would run, what time I would run, etc).

Step two was to promise myself that I would see this through. And really mean it.

Step three was this realization: I'm not a morning person, ever. It doesn't matter if I've had 5 hours of sleep or 9 hours of sleep, I won't want to get out of bed. My alarm could be set for 6:15am or 7:00am... and either way I wouldn't want to wake up. So then, if I still won't want to roll out of bed at 7:00, I might as well just get up at 6:15 and go for a run because I know it is the healthy choice to make! Does that resonate with anyone? [Side note: I have since discovered that running in the morning gives me SO MUCH MORE ENERGY than sleeping for 30 more mins. Also, my anxiety is significantly lower on days I exercise. It's fascinating to me because I've always been one to sleep until the very last minute and hit the snooze button several times because I thought that's what I needed.]

Step four was to set out my running clothes the night before I planned to run. Since I started doing this in July, I haven't ONCE skipped a run if I laid out my clothes the night before. This step is two-fold for me. First, it's one less thing to do in the morning, and second, I would feel so guilty if I had to get ready for the day standing next to my running clothes neatly laid out on the bathroom counter.

Step five was all the little nuances, trial and error things, and keeping myself motivated. When I started running, well, I should say run/walking intervals, I was listening to podcasts. It was enjoyable. But one day I decided to listen to music instead, and holy moly, my pace increased significantly. For me, the faster the beat, the faster I run! My favorite pump-up jams right now are "Good Morning" by Max Frost and "Girl Gang" by Gin Wigmore. So depending on your activity and goals, the sound in your headphones might make a difference. I also wrote a cutesy "31" on my closet mirror as a daily reminder of my goal, and I've been putting up inspirational quotes on a chalkboard in my room. I came up with a couple mantras to tell myself when I'm running and I want to quit - cliche things like, "Nothing worth having comes easily."

I'm not telling you any of this to brag - trust me, my achievements and exercise habits are far from bragworthy - so I hope this doesn't come off as braggy. I'm telling you all of this in case you're considering trying something new. Exercise or eating better or cooking at home or reading or watching less TV or anything at all really. If I can cultivate a habit of running in the morning, you too can do something totally out of character and routine. You've totally got this. Commit to something and do everything you can to see it through! You only have one life to live - don't let fear or excuses prevent you from living your best life.