livesinprogress: Persevering In November

In some areas, I did a really great job in November. There were other areas where I set out to do particular things and didn't consistently succeed. That's how it goes. It was still a good month and I was able to focus on progress as opposed to only final results.

Waking Up Early

If you have read this blog before then you probably know I am constantly dealing with sleep issues. I am a natural night owl with children who don't want to sleep in, ever. I tried to get up early this month so the start of my day would be peaceful, and here's how that went:

I woke up at 5 am...one day. It was great. It happened one day.

I revised this plan so I will get up around 5:45 and go from there. The kids have to stay in their rooms until seven, so that at least gives me some time. I am working on it. I like silence to be the first sound I hear. I like bathing without someone asking if they can see my boobs or rub my soft mom belly. I like putting in an hour of writing time before the day takes off. I like coffee and if this works, coffee will likely deserve all the credit.

However, I still hate going to bed early, and I need seven hours of sleep. It's tricky business.

Anyway, I woke up at 5 am one day. It's not exactly an exercise in perseverance, but I did it.

Reading Poetry

I started the month with a beautiful book of poetry, and I tried to read poetry daily. I didn't succeed, but the mornings I did read it were wonderful. I grabbed four new books of poetry at the library and am going to give this another shot.

Riding Ripsticks

How we ended up with three ripsticks in our home, and how the two males in our house who can't stand up on roller skates learned to glide down steep hills on boards with two wheels that will not even stand up on their own, is a long story. However, we are now a ripsticking family, and this has kept us at parks in all kinds of weather daily.

Playing Games

The children have been introduced to Clue. Now they are using deduction skills to solve problems while also trying to figure out how someone kills a person with a candlestick. We have them thinking about reasoning and murder. Good for us?

Adios Social Media

I don't use social media on the weekends, and this morphed into me taking all of Thanksgiving week off. It was awesome. Now I am sporadically checking in maybe once a week. I don't hate social media or think it serves no purpose, but life spent off of it most of the time is more enjoyable for me when it's possible.

No TV

Sitting at my computer writing about how anti-technology November was is hilarious, I know. I am not anti-TV or social media or any of that, and my approach this month wasn't planned. I just decided the kids would get to watch TV one, maybe two, days a week, and otherwise it wouldn't even be turned on.

We already had limited TV time and my kids don't have their own devices, but we were at parks or homeschool events or working on actual homeschool so much that even the little bit of screen time we tried to squeeze in felt like a pain. So from Monday through Friday, my kids know not to even ask about playing video games or watching TV. I thought it would be a big deal, but it hasn't been at all. No one has really complained, and I feel like there is a calmer vibe in our house.

Celebrating My Mate

D finished his Master's degree and also put a comic into the world this month. He wrote it and secured an amazing artist to do the art, and you can find it here. He also learned to ripstick with his kids. I got lucky with this guy.