Category: WOTY

Word of the Year Update for April 2022

On By Widow BadassIn Goals & Dreams, Health Transformation, Move to Dragonfly Cottage, WOTY59 Comments
Ye Olde Sigil carved into a candle to remind me of my WOTY: Limber

Waaaaay back in January (late December, actually) I made Limber my word of the year, for 2022. My focus is on being limber not only in body, but in mind. I think most would agree that if we are not actively and continually working on our flexibility and strength (mental or physical), we will surely start losing it. And that has certainly been true for me, mostly in the physical sense…(but I do also worry about getting stuck in a mental rut).

So far this year, I have been sticking with my daily Qigong, and also am still working on my deep squat. In working on the latter I realized how weak and out of shape I was overall, despite being someone who gets “out there” regularly, and walks and hikes whenever possible. Walking is great exercise of course…but does very little for flexibility and strength overall. I was also dabbling with occasional and brief videos involving free weights, but without any real plan. Naturally, I wasn’t seeing much in terms of results or change.

Then I received an email in March from a fitness YouTuber I follow that changed up my Limber plans for this year. Jessica Smith was offering a digital download of a 3 month program called Lift & Shift she designed specifically to help women of any age improve strength, stamina, and functionality in all aspects of their lives. I checked it out, saw that it would help me reach my goals in a way I could never do on my own, and out came the credit card!

The program started March 28th so I had time to purchase the extra equipment needed to begin, in advance. I already had some weights, but I added a heavier set because I am delusional GOALS!

Dumbbells

I also got a bigger mat (yoga mat on steroids, basically), a step, a squishy ball, sliders, and a resistance band. The mat also came with a bonus pair of gloves, for lifting weights with.

At first I was skeptical of the gloves, but they are surprisingly comfortable for gripping weights, and are now a welcome addition to my routine.

So my living room looks like this now, most of the time:

Badass Anytime FitnessTM Home Gym set up. 😉

Before I started the program I gave myself a stern talking to. Self, I said, you are going to do this right this time. You are going to listen to your body and stop before you injure yourself. You are going to take your time – it’s a marathon not a sprint – and slowly but surely you will make progress.

I knew it was going to be a very rough start, so I thought I should document how each workout went and how I felt during and afterwards, so I could have a record of the progress I was making.

Made a gym journal with some cute stick-on letters from the Dollar Tree.

OMG, the first few sessions were SO. DAMN. HUMBLING. Even though I thought I was mentally prepared, I was not prepared to feel physically ill partway through each workout video. Not only humbling, but discouraging! Starting this routine was way worse than I had imagined. Yet I persevered with the daily workouts even though I couldn’t come close to completing them, and the sick feeling went away as my stamina improved.

An early entry. First time I noted that I didn’t want to hurl partway through or after a session. 🙂
Eventually I got strong enough to complete one of the longer workouts.

What I enjoy about this program is the variety of the workout videos and the calendar that tells you what video to perform, and in what order. There are lighter days (yoga-like stretching workouts), medium days (fine toning routines) and heavier days (lower/upper/core days, compound superset days and HIIRT). There are “rest” days each week where there are no scheduled workouts but you are encouraged to remain active and/or do a cardio session of your own choosing. So far the cardio session I choose is NO DAMN WAY as I need those days for my body to recover from all the abuse the challenges I am throwing at it. 😉 But I am getting stronger and my stamina is increasing, so that could change.

It is a 3 month calendar of exercises, and of course you can repeat it as often as you would like. As someone who wants to remain strong, flexible, and independent for as long as my body will allow it, I can see me incorporating this into my daily routine for life.

At the beginning of month 2 as of writing this post, I am starting to see some real results in my day to day activities and Lift & Shift is even helping me get closer to my deep squat goal:

Making progress on my deep squat goal. Could not have done this back in January. Photo taken pre-new haircut. Speaking of my hair cut…
I LOVE MY NEW HAIR CUT. Wash and wear hair. Just let it air dry after my shower and then ran a brush through it. Did I mention how much I LOVE it?!? Of course, it wouldn’t be long before THIS happened:
Used up the last bit of my Vibrant Magenta Overtone hair colour on my new, shorter hair. 🙂

As for working on being mentally Limber, I have my upcoming move to help me with that. How to make do with a smaller indoor space? How can I make the smaller space I will be inhabiting do everything I need it to do, and still look inviting and uncluttered? Planning, scheming and dreaming about all of this has indeed made me look at EVERYTHING I currently own with a very critical eye. I am suddenly aware of and questioning any assumptions I hold about what I really need, in order to be happy in my new space.

I am loving my new hair, my new workout routine, my upcoming move (challenges and all), and most of all my WOTY. I love how it serves as a touchstone of sorts for me as I journey through 2022. As change happens and opportunities and challenges come up in my life, I can judge them against my WOTY and that helps me to decide if/how it contributes to my big picture for this year, my Limber goal.

How about you? Got a Word of the Year? Doing good things with it? Do tell!

This month I am joining the 2022 WOTY Link Party, from my buddy Donna’s site…maybe I’ll see you there. 🙂

Rock on,

The WB

Because You Asked: How I Journal

On By Widow BadassIn Because You Asked, Home Improvement, Retirement, WOTY54 Comments

In my post on my WOTY (Limber – in case you were wondering and didn’t have time to click on the link), I posted a photo of the January habit tracker page I created in my 2022 journal. This sparked a few comments as to the process I use when I journal. I use a dotted journal because I can’t stay between the lines my handwriting is abysmal I find it more freeing. I use a very simple method of journalling, based very loosely on a system called Bullet Journalling, created by a designer named Ryder Carroll. So many people love this system and you can go down a YouTube rabbit hole for days watching how people create and personalize their BuJos, not that I would know anything about that. 😉 It is supposed to be a very good system for personal productivity. I am so damn relieved and happy to be able to put personal productivity in the rear-view mirror of my current life so I don’t use my BuJo for that purpose but instead for habit-tracking and as a diary.

Prior to my current way of journalling, I was using a very fancy (to me, anyways) Japanese journal system – called a Hobonichi – that I really loved. But once I retired I found the format and size a bit limiting, and wanted something I could customize.

Last entries in my beloved 2021 Hobonichi journal…

Some people turn their bullet journals into literal works of art. They are gorgeous but I would never be able to maintain something like that. My journal is so basic, I don’t even use a ruler to create my lines. I freehand it. And I use purchased silicone stamps for the dates because my life span is too short to write out the days of the month over and over again it looks better that way.

It’s almost March 2022 as I write this, so it is time to create my March spread. I create only a month at a time, because I am fickle I am constantly refining my process. Follow along, if you like!

Step 1 – gather the goods.

Assemble the tools: journal, pens, highlighters, stamps, ink pad.

Step 2 – pick a highlighter pen colour for the month.

Green is very spring-like and perfect for March.

Step 3 – Pick a stamp for the month. (Snap-together set ordered from Amazon)

Step 4 – start the spread.

Open the journal to a fresh 2 page spread and stamp the month. I then freehand a line at the top of the page.

Step 5 – put together the date stamp for the month.

I purchased this set from Michaels; also available on Amazon.
Affix the silicone stamps to an acrylic block, and you are ready to stamp your heart out. Pro tip: practice on scrap paper to get the technique perfect before you attempt it in your journal.

Step 6 – continue to fill in the spread for March with whatever you feel like tracking that month.

You will see that I added a couple of extra days of the month stamps, in case I dream up other stuff I want to track as I progress throughout the month.

The system I am using now is to have the left hand side of the spread for noting things like when I last watered the plants, flipped the mattress, vaccuumed underneath the sofa cushions, etc. In other words, my haus-frauing. I live alone and stuff doesn’t get dirty very fast so I like to keep track of when it was last done because my memory is faulty especially for stuff that doesn’t really interest me like housework. My mom had a rigid daily routine for housekeeping that my rebel heart has just never accepted as the way to do things. I like to work my cleaning schedule around the phases of the moon and when I damn well am in the mood to do so or I can’t stand the dust anymore or it’s raining or company is coming, whatever comes first. Take that, all my Dutch female forebears!

The right hand side of the spread is for the fun stuff I want to keep track of, and good habits I want to keep going or to build on. Under my habit tracker for this month, I am checking off (approximately) how many steps I have logged on my Apple watch, had I eaten at least 3 fruits and vegetables that day (F/V), and did I do my oil-pulling mouth hygiene routine (O/P). I am also including a space to record my occasional blood pressure readings because my nurse practitioner ALWAYS asks for this info. (I haven’t had a mini-stroke since 2016 – hoorah!!!!) On the calendar side, I mark off with highlighter the days that I have achieved those particular activities as I work towards certain goals.

As for birthdays, special events, appointments, etc., I keep those on my electronic calendar (Google) so that they are always in the palm on my hand (i.e. in my phone).

Step 7 – start of daily journal pages.

After I have completed the March spread, I turn the page and line the top and add the words “Daily Journal”. I make a journal entry for each day of the month, noting all the banalities, rants and musings of my day…sometimes it is only a few lines…sometimes it is more than half a page. Sometimes I dress the pages up with stickers, washi tape or To-Do lists, and sometimes not. It is my journal and there are no real rules (rebel heart-approved). Towards the end of the month, I guesstimate how many blank pages are yet required for daily journal entries, and flip the next page over and start to work on the following month’s spread of things I want to keep track of. And so on, and so forth…

That is my journalling method…at least what it looks like for March of 2022. Next month – who knows where my rebel heart will take me… 🙂

Do you journal? Do you track habits? Do tell please, in the comments. I would love to know what others do.

Rock (and record) on,

The WB

2022 Word of the Year

On By Widow BadassIn Goals & Dreams, Health Transformation, Mindfulness, WOTY77 Comments

Having a word to guide me and align my thoughts, goals, and dreams for an entire year has been good for me, for a few years already now. (In fact, my 2020 WOTY was Alignment and it really helped me to remember to make decisions both big and small that aligned with my values in that critical first year of retirement). I find having a single word to focus on works better for me than a list of goals or dare-I-say-it: resolutions. So I was excited to learn of Donna and her circle of Australian bloggie friends coming up with a WOTY Link Party. I’m in! I may not post on this topic every month but for sure I am joining the party this month.

My 2022 Word of the Year is Limber.

Inside cover of my 2022 journal with WOTY and sigil. Doesn’t it look like a figure flexing and balancing? Creating a sigil or symbol for your word or goal is another mental trick to help embed it and keep it in the forefront of your noggin.

I created a sigil from the phrase “I am lean, limber and strong”. Spoiler alert: I am none of those things…currently. Our brains can’t tell reality from fantasy, apparently…so if you say it is so, your trusting little brain believes you! This explains a lot, really. OK, OK, I am not going there even though I feel a huge rant about anti-vaxxers, climate change deniers et al coming on.

A-hem. Anyways, if you want to make something a reality you are supposed to speak and think of it as already being a fact. Hence the phrase. Which I have distilled down to one word: LIMBER. And for me, it is just as important to be limber in mind as it is in body. Especially in these trying times of lockdowns, shutdowns, and cancelled plans in general.

One of the things I do to help me with my LIMBER attitude is a daily practice of Qigong. My massage therapist introduced me to this practice, and I fell in love with what is does for my body and mind. I follow a practitioner on YouTube and am now at the point that my body craves a session every morning.

I track my progress in my journal.

From my January habit tracking spread in my 2022 journal.

I am also incorporating strength workouts in my routine, as evidenced in the above photo. My living room has become my Badass Anytime Fitness franchise, and I am loving it. I’ve also decided that this year I want to be able to do a primal or resting squat at some point….you know the one where you squat as far down as you can, and yet your feet are planted entirely on the ground.

At this point I can’t do it without my heels coming up but I have hopes that I can work on my…uh…limberosity (is that a word? lol) enough to achieve this in due time.

Got my February habit tracker spread already set up and ready to go!

And I am already busy working on increasing my hip mobility (one of the many mobilities I need to work on if I want to achieve this squat…sigh):

Look at me being all mentally limber and learning how to insert a photo gallery into Ye Olde Blogge!

Happy 2022 and end of January, fellow Badassians! Stay strong. Stay flexible. Be LIMBER. Off to join the Link Party!

Rock on,

The WB

March Update on WOTY – Alignment

On By Widow BadassIn Goals & Dreams, Hmmm?, Home Improvement, Retirement, WOTY50 Comments

Ugh. I continue to crawl back towards good health. I actually got outside yesterday (only 3rd time since I got home 11 days ago from Barbados) and was able to reach (and exceed) 10,000 steps for the first time since…uh, let’s see (checks journal)…FEBRUARY 22?! You know, getting ill every once in a while does have its advantage…you realize how amazing good health and full energy really is, and it reinforces how important it is to do the daily “maintenance” on your corporeal being to ensure more healthy days than not, going forward. Not that good health is ever guaranteed mind you (shit happens despite what WE want), but there is still plenty we CAN do to give us a fighting chance by making sure our bodies are fueled properly, rested adequately, and moved daily – all in the name of health. Good health is like a good relationship – it takes constant work and should not be taken for granted, especially as we age. Just some of the thoughts I’ve been having while being prostrated by this cold/flu thingy. Anywho…

I started drafting this post with the aim of publishing late January, but here we are. And not much has changed.

I’ve always leaned towards minimizing my environmental footprint. It’s just something that is important to me. Like working at keeping my personal good health, I want (in my own tiny way) to work towards the health of the planet. At the least: not damaging it by daily living anymore than I have to.

I have solar panels on my roof. I drive a plug-in hybrid car (my 3rd hybrid!) as minimally as possible. I support local business whenever I can and I walk to do errands most days. Recycling has been a passion project with me, from the beginning of it being offered in my community. I want to be buried au naturel in a biodegradable shroud in the ground, to nourish the vegetation growing above me. Etc.

Not exactly an eco-warrior but trying to do my bit…by bit.

My recycling centre. Organized according to my region’s specifics for recycling. Bins from IKEA.
Drone photo taken by the talented Mario Dabek, including a view of the snow-covered solar panels on the roof of my building (the corner one, with the clock).

Now that I’m retired though, I have the time and energy (OK – not right now for the energy, but soon!) to kick it up a notch. To come more into ALIGNMENT – my Word of the Year (WOTY) – with my values.

As I need to replace cleaning and personal care products, I am experimenting with more “natural”, less harmful and wasteful products. Actually, I have been using these types of options for years already: Before my 2003 hysterectomy I used a Diva cup. I use olive oil to cleanse my face at night (been doing this for 10+ years). I’ve been making my own body wash for the shower for at least 5 years. [Recipe: 1 part castile soap; 1 part liquid honey; 1 part olive oil. Mix together. That’s it!]

I’ve used Dr. Bronner’s castile soap for years but Sal Suds is new to me. So far, I love it!

Last month I made my own bathroom (with tea tree essential oil) and kitchen (with orange essential oil) cleaning sprays with Sal Suds and I am so impressed. I just now realized that my commercial bathroom cleaner was leaving a film that attracted dirt to my sink. I would clean my sink and by next use it was dull and spotted again. Not so with my Sal Suds mixture. Shiny, shiny! Even days later. And my black glass stove top? Gleaming! At pennies per liter spray bottle, I’m saving money too. WIN! I plan on using Sal Suds for more things as I run out of my current products. Supposed to be good for laundry too. Speaking of…

As I ran out of fabric softener, I replaced it with wool dryer balls instead (thank you Jeanette and Red Maple Homestead!). And they are working just fine! I don’t put a lot of wash in the dryer – I prefer to hang up to dry, whenever possible – but for what I do, it comes out nice and soft.

I’m out of plastic and foil wrap, and I have a replacement (along with the beeswax wraps I got from Red Maple). Behold:

Trying out these silicone lids, from Indigo.
Silicone lid in action. So far, so good!

I also found this cute little cup for car travel, while browsing at Indigo. I have numerous metal containers but I find them a bit awkward while driving. This one has a straw, making it easier for me to sip water from it while on the move.

Silicone cup for car and travel

And if you read my last post, you know by now that I have a mania for packing minimally and light. So the collapsible aspect of this cup delighted me thoroughly.

Collapsed silicone cup

And, to wrap up this post, I am rethinking how I purchase clothing. Being retired now, my wardrobe needs are changing along with everything else. “Business casual” is now my “dressy”…hah! During a walk to do errands, I made a stop at Sail, an outdoor gear store near me. Just to browse, ya know? Well…

Last year I had picked up this t-shirt that I had just fallen in love with, at Sail.

The shirt that started it all. Change IS good, yeah! And purple, with a dragonfly image to boot. How could it not come home with me? 😉

It was $35, which is pretty pricey for a t-shirt, IMHO. I am used to picking up plain t-shirts for $10 at Joe Fresh. But then I got to thinking. Does my Joe Fresh t-shirt really cost only $10? I doubt I could sew one for $10. Hmmmm. And I don’t take as good care of my $10 t-shirts as I do my Life Is Good one, let me tell you that! At $10, if one gets stained, out it goes (or gets relegated to the chore/paint drawer) and I buy a replacement. My $35 shirt though? I willingly invest hours applying Oxi-clean (made into a paste) to get that damn stain out.

Anywho, I found 2 more Life Is Good shirts while browsing on this trip, and it got me to thinking about my clothing choices, the real cost of things, and so on and so on, down the rabbit hole of consumerism. After some mulling, I did end up buying them. My thinking is that I would rather have less clothes that I value more, and to take care of them better. And Life Is Good seems like a good company to support.

New Life Is Good t-shirts. Yes, I hang my t-shirts in the closet. Less wrinkly that way.

Going forward in 2020 and my new, retired life, these are some of the ways I am coming more into alignment with, and expressing my values. I’m going to explore this further. I would like to break my paper towel addiction for one, and start using cloth alternatives instead.

After my recent illness though, I don’t see me eliminating tissues and replacing them with hankies. There are not enough hankies in the world to keep up with the snot factory I have been of late. 😉

Baby steps.

How about you? Are you making changes in your life in alignment with your values? Do tell.

Rock your crunchy-granola self on,

The WB