star chart

I’ve had really rather a rubbish week, which has left me feeling bad about myself. I don’t cope well with hot weather and although I’ve been dutifully sitting at my computer most days with the intention of working, I’ve got to the end of each session with very little to show for it and a sense of failure. I therefore decided that I needed to review how I am getting on with the 50 before 60 challenge to give myself a sense of achievement (stars on my chart!).

So here’s a report on the items that have made some progress. I’m doing a few at a time to make the blog posts a more manageable size and the numbers are the numbers used for the original list.

1. Visit Cambridge: this is booked! We’re having a few days in Cambridge and Southwold in August.
2. St Ives holiday with all the family to celebrate our 60th birthdays: this has been booked for about two years! Everyone’s really looking forward to it although we know it will be a challenge with so many small children in unfamiliar beds.
4. Make a daisy chain: I did this for Iris recently and here’s the picture to prove it!

5. Increase exercise to 10,000 steps per day: I haven’t quite achieved this, but I have started doing a 40-50 minute walk 4 mornings a week and increasing my exercise generally.
6. Reduce BMI to a healthy level: Again, not achieved (it’s a long-term project), but I am working on it. I had got really quite worried about my health – not really feeling "well"; breathless, head-achey, hips and knees very painful, funny lights and flashes in front of my eyes – so took myself off to doc and got tested for blood pressure, diabetes, thyroid function, sticky blood, cholesterol. Everything came back fine, but still left me needing to lose quite a bit of weight. As a veteran of WeightWatchers and Slimming World I’m very familiar with the yo-yo scenario – lose weight, put it back on again, lose weight… (you get the picture), so I presented rather a defeatist face to the GP. She was just lovely! Very encouraging; talked about "cycles of change", changing one or two things at a time and encouraging exercise. So I’ve been trying to control my portion sizes, have joined an online diet forum and getting out on the aforementioned walks.
7. Find a tai chi, yoga or pilates class: Yes. I’ve joined a yoga class at the Community Centre around the corner and I’m enjoying it.
8. Practise meditation every day: not every day, but I’m trying
9. Learn more about meditation and other spiritual exercises: One thing I’m doing towards this is going on a conference next weekend organised by Stillpoint in Oxford. Martin Laird has written a book about Christian meditation called Into the Silent Land, which I have tried and failed to read (I am so bad at reading anything other than fiction), so I’m hoping that the man in person will be inspiring.
10. Keep a thankfulness diary: hmm, I do this in fits and starts.

That's the first little chunk. It has already had the desired effect of making me realise that I do get things done one step at a time and sometimes life is rubbish and you have to go with it.