'It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness' Proverb

Sunday 30 June 2019

Goals for 2019 - Update #2


So there goes June whizzing past us and that's half the year gone already.  Here's how my goals went in the second quarter.

Healthy Eating

I have found that I don't find eating healthy particularly difficult when I'm at work. Mainly because I'm stuck up a mountain away from the temptations of the shops and can only eat the food I've taken with me.  All I have to do is make sure it's healthy.  Also, when I'm at the hostel I tend to only eat the food I've brought along as well, which is made up of mostly fruit and vegetables and only one 'bad' item.

At home I've been good at making large, mixed salads which I can munch my way through throughout the weekend.  This is because it occurred to me that salads are pretty easy to make, healthy and tasty (and yes I do mean that), and really not much more work than getting a ready meal from the shop.  There is also a lot less waste when you make it yourself.

I am definitely still eating a lot more high sugar food than I should be, even for the little treat you should really allow yourself now and then.  It's not necessarily a problem with the work that I do as I burn so much energy, but I still want to work on reducing this to just a treat once or twice week.  Regardless of how much physical activity you do processed sugar really is something you can do without.

Next quarter's mini goal is to get my sugery treats down to two occasions a week.

Reducing Waste

I think it's safe to say that I've been pretty good at reducing my waste in almost every aspect of my life bar food.  And it's not just the snacks I've been buying. It has been unbelievably difficult to get vegetables without a whole lot of packaging wrapped around them.  Fruit has been a lot easier to deal with, but vegetables seem to require it for reasons I don't really understand.

I have been looking into this and have found a few online stores that sell dry food in bulk and plastic free packaging.  So that will be my first port of call when I next need some dry goods.  For fresh food I think it's going to have to be farmers markets and stores.  At the moment I have quite a long drive from home to work and I have noticed a couple of places on route that I think will definitely be worth having a look at.  I'm not sure if they'll have all the food I need with my dietary requirements but it's definitely worth a look.

Next quarter's mini goal is to buy food either in bulk or from a farmer's market wherever possible.

Learning New Skills

Work

As I put in the last goals post I have a drystone walling course booked for July and I'll write more about that then.  The walking that I do during my work day has increased quite dramatically since I started work at Glencoe and that means that walking and practising navigation during my time off is much less likely, just to give my legs a rest.  However, I have been given a few chances to go off route a bit when at work and this has been helping me get to know more about the terrain in the area and what challenges there are when navigating through it.

My current boss is also big on identifying mountain fauna and often shows me the vegetation we pass as we are doing our work so that has turned out to be a great unexpected opportunity as well.  If only I was better at learning names.

My mini goal for the next quarter is just to get the most out of the drystone walling course that I can.

Home

Lastly is my attempted to learn BSL at home.  It started off well and I had gone through the alphabet and numbers, and had begun to look at the signs for different colours when I got into some technically difficulties.  Neither my phone nor my tablet have the software needed to view the video footage showing you the signs.  However my laptop did until it stopped working.  At the moment I am laptop less, and probably will be for a while, whilst I work out exactly what I want to get and can afford.  I did manage to use my local library's computers a couple of times to do the classes but I haven't been able to get there as much as I would like.  That is still an option though and is probably just something I need to block in on a weekly basis.

Next quarter's mini goal will be to get in at least one section of BSL learning a week.

This year has definitely been a less successful year then last when it comes to achieving my goals.  But it's alright to have off years and as long as I keep moving forward I will be happy with what I've achieved.  I may not be as far as I would like but it's still better than where I was at the start of the year.

I hope all your goals are going well.  And, if like me, they're not quite working that your still moving forward the best that you can.

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