***The Senior WW Challenge*** - SATURDAY 11/28

good morning. BBL

Greetings:  Today's QOTD is deja vu all over again.  Goals. Even if you don't write them down. It gives us something to have in mind and focus on. I'm still getting up to speed. Reading all the posts like this is such a different view of all of us. We are clearly our own distinct personalities.  I'm so in the camp of "write it down" to either confirm what I want to have happen, or to work through things that have happened. Geri, I read your account of meeting the cyclist on the interstate. Such a harrowing experience. Hope you've been able to let that slide away and that my mentioning it doesn't bring it all back up.

KC, in trying to remember where I'd posted this QOTD since I hadn't run across it yet, I read yours about going to your group. I confess I'd totally forgotten you were in that group, but that's such a commitment! So proud of you for persevering with it.

Okay, ladies. If you are interested, this is just to get us over the bulge of the next weeks. Maybe just doing something a little extra, being a tad more attentive will help us get through the minefield.  Ruth, I saw that you did identify good goals.

QOTD: If you want to join me, write up one or more, but not more than three goals. They can be daily or weekly, but don't go beyond weekly. That's too far away. Give yourself some kind of reward for achieving them, even if you just hand-draw a star on a piece of paper. Remember the goal strategy, specific, time-oriented, measurable, and achievable. I think there are one or two other adjectives that go with goals, but the dynamic duo is here and I don't have time to think!

AOTD: My goals were:

1. Drink 64 oz of water each day (I'd been doing well, but fizzled out around 4 or 5 8-oz glasses each day. I needed those 3 or 4 more to reach my goal.)

2. Walk 7500 steps each day (I'd just been released by the doctor to return to my walking, but I'd been away long enough and the weather had cooled enough, my pattern was broken. I needed to get back in the groove.)

3. Track everything I ate (I wasn't focused on keeping to any particular limit, just recording, though by the end of the week I was more attentive to what I ate, interestingly enough.)

So, I just needed to boost each day and keep track. I found a counter app for the water. Simple. open, record, close. Made it so much easier to keep track of the 8-oz glasses of water.
At the end of each day I'd achieved my goals. I had a glass of water at 10 p.m. one night, but it was okay! Wasn't sure. But after that worked to be done earlier.
I put the stickers on a paper calendar I have at the desk, seldom used, but now it has a purpose.

I missed a glass of water yesterday. In the "olden" days I'd have thought I needed to carry over and have 9 today. But that's not the way I want life to work. Yesterday is over. The misses are over. So, today I just need to be a bit more attentive and get them all. But overall I'm still moving in the right direction! 7 glasses are more than many "olden" days.

I'm getting a kick out of this app. They have special events. There is a Turkey Trot. So, any day from Wednesday tthrough Sunday participants can walk a 5K. Has to be walked all at once. So I walked mine yesterday. 

The other thing to put in the back of the brain ... we'll be coming up on time to consider our word for 2021 and any long term goals for the year. I don't know about you, but I haven't look at the mission statement I wrote up for months. Hopefully I can find it! And, looking around for whatever goals we may have set up for 2020. Did we get them? Is there time for a bit of push to get to the top of those goals?

Good morning all.

AOTD my goals were

1.  to using the intermittent fasting app to eliminate evening snacking.  That has worked well because I don’t want to mess up the timer in the app.   For me it works better than just saying I’m giving up evening snacking.
2.  Track my food, yes, done every day.
3.  Get Christmas decor up, done.

I am already thinking of 3 goals for next week it worked so well.   Karen this was a good idea.

I cannot get my goals for 2020 because it’s in the documents app on the laptop that won’t open.  We really need to do something about that laptop.  Also I could use an upgrade on my phone.  It’d all been taken care of but for the covid so we will limp along.

I had a nice walk, longer again.   The westher is gorgeous.

Working on catch up ...

but first, Sharon, there are tons of formats out there for goals, including some for smart goals which help. You could "google" goal setting and find something that works for you. If we've used a format here, I don't recall. Perhaps someone else will!  I'm just focused on the "Smart" feature of goals.

To make sure your goals are clear and reachable, each one should be:

Specific (simple, sensible, significant).
Measurable (meaningful, motivating).
Achievable (agreed, attainable).
Relevant (reasonable, realistic and resourced, results-based).
Time bound (time-based, time limited, time/cost limited, timely, time-sensitive).

Something "new" I wanted to share. My book club "met" yesterday and we talked about Thanksgiving. Two members who have extended family here had 2 creative ways of how they handled TG i thought I'd share.

One rented a tent. One family has a huge back yard so hosted dinner. The others split the cost of a very large tent that was put up. The host put tables in the tent corners for each family, there were 3, and as they went in, they put the dishes on the table in the 4th corner. Each family wore masks and went to the table to get their meal in a group, then sat and others went up. They talked across the tent but no one from any family got close to another family. Great idea!

The other creative idea was this.  There were more families in this group. They each decided what dishes they would make. The one that was most central to them all pulled cars out of the garage, opened the doors and set up a couple of tables. Someone(s) from each family delivered the dishes to the table. They then went back and sat in their cars until all dishes were delivered. Then they, in turn, with masks, went into the garage and filled take-out dishes with what was on the table. Everyone did their own turkey or turkey breast so they didn't have to deal with cutting the turkey. Then after they filled up the take out dishes of the others' dishes, they took their own dishes and the take out and went home. Then had a zoom call with phones or laptops at the table. I hope I've explained this one well. It was actually pretty slick.

The third one was more challenging. Apparently the son-in-law is quite a home chef and wanted everything to be just right, so he cooked it all, all day, didn't want any help. But the dinner that was to be at 5 p.m wound up being served at 8 p.m. and dessert was at 9:30 p.m. I just offer this as what a variety we had.

Our dinner was to be at 3:30 and my son did the turkey. We took over dishes and I went off and left the cranberry relish I was so proud of that was cranberries and orange juice with a little agave syrup which we use instead of sugar most of the time. So now we'll eat all of it!  My DGS-9 loves Bill's orange/carrot/pineapple jello. When they were here on Wednesday we had him make a package in a dish from his house so he could have an entire pan for his family. He's the only one who likes it so much, so he'll probably eat it all!

DDIL made both a pecan and pumpkin pie with filling left over from each. she mixed it together, added some oatmeal and then baked it. TG breakfast bars. Pretty good, but calorie dense!  She is not a cook or baker so I thought this was pretty great for her to do. 

Now I'll get back to the old stuff. again, this is just me commenting on old posts. Don't feel compelled to read on.

Sandy, I read your posts about Bridgette and can just see her in the backyard around the bunnies. 
Sharon, that Cerave cream is one that works for Bill. It's in the rotation.
Marlo, such great house sale news! We're having a house sale explosion here as well. And houses are being built as fast as they can. Building goes right through the winter. 
Pat, okay, go big red. Though they did a job on us a few years ago! A couple of weeks ago a Nebraska football player had a horrendous injury. I've looked for news and this morning saw a headline that he'll fully recover. Injuries scare me.
Jane, so good to be a good hostess and not win at bridge!
Pat, burnt pan. Ah, we just had one of those. I thought we were going to have to ditch it, but we put it over the flame with soap and a lot of water and let it bubble away for awhile and kept working at it and finally it's cleared. I love that old-fashioned way of clearing burnt pans.
Gail, you have quite a line-up of shows to watch. I don't think I heard you mention New Girl. Will have to check it out. We did just discovered The Crown so have started with season 1. Ready for episode 3, I think. We are also watching The Undoing. And lots and lots of Hallmark, feel good, movies.
Ruth, Jessamyn Stanley is quite a yoga teacher. So clearly okay in her own skin and able to do so many things.  Stay safe walking out there! We've got a mix of mask-wearing walkers. I'm finding that as the days go by I'm wearing one outside more and more. the biggest issue is fogging up! But we've got a lot of walkers and so many don't wear masks so droplets hang in the air. 

Ruth thanks so much. I can always look back and see what I still need to work on.