The Art of Not Lying to Yourself

I am a huge fan of New Year's Resolutions, even if I don't accomplish them.  For years I have been writing down - lose 20 pounds.  I never reach my goal, so I dutifully write it down year after year.  

This book motivated me to buy a digital scale.  I bought the scale in 2018 and didn't buy batteries until 2019.  Baby steps.  

My New-Year's-Resolution-Mindset shifted this year.  I asked myself the following question:  What would happen if I actually achieved my 2019 resolutions?  It blew my mind because I never really expect to achieve most of my resolutions.  I decided to change things up.  This year I only wrote down "action" resolutions, not "result" resolutions.  Losing 20 pounds is the result I want.  The action I am taking to reach my goal is to weigh myself weekly.   According to Gretchen Rubin, habits and happiness expert, monitoring is a powerful way to create change and get results.  

So this January,  I weighed myself once a week and wrote down the amount in my planner.  It sounds so simple, but as someone who is comfortable lying to herself - it look courage.   

For years I have avoided looking at how much I weigh.  I threw the bathroom scale out years ago and am an expert at getting out of being weighed at the doctor's office.  (Usually I tell the nurse I just weighed in at Weight Watchers and give them a somewhat reasonable number.  Let it be noted that I am not a member of Weight Watchers and I haven't weighed myself for over 14 years.  I knew I wasn't fooling the nurses, but they played along.)  

Recently, I was talking to my dad about my weight lose journey. Here is how the conversation went:

Prairie Eydie:  I have changed SO many things with eating and exercise, but I only lost 2.3 pounds so far.  Some people stop eating pretzels and immediately lose 11 pounds.  What is wrong with me?

Prairie Pa:  Well, Edith.  Don't you know what is going on?

I had no idea what was going on, other than everyone losing tons of weight except me.

Prairie Pa:  They are all lying!  One of my friends told me he lost 20 pounds, but he looked exactly the same.  People are always lying about weight.  Don't you know that?

They are?  I thought I was the only one.

My friend, Julia, is a real member of Weight Watchers.  She said people always make sure to "weigh in heavy" the first time on the scale.  They eat lots of junk food, wear layers of wet wool, and don't take off their shoes when getting their initial weight.  This way they can make a lot of progress in a week.  For their second weigh-in they show up barefoot wearing shorts and a jog bra. 

Talking with my dad and Julia made me feel better about my 2.3 pound loss.  It is all good.  I am not a number.   Maybe this year is more about not lying to myself.  At any rate, I am looking forward to writing down fresh resolutions for 2020.  

Prairie Eydie  

The Art of Not Being Perfect

So often we let perfection stop us from starting.  My friend, Julia, summed it up perfectly.  She said she was going to quit taking piano lessons because she wasn't very good at it. 

I have fallen into that mindset so many times.  Here are some examples that might sound familiar:

I can't write because I don't have the perfect notebook.  And if I actually have the perfect notebook, I still can't write because I don't have a system to organize my writing.   

OR

I can't rearrange my living room because my couch can't be moved due to heat registers.

OR

I can't workout because gym memberships are too expensive.  

Life is easier when I don't have the right notebook, when my couch can't be moved, and when my heart beat stays at a resting rate.  But, I want to write, I want more living room seating, and I feel better when I work out.  

I decided to tackle these issues in an imperfect way.  

• I started writing in the notebook I actually had in a drawer.  I figure organizing my writing can happen later, the important thing is to fill pages with writing.  
• I invited my friend over who loves to rearrange furniture.  (We ALL have at least one friend who loves moving around furniture.)  She started moving things before taking her coat off.  According to her, lots of people have couches in front of heat registers.  Mind blown.  I now have three more places for people to sit.   
• I dusted off my workout DVDs and am now working out three days a week in my basement.  I would get a more efficient, effective workout at the gym, but this is better than sitting on my heat-vent-blocking-couch and wishing I could join a gym.

Imagine where you could be in January 2020, it you started doing things imperfectly.

What could you start to do imperfectly?

Prairie Eydie

P.S. My friend, Julia, is continuing on with her piano lessons.   

    

The Art of Reading

When people tell me they don't read and that books don't interest them - I become very judgmental.  What do they do with their time?  How they learn new things?  And, most importantly, what is wrong with them?  Despite the best efforts of the 1970s reading curriculum used in central Wisconsin, books have always inspired and challenged me (more on this later).  
   I am a reading specialist and work daily with middle school kids on everything reading.  I try to match hormonal students with books they enjoy and then conference with them about what they read.  89 percent of the reading curriculum involves students choosing what they read and teachers suggesting strategies for students to have a richer reading life.  Do these kids know how lucky they are to have agency over book choice?  Nope. 

Time for a rabbit hole!  Here are my favorite books, so far, from the 2018 - 2019 school year.

The Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus, by Dusti Bowling
Front Desk, by Kelly Yang
Restart, by Gordon Korman   

Reading class was very different when I went to school.  There was no choice.  If choice existed, I would have been on a steady diet of pioneer books and red headed sleuth books.  (What the heck.  Time for another rabbit hole.  My students have the good fortune of binging on books about girls loving werewolves and boys climbing Mt. Everest with their estranged father.  I have yet to read a book about a boy falling in love with a girl werewolf or a girl climbing Mt. Everest with an estranged mother.  Would someone please write these books?)

Teachers weren't sweating over finding books I connected with.  I had to find those books on my own.  Educators followed a simple formula every year.  Students were divided into three groups - high, medium, and low.  We were given basal readers which were collections of boring stories with comprehension questions and vocabulary words at the end.  We spent the year reading the basal readers and that was it.  I read the basal stories quickly so I could get to the books I brought from home.  

See what I mean? 

My 6th grade reading teacher, Mrs. Stack, must have noticed I was ripping through the basal stories because she dropped a copy of Dickens' Great Expectations on my desk.  To say I read it would be a lie, I skimmed it.  Sadly, Great Expectations didn't include covered wagons or orphans living in box cars.  Plus Dickens was addicted to describing each and every thing with so many words!  Tedious.  

I am bored just looking at this illustration.  

I was excited to return to my 7th rereading of Little Women after finishing Great Expectations.  Unfortunately for me, Mrs. Stack noticed and assigned me to read "To Build a Fire," by Jack London.  What eleven year old wants to read about a cold man trying to build a fire in a snow drift?  The dog in the story did little to move the plot along.  Later in the year, I wised up and hid my book inside the basal reader. 

I don't know what to do about adults who don't read.  But, I will continue my journey of finding engaging books for my students, hoping they will become adults who read.
    
Prairie Eydie

The Art of Trail Mix

I showed self restraint and didn't rip open the bag in the parking lot.  

Last week I bought a bag of trail mix at Costco.  It was the kind that had a variety of nuts (walnuts, pumpkin seeds, almonds) and dried fruit (cranberries and mangoes).  Did I mention I bought it at Costco?  The bag was the size of a small child and contained 26 servings.  

Sadly, I am not always truthful when it comes to trail mix.  Here are some of the outrageous lies I told myself:

• When I get home, I will measure the trail mix into 1 ounce portions.  I will use snack size zip lock bags and will only eat one ounce per day.

• If I don't look at the calorie count for a one ounce serving, the calories won't count due to my intentional oblivion.

•  Sugar from dried fruit is natural and doesn't count as real sugar.  This is why so many moms give small children cunning, little boxes of raisins.  (Personally, I gave my kids raisin boxes since it took them approximately 5 minutes to fish all the raisins out with their chubby fingers.  GREAT way to use up time in the check out line.)  

• There are no M & Ms in this particular bag of trail mix - making it an extra healthy choice.

• Using 26 snack bags isn't earth friendly, so I will keep the trail mix in the van and grab a handful when I need a pick me up.  This one bag of trail mix will last me for months.  

Wanna guess how long a Costco bag of trail mix lasts a single mom driving around in a van?  Let me tell you.  Three.  Whole. Days.   Good grief.  When I realized what I had done, I told myself even more trail mix lies:

Nuts don't have that many calories.  (They do.)
Other moms are doing the same thing.  (They aren't.)
I deserve all the trail mix I can eat.  (I don't.)
Trail mix isn't crack cocaine.  (This is actually a true statement.)

Yesterday,  I was telling my friend, Julia,  about the "Misbehavin' with Trail Mix" incident.  Julia goes to Weight Watchers and understands the extreme gravity of what I had done.  

     She patiently listened to my play by play account before asking- 

"Do you know where my Weight Watcher leader says trail mix belongs?" 

"In a van? I answered weakly.

"NO.  ON THE TRAIL!"  

What?  Not in the van?  This WW leader was onto something big.

Julia said I could buy trail mix the next time I was on a trail.  (She also suggested not buying it at Costco.)  Since it is Winter in Wisconsin, I will be waiting quite a while.  

Prairie Eydie