What I’m into (and how my January habit worked out)

It’s the first edition of my new end-of-the-month feature!   Whee!

So.

What I Read

Better Than Before

Gretchen Rubin talks about four personality tendencies (Upholder, Questioner, Obliger, and Rebel) in this book.   I’m pretty sure I’m a mix of Upholder and Obliger, with maybe a little bit more Upholder than Obliger.

Interestingly, this means I should be fairly good at adopting habits.   We’ll see how this plays out with my 12 months of habits that I’m going to work on this year.

I liked her advice about making it easy to make the right choices (leave the exercise clothes out, put the cookies in a hard to reach place) and I particularly liked her emphasis on figuring out what works for you.   I am ALL about that.

(the whole I’ll be me and you can be you thing.)

Wonder

This is a sweet story about a kid with a cranio-facial deformation, and while it’s kid-friendly, I think it’s a book adults can enjoy just as well.   I love how the author managed to really make the voicing of the different characters really sound like kids/teens, without turning this into a really elementary book.

I saw there’s a companion book out now, so I put that on hold at the library.

(My kids are currently reading Wonder now, and enjoying it.)

Some of you had asked for kid reading recommendations, so I’ll try to throw some of those into these monthly posts as well. Sonia and Zoe are currently working their way through the massive Redwall series.   And of course, they’re reading Wonder (Sonia already finished!).

They’re also enjoying re-reading How They Croaked, a delightfully irreverent look at the ends of famous people.   And they’re reading a bunch of books and stories about ancient Greece, because that’s what we’re studying in history at the moment.

All of the above are library books.

I love the library.

What I Watched

I actually don’t think I watched anything at all in January. No, no, that’s not right. A friend came over and watched the BBC miniseries North and South  with my girls and me.   It’s kind of a sad miniseries (at least for 3 out of the 4 episodes!), but I thought it was really thought-provoking, in sort of the same way that the book Below Stairs was.

We streamed it from Netflix, which was lovely.

I didn’t watch much TV, but I did spend a fairly large amount of time playing Words with Friends on my phone.   A smarty-pants, word-loving, competitive friend heard that I love Scrabble and he couldn’t believe I hadn’t tried Words with Friends.   So, I downloaded the app and proceeded to get completely trounced for the first few games.

Words with Friends has a lot of differences from Scrabble and it takes some getting used to!

I did come back and beat him at two games though, so I feel slightly better, although I am currently getting trounced again.

His wife and Joshua are now in on the fun, so I have 6 active games of Words With Friends happening.

I’m normally not much on games, but when they involve words, I’m all in.

What I’m listening to

The girls gave me the new Adele album for Christmas, and then I decided to buy her other two albums, so that’s mostly what I’ve been listening to music-wise.   I got them all through iTunes, and I love that there’s no physical clutter this way.   Yay!

Fellow Adele/Downton Abbey fans: Have you noticed that the strings on Love in the Dark sound SO much like the Downton Abbey theme??

I’m also working my way through The Fizzle Show, a podcast for entrepreneurs.   I’m a little slow, I know, but I didn’t realize until relatively recently that I could download podcasts and listen to them while I drive.   Duh.

So, I’ve been using any alone time in the car to catch up on podcast episodes.   I must say, this does give me a better attitude about running errands and such. 😉

January Goal Update

My goal for January (and for the rest of the year, as this is a continuing goal) is to cook dinner once with each of my kids each month.

I’m pleased to say this did indeed happen in January!   Joshua made French Toast, Sonia made Swiss Mushroom Chicken, Zoe made tacos, and Lisey made Sloppy Joes.

I think this is going to work out pretty well!   Once a week feels manageable, and that’s key in helping me to be consistent with a habit.

February Goal

I’m going to try to keep on trucking with my January goal, and this month, I want to add in something that’s completely not related to frugality: stretching.

In our martial arts class, we do a lot of stretching, and while it’s great to do that once a week, if I want to make progress, I really need to stretch more than that.

So.   I’d like to start an every-day habit of practicing my three splits (left leg forward, right leg forward, straddle), touching my toes (I can already touch them, but I can’t bend completely in half yet), and doing one other stretch that is sort of hard to explain.

(I seriously sat here for several minutes trying to put it into words and I’m failing.)

Ooh! This will work. It’s like George Washington praying, and then you lean your torso down and try to touch your inside elbow to the floor, and eventually your shoulder.   But I can’t even get my elbow down, so, first things first.

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Alrighty! This concludes the inaugural version of the Saturday morning post.   Hopefully a stretchier Kristen will report back in a month.   😉

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