Weekly Update February 14-20

Wow, what a week! I did triple coverage at work for the second half of the week.  It got a little crazy but I survived.  I finally had a chance to type up a brief summary for my amazing 2016 changes. 

Change #1

Fitness and Health

This one isn’t much of a change since I have worked on fitness for years.  However, I am changing up my routine.  I will get back to posting my weekly Fitness Updates and try and include a few tips and new workouts that I have found to be fun.  I am adding toning to my workouts using some fun new toning routines by Beach Babes Katrina and Karena.  I love doing their routines because they are on a beautiful beach and I feel like I am working out on the beach with them.  I am working on the nutrition side still.  I am a picky eater which makes following most nutrition plans difficult.  I don’t like a lot of vegetables and since most healthy eating plans are based on eating clean and eating a lot of vegetables it is hard for me. 

Change #2

Career

I am not changing my current job because I love what I do and I am good at it.  I just decided to change up my routine a little and learn some new things that pertain to my job.  I am an EDI Manager which doesn’t explain at all what I do.  Most people don’t know that EDI stands for Electronic Data Interchange.  It is the computer-to-computer exchange of business documents in a standard electronic format between business partners.  So you may ask if EDI is “computer-to-computer” then why is a human involved.  The company I work for is not fully set up on EDI for every document.  One part of my job is to complete the enrollment processes with different insurance companies and anesthesia practices. Another part is analyzing the EDI files that reject on one end or the other and determine the problem.  Right now I do not manage any people, I manage the enrollment paperwork and the many applications and interfaces we work with in our company.  I also speak a different language called the ANSI 5010 Standard which is the current standard in the EDI world. Anyway there are a few areas in my current job that I don’t fully understand so I am going to work on learning more about those areas and increasing my knowledge and experience. 

Change #3

Living Space

I am hoping to move to a place of my own soon. Right now I am working on my debt and getting it paid off so I can afford a condo, townhome or even a home.  While I work on that process I decided to prepare for my future home by cleaning out what I currently own and creating an inventory of what I will be keeping

Change #4

Simplify and Organize

This is a change I started last September.  I have grown up and grown out of a lot of the stuff I own.  I have also discovered that I do so much better living a simple life.  I won’t say this process has been easy but it has been extremely fulfilling.  I have been using the book “Magic of Tidying Up” during this process.  I love this book.  

Change #5

Hobbies and Interests

I am back to practicing the piano.  I have never quite perfected my piano skills.  I started piano lessons as an adult and got a little frustrated that it didn’t come quickly to me.  I also started voice lessons about the same time and found that I enjoyed that so much more.  I regret not putting as much effort in my piano practicing so I am pulling out all of my old lesson books and practicing as much as I can. 

Be the Change

I had no idea how many people actually followed my blog until a couple people asked me why I wasn't posting my Fitness Updates or my fun little posts each week. One friend said that I inspired her to get up and start exercising again.  Wow!  One of my changes is to start blogging again and try to be an inspiration to more people.  I have been following a couple blogs, YouTube channels and Instagram posters and I enjoy them so much.  Many of these blogs helped me and inspired me so to have someone tell me I had done the same thing for them really touched me.

I have 5 areas that I am going to change and focus on for myself.  I will post a little more about each of these changes over the next couple weeks.  Then I plan to do check in posts each month.  I will post tips, fun ideas for that topic, and what I am currently working on.  Sometimes I will post a challenge if anyone wants to join in on the fun with me.

Here are the 5 areas:

1. Fitness and Health
2. Career
3. Living Space
4. Simplify and Organize
5. Hobbies and Interests

Oh and as a bonus I will have some fun posts with tips about Disneyland and trips to Disney. If you know me well you know I love Disney.  I get asked questions about my experiences, where to stay, when to go and what I do when I go to the parks. I thought it would be good to put it all in one place.  

Life is Simply Amazing

Yes, if you take the first letter of each of those words it spells out my first name.  I love that I discovered that late last night.  Life really is amazing.  The past month has been wonderful.  I have had some great experiences.  I have met some wonderful new people and rekindled some old friendships  I have also learned some things about myself over the past few months.  During the year that I completed my Half Marathon I learned that I can accomplish anything even hard things.  As I stated in my blog post about the Half when I crossed that finish line something inside me clicked. Unfortunately that feeling did not stay with me for very long.  I got home and some negative influences and negative talk began and brought me down.  Well about a month ago something clicked again.  I wouldn’t say it was the same click as after my Half but it made me think and created a spark of motivation and excitement. I realized that I had gotten myself into a rut.  I had started to make some really good changes in my life during 2014 but I got lazy in 2015.  Honestly, I lost myself.  I can’t explain the click or what happened because it was a very personal experience.  I can say that I found part of myself that had been hidden for a long time below anxiety, depression, stress, negative talk and self doubt.  About two weeks ago I decided it was time to make some changes.  I didn’t know what those changes would be until last night.  I am super excited to introduce some of those changes to my social media followers.  I have been amazed at some of the things life has thrown at me.  They haven’t always been good but I have chosen to focus on the good because I am a better person when I am positive and happy. We all are really!