Month to Month Resolutions: April 2012

Once again hath the celestial satellite sped on her rounds, and thus is it time for the month-to-month business!

Categories and Goals for April 2012

This month saw the first real lapse in the Categories and Goals discipline, especially in week three. There are certain reasons I could cite, but I think also that most programs lose their momentum after a couple of months. Well, that’s why it’s month-to-month, innit! We rededicate ourselves to the task.

Weighing-in: IAt the beginning of the month, I indicated that there would be a financial penalty for every day I remained above 200 pounds. A few days into the penalty, I am already a few bucks in default. This is somewhat to my surprise, as I have been for the most part “doing things right.” We shall continue to do things right, and trust that eventually there will be payoff.

• April Goal: I will continue to weigh myself every morning in the established manner, and the late-March financial penalty of 10 cents per tenth of a pound over 200 pounds, daily, will continue through April.
  
  
• BELOVED READERS! On what should this money be spent? Mrs.5000 has suggested “extra treats,” thinking it would be interesting to set up a runaway cycle of explosive weight gain, but I don’t think she really wants that in her heart of hearts. I feel that the money should go either to something reflecting the goal of weight loss and fitness, or to some direct or indirect benefit to you, the blog readership. I am eager to entertain options.

Push-ups: My February goal of doing two sets of push-ups equal to the date was no problem.

• April Goal: I wish to perform 60 push-ups a day. This can be in two sets of 30 or three of 20, or whatever. Mrs.5000 may still bark “give me ten!” if she wants, but she has tended to forget that she has this privilege.

Pull-ups: This is a new category.

• April Goal: I have purchased a pull-up thingy. My goal is to assemble it during the first week of the month, and then to try to work towards a state of being where I am capable of doing pull-ups. It doesn’t really make sense to put a numerical value on this, as I’m far from sure I am able to do a single pull-up at this point. If I’m able to use this piece of equipment to do that exercise where you pull your knees up, I’ll try to do, oh, ten of those a day.

Cola: I will formally implement a concept that proved efficacious in March.

• March Goal: Again, to consume no more than twelve units of cola per week.

Veggies:

• April Goal: Steady – no fewer than five units per week.

Paper Mail Sent: This continues to be an easy one for me.

• April Goal: Steady: an average of at least one item per day over the course of the month.

Writing Projects:

• April Goal: A minimum of six hours a fortnight.

Garden: I found that my March goal of “At least two days of sustained (2+ hours) yardwork” was problematic, tending to discourage me from taking opportunities to do, say, 45 minutes of yardwork, since it “wouldn’t count.”

• April Goal: At least three hours of yardwork per fortnight!

Music: Music Goals will be removed for the time being.

Quilting: I scorched the quilting goals in March! It was pretty cool.

• April Goal: Steady Three hours per fortnight spent on quilting tasks. Quilting handwork performed in a multitasking context counted at 50%.

By the way, after quite a bit of puzzling about what I would do to replace the old “run every street” map that I finished last month...

...I’ve decided to do a new “run every street” map.

For some reason that I can’t even begin to explain, this seems like great fun, whereas running the same map a second time seems like it would be pointless tedium.


Footnote 1: For weekly goals, the first week of April begins Monday, April 2.
Footnote 2: For fortnightly goals, the first fortnight of March begins Monday, April 2.