Thursday, March 25, 2010

Putting Ourselves First

For the past two mornings, my husband and I have gotten up at 5:00 a.m. to work out. He works out in the garage (he just started the P90X workout) and I go to the gym (which is less than 5 minutes down the road). If you asked my husband "what is the one thing your wife is not?" he would surely say "A MORNING PERSON!" And I'm sooooooooo not!!!! But, after repeatedly trying to go to the gym mid morning and put Andy in the nursery there, it just wasn't working out. I thought that the more he went, the better he would be about it, but it's actually been the exact opposite. When we went on Tuesday he was saying "No. No Mama. No" when he saw me in my gym clothes and started crying as soon as we pulled into the parking lot. The nursery there is great and I really like the woman who runs it, but his separation anxiety is so heightened right now, that he does NOT want me to drop him off there. His pediatrician says that this will get better around age 2. We'll see. Thankfully, we can leave him with a neighbor or family or friends when needed and he does fine with a sitter... but boy does he hate going to the gym!

So, after that I decided I would try getting up at 5:00 a.m. and going to the gym before Matt left for work. I'm greatful that he is getting up with me. It's helping to keep me motivated. I know myself well enough to know that if I wait until after Matt gets home from work to try and go to the gym that I will come up with a million excuses why not to go. Plus, I want to spend time together as a family when he gets home. So, now I'm going to bed about 2 hours earlier, but I gain that time back in the morning before Andy wakes up. It's actually really nice to have this quiet time to start my day, and it sure feels good knowing I don't have to worry about when I'm going to go to the gym because it's already done!

I told Matt last night that I've noticed I am feeling a lot more content and generally happy lately. Things aren't stressing me out as much and I don't feel as anxious about the things I don't get done in a day. I feel like I can attribute that to finally tackling the two major areas of my life that were causing me anxiety - money and health. Now that I am working daily on these two things, I feel like I'm making progress in those areas instead of just ignoring them. It's made a huge difference for me. The other thing that has helped was getting rid of our cable. It's so nice not to have the TV on every night. We've been renting movies and TV shows from Netflix, but don't watch them every night.

I know that I'm only three months into this project, but already I'm seeing the benefits. It's nice to feel like I'm finally becoming the person that I want to be. I call tell that the changes that Matt and I have both made are having an impact on our family and our marriage and it just makes me want to continue! I look forward to how I'll feel in another three months!

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