Married half a year – how I’m a different person

Greetings to my greatly neglected readers. I could apologize day and night for not writing, but the truth is, my life is very good right now, and all of the good has kept me very busy and preoccupied, and I’m not sorry for that.

I have been going through a lot of growth, as I suppose most newly-weds do, and I have longed to share what I’ve been through (little as it is) and also log my progress.

April 7th I married my best friend. Jonny has shown me so much grace in our 6+ months of marriage, simply by his unconditional love. I admire him so much, and seeing how he loves me is still overwhelming at times. In fact, now that we’ve been together half a year and I know he has seen these sinful sides of me, I can’t even convince myself that he’s in love with a fake version of me. He knows me better than anyone else could, and he still loves me. How amazing is that?

And I know God knows me deeper and more intimately than Jonny ever can, and yet Christ gave his life to redeem me. I can’t say enough about this, but I can’t find words to express this.

Aside from this spiritual walk, I have grown in life style changes. I’ve always been encouraged by my dad and my family to eat healthily, exercise, keep my space clean, and honestly, I didn’t follow their lead very well. But once I was married, in my own home, I realized Jonny wasn’t going to enforce this for me. Jonny is very kind and easy-going. He hasn’t asked me to change at all, and I love him for that. But I knew that I wanted to be better. I didn’t want to wake up at the last minute, throw a doughnut in my mouth, and dash out the door to work. I didn’t want to spend hours on my phone and not get my dishes done. I really didn’t want to feel tired all day, and believe me, a few months ago, I was SO tired ALL day.

1st – I cut out what was getting in my way. I wasted way too much time on my phone doing meaningless tasks. I ate foods that I didn’t really like, but they were convenient, and they didn’t give me energy or make me feel good. I examined activities, events, and habits that were hindering who I wanted to be.
(Disclaimer right here: don’t think I’m super self-willed. I still struggle with all of these things, but it did help to identify them. I haven’t made progress since last week, it’s true, but you bet I’ve made progress in the past few months! I’m in it for the long-haul, and having made this much progress, I am inspired not to lose it!)

2nd – I identified 4 areas I would especially like to work on.

• Health and Diet
• Time Management
• Budgeting
• Self-Growth

3rd – I made goals. I needed goals that were EASY, just a step ahead of what I was doing at the time. Because I know myself too well. If the goals were daunting, they would never get done. At the same time, I needed goals that would show me some progress, because I knew that would give me motivation to continue.

1. Learn a new healthy recipe each week and make it. One of my problems with eating healthy foods was not knowing how to make it, so this helps!
2. Exercise 10 minutes 4 days a week. 10 minutes isn’t a lot. It’s hard to make excuses for not squeezing in 10 minutes of time. And I knew I’d increase the time later on.
3. Write down 3 things every morning and have them done at the end of the day. (Jordan Peterson says the reason you can’t follow a schedule is because you make a schedule of a bunch of things you don’t want to do. Instead, make a schedule of your perfect day and you have a much higher chance of sticking to it. This has helped me so much, you wouldn’t believe it!)
4. Examine spending at the end of every week. That’s it. I simply wanted to be more aware.
5. Spend 30 minutes 4 days a week on self-growth and learning.

Those were my initial goals. Since then, I’ve had a much better idea about what’s most important, what was too hard or too easy, and I’ve modified these goals and done my best to turn them into habits.

I got emeals on my phone to help with meal planning and recipe finding.

I began working out to youtube videos in our basement or living room, and now, I enjoy running more than I ever have in my life. As soon as I get up in the morning, I run for about 5 minutes in the basement, just to wake myself up and it feels AWESOME.

I started listening to podcasts on a regular basis, getting better in touch with politics, philosophy, and life style improvement.

Honestly, the budgeting goal really dropped out. I don’t review my spending much, because I really don’t buy much anymore besides groceries, and I’ve gotten better and being frugal when it comes to food.

I try to be conscious of wasted time and I actually make schedules every few days because I feel like it, and I stick to schedules and routine better than I have ever in my life – because they’re schedules and routines of things I actually want to do.

Another disclaimer: As long as I have been alive, I have been the laziest person I know. And this is still partly true. I don’t have a lot of disciple and self-will. I still don’t. I still have a lot of days (more than I’d like) where I can’t make myself do anything productive and I spend wasted time in bed on pinterest. I still eat things I know I shouldn’t and later regret it. And saddest to me, I still struggle to spend time with God in the word and prayer on a regular basis. All that said, I am improving. Another thing Jordan Peterson has said that has changed my life, was his encouragement to make every week better than your last. If last week you met 20% of your goals, meet 21% of them this week. When I first heard that, I thought, “I can do that.” And I have. I’ve been getting better. I am not where I want to be, but I’m headed in the right direction.

So that’s where I am today. Way behind where I want to be, way ahead of where I was. And I’m thanking God daily for my husband. He’s very supportive. I’ve asked him several times to tell me what area of my life I need to work on, and he won’t. He says I don’t need to change, but when I have improved, he’s praised me and made me feel great for doing it. Is he perfect? We’ve been married half a year now…..Yeah, he’s perfect, at least perfect for me.

 

With great caffeinated well-wishes,

Ellie

 

P.S. Are any of my readers doing NaNoWriMo this year. I really want to, but I’ve never won while I also had a job….And I haven’t had ANY time to plan….Sounds fun!

P.P.S. Just mentioning NaNoWriMo on my blog — I feel like I’m 18 again!