My Planning Book

 Today I managed to go out and pull some weeds in between rain showers.

This is how much I could pull out.

A lot of weeds.

But when I looked at where I was working, it didn't look any different.

Did I make a difference?

I felt this is what my life is like at the moment. 

I'm trying to reset my life, make changes that I need to make, but it all feels futile. I keep working on routines, on doing the things that I need to do to make my life better, but I don't see any progress.

I still haven't lost weight, haven't gained any, which is good, I guess. My eating is all over the place; some days are very good, other days are very bad. 

I ache and feel like I have no strength in my legs. 

I sleep too much during the day and watch TV until late at night.

I haven't picked up a study book in weeks. 

The house and garden are still a mess.

Before I went on my little trip, I bought a planning notebook. Just a simple 100yen book. It's been sitting on my desk, staring at me since then.

Today, after the weeding that had me so frustrated, I decided that I had to set up this book. Start tracking what I'm doing, what I need to do to improve my life.

This is how I've set it up for now.

Just a place to note what I'm doing.

Sleep is the first thing on the list. I struggle so much with staying awake during the day. Sometimes I am really tired or sleepy. At the moment, I'm taking a load of allergy meds, which make me so sleepy. When I'm like that, a little nap helps; otherwise, I get awful headaches. But I know that crawling into bed during the day is just an escape. I don't want to deal with the stress that I have, especially our money situation. It's bad, I know, but I haven't been able to break this awful cycle. I've proved to myself that I can get up and keep going all day, but most days I don't want to. My plan for this week is to get up at 5am (except Tuesday, I don't have to make obento on Tuesdays), make breakfast and obento, then sleep again until about 9 o'clock. On Tuesday, I want to get up at 7am and start my day!

The next two things are water and eating. I'm good at drinking enough water, most days. My eating needs a lot of work. Last year, I managed to stop eating carbs at breakfast and dinner, just a small portion at lunch. I lost a bit of weight doing that. At the moment, I don't eat carbs at breakfast, but dinner is a lot harder. Some days I have a sandwich for dinner, if I could get good bread, it might be alright, but the bread here is very light and not filling at all! Also, I need to stay away from sweets; I've been backsliding on that lately.

Next is cleaning. I've let that slide. I do the dishes; it feels constant, but I know it isn't. Other than that, I haven't kept up with housework. Everywhere is a mess. I always feel that this house is tatty and uncared for; the tiles in the bathroom are broken, there are holes in the walls and doors (not just the cats, but from when we lived here before). I don't like this house; cleaning feels like a waste of time. I have to change this attitude, try to make it nice, somehow! 

 Exercise, I need to do some every day. Either walking, stretching or something. I really don't enjoy exercising; maybe walking is alright, but other than that, it really is a burden. I know that if I don't start and keep it up, then in a few years, I won't have the strength or energy to do anything. I want to have energy as I get older. I don't want to end up being unable to do anything for myself, so I have to start now!

I added going outside to my list. I was going to put gardening, but some days I don't have the energy to do anything but I like to just walk around the garden, see what flowers are blooming, check on the blueberries. I spend so much time in my room, so just getting outside is good for me.

The last thing on my list is to study. Japanese, of course, but also history. I've found that I'm really fascinated by history. I want to try to learn more about Japanese history, especially this area. Also, I realised that I don't know much about English history.

At the bottom of the page, I've left a space to write down the positive things from the day. I need to have a much more positive outlook on life. 

I don't know if I'll keep this planning book like this or change it as I go along. We will see.

If anyone else is doing anything similar, drop me a comment.