2012 Word of the Year - Year End Report

How did I DO for 2012? My WOTY was all about movement, and action - DOing any number of things, but DOing something. A few of my plans were...

• Step outside my comfort zone....MEH - I tried
• Plan ahead.....YES - meal planning, list making, etc
• Be active.... MEH - had my ups and downs. mostly downs.
• Stay organized....YES - W/out being organized I wouldn't have survived the year!
• Bike....NO - a broken bike trailer hampered plans in this area :(
• Hug my kids.....YES - always! Even my teen is submitting to hugs better than usual :)
• Cut myself some slack when needed....YES - unfortunately I cut too much slack and fell hard
• Hold myself accountable when needed....YES - but I have no middle ground, and beat myself up, which causes the spiral to continue
• run....MEH - as much as I could through injury until Sept, then zippo
• Teach my children by example.....NO
• Lead my children by example......NO
• swim.....NO - logistics beat me down and I let them
• Put down the book, turn off the computer and move....NO - not since Sept anyway
• Walk the dog.....NO - poor lazy dog with a lazy owner
• Sign up & train for the Guelph Lake Try-a-Tri....MEH - I trained for the running, biking & swimming not so much
• Complete the Try-a-Tri....NO - how disappointing, more about that later
• Hit my goal weight....NO NO NO - in fact I am at my heaviest ever
• Be sociable....YES - I made attempts to DO despite social anxiety. Coffee with a friend after volunteering at the school, tea with a friend when picking up my daughter....not huge steps, but steps none-the-less
• Make time for my kids one-on-one....YES - have tried to spend some time with each of them
• Make time for my husband and I one-on-one....NO - other than running to Home Depot or WalMart, I don't think we spent any time together just the two of us this year! 2012 was the year of our unwanted separation though - he was traveling all the time!
• Make time for me....NO (see: husband traveling....not much time for me!)
• Drink water.....NO - I did great during the spring/summer sports, but then quit
• Zumba.....NO - again with the logistics, but I should have tried harder
• Go sledding with my kids....YES
• Skate with my kids.....YES (only once though!)
• Play Marco Polo with my kids.....YES
• Go peddle boating with my kids....YES - actually, no, but I went Canoeing with my kids so I say close enough!

And the results are....
MEH - 4 (tried, but didn't really succeed)
YES - 11
NO - 12
Could have been worse. Definitely could have been better.

So what happened with the Try-a-Tri?
injury prevented me from being ready for the June race, so I switched to the Sept race. I was so looking forward to it, especially with it being on the anniversary of my daughter's death - what better way to honor her, than by REALLY LIVING! The kids and I went "home" for all of August, and while I was in Winnipeg I biked a couple of times at the lake on a borrowed bike, swam in the lake a few times (hard to swim "laps" when you are the only adult in the water with 3-5 kids though!), and ran religiously. I ran in the rain, in the heat, in the fog. I ran when my foot hurt. I ran when my shins hurt (ice was my friend after my runs!). I was up to running for 8 minutes straight on the C25K program (that might not sound like much to some, but it was significant for me!) I figured I was on track to be able to finish my race, but not likely in the 60 minute time goal I had. And I was ok with that. My daughter and I were driving home in a car we were buying back from my parents, while my parents would fly my boys home. We were to arrive on Aug 29th or 30th, I would have a day or two to relax & my race was the afternoon of the 1st. The car we were to drive home had mechanical trouble, delaying our departure by a couple of days, so we actually arrived home around 8pm on the 31st....12 hours before I would have to be up and out the door for my race, after 3 days of driving....not ideal. Then the flight my parents were able to get, arrived in Toronto at 1pm on the 1st....the same time as my race. Plans foiled. So did I set myself up for failure? Yeah, kind of. I could have planned to go home a week before the race (actually I did plan that, but wanted to have a birthday party for my oldest while we were home & one of her aunts was away so we had to push that out by a week...and I felt that was more important than being well rested for my race). I could have asked my DH to drop me off at the race & go without me to pick up the boys and my parents at the airport (I was scared to be there alone though, I really felt I needed his support).

I should have just continued on, trained some more & been ready to kick butt next year. Instead, school started, my youngest is in school this year, I was home alone ALL the time. I fell into depression. I ate my emotions. I did nothing except volunteer at the school and think about what I should be doing. No gym. No walks. Minimal house cleaning. Lots of potato chips. Weight gain. Beat myself up. Depression. Eat. Hate myself. Spiral. Out. Of. Control.

DH thinks I need to seek help. I think I just need to quit doing nothing and DO what I should be doing. I spend a lot of time volunteering at the school. I got a job (just a couple mornings a week). DH is finished traveling...no more single parenting should mean I can keep a better handle on things. I am DOing what I need to do to turn this around. I just wish I'd managed to put the breaks on before it got this bad.

Here's to heading in the right direction in 2013.

(I am notoriously bad for falling hard when I fail to do everything exactly as I think I should, so wait for the WOTY blog for 2013 to see how I'm going to combat that! I am back!)