Friday, May 25, 2007

Good Habits

GOOD HABITS??
(No, not THAT kind...)
Reverendmother says:
As many of you know, I have been experimenting with some severely curtailed Internet usage. I realized that I had gotten into some bad habits, which got me thinking about habits in general. I understand that a habits/random facts meme has already been going around. In the hopes that it hasn't hit too many of us yet, be as lighthearted or as serious as you'd like with the following:

1. Have you ever successfully quit a bad habit, or gotten a good habit established? Tell us about how you did it.

YOU GOTTA LOVE FLYLADY!!! It really DOES take only fifteen minutes plus an hour of weekly cleaning to keep things at a sane level. I don't live in House Beautiful but I am usually not embarrassed if people drop in mid-project. And if they do, I don't run around apologizing and frantically picking up. We go sit where it isn't as chaotic. I love and live with them in the present moment. I stopped trying to have a perfect house with perfect housekeeping. Instead, I keep things reasonably straightened up, and in the process, I'm teaching some good habits to my kids.


2. "If only there were a 12-step program for _________________!"

Nailbiting. sigh. I've tried it all. "Carrots" for when I don't. Guilt trips (my parents were great on those.) Hypnosis. Painting yucky stuff on my nails. Tabasco sauce. Rubbing in lotion. Snapping a rubber band on my wrist. I even had someone pray that I would have "deliverance" from it. Fuggedaboudit.


3. Share one of your healthy "obsessions" with us.

Giving my kids a hug, a kiss and an "I love you" in their ear before they go catch the bus in the morning. No, they don't "need" me to get up and be around before they leave for school. It's a small thing. It's grounding. It's presence. It's love.


4. Share the habit of a spouse, friend or loved one that drives you C-R-A-Z-Y.

UNFINISHED PROJECTS. There's four I can think of on my mental list, and that's just in our bedroom... sigh...


5. "I'd love to get into the habit of ___________________."

More regular walking. I was doing fairly well until pollen season hit.


Bonus: What is one small action you might take immediately to make #5 a reality?

Just do it. With my Bearded Beloved Spouse.


Bonus 2: Try it, and let us know how it goes in a future post!

OK... you get a "definite maybe."


Deb

10 comments:

Terri said...

nail bitting. it is one hard habit to break. 'cuz you always have nails. and they always grow. and they are so readily available. and if you sit in the back row no one knows you are bitting your nails during tests, etc.

I manicure my nails every week. Sometimes twice a week because color doesn't last long. It's a chore. I do it myself. I hate it, I love it...But once I've gone through the process of making them look nice (even real short can look good)...well, then I don't bite them. And, yes. my parish has had to put up with red nails on Sunday morning at the altar. But now, lots of women show up to church with red nails, far more than when I first came...not exactly the way I thought I would "witness" to this community :-)

Anyway. Nail bitting, sigh...at least it won't hurt you like so many other "habits" ...

(ok, word verification is dui...I kid you not)...

Melissa said...

Great picture....

will smama said...

I had to laugh that you tried the rubber band thing too. Supposedly snapping it on our wrists teaches us not to do the habit.

But for most people I know - myself included - it taught me not to snap the rubber band!

Sally said...

thanks for the intro to fly-lady... as for nail biting- that goes in runs for me- the more stressed I am the more likely I am to nail bite... :-(

I love that you hug your kids- keep it going for as long as you can :-)

Iris said...

Flylady- is she the one who talks about CHAOS- Can't Have Anybody Over Syndrome? Yeah, that's my life. I guess I need the Flylady!

Diane M. Roth said...

Great picture! I'm so jealous. I'm just starting the "picture thing".

Oh yeah, and your number #4 made me think of another: not putting things away. It's kind of an adjunct of Unfinished Projects, as in, "But I wasn't finished with that phone book yet!"

Good luck with nail biting... that's a tough one.. my sister used to do it, now wears nail polish, so something must have worked.

Josephine- said...

Flylady, now I'm feeling guilty. I tried really hard to follow her system but just fell back out of the habit. And things went back to pot around here. Ah there's another forgotten good habit I really should resurect.

Anonymous said...

i found a way to stop nail-biting (or razther, the pick/pull at them with other fingers equivalent) - break your shoulder and get your arm immobilized! Alas, for me it was a temporary cure - 6 or 8 weeks later they were short and ragged again...

Rev SS said...

So how do you link directly to your post rather than to home page?

Rev SS said...

Love the flylady picture .. and thanks for the instructions on direct link!