The Power of 20.net

 

It’s been just about three weeks since I posted about my Healthy Living Challenge, meaning I have just one week remaining.

The first week went well, with me eating healthy food, exercising regularly, and having a great time going places and doing things with the kids.

Shortly after the end of the first week, I awoke one morning to feel aches and pains all over my body, and my energy level had absolutely plummeted. I had a pounding, horrible headache, and when I spoke my throat felt like it was lined in razor blades.

I reasoned that this was due to my working out harder than usual, with the tiredness and the soreness both signaling the fact that I was becoming more fit. I put off my sore throat as being caused by dry air in the places I had been going.

So I pushed myself those two sore mornings, working out harder than I had even that first week, and making certain to not eat junk.

Of course, by the third morning, I realized I had been very wrong.

That bodily soreness and lack of energy was not the result of tired muscles or becoming more fit.

I had the flu! (Or something similar. I’m not sure what it is really. I just know it has sapped my energy, caused me to have bouts of coughing, a stuffed up nose, sore throat, perpetual light headedness, and difficulty in concentrating. I am guessing it to be the flu.)

So the second week of my Healthy Living Challenge has been spent in recovery mode, exercising with no resistance on my recumbant exercycle, putting in 30 minutes per day on it and no more, sort of feeling my way through the week.

At first, I found even the slightest bit of activity would result in a light-headed sensation. I felt like I was about to faint if I did anything strenuous at all.

Slowly, that has been getting better, although unfortunately I still am not at one hundred percent.

So I have altered my idea of success with this challenge.

If I do not gain weight (and I eat when stressed, depressed, angry, sad–or feeling ill. All of which has been going on for me this past week.   ), I will consider this challenge to have been successful.

If I am better, shake this “flu” off for sure and have a return to my prior levels of energy before the final week is out, I will conisder myself very successful indeed!

And if my head clears up enough that I am able to post more than one time per week, that will be an added bonus!

‘Til next time!

Have you tried a Healthy Living Challenge of your own? Experienced unexpected setbacks when trying to move yourself and your life forward? Why not share? Helpful comments and suggestions are always most welcome!

 

Your office.
You spend a lot of time there.
You work there, you may read there.
You may entertain clients, eat lunches and snacks, maybe even conduct interviews and gossip there.
But does your office reflect you?
What do people see, what are they led to believe about you, when they see your office?
Here are some tips, to make sure what your office says about you is what you want it to say.
1) I am efficient.
Your office efficiency can be more than doubled by the design, the layout,of your office furniture.
To ensure the most efficient use of your space, choose an “L” or “U” design.
Choose a chair with the ability to swivel, to increase your speed at getting relevant paperwork, correspondence, telephones, and faxes while dealing with clients, or working alone to get that work done.
2) I am comfortable.
Choosing a chair that has back support and is comfortable for you helps to ensure that those long hours spent in it will remain comfortable, and will not cause undue pain or discomfort.
3) I am healthy, and plan on staying that way.
Choosing a chair with previously mentioned back support, and ergonomically designed features, helps to ensure your long-term health. As well, such small niceties as a mousepad with a comfortable wrist rest on it will go a long way to ward off repetitive use issues. Not prevent them, necessarily, but perhaps prolong the amount of time you spend without them.
4) I am accomplished.
Placing such things as awards and certificates where they may be seen displays your accomplishments to others, while reminding you of them. Place these where you can see them often, but where they will not be in the way.
5) I am proud of my own taste.
Display artwork which means something to you, and which you will enjoy looking at.
Do not place it directly in line with where you will be facing while you are working, because it may interfere with your thinking if you enjoy staring at it too much.
6) I am motivated.
Motivational quotes, placed where you may see them, can help remind you why you are doing what you are doing, and may help you surge forward in an assignment which you are having difficulty completing.
7) I am loved.
If you are fortunate enough to have a family, displaying a photograph of them in your office brings a sense of your values to your workplace.
Have any tips or ideas of your own about what your office says about you? Why not share? Comments are always most welcome!

Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of going book shopping alone.

First among my finds:

 Relentless: A Novel by Dean Koontz.
This one I couldn’t wait to read, so I am kind of cheating here, because I have completed it already!
Typical of a Koontz novel, it did leave me not quite willing to believe certain parts of it, and it did have a portion where it dragged a wee bit, but overall a very good story.

Writers have lots of problems, from finding something to write about, to getting it written, to having it read, then eventually to finding a publisher who will think highly enough of your work to maybe give you some money and put their stamp on it.

Once it’s finally out there, you then have to deal with criticism.

You get criticism from the reading public, from devoted fans, relatives, family…then there’s those people who actually choose to critique the works of others for a living.

A bad review could be a novelist’s worst nightmare.

Or perhaps the reviewer could be the novelist’s worst nightmare.

This is what happens to Cubby Greenwich, when a not-quite accidental meeting with literary critic Shearman Waxx leads him down a terrifyingly slippery slope where he could lose everything he loves and values in his life.

Starting with his family.

It’s basically a novelist’s worst nightmare, with the lead character having a semi-disastrous meeting with his worst critic, only to learn that is just the start of his problems!

It’s  akin meeting their #1 Fan, which Stephen King handled so well in Misery .

Imaginative, scary, keeps you reading it even though you might have trouble believing some of the things that happen in it.
Dean Koontz is my brother’s favorite writer, so I do tend to read a large amount of his work.
Worth buying, if I do say so myself.