QOTD Habits
 

Good morning, everyone. My question of the day is about "habits". Do you have any good ones? Bad ones? Want to form any new ones?

I'm trying to work exercise into my lifestyle. My good habit is jogging. Taz and I go jogging 2-4 times a week. It's so relaxing to jog along the river path (I love across the street from the Coquitlam River).

The new habit I really want and need to develop is a weight lifting schedule. I have been procrastinating but I am going to work hard this week to figure out my schedule and mark two times on my calender to work out. I've got the equipment here, I just need to get motivated and stick with it. I love weight lifting so when I do it I really enjoy it...it's the getting started part that I drag my feet at doing. I always find other things to do. I'm putting it on my calender to feel accountable for it and hopefully I will do it.

My best habit is probably intermittent fasting I only eat between noon and 6 pm daily. It’s honestly very good for you,I also choose to eat healthy even if everyone around me is filling up with junk food.
I also have a religious morning and evening skin care reguminet that I honestly feel has kept my skin young by mostly using oils.
The habit I can’t wait to start again is laps and water exercises in my pool when the season begins again.

procrastination. bad bad bad.

^^^What Kristin said.

:p you are the best procrastinator I know then!

Good habit-- flossing my teeth
Bad habit-- cracking my knuckles! I hate it every time I do it!

I crack my knuckles, too. So bad!

I recently broke my bad habit of biting my nails. We'll see how long it lasts.

I'm trying to make a new good habit of doing yoga every day. I've been hit or miss lately, but I'm making progress.

Oh lawd. I have too many bad habits to name. Definitely procrastination and something of a TV addiction. Staying up too late, being forgetful, not being tidy enough, not taking time for myself. When I'm not pregnant I've been known to overindulge in alcohol and caffeine. I only eat vegetables and fruit because I know they're good for me and I don't exercise at all anymore (because I know, chasing my toddler about doesn't really count) .

I did quit smoking like 5 years ago and haven't looked back since. But, my best habits are not really my habits at all. Rather, the habits I'm trying to instill in my son. I'm trying to make sure that I give him the best start in life that I can, a better start and with better habits than I was given. He's already a very adventurous eater, even as a toddler. He loves to clean up his toys and enjoys brushing his teeth. I work very hard to keep him on an age-appropriate schedule and make sure he is sleeping enough. I know we will hit bumps in the road in his teenage years, but I think I'm creating a good foundation for him.

The problem is that I while I understand that modeling behaviors is so important, I still have serious trouble altering my behaviors. I don't want to be a "do what I say" parent. And so, I continue to try and better myself... but at this season in my life I feel like I'm in survival mode like 80% of the time!!

One bad habit I recently kicked is alcohol use. Haven't had a drop in just over a month and am feeling GREAT.

A habit I'd like to knock out is the amount of screen time I have, particularly on my phone. Just mindless scrolling through social media or dumb games.

Ella - me too....I mix an essential oil blend that I apply to my face every morning. I also intermittent fast, my eating window is noon to 8 pm.

Kristin - if your procrastination helps you create what you do....keep it up! Your designs rock!!!

Lorie - procratination seems to work for you LOL

Rebecca & Carrie - I too crack my knuckles but try not to do it.

Mandy - good for you for not biting your nails. That is a hard habit to break. I have always wanted to learn more about yoga but haven't had time or money to go to a class yet (I need to find out how to change some poses that won't aggravate my wrist tendonitis).

Karli-Marie - you are such a good mom. TV addition...hmmm....I too suffer from that but don't think it is a bad habit or if it is.....there could certainly be much worse habits to have. I've always been a tvaholic and am not about to stop now :)

Val - good for you for kicking alcohol. I had a hard time at first, I used to love my wine but I had a lot of digestive/stomach problems and giving up alcohol and inflammatory foods was necessary to heal my gut and now I can have some alcohol without any trouble but I can't ever overdo it or I start getting sick again. As for screen time....hmmm....not sure I can ever change that, it is an integral part of my day. I can't stay away :)

Good habit - I power walk an hour on the treadmill every day!
Bad habit - I will eat M&M's the minute I get off the treadmill.

Wow...Kjersti.....that's commitment! Good for you! (not the M&M part...ha ha...but the power walking).

I am a habit (routine) FREAK. It helps a lot with my anxiety.

I do things in the same order in the morning. I drive the same way to school and work. I park in the same spot (or at least the same aisle) at work, school, the grocery store, the mall, & church. I sit in the same seat at church. I eat things on my plate (separately) in the same order every night. I wash dishes in the same order. I wind down the same way every night before bed.

I also drink too much Diet Coke, eat too much chocolate, watch too much TV, and waste too much time on the Internet.

I. AM. A. HABIT. FREAK. :D

I have a Diet Dr. Pepper addiction. I am walking 2 miles most days now. One step at a time....

I would love to start doing some better things for me but honestly I don't know that mentally I am ready. I don't consider myself mentally weak but I don't think I am where I need to be to commit to better habits.

I guess small steps is the best ways to start -- I walked for 30 minutes Monday & Tuesday so I guess that is the start.

My bad habit, like Kristin & Lorie is procrastination (why do today what you can put off until tomorrow. LOL!).

A habit I would like to get into is walking at least 5 days a week. I know I need to, but getting myself out to do it (see bad habit above) is hard! :p

I'm a knuckle cracker but I don't consider that a bad habit LOL. I'm bad about letting paperwork pile up and I swear quite a bit.

My good habits include brushing and flossing, washing my face before bed and working out 5-6 days a week.

Bad habit - sleep later than I should. Procrastinating *sometimes*
Good habit - Mop our floor daily. Shower every morning, brush teeth & wash my face before going to bed at night.

I have really been trying to change my habits this year, one at a time, instead of all at once, per The Flylady's recommendation, and it's working really well so far.
My new habit for January was to start getting up at 5 to read my Bible & pray, and I've stuck with it so far this year.
My February habit was to start walking on the treadmill for half an hour each morning after the kids leave. I HATE exercising, but I've been able to maintain this one because my treadmill a) is directly under the fan and b) has a spot for my Kindle Fire, which I use to watch Brooklyn 99 and forget how bored I am exercising.
Last year I started washing my face every night & using skin care products, as well as putting on serums & sunscreen in the morning.

I have a bad habit of reaching for my phone anytime there is down time, including walking from room to room or while I'm cooking.
And I come home in the afternoons and crash on the couch while my kids do whatever they want; I hate this because they're gone all day & I feel like I should make the most of the time I have with them but i'm just soooo tired (probably because I get up at 5...).

I always forget about FlyLady! I got really into her a few years ago and then just totally fell off the bandwagon!

Do you have an iPhone? One of the latest updates has a bunch of "screen time" settings. They give you the option to have 'downtime' or to lock certain apps and set limits. At the end of the week it tells you how much time you spent on your phone. It really helped me to reign in my mindless usage!

I have a skin care routine that I do morning and night, and I've been doing since I was about 13 or so. I can't imagine going to bed without washing my face, and cringe in horror when I hear someone talking about going to bed with makeup on! My adherence to my skin care routine is essential really, because of my bad habit...

I still never wear sunscreen when I'm out in the sun. I've always tanned easily and so it was never an issue when I was young (and everyone wanted to be tan) and now I just don't even think about it. Ironically, I always make my daughter put it on!

I'm boring. I probably don't have many habits. One bad habit I have is drinking soda, which my goal is to remove caffeine. I love my pepsi, have been drinking it for 10+ years. Since my surgery (2/27), I've had 3 pepsi's! (yay me!) and have gone over to one can of gingerale a day. I open it in the morning and by evening, I'm usually finishing it. My goal with that is to remove soda completely (maybe if we go out to eat, which isn't often at all), when we move to our next duty station in June.

Outside of reading my Bible, praying--those things that I do every day, I don't really have any other habits. Like I said, I'm boring.

Do I want new ones. I just want life to settle down so I can breathe and enjoy the moment :wub:

Wow! That's a big accomplishment!! Go you!!

It is a huge accomplishment. Lucky for me I have two children who drink after me (I don't eat or drink after anyone) and I've been able to pass half a can off to them. They rarely ever get soda, so they welcome it when I offer!

I prayed for months in advance for help with the soda--especially the pepsi, caffeine thing. I truly think God answered my prayers because after my surgery, Pepsi or Coke (those caffeine sodas) taste nasty! It's like my taste buds changed! It's definitely an answer to prayer and on the road to kicking that bad habit that I've had way too long! :thumbup:

That's awesome!! Keep it up!! :thumbup:

LeeAndra - I too do well with routines. I can wing it and go with the flow but I'm happy when I have a plan, a routine. I used to drink a lot of Coke but gave it up.

Cindi - I used to love Diet Dr. Pepper...have you ever made an ice cream float with it? Yum, so good.

Debbie - I think most of us struggle with sticking to a routine. I like to pencil my exercise time onto the calendar and it helps to make me more accountable.

Tammy - I find that starting out small can help to build a habit and then slowly build up to more but....I too procrastinate especially with things I don't really want to do like housecleaning or taxes...ugh.

Keely - working out 5-6 days a week....I applaud your great workout schedule!

Sherly - mop the floor daily???? I am sooo bad at that.

Kellie - good for you for starting your day off so well. As for the nap...you are probably a better person, a better mom, for taking care of yourself. If you need a nap, you need a nap.

Nat - I am vigilant about my skincare routine too. And I also don't usually wear sunscreen so try to find a summer moisturizer with a bit of sunscreen in it.

Wendy - boring is good...I too am boring :) Yrs ago I was a pop addict, drinking anywhere from 3-6 a day...yikes. Imagine my surprise when I stopped drinking it and about 2-3 weeks later I was cured of my addiction. I no longer cared. For yrs I didn't drink any pop whatsoever, just didn't care about it. Since I discovered Stevia pop I now drink one of those every now and again but wks or months go by and I don't even think about it.

Yep. It's my OCD that my husband just can't wrap around his head until now :p It does help that we live in a 77sqm apartment, so it's not that big and does not take so long to mop. It's so dusty in Beijing that everyday, it's so dusty inside even if we close the windows most time of the day.

When we lived in GA many years ago, I mopped the entire house every day with bleach. But it wasn't because of dirt. It was to keep the cockroaches away. I mopped the floor so much that my tan floors were white and I cleaned away the lacquer that they had on the tile! :blink: I also did the same thing with our counter tops! I bleached the counter tops every single morning and again in the evening. Now, all these years later, bleach gives me a horrible migraine! But I heard Kentucky has cockroaches so I might be going back to this habit!

Mopping is very relaxing though, so I completely understand your husband! :wub:

How could you stand the strong smell of bleach every day, Wendy? When we get sick, I'd mop the floor using dettol - the disinfectant, my husband would know the smell and he'll cringe. It reminds him of the hospital smell and he hates it.

That is a small space. I can't imagine that much dust even if you have the windows closed... does that make it hard to breathe?

Oh wow! Is there anything else that will keep cockroaches away? That much bleach would definitely give me a migraine! :p

Ya, I get that....a smaller place is easier and faster to clean up. I bet you are super organized too. We don't get a lot of dust here so I'll use that as my excuse to not do it often :)

Oh Wendy....that just gives me the shivers. I freak out over bugs.

You know, I never thought about it when we lived there. I just did it. It wasn't until we moved out of the area and I pulled my bottle of bleach out and about died!

I'm off to google dettol because I've never heard of that one.

Honestly, I don't know. When we moved down there, that's what we were told. So I bleached everything once a day to keep them out of the house. We only saw a handful of the "waterbeetle" cockroaches in the three years we lived there. These cockroaches, are large like 2-4 inches in length. Nasty little critters. You could hear them fly around in the night above your head when we first moved there! So we were very good about keeping them out of the house! I didn't like waking up to the girls screaming when they'd land on their heads!

We also had German cockroaches everywhere and every morning there would be pooh all over the counters. So I bleached them before anyone could go in to the kitchen. I have NO idea where they came from because I plugged up the kitchen sink every single night. I was told they came out from behind/under the cabinets. It was gross and I'm not looking forward to the cockroach situation in KY. I'm praying they aren't nearly as bad as they were in GA!

Maybe I should start researching what else I can put on the floors/counters to deter the little critters. In 2013, I started using Young Living's Thieves cleaner and I love it! But it's all natural and I wonder if the critters would hate it enough to not come in my house! Adding that to my long to-do list! :blink::D

Well after a quick google search, we have dettol here in the states. Furthermore, it kills cockroaches, but doesn't prevent them from entering the house.

Interesting . . . .

Here's the link to amazon for anyone wanting to add it to their cart:
https://www.amazon.com/Dettol-Topica.../dp/B000JWK4H8

Saw this as well when googling:
If you want to repel some roaches, a little peppermint oil is surprisingly effective. A mix of peppermint oil and white vinegar is a solid go-to for repelling several pests, especially spiders. ... You can also use straight peppermint oil to wipe down countertops. Not only will it keep pests away, it'll smell nice too

my biggest bad habit would be procrastination especially if it’s something I don’t enjoy or want to do. Case in point, I saw my dr maybe 4-5 weeks ago and got a form for blood tests, was going to do it the following day as I was going away for 5 days......I still haven’t done it yet I know the only way i’ll get better is with a diagnosis, the only way i get a diagnosis is with the blood test.

My other bad habit is cleaning or in my case not doing it - I hate doing it so much so I’m going to see if when I move I can get either funded home support through our disability support services here in NZ or scrimp and save to get it done once a fortnight privately especially as I’ll have property inspections while I rent.

Of course, diet coke & mindless snacking are another of my bad habits along with no exercise - my excuse right now is that i’m fatigued due to iron deficiency but truthfully my whole diet needs a full overhaul so I can support my hormones better naturally

The thing about our windows is that, because my father-in-law was against buying new windows, they are not tightly shut as they look. So, we still get air circulating (and dust!) even with them closed. On some really polluted days, I even close the curtains to block air coming in and turn on the air filter instead. Yeah... drama of a polluted city :(

Our home looks super organized because I try to keep our stuffs to minimum. We just don't have space for everything in the house, and with a very active boy in the house, I try to have plenty of clear space for him to move/run/dance/do silly things. :p

Yep, that's the dettol I use. You can even wash clothes, shower or clean wounds with it. It has plenty of uses.
My mom sent me a bottle of peppermint oil a while ago, which she said can be a good relief when we're coughing, but I hateee the smell. :glare:

When I moved to NC I was shocked at how big the bugs were! One of the side effects of warmer weather :glare: They call them Palmetto Bugs - but you can't fool me Southerners... that's a ginormous cockroach y'all!

We've always lived in apartments and battling bugs is just par for the course, no matter how clean you keep things, but luckily the complex pays for the extermination company. We've also found the Combat gel to be effective. Now ants, that's a whole other story :cursing:

Sherly - I bet it feels good to have things so well organized. I am trying. I am terrible at organizing and I tend to be a packrat, keeping things I really don't need. I have been donating bags of things to charity to declutter our home. After 20+ yrs here we have things we haven't used in many years which means it is time to give them away. I've made progress but I'm still working on it.

I have peppermint oil....I should add some to my cleaning solution to repel the spiders in the basement, especially in my office. Never knew that would repel them. I use peppermint oil on my temples for headaches.

Oh wow, Sherly! I've never lived in a big city. We've been close, but I'm not a city person at all. I can't even imagine. I remember when I was a kid and the air in Los Angeles was really bad. They would have days where we had to stay inside instead of running on the playground.

Being organized is a good side benefit of having a smaller space. When we moved from a house to an apartment, we got rid of a ton of stuff!

Thankfully, Idaho doesn't have cockroaches, so I don't have to worry about that!
But, peppermint oil smells better than bleach. LOL! I don't like the smell if I've put it on myself for a headache (stopped doing that because of the smell. LOL!!), but it's not too bad if it's not on me.
Wendy, the only concern I would have with essential oils is that you're looking at getting the kittens. Cats don't do well with oils. They don't have an enzyme in their liver that helps them process the oils and it can make them very sick.

Rae, here's a spider spray that I saved from IG:
[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/8JAVu29.jpg[/IMG]

Thx Tammy....that is awesome! I have all those ingredients and I even have an empty spray bottle (thx to having a hubs who gets them for free from work).