Big People Choices, YUCK

Wow, the past few days have been pretty rough for me in the choice department. I have been having to make choices for another person. Now I know I have done that before, especially when my children were small, but that is what a parent does. We make choices for our children so that they can grow up safe and sound. When making choices for another becomes hard is when a child has to make Choices for their parents. It just seem so against all normal thinking, but that is exactly what I have had to do the past couple of days. My mom isn't doing so well, health wise. It kinda crept up on me, even tho I knew it would happen, but it was always going to be a tomorrow thing.I have had to make the choices about her life and it has been a hard. Do I bring her home and take care of her myself. Would that be best? Should we place her in a skilled nursing home or try and let her stay in the place she has called home for the last 5 years? These are all choices I have had to make. Not easy, but I know she made hard choices for me during my life so this is the least I can do for her. I love her so much and I know that is why these choices are so hard. These choices mean that her time on earth is drawing to a close. That is the Reality and I hate to face that reality. Mom you are the best.

Accountability

You know what I really hate about making choices? It is the fact that we have to be accountable for those choices. Now granted sometimes the only person that we have to be accountable to is ourselves. I know I tend to let myself off the hook way to many times. So maybe I need to fool myself into thinking that I will be letting a whole bunch of people down when I don't follow through with my choices. I am either too easy on myself or I tend to blame others when I don't follow through. Just like my exercising. I have done pretty good with the sit ups and stuff but I haven't done so well with the elliptical. See Dad is having trouble sleeping so he has been ending up in the chair by morning and I surely don't want to wake him up so I don't use the elliptical.( I could use it after he goes to work, but it seems that if I don't get it done first thing it doesn't happen.) So if I am out of shape it is all Dads fault, it is not the fact that I have made the choice to blame him, thus giving myself an out. I have found that the weather, my health, my kids, my grandchildren, my mom, or a million other things are just too easy to blame. That being said, I am making the choice to hold myself accountable, and not let myself off the hook. Maybe I need the good old reward system implemented. So many days of exercise will get me a movie night or something. That might work.
Now for a progress report on some of my choices so far. Getting up in the morning, and getting ready for my day is going great. Exercising, well I have already admitted that it should be going better. My knitting is going great. I overcame my fear of making knitted lace, and have completed two knitted lace doilies.
I have a question, can anyone tell me what Choices, Goals and Habits have in common.

I Need Help

I have come to realize that I need help. There are just too many Choices to make, too many options. I heard the other day on the radio that too many choices cause a great deal of stress in people. Take a box of chocolate. People are much happier when given a box with just 3 or 4 different kinds of chocolate, instead of the box with 24 different kinds of chocolate. Having that many options is rough on a person.
So what I need is someone to come and take me to a place where there are only a couple options to every situation. This would be great. I know that can't happen so now I just have to figure out a way to make myself limit the option, and then relieving some of the stress, and then make the choice. Hard to do especially when we are always told that the options are limitless. So if anyone has a way to make this happen let me know.

Almost a week now

Can't believe that it has been a week already since I started this little experiment. I have been taking some baby steps in making the choices that will make a difference in my life. The thing is, I hadn't realized how I had let go of the responsibility of making choices. I just seemed to do nothing, which is a choice, but I always made excuses or let myself believe that others had more power than I did. There are so many things in my life that I want to change. Mostly because I didn't used to be this way. I think I remember myself being able to get so much more done in a day(not sure if old age is just enhancing my memory). I think if I were completely honest with myself, I would have to say I have let myself become lazy. This is the biggest thing I want to change. I want to make the choices that will keep me focused and actively working on the things in my life I need to accomplish. So I want to add another couple of choices that I am sure(positive thoughts and language) will make me happier and will help in my relationship with those around me. Giving an old saying a different twist, "When momma is happy everyone is happy".
This past weekend I had a visit from one of my daughters and three of my grandchildren. While they were here I looked through some old pictures that came to my house from my mom and dad. I have felt that I really need to go through them and get labels on them. So this is my new choice. I am going to get the containers taken care of. I have decided that this week I am choosing to start small, just one box, labeled and divided into separate containers. I know i can do this.
The other choice I am going to make is to drastically cut my time in the company of Television. I have allowed it to sap my self worth. I know it will mean not being in the same room as my husband as much but maybe this choice will rub off on him. I am visualizing all the things I can accomplish with this reclaimed time.
Well another week ahead of making great choices, I will report progress made.

Reward vs Damage

What a couple of days. Had a couple of small rewards with the choices I have made the past few days. By continuing everyday to make the choice to get out of bed and exercise I have been reminded that, yes, I do still have some muscles. They have been very vocal about their displeasure of having been woke up from several years of sleep. As a result, I am getting up from chairs a little slower so that the muscles can take naps during the day. That way they will be ready for their morning work . I have finished most of the project I was working on, which is good. I have also made the choice to try something that I have always wanted to learn, that is Knitted Lace. My grandmother made knitted lace doilies and I thought they were so beautiful, but they also looked very hard to make. This time I made the choice to face my fears and give it a try and so far not to bad. I have only had to start over once. Hey, with my new found positive attitude it will be a piece of cake! Progress reports will be coming. All these choices will bring rewards.
Some events that happened to people I know over the past couple of days has reminded me that not all choices will bring rewards or positive feedback. Some of our choices will bring damage into our lives and the lives of those around us. I think that is why it is so important to make sure a person takes their time and weighs out as many aspects of a choice as possible. We need to realize that choices do have effects on those around us, good and bad. I know that we can never plan for everything but we should make sure that we look a couple different sides of things. With that in mind I am going really think the major choices in my life.
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Day Two

Ok, I made some small successes today. I did get up when I woke up, that was at 5:15. Kept wishing that I could have slept just a bit longer but I made myself get out of that nice warm bed. I even got dressed right away, mainly I didn't want to exercise in my bathrobe. I also did some exercise. I am starting slow on this one because I have been pretty lazy for a while and I don't want to over do, but I will be starting my time on the elliptical tomorrow morning. So the first couple hours of my day went great. It was after that I had a hard time making the right choices. I have noticed that I have a hard time with motivation sometimes (well most of the time) I know there are things I should or could be doing but I just can't seem to make myself get started. I am going to have to find a way to get myself charged up about getting stuff done. I finally got going this afternoon and ended up finishing a project that should have been done this morning. By choosing to wait I have put myself behind for tomorrow. Maybe this exercise stuff will give me the energy I need. This is definitely one area of making choices that I need to work on. I seem to choose to be a procrastinator. I don't like that fact but it is a fact. But I know(positive thinking) that I can change this tendency and I am choosing to do so.

Day One

I think I spent most of the night trying to figure out what direction I wanted to take this blog and the choice I made was to just see where it went. You never know it just might take on a life of it's own and surprise us all.
With that in mind, I spent the day just observing myself. I know that sounds strange, but how often do we take time to really pay attention to what we do and how we do things. I came to the conclusion that most of the choices I make during the day are almost done on auto pilot. Something comes up and I just automatically make a choice without any thought about it at all. I guess this is where having a positive attitude can really make a difference. If I have a positive attitude or outlook it stands to reason that these auto pilot choices will be of a more positive direction.
My day is filled with so many small choices, will I get out of bed right as soon as I wake up, or will I talk myself into just a couple more minutes of sleep. What will I fix for breakfast, what will I put in Dad's lunch, and on and on. I have decided to do a little revamp of my mornings to see if I do a positive change in the mornings will that choice make a difference in the rest of my day.
I have made the choice to change just a couple little things. First- I will get up as soon as I wake up instead of trying to talk myself in to some more sleep. I usually don't go back to sleep anyway, and end up with a back ache for staying in bed to long. Second- When I get up I am going to get dressed right away. I don't remember ever seeing my mom fixing breakfast in her robe when I was little. She always was the first to get out of bed in the mornings and would get ready for the day. This included hair fixed, her makeup on ect. all before she started breakfast. Maybe this took some stress away because no matter what, she never had to say, "Just a minute, I have to get dressed." She was ready. Third- I want to start doing some sort of exercise program in the morning. If I do that I am going to have to switch the order a bit, Wake up, exercise, and then get ready. This all has to be done before 6:15. NO PROBLEM!
Now to choose what to do for exercise. Right now I think I will use the elliptical machine on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I will do a short exercise video on the other two days.
There Choices made with the thought in mind that I can do this because I am going to feel so good. Plus, if I slide I will have to see it in print this time.

This is the beginning

I had a dream last night that I was supposed to start a blog page called The Choice Experiment and I have learned over the years that I need to follow these moments of inspiration, so here I go.
I have always been one that has believed that everything we do in life is based on some sort of choice on our part. It is either a direct choice, that we make or it is a choice about how we handle a situtation that has been placed in our life. So this experiment blog will be about the choices I make in my life and how my life is affected by these choices.
I have already been faced with several choices in just trying to set this blog page up, what color font, what font, what template to use, all of which are a little overwhelming for a blogging novice like me. I am sure that this page is going to evolve over the next little while, so that will be exciting.
I think the next choice I make is the choice to make my life full of positives. I have read several books lately about how we should try to always surround ourselves with positive thoughts and actions. I have to admit that this is a bit harder for me than I thought. I really have no excuse for negative thoughts because I was raised by a very positive mother. She seemed to always see the good and the possibilities in any situtation. She went through so much but always knew that she would be just fine, she would excell and never doubted. As a result of this thinking she was a success in anything she tried. So with this example in my back pocket I am going to make my life a great life.