Changes and a yukkie smoothie

Okay, so today I started implementing some of those resolutions I had drawn from Steve Pavlina’s articles. Despite a rather sleepless night (hot temperatures and noisy wind outside), I got up at 5am and started writing up my economics notes for the upcoming exam. I also quickly whipped up a beer-batter bread for my BF and put it in the oven. I am actually wondering whether I was so restless last night because of the weather or because of the excitment about my new approaches, such as getting up an hour earlier. I constantly thought, well there’s no point going back to sleep, I bet the alarm will go off any second.

Well, never mind… 🙂

It’s not like I’ve never gotten up at 5am, I actually used to do it a lot in order to go running in the morning, but I never attempted to do any kind of mental task that early. Since going raw I also changed to running at night because I have more energy then (from the food during the day) rather than trying to exercise on an empty stomach.

Okay, so I did get some study done, also did some yoga (sun salutations), 2 sets of 10 push-ups (I’m struggling with these) and 2 sets of 30 diagonal crunches. I felt quite good and very productive in the morning but had to battle tiredness throughout most of the day.

On my way to work I listened to 2 audio podcasts from Steve’s website, but it was a bit tricky due to heavy traffic noise from buses and cars. Still, I get more out of it, than having Rhianna scream into my ears :-).

My aim to be more productive in the tasks that I do, i.e. to procrastinate less, stay focused and pull a task through from start to finish, was accomplished at work today. I had a lot of filing to do and did 3 hours straight (apart from 1 toilet break and 2 walks to the water cooler). I got soooo much stuff done! No email or facebook checking in between, just sticking to the task for a solid block of time. It felt awesome. I took a decent break in which I actually wanted to get some fresh air and sort out some thoughts, but it was rather windy and unfriendly outside, so I just stuck to sitting on a couch in the lobby of our office building. At least no computer screen nearby :-).

I started a list of “business ideas”. A few came to mind – just some possible projects I would like to attempt, with the prospect of earning a living from doing so.

I also wrote up a list of the specific changes I want to implement and a few thoughts about them. Then I got hungry for lunch and returned to my desk. A bit more printing and preparing for Wednesday’s work (I don’t work Tuesdays) and then we had afternoon tea to welcome our new boss. Thankfully our EA had ordered 2 generous fruit platters and I went nuts over them :-). Delicious pineapple and mango slices, grapes, kiwi fruit and water melon (but with seeds yuck).

After that little highlight, it was time for me to pack my stuff and head to uni for the afternoon’s economics class. I struggled through it, trying to stay awake, and used the “down-time” moments (when the teacher repeatedly explained stuff that I already understood) to add ideas to my “change” lists :-). You can see, I am taking this productivity/efficiency-increase idea very seriously hehe.

For dinner I made a crazy green smoothie which was actually not tasty at all. The beginning was good: 1 frozen banana, 1 nectarine, juice of 1/2 lemon, a bit of water and some pieces of a vanilla bean, all blended together. Even adding some leftover zucchini was still fabulous. A creamy sweet concoction with a definite taste of vanilla. But then, oh dear, I added the greens for which I used the leaves and parts of the stalks of 4 beetroots. That was a bad idea. Not only did it taste quite tangy and earthy, my stick blender was also not built for creating a “smoothie” out of it, so I had lots of fibery blobs of stalks/leaves left, an ugly swamp colour and an overall not very pleasant taste.

of course I drank it anyway, can’t waste good food. But yuck, no more beetroot greens for me, please.

I made up for the disappointment by eating 2 pieces of coconut pie :-). So I am feeling good again.

I’ve withdrawn to the bedroom to do my study. My BF is a TV junkie (and plays on his laptop at the same time – as if one wasn’t enough), so I cannot study in the lounge. No, he is unwilling to turn it off, even if it’s just rubbish on TV and that happens 99% of the time. And yes, we have talked it through many times :-). So while I do not think I should have to study in the bedroom with hardly any natural light and one of the 2 lightbulbs broken, I figure, he will work out that TV on means Eva off :-). He’s got the choice…

Anyway, I don’t want to bore you with my personal issues here :-). I will do some more study now before going to bed early :-). Tomorrow I’ll finally get my hair cut (last cut was late November) and I have plenty more economics study to do, so yay, exciting times ahead. Will get up at 5am again though, should be interesting.

Finally, please share with me your worst smoothie combination (so we can prevent each other from doing the same mistakes…) and whether you prefer exercise in the morning, afternoon or evening (or never hehe). Would love to hear from you guys.

 

Live life to the full!

Love Eva

~ by hearmeraw on February 9, 2009.