Thursday, January 31, 2013

January Gone

 

Let me just say that the older I get, the quicker time seems to fly.  I point this out today because I can’t believe the first month of 2013 is over already.  Seriously.  Wasn’t Memorial Day just last month?  Didn’t we celebrate Independence Day last week, and Christmas just yesterday?  If you put me under oath, I’d swear to it.  And, yet, here it is, January 31. Cuh-ray-zee. 

Anyway, the end of the month also brings us to the close of the Ultimate Blog Challenge.  Assuming I hit publish on this thing before the stroke of midnight, I’m giving myself a passing grade, as I will end the month with 31 posts, one for every day of the month. 

/

Now, besides daily posting, the other part of the challenge is a more social aspect: share your posts on Facebook/Twitter, and make the rounds of other UBC participants, visiting some blogs.  I have to say, while I started off just fine with that, I’ve not done so well with it in the past week, since school started.  I’m giving myself a B- for that part. 

This is the third time I’ve participated in this quarterly challenge, with varying degrees of success.  The first time was the best in terms of my overall participation, but I’ve enjoyed it each time.  There are a wide variety of blogs in the challenge, most of them sites I would never run across in my normal routine.  It’s interesting to me to see the way different people approach their blogging, and the things others like to write about.  It’s good to step out of your comfort zone from time to time, I think.

If you’re following my Weight Loss Wednesday posts, then you also know that today is the end of the Planks-a-Lot challenge, too.  I’m giving myself a big fat D for that one.  Probably it should be an F, but I’m cutting myself a little slack just for improvement shown.  The goal was to be able to hold a plank for 2:30 by today; my best day so far was only half that.  Still, the first one I did at the start of the month was barely ten seconds, so I’ve come quite a ways.  Wendy is continuing the challenge into February (and adding squats, OMG!), so I’m going to keep trying. 

So, two challenges this month—neither of them over the top winners, but both of them pretty good.  I think I can live with that.  Besides time moving so quickly, that’s one of the other things that comes with old age:  learning to recognize and celebrate even the small successes, because those are the ones that keep us moving forward.

What successes have you celebrated this month?