LTP: February Progress

So it's the last day of the month, and I find myself needing to talk about my new year's resolutions long-term projects ... if only for consistency's sake.

Goal #1: Stop Buying Unnecessarily: so far, so good. I've mainly been buying groceries and gas, and spending most of my money on oranges. For some reason, I can't get enough of them. In particular, I'm fond of the cuties, the California mandarins that are easy to peel. The oranges have assisted in Goal #3 (taking better care of myself), because I've mostly stopped eating ice cream and other sweets before bed -- except for a run-in last week with some Chunky Monkey. My schedule has opened up so I can go to step aerobics and spinning classes, which I've been able to do about three times a week. These efforts are paying off in real, measurable dividends.

Strangely enough, I find that my purchasing and eating habits tend toward the extreme when I go to shop at King Soopers. Pre-packaged foods are so readily available that I find myself rationalizing certain purchases (ahem, Shells n' Cheese) because they're on sale or offered as a twofer or something like that. Limiting the visits to KS for coffee and seltzer is generally the way to go. It's strange how that happens. Anyway, these are reasonable developments. I've also managed to avoid Target for the most part, but I may need to go there to get a swimsuit. I don't swim and I don't actually "swimsuit" very often, so I can't quite rationalize paying tons for something I'll wear for a week.

Goal #4: Reintegrating Jesus is presenting itself with alarming urgency. I feel like in many ways my daily life and activities are disconnected from one another and from me. I've lost sight of the purpose for my projects. Will going to church and attempting regular devotional time solve my problems? Probably not. On reflection, though, the thing that was always "standing under" my school work, work, and teaching in the past five years was my attention to matters spiritual ... thanks mostly to being at the Seminary. I'm successful, I think, in my work and writing when it emerges as connected to something deeper than just the material at hand. On days like today, the absence of this commitment is keenly felt. Onwards, I guess.