The Jam Plan

For those of you who are not obsessed with Friends enough to know what the hell I'm talking about, there's an episode where Monica is trying to get over her recent heartbreaking split from Richard. She hasn't been sleeping, she's been depressed, and struggling to get through each day. Finally she wakes up one day and starts making jars and jars of homemade jam. When the others ask why, she responds:

"I'm sick and tired of being depressed about Richard. I needed a plan. A plan to get over my man. What's the opposite of man? Jam!!!"

Ross and Rachel, surrounded by Jam, reading Monica'a note that says "Went to get more Jars"

(image found here)

Obviously making Jam was not at all related to her breakup, but it was her way of taking control of her life and finding something that makes her feel better.

Well of course I haven't been going through the depression of a heartbreak (been there, done that), but this summer has still been very rough for me and I have been struggling a lot with anxiety and sadness over certain areas of my life. In my last post, I shared my frustration with how things have been going, and that I was working on plans to try to get over the things that have been bogging me down.

So without further ado, this is my Jam Plan.

Starting today:

1. Monday nights will be Family Night (or FHE for all you lovely LDS folk). For at least a few hours, there will be no homework, no wedding planning, no budegting, no cleaning, no Ryan begging for someone to play with him. The three of us will do something as a family that Ryan will have fun doing - rent a movie and popcorn, build a fort, make homemade playdough, have a picnic, do some puzzles or board games, whatever. I need this night as a way to combat my feelings of guilt and stress from spending most every moment of my life doing things I hate (school, homework, etc) and missing out on chances to enjoy my son while he is still precious and small enough to actually want to be with me. Yes, it breaks my heart when he asks me to play with him and I have to say no because I have a paper to finish writing. But in the Jam Plan, there will at least be guaranteed family time every week that will make all three of us happier, less stressed, and hopefully get rid of some of that heartbreak. Pete and I strongly believe that family and parenting are the most important things in life, so we are taking one more step to make our family and our home the best place it can be.
2. Saturday Nights will be Date Night. Almost every successful couple will tell you that regular date nights are essential to maintaining your sanity and your relationship. Pete and I have been trying to make this ritual happen for a long time, but have always lost the battle to not having a babysitter, being too broke to pay for a babysitter, and being too broke to even go out. But in the Jam Plan, I finally demanded that we make it happen, even though it will mean having date night at home. So from now on, at 8:00 every Saturday night, the little one will be put to bed, and we will engage in a strictly no-homework-no wedding planning-no talking about money-no sitting in underwear and pajamas zone. We will put some damn pants on, brush our teeth, maybe even spray some good smelly-stuff on our overworked selves, light some candles, and pretend we're not stressed out parents for a few hours. The goal of this is to eliminate the side effects our relationship is suffering from spending every night reading history books, staring at excel spreadsheets and doing laundry (or in reality, just finding ways to hide all the laundry in the closet). With this part of the Jam Plan, hopefully we will become more connected and less stressed even if we don't have the money to go out by ourselves.
3. I am going to get healthy, dammit! Pete and I sat down yesterday and created a menu for the entire month of August that is healthy, low-fat, low-calorie and budget friendly. In the past I have been able to stick to healthy diets pretty well, it's just a routine I have to get myself back into. Aside from not fitting into any of my clothes, I know my overall health is slacking because of the slacking in the diet. To put it simply, I feel like crap all. the. time. I'm now officially cutting out all soda, high-fructose corn syrup, and as many sweets and saturated fats as possible in order to try to get back to feeling like the me I was two years ago. It helps that I was 40 lbs lighter then too....which brings me to other, not-so-easy part of the Jam Plan: working out. Uggg. This one is going to be hard. I will have to take it in baby steps as I have never been a very active person even when I was a size 3. But I really don't think there's any better motivation to do it than to think of how I want to look in my wedding pictures...and I've only got less than 9 months to pull it off. And let's be honest, my Groom doesn't really want the extra 20 lbs he's got right now either...so we are both going to find some way to get our lazy, exhausted, burnt-out asses off the couch and burn some calories at least 5 days a week.
4. I'm going to blog 3 times a week. This is pretty simple, especially because I love to write and blogging helps me get things out of my head and reduce stress. But I have been pushing it to the bottom of my to-do list under more imporatant things. I'm going to try my hardest to avoid that, and just do it. Hopefully it will help my mind to become a little less hectic, or in the very least it will bring me one step closer to my Weddingbee goal. Let's face it, once I have decided I am going to do something, it's hard for me to give up.

So there it is, the preliminary plan to get me up and out of my summertime blues. Bring it on, August! I'm ready for you...and I've got Jam!

Anyone else want to eat a PB&J sandwich right now?? Yumm.