Guilt-free Rewards for a Job Well Done

One of my problems with it comes to weight loss is struggling with the idea of rewarding myself for a job well done. It could be that I finally finished a long, arduous project or that I finally did 4 workouts this week. The first thing that I think is: I should reward myself, time for a Coke. Or, a chocolate bar. Or ice cream. 

Well, that just damaged the good chore that I finished. So, I took some time to make a list of guilt-free rewards to give myself for a job well done. I know I am not the only person thinking about this so I will share it with you.

Some of these options require finances but some are also free. What you could do is while you are working towards a goal, decide on the reward that you want to give yourself. Then put aside money for it while you are working towards the goal. For example, as a reward to myself for finishing a large project at work I can save money on the side to get my hair done at the salon. Once the goal is reached, then I can go for a morning of pampering and not worry about the finances.

• A long bubble bath with a yummy scent and candles, perhaps my favorite music in the background
• A mug of steaming hot apple cider or a hot chocolate with marshmellows (the diet kind)
• One uninterrupted evening of doing an activity that I secretly love (like writing)
• Talking on the phone with a best friend or on Skype
• Throw a party with all of your friends -- perhaps a pot luck, movie night, etc.
• One uninterrupted evening (or afternoon) of starting and finishing a project
• Watching a new movie at home. This could mean renting it then giving it the full new movie treatment (for me, this is turning out the lights, stopping all projects and just watching a new movie). 
• Going out to the theatre to see a new movie with friends (or with my husband)
• Have a nice meal at a new restaurant
• One uninterrupted evening of browsing my favorite websites
• Buying and reading a new magazine
• One evening of planning an upcoming event (like Christmas) and planning all of the items that I want to make to decorate the house or give as gifts
• If it's summer, one afternoon sitting and tanning under the sun with a nice book or great music
• Signing up for a class in a topic that I want to learn about (like yoga, knitting, or a language of choice)
• Crossing an activity off of the bucket list (skydiving, rockclimbing, running a 5K, etc.)
• Digging out the old "To Do" list and tackling one of the older ones that you've always said will never get done (ex. organizing the filing cabinet). 
• Reading a new book (or, one of your old favorites)
• Take on a new knitting project or spend an evening knitting
• Take the dog out for a walk in a new area (or put on rollerblades and run with the dog) or to the park
• Learn a new hobby from a friend (or teach a friend how to do one of your hobbies, if they are interested)
• Have a game evening on the Wii, Xbox or whatever you have with the family. See who will win. 
• Return to a hobby that you love but haven't done for a long time (for me, that would be genealogy or cross-stitching)
• Try a new recipe out of a magazine for supper
• Spend an afternoon at the local bookstore -- not buying anything -- but sitting with a coffee, paging through some books to see what is new and checking out the ones that you've always wanted. 
• Spend a lazy afternoon on the couch doing a hobby, snuggling with the kids and the pets
• Watch a movie that was your childhood favorite (perhaps even introduce it to your kids or your husband)
• Trying something new with your significant other (I don't think that I need to elaborate on this one)
• Go for a massage or spa treatment. 
• If you are a woman, try a new makeover on yourself or go and get one at Sephora or another store with that option. 
• Go to bed early or sleep in. Get your significant other involved in this to make sure that you are able to sleep in (or go to bed early) without any distractions. 
• Spend an evening researching a topic that interests you but you've never had time to think about it (like a historical event, a famous person, etc.)
• Get your hair done with color, highlights or a perm. Ask for the full treatment with the scalp massage and special conditioners that most salons do for free and enjoy the trip.

Changes after my honeymoon to Paris

Well, traveling to Paris for our honeymoon really changed me. I realized some new things and I've had a lot to think about. I have written several posts already about what I learned about Europe, Paris and French Girls but here is what I am going to do about it.

1. Quit the clean plate club: from this day on, I will not have to finished off my entire plate.
2. Eat smaller portions of everything: also, from this day on, I will put smaller portions on my plate.
3. Eat in good restaurants once a month and never order out food again. 
4. Eat supper later: in France, they don't eat supper until 8:30-9pm which is completely against how we eat in North America. We usually eat supper between 5-6pm. We are going to start eating supper at 6:30pm. This also gives me a chance to cook as I get home around 5:15pm.
5. Drink wine more often: we already do drink wine at least once a month and with important meals, but we should have a few glasses of wine with supper every week. It's relaxing and it makes each meal special.
6. Eat real food: we hardly saw any packaged or processed foods in Paris and that really struck us. Why do we need engineered food? From now on, we are going to eat as real as we can get. This means butter instead of margarine, sea salt and homemade jams. In other words, Clean Eating.
7. Spend the time to cook: we love to cook and I miss doing it because I get home so late. In university I cooked every day after class and it was my way of starting the evening. I should do that again. This also means that we will stop buying any pre-made meals as they are full of salt.
8. Drink better coffee: I always thought that espresso was too strong for me. I was used to my watered-down American coffee with milk and sugar. That is until I tried an espresso with a cube of sugar. That is now my drink of choice!
9. Switch to cubed sugar: all of the sugar in Paris was either in cubes or sticks instead of a sugar bowl. I like this idea because the sugar is portioned so we bought some cubed sugar for our coffee.
10. Spend the money on good clothes: I saw lots of French girls wearing good clothes. They wore nice scarfs and good quality coats and shoes. If I save up money and spend it on more expensive, better quality items then this is better than 10 cheap shirts. 
11. Go out and do things in Ottawa: we need to be a part of the life here in the city. We want to be part of the Remembrance Day ceremonies on November 11th, go to ballet and opera performances at the NAC and see the fireworks on Parliament Hill for Canada Day.
12. Have French weeks: I really want to maintain my language level and that means committing to our French weeks. What we do is speak French for one week at home (all of the time, even over the phone) then we speak English for a week.
13. Get more exercise: not just in working out on the treadmill but also in everyday things. I will walk more on an everyday basis such as walking home from the bus station (15 minute walk) instead of taking a bus and I will take the stairs instead of the elevator at work. Little things like this. 
14. Just do it: are you thinking of going somewhere or doing something? What is holding you back? Those are questions I have been asking myself this year as part of the 2011 Experiment and it's a mantra that I want to continue. 

The 2011 Experiment

I am running an experiment this year to see if I can stop annoying habits and start good ones. At the beginning of the year, I wrote the list below of everything that I wanted to do in 2011. My motto for this year is: stop saying "I should do" and actually DO. Now that it is almost November 2011, it's time for me to check in.

Complete:

• Wear more skirts: done. As a matter of fact, I made at least 6 skirts this summer and I have worn them all at least once.
• Loose weight: I started a walk/run program in June that helped me lose a whole dress size and gain some muscle tone.
• Watch 1 new movie every month: I think that I have seen at least 6 new movies this year along with many James Bond movies that I had never seen before. 
• Attack the unfinished craft projects: doing, not completely done. However, I have created this blog which has given me a lot of motivation to finish my stash and to do new things.
• Wedding: we got married in October and we made almost everything ourselves. It is already paid too.
• Honeymoon: we went to Paris for our honeymoon and had a great time! It was a big trip and I learned a lot. This trip is already paid as well.
• Address energy consumption in our apartment: I have actually written a blog post about this and we unplug everything possible whenever it's not in use (save the fridge, stove and PVR).
• Produits Lemieux: we made the switch to eco-friendly products in August 2011. These are awesome, they come in bulk and they really work. I feel better using products made of natural ingredients as my cat licks everything.
• Drink less Coke, drink more water: I stopped drinking Coke in May 2011 and I have never felt better!
• Knit a baby blanket: I completed a baby blanket in April and I have started two more. I also learned some new stitches and techniques. I only started knitting in October 2010! 
• Reuse containers: I have tried to reuse every container, box or packaging that comes into my house before it goes into the recycling. Just check out my posts on pump containers, small containers and yogurt containers.

In Progress:

• Make lunches and meals at home: we created a menu for 16 weeks that we follow. I am in the process of updating it now to follow Clean Eating.
• Spend less time worrying about grey hair: meh, it's going to happen. I'm getting older. However, I will pluck out what I can see for my wedding pictures.
• Teach my cat Felix not to bite people: we work on this but it's very hard once he's set in his ways
• 8 hours of sleep per night: this one is harder than it looks.
• Eat more vegetables: we have worked this into our menus, mentioned above.
• Spend more time with my husband: I want to spend as much time with my husband as I can before we start a family. This means doing something together at least once per week. 
• Use up all of the food in my fridge: I have become the fridge watchdog.
• Reuse old clothes or take them to the Salvation Army: as you have seen on this blog, I have been thinking of new ways to use clothes before they go to the Salvation Army. More ideas will be coming.
• Make my Xmas presents: I have been planning this since last Xmas (seriously) and I already have some items made. More will be coming. Besides, I think that it means more to create a gift for someone.
• Visit museums around Ottawa: we visited many Ottawa sites and museums this summer which was great. The Museum of Civilization is really cool.
• Spend more time doing things: I have designated Sundays as craft days where I don't have the TV on or the computer.
• Make my morning routine faster: I have been working on this and I have found solutions like taking my coffee with me in a travel mug and packing things up the night before.
• Keep resources and knowledge found: my computer is a brain, essentially. I write everything down including how I have organized my papers. That way, whenever I wonder where something is, I can look here. I will be writing about this in the future.
• Use Skype to talk with family and friends: I have had many conversations already this year and I plan on using it more.
• Stop spending money on stupid stuff: surprisingly, our upcoming wedding and honeymoon put this goal firmly in its place. I'm very happy about that! Connect more with my family.
• Stop emotional eating: I have been working hard to solve emotional times with talking or writing things down instead of eating. It is an uphill battle.
• Try a new restaurant in Ottawa every month: I haven't tried a new one every month but I have tried at least four new restaurants this year. I will do better next year. 

Unfinished:

• Make homemade preserves: we found that this was harder to do in the city as everything was more expensive and we have no car to go to the country to pick our own berries.We'll try again next summer.
• Volunteer: I haven't done this yet but I still plan to before the end of the year.
• Finish little house tasks: I have been organizing but the wedding chores took over. I plan on addressing tasks like organizing the filing cabinet after the honeymoon in October.
• Composting in Ottawa: this is supposed to be discussed with each apartment complex. I have heard nothing yet but it was supposed to be done in July 2011. I have to talk to my apartment office about this.
• Get a pair of skates: I plan on doing this in October/November. 
• Don't buy any yarn in 2011: well, this one didn't work. I had planned on not buying any yarn because I thought that I had enough to last me a whole year but it was all gone by March. So, that didn't work.
• Perfectionner ma français: I still have more work to do on this but I have French training coming soon at work. 

10 Tips for Practising your Second Language

Canada is a bilingual country but not many of us are actually bilingual. Most public servants are required to be bilingual but usually everyone either speaks English or French. Some people try to learn another language and get frustrated because they lose it after time.

I don’t consider myself fully bilingual but I hope that I am pretty close. Here are some of my tricks for maintaining my language level and perhaps they will help you too. Also note that as this is a Canadian article, I am referring to practicing my French but you can apply this to any language:

1. Read the news in French. Some websites are: Radio-Canada, Cyberpresse and Le Devoir.
2. Do you have any friends that speak French? Work out a deal to always speak in French to this person. If you see this person often then try immersing yourself by speaking in French for one entire week with them, and English for a week then back and forth.
3. If you are brave enough to try it, move to a French area. Then you will be forced to speak French in your daily life and you will meet more people who speak the language. A good way to ease into this is to go to university in a French place that is relatively bilingual like Montreal.
4. If are into Facebook and other social media, try switching your interface into French.
5. If you have a DVD collection, look for the ones that have been dubbed in French. Watch the movie but switch the language into French. If you have problem, add the French sub-titles. I did this during university and it really worked. I highly recommend the blockbuster movies (ex. Harry Potter series, Lord of the Rings, etc.) as the French dubbing is really good.
6. When you are interested in a particular topic and you have a little bit of time, look up the French words. I call this a brainstorm. I start by writing down all of the words on a particular topic that I can think about, for example about weddings. Then, I look up all of the words in a French-English dictionary so that I have a vocabulary list. I can study it whenever I want to know that it is created.
7. After reading your favorite books in English, trying reading them in French. Good online bookstores in Canada are Renaud-Bray and the French books on Amazon and Chapters. I read a chapter in French and I underline all of the words that I don’t understand so that I can look them up later. If this is a book that I borrowed or that isn’t mine, I note them on a paper pad as I am reading.
8. Develop a language binder with vocabulary lists. Flip through it from time to time to refresh your brain.This really helps if the vocabulary lists are about topics that you enjoy, in my case, sewing and knitting.
9. If you talk to someone in French and you pick up new terminology, write it down. Add it to the vocabulary binder so that you won’t forget it.
10. Take French language classes. If you are a student, trying making it your minor. If you are not, try an evening class.