#27 - Music marathon

It's always nice to complete a goal a bit sooner than expected.  I had thought that with the sheer number of songs that I own that I would be working on this goal for another six months (at least) as I often listened to my favorites playlist rather than going through the next artist for this goal; however, a silver lining to having a really bad cold for a long time was that I spent a lot of time sitting on my couch listening to music because I didn't have the energy to do anything else.

This is a goal that I found on the first DayZero list that I ever saw.  I thought it was an interesting idea - I have some music that I purchased for a specific purpose that I never listen to (the ancient Greece CD comes to mind) and others that were the background soundtrack to previous periods in my life.  While I was listening, I also cleaned up my iTunes library - I took out about 300 songs that were duplicates, I truly didn't like, or hadn't transferred correctly when I first put the CD onto my computer.  My "count" for my personal iTunes collection is now around 4500 songs.  During this period, I also moved to a new home computer - word of advice, when you transfer your iTunes library, it doesn't save your ratings.  So, I had a prime opportunity to resort my priorities ... especially adding in those tunes that I had forgotten about until I listened to them yet again.  After a month, my current most-listened-to song is M79 by Vampire Weekend - there's something about that tune that just gives me an instant mental lift.

However, my musical tastes are all over the place - currently playing is The Very Thought of You by Etta James - from Celtic to classical and novelty to opera (which I prefer to be instrumental) with a lot of popular music from the 1920s to today.  I especially enjoy finding new artists to add to the collection, so I'd welcome hearing about anyone you think I should listen to.

#71 - Brown bagging it

For whatever reason, I have never been good at dealing with the middle of the day meal.  I'm not hungry at noon or 1 pm like many other people even if I had breakfast at 6 or 7 am.  I forget to make sandwiches ahead of time to bring to work; I forget to grab leftovers out of the frig to take along.  I get involved with what I'm doing and don't stop to take the time to eat.  And then, when I get home from work, I'm so hungry that I eat whatever seems the easiest and quickest (even if it isn't healthy).

So, this goal was to help me eat a little healthier and not come home obsessed with what was in the cupboards.  I've tried in the past bringing in nuts and granola bars to work.  This is somewhat successful - I say somewhat because I have problems with my "snacks" disappearing ... enough that I've gotten a bit discouraged about bringing things in after I kept count and realized that out of a box of 12 granola bars, I'd actually gotten to eat 5 and the other 7 simply vanished.  Over the last two months (I added a month since I was on vacation for a good share of the first month), I've been bringing in something from home each day.  I found that if I brought in something perishable (yogurt, sandwiches, fruit, etc.) that I would stop and eat it, but crackers (and similar foods) tended to sit in my bag for the next day.  My other discovery was that having my blood sugar stay more stable during the day meant that I wasn't as exhausted at night when I got home.  So, I would call this a pretty successful goal that I will try to continue as a habit.