Charting my course

First, however, this week’s contest winners are: Kristie Beckman and Joanne Packham.  Congratulations, ladies–you’ll be receiving your signed books soon.  As always, for those who did not win, there’s a new round going on right this very moment.  All you have to do is comment.  Winners will be notified on next Monday’s blog.
Now, on to other things.  🙂  For the last several weeks, I’ve been making and keeping charts–this is a version of a to-do list–wherein I list and check off the things I hope to accomplish in a day.  Examples: regular exercise, writing my Morning Pages–(for the benefit of the probably miniscule number of readers who don’t already know, this is stream-of-consciousness journaling, a total of 3 handwritten notebook pages, as taught by Julia Cameron in her legendary book, The Artist’s Way)—along with a number of other things, obviously including my own fiction writing.  The experiment began when I read a book about forming good habits and decided to get my act together, in so far as possible.  🙂  In all of our lives, there are a few definite things we know for a positive fact are good for us.  Knowing what these things are is one thing, obviously, and actually DOING them, well, quite another. 
Have I been 100% successful?  Far from it.  But my personal blessing/curse is that I am as stubborn as all get out.  And I am Lael-determined to establish certain chosen habits.  Some squares on my chart are checked off every day–exercise being the most notable of these.  I get out of bed, usually before sunrise, and I climb on my handy-dandy exercise bike, fire up a podcast or some lively music courtesy of my I-heart-radio app, and I start pedaling.  Many mornings–this one being a prime example–I REALLY don’t feel like getting on that bike.  I start thinking I’ll do it later, I’ve got all day, I need more time to wake up, yada-yada-yada.