February in my Year of Me Journey did not go as planned; in fact, I would go so far as to say the train took a wrong turn on this leg of my journey. When planning for February, I did not fully understand the impact an eight-day trip would have on my goals, especially when there are only 28 days. The good news is that it did not derail my journey; it simply provided me with opportunities to learn and regroup. In the past, this would have given me an excuse to quit or scale back my plans, but not this time. I am more determined than ever to remain on my Year of Me Journey. Many of you have helped me refocus because of the text and direct messages of encouragement you sent me. I am blessed to have family, friends, and strangers supporting my journey.

Before I discuss how I did in my areas of self-care, I want to share with you the highlight of February, which was taking my parents back to Texas to see family and friends. We arrived in Texas on February 13th, expecting some nice weather on the trip, but we had forgotten what a miserable month February can be in Texas. The dreary weather did not keep us from visiting with so many wonderful people. We had to wait until we returned to Colorado to see the sunshine.

We visited my aunt and spent time with my mother’s cousin and his wonderful family at their family ranch. It was fun to listen to Mom and Kuno talk about when they were kids, and the ranch only had an outhouse, and they showered or bathed in cold spring water. I am glad to report that there is now a fully functioning bathroom. We visited with Mom and Dad’s two breakfast groups at Panera’s and Whataburger and attended a get-together hosted by one of their former neighbors. We also had some excellent Mexican and seafood dinners while visiting with friends they have known for many decades. We even took a few hours to visit the new exhibit at the Bush Presidential Library.  Making these memories with my parents was the best form of emotional self-care that I could experience.

Now, let’s look at the two areas of self-care that I was supposed to focus on in February: physical and environmental. As I have already shared, I was not overly successful in either area, especially in physical self-care. Some of the reasons for my lack of success were my injured knee, which gave me problems for about 10 days, traveling, over-committing, and under-planning. I started the month off strong with chair yoga, but sadly, that was the high point regarding physical self-care. I did not go to the gym or ride the stationary bike once during February. I have learned from this experience that I must schedule exercise sessions on my calendar for the month and treat each session just like a doctor’s appointment.  I can report that I made it to the gym in March and started back with chair yoga.

My other area of self-care focus for February was environmental, and I did better with this area but did not accomplish as much as I wanted to during this period. I had two sub-areas to focus on: 1. Spending more time outdoors  and 2. Decluttering areas of my home.

My outdoor adventures were limited to reading on my porch while enjoying the beautiful Colorado sun. I read All the Colors of the Dark and Three Days in June in February.  I read both books for book clubs and highly recommend reading All the Colors of the Dark. Please note to read the summary of the book because it could be triggering for some people. I did not like Three Days in June, but thank goodness it was a very short book. Additionally, I read part of Atlas of the Heart and Organizing for the Rest of Us and will continue to read these books during March.

Additionally, I did spend a little time outdoors with my youngest granddaughter. Her favorite outdoor activity is hunting for pretty rocks in the yard and having someone else carry them for her. She stays very busy since 50% or more of our yards are rocks. We are all convinced she inherited her love of rocks from my mother. The two of them spent some time on my mom’s birthday looking for rocks.

As I stated, I am reading Organizing for the Rest of Us: 100 Realistic Strategies to Keep Any House Under Control. Each strategy is discussed in one or two pages. Dana White writes, “Clutter is anything that gets out of control in your home. Clutter is personal.” She says that we each have a Clutter Threshold and that “Your Clutter Threshold is the amount of stuff you, personally, can easily keep under control in your own home.”

I realized I am clearly living above my Clutter Threshold and need to eliminate many items. We have new bedroom furniture being delivered in a few weeks, so I decided to start with my husband and my clothing. He and I worked on this for several hours and cleared out 67 pieces of clothing we separated for trash and donations. This simple task makes it easier to put away laundry and find pieces we want to wear.

Other areas of self-care that I spent a little time focusing on in February:

• Social Self-Care: I hosted a book club at my home, and this was the first time we had guests who were not family. I enjoyed hosting this amazing group of women who love to delve into a serious discussion of the book.

• Intellectual Self-Care: I attended online training for the Canva platform as I learned to fully use the product.

After my lackluster February performance, I am determined to have an excellent March. For this month, I am focusing on Emotional, Financial, Physical, and Environmental self-care.

For emotional self-care, I am taking a trip with family members to Florida. I am so grateful that I have the opportunity to travel with part of my family and visit some very dear friends who are like my children’s grandparents. We rented a house on the river so my 18-month-old granddaughter might experience her first pontoon boat and kayak rides. No matter what we do, this will be a relaxing and fun vacation.

Financial self-care is my next area of focus, which might be the hardest for me to handle because it involves spending less on Amazon. The problem with Amazon is that you can find anything you want, and it will be at your door in days, sometimes even hours. This makes it way too easy for me to make impulse purchases. So, I have given myself a $100 Amazon budget for March. This might not sound so tough until you look at the $907 we spent on Amazon in February. My husband has been told I cannot ask him to order anything from Amazon for me. Clearly, I am not very smart because I selected to tackle this challenge in a month with 31 days, but I can do this!

For Environmental Self-Care, I will continue to work on decluttering until I find my clutter threshold. This will include going through each closet in the house, removing unnecessary items, and organizing what is left. In our old house, we had five closets. Our new home has 13, and several are very large storage rooms, so this is an enormous task.

Lastly, I must prioritize physical self-care like I did in January. I felt so good physically and mentally in January from working out on a very regular basis. Yet, I very easily got back into my regular habits and excuses. So, I am back to the chair yoga app, the gym, and my arm exercise routine. I plan on adding some balance exercises to the rotation as well. Finally, I will record my journey in my exercise journal.

Once again, I want to thank my family, friends, and strangers who sent me messages of encouragement and support. You have genuinely helped me remain on this journey. March will be a fantastic month in my Year of Me Journey.