#1: What?

This is me. My name is Cat and I have been on a journey of self-discovery and personal growth for a couple years now. I will explain more about that over the course of this BLOG, I'm sure. But the current version of this JOURNEY is to challenge myself to be uncomfortable and overcome some of my fear and complacency. For those who know me well, you will know that there is not much that I would consider myself afraid of and few areas in which I think of myself as complacent. Yes, I did drop everything and move my three children 2500 miles away from home without a job or home to go to. Yes, I did give up my huge support network and everything I knew to find myself. Yes, I love change and will try anything once. 

But only when I'm pretty sure (read: 99.9+%) that I will come out on top. I'm good at blind faith when I'm already pretty certain. When I'm not certain, I'm anxious, stressed and overly-controlling!

So what is this blog about??

 Two years ago in a conversation about how useless I am at New Year's Resolutions, I decided that MONTHLY resolutions were may more my speed. And might be kinda fun. For starters, having never been very good at sticking with things long-term, I have a history of either (A) obsessively over doing things in order to complete them immediately, or (B) quitting before I've ever really given myself a chance. I'm convinced the former is due to unhealthy amounts of competition I possess and the latter is a more deep-seeded, maybe-better-to-be-worked-out-in-therapy-Fear of Failure that causes me to get going when the going gets tough. But I digress ...

These monthly resolutions are multi-purpose and meet many of my myriad neuroses. Neuroses that any regular reader of this blog will get to know quite well! 

#1: I can complete 12 separate challenges in one year FAR EXCEEDING other people's lowly 1-2 resolutions. YES!!! 

#2: I can [successfully] do anything for 30 days. I swear. 

#3: I can probably learn to allow myself some success and see myself finish things if they seem like smaller hurdles. 

#4: If I can prove to myself that I can finish things, even when they are really hard, then maybe i can surmount some of my larger LIFE GOALS that I repeatedly run from in an awesome display of SELF-SABOTAGE! 

As you may begin to see, I am very self-aware. Except when I'm not. 

I'm brilliantly open-minded and generous. Except when it comes to myself.  

I must admit tho, I have recently had some big life experience that showed me that I fall on the side of "unaware" more often than I thought I did. And I believe strongly that everyone, learns things about themselves even when they don't think there is anything to learn. And I know for sure that just when I think I know all there is to know about myself, I learn otherwise. 

Back to these resolutions ... I thought I would go about deciding what each month of 2012 would be, but as I began compiling the list, I realized that I need the freedom to pick the resolution based on where I am. These resolutions are supposed to 

• be challenging, 
• stretch me to my limits, 
• test my resolve, 
• test my will-power, 
• create good habits, 
• eliminate bad habits, and 
• result in personal growth. 

Because of that, I realize that what I think I'll need in September today, may not be what I need in September IN SEPTEMBER. That said, I have agreed to one challenge-within-the-challenge: my sweet friend Rose is also challenging herself with these Monthly Resolutions and if she can get thru 3 months (which I'm absolutely sure she will), she gets to choose my APRIL challenge. I fully expect that to be the MOST torturous of them all!

So ... on to January. I have decided to kick start the new year with the misery of NO CARBS. 

What does this mean? In short, I'M IN HELL! The longer explanation is no grains (i.e. bread, pasta, rice) and no sugar (i.e. chocolate, Lindor chocolate truffles, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate candies). Unfortunately, I could probably muster thru that except that carbs are also found in fruit (out), dairy (out), grits (out). WHAT THE ... You see the dilemma? So ...

This

Should

Be

FUN ...

*sigh*