Breanna Von Haden

As the weeks go on, I find that the challenges I've picked get harder and harder to both stick to and do all of them in one day. For example, the other day, I really wanted to take a super long, hot shower like I used to before...But I started my 5 minute timer and when the alarm went off I got out. I have found since starting the 5 minute shower that I don't feel as late because usually my 15 minute showers were longer than what I had planned and so I was always in a frenzy trying to be done. This is definitely one that I want to continue as I go. Watching the sunrise soon became a challenge I didn't think I would ever do, so I usually tried to watch sunset. Although, today, May 1, I did get up at 6 and caught the sunrise on my drive to school, which was pretty neat. Getting myself to just sit outside for a sunset was challenging, and if I'm being honest, there were a lot of days, especially when the weather was bad that I didn't do it. When I did though, I never regretted it (especially if my hubby sat outside with me and we used it as time together). Shorting my screen time by 30 minutes was easy at first to do (because I was doing a 30 minute workout at that time) but when it was over, I found myself not filling that time like I should. So, I went to my parents and brought my bike to my house and started riding that for the remainder of the time that I needed (well on days it was nice) and that seemed to help me get my 30 minutes off-screen time. Budgeting money for 10 minutes a day was harder than I thought it would be. It just was a long time to go over what was needed. The first time me and my hubby sat down, it took us way longer than 10 minutes because we downloaded a budget app and planned our whole budget. After that though, it was really just taking the time each day to enter what we spent into our budget. On the days where I did spend 10 minutes look at my budget, it was because I was reading a budget book or doing research online on how to spend our money better (which was extremely helpful). Lastly, I put the garage sale as a challenge because I thought I could plan one in these couple weeks but it turns out that my mom and dad are having one at the end of May, so I will add my stuff to theirs and make it less work. Instead though, I took these couple weeks to gather things up and put them in bags (we have 2 garbage bags of JUST clothes!!!) and to start pricing things as we go. I figure this was better than doing nothing for it, so although I didn't complete this challenge, I'm well on my way to start!

It's been a little over a week since I started my challenges. I picked six challenges, but two are one-time challenges, so I didn't think it would be so bad. I picked the challenges I did for specific reasons. The 5 minute shower was one that I thought would really challenge me because, previous to this challenge, I was known for taking 15-20 minutes showers. I set a timer on my phone the second I start the water (because I've been bad about letting the water run for a few minutes to "let it warm up") and when the timer goes off I get out. The first time was a surprise because I felt like I didn't even get half done, but as the week goes on it's gotten a lot easier (plus I'm not running late all the time!). The 10 minutes of looking at my budget every day was one I picked because I wanted to stop spending all my money on stuff I don't really need and I wanted to track where it's going as well. This one's been harder than I thought, but I've found a budgeting app that makes it a lot easier to focus on the task at hand when I do it. I picked the sunrise/sunset one, which I find is hard to do every day because that's my time for when I watch TV and sometimes I can't get myself to sit outside that long....but when I do it's almost always rewarding. The last time I did it, I decided to take my dogs for a walk at that time to keep myself busy. The rummage sale I wanted to do anyways so this was and extra push to do it and the cold water in my washing machine seemed like an easy change I could do and keep since I just changed the setting on my washer. Lastly, the 30 minutes of less screen time was chosen to push myself to workout every morning for a half hour and spend 15 minutes doing a bible study in the morning. This seems a little harder than I thought on some days since I have other priorities, but I've taken it more seriously since this challenge. The biggest challenge is getting myself up early enough to do both and NOT be late!