A helping hand.

We are now 6 days into lent and I can say I am going strong. I had one carrot cupcake last Friday but I figure since it had carrot in it (and that's a vegetable) and SuperJen says it was the healthiest one, we will just let that slide :).

I would like to say this is all due to my own willpower. In fact, I would like to say that everything I accomplish is due to my own willpower, however, that would be taking credit for many other people's work.

There are people in my life that I like to call my accountabilibuddies.

These are people in my life who are either going through the same struggles as I am or ones that I know will be responsible enough to hold me accountable to the goals I want to achieve.

Alex and I have been each other's accountabilibuddies for two years. We have something called "Sunday Night Check-In". Some people might think this is strange since we lived together and should not have needed to "check-in" every week since we told each other EVERYTHING!
The reason we had our weekly meetings was so we could check in with things that most people don't discuss with their friends or family on a daily basis but are integral parts of our lives.
We would set goals for ourselves every few months and check in weekly to see what we were doing to actively accomplish those goals as well as admit if we had "fallen on the wagon"in each of the following categories:
-Finance (Making sure we are on budget and not overspending)
-Relationships (Opposite Sex, Family, Friends)
-Exercise (Making sure we are doing it and in my case, training the right way, not the easy way)
-Food (Making sure we don't eat Velveeta for every meal, which btw...actually would happen if it weren't for the check-in)
-Schoolwork (Making sure we don't become huge procrastinators and turn into little stress balls during finals)
-Career Goals (Making sure we are actively moving towards our goals and in the direction we want our lives to be moving in)

Along with Alex, I currently have two other accountabilibuddies, one for marathon and running training and the other for spiritual issues (I like to call him my "moral compass").

I would not be who I am, where I am or have what I have without these people and these weekly check-ins. I highly recommend them to everyone. You would be suprised how much it helps to recognize each of these areas of your life and chat with someone about them on a regular basis.

For those of you that have functioned as my accountabilibuddies over the years. THANK YOU! I would be broke, fat, miserable and most likely wouldn't have a college degree without you!

Hurrah for accountabilibuddies!