I’m so happy to announce our participant in this month’s Challenge of the Month!

1.  Tyly of One Mile at a Time.

2.  Maria of Four Blessings Academy.

3.  Kim of It’s a Turbo Life.

4.  Radioactive Vegan.

5.  Lisa of I’m an Okie.

6.  Lisa of Thrive Style.

7.  Rachel of Hounds in the Kitchen.

8.  Ruth of My Devotional Thoughts.

Laura of Absolut(ly) Fit was unable to participate, but she recommended a book for us, Throw Out Fifty Things:  Clear the Clutter, Find Your Life.  Thanks Miss Laura!

What have I been doing?  Well, I went through my closet and dumped some things.  I have also transferred a lot of stuff back to the office – stuff I had at my last job and brought home from the office when I was laid off.  So now I’m taking things back in to work.  And Bob has been great about dumping some of his stuff too! Yay!

Give It Up

This month’s challenge is all about uncluttering your life.  It’s good for just about every part of you, including your soul.

My challenge to you this month is based on the concept of 40 Bags in 40 Days.  The idea is that, during Lent, you will get rid of 40 bags of clutter, trash, stuff you’re not using, etc, one day at a time.

I’m not sure who started this, but I know it made the rounds last year on lots of blogs.  We’re going to start it a little early and only do it for 31 days. 

I’m not even asking for a bag per day.  You can toss one item per day.  It just has to be one item that you normally wouldn’t have tossed (you know, regular trash and such doesn’t count.) 

I want you to start clearing out your clutter, because studies have shown that it can affect you in so many ways:  physically, mentally, socially.

So GIVE IT UP!

The Rules:

1.  Leave your comment on this post to announce your intent to commit to the challenge.  If you can’t commit to this one, don’t worry – there are 9 more coming!

2.  If you have a blog, it would be great if you could do a weekly summary of what you did for the challenge.

3.  If you don’t have a blog, I would love to receive a weekly summary via email of what you did for the challenge.  OR, you can always do a guest post for me (meaning you write it and I post it here) about what you did.

4.  On March 31, I will enter all of the participant names into a drawing.  The winner receives:

• One (1) $25.00 gift certificate to Amazon.com AND
• Gets to choose a charity to which I will donate $25 in her/his name.

Okay?

Ready, set, GO!

This month’s challenge was to try a new exercise.  I am so proud of all of you for trying something new.  I hope that you found something you enjoyed!

Laura of Absolut(ly) Fit!

She spent the month working on Rachel Cosgrove’s workouts.

Congrats Miss Laura.  I’ll be contacting you for your charity info and to send you your Amazon Gift card!

Stay tuned for March’s Challenge of the Month!

Hi all,

How are my February Challenge of the Month folks doing?

The challenge this month is to try a new form of exercise.  Even if you just try it once, it counts.   I thought I was going to try Rachel Cosgrove’s workout, but that didn’t happen.  I haven’t even had a chance to open the book.

Then I had planned on doing Pure Barre, as Jessie is teaching there now, too.  But the class times haven’t worked for me yet.

Instead, Bob purchased me a small stair/stepper contraption, that’s totally powered by you.  As soon as I use it for more than 2 minutes, I’ll let you know. 

Stay tuned for the winner of this month’s giveaway as well as the March Challenge of the Month, both of which will be announced next week.

Alright, folks, we have our February Challenge of the Month participants!

1.  Michelle of Rage Your Way Thin

2.  Munchesmom of Four Blessings Academy

3.  Laura of Absolut(ly) Fit

4.  Charlotte of The Great Fitness Experiment

5.  Tyly of One Mile at a Time

6.  Brandi of Oh Flaxy Lady

7. Radioactive Vegan of Radioactive Vegan

Welcome one and all and I can’t wait to hear about your progress!

I’m so proud of how all of you did this month with your quest to Be Kind.  I loved reading about your endeavors. 

The winner of January’s challenge is:

Kim of It’s a Turbo Life!

Kim, Congratulations!!  I will email you so that I can set you up with your Amazon gift certificate and also donate some money to your favorite charity!

Thank you to all who participated! On to February!

Try Something New

This month’s challenge is for your physical self.  My challenge to you is to try one new type of exercise this month. 

This is inspired by Charlotte Andersen Hilton’s book, The Great Fitness Experiment.  And if you aren’t reading her blog of the same name, what the heck are you waiting for?  It’s genius!

Charlotte’s blog has lots of great suggestions for new exercises to try. Some from her book are:

• TRX suspension training
• Anything from Jillian Michaels
• Monkey Bar Gym
• CrossFit

And of course, I would suggest my current favorites:

• Yoga
• Zumba

The Rules:

1.  Leave your comment on this post to announce your intent to commit to the challenge.  If you can’t commit to this one, don’t worry – there are 10 more coming!

2.  If you have a blog, it would be great if you could do a weekly summary of what you did for the challenge.

3.  If you don’t have a blog, I would love to receive a weekly summary via email of what you did for the challenge.  OR, you can always do a guest post for me (meaning you write it and I post it here) about what you did.

4.  On February 28, I will enter all of the participant names into a drawing.  The winner receives:

• One (1) $25.00 gift certificate to Amazon.com AND
• Gets to choose a charity to which I will donate $25 in her/his name.

Okay?

Ready, set, GO!

Hi all,

This is the last week of the Be Kind Challenge. I think that all of the participants are doing SO well!! 

I started off my week as I have been for the entire challenge – paying for the person behind me at Starbucks.  I hope it starts their week off in a good way as well!

I know that this past Thursday was my roughest day of being kind.  We had a major snowstorm roll in.  Many offices dismissed their employees early, including mine.  Usually I work until 6pm, but I left at 4:30 pm. I knew it was going to be a rough ride home, but I didn’t expect it to take 60 minutes to drive the six miles home. 

It was frustrating to me because people took total advantage of the situation and were rude to each other.  And it’s hard to be kind when everyone is grumpy. 

But I decided that I needed to suck it up and be nice.  I let people in a couple of times, even though every car in front of me was one more car away from me getting home.  In the end though, it didn’t matter, as I arrived home safely.

A week from today I will be announcing the winner of this month’s challenge as well as what February’s challenge is (hint: it’s physical!). 

How are you doing on the Be Kind Challenge?

Alright my dears, here we are!  It’s time for the first challenge of the year!

(Not sure what I’m talking about?  Go HERE.)

Be Kind.

This month’s challenge is for your soul.  My challenge to you is to do one nice thing for someone else every day for the rest of the month. 

Don’t worry, it’s not a hard challenge at all!  Here are some suggestions to get you thinking in the right frame of mind:

• Pay for the person behind you at Starbucks.
• Donate books to the library.
• Volunteer at an animal shelter.
• Give blood.
• Let someone merge in front of you in traffic.

The Rules:

1.  Leave your comment on this post to announce your intent to commit to the challenge. If you can’t commit to this one, don’t worry – there are 11 more coming!

2.  If you have a blog, it would be great if you could do a weekly summary of what you did for the challenge.

3.  If you don’t have a blog, I would love to receive a weekly summary via email of what you did for the challenge.  OR, you can always do a guest post for me (meaning you write it and I post it here) about what you did.

4.  On January 31, I will enter all of the participant name into a drawing.  The winner receives:

• One (1) $25.00 gift certificate to Amazon.com AND
• Gets to choose a charity to which I will donate $25 in her/his name.

Okay?

Ready, set, GO!

**FTC disclaimer:  My contest and I’m providing the funding.***

Hello darlings!

It’s finally time for me to announce what’s going to happen in 2011 for Pretty in Orange!

I’ve already told you that my first focus word for 2011 was ENERGY, as in I need some.  I need to find ways to bring ENERGY to my life. 

One way to do that is to CHALLENGE myself (and you).  And that is why CHALLENGE is my second focus word for 2011.

And how are we going to do this?  Well, I have to credit Lisa of I’m an Okie for this idea.  She issued a challenge to her readers to eat 20 salads in December.  And you know what?  I ate 20 salads in December. I love salads, but I probably wouldn’t have consciously eaten as many without the challenge.  And so…

Every month in 2011 will have its own unique challenge. 

That’s right, every month will be a different challenge for YOU and for me.  It might involve something for your brain, something for your soul or something for your body. 

So what’s in it for you?

Well, you can do the Challenge of the Month with me and be entered to win not ONE but TWO prizes!

1.  A $25 gift certificate to Amazon.com AND

2.  I will make a $25 donation to your favorite charity.  (Challenge of the Month is replacing Charity of the Month for 2011).

So what do you think? Will you join me on my CHALLENGE to breathe ENERGY into my life every month?

I hope so!  Since January 1 is a holiday, I’m going to start this month’s challenge on January 2.  I hope that you’ll come back for the announcement and join in!