Step Away From the Cake

I dashed off my last post as a knee jerk reaction to what I found as I tried to organize my clothes for school. The more I think about it though, the more I realize that I need a plan. I know exactly what has been going wrong lately - being off school and not having a plan. I really can't leave things to chance, that just doesn't work for me. I'm pretty set on my eating plan. I have that wired and some ideas on how to be really successful at it. But I need to have a workout plan. And I clearly need to work out. So tomorrow I'm working out a plan and I'm not going to stop until it's something reasonable that I can do and stick with. Wow, I love when reality slaps me in the face.

See these?? For the past 8 weeks I have lived in these. Well, these and workout shorts. I have not had a real pair of pants on in 8 weeks. Do you know what happens when you do that? Regardless of the fact that I weight a little less then I did when I started summer - nothing fits. At least not comfortably. And it's not that it really doesn't fit, it's that it feels like crap because I'm used to wearing the above type shorts. What does all this mean? It means that the first few days of school are going to be absolutely brutal. I am going to be uncomfortable and my pants are going to feel tight - even if they aren't. Yeah, this is so much fun. I'm not sure why I do this to myself but I do. So here's to lots of water and veggies the next few days to try and minimize the stuffed sausage feeling I will have next week.

This is what it has looked like here since last night. Bummer. I had plans for today. Plans that included riding my bike. Plans that included some running. Oh well. Time to make new plans. The good thing about living where we do is that these rains usually don't last long. We are right at the base of the Koolau mountains. During the evening and night times, clouds will gather on the mountains due to temperature changes between the land and the ocean (it's more complicated then that but basically that's it). So it rains frequently here during the evenings, nights, and mornings. Generally once the sun comes up the land heats up and drives the clouds away. So I'm hoping that's what's going to happen today. It's only 6:30 in the morning and the mall doesn't open until 10. I have 3.5 hours for it to stop raining. I think I'll be okay. We have a drain on the side of the property by our idiot neighbors that plugs up when it rains a lot. I hope it doesn'

I have this desk. I've had it for a few years now. We bought it unfinished and just stained it a really light color and it looked like this. Well over the years the light is showing dirt and I was really tired of it just looking like a naked desk so I decided to redo it. I took it apart, sanded it down, and stained it a really nice dark cherry type color. It looks awesome. What I can't decide on is the inside of the desk. Do I just stain it the same as the outside or should I do something different??? I can't decided and I have to because I want to get it finished......

An interesting thing is occurring. Since I completed my thesis I have felt like a weight has been lifted off me. I have no stress. As I started thinking about it I realized that my weight gain started when I started teaching. To me that seems pretty normal, new job, major amount of stress, not surprising at all that I gained a little. But it really got out of hand after my student teaching and when I had that thesis hanging over my head. I think I was in a pretty constant state of stress because of that thesis. It was always, always, always in the back of my mind. And worried about doing it?? OMG! I didn't know how I was supposed to do it or anything. It was an incredibly stressful situation. And I lived like that for 2 years. No wonder I gained weight. Since I completed it I noticed a couple of things. First, food has little power over me. I eat when I'm hungry. Don't over eat. Don't stress over food because it's not a problem anymore. I am doing things I l

I will warn you, this post is not going to make any sense at all because I will not use names of real people. I won't use any names at all so you can avoid it now if you want. I have a job. For that job I am being asked to do things I do not understand. It's not that I don't understand why they want me to do something. It's that I do not understand what they are telling me to do. They are talking language that they think I understand and I don't. As a result I honestly have no idea what they are talking about and so have no idea how to even begin to consider what they want me to do. Since I don't know what they are talking about and don't have a clue as to how to do it, I'm just going to continue on doing what I've always done. If it's wrong, I'm sorry. If I lose my job over it - Oh well, sh*t happens. I could probably ask for clarification, but quite honestly I don't think I would get an answer that I would understand so why bother.

I am completely addicted to those stinking pawn shows. No, not porn shows, pawn shows. I love Pawn Stars - they are a nice group of guys in a pawn shop in Vegas. I really love Hardcore Pawn - they are a not so nice group of folks in Detroit. Both of them are fun to watch and I actually learn things. For example, did you know some old speakers are worth a fortune? I didn't and not the ones I have pictured up there, but others. I started going through the speakers my husband has and even looked at an ad that read Epiphone Amplifiers for sale. I thought, what the heck, maybe I'll stumble on some cheap speakers that are worth a lot of money.....

Sometimes you just have to stop. Take a step back. Then change the way you look at something. You can ask my students, I am the queen of looking at things from a different perspective. I am always pointing out other ways to look at things. Yet, I don't do this in my own life. I have one point of view and I stick with it. Sometimes I don't even realize it's my point of view and yet I stick with it anyway. Let me explain. I started working out years ago. Years and years ago. I was 19ish, that would put it in 1978 or so. My first workout routine was on a record. A vinyl record. There was a booklet that described the moves. It was an hour long. Looking back now I realize that some of those moves were unbelievably bad but that's another story. The point is - it was an hour long. That made an impression on me that I didn't recognize at the time. That created an idea in my mind that workouts had to be an hour. It took me years and years to break that idea. Around that t

This is how I spent most of yesterday. Reading. I was reading a rather terrible book that was oddly captivating and I just could not put it down. It was very badly written, the plot lines were right out of a how-to write book, and the characters were stereotypical. But for some reason I had to finish it and know how it ended. And I must say, it did not end as I thought it would. Of course my ending would have been much, much better but what I can I do? In spite of that, it was a very good day. It was really and honestly the first day in 2 years that I did not have my thesis lingering somewhere in the back of my mind. I picked up my bound copies on Friday so it is done and just waiting to be signed. I am ecstatic!!! So yesterday was my first real and true day of rest in a long, long time. And it felt really, really good. I did eat really well and that made all the difference. I had oatmeal for breakfast, a huge salad for lunch and little steak for dinner. I also ate a lot of fruit du