a much better day.

So today was a much easier day. In part because my mood has lifted considerably. I had a good weigh in this morning (better than I dared hoped to be honest). I had a good workout at the gym tonight. Tomorrow I'll pass the 2o mile mark for the month, and it is the last day before a weekend. And best of all I went the whole day without wanting to go out and spoil my diet plan. While cravings like yesterday are not the norm, it has been a few weeks since I've really found staying on plan so appealing as I did today.

And of course blogging helped, and I got some really supportive and hopeful comments and e-mails. I'm feeling recommitted and reinvested, and ready to face the coming weeks and months.



And now for something completely different....


Teale asked me to give an explanation of programwide.

Programwide is a 36 hour retreat which I attend twice a year. All of SEOLS (Southeastern Ohio Legal Services, which is a legal aid program serving the 33 counties roughly south of Columbus and east of I-71) attorneys, paralegals, and support staff are required to attend. We have meetings about the state of the program, funding issues, and what each office (we have 8) is doing these days. About 2/3 of the business hours part of the retreat is spent on various trainings, including sessions which count towards continuing legal education (CLE) credits, such as the session on substance abuse. After dinner we are free for the evening, and generally hire a DJ and a bartender, that sort of thing.

In case anybody is curious and doesn't already know... I've been a legal aid attorney with SEOLS for two years now. Legal aid is essentially public defenders for civil matters. We provide direct representation to clients facing problems with eviction, foreclosure, consumer (debt collection, car sales/repairs, fraud, etc), public benefits (welfare, foodstamps, social security, medicaid, etc), and family law (divorce, custody, etc). We handle basically any kind of case unless it is criminal law or if the client would be able to get an attorney without our help (either court appointed or via a contingency fee agreement). We are only able to assist the very poor (under 125% of federal poverty guidelines, and don't get me started on how absurdly low the guidelines are), or the elderly (over 65), and we never charge our clients for our services. Federal law puts significant limitations on what we can and can't do, most significantly we are not allowed to bring a class action suit, and we are not allowed to ask that the opposing party pay us attorneys fees as part of a judgment or settlement. I work in Chillicothe, Ohio, which serves Ross, Pickaway, Jackson, Pike, and Fayette Counties.

Anyway, this has gotten far enough off topic for one entry :) But hopefully now if I mention something about work you'll have some context.