crazy crazy weekend

Ok, so I hardly know where to begin. This has been an excessively up and down weekend. I've been all over the place mentally, nutrition-ally, and even physically.

The short version - since my last post I've [in no particular order and no implications should be read into the order that anything appears] ....

had two flat tires in my car (the second one while I still had the spare on, forcing me to have the car towed across town to the tire store), been away for my office's semi-annual retreat, had my 6th anniversary, found out that someone I care about has cancer, got drunk for the first time in at least a year, went to a play at the Z-ville Community Theater, finished preparing the garden bed, started reading a fairly exciting new novel, said goodbye to a coworker who left us for another office, gotten sick, learned a couple of excellent new recipes, tried to help console a friend who was going through a relationship issue, visited with my parents and my in-laws, had dinner at the restaurant my in-laws have just opened in my home town, and generally have been running myself ragged.


Some of these require stories, and we'll get to them when I have time to do them justice.

I won't post any details on the person with cancer, because its not my story to share... I will only say it isn't me or Liz. I only mention it at all because the news itself has had a substantial impact on my mental state this weekend. I haven't really processed exactly how this news has or will continue to impact me, and am wholly unprepared to even attempt to put it into words at this stage. I guess I'm still somewhat in shock over the whole thing.



For now, I'm here, I survived my weekend, and I'm still on plan. I haven't done a very good job of recording (bad), but I think I've stayed under on points all but one day. The dozen or so drinks I had Friday clearly count as the worst thing I had to "eat" for the weekend, though the blizzard I split (different day) with a coworker is a close second. Beyond those two things I am proud of how closely I followed my plan and how well I chose foods.


One thing I had that was new to me and I will definitely try to replicate was a squash and zucchini salad. It was basically slices of raw (very young) yellow squash and zucchini with red onions, tomato wedges, and apple slices with a sweet, lemony, and herb-y vinaigrette. Think pasta salad only replacing the pasta with squash and zucchini, making it lower calorie and higher protein. And very tasty too.


Monday evening I tried my hand at homemade fajitas, which were quite tasty. I'd never tried doing them at home... but they turned out a lot healthier than going out because 1) I controlled what went in them, and limited the oils (and only used good oils at that) and cut out the salt altogether. I also did not sit and have a basket of chips and salsa waiting for my meal to come to the table either.



The other thing I did this weekend was to come up with my new longer term goal. Programwide (aka office retreat) happens every six months. When I started this blog I only had about six weeks before Programwide, and therefore hadn't made much progress yet. Then I completely fell apart and went to the Spring programwide heavier than I was at the one last Fall. So this Fall my goal is to show up noticeably slimmer er, make that less fat. To that end, I figure I need to aim to lose an average of 10 pounds a month, counting from the 15th of May.


So, I'll weigh in again tomorrow morning, and set my individual month goals accordingly.

the never ending cycle of mowing

So I've kept my food log for a week, and stayed under point limits for each day this week!

Tonight I had to mow, a job that I tend to put off as long as I think I can get away with before one of my neighbors decides to burn down my yard and be done with it.

It seems like everyone on the street has a different attitude towards mowing. My neighbor to one side has about as much grass in their entire lot as we have in our front yard, and they tend to mow at least three times for every one time that we do. Sometimes I'll see him out mowing literally two days in a row. Then our neighbors on the other side hire their mowing done by some guy who looks to be about undergrad age, and he does a very meticulous job, but only about as often as Liz and I do ours. Some people trim their sidewalks, others don't, there's one guy I frequently see out sweeping the street in front of their house.... which may be commendable except he just sweeps everything one house up or down the street.

Growing up in the boonies, and then college and lawschool in housing that came with other people to do the yard work, these past two years have been the first time in my life that my community at large has an interest in what yard work I do and how I do it. Sometimes I think I'm over sensitive to this... like I'm paranoid that all my neighbors are going to hate me if I don't mow as often as they do, or if I plant the wrong kind of flowers. Either way... all will be forgiven in a few months... we have the best tomato garden on the block.

mmmm breakfast

So I met with a client yesterday who insisted that the hotel she had stayed in the previous weekend had the most wonderful "incontinental" breakfast. ewww.


Another day under points yesterday, almost to a full week in a row :)

By far the worst thing I had yesterday was the Olive Garden breadsticks. I really intended not to have any, but they kept putting the dang things right in front of me. And once I had a taste of one it was down hill from there. Anyway, a breadstick is 3 points by itself, and I ended up having 3 of them. The meal I had was only 7 points! (apricot chicken with broccoli and asparagus, very tasty though the apricot was a little overly strong)

The other issue at lunch was that there was a small child who was absolutely screaming their head off the entire time we were there. I seemed to be the only person in the office (or in the restaurant for that matter) to be willing to just ignore it and enjoy my lunch. Everyone was talking about how stressful it made the meal and complaining, and other people (not in my group) applauded when the child's party left at the end of their meal (which was just rude, imho). Yes, the parents probably should have gotten a babysitter before going out to a nice restaurant with a child at that age, and yes, they probably should have given up and left more quickly... but it's a baby, babies cry, get over yourselves. Especially I thought it was odd the amount of whining done by those I know to be parents themselves. Shouldn't they be more or less used to baby screaming by now?

Though I guess the better way to look at it is that its a good sign that I will be able to keep calm when the baby inevitably throws a tantrum. Now, all I need to learn is how to make the child happy and stop crying :)

post weekend update

At work, so have to make this short for now, just didn't want anyone thinking I'd disappeared again :)

So I made it through the weekend on plan as far as I can tell. Saturday I had about 5 points left over. Sunday I didn't count actual points, but did keep a list of what we had to eat and I'd say I was about 8 points under give or take.

My mom apparently didn't believe me that everybody would be busy for mother's day brunch, so when we got to the restaurant she was very surprised at the crowd, and decided we would go home for lunch instead. This worked out well for me because I've gotten pretty good at fixing healthy stuff at home, less so at ordering it out. So we got some deli stuff and veggies and fairly healthy sub buns (Whole wheat, no HFCS, no Trans) and salad stuff. Then we spent the rainy mother's day playing on my parent's new wii (I suck at the bowling, but did quite well on the golf and ok on the tennis).

My worst item for the weekend was a diet coke cupcake (chocolate cake mix and cherry coke zero), because I also gave in to the temptation of the pre-packaged cream cheese frosting to put on top, which is just about the worst substance on earth. (and one of the best, taste-wise)

Today's biggest challenge is the office trip out to Olive Garden for lunch. OG's website really needs to have more nutritional info ;(

eventful week

I've managed to avoid any overwhelming hunger cravings this evening, and now it's past the time when I allow myself to eat anyway (I try not to eat within a couple of hours before sleep), so I think i managed to make it through the day with points left over again. I don't like it when I have to make such rough estimates, but you'll have that sometimes. All in all I'd say a B- on the day.

This coming week is going to be jammed packed for me. I'm off to my parents tomorrow for mother's day weekend. Then Thursday and Friday I'm off to my office's retreat (we do two days at a state park twice a year, I generally refer to it as programwide because all the offices in SEOLS attend). Programwide presents an interesting challenge in that there is generally very little by way of choice at meals, and Thursday evening is generally punctuated with excessive drinking. I am pretty sure I haven't had more than a single drink at a time since last August (alcohol is a killer when you're counting points, and I was never much of a drinker to begin with so that didn't go by the wayside when everything else did over the winter) but I may decide to relax that rule for a change, since it is a fairly unique event. And then Liz's parents are down from Toronto Saturday and Sunday, so we'll probably spend some time with them.

Then the big event coming up is Sunday, which is my sixth anniversary. Nothing really special planned, since most of our energy and time is devoted to getting ready for the baby right now, but hopefully we'll find something fun to do.

Liz and I have been fairly non-traditional when it comes to major gift giving couple events... we pretty much just get things for each other and ourselves as a couple when we want them, so getting a specific gift often seems somewhat anticlimactic. Of course, we've always been somewhat that way... Liz picked out her own engagement ring and we bought it together too. In part, Liz really doesn't like surprises, (woe to anyone who ever plans a surprise party for her and doesn't tell her in advance) and I'm never patient enough to actually bring a gift home, hide it for however long, and then give it to her on the day it was supposed to be given. Plus, when we bought the house we kind of decided it was our present to each other for the next thirty Christmases or so. I admit it does make me feel a little weird when friends ask me "so, what are you getting Liz for her birthday?" or the like. But for whatever reason it just sort of makes sense for us.

I guess this is the long way of saying that I won't be posting what we got for each other for our anniversary, because we probably won't.

my first slip up (this time around)

Well two almost perfect days then a half perfect day, not a bad start all in all, right?

Ok, first the bad... I let a friend talk me into a fried fish dinner. It was for a good cause (a church youth group wanting to help make repairs to their church), and good company, but really bad food. I had fried fish and onion rings and baked beans. All was tasty, but not tasty enough to justify itself to me as anything but a bad idea.

The good news is that after some internet searching for as best I could estimate recipes and nutritional facts, I ended up with a couple of points left for the day, even including that meal. Now, it's not anywhere near bedtime yet, but I have six points yet to work with. So one one hand the food was really bad quality (like high sat/trans fats, sodium, etc), but on the other hand it shouldn't set the weight loss portion of my health improvement goals that far back, so long as I am really careful this evening. Of course, I couldn't measure the food served nor do I have exact numbers, so I'll just try to leave as many points on the table tonight as I can.


The other good side of this (at least for me) is that I came home and recorded it, I didn't just go back to ignoring my diet and my goals like I've done so many times the past few months. That's progress.

So, Tim, today I do have a clear cut "worst thing" for the day.

Anyway, off to wash wallpaper glue off the halway walls (I really wanted to work on the garden, but it's raining again... I think it's rained every single day this week... quite frustrating because I have plants I want to get into the ground.

learning all over again

Another gold star day today, I've recorded everything and have 6.5 points left over.

I really don't know how I managed to keep to this restricted calorie intake and manage to find the energy to do two workouts a day before. Today I've barely had the energy to keep my eyes open. Granted, that's mostly lack of sleep more than lack of food, and it was a particularly long day at work, so that adds its little bit too. I really needed to get some housework done tonight, but it just didn't happen.

Things are still all "green light" for the baby to be born the end of June. We've got a little more than half the remodeling done that we need to complete, and I can see how that may be possible to finish, if I can find the energy to keep at it. I hope to get a lot done this Saturday. I did run into one wall that I can't do myself and I'm having to have a contractor come in to work on it, which kind of sucks due to timing, but can't be helped. Basically there's a brick wall in the room that will be the baby's room that needs rebuilt because the bricks got exposed to moisture sometime in the past (the roof has since been replaced) and are all crumbling apart. The biggest challenge at this point is finding a time when Liz or I can be home to let the guys in to work on it.


As for me I'm feeling completely freaked out about the whole having a child thing, and a little overwhelmed at work, but I think the decision to rededicate myself to my weight loss goals is helping alleviate some of my stress.

It's far too late for me to be able to catch up with the original "end obesity in 2008 plan." Basically i've gained almost every pound back that I lost before. I haven't decided on a long range goal now, but my short term goal will be just to get through the month still on plan, regardless of results, and then to add in returning to the gym in June.

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My official "restart" weight is 387.3

I'm down a grand total of 5.3 lbs since August 23, 2007. Which is just pathetic... I lost more than 12 lbs the first week on this diet, and was down more than 25 within the first month.

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Anyway, so a long way to go.

and 4 to spare

First day counting points in a while, ended up with 4 left over for the day. That's really good for me, because usually when I rededicate myself to keeping tabs I go crazy and leave 10 or 15 points on the table, which inevitably leads me to rebelling as soon as the opportunity presents itself. I had a few moments today that were pretty hard, but for the most part I think I've set a sustainable pace.

Tonight was also the first completely home cooked meal I've found time to make in at least a month or more. I did grilled chicken (boneless skinless breast) with a pseudo-greek yogurt/garlic sauce (plain yogurt, garlic, sugar... cucumber is generally included, but I can't stand cucumber, so mine is without), corn on the cob, and a salad with lettuce, tomato, onion, yellow pepper and homemade greek salad dressing (olive oil, fresh oregano, lemon juice, garlic, sugar). I really enjoy cooking, and when I do cook my meals tend to be much more healthy and satisfying, it's just finding the time to do it that's the issue.

While I feel a sense of accomplishment for staying on plan for a day, this feels different than the times I've done the "good for a single day then back off the wagon" routine lately. I had fun with it today, and I haven't felt that since last October. Maybe it bodes well, maybe not, but my spirits are definitely lifted, and I'm more optimistic than I've been for a long time.

in denial

I got a wake up call this morning from an unusual source... my credit card company. Aparantly my card got cloned or copied or something, because someone has been making charges that I know weren't either me or Liz. Fortunately the card company recognized the odd behavior and contacted me to confirm it (a lot of really big purchases at gas stations i've never used, is how I think they caught it).

Anyway, this led me to checking out both my cards for fraudulent transactions. And while the other card appears to be safe, I found myself forced to face my own bad behavior over the past month or so. So many fast food and other restaurants that I've just convinced myself - it's ok, you're having a rotten day, you deserve to be pampered. Its disgusting. No wonder I've put on so much weight. Why my clothes don't fit any more the way they did at the high point of this blog. Why am I still in denial about this??

And, in the off chance anybody still checks in here... I know i've promised time and time again "ok, this is it, I'm starting over today." So I won't waste my type.

I don't know what to think. Am I just a lost cause? Am I really this pathetic little boy who can't control his urges? Who wastes the money I don't have buying food I don't really want and really really don't need just because it is convenient or because I can get away with it? Don't I owe it to Liz and to my unborn child to spend the money on things that matter instead? To eat healthy options that I make at home which are more satisfying in the long term?

Is this finally rock bottom, or will I sink even lower? I want to bounce back, but sometimes wanting isn't enough.


I did make one small good step today.... I cleaned out the fridge of all the expired yogurt and lettuce and vegetables that I let rot, so now I can find the acutal food, so I have one fewer reason to cheat.

The other thing i've been doing well the past week or so is exercising, but really only because my housework has required it. Basically I'm creating a garden out of a stretch of the back yard that was a mix of grass and weeds, and I'm pulling up the weeds using a hand tool, so I really work up quite a sweat. And it feels good, which is surprising to me. I've never gotten a workout "high" before, but something about yard work is just fun.

The cynic in me says don't hold your breath, but I really will try to be back tomorrow.

a good day

Today i am on plan, though i used up all of my points for the day. I have kept my food log, and even posted here. All in all, counts as a good day.


Now, if I can only do this a couple hundred days in a row, I might be getting somewhere.

long overdue

So life has gotten very busy for me this month. We're down to less than three months until the baby is due, and haven't accomplished a third of the things that need doing before then.


So, a general update to get April started off on the right foot...


Diet specific:


I weighed in today at an abysmal 379.3. Some people need to pull themselves away from the scale, to let nature take its course when they're trying to lose weight. I definitely am not one of those people. If I let myself go even a few weeks without a weigh-in, things get bad really fast. I need the concrete reminder of both success and failure.

Exercising has been hit or miss. I got myself back into a rotation of morning workouts for a while, but haven't done that the past several days. My treadmill is surrounded by roaming gangs of misplaced furniture (see house remodeling, below) and as a result is mia. It is starting to warm up enough for outside walks though, which I've been trying to do when I get a chance. Mostly though I'm getting most of my physical activity through painting and other house projects.

As to counting my points, i'd say I'm at about 25% at best.

It seems like every time I log in here I'm touting my new resolution and plan. and then I quickly fall out of the plan and go two weeks hiding from my blog in shame. Well, this time lets just take this one step at a time.


Other Stuff:


Liz and the baby are healthy and on course as far as we know. No news is kind of good news on that front i guess.


The house is so not going to be ready when the kid is born though. We've got about 2/3 of the wallpaper removed (and I think all of the wallpaper that had mold on it), but I've only started painting one room. Every step I begin on this project takes at least a week longer than I think it will, and it is has really taken a toll on my stress levels. It will be worth it in the end, I'm sure, and I am happy with the quality of my results to date if not the quantity.

The little gray kitten I mentioned in my last post has become a member of our family. His name is Harold (after the owner of the Purple Crayon). He's about six months old now, and the vet gave him a clean bill of health. Our older male cat (about 3 yrs old) has taken to him as a big brother to kid brother, but our female (about 7) is expressing an excessive amount of displeasure, so we're having to keep them separate for the time being.


I guess that's all that's going on here. Here's hoping i'll be back again soon.

It's snowing cats and dogs.... well cats anyway

So I am proving yet again that I'm no good at this blogging thing :) Though on the bright side things have been going fairly well for me the past couple of weeks... I just haven't had anything to say.

I've tried in the past to make this blog too content specific, I think. By that I mean I've only posted news, comments, whatnot that were specifically related to my weight loss struggles. I'm going to try relaxing on that rule a bit, in part because I've had several moments of late when I wanted to write in a more general interest/thoughts sort of blog. So, I think I will be using this outlet for more of that as I go forward.

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This has been an unusual winter for us in Southern Ohio. Twice in the past month it has been 60 degrees or more one day, and then snowing and in the mid twenties the next. This past weekend was one of those, with nearly t-shirt weather on Thursday and then a honest to god blizzard starting Friday and ending Saturday. Nobody I know was in any traffic accidents or the like, which is somewhat amazing to be honest. Liz decided to stay in Columbus for the weekend rather than risking the round trip (its about an hour and a half each way in good weather). And then today it was back up over 50 again. The rivers around here already were on the point of flooding last week, I am a bit worried about what will happen if all this snow melts too fast (especially if we get the rain they're predicting for tomorrow. Here in town we're safe enough (Chillicothe installed pretty impressive floodwalls after the last time the river flooded the town, umpteen years ago) but some of the areas just downriver from town already have swamps where their back yards used to be.


And we may be adopting yet another cat. I came home from work and found Liz with this very friendly little kitten (prob. 4 months old or so).






We've done everything we can think of to get the word out incase anyone is missing him, and canvased a block or so around our house. So if nobody shows up looking for him we will probably be adding him to our household in a few weeks. In the mean time we've set up a temporary shelter for him in our sunporch, and he seems to be pretty happy back there. Our older cat is going to have a rough year though... she didn't like it at all when we brought home a new kitten last time it happened, and this time she'll probably just be getting used to that change when our baby will be born. The weird thing is that he really looks like a younger version of our newer cat (Oscar), who we also took in as a stray when he was a kitten. It's entirely possible that he's a great-great nephew or something. He's gray where as Oscar is brown, but they have the same striping pattern, and vary similar faces. And some very similar personality traits as well (both are climbers rather than jumpers, that sort of thing.) Obviously we'll never know for sure that they're related, but it seems likely enough. They did both show up on our doorstep after all ... just a few years apart ;)

difficult day

So today I was way under on points, but not entirely by choice. We went to Z-ville to hang out with Liz's parents who were in town for the weekend, which usually is a bad sign for over-eating. But today I had a very healthy breakfast before leaving the house (Kashi crunch cereal with yogurt instead of milk, and a banana) at 8:30... which is very good for me, as I skip breakfast far too often. But then I didn't have anything else to eat until about 5 pm, which is very bad. So while I didn't go over on calories for the day, I did a lousy job of balancing out my day, which is vital to my being able to stick it out for the long run.

But now I'm home again, so tomorrow I have power over what I choose to do. I am going to choose to have breakfast (maybe another bowl of Kashi... that was very good this morning), and a healthy lunch, and a healthy dinner.

All in all I'd say a A for intentions today but a B- in execution.

Sometimes I think it'd be easier if we could just have do-overs ;)

day two

Ok, so really can't think of anything to say today, just want to get into the habit of posting again :)

Day one take 2

Ok, so i've lost track of what week i'm on. And i've lost track of how many times I've though I was going to be back on track and end up fizzling out after a day of good effort.

So I'm not getting back on track.

I'm starting over.


Today has been a good day and a bad day. The good - I've kept my food journal, I've written in the blog, and I used the treadmill. The bad - my food journal is not the shining example of virtue that I need it to be.


Using the treadmill was something of an accomplishment. I mean, I think i've mentioned several times that my wife and I are stripping all the wallpaper from the house in order to repaint in preperation for the baby in June. So that means that furniture is everywhere, and not at all where it should be. And the treadmill kind of got burried in all the moving around. Now its not.

Tomorrow morning - I am getting up and using the treadmill before work. And I am keeping my food journal.

I was in some ways overly harsh with myself in the past couple of months, but in other ways overly easy. I felt sorry for myself and that I would never get back on plan. But I kept thinking of my down time as just that - down time. Well, it wasn't. I wasn't taking a break, I had completely given up. That attempt is over. Now a new one begins.

Day 1.

getting my whole life in shape

Usually if your computer won't boot up properly, its a problem with the hardware or the operating system. Occasionally though, its the keyboard cable. I've spent a lot of time asking myself why I'm failing at this diet thing. Why i'm breaking all the rules.

I've had a good week this week. And a lot of time to think. And I got to thinking that perhaps the problem wasn't so obvious. Maybe all the other stuff that was wrong with my life lately was a cause, not just a symptom.

So i've focused some time an attention to getting things under control at work... And after a lot of effort and some very long days, i'm more on top of my paperwork and organization than I have been in at least a year. This week was also an annual review for me, and it was more positive than I expected. So I'm more happy and less stressed out at work.

More importantly, though less in my control, we had a positive ultrasound on Tuesday. I can admit to myself now that I was extremely worried about that. But everything is good on that front as well.


So now I have more headspace to refocus my efforts on my diet/exercise. I had a workout at the gym this evening (my first in longer than I want to think about), and while I'm feeling extra beat, I'm proud of myself for just getting out there. I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm feeling optimistic, but perhaps just a bit hopeful and excited to get back on the horse at long last.

I think my keyboard is plugged in properly now. Let's try rebooting.

I can't figure out what to say

I've been trying to write this entry for days. And I haven't come up with anything that seems appropriate. That seems anything other than whinny. And truth is, that's kind of how I feel.

Right now I have so much on my mind. Nothing is going quite right, and most of it is my own stupid fault, one way or another.

Limiting my self-pity to terms relevant to this blog.... I feel like an absolute failure. Yeah, I could put a softer spin on it, but it'd be at least half a lie. Some days only the guilt of needing to post something on the blog is the only thing that keeps me even thinking of my plans. My oh so perfect idealism of a few months ago. I go to bed every night convinced I'm back on path, that tomorrow will be the day. And some days I'm actually on plan. But then it all falls apart again.

To be fair, when I'm off plan, I'm nowhere as atrocious to myself as I was before this blog. I have somewhat better instincts now. But I'm not making progress. I'm not making myself proud, I'm not improving. I'm falling farther and farther and farther behind.

So am I wasting my time? I don't think so. I won't give up completely. I won't. I just have to keep trying.

One of these days, I have to do it right.

grumpy

I like to think I'm reasonably intelligent. I know that it is better to under-pay on tax withholding throughout the year than to overpay and get a refund.

But this is the second year in a row my employer screwed up my taxes to the point I have to pay more than a thousand this April (ok, so this year it was actually Liz's employer, but we file together so same result). And its hard to see it a coming out way ahead in the long run, though on some level I know I am.

So I'm a bit grumpy today, so I'll sign off before I become contagious. :(

where i've been (end of week 22)

This has been a real up and down week for me. I haven't gotten all of my workout in, and I can't say that i did a very good job of keeping track of my points, though moving in the right direction on that front.

Today in particular was hard, as I spent the day in Court. All day trials are always a challenge, and we didn't even get done with the case, so I have another full day scheduled for a week from today. And just to ensure maximum emotional drainage on my part, it is a particularly ugly custody fight. On the plus side, I've been working on this case for over a year, and it is a relief to be one step closer to putting it behind me.

But I have been doing a lot of work around the house that somewhat replaces the workouts, so that has helped. We've made real strides on the wallpaper job, though I've discovered that scrubbing the wall of wallpaper paste residue is much less fun even than removing the wallpaper itself.

And everything is so far so good on the baby front, so keep your fingers crossed for me.


Anyway, so I'm down 1.3 on the week, but realistically I'd say I'm still holding pretty much steady. I don't really feel in the zone.

So this week's goals are not number related. This week my goal will be to err on the side of over-blogging, to try and hold myself accountable the way I promised to be when I first started this blog.

Tomorrow: reintroduction for those joining me from the Healthy Start Challenge.

First Tuesday (aka end of week 21)

So today is a new start for the blog, as I post my opening salvo in sorts to the Healthy You Challenge. I'm hoping that I can convince myself that this is the big kick off to the year for me, and that 2008 will be marked by great strides forward.


Current Weight: 363.5 (yes, going the wrong way from last week again !!) :(


Current goal: back down to 350 by the end of February.


Current Outlook: Pessimistic.

End of week 20

Another holding pattern sort of week for me, as I come in slightly up again at 362.1 :(


Because I've finally gotten around to signing up for the Healthy You Challenge (sorry to be so slow!), and it's set up to a Tuesday report-in date, Week 21 will only have five days, and my end of the week reports will now be switching to Tuesdays. I'm hoping this will also get me posting more often and with more substance, as I'll probably have comments to make regarding what's going on over on the HYC blog.



If you're a health/weightloss/personal improvement blogger and you haven't signed up for the Healthy You Challenge.... what are you waiting for? Come and join up and make 2008 your best year ever!

Don't wallpaper a ceiling.

So every time I think I'm going to have some free time to make a real post, I end up swamped in work.

This past week Liz and I discovered that we had some mold developing on some of our wallpaper. We've been wanting to be rid of the wallpaper in our house for ages, and now it had become a priority. So since Wednesday I've been spending all the time I'm not at work taking down layer upon layer of old paper.

If you're ever deciding between painting or wallpapering a wall that doesn't already have wallpaper... be kind to the next people to live in your house and paint! Pulling down wallpaper, i've found, is a messy and unrewarding job. Most especially, don't wallpaper a ceiling!! (all of the ceilings in our house have a double layer of wallpaper too).


Anyways, lifestyle wise its been a moderately good week so far, though yesterday I went out to the Olive Garden, which is less than ideal for me. I am disappointed that the clementine season seems to have ended rather abruptly though, as I am quite fond of them.

End of week 19

New Year, new efforts.

The holidays did not go too well, I'm back up to 361.4. But I'm back on plan, back at it.

Have to run to work now, will do a real update this afternoon.