
As long time readers know, I'm getting ready to enter the birthday-to-Valentine-suicide-season. That time of the year when I get hit with repeated reminders of all the things in my life that are shitty. My goal is to not let that get me down this time. The way to do that is to start succeeding in some goals. My annual birthday meltdown won't occur if I have something I can point out as a recent accomplishment.
A good bit of advice I read the other day was start now, because waiting until new years day or the start of the week or some other arbitrary milestone is a recipe for never doing anything at all, because theirs always another milestone just a little while ahead. They all add up. They've added up to an extra three years in Weight Watchers that I shouldn't have had to do. I'm not to worried about the time I've spent in weight watchers as the weight I haven't lost yet. I knew this was going to be a lifetime thing when I started. I'll still be going ten years from now, but I'd rather that was as a goal-reaching lifetime member and not someone who's still got 30 pounds to go.
Anyway, I read the start now article and decided to, well, start now. That was Tuesday night, which was a few days before a weight-in that I knew I was going to fail. In the past I'd have simply said "fuck it" for two days, since I was going to be up pounds anyway. That's wrong-headed thinking - it assumes that weight loss is a binary phenomenon. What starting two days before the weight in did for me is (probably) slowed the weight gain from 1 pound up, down to the actual 0.4 pounds up that I ended up having. It also gave me some momentum for the rest of the week. I have high hopes that I'll be down next Thursday.
Another aspect is my running. I've been struggling with injuries, general creakiness and sleeping-in, so I haven't been running like I should. Until recently that is, I'm now into week four of my program and have hit the point where I'm running 50% of the distance and walking 50% of the distance. Next week I'll be running 50% of the time. I'm finally getting into the stage of decent workouts rather then the baby steps you need to do at the beginning to keep from injuring yourself. I will run throughout the winter - the Oval is only a few blocks from work. There was a time when I could run a half-marathon and I will get there again.
I'm on a purge in my life right now. I'm cleaning up the house, getting rid of stuff I don't use anymore and generally simplifying things. I feel supremely restless and I want to do something, so I'm nesting. I'm restricted in that the things I can do must be cheap. I'm still digging myself out of the hole my sister put me into. That means no trips for the near future. I even have to seriously think about things like going out to dinner (though I still intend to go out tonight). I'll probably just cancel the restaurant trips that I do by myself when I'm bored and hungry (not a good combination).
I'm going to scale back my Christmas gift-giving this year, so don't expect much from me. On the other side, I'm not really interested in receiving anything. If you want to treat me to something, take me out to dinner or something. Fond memories of good company have always appealed to me more then stuff that collects dust on the mantle.
I'm also scaling back on the SCA as soon as my tenure as Seneschal is up. I'll still play of course, but I've put in my time. Someone else can do the heavy lifting from now on.
So that's the state of being this week. Basically up, hopeful abut achieving goals, leery of the winter months, trying to concentrate on what's important and ditch that which is superfluous.