Sleepwalking

"Your biggest challenge isn't that you've intentionally been making bad choices.....Your biggest challenge is that you've been sleepwalking through your choices." ~ The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy

I had ordered a book through Amazon awhile ago.  Yes I am old school and still like the feel of the book in my hand.  In any event, when I ordered that book, it said this was a commonly paired book and I figured what the heck.  I am so grateful I did.  I highly recommend it to everyone.  Reading it now also pairs nicely with Lent.

The premise of the book is that little actions, whether good or bad, repeated daily lead to big results.  If you eat a little bad EVERY day, then you will gain weight.  Whereas, if you eat a little better each day, you will lose weight.  The Compound Effect. 

I think what really hit home and really got me into this book were a couple of key paragraphs within the first two chapters because I easily could relate them to my life.

• "I bet your grandparents worked six days a week, from sunup to sundown, using the skills they learned in their youth and repeatedly throughout their entire life.  They knew the secret was hard work, discipline, and good habits." 

Anyone that knows either sets of my grandparents, knows this hits their life to a T.  When my grandma moved to town from the farm, I remember going through the chest she had in the attic of all the bank statements of 40 years of marriage.  From the early years of owing the bank money at the end of the month to the later parts of their life where they would buy a new car with cash.  They worked hard for every penny they had.

• "Don't try to fool yourself into believing that a mega-successful athlete didn't live through regular bone-crushing drills and thousands of hours of practice.  He got up early to practice - and kept practicing long after all the others had stopped.  He faced the sheer agony and frustration of the failure, loneliness, hard work, and disappointment it took to become No. 1."

Well, if you were in the car with my parents and I when I was 30-something, you would have heard this almost exact same conversation.  My dad was revealing that he was so hard on me over the years playing softball because "guys just didn't get to the NFL because their parents patted them on the back and said good job because they gave 90%".  Even if he had made that statement to me in high school or college, I doubt it would have had the same light ball effect.

I have decided that this Lent is going to be the start of my personal Compound Effect.  Spiritually, Mentally and Physically.  I have joined Unicorn's Church group for their Lenten Busy Lives Lenten Retreat.  I am excited to have the extra accountability this season.  Hopefully you will join me this Lenten season making small changes to create a Compound Effect that can carry on long after lent.  Remember, it only takes 21 days to form a habit and lent...well it's longer than that!

Part of the Spiritual commitment I made were the following Amendable Commitments:

1. One Diet Coke a day
2. No Pasta - sadly this is my go to dinner as of late, pasta noodles, parmesan cheese a little butter...definitely cheep and easy but no nutritional value and in no way diabetic friendly.
3. No Sunflower seeds - my weekend addiction
4. Morning prayers before my feet hit the ground
5. Rosary once daily - currently I just do it the days I travel to work.
6. Evening prayers before bed.
7. Attend Stations of the Cross at least twice during Lent
8. Limit Cell Phone games to 1 hour.

What small changes can you commit to making this Lenten Season that Compounds into a big Effect?

Where does time go?

WOW!   Six months?  Really doesn't seem that long ago that I was here.

What's even more of a WOW factor is that there are even followers that still come back and troll to see that I have failed, failed to update you on life, failed to even say what's up!  Yes, the the world continues to spin here in Texas, some days way faster than I want, some days in a direction I do not want but....

Oh life. 

I have wrote hundred's of blog posts in my mind over the past six months.  I have wrote even more in the past month.  There is so much on my mind these past few weeks that I would love to share with everyone but I am just not at that place that I am ready to talk about it, YET.  (Never fear...it is not health related, no I am not Pregnant and no I am not getting married!)

There is one thing for certain that I know, how life is today, is not how I probably pictured it the day I walked across the stage when I graduated high school.  It probably is not how I pictured it when I left college.  I know that it is not what I imaged it being at the beginning of December, but then again I never imagine January being what it was back in the first of December either.  Surly today as I sit writing this, I never pictured this month being what it was, maybe if ever, in my lifetime.

One thing I do know is that life happens.  No matter how much we plan, no matter how much we think we have it laid out in front of us, life happens and really the only person that knows where we will end up in life is the man upstairs.  What we can do in life is grow from it, learn from it and embrace the challenges that have been laid out in front of us.  God gives us the choice in life.  We can choose to be bitter and angry or we can choose to be positive and seek growth from the challenges He gives us. 

In the end, it's a matter of how do you want to face your maker, do you want to say, I accepted Your challenge and look at the better person you made me...or do you want to say well screw you, you handed me a life of lemons and crap and I am just over it.  The choice is within each of us and I think just writing this post helped me clear out some of my fog from today and made me focus back on what my choice always is.  Of course some love from Momma Bear never hurts either.

So, with that said, I clearly have some catching up to do...about 6 months worth and a lot of insight to share along the way.  I have done a lot of growing, especially in the past few weeks and definitely a lot more to go in the coming months.  If you are following this blog, you will be growing with me.  This will be a personal, spiritual, financial, life growing journey.

 

Stay tuned...I promise it won't be 6 more months before you hear from me...maybe more like 6 hours.  Until then, remember, your glass is half full or at least has room for a refresher. 

Love ya!

Progress

Well, I suppose that is what we will call it. 

Tuesday nights are my Weight Watchers meeting nights.  First off, let me just say that I hate the time of the meeting, it is at 6 pm.  However, for all other reasons, I continue to go to this time because I love, LUV, love the leader and I am privileged enough to go to one of the new state of the art meeting centers.  The center is new and most of the information is done on a power point presentation.  The leader, well she is an older lady and just cracks me up.  The leader is new for this time slot and I probably would have changed had she not come into it.  The group is awesome and just feeds off of her energy.

So this week I was down 0.5 lbs.  Not what I would of liked to seen but it is a step in the right direction.  I'll update my chart so it shows my progress for 2012.  Keeping the faith that I can do this!

For this coming week I have two goals - tracking my food, good, bad and the ugly, no matter how many points.  I am also shooting for 5,000 steps in a day.  Now, this might not seem like a lot but it really is.  I knew that my desk job meant I didn't move much.  However, the first day with it on, just doing what I was doing, I had only logged 1,500 steps during the course of work.  I am not sure I could walk enough at the end of the night to get 10,000 steps.  So, we are shooting for 5,000 and hoping to work up to 10,000 steps every day!

Have a great day!

Day 1 & Checkpoint

Have you ever tried to make a change of some type and not refer to the first day of the change as the Start Date, the Starting point or any other reference to Start? It is unbelievably difficult. I don't even know if Day 1 is really the right use of words, but it was the best I could come up with without using the word Start.




So, on Day 1 here is where I am starting. I realize that it is just a number on the scale, but it is what I have to start with. I'll add some measurements later tonight so I can also have them as another method of tracking.

I don't really have an end goal in mind when doing this; I just want to be healthier. I want to be able to wear all of those cute clothes that I have in my closet versus the small amount I can fit into. I even want to be able to at least get into those dresses that the SkinnyBiotch really despises that I still have in my closet and finds a friendship hard knowing I have them. (Luv ya Girl!)

So, the end date for all of this is the last day of my life. So, really not clear on when that will be. With that in mind, I have a few random check points and will continue to add a new one as each one passes. I refuse to see these checkpoints as a Finish but as a point that I can see how I am progressing.

With that in mind, the first two check points are:

September 13
October 8
October 22

Here we go focus…I already feel healthy!

Also - on a bright note, I am getting a random day off from Lowe's in my schedule.  So, next day off....August 28th.  So exciting for me!

No more Starting

Today I was reading a blog by one of the ATX-100's.  If you don't know what ATX 100s is, it is a group that is made up of Austinites that have over 100 pounds to lose and their end goal is to compete in the Cap-Tex 10k next year.  Joe Bacon pointed out something that I never really thought of in that terms but it makes perfect sense and make me think about what I am doing. 

I don’t think of this as a START, because a START has a FINISH.

Click Here to see Joe's blog

 

How true are those words.  Look at when I "started" training for the Nike Women's Marathon - I was in the best shape of my life.  Then the injury happened, the finish line disappeared and I stopped.  Then there was the Triathlons.  While I might not of been in a peak shape, there was the start of training and when I crossed the finish line, the training ended. 

Is your life a series of Starts & Finishes?  Do you Start to lose weight today?  What happens when you "Finish" your journey or something causes the Finish line to disappear?  I know that I cannot be alone in the blurred Finish line.

So there is no more tomorrow I start, next week I start.  Today is the first day of the rest of my life.  If I truly need a finish line - then I suppose the finish line shall be the last day of my life.  The bright side is that I don't know when that day will come.  So, until then, I need to keep trudging ahead and realize that I will make mistakes along the way, will have set backs along the way and just need to dust myself off and get moving and focus on what I want in life. 

Of course, I say this and realize that step one would be to eat healthy, exercise, and focus on pushing through the debt.  I can eat healthy the rest of the day!  That is an easy one.  Now, for exercise - it has to wait until tomorrow.  I have to work today at Lowe's so no extra time for exercise.  The debt - well I am working both jobs today - so getting rid of it I will!

Even though I will have no more starts or finishes, I am starting my count down today....25 days.  Yep, 25 days until my next day off.  I always try to get a day off scheduled where I do nothing and some how I just didn't get that done this month like I should of.  So, when it is said and done with, I will have worked one or both jobs for 35 days straight.  I picked up an extra shift yesterday at Lowe's and lets just say leaving at 7 am and getting home at 10:30 at night three days in a row makes for a tired cookie!

Back on Plan

Well, as I told DC, my weekends seem to be where the problems lie.  Obviously I am hardly spending anything during the week. 

Monday
 Diet - It was good.  I had supper at a friends house so not really sure on the calorie count, but it wasn't a huge serving and was pretty good.  :)
Exercise - I got my 4 mile loop in before I headed to my first knitting lesson. 
Money - Pace yourself kids, 0.25.  Yes I spent a whole quarter today.  My lessons are free and Ms. M use to teach in Mexico so she had a ton of free yarn and needles I could use.  :)
Cleaning - Not too much to be done.  Picked up things laying around and that was about it.

Tuesday - It was not a good day eating.  It wasn't that I was eating out or anything, just not the best choices.  I had ice cream in the freezer and I don't think that was a good supper selection.  LOL  But, the positive is I am still Doughnut free!
Exercise - It was a Lowe's day, so nada.
Money - I was a big spender today compared to days past, but it was all budgeted.  I spent $0.25 on my Diet Coke, $33 and change at Walgreens for female supplies (emergency) and more allergy meds, and $50 at Petco for the 40 lbs of dog food.  Finnegus was starting to get hungry.
Cleaning - Nada

Backward Weekend

So, I have determined that for the most part, weekends are my downfall and where the problems lie.  I spend more money in a weekend than I probably do in an average week.  I had my debit card in my purse which resulted in way too much impulse spending.  Urrrrrggggg.  I stayed out way too late on Friday night and spent the rest of the weekend trying to recover and as a result, zero in the workout category.  Cleaning was probably my only bright spot and I did pick up around the house, cleaned the floors and washed Finn's lower half because he managed to become a mud ball on both Friday night and Saturday afternoon.  On the bright side of the weekend - I did have a nice date on Friday night with a new guy.  :)  More to come later on that. 

Exhaustion

That is what today is.  Yesterday started out as an okay day and then just took a drastic spiral at the end of the day.  At this point, I don't know what I am going to do.  But enough of that for now.  I couldn't shut my brain off last night when I did finally go to bed and it was still after midnight before the alarm went off.

So First things first - today was Weigh in Day.   187.6 is the official number.  7.6 to go.

Summary of Day 3:


Eating - I did okay. D2ND  but we are starting over on the darn Vending Machine.  I had a salad from Freebirds for lunch so I am not sure if that was good or bad.  I did have just a baked potato for supper, so hopefully it balanced out.

Exercise - Negative.  It was too darn cold - or that was my thinking.  I was exhausted when I got home and took a nap.  I was going to open mail, eat supper and then walk the dogs for a bit.  Maybe I should of just skipped the mail and leave that to Saturday's.  Needless to say - no walk for me or the dogs.  :(

Cleaning - Nada but really wasn't much to be done outside of unload the dishwasher.  That can wait another day.
Money - Well, my spending was $0.50 on two sodas, $50 on the vending machine and $6.62 at Freebirds.  That is the positive. $25 went to the Kohl's debt gods. The negative is that a tight budget needs to find more ways to be cut.  My saga of credit card debt and the hands that bind continue.  Target - well they got me this time.  I was on back to back 6 month lower interest plans, well in December, I came off the last one and didn't realize it.  So, my payment wasn't automatically made to them.  They called me about two weeks after the fact and I paid them.  Then I made my payment in January.  Last night I opened my new bill.  I missed a payment in their minds and now I have a 29.99% interest rate to go with a $170 payment.  That is a $100 more each month I need to come up with just to pay them the mininum, never mind attempting to make a dent.  The monthly interest charges almost equal my monthly budget for food which is a mear $150.  Seriously considering the word bankruptcy.  :(  I can't win if I tried.

Survival - Day Two

Front View - Day 2

So it is time to put it out there.  These are not photos that I am proud of but they need to be out here, they need to be seen, I need to be accountable for what I look like!  Now we are going to kick it into gear and say hello swim suit!

Side view - Day 2

Summary of Day 2:

Eating - I did great!  D1ND (Day 1 no doughnuts) and D2NVM (Day 2 no vending machine), yes the small victories that I have but are needed for success! 

Exercise - Definite success here!  I took the dogs for a 4.1 mile walk in 1 hr, 5 minutes.  Not too bad if I say so myself!

Cleaning - One load of laundry, vaccummed, mopped a couple spots on the floor and washed dishes by hand!

Money - It was a HUGE day of spending!  $0.50 for Diet Coke and $3.47 - I got a small bag of flour, $.99 pack of pens for Lowe's and a $1 package of Butterfingers.  Had one and the rest went into the freezer.

Overall - I think I can say - winner, winner Chicken Dinner!

Survival of Day 1

Now I admit that I was over half way through day one when I blogged yesterday, but at the end of the day, I survived and made it all the way through, relatively unscathed. So here is my summary for yesterday:

Eating - Outside of breakfast, it was a great day! I avoided the vending machine snack trap! My breakfast - darn doughnuts got me. I am going to challenge myself and see if I can make it the next 20 days without one. Darn crazy addiction. If anything - I at least know what will be a good lent sacrifice!

Exercise - Since it was a dual work day, I was pretty limited on what I could do. That said, I still managed to get in a 1.2 mile walk with the pups before I headed in.

Cleaning - Not anything to report, well unless you count having to give Finnegan a bath last night. In his true boy fashion, he found the mud last night in the back yard! So, for the consecutive day, he got a bath!

Money - Overall, I would say it was a great day! I like to use the Latte Factor (coined by David Bach), if you take that purchase and multiply it by the number of days in the year - is it really worth that expense? My total outlay yesterday was $2.27, of which $1.77 was for doughnuts. Now if I got them every work day for a year - I would have spent $460.20...definitely not worth the cost to my middle! The other 0.50 was for my two Diet Cokes. Definitely a good day and not having debt cards in my purse is working!

Waning

Well we are officially 18 days into 2011 and my motivation is already waning for the New Year's Resolution Goals.  Now I admit that three days of cold and rain did not help any motivation at all but that is winter.  What should be surprising about that.

Then again, the more I think about things, I really can't say that my goals are waning, my effort to some degree is waning.  I get frustrated and tired of things being the way they are.  I have these goals out there and I seem to get frustrated because I can't hit them and then I either lose focus or just give up.  So, is it that my goals are just too big?  Or do I need smaller goals to go with it?  Maybe a combination of both? 

So, my original goals for 2011 were as follows:

•  Reach a healthy weight I can maintain by year end
• Maintain $1,000 in savings as an emergency fund
• Get off my happy meds
• Walk the dogs consistently
• Pay off credits cards and/or put a significant dent in all my debt
• Take stairs

So, obviously a few of them are easy to obtain.  The stairs, well I work on the 3rd floor of my office building and with the exception of twice, I have take the stairs both up and down every day, multiple times.  Some days I even throw in a hike up to the roof top access, all the way back to ground and then back to my floor.  Now, when it comes to Vegas - we might need to reconsider.

Walk the dogs - again another easy one.  Yesterday we logged 3.0 miles in the sunshine.  Both they and myself needed it.  Being cooped up in a house because it was raining and they couldn't run and play made for some extra energy for all of us.

The emergency fund and debt - that I am reaching out to my online group for support.  If I put my debt here and made it known, I think a few people would have a heart attack.  I do know that when the day comes that I dig out of this, still own my house and my car, I might have a case for writing my own book!  I definitely have some yearly calendar ideas that I think would be much more useful to managing daily to do's, bills that are do, debt, etc.

Finally, the healthy weight is where you mystery readers all come in.  I know you secret lurkers are out there.  Weight Watchers isn't working for me.  I "know" what I need to do and just don't log my stuff.  I figure I can cheat today and tomorrow I'll make up for it but then tomorrow comes and I cheat again.  A vicious cycle that never ends. So, I have set some smaller goals so that healthy weight doesn't seem so far off.  The first is 180 by Feb 10th.  That gives me 24 days.  The next is 170 which is by mid April, again far enough out. 

Now - how can you help me?  First, I am going to do my best to post my updates on the following every day summarizing how I did the previous day: Eating, Exercise, Cleaning and Money.  Knowing you read this helps!  Secondly, I am going to post my weekly weigh in and Photo! Knowing that my fat rolls are out here for all the world to see, well if that doesn't motivate me to lose them faster, I don't know what will.  On a monthly basis, I also provide my inches and loss to date.  It might seem like too much or not enough to you but for me I need it.  I work with an office of guys that might not even notice if I chopped my hair let alone discuss weight loss and I live by myself and outside of those brown eyes of Finnegus begging for a walk, no one cares in that house what size I am. 

So, we are going for blowing the waning out of the water and hopefully y'all can kick my ass along the way!

Can't and The Misfits

As a softball coach, Can't was just a word I hated. To me, the girls had already mentally given up on something. I never was blessed with the best athletes out there. But I was blessed with great girls that had potential, were willing to work to get better, worked great as a team and had some of the best parents out there. The best team I ever had was the years of The Misfits. In a normal year, our club ball selections were done in August of the prior year. I thought the team was set and then do to a million reasons, I was suddenly left with 4 or 5 girls and not enough players for a team. It was winter in Nebraska, so having another tryout just wasn't going to be on the table. One family refused to see the situation for what it was and informed me there will be a team. And a team we had, the team of Misfits. It was a merger of two teams that didn't have enough players, it was players that were looking for a team, it was players that just didn't know they wanted to play that much. The Misfits worked hard and came together as a group. They might not have all been friends in a normal day to day basis but at the end of the day, they were teammates on the field. The team that was least expected to do well finished tied for 15th place in the Class B National Tournament that year all because Can't wasn't an option.

I know and accept I probably wasn't the easiest coach to have. I was hard on the girls and pushed each one to their break point. We had the girly girls, the tomboys, the athletes, the social players, we had them all. But at the end of day, they were all treated to the same and held to the same expectations. Softball was just a game and the practices and games that came with it were the lessons of life. You can't be late every day to your job and not expect consequences, softball was no different. Can't was not going to be an option in their life.

To a certain extent, I have kept in touch with a lot of players that I have coached in life. I have seen them graduate high school, graduate college, get married, have babies of their own, etc, almost as a proud parent. However, I really never knew the impact I had in their life until that silly number game on Facebook. The number game was easy, you sent the person a number and then that person updated their status on what their thoughts of that person were.

I sent Hollywood a message just for fun to see what she had to say. I call her Hollywood because she was my girly girl on the softball field. I think she is the only player I have had that had a serious gift for making a black eye disappear with a touch of makeup. She made the choice not play softball in High School but stuck with club team. To the outside world, she was such a girly girl but to our team, she was the competitor, she hated losing and did everything in her will power to try and play softball at Nationals when she was really sick. She has a great family and is a beautiful person in and out. The following is what she had to say....

#13 I CANNOT EXPRESS IN WORDS HOW MUCH YOU HAVE INFLUENCED ME THROUGH MY LIFE. THERE ARE TIMES STILL TO THIS DAY THAT I CAN HEAR YOUR VOICE IN THE BACK OF MY HEAD. TELLING ME TO ELIMINATE 'CAN'T' FROM MY VOCABULARY AND THAT MY MENTAL STRENGTH CAN GET ME THROUGH PHYSICAL PAIN. I STILL REMEMBER YOU YELLING THAT YOUR GRANDMOTHER CAN RUN FASTER! :D #13 continued YOU PUSHED ME TO BECOME A BETTER ATHLETE BUT IT CHANGED MY LIFE IN SO MANY AMAZING WAYS. I WISH THAT I WOULD HAVE KNOWN WHAT I KNOW NOW THEN ABOUT HOW MUCH BETTER OF A PERSON I WOULD BE IN THE FUTURE BECAUSE OF YOUR LEADERSHIP. I COULD GO ON AND ON AND ON BECAUSE I AM SO GRATEFUL....I'M SORRY, BUT I AM REVEALING YOU xxx. THANK YOU!

Honestly I had never expected the answer in a million years nor would ever feel that I had to be the first person to admit that I forgot my own speeches and have not been listening to my own advice. Can't...how many times have I used that world in my life in Texas, too many to even admit.

Can't is a word that can hinder a weight loss plan. It is an easy word to just to get out of workouts - I can't today - just don't have time. I have definitely allowed it to hinder mine. Can't is a word so easy to use, so easy to define your mental attitude towards something and so easy to be the excuse out. Yesterday's post was an eye opener for me. It helped me realize how much I was depending on that word. While I recognize that today hasn't the best start to my eating, I can change the way I finish my day with food and exercise. I can walk, I can make healthy food choices and I can kick Can't to the curb!

In the spirit of Hollywood, goodbye Can't, hello Can!! Are you willing to celebrate Can?

A little bit of this, a little bit of that...

Do you ever wonder where time goes?  I am really beginning to wonder this sometimes.  Maybe that is why I feel scatter-brained - I am losing track of time and things.  Maybe I really am being abducted by ailens and I just don't know it.  Just Kidding.

So two weeks have gone by.  Well, let's see work - well it is there.  I still haven't made any decisions on what to do for my job.  So, I am learning to tell people nicely that I am willing to assist them and not interested in listening to them bitch.  (Maybe that is the glass half full coming through?)  I just don't think year end is the time to look for a job so we will see what happens after the first of the year.  Lowe's well it is there, kind of.  Honestly I have only worked two days out of the past two weeks and I am really okay with that.  I took a weekend off in the event we would of road tripped to Nebraska for the Texas game, which I am thankful we didn't.  Then this past weekend Big Country and his family came for a stay.  I think that I was running so much I didn't realize I was even off from there.

Big Country's visit was fabulous and I think they really had a nice time.  They got to my house pretty late on Friday so we just stayed up chatting until 1ish which is late for me.  Of course, being kids, I was greated with an "Aunt Jenn" way early in the morning (before 8) and wasn't prepared for it.  The same happened the next day in that they wanted me to walk the dogs....ugh no.  I gave them the scenic drive down Capital of Texas, headed to the original Salt Lick, took in the outlet mall, a few beers at Doc's on South Congress, saw the bats take flight and dinner at the Hula Hut.  Folks - that was all on Saturday...no wonder why I was tuckered out on Sunday!

As for the positive habits, yesterday was a good day.  It was Day one of change.  It was also a reminder of how I need to slow down and pay attention to the little details too!

Here is my summary for the positive habits:

Starting Weight (10/25):  187.7
Eating - Great.  Day 3 of no doughnuts!  Whoop!  I even had Multi-grain Cheerios and journaled EVERYTHING!  I went over in points but it is so much better than where I had been!
Exercise - 2 miles - 30 minutes.  It doesn't sound great but I was walking Guinness and she is the two poops on a walk kind of dog and you have to find "the spot" and circle a few times.  Plus some of the kids out on bikes had to say hi.
Cleaning - Does watering the lawn count?  Heaven knows I need either the rain gods to show or the money gods to show for underground sprinklers. 
Money - Okay.  I did splurge for Wing Stop but it was within my $ and I did journal it in my food.  Plus, I was able to avoid a crisis this morning discovered last night.  It is the little details.  I had thought I mailed my water bill in but then recieved the letter they hadn't received it and then forgot about it.  I remember last night before bed.  The deadline - 5 pm yesterday.  I have the worst water company in the world in that if you are 15 days late with payment - they shut your water off.  I have no idea why a deposit was required because it does nothing.  You can't pay by phone, or by the internet so I was just screwed, or so I thought.  So, after a few calls, I was able to get a hold of someone normal and they took my payment for last month and the bill I just received and helped me set up auto pay from my checking so I am good until December when the auto pay kicks in!  No more panicing on this every again.  Amen! 

So that being said, Day 2 of 21 days to a habit is off to a good start!  Both money & food wise!  Check back tomorrow for more.  :)

A new day, a new week, a new start

Wow - what a week.  It definitely has had its highs and lows but as always, I trudge through. 

So work, what do I say - the problem is still there and nothing really has changed.  But what I do about it, well the jury is still out on it.  Its a catch 22, do you look for the job and find the job that the grass is greener on the other side?  Or do you keep going and hope things get better.  Right now I have a great boss that is supportive of things and pretty much allows you to come and go as you need.  But would a new job have that same luxury?  Is it worth that chance?  Plus, in January I get that extra week of vacation.  Is it worth starting over there again?  Definitely not a decision that will be made any time soon.  I mean, let's be real, my resume is still from when I got the job in 2007, so some work would need to be done. I keep on, keepin on.

As for the 21 day challenge, well I needed to get my mind right.  Last week just wasn't it.  This week is better and I think I am ready to make that commitment tomorrow.  But, that doesn't mean that I have gone hog wild on food or anything like that.  I have been good about things.  Plus, Monday & Wednesday I stopped at Town Lake on my way home.  I did my 3 mile loop doing the couch to 5k progam.  My goal is to make this stop at least twice a week.  If anything - I get my workout in and the eye candy is nice.  :)  Plus, when I get home, the dogs are still getting a 1 1/2 mile walk.  So, 4 1/2 miles twice this week - well not too shabby.  I think I am moving in the right direction.

Now, tomorrow, I am trying something new and hopeful that maybe this can help relieve some of my pain.  My left heel/ankle is bothering me again - yes the one I spent 3 months in a walking boot with.  Then for good measure, the other hip is hurting me and it is starting to run down my leg.  Then there is the stress in my shoulders.  I think a razor blade might be a good description.  Or if you flick the muscle, it would snap.

This week we had a health fair.  So, one of the things they had you do is stand on this machine to see where you bear your weight.  So, when the lady asked me if I have ever had heel pain, I wasn't shocked.  Apparently a normal person carries their weight evenly on the balls of your feet and your heels.  Yep, mine is carried all on the heels and the outside of the feet.  Then for fun, I was shown how off kilter my spine really is.  So, tomorrow I am going for a free consultant with a chiropractor.  I am interested in hear what he has to say.  I told him my concern is the discs I already had surgery on and messing with them.  He has promised he only works on problem areas and helps stregthen the muscles where need be.  At this point - doesn't hurt to look into it if it makes me feel better.

A Crossroads

Well, the 21 day challenge is beginning today. The past few days have been an upside down kind of day and I just couldn't focus on anything, let alone what I was eating, what I was doing with anything.

First off, let me say that I wish I wasn't such a girl and cry when my emotions get the best of me. Boy is that what happened yesterday and I just couldn't shut them off. I still probably could cry about it. Really at the end of the day, it is going to require a decision, a huge decision and I just ask for prayers that, at the end of the day, it is the right decision for me.

I know WTF am I talking about - right.

Well, since I graduated from college in 1997, I have had a job with an Insurance company. Now granted, my job has always evolved and today I am removed from my account degree but I still work for an insurance company. After spending 5 years working in Internal Audit, I transitioned over to the IT world. So for Ameritas, I did a little bit of everything. Troubleshooting computers, working with phone and internet providers, Quality Assurance for a database, working in a contact management system, and the list goes on. I loved what I did, just not the boss I worked for.

Well, transition to my job at NFP. I was hired as an Administrator for our insurance database that allows offices to keep track of their clients, policies, etc. Well, with the recession, my job transitioned to a new department. Instead of being aligned directly with the Insurance Channel, I was moved over to the Technology umbrella. At the end of the day, I was suppose to support the database but was now being required to support about 20 other applications. For the past three years, in this new role, the time that was devoted to the database has become less and less. In a nutshell, every time something came up, the response was J has the bandwidth and the database got shoved a little farther off my table.

This year, my job has just sucked, no sugar coating it. One of the business channels forced their members to use encryption software. Imagine coordinating this new service for 450 offices, which almost all of them have a different email service provider. Sucked. Of course, people are mad about being forced to use it and guess who leads it because they had the bandwidth - yep me. So, now a huge part of my day is spent resetting passwords to open secure emails, opening tickets to determine why an email was caught as Spam, etc. It sucks.

Then, in July, we changed our log in process to be similar to banks, a dual authentication code log in process. Of course, up to this point, we never really enforced if a reps assistant called to reset their reps log in information - now we suddenly are. The people in the field struggle with it and constantly lock themselves out of the password and security questions. And they yell. And they scream. And they hang up. And their mad because they can’t do it for their rep. Guess who also leads this because they have the bandwidth? Yep, me.

So, in four years, I have gone from being a consultant, providing training, working with offices on a database to having my job digress to something I don't need a degree to do and consistently have people yell at me. The light at the end of the table was that at least part of the database was still on my table and there was hope that things would become more involved with it in the next six months. So, yesterday, it was shoved so far that it is just barely clinging to my table.

I spent probably close to an hour and a half in the boss' office on it. Of course, I cried about it, and cried and sniffled some more. It just sucks. The part of my job that I loved best will no doubt fall completely off in the next year. Oh my boss appreciates me and understands that I am capable of much more. But, he doesn't see it changing for what I am doing for the next three months. Then, basically I will get assigned the tasks and jobs he doesn't have time for on a day to day basis. Fanfuckentabulous. So, do I start looking? Do I accept the job for what it is and stick with it and just accept that I am 100% technology? Do I go down kicking & screaming on this database? Am I willing to go back to school so I can understand the technical side of life? Or is this God's way of saying become a teacher? Do I move back to Nebraska because at the end of the day, it was the job that kept me here?

If God could just good just let me see my future in a dream so I know what to do, that would be really great.  So, at this point, I can just ask for Prayers that I make the right choice in the cross-roads.

And so we begin....AGAIN

Well, it was Day 5, 6, & 7 that resulted in a crash.  Of course yesterday wasn't any better and this morning started off just as equally as bad!  So - we begin again - Day 1!

It was and continues to be the food that is the issue.  The money, everything else is going well!  So, starting at 10:25 am, I am making a change for the better of me.

So - my horrible breakfast included my damn three doughnuts and string cheese.  However, that is the end.  The rest of the day will be good and tomorrow is going to be better.  As for exercise - I am going to have to find something different than the Self workout that I have been doing.  Since doing the jumping rope and jumping jacks, my knees have been killing me.  Last night, it took everything I had to just finish the walk.  So, obviously that isn't going to work. 

I'll be back later today for the final update of Day 1.

For the record, since I am putting this all out there, starting weight 187.0.  :(

Day 4....Damn You Doughnuts

Yes, the doughnuts won the battle again.  I woke horrible stuffy and had to stop at the grocery to get something to wipe the sinus headache.  Of course, while I was there - why not get 3 doughtnuts.  Ugggh!  The rest of the day wasn't too bad.  Lunch we ordered from FreeBirds.  Nothing like a freedom salad loaded with Jalepenos to clean out the sinus'.  Supper, it had to be quick so I went with a bowl of cereal.  Not the best choice but it would have to do. 

For exercise I was suppose to do a 30 minute training session on the on demand Fit TV.  Of course, I don't have it, so that was out.  So, instead I did a quick mile and a half walk with the dogs before I headed to softball.  I was wiped when I got home so I need to go back and do the strength training some time this weekend to make that piece up.

Here is my summary for the positive habits:

Eating - Good execept for them pesky doughnuts
Exercise - 1 1/2 miles, and 50 minutes of softball
Cleaning - Did a little vacuuming (can I say I love this thing!) and two loads of laundry
Money - Good, outside of the morning doughtnuts, I paid my $30 for softball and paid some bills.

My other note is that me and my HOA are really going to go to battle.  I got a certified letter because my garbage can was in front of my garage.  What a joke considering the neighbors behind me haven't mowed since I submitted my last complaint.

And yes, to be consistent, I can already tell you, damn you doughnuts.  I threw in the towel and just went for them today with a clean start tomorrow.  :)

Day Three

Well, if I go with the theme from the past two days, the day went well, there is room for improvement but it could of been worse.  But, while I was running, I realized that I am kidding myself.  The tire I carry around my belly, yes that is a direct looks like one of the doughnuts I consume every day.  Guilty as charged.  It probably wouldn't be so bad if it was one, or maybe two, but yes three doughnuts every morning.  So, there you have it.  It is my vice and I guess if I am going to make it a new habit, the doughnuts have to go.  Tomorrow it is.

So today I had my favorite salad...it is so easy and yummy and really not too bad for ya.  I buy the small lettuce bags from HEB.  They are a 1.02 and make either two small salads or a big salad.  So for lunch, I have a big salad.  I then throw in 3 ozs of chicken.  Oscar Meyer has this pre-cooked cold packs that are yummy.  Throw in some blue cheese crumbles, some strawberries and a light balsamic vinegar....tasty.

Exercise for the day, Self day 3.  It wasn't as bad as I thought it could be.  Today it was a 5 minute warm up and a five minute cool down.  In between, it was two minutes running, two minutes walking, repeating 7 times.

Here is my summary for the positive habits:


Eating - Okay but room for improvement
Exercise - 48 minutes, 3 1/2 miles
Cleaning - Cleaned the kitchen, vacuumed and 3 loads laundry
Money - Good, outside of the morning doughtnuts, I picked up salsa and a dessert at the grocery store on the way home.

Now, on to more important things, does someone want two dogs?  They are ready to send me over the edge.

Day two

Well, day two was an okay day.  The eating wasn't perfect but it was better than not trying.  I successfully stayed away from the vending machine (win) and I passed on eating out for lunch (win).  So while the food eating wasn't perfect, it could of been worse.  Exercise for the day was a zero.  It was a Lowe's day which means I have enough time at home between the two jobs to change clothes, grab something to eat and feed the pups.  Of course, another win would probably be that I didn't grab something to eat via the local drive thru which unfortunately has been the norm on Lowe's days. 

Here is my summary for the positive habits:
Eating - Okay but room for improvement
Exercise - Zero  (Lowe's Day)
Cleaning - Zero (Lowe's Day)
Money - Good, earning money at Lowe's and didn't spend any

Now, I hope I have a good report for later today because right now I am exhausted and just want a nap!