Snow Delay

I don’t know if you heard, but it snowed.  A lot.

And I was so busy trapped in my house doing nothing that I didn’t get to write anything.  Which is admittedly lame.

So I am going to be all efficient here and update you on EVERYTHING.  Aren’t you excited?

So…

RESOLUTION #1 – Current Events

My new assignment is to write about the Olympics.  The business end of the Olympics.  I will have to figure out what that means.  I guess sponsorships and licensing and Canadian tourism.

Did I ever mention that I am strangely fascinated with Canada?  It’s like an exotic (and cold) version of America.  I think.  I’ve never actually been there, but it is so very enticing to me.  French accents and socialized medicine and staying out of drama.  Love that.

But probably not in the winter.

RESOLUTION #6 – Game Night

As I mentioned on one of the few times I did get my act together to post, we had a successful round 2 of Family Game Night.  I think round 3 is tomorrow. The kids just went back to school (YAY!) for the first time in a week…so I don’t know what the homework situation is going to be.  Could be ugly.

RESOLUTION #7 – Follow a Fitness Program

Well…I am sort of doing OK on this one.  I did the “Shred” 4 days last week and shoveled snow on a 5th day.  I know this because I went out a week or so ago (when travel was still possible) and purchased a little pocket-sized weekly calendar.  And every day after I do my workout, I write it in the little book.  Easy accountability.

I did this a couple of years and found that it was really helpful to keep track of how frequently I was exercising.  It’s easy to tell yourself that you just exercised a day or so ago – but if it is written down, you will see when you have gone days and days without moving off of the couch.

At the end of the year, it was interesting to sit down and calculate an average # of workouts per week.  I was up to 4.5 on average a year or so ago…but I don’t think I am there now.  We’ll see!

I am getting a bit bored with Jillian.  There are three different workouts on the 30 Day Shred DVD and they are all good in a kicking-your-ass sort of way. But doing the same three workouts over and over is a little dull.  I am resisting my urge to self-prescribe some other form of exercise.  The whole point here is to FOLLOW A PLAN, not make one up as I go along.

The 400 Calorie Fix thing is going OK, I guess.

Pros:

• Having a specific goal for how much to eat at each meal.
• Having a specific number of times to eat per day.
• Flexibility
• Easy rules

Cons:

• Challenging to eat out – we went out for dinner on Valentine’s Day and I just tried to eat a reasonable amount of a reasonable sounding dinner.  And I skipped my “snack” that day since we ate lunch late…but I have no idea how many calories were involved…
• Too easy to justify eating junk – as long as it’s only 400 calories of junk it’s OK.  Which I guess is better than 800 or 1000 calories of junk.  But it’s still junk.  Fabulously delicious junk.

And then there is the fact that I keep wanting to fiddle with the rules.  Again with the self-prescription.

And yes, I could have a smaller snack and a bigger dinner.  Or a bigger breakfast and a smaller lunch.  But the point here is not to lose the weight (although that would be fun), it’s to FOLLOW THE FREAKING RULES.  Really.  And it’s just ONE RULE.  Am I so defective that I can’t do that for one month? THE SHORTEST MONTH??? Geez.

I have stayed steadily about 2 pounds down from my normal range…which isn’t huge, but it’s something.  I would love for some lightning bolt to hit and to be down 5…but it seems unlikely.  Maybe in vegetarian month (#17)…or whole foods month (#21).

I am scared of those.

RESOLUTION #8 – No Multi Tasking

Well, I am sitting here eating lunch, typing and monitoring dogs.  So not all that single-focused.  But I don’t have my Blackberry in my hand.  And I am not checking People.com every few sentences.  So that’s progress.

I tried REALLY hard to keep the BB pocketed while at home – and that is a work in progress.  I am looking for a job (gasp…horror!) and I am quite frantic that I am going to miss some key piece of information.  I also have a new Social Media client (www.funandfunction.com) and I don’t want to drop the ball on them.  So there are (sort of) justifiable reasons for checking in.  But I am working on it.

This was especially hard with the kids home for days and days and days.  I don’t want to ignore them completely to do other things. But the world can’t come to a halt because they are here. Right?

RESOLUTION #9 – Tea Ritual

“Ritual” makes it sound far more involved than this actually is.  Like we are wearing kimonos and bowing to one another or something.

Not so much.

Mike has been making the tea (yay, Mike!) and we have been hanging out before bedtime.  It isn’t a “ritual” yet, and there are nights when it just can’t happen in a couple-y sort of way.  But then I just have my tea myself and read a book or watch the Good Wife with the dogs (they can’t get enough of that show).  And Cougartown.  Dixie LOVES Cougartown.

Mike’s two (yes TWO) bands (this one and this one) had gigs this past weekend.  So I was on my own Friday and Saturday nights.  Well, as “on my own” as you can be with two kids and two dogs.  Which is actually not all that alone.  So my tea was a lone event, but that was OK.

I purchased the DVDs for the first season of Mad Men and our plan is to watch that a couple of nights a week during tea time.  We’ll see how that goes!

So, a little more than halfway through February and things are moving along.  I am still trying to resist shopping (#4), but I did get sucked into the clearance sale at Old Navy yeserday.  Seriously…like a tractor beam was pulling me.  Scary.

I am still planning to get a trainer to come to the house to help me with my evil and unkempt puppy (#5).  But first I probably need to nail down that job…I think she’s going require multiple training sessions.

Now I have to go get ready to deliver pretzels to a very late Valentine’s Day party.  This will require me to shower and dress myself in under 30 minutes…which might require just an itty bitty bit of multitasking!