weight loss

Diagnosis: Funk

Damn these moods. I really, REALLY need to come up with the wherewithal to jumpstart myself out of a funk, once I recognize said funk.

Turns out that pulling a double-shift of sorts to complete a contracting project is A Bad Idea™, as the project will then have major issues and need to be fixed by someone else before going off to proof. Submitting B-minus work in Real Life has much different connotations than in college. In college, it’s just your grade. In Real Life, it’s your reputation.

Adding to my funk is the fact that my weight loss has plateaued before it ever really began. Starting March 1st, James and I have been having a friendly wager as to who can amass the most SparkPoints in the month of March. It’s less of a weight-loss contest and more of a contest of wills. Who is more involved in reaching their fitness goals? Right now, it’s James, totally. We were neck and neck for the first week of March, then I started lagging behind because of the same reasons I always stall out: I have other things to do, or I’m in a funk and can’t make myself exercise, or lack of planning convinced me to make a fast and evil dinner (like tuna mac).

My next dietary step is to increase my fiber and my protein. My next exercise step is to get back to doing it every day, like I’d been so enjoying for a week there. My next webstuff step is to do some minor updates on the LSM site, then complete a working demo of my freelance client’s website (the stylesheets, not all the content yet) by Sunday night.

Tonight was a night for myself to chill. And for cooking. Tomorrow’s potluck will have at least two reasonably healthy dishes: mine and James’s.

*le sigh*

ruminations 4 Comments

Flashback: Procrastination

I’m reminded of several unfortunate moments in my academic career where I assumed that a project would be much simpler than it turned out to be. No, not simpler, per se, but less time-consuming. Where you sit down a couple nights before it’s due and say, “OK, time to crank this bad boy out.” Then, once you’ve started, you look at the scope of the project and realize that you may not get the luxury of sleep in the next day or two.

I just had a moment like that.

There are times when sticking by your guns and not working until a particular issue (say, the issue of getting paid) gets resolved ends up backfiring. This is one of those times.

Tomorrow evening is going to be spent working on my next contracting project, the one that my contact suggested I might want to start on over this past weekend. I’m going to be possibly eating dinner at my desk, and definitely working from 6pm through to 10pm, at which point I hope to be finished and able to go to bed. If not… I’ll stay up until it IS finished. The proof is due Thursday.

Now I know. Sometimes I can be such a stubborn dumbass. *shakes head*

japan trip 2007 4 Comments

T-minus 10 Weeks and Counting

The plane tickets have been purchased. The hotel reservations have been confirmed. The Dynamic Tokyo Tour is a go.

OMFG, we’re going to Japan!!

Wednesday, May 16: Arrive in Tokyo. Limo-bus to hotel. Check in, get our culture shock going on. Locate dinner.
Thursday: Guided tour. Begins at 9am. Ends late afternoon in Ginza. First major task: getting “home” from Ginza.
Friday: Still open. Maybe Akihabara? Maybe Ghibli Museum?
Saturday: Also still open. Perhaps book Saturday night at the Ryokan Asakusa Shigetsu.
Sunday: Visit Harajuku and the Meguro Parasitological Museum?
Monday: Possibly a day trip to Nikko, or just catching up on whatever we haven’t done yet.
Tuesday: Check out, have lunch, and catch the limo-bus back to Narita Airport for our flight home at 4pm.

As Sheryl would say… ::flail::

…

WTF am I going to do with the 2500 WorldPerks Bonus Miles I’m going to earn from this trip?

health & fitness 1 Comment

The Root Of The Problem Has Been Isolated

I think I’m discovering that diet and exercise both play an important role in my mood. To some people, I’m sure my discovery seems like a big *DUH* moment. Really, though, I never thought about it much beyond the whole concept of blood sugar levels. Now that I’m in kind of a fitness groove, though, I’m finding that throwing a monkeywrench into my routine can really screw up my mojo.

Today’s example begins with an early day: doctor’s visit before work. Getting up early actually made my morning better, and I think I’ll try to keep up with the early rising. (Those of you who know me well may scoff at that. It’s cool. I don’t mind.) My breakfast-at-my-desk was a little too light: a breakfast bar. I had my morning snack a little earlier than usual, and still I was intensely and painfully hungry by lunchtime. My afternoon snack was pretty lame: a sugar-free pudding. So, when I got home, I was completely unprepared for my normal workout while dinner was cooking. I ended up eating a large snack, then foregoing the workout (I told myself I’d do it later, but I was lying) and making a dinner with waaaay too many calories from fat.

So, how do I feel? Unmotivated. Kinda lethargic. Only three or four hours ago, I was geeked to the gills to start a new phase of my freelance project. Now, I’d much rather shovel down a bag of cinnamon pork rinds and sit in front of the TV. I’m convinced this is directly related to my small breakfast and impotent afternoon (pre-workout) snack. Those two small links in my day caused a chain reaction that played on my not having planned an appropriate dinner ahead of time, and allowed me to say, “Fuck it. I’m having alfredo for dinner.”

The trick now is figuring out what I’m willing to do to shake this funk and get back to work. I’ve already lost a good part of the evening hours. I think I’m going to bust off a couple basic exercises — maybe some girlie pushups, maybe some stiff-legged deadlifts, and a few sets of crunches — then drink a glass of water (bringing me to eight today!) and get to work on this project.

*deep breath*

Let’s do it.

the ongoing saga of my job

Freelancing Update

Looks like the HR issues I was having with my contracting job may have been ironed out. I wasn’t able to connect with the contact person to do the training on how to use the online timeclock, but she had sent me the Word file that explained the process. I had thought that a phone conference with this person was a requirement… but it seems that I am able to log in and record my hours, so that issue may be resolved.

This is good, since I finished a four-hour project this past Wednesday and have already been presented with another, more involved but similar project due by next Thursday.

My main contact there said that they could potentially give me enough work for a 40-hour week, but also mentioned that the summer months are the slow season for their firm. I’m not comfortable with the idea of relying on freelance and contract work to keep me financially afloat, even with a relatively steady inflow of work from this particular firm. Like I’ve said before: if it were just me, I might be more inclined to take the plunge. But I’m beyond the carefree “oh shit how do I buy food this week” days of my youth, and I can’t afford to jeopardize my half of the mortgage and car and insurance payments, or my student loans and credit cards and whatnot. That narrow window of financial spontaneity has officially closed, and I now crave stability.

I also have new comps due to my freelance client by Monday. They happened to choose the design I liked the least, but because its main features (rounded corners) matched some of their previous marketing materials. Once I had a copy of their existing flyer to give me ideas, and vector versions of the logo and logotype, along with their ideas on what they wanted to incorporate into the new comps from the old, I felt much more prepared to give them what they wanted.

It’s shaping up to be another working weekend of sorts. As long as I’m getting paid, though, I’m OK with it.