Yule!

This Yule has been a good one, so far. I am still employed. My weight is holding steady at around 385--which is a good thing, because it means I'm not gaining anything back.

One of my co-workers has taken an interest in my heathenry--not a "ooh, I want to play!" interest. Just a "hey, that's cool" interest. Which is nice, because at least there is one co-worker of mine that I know won't hassle me. And of course there's a Pentecostal that just started--I haven't spoken to her yet, and I don't know that I want to, because I don't really want to be "witnessed to". I was a Christian once, I found it to be an abusive relationship, and I do not wish to go back to it.

Let's move on.

Yesterday I put the sheets in the washer as part of the "12 Cleaning Days of Yule". I couldn't find my cell phone. I figured it was on the floor in the bedroom, and paid it no mind. Then I went to get the sheets out of the washer--and there was Emil (my phone), at the bottom of the washing machine...dead as the proverbial doornail. And did I have Device Protection on it?  Of course not. So now, because I don't want to have to pay $300 to get a new phone when I'll be eligible for an upgrade in January, I'm just going to wait until the first week of January and get a new phone...and put Device Protection on it.

Have a joyous Yule, all.

Well.

Hail, day!

Hail, sons of day!

And night and her daughter now!

Look on us here

with loving eyes,

That waiting we victory win.

-

Hail to the gods!

Ye goddesses, hail,

And all the generous earth!

Give to us wisdom

and goodly speech,

And healing hands, life-long. --Sigrdrifa's Prayer

Much has happened since last I posted. A good deal. I fell off the fitness wagon--and it's my own fault, because I was inattentive. I've gotten back on the horse and rededicated myself to my old oath, which task has been made easier now by one person:

My husband.

This past week he got the results of his latest round of labs back, and the news was not at all good. Our doctor had a long conversation with him (and then with me) and told him that he had to make changes to his lifestyle and eating habits if he wanted to avoid a heart attack and diabetes. He had to drop the pop (for my friends in the South, that'd be sodas), stop treating peanut-butter M&Ms as a food group, and start exercising. In other words, he needed to start listening to me or he'd wind up six feet under and pushing up petunias sooner rather than later.

So now I'm trying to educate him about what is good to eat--at least, from things he is willing to eat--and I'm trying to see if I can tweak some old classics to be more agreeable to his health and mine. For example, pot roast. He and I both love it, and I do try to go with lean cuts to make it so that the fat content isn't egregious but still enough to give some flavour to the meat.

I've also been trying to perfect a spice rub made with ground ginger, cinnamon, dry mustard, and Montreal Steak seasoning. Hubby seems to like it, and the salt content isn't egregious because the Montreal Steak seasoning has salt in it (and I only use a tablespoon of it if that in the rub). Of course, my definition of "egregious" is a tad lower than what most doctors would consider "egregious"--but that's an old habit from when I lived in North Dakota. My hometown was getting its water (at the time) from wells that were, for lack of a better description, going through salt deposits. So the sodium content of the local was the highest of any town in the state, and the town's residents had the highest rates of hypertension in the state too. Gee, wonder why?  They get their water from the lake now, and the salt content is way low as a result--but I still tend to under-salt (or not even salt) food, out of habit.

Aside from the food changes for him, I've also convinced him to go to the gym with me--even if he doesn't walk very long before his asthma decides to give him trouble, he'll at least be walking and he'll get his gym membership on the cheap because of a promotion they're having right now where I can refer a friend or relative and they get a great deal. We'll be going later today, after he gets home from work.

Moving right along. My weight's hovering at around 400ish now (I say "ish" because it ranges from 395 to 405 from week to week), which makes my total weight loss since January around 50 pounds. Go me, go me. At work they've started a "Fall Into Fitness" event...and I am apparently the only person who cared enough to sign up for it. Which is very sad, if you ask me. I even sent out a challenge to my teammates, where all interested parties put $30 in the pot. Whoever beats my weight loss at the end of the promotion wins the money. If I win, the money goes to the American Diabetes Association. Nobody cared to respond. I was saddened by it, to be quite honest.

But we'll see. Perhaps when I get to work Friday (after my four-day weekend), I'll be pleasantly surprised. I hope.

And in a month, I'll be going out to the Bay Area to see the Hurricanes take on the Sharks in San Jose and hang out with several friends that I have there (including a few heathens--hail the folk!) It'll be a grand adventure, and I'm gearing up for some serious walking around and picture taking and possibly some video too. I'm really looking forward to it.

Budgeting Is Hard, Part 2: Menu Planning

Yeah, so last time I posted I talked about setting up a budget--and finding out that I go through a paycheck in like a day.

That's no fun of course, so I've learned to pack my own lunch and try to stretch things out from paycheck to paycheck. Woo, go me.

This half of the month is being devoted to menu planning to stretch out my dollars and make sure that I'm making stuff that is good for me (and that I like). Genghis can come along if he wants, but otherwise?  Fuhgeddaboudit. In the morning (because I was slack and didn't do it today), I have to call my doc and reschedule for some labs to be done--because my primary care doc won't do outside labs. So the band is in a holding pattern until I get those labs done (cos the bariatric doc wants a lipid panel).

Anyway. This evening is being taken up with laundry and dishes (which I do every Wednesday, because it's easier for me to do it late at night when I don't have to work the next day), and the fridge is being cleaned out. As soon as it cools off I'm taking a walk and I'll take the trash to the dumpster while I'm on my evening meander.  For those of you who don't live here, when it's hot and humid here...you don't go out on a walkabout unless you want to fall out from heat prostration, water or no water. So it's easier and safer, ironically, to walk at night when it's cool(er) and the humidity is--in theory at least--a tad lower.

Got below 400 last week, which makes me happy (and I think an old friend of mine somewhere just fainted). I'm camped right around 398 or so, which is fine--progress is good, staying even is good. As long as I'm not headed back up...because that would just suck balls. Anyway--back to the topic at hand: menu planning.

This is something where I have to try not to go too far in favour of things I adore (pasta, fish, salads, yoghurt, and of course meat because I'm an omnivore), and try to balance everything out. That's going to be hard. Also hard is the fact that I have a paucity of utensils to cook with. I swear, I'll have popeye arms when I'm all done with this, from all the hand-mixing. I mean, I'm just sayin'!

Wonder if Genghis will be amenable to a trip to get a stand mixer...and a new knife, because the ones I have are all dulled thanks to SOMEBODY *glares in the general direction of the other human in the apartment* insists on continuing to put them in the sink after I tell him "DO NOT PUT THE KNIVES IN THE SINK".

More later.

Budgeting is hard.

I've started using mint.com to draw up a personal budget--because as my friends can all tell you, I live on the internets.

Uhh...damn. I had no idea just how much I was spending on what is really bullshit until I did that. $200 a month in the cafeteria at work?  What?  OH HELL NO, SON. Time to start taking my lunch to work and saving the cafeteria for once a week if that--and bringing my own yoghurt from home, since I seem to be buying yoghurt like umpty times a day from there. $41.95 every three months for WoW is doable. $60 a month for the cell phone is doable. I can fit in $100 worth of groceries in a month--and not any bullshit kind of processed nonsense, either. But $200 in the cafeteria at work?  Uhh...no thanks. Love the folks that work there (except the manager--I find her to be singularly annoying and, frankly, a little patronizing whenever I have to deal with her). The money I'm spending?  Not so much.

Weekly weigh-in has me at 405 now. Yay, progress!

Currently trying to save money to get a car. Wish me luck.

Tip The Scales

I have a bunch of thoughts swirling around in my head, trying to coalesce into something resembling a blog post. So if this sounds a little disjointed, I apologize in advance.

First things first: I'm holding steady at 410, which is good. Not great, but it means that I haven't gained back everything that I've lost since January. I finally have a scale, which is good because it means that I can weigh myself weekly rather than waiting for the next doctor's appointment and hoping that their scale will have a high enough capacity. The walking has been off--I've been trying, but not very hard, and that is my fail. Genghis still won't take me to the gym, which bugs the piss out of me because I WANT to hit the treadmill and the bikes. When the most exercise I get is twice a week when I go to the physical terrorist, combined with walking around the call center whenever I get a chance and my housework, there's a problem. I'm not progressing like I want to be, which bothers me greatly. But we'll see--when I get a car, whenever that will be, things will change.

Moving on: I did up a budget to track my spending, and realized how frelling much I was spending dining out--the cafeteria at work, forays to Subway et al, and other random bullshit. It wigged me out. So now I've been putting everything on lockdown and I'm breaking out the cookbooks to formulate grocery lists so I can do all my cooking at home.

If Genghis wants to go to McD's and wherever, let him.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to have a sleep study done. It was quite the adventure. Whenever I can figure out how to get all the photos up here from my phone, I'll post them. The only bad thing about the study was that after it was done I had all this paste in my hair from the electrodes--I couldn't get it washed out no matter how hard I tried, so I had to wait for it to dry and then comb it out...which took like three days.

This past Thursday, I went to review the results and was told that I need a CPAP machine. Wonderful.  So Tuesday after this coming, I get to go back and have another study done where they'll fit me for a facehugger.

And by facehugger, I do not mean this:

I mean this:

Which is good, because I don't want this:

That would be bad. Very, very bad.

Of course, this is not stopping me from trying to find a prop facehugger to clamp on my grill right after they fit the mask and having the tech take a picture of it to send to all my friends. *grin*

BUT ANYWAY.

I thought I would have more of an update, but I don't. Shame on me.

Turn and face the change

Today I decided that if I couldn't go out and walk (because of a lovely air quality warning), I'd stay in and see what constructive things I could do.

I've cleaned the kitchen and picked up the trash that Genghis likes to dump in the corner by my disco throne--no, he can't be arsed to walk an extra two feet and put it in the trashbin. He just dumps it on the floor in the corner unless I yell at him. Then he grumbles while taking his detritus to the trashbin. Mind you, I am no great shakes either when it comes to tidiness (see the attached picture of my desktop). But I've started making a conscious effort to clean shit up around here, because I can't take care of the body without attending to the spirit as well--and a nasty home is a sign of an ailing spirit. I'm trying to mend body AND spirit, here.

(my desktop--the spraybottle is for when I catch a cat doing something he shouldn't be doing. And yes, that's a cable box in the right-hand side of the picture. My monitor doubles as an HDTV.)

And frankly, I'm just tired of seeing things go to shit around this place. Thus, the kitchen-cleaning (and attendant dishwashing and laundry-washing), and an attempt to get stuff organized and put away from when we moved in here last August. The big thing will be the second room, which has boxes piled up in it that have gone unpacked--I think I will be putting a bunch of stuff up on eBay and getting some flat-rate boxes from the post office so I can try to make some money off of the clutter. Anyone up for some miniatures?  I have a metric fuckton of them, all still in the wrapping. Thank you Ral Partha for the years you had me on the "free stuff" mailing list.

Slow and steady wins the race.

And now is part where we dance

...because I'm bound and determined to not be mopey.

So. I haven't been to the gym in 2 weeks--not since we turned in the rental car that we had while Genghis' car was in the shop. I asked Genghis once if he would take me to the gym, and the reaction was about what I expected: a no. Because, of course, he only has so much time off from work and he has things he wants to do and he doesn't want to have to ferry me all over half the ferk ding blastin' Triangle.

I've resumed walking around the call center on breaks and at lunch, with occasional forays up to the 3rd floor to visit a friend of mine who works in sales, but it's not the same. I don't feel the same sense of accomplishment from the breaktime meanderings that I feel when I've been on the treadmill for half an hour and the bikes for as long as I can last (i.e. until my legs turn to jello) and so on. The compliments from co-workers are nice. The attaboys are good too. But it's not the same. WANT MOAR FIT PLZ.

So to rectify the situation I'm finally (now that the Department of Edumacation has finally told the Treasury Department to stop taking my tax refunds) sitting down to file my income taxes for the last six-odd years, and I'm going to use the refund money to see if I can't make a down payment on a car. Not some cheap-ass hooptie that'll fall apart, but something decent.

It's all part of the Master Plan.