Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Things I'm Doing Today Instead Of Homework

-Painting my new room
-Watching Olympic athletes fall on a variety of courses
-Hanging out with friends
-Letting Darcey sit on my lap
-Replying to customer emails - apparently my customer service quality increases when I've got something I'm avoiding
-Trolling on Facebook
-Getting my hair cut
-Listening to an audiobook ("Warbreaker" if you care)
-Re-reading old blog posts
-Making phone calls for cub scouts
-Making the kids clean the house - it's mostly their mess anyway
-Avoiding doing the dishes
-Writing this blog entry

And now I think I've run out of other things to do.

Monday, February 8, 2010

Come Monday

If there's one thing I love, it's being completely different than everybody else. (If there's a second thing I love, it's fitting in - try and explain that, will you?) I wake up today and see everyone's Facebook status complaining about it being Monday morning again and I just don't relate. I love Mondays.

Monday is a bright, shiny package waiting to be opened and revealing the brand-new week that I've always wanted. On Monday, everything is possible. It is possible that I will do all the things on my unrealistically long to-do list. It is possible that I will go to the gym every day and make healthy food for dinner that the kids will actually like. It is possible that I will finally update my Quickbooks files and return the overdue book to the library and organize the medicine cabinet. On Monday I am full of energy and enthusiasm and productivity. I love Monday.

By about Thursday, the glow of the week has definitely faded. I start to see the reality of the week. I've already missed a day (or three) at the gym. My to-do list is almost as long as it was on Monday. Not only have my dinners missed the mark, I've forgotten several ingredients and now I'm making boxed mac and cheese until I can find the energy to go back to the store. Which I won't find, because the energy of Monday has completely evaporated, along with the enthusiasm and productivity.

By the weekend, which everyone on FB is celebrating, I'm a worn-out shell, beaten down by unfulfilled expectations and the prospect of 48 hours of non-stop parenting. Sunday, and I say this with so much sadness, is the worst day of them all. My energy is actually in reverse that day, Sunday sucks energy out of me. The enforced non-productivity really throws me and we've had so many bad Sundays that there's very little enthusiasm left for that day. A lot of my Sunday-frustration has to do with the high expectations that our religion puts on Sunday being a day of rest dedicated to God. I feel extreme guilt when my day doesn't measure up. I'm working to come up with a better plan for Sunday - I think it's a day (for our family, at least) that needs forethought in order to work right. The last thing God wants on the Sabbath is for us to be miserable in His name.

Anyhow, I love Mondays. They get a bad rap, but mostly from those people who do things like work, you know, at a job with a cubicle and dress code and set hours. I'm going to carry the torch for Monday, it's such a great day. But what am I still doing, sitting here? It's Monday, I've got a million things to do if I'm going to get through that to-do list this week!

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Yeah, Yeah, I'm Dieting Again

I went back to Weight Watchers on Monday and back to the gym on Wednesday. Sigh. I figure it's very trendy and Oprah-esque to announce each weight loss attempt and then publicly shame myself by how much weight I've gained back. I just need a magazine cover on which I can proudly display my fat jeans a year from now.

Seriously, if Oprah can't keep her weight off, how do regular people expect to do it? She has enough money to hire an entire Gold's Gym staff to live in her house. She has famous personal chefs cooking her every meal. She could hire people to spoon feed her every single bite. She could lay in bed and have people exercise her limbs for her. Honestly, if all the money of the richest woman in the world can't buy motivation and willpower, how do I think $9 a week at Weight Watchers is going to do it?

Well. Maybe she's got bigger problems than all that. All I know is, I'm finally feeling like I can do this, which is a huge sign of my emotional well-being. I'm thrilled that I finally feel normal enough to diet again. Yay! Bring on the self-sacrifice!

On the other hand, I've got a huge sign of my physical non-well-being, in the shape of my butt. And thighs and chins and various other oversized body parts. I've been hanging onto pregnancy weight from Darcey and have added several pounds of my own to the mix. I've weighed more than I've wanted to for a couple of years now but it didn't really bother me too much until I started seeing true "fat person" markers on my own body. Take me in a particular pair of jeans, for example. Used to be they'd fit just fine. Now I look at myself in the mirror and notice that a significant portion of my waist is bulging over the waistband. I've only seen that on the girls at the mall who are wearing pants that are too tight and shirts that don't cover enough. It's like the surface tension that had been holding my waist-fat back has finally broke, and now it's all spilling over my jeans. (You'd never know this because I, unlike those hoochie girls at the mall, wear shirts that hide things like overflowing fat. You're welcome.)

The other thing that signalled the end of fun times for me, and this might be straying into the TMI gray zone, is that my underwear started to not fit anymore. This is a problem for me mentally - if a piece of clothing made entirely of elastic can no longer stretch to encompass my girth, that's a sign. For some reason, this is a bigger deal to me mentally than having to supersize my other clothes. I don't know why: underwear is cheap and virtually disposable. Jeans, on the other hand, cost real dollars and I can wear them for a couple of years. And yet, when my jeans are too tight I buy new ones. Maybe it's the whole "they shrunk in the wash" conceit that allows me to buy new, larger jeans but not new, larger underwear. But I think I'm mostly offended that stretchiness has a limit, and my body has exceeded it.

Okay, that's enough underwear talk. It's making me uncomfortable, which means it's probably making you uncomfortable. Let's just forget I even mentioned it, yes? So yeah, weight loss. Diet and exercise, the two most over-prescribed medications for every ailment. I'm hoping my lack of grand pronouncements (over live television, for example) will help me actually stick to my goals. But I'd be happy to take Oprah's personal chef, if she's done with him.