Random Check-In

It's been awhile again since I've had the gumption to post here. I have a little more time than usual today because I'm sitting at home with a horrible cold. My son had it at the end of last week, and he's just not very good about containing his germs. I've been doing so well about hitting my goal of 60 minutes of exercise every day for months now, but since doing some gentle dance moves for about three minutes left me worn out, I'm thinking I might have to break my streak today. 😦However, I would like to kiss the person who invented cold medicine; after I'm no longer contagious of course. That medicine is currently making the difference between feeling bad and feeling awful.

In better news, I only have about four more pounds to go to reach the lower-end of my goal weight range.. Our weight-loss contest at work is over, so now I'm on my own. But I'm glad; while that team competition was just what I needed to get started, I'm ready to do this on my own terms now. The competition cost $70 to participate in, with a $10,000 prize for the 1st place team. We ended up being 19th out of 251 teams, so not too shabby. Although I wasn't ever going for the prize; none of the people on my team started off big enough to make that realistic. I was going for losing 10% of my body weight and keeping it off for 6 months which means that the entry fee is returned. I lost over 13% during the competition, and I intend to keep it plus a little more off indefinitely, so I should end up with a net $0 investment.

I charted my weight-loss and calculated the regression line, and determined that I should reach my goal weight of 122 pounds by May 13th if I keep on the same trajectory. But weight-loss isn't necessarily linear, so at this point I'm just hoping for about two or three more weeks, or mid-May to go on to maintenance mode.

Now for a rant because I'm mad at Netflix. (Like the title indicated, this is a random check-in.) I love horror books and movies. Horror books are generally pretty good, and it's fairly easy to spot the pulp. But horror movies can be a real crap-shoot as to whether or not they're even watchable. The best horror movies are fairly intellectual like The Exorcist, The Omen, The Conjuring, The Others, or the first 7/8ths of Insidious (the ending of that movie would have been better if they continued to leave the monsters in the dark and allowed the viewer's imagination to do the work). There are campy horror movies that are also enjoyable because they acknowledge and embrace their campy nature, movies like the original Nightmare on Elm Street, Tucker and Dale vs Evil, Housebound, or the Blade trilogy (although I could argue that the eye-candy might be part of the appeal here.)

When Netflix still used the star rating system, I could better gauge how bad a horror movie was going to be. If they had much below 3 stars, I'd just pass. But Netflix changed to a thumbs-up/thumbs-down rating, and it's harder to tell now if a horror movie is going to be really awful. So I started watching American Poltergeist and couldn't even finish it. The acting was wooden. The script was minimal and the story-telling practically non-existent. The characters made these tremendous leaps of logic with very little information, almost like an episode of Scooby Doo, but not as good. I also noticed that Netflix has American Poltergeist II. Who finances these things?! I guess from now on when I feel like watching a horror movie on Netflix, I'll have to go look it up on IMDB before I can watch. I know, this is the classic definition of a "first-world problem." But it's an annoyance nonetheless.

We've been having a beautiful spring here. It got really warm for a time, but lately it's been cooler again with regular rain. My husband trimmed our lilac bushes back last year, and they're blooming better than they have in a few years.

I hope wherever you are you're enjoying beautiful spring weather and the blooming of the trees and plants.

Winter Update

We haven't had much snow lately, which makes me a little sad. I know everyone around me is eagerly anticipating the arrival of spring, but I like winter. Even without the snow I've been able to get a few good winter photos lately.

I've been enjoying watching the colorful sunsets from my back deck.

These pictures are from a little walk around my neighborhood. As you can see, everything that isn't an evergreen is bare, but still beautiful in its own way.

There's also this awesome, old work truck parked in our neighborhood. Yesterday when I was working from home I happened to look out the widow right as it was driving by, so I know it's operational.

I'm also really happy to share that the team weight-loss challenge is working for me. I've had a few times when I was feeling really stressed out lately when I wanted to just down junk food. But since I know other people are counting me, I was able to refrain. It won't keep going this fast, but I lost 7.7 pounds this week.

I hope everyone is finding some beauty in the winter weather right now. Goodness knows, we all need it these days given how much vitriol and hatred is flying and how divided everyone is. Nature continues to be my solace, and I intend to spend as much time communing with plants and animals as is humanly possible, so I don't totally lose my mind.

Roller Coaster Ride

I've never been able to handle rides that spin, but I love roller coasters, at an amusement park. When my life feels like a roller coaster ride, it's not so much fun. Things felt like they were getting better, but then they took a turn for the worse again with my son.

Winding down at work has been harder and more stressful than I ever thought it would be because I want to leave my soon-to-be-former team in a good place. But it's situational stress and I feel like I've got a handle on it and am dealing fairly well. Where I'm not doing so well is with the pervasive and sustained stress which is a result of dealing with my son's mental illness. I've reached a point where I think I'm the one who needs some help. I feel like I've been knocked down and can't get back up. Occasionally I manage to get back on my feet, but before I can get my balance, I get knocked down again. That kind of feels selfish, but it's like in the airplane when they tell you to put your own oxygen mask on before you help anyone else. Right now I don't really feel like I'm much help to my son, and won't be until I take care of myself.

I looked in the mirror last night and realized that I look...old. I'm sure the stress is the primary cause of this. So I decided that if I have to look that old, I intend to at least be skinny. I'm back on track with my weight loss as of today. I'm hoping that by the time I start my new job next Wednesday my clothes will be a little more comfortable. Then by the time I attend a wedding on January 1st I'm hoping to be close to my goal weight. By the time I have to put my snow pants on again in February, I want to be at my goal weight. I think I might accomplish the weight loss this time for two reasons:

1. The last time I managed to lose all that weight was when I was really stressed out and the weight loss gave me something to control.
2. It's easier to adjust habits when we change our environments. Since I'm going to be starting a new job I'm hoping that the food triggers won't happen in the same way and that I'll be able to form new, healthier habits.

I haven't decided yet if I'm going to post weekly weight updates or not. I'll think on that and provide an update at a later date.

Now to the pictures. All of these below are from my phone camera, so none of them are of really great quality. But they all tell a story of what's been happening outside recently.

This picture is of the sky while I was out for a walk, right before it started to storm and rain like crazy.

The next two pictures are from a recent afternoon walk. I loved the way the fence shadow looked and was falling on the leaves. The red tree against the bright blue sky was just so pretty that I had to share. I did not make any adjustments to that picture, those were the colors I saw on my walk.