Weekly Progress Report #6 and Some Random Thoughts

I'm going to start off this week by saying that we are having the most beautiful weather right now. I love winter and snow, but since that's not what we're getting right now, I'm just enjoying the fact that I can walk outside in a short-sleeved shirt at the moment.

The moon this morning

The sky was such a lovely shade of blue this morning

Friday afternoon's bright sunshine

The moon last Thursday morning (edited)

Weight:  142.7 pounds
Weight Change:  - 1.7 pounds

As well as counting calories worked for me in the past, I haven't been able to recapture that success again. So I'm trying a different approach since this hasn't been working. I'm no longer strictly watching what I eat, I'm just trying to be sensible. I'm eating when I'm hungry and trying to eat a reasonable amount of things that I know are good for me. However, when I'm really in the mood for something that isn't good for me, I'm not denying myself because that just makes me want it more. So I'm still "indulging" in moderation. It seems to have worked for me this week. I imagine that it will take longer to lose weight using this approach, but I'm hoping that it'll be steadier and easier to maintain long-term. It doesn't feel so much like I'm depriving myself, so I don't feel the urge to binge so much. I'll let you know if it keeps working.

My husband I watched an incredibly disturbing documentary last night. It was called Dreams of Life, about a woman in London who died right before Christmas in 2003, and wasn't discovered until three years later. It was this perfect confluence of circumstances which allowed her to basically disappear off the radar without anyone realizing it. She didn't stay in regular contact with her family, she was in and out of her friends' lives, she wasn't holding a steady job, and she was getting housing assistance so her landlord didn't get antsy about the rent sooner. The weird things were that her television remained on for 3 years (I can't believe the utility company didn't shut her off), and one of her neighbors in a nearby flat said he had smelled something weird, but never bothered to report it. She was only 38 years old, and by the time she was discovered, too much decomposition had occurred to determine the cause of death. Though no foul play was suspected because her deadbolt and chain were on the door and they had to break in when they finally found her.

I just can't imagine being that alone in life. It made me feel extremely grateful for my family and friends, and my stable (if boring) life.

The 70s (Weather and Era)

The high temperature has reached 70F for the last two days here. It's been a nice break from winter weather and we've been spending as much time as possible outside.

We did a "meet and greet" at work yesterday morning. I'm a pretty extreme introvert so these things where you have to mingle and make small talk aren't really my thing. But it went fairly well and I did actually meet a few other people who I don't normally see since they work on a different floor. Part of the deal for this meet and greet was that we were supposed to bring in childhood photos to put on our name tags. So I searched through the photos that I had scanned for my dad's memorial service and cropped out a picture of me when I was two.

Here's the original photo below. My daughter was sure to tell me that it was the most 70s-looking photo she'd ever seen. Someday she's going to be a mother and her kids are going to make fun of her. When that happens I'll just chuckle to myself, but I'll still give her a big hug if she wants one!

Interesting Clouds

I'm too exhausted to write tonight, but I had to share this picture of the captivating cloud formation outside my office window this morning.

I intend to go to bed as early as possible tonight so that I won't be this tired tomorrow!

Music That Moves Me

Last night I did something really stupid: My husband caught the cold that I was fighting about a week ago and went to bed early last night. Instead of being smart and going to bed at the same time, I stayed up to watch a movie on Netflix. The entire movie, and it wasn't even a horror film, it was a romance! So I climbed into bed after 10, couldn't fall asleep for quite awhile, didn't sleep through the night, and then still had to get up at 4:15 this morning.

Needless to say, I was extremely fatigued and didn't feel much like doing a workout. But whether I felt like it or not, I needed to do it. So I put on a playlist that I created and titled "Energy." I have some of my favorite songs by my favorite hard-rock artists on this list. This is a small sampling of the songs that help me to get up and move:

• My Judgment by Ignite
• Savior by Rise Against
• Time of Dying by Three Days Grace
• Afterlife by Avenged Sevenfold
• Ten Thousand Fists by Disturbed
• Living Dead Girl by Rob Zombie
• Zombie Zoo by Tom Petty
• Amaranth by Nightwish

There are several other songs and a few other artists on the list, but these are probably my favorites. In fact, I'd recommend the entire albums that these songs are pulled from for your listening pleasure. I was having problems staying awake at my desk today, but I felt energized during my workout thanks to the music. I know some people don't need or use music when they workout, but I just don't think I'd have much success without it.

We got another snow today, though it was only a couple of inches this time, and had already started to melt by this afternoon.

Snow on the evergreen tree

Snow in the rocks

Full Moon Morning

We had the loveliest full moon this morning. It was hanging over the mountains in the western sky. I was able to get a couple of photos this morning when I got up to work out. I took another one when the moon went behind the clouds for a time and was back-lighting the clouds, but I didn't have time to set the tripod up so it didn't really turn out.

The full moon behind the bare trees

I edited this one a little bit so really highlight the moon shadows of the deck slats. I thought the snow melt was interesting from the way the shadows protected some of the snow.

I edited this one a little also. I wanted to capture the moon shadows of the trees on the snow in the yard.

Mama Said There'd Be Days Like This

Today has been one of those days where I just want to crawl back into bed and stop interacting with other human beings. My boss put me in a very bad position today by giving me instructions to go against what the CEO told me to do. So I had to make a judgment call and I followed the CEO's instructions and apologized to my boss. I'm pretty annoyed though that she'd put in this type of position to begin with.

I'm also having a bit of an issue with my son's teacher. She sent us a nasty-gram over the weekend about how he wasn't doing his work last week. So I told her we'd do what we could to support her, but we don't have a mechanism to understand what he should be working on. The kids are supposed to complete their planner every day with the homework they need to do. Well, when there isn't anything in the planner and he claims he doesn't have any homework, and she won't respond to emails or join the 21st century and use a website to list assignments; I'm not entirely sure what I'm supposed to do.

So I wrote back to her (using paper and pen) asking what we could do to find out what homework he should be working on. Her response was "A lot of it is work he doesn't want to finish at school." That is verbatim, including the underlined word. Now I ask you, what exactly am I supposed to do with this response? So great, now I know what type of work he isn't doing, but I still don't know what work I should be making sure he's getting done. Anyway...

Apparently I wasn't the only one who was a bit surprised by the amount of snow we got yesterday, as the local news felt compelled to explain their weather models to justify why they underestimated the amount of snow in their predictions. According to my weather app on my phone, we're supposed to get snow again on Wednesday, which is good because we had a great deal of sun and wind today so most of our pretty snow is gone. It still looked very beautiful and wintry this morning though.

2015 Weekly Progress Report #5

It turned out to be good timing yesterday when I went around getting pictures of winter in our neighborhood when there's no snow. Because overnight we got about 6 inches of snow. It looks very beautiful again this morning. I didn't happen to pay attention to the weather forecast, but I should have realized that this was going to happen, because just like right before our last big snow, there were dozens of birds frolicking in the trees yesterday.

Weight: 144.4 pounds

My weight is back to the same place it was 5 weeks ago. I'm hoping that some of those articles I shared the other day will help me to figure this out this time and get through this. Since I'm clearly not having the same success I had the first time I lost weight. I still think that it's a psychological issue because although I knew intellectually that losing weight wouldn't solve all my problems; I now know that empirically. So I think there's a part of me that just doesn't think it really matters if I lose the weight.

However, I don't need to lose weight to make my life perfect (good thing). I need to lose weight to be healthier and have more energy. I need to lose weight to feel more comfortable in my own skin. I need to lose weight to feel like I'm capable of accomplishing this.

My husband and I are going out to a fancy restaurant located in a beautiful setting in the mountains outside of Boulder for Valentine's Day dinner. I know I'm going to have to "cheat" on that day. Until then, there isn't any reason why I can't stick to my plan. So here goes another attempt to make the right choices!