It's such a beautiful day here in NYC. The sun is bright, the sky is blue.

And I'm in the office. Hurray.

;)

Good morning, it's Monday. I already have a long list of things to complain about (i.e. obnoxious-as-fuck woman at work already bitching, which will continue until I walk out the door on Friday evening) but I'm going to do my best not to burden you with (more of) these negative details.

I had a really nice weekend. It was not the huge-splash-beginning of my August "vacation" that I'd hoped it would be - I didn't go swimming at the pool or the beach or take any mini-trips anywhere. I didn't lay out or have a picnic or go to an outdoor market. You can probably tell that my perfect world right now includes being outside 24/7, swimming. :) It wasn't that kind of a weekend. I'm hoping for some of those before summer let's out, and I'm sure I'll get to them. But this weekend was a different kind of nice and I think I really needed it.

I basically exercised, cleaned, and slept. It was pretty great. Kev was out of town from Saturday to Sunday - in Baltimore for an improv festival. I was sad to lose him for the weekend but I made do just fine without him and was (needless to say) thrilled to have a little quiet time and solitude. I'm a sucker for that kind of time. I love being alone. And I love when he comes home, too. So hopefully it all evens out.

I woke up on Saturday morning to see him off, we had breakfast together and puttered around a bit watching The Incredibles and playing with the cats until he had to get ready to go. When he left, it was pouring outside and the rain was so calming, I promptly fell asleep on the couch (this was around 2pm) until I moved to the bed at 5pm (!) and finally woke up, just barely, having to forcefully pull myself out of sleep, at 6pm!!! I wasn't totally shocked, I feel like I've been on a sleep deficit for as long as I can remember. But it wasn't how I'd expected to spend my Saturday.

I got up and worked out for a good hour - some pilates and then a 40 minute jog around the park. It had stopped raining. It was a great run, albeit hard, and I felt really good afterwards. I came home and showered, ate, did some house cleaning, and then took myself to a movie. :) Mamma Mia. I didn't really love it. It was beautiful and made me desperate for a mediterrian vacation, but I didn't really care for the movie. Eh, it was okay. Nothing spectacular. I suppose a true Mamma Mia fan (I've never even seen the musical) might feel differently. I went home and stayed up LATE, cleaning out my desk, organizing some files, and generally tidying up.

I had big plans, the following day, to get up and go to the beach/swimming pool and get my tan on. I have been CRAVING some vacation-like experiences lately. Truth be told, I've been craving six weeks at a beach-front resort. But that's not gonna happen anylifetime soon, so a fucking afternoon at a NYC pool will have to do. I used up all my vacation days early this year for HST related stuff. And as much as I'm glad for the semi-flexibility in life to get to do that, I wonder if I'd do it the same if I had it to do over again. I think I might have opted for missing one of those HST road trips in favor of a few summer days to myself right about now. What can you do. (I can work toward a day job that allows my life to be more my own. Yes, yes you can. Although this job is pretty good for now and for what it is and for the freedom it somewhat allows me. That's another blog entry, evidently. Ahem.)

ANYWAY. I had big plans to go to the beach on Sunday. But then I woke up at 12noon! (More sleep?!) Which felt amazing, even though I felt like the whole day was gone. And then I realized that I really needed to do laundry, change the cat boxes, and generally clean up our little house. And that if I put in the laundry, I could clean while it washed, and go for a jog while it dried. Purrfect. Not the dreamy beach day I'd hoped for, but a different kind of peace nonetheless. So I did just that. Laundry, cleaned, and exercised. It was very nice. I did the floors and the cat boxes and the dishes and the countertops and collected all the dusty bunnies and generally decluttered some shit. Kevin's been so great since I moved in about getting laundry done when he has time and other stuff like that - I wanted to hold up my half of the deal. He returned home much earlier than I expected and he helped me finish the laundry, relaxed while I went running, and then we went out to dinner together to this amazing place in Park Slope called Mango. Thai food. Incredibly delicious.

And I ate way too much of it. It was my main meal of the day, having had only breakfast before that. But it was still too much. And I was STUFFED afterwards. We took a nice long 45min-1hr walk home afterwards. I was stuffed the whole walk. The scale was up this morning.

This past week was a rough one for me WW-wise. I started my period on Monday of last week and I'm pretty sure it had me in a deathgrip for 5 days. I exercised, sure, not at my peak, but still a 5 reasonable workouts. But I also ate plenty and struggled with every choice, pouting the whole time that I couldn't have something else. We opted to stay in on Friday night and make pasta, even though we'd talked about going out for something more indulgent. And I'm glad we did. But not without a pout-session from me about how sick I was of staring down yet another meal-time, unsure of what to eat - what I craved vs. what I knew I should have. Kevin was a sweetheart, letting me be a 5 year old about it and then helping me choose something healthy from the pantry. He's a good egg, that guy. Love him. Yum.

Anyway. I can't obsess this week. I just can't. That goddammed sugar experiment, although interesting and somewhat enlightening, ended on Saturday morning (I made it through three days! not bad!) when I had a few bites of chocolate ice cream and some raisinettes as a mid-morning snack. And interestingly, Saturday was probably my "best" food day of the week. Perhaps because I slept most of the day, or because I had a good workout right in the middle of the evening, but regardless.

All in all though, no day last week stands out. They were all pretty craptastic. Food was a struggle and I was pissed off about it the whole time.

Even though my new WW week doesn't start until Tuesday morning (and I fully expect to either maintain last week's 2 pound gain or see another small gain again - greaaat) I'm going to commit this week to just fucking relaxing about the whole process. Take it slow, moment by moment. Breathe, relax, workout when I can, eat responsibly, but not obsessively in either direction, and just try to live without food constantly on the brain. Let's chalk last week up to hormones and move on, shall we? We shall.

I'm hoping this upcoming week will be another good one for exercise. I've been on a good path with that lately. (I think I might have done too much on Saturday actually. I've been limping ever since, having done something ugly to my right buttock/hip area.) And in my constant strive to try some sort of new workout like a yoga class or a nice long hike in the park, maybe I'll try to mix it up a bit this week, if I have time.

That's that. Work is getting busy now, the boss was just over my shoulder when this window was up so now I feel badly about continuing to do personal stuff. I should jump in and get going on Monday morning work stuff.

Have a great week, everyone.

p.s. I'm not working out on my lunch break today. Fuck that. I'm taking the day off, gonna go for a nice summery walk during lunch. And forget that I ever have to work to maintain my weight at all. Thppppppppppppppppppp.