Update

Swam the other day, and that felt nice but lately it has been more work at the house in Gallatin than anything else. This of course means our diet is pretty screwed up as well. We really need to fix this as I am more than tired about weighing about 260. I want our life to settle down enough so that we will be able to get in better shape. After the first yard sale there was a lull and that was good, but now... We can do this, but our sore bodies and exhaustion are making it far more difficult. I want to get healthy and we aren't there yet.

Rub, rub, rub

Well, got a massage today and I am hoping to go swimming today as I could use the workout and the hot tub would be a great goodness. I need to sell the plan to Cindy but I don't think it will be a hard sell. The heat and the buoyancy will help us both.

This work on my side and the deep tissue work Brian is doing on my shoulder is painful but I swear, my shoulder is loosening up. I can only hope that the pain will fade and I will have full use of my shoulder, or at least a lot more that I have now.

Y?

Life has been crazy lately and we haven't made it to the Y in several days. I miss it, but we are so busy what with the reception that was last night, the shower today, Katie's visit from Kent and the usual insane life stuff. So because of that Monday is the restart day for the Y. Granted this isn't completely a stop, but it isn't a couple of days off. Gotta fight to keep the momentum going.

Today

Exercise was good today. No swimming thanks to the little medical issue, so we did the weights and I did 15 minutes on the recumbent bikes. It was a nice work out. Tomorrow I am hoping to swim and this time for 30-35 minutes. That should be fun.

We are still working on our diet but once we get that settled we will be doing well.

Watery fun

Yesterday I worked out for about 2 hours between aquatic PT, weights, walking in water and water aerobics. It was a nice workout. Today I swam for 25 minutes straight, which was nice as well. 40 more laps and that would be a mile. If I can swim for an hour straight I should be able to do that.

I am enjoying the exercise.

Playing catch up

Yeah... things have been busy as of late.

We got the estate sale done, which is nice. That reduces a major source of stress and we don't have to log long days running back and forth from Gallatin going through crap. It's done and I am okay with that.

In terms of Jobs, I have heard back from an agent who wanted to read the sample chapters. I guess next will be the whole manuscript. That will be cool.

I also have an application in at MedSolutions which might turn into a job, as well as several other government jobs I can apply for. So more possibility for work there.

I have lost weight and am back in the 250's which is nice. A lot of that is the not eating out thing, which has been nice as out food is rarely as great as Cindy makes, so that is something. I have gone from around 265 to 256 in about a week, which is impressive. I mean... wow. So that is moving in a direction.

We are back at the Y, so more swimming for Heather. Yay! I also have aquatic therapy and will be getting PT for my ankle. All in all not a bad catch up. Life is pretty good all things considered.

Writing

So I heard back from the Agency. Six days is pretty awesome since I was expecting a few weeks. They passed on my novel at this time. Their loss.

So it goes.

Life is continuing on it's crazy way. So nothing new there.

I had the most useless KT appointment ever where the woman simply told me things I already knew and didn't give me any advice on how to modify exercises to compensate for my bad shoulder. Cindy and I are heading off to the Y to get back into the place and work on going there everyday for a workout. That will doubtless help and I am looking forward to swimming and the hot tub. Like for real.

My ankle still hurts but now we know that it has some sort of soft tissue damage to it. Apparently the fact that I have rested it, iced it, etc... does not matter, as that was the advice given to me by the nurse. I need an actual solution to this problem and not just telling me things I already know.

In terms of work, I sent in a query letter to a literary agency. Here's hoping that they are interested in Transitioning Home and decide that they can sell it. I would appreciate that a good deal, as income is sexy. Besides, I want to start on the whole making money from my writing thing and have that as my primary form of employment. So I at least took a first step.

Spiritually I am in a kind of ambivalent place. I am feeling a really interesting tug of war internally between utterly embracing what my spirit is doing on one hand and sort of remaining in this world on the other. I am wanting a place of balance between them but that is getting harder to find. Maslow's Hierarchy of needs is pretty accurate since I am so worried about mundane stuff that my faith is in fifth place or further back. So that is definitely going to take some work as situations permit.

So, there you go.

Update

So it's been a while, but that's because life got crazy with working on the house and getting Katie to college. I did find out that I didn't get that job, the one with the DoJ. Le sigh... so it goes. I will write more later.

Job news

Well, the Job guy for the Voc Rehab people is going to help me with Resumes and stuff, but does not think I need to be doing any retraining, at all, as I am 'better trained than 90% of people out there' and that I need job experience and not school. Whatever... if it means income to feed myself and my family I can live with it.

So I have to completely retool my resume and stuff, and be willing to do a crap job to get into something and move from there. again, I am pragmatic enough to know that is how the word works often enough but I don't have to like it. Hopefully this guy can actually be helpful and give me the information and help I need in order to find a decent job until novel writing starts making money.

Update and musing on Portion Porblems

Well, Whedonfest is over and now time to get back into the serious work of trying to fix issues in my life.

Lets see... the Job fair gave me some interesting options as well as show me a MA program that sounds interesting and a good use of my skills. So there is some hope on the job front.

Ankle still hurts, so a lot of good exercise options are out. I need to get that looked at but the MRI isn't until 21 Aug and that means it isn't until probably September that something will be done about that. Totally fucking sucks. Maybe I just need to ignore the VA and treat this myself? It is worth considering.

My faith is going well, but I really should meditate more. I feel better after doing it so there really isn't a reason that I am not meditating except for the fact that my depression is making me want to hide from the world rather than deal with it. Gotta get over that crap.

House is semi trashed, but duh... Whedonfest. It did really well this year, but we do need to catch up on making the home environment serene...

So there you have that update. Now onto the other stuff.

Okay, so I am at 261 right now and that is disturbing. I hate this craziness that’s going on with my weight. It is really bothering me, especially because it isn’t like I eat badly. I like vegetables and salads, and all sorts of good for you food. Hell eating just chicken or fish would not be a huge hardship. The problem for me seems to be portion control. I don’t eat a lot of deserts or empty calories but I eat a lot of normal food.

I like food and truly enjoy eating excellent food. I am not sure as to why I seem to be more focused on eating larger amounts of food than I should but I need it to stop. I suppose I should get to weighing and measuring all of my food, so I only eat single portions and the like, but I am worried that I will fail. I guess that is a common worry for most anyone doing any weight loss plan. I just don’t seem to have a good idea in my head as to what exactly good portion sizes are. I know the pack of cards and those other measures but in a lot of ways that doesn’t really seem to help me. I guess I need to hunt that all down again and start seriously following it.

The other issue tied into this is that I seem to be the one in my family that ‘finishes’ food, thus getting extra. I have a difficult time turning down food or not completing my meals. Part of it has to do with the fact that my mother constantly talked about eating her monies worth. Paying for food and then not eating ALL of it really bugged her. She talked about that wasting money, which it is, but the message I took was not avoid over ordering but rather eat everything and then some, so there is a good value for your money spent.

Growing up, my mom loved taking my brother Brian and my best friend Tony out to all you could eat places. The joke about ‘You here four hour. You scare my wife.’ seemed to be very true in relation to our meals. Granted teenaged boys really burn calories but my mom did get a smug satisfaction when we would go someplace like Chesapeake Seafood House and eat all their food. The place stopped having an all you can eat night after we went there for the third time and ate for something like two + hours. It was obscene. But my mom considered it a great value.

I love getting the all you can eat sushi at Cathay and Cindy and I actually sit back and calculate the value of what I have eaten versus the value of what we paid. My personal best was a little over 60 dollars of sushi for 14 dollars. That is a lot of sushi. Now I don’t feel so bad about that, as sushi is not really that bad for you and that much sushi didn’t blow my weight watchers points for the day. But it does let me know that I have developed a similar mindset.

I have been proud lately of actually eating my meal and leaving food, especially eating out. Part of that is the ever increasing size of portions and the other bit is that I recognize that I DO NOT need to eat everything on my plate, that getting full is a great stopping point. I don’t like feeling bloated and way over fed. I get really food coma-ish and that is not comfortable.

Places I really enjoy the all you can eat thing and it not be a problem is at Ruby Tuesday. I can eat huge amounts of salad and be fine. The only bad things I eat there are the cottage cheese and maybe pickled beets. I really don’t put too much extra cheese on the salads as well. So that is not too bad, but otherwise, I really do eat a hell of a lot, volume wise. I need to eat less volume and I am sure that alone will have a major impact on my weight. Maybe even reducing the bad cards and sticking with the complex carbs the body needs. I don’t know. Sometimes I feel like nothing but a hog, stuffing itself for market and that isn’t good for anyone.

I hate this shit.

So I am going to try and reduce my portion sizes. That will hopefully help. Add in eating better and that can hopefully really help my weight. I have a lot of hopefuls here and those are never guarantees, but you gotta try. I don’t want gastric bypass, but if I can’t do this and I keep gaining then it might be the only decent option I have available. Man that sucks. Effort first then surgery… The fact that I am even considering it distresses me but I am aware that I don’t want to heat into the upper twos or the threes and low fours that Brian got to. What a crap time to realize that HRT probably shifted my metabolism closer to my mom, sisters and brothers. So it goes.

Any way, here’s hoping that I can make this work.

Whedonfest

Well, tomorrow is Whedonfest. I will talk about that and the job fair I went today later.

Ciao everybody.

Recent Developments

Well, Whedonfest is almost here. That is basically the all consuming thing for this next week. I am already tired and we haven't actually got started. Not an overly good sign.

In addition to Dealing with our house, dealing with Cindy's Mom's House, and dealing with getting things ready for Whedonfest I also have the Thursday from hell. Thursday I am going to a job fair that is just for vets. So I have to print out resumes and trek around the place, dropping them off and making an impression while I do so. That can't hurt in the job scene as I have heard tell that income is sexy. So, that should be fun. Also that day I have a follow up interview with the Voc Rehab people where I may officially hear back from them on the whole school thing. I have no idea what is going to come out of that, but either work or school will be helpful, since they would pay me a stipend. Thing is, as far as I can tell, the soonest I can start school is in January, which doesn't help much.

As for the DoJ job I am hoping for. I am going to email Magda's friend, as she offered to look into the job thing for me. I am not going to turn that down, that's for sure. I think it might be a helpful thing, but again I don't know. Man I want that job.

Diet is fuxored, as we are living the transient life, going back and forth between Gallatin and here. And the ankle is still problematic. I still have 20 days until the MRI is done and so I am looking at at least another month without my ankle getting much in the way of better, or at least knowing what is going on with it. Part of me wants to say fuck it and drive on, but the fact that yesterday both of my ankles hurt so bad I couldn't really stand without being in great pain. That massively sucked and I want this crap to stop. I want to be able to exercise, so I can loose this damnable weight. I am trying to adjust my eating habits but that is not terribly easy. There is so much unconscious thought going into food choices that it is a bit scary.

So there you have it, what has been going on recently.

The long and winding road

Dealing with the passing of Cindy's mom is making all of this harder to do. I am trying to get mostly vegetables and chicken and stuff, but I slip sometimes. The fish taco last night was pretty good, so it's not like chicken is not as good as red meat, but I do like red meat's taste.

Bit by bit I am working on making this happen, but recently it seems harder. I want to go walking but my ankle hurts and whenever I do any decent amount of walking it hurts, throbbing in an uncomfortable way. I need that dealt with before I can start walking as much as possible. I want to move but my body is conspiring against me. So it goes.

Yet again

Well, I am going to start trying the weight watcher thing again today. It did work, up until about 2.5 months so I'm not sure what that is all about, but I am trying to figure that out. I plan on doing some stretches and crunches later, but that covers it. I am waiting to see what happens, job search wise, as I have heard nothing back. I keep telling myself that it has only been a week since things were finalized. 11 days, mind you, but only one business week. Maybe I should refocus and look at Agents.

So anyway, here we go again.

Well, the official weigh in with the VA is 260.2. Damn... I need to loose about 105 pounds... crap. I better get going.

Sometimes it hurts to move, and I am not sure if that is good or bad

Life has become all about moving around and getting things done. Too busy to be sedentary at the moment with keeping our house clean while processing Cindy's Mother's house. I ache everywhere from yesterday and I am sure I will ache tonight. This whole situation sucks with great suckatude. But it is a form of exercise.

Interestingly, I have been craving food that is at least moderately good for me. More salads and small portions. I am famblished all the time but nothing sounds good. Maybe Katie's pickiness is contagious. GAH! Anywho... I have actually lost a little since this whole mess has started, like 2 pounds or so. It's a something. If this whole situation weren't so screwed up I am sure we could cook, but we don't have the spoons for that, either of us but my Beloved has all but had her silverware tray stolen.

Well, back up today, then taking Sunday off and then back up Monday. Bleagh... the world of suck is everywhere. But at least I am still moving, and that might mean weight loss and better health at the end of this nonsense.

Job 2

Well, the application is in and now the wait begins. This is probably going to make me crazy. I want this job but I am not sure I will get the job. Hell, at least I applied and got everything done. That in and of itself is impressive for me. It's a start at any rate.

Job?

Well, I am waiting to complete my application for the Job I want with the DoJ. Once the documents have uploaded then I can finish this sucker, 2 days before the deadline. I can totally do this job and I have the skills and training necessary to succeed, if only I actually get hired. So now comes the nerve wracking part where I wait for a response. Can you tell that I am nervous?

Le sigh

Well, Saturday sucked as we found out that my Beloved's mother had passed away. This is throwing everything out of whack and we are coping. Somedays it's not worth chewing through the straps.