| I ate so much over the holidays that I'm feeling particularly whale-ish, and resorting to something I always claimed I'd never do. I'm giving the Slim Fast diet a go. I never held truck with those "lose weight and feel GREAT!" claims the meal-in-a-shake companies market at you. Yet here I am, living proof that commercials (and discounted prices at Albertson's) work on the gullible masses. At least, it worked on *this* gullible mass. So, as an example, yesterday's entire caloric consumption consisted of a cup of coffee, a Slim Fast shake, another cup of coffee, a bottle of Sobe juice, a Slim Fast meal bar, eight crackers, a cup of coffee, another cup of coffee, a grilled chicken breast (prepared by the Grill King, Calvin), and a salad. As a result of my "increased energy" (and it wasn't cuz of the Slim Fast, folks), I loaded up the truck with all the Christmas garbage, returned ill-sized blinds to Home Depot, went to the filling station to get rid of the garbage, fed ex-boss' cat, got the truck washed and the oil changed, and went to Albertson's for the aforementioned grocery deals (six packs of Slim Fast for $5.00, five 12-packs of Coke products for $10.00, a 30-pack of Bud-Light for $12.99 - we are now beverage savvy). All in three hours. A-buzz buzz buzz a-buzz. Actually, this meal-in-a-shake (or grossly chewy and bland meal bar) thing is working out fine for me so far. What I needed was a) something easy, and b) something that requires no thought or preparation. I'm all over that, let me tell you. I used to plan out my own specialized meals, and cook something low-cal for myself while preparing meatloaf or fried chicken or hamburgers for the family. I'd consume a massive salad while they blinked at me as if to say "You'd rather have a salad than *Dad's cube steak*???" I would count calories and fat grams obsessively, recording them in a little notebook. But nowadays, I have no energy, motivation, or (as Terri would say) *thought molecules* available for anything complicated. I'm in this weird funky state of the doldrums that makes me want to sleep all day, and bury my nose in a book when I'm not asleep. I've got no motivation coming at me from the outside to snap out of it, which means the motivation has to come from the inside. Yeah, right. New Year's Resolution, anyone? Getting my ass in gear is highly necessary, people. I've *got* to throw more energy into my work at AcronymCo, at the very least. The place is WAY depressing me lately, though. And I don't know the least thing to do about it. But I so don't want to go to work that I sleep in until the very last possible second which allows me to barely get ready and to work on time. It's just a damned fortunate thing I work three minutes away from home. I can get up at 7:10 and still make it to work by 8:00 (or 8:03). I used to get up at 6:00 to spend a half-hour with Calvin before he goes to work. Now I just can't drag my weary butt out of bed. I've got to start doing that again. It's important. I've especially got to regain my motivation in time to go back to school. I don't want to screw up my 4.0 because I have a particularly steadfast case of the blues. Plus I don't want my body to suffer for lack of care for it, so I've got to keep up the vitamins/exercise/eat right regime. Plus I don't want this journal to suffer, either. Resurgence of motivation means resurgence of inspiration, I hope. And finally, I've got to put more energy and enthusiasm into my home life and relationship with Calvin. I admit to coasting a bit here, lately. Which I can do, and so can he (because I suspect he's doing the same, being in much the same state of mind and mood that I'm in), because our relationship is so solid. I used to approach things with more imagination and spark than I'm doing right now, though. The good thing is, I can feel the temporary nature of this mood. It's been longer-lived than I'm used to funks being, but I chalk that up to the stress and strain we've been existing in over the past couple of months due to the HIPFH(tm), the holidays, some kid-related issues, and money issues. The house is done and the contractor is paid off, the holidays are over with for another year, and the money will work itself out. The kids are still inventive in their ways to stress us out, but it's to be expected. Hopefully with the relief of the other stress sources, we'll be more able to deal with that one ongoing one. I'm not alone in my doldrums, it seems. Other folks' journal entries reflect the same post-holiday blahs. Terri admits to feeling lack of motivation to describe her holiday trip. Viv is dealing with her own case of the blues. Nancy is claiming a slight lack of inspiration. Sasha is sick *again*. Bluesyness seems to be pervasive in the journaling community. At least I'm in excellent company. ******************** Crazy Confessions
On that happy note! Don't you just love hearing about all this stuff? Believe it or not, our house never smells like disgusting pet odor, and stays reasonably tidy. Apparently, I am in one of those Friday Afternoon Moods. And you, dear readers, are my hapless victims. (insert evil laugh here) |
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Your Mission, should you choose to accept it...
What was the silliest childhood game you used to play in the car with your friends and/or siblings? Michael and Marie play some advanced game of "Slug Bug" whose rules and regulations are vast and complicated. More than one slug for this kid of Volkswagen. No slug backs under these kinds of circumstances. They also do this thing where they look for out of state license plates and hit each other as many times as the first number on the plate. Say a Wisconsin plate has a number of X75CV3. The one who spots it first hits the other seven times. We have violent children. No "I spy with my little eye" for *these* kids, nosiree Bob.
Results From Yesterday's Mission I found out this fascinating tidbit at Howstuffworks.com: "You can understand how the siphon works by trying two experiments with your toilet. First, take a cup of water and pour it into the bowl. You will find that approximately nothing happens. What's even more interesting is that you can pour 25 cups of water into a toilet, one at a time, and still, nothing will happen. That is, no matter how many cups of water you pour in, the level of the water in the bowl never rises! ...When you pour the cup of water in, the water level in the bowl rises but the extra water immediately spills over the edge of the siphon tube and drains away." Boy howdy, I'm going to go right out and try that right now! Aha! Someone out there is alive! Sakana submits this response to my fussy complaint on the 27th... "NO! I LOVE THE THEME SONG IDEA! It's just that I've spent the last week trying to figure out what mine is/could be, and I so want to come up with the perfect answer that I've not sent any feedback yet. Maybe in mid-March or so you'll get a random email with just a song title in it and think that you've got at least one utterly loony reader. Every little thing she does is magic was definitely mine back in high school. Actually, pretty much anything by The Police was. (Don't all females have a really intense Sting phase at some point? No one has been able to convince me otherwise.) I loved The Police. I still do, just a bit more calmly. Seriously every song is great. Either that, or I'm just really easy to please. Don't answer that. I'm still working on theme song circa end of 2000." Sakana cracks me up. And I do love Sting (and The Police), but they (he) gets a bit repetitive after awhile. "Sending out an S.O.S... Sending out an S.O.S... Sending out an S.O.S... Sending out an S.O.S..." AARRRRGGG! I grabbed the design idea for the box thingy from Anna.
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