Dead Blog

I haven't given up on my blog or anything, but the motivation is definitely lacking these days. There isn't much new going on and I'm not going to spend all my time blogging about work. I already think about work too much, I don't need to be doing it on my free time at home either.

On some positive notes, Casey is growing up fast. She has hit many milestones that I've neglected to talk much about. In short, she is becoming quite a handful. Getting into things, climbing things, and generally doing all sorts of cool stuff on her own. Most nights I get to come home to her running to me screaming "Daddy!", as we proceed to have a fun laid back evening. There are still challenging moments between her and Megan, but for the most part they have a lot of fun playing together. In short bursts at least.

Megan in the meantime is learning new stuff every day and having a great time at her preschool that she started this fall. She can count to 6 in Spanish! Last weekend she got to bring home one of the school pets for the weekend, Rosey the guinea pig. Everyone had fun taking care of her and holding or petting her.


The first snow this weekend was a bit of a shock, but the realization that I'm done running outside for the year is finally starting to sink in. It didn't help that just last week I was running outside all week in 50-60 degree weather. It sort of made me forget that it's actually the middle of November. After spinning out and doing a complete 360 on the road this weekend driving to the gym, I was quickly reminded that it is in fact, winter.

Reality Check

Getting through the candy haze of Halloween made me stop and realize something. I've completely lost track of what I eat on a daily basis, and have damn near zero self control anymore. It's a harsh reality to face, but it's important. I topped the scale this morning at a whopping 192.5, which is easily 10 lbs over where I like to be. With Thanksgiving right around the corner and Christmas after that, it isn't going to get any easier.

Instead of trying to put it off until the New Year, I'm going to nip this in the bud right now. The easiest thing for me is to simply flip the switch back to "off", as in "off-limits". No more excuses like "Well, I'm running 25 miles this weekend..." because, quite frankly, I'm not! I used the marathon training as an excuse to fall off the food wagon. Time to get back on.

With any big swing like this, there has to be a little give and take. Just saying a ton of stuff is off limits won't work, because if I don't reward myself in some other way, it will back fire. So I'm going to put diet pop back on the menu and enjoy my one unhealthy indulgence. To counter that, I'm going to take coffee off the menu, which although not high in calories, was a "gateway" drink for me. Because I can't drink coffee black, I have to put the equivalent of 6 teaspoons of sugar in it via artificial sweetener. This in turn makes me crave sweets throughout the day. And of course, the remainder of the off-limits list includes the basic "no wasted calories" crap, which is everything from candy, to snacks, to free food at work, etc.

The first week will be hard, but if I can get into the swing of some new habits before Thanksgiving hits, I'll be in good shape to limit my food intake over the holidays. Once I've got that all under control, I can shift my focus to my eventual goals of weight training. I've been sent a few ideas in email and been doing a little research on my own. I think I'll have a good plan come New Years.

Halloween... check

Halloween this year went well. Megan went as Iron Man and Casey was a cute little Monkey. Sadly I didn't really get many pictures this year, although I'm sure I can dig up a few from various times this month. I think there must have been about five different Halloween events we did this year, some more successful than others.

This years I actually stayed in, and let Andrea take the kids around the neighborhood. Despite doing all the years prior to this year, I feel like I am still ahead because this was the first year of having to take both kids out. Andrea did fine and the kids collected tons of candy.

On the health front, I still haven't started any new habits. It's in the back of my mind, but that's the problem. My brain is so busy thinking about work all the time, I can't find the motivation to put in extra effort figuring out a good new exercise routine. However just thinking about it out loud at least motivated me to spend a few minutes on google. Hmmm... maybe I can come up with something to start in the next month or two.

Still letting my evenings be mostly taken up by World of Warcraft. Being the good crack dealer that I am, I've got two different people at work to restart their accounts as well. Time will tell how long we all keep it going this time. Usually for me it just amounts to how long I can have fun doing semi-new stuff mixed with the same thing over and over. Eventually though, the semi-new stuff starts to wear off and the only thing left is the basic Skinner Box. The new expansion coming in Dec will extend the semi-new stuff for quite awhile.

Work is progressing as best as it can at this point. I'm very afraid that in December I'll be working weekends and evening simply because I am so invested in this project. My desire to see it succeed is officially higher then any thing I've ever done at any job. This is probably a bad thing, because any time I've ever invested personally in a work related thing, it's come back to bite me in the ass.