I guess I run now

I started the rules 2 years ago to get me thinking about how to lose weight. They include things like sitting down at the dinner table for dinner & turning off the TV…something that’s much easier since we got rid of the TV downstairs & cable everywhere. Looking over the rules, I see that some of them have just become habit, even when I’ve been away from 3fc and not thinking about dieting:

Lunch is always on a bread plate, dinner on a 7-inch plate, and I can’t bring myself to make pasta or rice without cramming it full of veggies. & I’ve always been a veggie nut. When hubby & I visit family we both end up craving salads because we have them with just about every meal & our folks (on both sides) don’t. In fact, visiting family, we can go days without laying eyes on a single leafy green veggie.

So some of the rules are a part of my daily routine now & I don’t even have to think about them. But other rules like water with meals (something I only do if I’m eating out), portion control, crunchy veggies to munch on while I decide how much more I need to eat, & 3 meals a day…these things have fallen by the wayside. & they need to be joined by one fruit a day, 1 hour of exercise a day, and calorie counting. So…back to the rules with the extended rules added in for good measure. That’s the goal for this week; that & a little bit of definitive movement on the scale.

Breakfast: 1/2 grapefruit topped with 1 teaspoon brown sugar (90 cals) and broiled in the oven until warm & sweet.

Lunch: probably going to be a big salad grapefruit was so yummy, I had the other half & a hard boiled egg.

Dinner: bean soup again & a big salad.

Exercise: 1/2 hour walk with the dog

Warning: Bitch Session Below

Always…and forever. Pretty words, unfortunately, I’m referring to the “always…and forever” of housework.

Here’s the deal, hubby & I have the same freakin’ job, only mine has a wee bit more pressure as I’m 2 years closer to going up for tenure than he is. On average, I do 1.5-2 hours of housework (shopping, cooking, cleaning, organizing, dusting, mopping, laundry, etc) a day & he does (if I’m lucky) 1.5-2 hours a week. But it’s hard to say you’re “fed up” with this arrangement when you’ve been saying that you’re “fed up” with this arrangement for over a year now & nothing has ever, ever changed about it.

So…this summer while we were in the UP, we paid to have someone cut our grass at the house here (cheaper than driving 1,100-miles round trip every week). Now the grass is done for the year, so I’m hiring a housekeeper to come in once a month to do the carpets (hubby’s job & he does them only when we’re having company, so every other month or so), the bathrooms (hubby’s never once done these), the dusting (again all me), the windows (me), kitchen appliances & cabinets (me). It won’t reduce my daily housework at all, but it’ll free up a few hours on the weekend that I could actually use to write &, possibly, give me a shot at getting published so I can get tenure.

There’s part of me that feels creepy doing this…hiring someone to clean my house? We’re not rich, we’re struggling to pay student loans & credit card bills from decades of higher education, lowest pay; but I just can’t do this on my own any more. & maybe if he sees money going out for this every month, he’ll actually recognize how much work goes into this house, respect what’s involved in keeping a house running, & maybe even start pitching in a little. Big dreams…I’m putting a lot on this fictional housekeeper. But I’m going through with it next week. No more threatening to hire someone.