Sometime behaving like an adult sucks.
As of today, I am officially on my 2008 get-the-finances-in-order-you-idiot budget. There is no reason for me to have the level of debt I have- my children are on their own, I have paid off my car, I have a small mortgage(benefit of a small town). It is pure laziness and self-indulgence. Really, how many lipsticks does a person need? Nowhere near as many as I have, let me tell you.
So I am taking hints from those awful tv shows (you know, the ones where the ‘expert’ puts a family of four on a $3/week budget) and doing the same for me. My motivation is a) it is time to be an adult about this b) I will need a new car within 12 months c) it costs $800 to fly to Loverboy’s new home, or a 20 hour roundtrip by road which with gas now at $1.15 per litre will come close to the airfare.
Closely tied to this financial embarrassment is the fact that three years ago I went on a super clothes shopping binge (I mean many hundreds of dollars of stuff) - and NONE of those clothes fit. In fact, I still haven’t shortened the pants! Every time I have bought clothes (that fit; and in ever-increasing sizes) since I have cringed at the thought of those things in my closet.
The hidden benefit of Loverboy being so far away is that I will be able to schedule the long hikes or bike rides on the weekends that I had to give up because he has bad knees and can’t do the distance. Despite a lifetime of military service he has a strange definition of exercise. (Riding around on his ATV counts, for some reason). Not blaming him for my increase in pudge - I wanted to spend the time with him. But now I will have to fill my weekends in other ways.
And finally, I need to blog and journal and track my food and activity. It is a must, or I just pretend that reading about exercise and thinking about vegetables counts.
Here’s the most important lesson I have learned when it comes to controlling food binges - do not have it (foodcrap - my new word) in the house!!! If it (whatever it is) is in your kitchen, throw it out! Saying, oh, it’s for the _________ (kids, spouse, dog, company) is only setting yourself up for failure. We are hardwired to want stuff that’s bad for us - why have it around for you or anyone you love? Throwing out the foodcrap is not ‘wasting’ it - it is not FOOD!
K, rant over. Whew.
Working from home this week. Stitches come out tomorrow, but I probably will still wear bandages for a bit. No hard workouts until it is completely closed over, so my plan to start rowing is on hold. However, downloaded this awesome ipod workout by Serena Williams. It is an interval running 30 minutes, but it works just as well for walking. I admit, I thought it was goofy to have a recorded voice in your ear urging you on, but to my surprise, it works! Also discovered that what I thought was a 30 minute quickie route actually took me 45 minutes at a pretty good clip (in big snowboots too!)
My one big focus this month is to bring my lunch to work more often. I really, really need to start saving for a new car, I think my little kia is going to go down for the count pretty soon. So I have a new piggybank (actually it is a sheep) and every day I do not eat in the caf at work I will put $8 in it. We’ll see. Deferred gratification is not my strong suit.
I am currently a walking advertising for sunscreen. I just had a nickel-sized skin tumour taken off my nose. Now, I know, in the grand scheme of things I should be grateful, not whiny. And I am. But I just can’t help feeling a bit sorry for myself. I have a line of 15 stitches down the centre of my nose, and it is swollen and crooked and red and lumpy. There is no way of knowing how it will heal - I mean in what shape - but I am expecting I will want cosmetic surgery later on. I have taken a week off work to avoid comments at least until the stitches come out, but it will be 6 months maybe before it is completely healed. This is the inevitable result, I suppose, of all those years of TRYING to start the summer off with a burn so it would ‘turn into a tan.’ Of course I am careful now, but too little, too late, I guess.
On the upside, I took advantage of the trip to the big city to do some serious post-xmas shopping. Saved some room on the credit card for just this occassion. Got lots of home decor stuff at FAb deals, and also got this cool little ipod nike workout monitor that clips to your shoe. It is really just an extra-fancy pedometer, but I can’t wait to try it out. Once I figure out how it works….lol.
It is freakin cold out tonight. -33C with windchill…I think that at -40 the C and F scales converge - but as far as I am concerned as soon as you have to combine the ‘ - ‘ with double digits it is an unhappy moment. I have my puffy snow pants on and am going to have to layer everything from the toes on up to take the dog out.
Dealing with tons of crap at work - the kind of stuff that I can’t even talk about because it will throw me into a full blown pressure-building rant. {Deep breath} The good news is that I have moved offices and I am now close to the staff fridge and coffee pot and very far from the chocolate covered peanuts in the vending machine.
I have made big pots of soup and stew for lunch portions and my kitchen is stocked with veggies, fruit and protein powder. Son #1 is cooking almost every night and he is learning from the Fannie Farmer Cookbook, 1982 edition. This means a) full supper every evening b) recipes from before the ‘low-fat-sodium-carb’ focus. I am not complaining; I am re-learning portion control. Watching him eat helps - I can’t stand the idea that I might actually be putting as much food as he does into my body at one sitting.
Loverboy has a new job and is moving even further away…way up north to work at a diamond mine. (I know, I asked about free samples….apparently not possible). This means that in the winter we will probably only see each other once a month; maybe two weekends a month in the summer. I do not know what I think about this.
For sure right now I am NOT feeling sexy…more like a balloon. K, out for a walk, even if it is only 20 minutes. Every bit counts, right?
Happy New Year - back on a tight budget to make it through till next payday, but I did have fun over the holidays and got lots of rest. Unfortunately too much food and not enough exercise have combined for an unhappy result. Time to get back in control.
