Lots to catch up on again—I decided to take a little time off from writing to readjust to having K. home for this short break. Some things were easier to adjust to than others. I’m just not good at shifting gears repeatedly or in quick succession. Needless to say, I make things complicated. For instance, on the one hand, I don’t want to get out of the practice of doing everything myself, but on the other hand, I don’t really want to do everything by myself. Even though I find it difficult to let go of my need to control the universe, I think we’ve been fairly balanced about the household chores and kid wrangling so far. K is as much of a neat freak as I am and he knows how to cook and manage the kids perfectly well, so I have no complaints there. I really am trying to enjoy the relative normalcy, but it is hard for me to be in the moment when I need to continue planning for future abnormal moments. Buddha I am not.
I did take advantage of K. being home and wanting to spend time with the kids, though. Saturday I took a much needed break from the house and escaped for adult conversation and chai with my friend, B. We are definitely two peas in a pod. I am glad she is around to help me stay sane this winter. Or maybe I’ll bring her over to the dark side and we’ll be insane together. Either way, I’ll have company and that can’t be a bad thing! Luckily, too, we live close enough that even if it snows a ton, we can always snowshoe to each others’ place. If we didn’t live at the North Pole, I wouldn’t even consider it, but after a couple winters’ worth of 8 feet of snow, it’s a factor. Winter accentuates the hermit in me, but I am excited at the prospect of having someone to be semi-anti-social with and I totally expect us to end up being like Statler and Waldorf from the Muppets by the time Spring rolls around.
Speaking of warm weather activities, Monkey has been somewhat obsessed with camping out lately, and it’s definitely too cold to actually do outside, so Saturday night I went out and picked up a cheap little 2-man tent for him. Yesterday we rearranged his room so that the tent would fit under his loft bed and still leave plenty of room for all his other stuff. I officially would love to be Monkey. He has the coolest room in the house. K. gave him an old sleeping bag of his and Monkey swiped a flashlight or two, so he and R. have been camping out. The good thing with that, even on school nights, is that Monkey wakes up early and will force R. to as well so I won’t have to. He’s my own little alarm clock. I just wish he had a snooze button on the weekends.
Just in time for the holidays, I’ve made the executive decision that it’s time to get back to losing weight. I’m not the heaviest I’ve ever been, and I have no inclination to see that particular number again either, but the yo-yo is on its way in that direction. So it’s time to lay off the Oreos—reduced fat though they are—and get back to the business of moving around more than not and not absentmindedly eating kid leftovers. This would also be the time I need to dig deep and recover my motivation to make this and about 10 other things happen. My motivation is quite the elusive, fair-weather friend who goes on vacation regularly. Like Peter Pan’s shadow, it needs to be sewn on me so that I will stop misplacing it. Even velcro would be fine because then I can stick it somewhere else when I need a break from it. Needless to say, if I’m going to be counting calories, points and/or repetitions, I had better start looking for my motivation under some rocks asap.
Actually, today is the day I get organized for the next couple of months and square myself away. It’s going to be hectic between holidays and K. traveling so much between here and there. He’s not going to be around to help with Christmas things, and the snow will no doubt be falling sooner than I would like. I’ve got my next art class starting up early next month and need to square away babysitters and class supplies. I also don’t want to start the new year without an idea how I’m going to work on my personal goals for the next several months. I would like my mantra to be something other than “I’m late! I’m late! For a very important date!” It would be a change of pace. So, the word of the day, dear readers, is “proactive.”
If you know how to get some motivation let me know. I came to the realization lately that with all the $$ I have spent on WW meetings I could have had a Tummy tuck!!