Argh.

Car stress continues. Hub called the Kia dealer and I am meeting him at the halfway point (he’s working and hour & a half from home) so we can swap cars so I can drop his at the dealer. I hope I get it back quickly because 1) my son’s car isn’t my favorite (Jeep) and 2) I need to get the registration on my car renewed. OTOH, after dropping this car off 4 or 5 times and spending a fortune, I want the thing fixed already!!!!

Food yesterday was good. I walked 30 minutes at lunch. I wanted to go to the gym after work but had to drop my car off to get inspected & take care of a couple of errands. So that didn’t happen. Hopefully I can meet hub, drop the car, get a ride home, get something to eat, and have time to get to the 7:15 body sculpt class at the gym. If not I’ll just swing my kettlebell or walk in the neighborhood and call it good. They will be having the class again Thursday.

After talking to the manager at Merchants Tire, I understand the confusion around getting my car’s alignment fixed. The upshot is it’s gonna cost $200, so I think we’ll wait to pay for that next month since we already spent a bazilliondy dollars this month on car repairs.

I am stressed by a lot of things, both big and little. Big: car repairs and trying to get this home re-fi done (I pretend it’s a scavenger hunt!) and little: Why can my MIL clean what I want her to when she comes over to clean? I mean, she isn’t doing this out of the goodness of her heart, I’m paying her, so why can’t she follow instructions!?!?!? Some days I regret offering to let her clean, but if we hadn’t how on earth would she have worked off any portion of the $800+ we spent getting her car fixed???

Something that might help!

Great post today over at http://yawwblog.blogspot.com/ about a virtual weight loss meeting. I love the concept. Lately, I've been overwhelmed by taking take of everything alone all week while hub is out of town and having to deal with everything from car troubles to the boy wanting me to drop all my plans so he can hang out with the new girlfriend.

I've felt overwhelmed at the thought of trying this (again) for the 4 billionth time - getting aroutine going seems like Mt. Everest right now. Maybe participating will help!

Here's my answers to the questions she posted (some, I felt exactly the same!):

1. What is going well for you right now? I haven’t decided that losing weight is impossible – I haven’t thrown in the towel!

2. Where do you need to improve? Evening snacking, getting to the gym.

3. What new recipe do you want to try this week? None – right now I’m focused on cooking healthy but easy & familiar recipes so I have time to go to the gym.

4. What was your favorite new food find or recipe from last week? I made a simple moo shu pork recipe that involved a bag of cabbage mix. Simple!

5. What is your general weight trend right now? Unfortunately, up.

6. How do you feel about your weight loss efforts? Frustrated, stuck, and overwhelmed
7. What is your weight loss goal for next week? To lose a pound.
8. What two weight-loss behavior goals do you plan to give 100% to this week? Sticking to my pre-planned food and going to the gym.

9. What do you fear most about trying to get group support? People making light about the stuff I am finding difficult right now.

10. What can other people give you that would be truly helpful? A sense that I'm not going it alone

Why I remain overweight

Because food is an effective way of dealing with stress!

Sure, it’s not the healthiest way. And people say “It’s only temporary.” Yeah, well, stress always comes back, whether you deal with it via meditation or nachos!

Hub is working out of town until October 5, son just started back to school. We’ve spent roughly $1400 over the past 3 months at 1 shop plus the dealership in an effort to get the minivan’s brakes fixed. We thought they were done after a visit last weekend to the dealer, but this past Sunday they made “the noise” again. I cried. I mean, I don’t know what to do at this point. Spending over $500 a month getting the brakes fixed over and over doesn’t seem like a logical choice.

Hub needs something to carry his tools for work, and we need something that will haul the trailer. He found a truck that would work for about $1000 more than we could sell the van for. It’s a 1994 (10 years older) and has 77K miles, which is a lot less. An older guy who worked for the dealership bought it new & didn’t drive it much. Which means it could be in great shape or have problems. I don’t know what to do.

When it mde “the noise”, we were going to Merchant’s to get my car picked up. I have an alignment package where I’ve paid an up front cost for alignments. Only when I went to pick up the car he said they couldn’t align the back b/c the parts weren’t available & I should call the dealer. The dealer seemed confused and said the parts weren’t Nissan and they would have thought Merchant’s could have been able to get them. So roughly $100 - $175 at the dealer to get the back aligned when I’ve paid Merchant’s for alignments.

I’m kinda tired of money going at a speed double at which we earn it. Which is maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but it sure feels that way some days. Cars are such a pain in the ass. They are huge money pits and it just seems to never end.

Bleh.

It's the time of year when I feel "bleh". It's coming back from vacation, son starting back to school, getting back into the swing of things at work, etc. It all adds up to a serious lack of motivation and a strong desire to sit on my butt reading a book.

Got up & walked in the neighborhood, packed a healthy lunch, & have a yummy & healthy dinner scheduled for tonight. Just keep moving, right?

Remember those goals?

A few posts and a few weeks ago, I posted 4 goals for myself. I read over them yesterday.

1. Better job of planning & preparing food/not relying on Slim-Fast or the cafeteria. Busted! I had S-F on the grocery list. I took it off, and am hitting the farmer’s market on the way home today to get veggies I can pre-chop for salads. Breakfast will be my green drink and pb toast.

2. Exercising more faithfully. Yes. Yay! I walked at Pennsic, and have kept it up here at home. I printed out all the schedules of classes at the Y for the month and told the boy I’d be going next week. He wants to come along. Also, I ordered hub a book on bodyweight exercises so he could get in some exercise while out of town. Good start!

3. Working on things I enjoy. I have scheduled a week off work next month so I can paint my living & dining rooms, hallway, and entrance. And make new valences. Also, I have scheduled in a weekend to make a slip cover for the new sectional sofa. It’s a start!

4. Thinking of myself as healthy. I think this will be a work in progress. But being down about 3 pounds from my pre-vacation weight is helping. And I think regular exercise will be positive reinforcement. As of today, I weigh 182.2. An improvement!

Next week hub has asked for mexican casserole to take out of town with him. That's a nutritious meal that he loves. I am doing 2 meals for myself & the boy, which we can eat twice. This keeps my cooking to a reasonable level. I am planning spagetti and moo shu pork (lots of vegetables, little meat).

There is still loads of unpacking to do, but the laundry is almost done. MIL came over yesterday and really helped out.

Have a great weekend!

Misc.

Vacation was nice. Hot, but nice.

I’m caught up on emails at work. Not quite on all my tasks, but getting there as well. Should be up to date by the end of the week.

Monday hub called from work to let me know he would be working about an hour and half from home for the next couple of months. They wanted him to start at the new job site yesterday, but he had a dental appt and needed 2 new tires on his car, so he headed out this morning. We have a friend who is about half an hour from the job, so he’ll be staying with Todd during the week and coming home on the weekends. This sucks, but we’ve done it before. We’re both happy that he has a job and grateful he has a free place to stay with a kitchen so he won’t have to be eating out all the time or driving 3 hours a day!

When we got home, MIL’s car was making a funny noise, so Monday hub loaned her my car and we took hers to the shop yesterday. Total cost was over $800, but everything including the A/C and window are now fixed. We sat down with her and worked out a plan: currently she cleans for us twice a month. We’ll pay her for the second cleaning this month then she won’t get anything for the next four months in order to repay my mom (funny, she seemed to have forgotten she’d borrowed $400 from my mom). After that we’ll pay her for every other cleaning for all of next year. That will cover most of the expense of the repairs.

She doesn’t make a lot in social security so I know she can’t pay us out of that. Having her clean for us seemed a good way to help her cover some of this unexpected stuff, I just didn’t expect to “loan” her so much up front. Oh well. That seemed like the most fair plan. If we could just foot the bill we would, but honestly we’ve put a lot of $$ into plumbing and hub’s car lately, and with his job situation still a bit tenuous, we just can’t.

I am doing something I feel weird about: I am using Slim-Fast. Yeah, I know, not the healthiest. I have just gotten so overwhelmed with everything that major cooking on the weekends feels like too much. I am doing a low-cal green shake in the AM (banana, greens, green powder) and also eating a raw veg salad with lunch. This is far from an ideal way to eat, but until I get everything washed up and put away from vacation (the sheer logistics of which would shock someone who’s never done this. I currently have 8 large Rubbermaid tubs in my garage and a 50 gal trach can full of laundry that all need to be dealt with), it’s a way for me to control my calories and not just eat out all the time.

I hate that hub won’t be able to go to the gym with me. :-( But I am walking in the mornings and I’ll be starting back next week. The boy starts back to school next Wednesday. I can’t believe how summer always flies by!

I'm back!!!

It was hot, but we had a great time. We are slowly unpacking. I missed the dogs. I walked every other morning with one of the folks in our camp at 7 for about an hour - it was lovely.

I remain convinced it's very difficult to eat healthfully while primitive camping, but I did my best.

I got up at 5 and walked for 45 minutes. I was sweating like crazy (the humidity was unbelievable!), but AM walking was a good habit I have once again re-formed. :-)