I Am Slackasarus! Hear me... um, not do much of anything

One of my blog friends compared dieting (ok, ok, lifestyle. Change. What evah!) to playing some sort of demonic game of Whack-a-Mole. You get one thing down (drinking your water, for example) only to find out that you're slacking off somewhere else (like exercise). You turn your attention to working out and suddenly you're too tired to do your journaling.

There's a lot to pay attention to: water, fruits and vegetables, whole grains, proteins, vitamins, milks, healthy oils, and avoiding sugar and alcohol. These things are covered in the 8 Healthy Guidelines. Then you've got the four part methodology: eat less, move more, think first, and... hell, I forget the other one... You see how this goes, right?

And then there's calculating how many points you get, making sure you get them all in, figuring out what consists of a point, figuring out what consists of a "serving size" versus a "serving of vegetables"... etc. etc. I'm still not entirely clear on things like "does a slice of fat free cheese count as a milk serving?"

(I know my first few weeks of weight watchers, I was afraid to eat. My food seemed very threatening, somehow, and a lot of times, it seemed easier as well as safer, to just Not Eat.)

Then, throw into the mix that I'm trying to change other parts of my life, as well.

I'm trying to keep up with the housework, which tends to be a minimum of 6 tasks a day, and sometimes more. Make the bed, do the dishes, clean the countertops, clean off my desk (why my desk is the repository for every goddamn spare bit of clutter in the freaking house, I swear to you, I know not!), straighten up the living room, put Darcy's toys away, plan dinner, keep the household budget, sweep, make shopping lists, pay the bills, feed the child, feed myself...

And then there's my workouts, which I'm trying to run three times a week, walk three times a week, and do weight lifting and strength training twice a week, and do yoga once a week.

And then there's my various "entertainment" responsibilities. I have to collate emails from7 different people in one game, 3 people in another, keep plots running and interesting, do research on everything from 15th century cooking to mapping routes from Eisen to Ussura. This involves massive amounts of web and book research, plus I write at least three emails per week in varying lengths, of a few paragraphs to a couple of pages. I also, in warcraft, try to keep up with at least 15 daily quests, gathering materials for flasks, raiding, keeping my gear gemmed and in good repair, hold weird and obscure conversations with my guild leader, help Thomas organize Sunday raids, deal with guild drama and keep a running tab on the auction house. Furthering that, I've recently started doing online cooking lessons with a group of very friendly people. I try to write an email at least once a week containing a basic cooking lesson, with careful, step by step instructions, and witty commentary about cooking and food.

On top of that, I'm trying to fix my relationship with a good friend... we'd grown distant over the last few years not just because we live too far away from each other, but we have children and husbands and lives that seem to inevitably get in the way of sitting down and having a good chat more than once a year...

I feel like I'm some sort of obscene Cthulu-esque juggler, trying to balance thirty different things on my face-tentacles (Thou shalt not braid the elder god's face tentacles. Nor shalt thou put him in cute little bonnets.)

Life has seriously gotten in the way of this juggling act. Thursday, Thomas took our old Buick in for inspection. I'd rather expected to need a few new tires, and maybe replace the brake pads, for maybe $300. And then I was going to use our government 'take-a-loan-out-from-your-next-year's-tax-refund' check to get the car's air conditioning fixed. After three summers of no AC and we're just entering that unbearable part of Virginia living, called Summer.

But oh, no... nothing is ever that easy...

The car needed a minimum of $1,200 just to pass inspection... plus another $1,600 worth of work that the mechanic recommended... and none of that would have actually fixed the damn air conditioning. For a 1995 Buick with a peeling paint job, this just was not worth it.

So, after a few days of panicking and research, we are the not-so-proud owners of a 1994 (yes, older car! grrr) Mercury Sable. But it passed inspection in April, and the air conditioning currently works. Which cost us about $1,100 between buying the car, paying for new tags, and the sales tax, etc... I think we're ahead of the game, so to speak, but it didn't make me very happy. (The fact that the guy who sold us the car freaking siphoned off the goddamn gas tank and I ran out of gas before I got home with the stupid car, and we only live 5 miles away! doesn't exactly make me scream with delirious joy either.)

On top of this, the sore throat that went along with my infected root canal has yet to completely go away. So I haven't exactly been feeling well, either. And I have a shin splint. Oh, and I had more dental work done this week, in which he used a diamond headed saw against a steel peg that he'd placed inside my tooth which vibrated right up into my sinus cavity, so I said "yeah, it feels fine" when he really could have polished it some more, but I didn't think I could stand it, and I have rubbed my tongue raw on the tip poking at it. Serves me right for lying about it...

And we had a bad storm the other day, and about 30% of my running path looks like this.

I feel like some sort of Complainy-Maude doll, but really... you'd think a girl could catch a break, just once in a freaking while...

Well, you might think that, but you'd be WRONG!

So... for the last week, I've barely worked out. I did 2 of three runs, took one of three walks, did one session of weights, and decided that I was just not in the mood for crystal-twinkism cleverly disguised as a yoga workout. I also haven't journaled a darn thing. I probably haven't gotten all my waters in this week (but I don't know, because I haven't been checking them off!). I don't know about vegetables, but probably did ok with them, since it's gotten to be a habit of mine to eat a salad for lunch. I'm probably great on milk, and I know I'm good on oils. And I think I wrote down all my flex points. I only had 12 left by the end of the week, but they are there for me to use them, and there are a few left over in case I forgot to record something...

Also, on the week I probably could have used my meeting the most? Closed. For memorial day.

I'll be headed out to do my weigh in shortly. But I'm not expecting Good Things.

[Update: Well, it just continues to show that how I feel and what I've lost have ABSO-FRAGGING-LUTELY nothing to do with each other... I'm down 3.8 pounds, for a total of 31.6 pounds lost. I now officially weigh less than I have since just after Darcy was born - officially meaning scale-weight - I think I lost some more after the weigh in at 188, but I'm not positive and I never had any numbers to work with. I am about 8 pounds away from having lost my second 10%, which as you may recall, is my goal for end of September... do you think I can lose eight pounds in 120+ days? Yeah, me too...]