I want to do this.

It's the Friday night of what felt like one of the longest weeks I've had in a very long time.  When I got home from work tonight, all I wanted to do was collapse.  That's how spent I was.  But I didn't allow myself to.  Instead, I got changed and forced myself out to the gym.  I missed going last night, one of my regular nights, because Ken and I had a prior engagement.  And I was feeling kind of flabby.  I really didn't expect myself to last very long, but I surprised myself.  I did my full hour + of cardio and then I hit the weight machines.  The weight machines are a new addition to my routine.  I started using them earlier this year.  I was always intimidated by them, mostly because I'd never used them before.  I'm easily intimidated of the unknown, like that's any surprise to anyone.  But last fall a friend of mine gave me a quickie once over on the machines and I promised myself that once I hit my mileage goal for 2011, I'd start using them.  You see, I've always hated my arms.  I have these skinny, disproportionate to the rest of my body Olive Oyl arms.  I thought that when I lost all the weight they'd start to look more normal sized, but I lost mass in them while losing mass everywhere else. I also have ZERO upper body strength.  I've spent the last however many years working my legs, but zero time on the arms.  So about six weeks ago, give or take, I started working on my arms.  They're still way too thin in comparison to the rest of me, but I'm definitely gaining mass and I can not only feel a difference in them, but I can also see a difference.  And I'm really proud of myself.  More than I can say.  The added mass has had one "unfortunate" side effect, but one I'm not freaking out about.  My weight has gone up slightly.  I think it's a huge step for me not to freak out or go fetal about what I'm seeing on the scale.  I think keeping in mind that my clothes fit the exact same as they did a few pounds back has helped.  Looking at myself in the mirror before weighing myself has also helped.  I'm always going to have extra belly flab.  The skin was stretched out way too far way too long for me to ever have a flat stomach without surgery (which I will never do).  It's a constant reminder to me of what I once was and what I will never be again.

So it's been a month since I've actually been able to sit down and do something here.  I've really found it hard to successfully juggle my time between everything I want to do since getting home from vacation.  I had my schedule down pretty well before that, still not getting to everything I wanted to, but getting to most things.  So what's changed?  Well, in early January, I hurt my knees and that kind of sidetracked me from going to the gym.  I was doing that almost every night after work and both weekend days.  I ended up not going for most of February and March and half of January.  But what I found myself doing instead is working late.  At the beginning of February the unit I work in went from three people to just me.  The workload didn't exactly triple, but it more than doubled, but I haven't had too much trouble keeping up with everything.  Sure, I've been working lots of extra hours to stay caught up (or just a little behind), but the point is, I've been for the most part on top of things.  And schedule wise, I wasn't losing time for anything else since this was pretty much gym time that I was using for work.  Then vacation hit and I figured out what was going on with my knees.  A simple modification and my knees showed a remarkable recovery.  While they still aren't 100%, I'd say they're a solid 95% and that meant I could get back to the gym.  I slowly eased myself in and have kept a lighter schedule than I did pre-injury, but I haven't cut back on work.  So the time that I like to hibernate in my office and play on the computer has been at an all time low.  And if you read this drivel on a semi-regular basis, you know I love talking about my dull life and boring antics.

Tonight is the first chance I've had to do so in a while.  Naturally, I can't think of anything that I really want to say.  But it feels nice to be able to sit here and do this.

I have been busy in my non-work, non-working out time lately.  Ken and I are trying to get all the last minute stuff done for the wedding.  Friday night we met with the venue and went over the menu and all that other stuff again.  Luckily almost everything is still the same from the first time we set these plans up.  The major change is the menu since we based it on what was then current on their menu.  A few tweaks here and there and we have a new menu set up.

We spent a weekend in NYC over Easter which was awesome.  Went to stay with friends who we had to cancel on last fall.  The weekend we were supposed to go was the weekend my Mom ended up in the hospital.  It sucks that it took this long to reschedule, but I'm glad we could make it finally happen.

We're going on week six or so of Ken's nephew living here.  He just started a second job yesterday which is a good thing.  It'll help him save up the cash he needs to get on his feet and eventually move to Florida.  This new job, though, might be a little bit of a problem because it's not within walking distance of the house.  It's right around the corner from my office, which would be convenient for him if he worked a similar schedule to me.  He's supposed to be in at 4pm.  I'm out of the house at 6:15am and not home until anyplace between 5 and 7 at night.  Ken's schedule isn't much better for that.  We're trying to figure out the best way to get him to work right now.  I really want this one to work out for him.  He's been there one day so far and says he's made more friends than he has at his other job that he's been at for five weeks.

So that's really been my life in the last month.  Working, working out, socializing and not getting a whole lot done.

Fates

The fates are against me finding time to write here. Meh.