Insanity thy name is me...

Wow – I had not realized how long it has been since I last posted. Sorry about that! My life is in kind of a holding pattern right now, and unfortunately that makes everything lock up; my brain, my body – everything.

Albert Einstein once said "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results".

I am definitely insane.

During these weeks that I have not posted, I have been eating fast-food and grocery store deli stuff almost exclusively. I haven’t really been exercising (well, a little), and I have not been weighing myself. What is the point? I have been doing all of that for years and years and it has not led to weight loss yet. But I keep doing it over and over, each time expecting that maybe THIS time, it will be different.

Insane.

I have been walking a little more. My friend, Katina, and I have decided that we have just got to get the bodies in motion. So I have been driving over to her neighborhood after work and we walk there. It’s a lovely older neighborhood with lots of shade on the sidewalks.

Problem #1: I am so out of shape that I can barely walk a quarter mile. I use my Nordic walking poles, and if it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t be able to walk 50 feet. We started out at a half mile, but the first time we did it, it took a half hour because I had to keep stopping. My back muscles that run from the top of my butt up towards my ribcage, on either side of my spine, are just ON FIRE. I think they go into some sort of spasm, and I have to stop and bend over and stretch like I’m touching my toes. The second time we did the half mile, I wanted to get down on my hands and knees and crawl the last 30 feet. I take 800mg of Advil about 45 minutes before we walk and I am pretty sure it helps, but Lord Almighty it doesn’t help enough. The third time we met to walk I told her that it was just too much for me. We dropped it to the quarter mile and that helped a lot, but I have to stop at least three times to stretch. We stretch before we walk but I’m still in agony by the end. No pain, no gain, right? Crap. Katina is very patient and kind to me for making her walk so slowly for such a short period of time; she goes ahead and walks another 2 miles after I leave her.

Problem #2: It’s frickin’ bloody hot. It’s the time of year that we hit our really unbearably hot streak; we’ve been lucky in that – like most of the country - our weather has been a little off and so the hot streak took a while to get going. But mercy, it is gaining momentum for sure. It’s been in the mid 90’s all week, and by the middle of August it will be in the 100’s. That usually only lasts for a week (the week of the state fair, of course) and then it gets “cooler” – mid 90’s again for a while. I don’t do heat. Neither does Katina. We are both prone to heat stroke, so we ain’t walking when it’s 95 degrees at 8pm. Not gonna happen.

But we are doing our best. We might start walking at the mall since it’s indoors and air conditioned, but frankly I’d rather have a root canal and a pelvic exam. I hate walking at the mall, especially ours. It’s so small and crowded! Yeah, yeah, poor me, boo hoo.

I haven’t been weighing myself because there really isn’t any point; and I think the batteries are going to die any day now. One day my weight fluxed by 8lbs overnight. That can’t be right, can it? I mean I know water retention and release can count for some significant weight, but 8lbs in one day? I don’t think so. So it is now living under the bathroom sink until I pack it for the trip to Washington and its new life in my sister’s back bathroom.

The move is still on; mom is coming the week of 8/23 to help me pack. It’s kind of sad and humiliating when you are 43 and you need your 74 year old mother to fly out and help you pack, but let me tell ya: she is a packing machine. That woman can have me and my 2-bedroom duplex packed and move ready in about three days. Seriously. I will want to suffocate her in her sleep by the time she leaves, but it will be totally worth it. And this way she knows that all of her china and crystal stemware that she gave to me will be properly packed and she won’t have to worry about it. Because, trust me; she will.

So please bear with me as I tackle this latest hurtle in my life. I am currently without cable at home, so that means no TV and no Internet access. The no TV is weird but I’m getting used to it; hopefully I will use the down time that I usually spent on the couch watching TV and eating crap to do something constructive instead – like pack or clean the house before Mom arrives. My last day at work will be 8/31, so I won’t be able to post anything to my blogs after that until I get to my new home in Washington.

Everyone keep up the great work; I may not have been writing but I have been reading. Thanks to everyone that keeps encouraging me (Nancy @ntexas99 – good luck on your new blogging adventure!) and I promise that I will pick up where I leave off in August.

TTFN.