Catching Up

It's been a while.

On the one hand, nothing terribly interesting has happened. On the other, I've been really busy. And on the third hand I haven't really felt like writing or stumbled across a topic I want to write about.

Or maybe it's just that I haven't been able to find the words. My brother's being deployed to Afghanistan in December. I'm still working on processing that. In the meantime, life goes on.

We moved. And then I spent a lot of time not unpacking and instead watching lots of TV. I re-watched Wonderfalls and the first season of Battlestar Galactica. I also watched a few episodes of Pushing Daisies because Wonderfalls left me wanting more Lee Pace in my life.

I had my one-year anniversary with my company and a performance review. The review went well. They told me to keep doing what I'm doing and gave me a small raise. 

I've been reading a lot, but not terribly quickly. I'm making my way through George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series which is incredibly long and dense. I've found that I'm liking reading at a slower pace, roughly 2-3 chapters a day. I've been filling up the rest of my time with other books. The upshot is that I'm currently halfway through four books, and all of them are going very slowly.

When Boyfriend got back from Alabama, there was a bit of a whirlwind of catching up and spending time together. This got combined with lots of furniture shopping and unpacking. We've bought a new couch, a guest bed, nightstands, a shelf to function as an entry-table, a patio set, and a grill. We finally got around to my birthday dinner at The Cheesecake Factory, during which I managed to completely undo a couple week's worth of dieting. Then we had a bunch of company to test out the new grill. My aunt, a friend from high school, and a friend from college were all in town last weekend, which of course led to more food and socializing instead of exercising (and then being hungover instead of exercising).

About the dieting thing. It turns out I actually have to get serious about this now. It's not something I've ever been overly concerned with. In fact dieting and the idea that I need to lose weight is something I actively resist most of the time. I'm fine with the way I look. Boyfriend is fine with the way I look. No one else's opinion matters. And since I'm all about instant gratification, a cheeseburger is more appealing than the thought of squeezing into a size 4.

I was a size 4 at one point. It was when I hurt my jaw and spent six months on a liquid diet. I'd rather avoid that method again, if at all possible.

The thing is, I don't have a lot of intrinsic desire to go on a diet or lose weight. Doing it for myself simply isn't enough motivation. But doing it for someone else? Well, that leaves me very little choice.

My bridesmaid dress arrived recently. It doesn't fit. I can't zip it up. It's not a huge thing. I probably need to drop a dress size. I think that's ten pounds? I don't know. I don't own a scale and I have only the vaguest notion of what I currently weigh and how that equates to dress sizes. The wedding is in mid-November, which gives me plenty of time to fit into the dress. Of course, I need to balance it with the bridesmaid's dress for the wedding over Labor Day, which does fit. Perfectly. And if I lose too much weight that will be its own disaster since the dress is strapless.

All in all I'm in a weird head space. I can certainly lose the weight in time. I'm going slow now. I'm eating a bit less and really making a point to ride my bike every day. This is actually much easier, now that my commute is slightly shorter and we live next to a park with bike trails. Biking in the woods is way better than biking along a busy street.

We're also going on vacation next week, which should be a huge help. There will be lots of hiking and kayaking and generally being more active than I am in my day-to-day life. It should be wonderful and relaxing and exactly what I need. I'm hoping that when I get back I'll be in more of a blogging mood.