Not a lazy Sunday.

By 1pm today (Sunday), I had gone for a run, showered, had breakfast and done two loads of laundry. This is complete rarity for me. In general, I rarely shower on Sundays. I rarely leave the house on Sunday's unless I am heading to the grocery store and I'm pretty sure no one there cares what I look like. A typical Sunday consists of us getting up and relocating from the bed to the couch to relax. It's generally several hours later that I move with the intention of doing something productive, but of course by that point so much of the day has passed that I can't really get anything done. Sunday nights are usually when I get a surge of energy and attempt to clean the house and do laundry. But when its 8 o'clock, there is a time limit of how much can really get accomplished. Since my massive cleaning last week, I've been able to keep the house in a fairly manageable condition. Adam of course doesn't help the matter much, but he's improving slightly. Today I'm enacting my "if its not in the hamper, I don't wash it" rule. I usually ask Adam to gather his clothes, but am stopping that practice. I sort of feel like I'm training a puppy. Or a dog that was poorly trained as a puppy so I need to re-train to limit all the bad habits that have been acquired. I watched diggnation with Adam as I ate my breakfast/lunch, and when it was over I got off the couch to do some homework. He gave me this look like "you're leaving the couch?" Yes. I have things to do and they will no get accomplished if I sit on my ass all day. I'm struggling to figure out his thought process. He wants me to sit and hang out all weekend, but then gets sad when I'm stressed out all week because I didn't get anything done that I needed to over the weekend. I'm in a no-win situation, at least for the next few months as I finish school. 10 more weeks of actual class, but 11 weeks until graduation-- can't forget spring break- which will be used to work on projects.

I'm happy I'm running again, it calms me down SO much. It's sort of sad that it took me joining weight watchers to start up an exercise routine, but that's pretty much why I joined. I had some good habits, but I just wasn't putting them into practice. I just finished my 4th week of weight watchers and I'm down 6.4 pounds. Sadly, the hardest part is probably eating with Adam. He fully supports me, but refuses to change any of his eating habits to accommodate my own. The other day he took too much ice cream and asked if I wanted any. No, just because you took more than a serving of ice cream, it does not mean that I will eat it. I used to, but not anymore. When we first started dating we would eat out all the time. I would be ready to order soup and salad when Adam would ask if I would order something with fries, that way in case he didn't get enough, he could have mine. Being a good girlfriend I obliged. And the pattern continued- for 6 years. It's really funny for me to look back at how I ate and exercised before dating Adam, or at least before we lived together. Not that I was the healthiest person ever, but I had decent habits, now it's like I forgot everything that I used to do and do whatever Adam wants. When we're running errands on a weekend or something, we'll stop and get some food usually of the fast food variety. I would usually throw out Subway and Adam would throw out Arby's (or something equally as "not good" for us) and I would secretly get excited. I always justified it to myself as I didn't suggest it, so its okay. It's sort of ridiculous, but I just settled into this routine that it was out of my control. I work in advertising, I can convince Adam to do just about anything, yet, I would fall in line at the first sound of fast food or french fries. Amazing. Despite all of my ranting here, Adam really is supportive. He never told me that I should watch what I eat or work out more (of course he enjoys the results) but I am doing it for myself. I want to remember what it was like to feel confident again. I hate looking at pictures thinking, "why don't I take care of myself more?".

Okay, I really need to do some homework now, my mom wants to celebrate her birthday at 4pm at Applebee's. Her reasoning for the incredibly early time is that "every time we go out, its always so busy. Don't people know we're in a recession?". Mom-1, Other Applebees patrons- 0.

Happy Birthday, Mom. I hope they sing one of those great birthday songs to you!

Why bother?

I had high hopes for my day off on Monday. I was going to get ALL of my homework done, get a little bit of work done to get a jump on the week, and I was going to clean the house up. All of this after I went for a run/walk and did some pilates. Seems feasible....

The mail pile alone took me nearly 40 minutes. I did 7 loads of laundry. Put away Christmas boxes that were stacked all over the dining room. I pretty much just got the cleaning done during the day and then worked on my homework after dinner. I was aiming to get it all done during the day light hours so I could relax with Adam in the evening. The upside is that the house looks better than it has in ages. The downside, Adam makes it impossible to keep the house clean. IMPOSSIBLE. When he got home from work on Monday night, I was making dinner and walked out of the kitchen to say hi when I noticed his coat strewn across a chair and not in the front closet next to the front door. He moved the coat to the door handle of the closet, but not IN the closet. It was close enough for me. As he was taking his socks off, he started to throw them on the floor next to the bed. I told him "put them in the hamper." Yes, this sounds like I am nagging, but I spent ALL day cleaning to have him not change anything or even attempt to keep things clean. Last night I came home to a plate on the counter, next to the dishwasher. I'm not going to the touch that plate. If I have to tell Adam every day that its there, I'm going to do it, but I refuse to put it in the dishwasher.

This makes me realize why I give up on keeping the house clean because I don't have any help. I would like to keep it in the form that it is now, but I know it's also going to drive me crazy since I'm nitpicking everything that is out of order. I can't win. I'm not saying I'm perfect, but I'm at least trying.

Better luck next time.

A week ago, I went for a nice leisure Sunday afternoon walk. I felt so good after that I set my alarm for 6am everyday last week so that I would get up and walk or run. It is finally warm enough outside that I can be outside and not feel like I'm slowly freezing. I had the day off yesterday and went for a nice 45 minute walk/run. Of course I timed it perfectly so I could swing by the SA and pick up a cup of coffee and walk back home for my cool down. My dilemma this morning was, I wanted to go into work early (because with a day off, work piles up), but I also wanted to run. If I can't get up at 6am, what are the odds that I can get up earlier? I talked myself into a 5:45am wake up time. 15 minutes earlier seemed so much more feasible. My body actually started to wake up about 10 minutes prior to my alarm as if to say "you're going to do this and I am going to help you". I got ready in the dark as to not wake Adam. You never realize how hard it is to dress in the dark with tagless clothes. When I walked outside, I felt this amazing calm and I was so happy I was out there. A few years ago I used to get up and run a 3 mile out and back course when I was trying to train for a 1/2 marathon. Everyday I would run to the same spot and turn around, but today I ran for 30 minutes instead of a running to a distance and I ran farther today before I turned around than I used to. It was a small personal victory. Granted I got a new Nike + sensor and I have not calibrated it yet, so I'm not sure my exact distance, but so far I'm satisfied.

Of course, the reason I got up so early was to catch one of the early buses. I missed them by a couple minutes and am starting the morning off with a nice relaxing breakfast, coffee and blogging. It could be a good day after all.

Adjusting.

I feel like my life has been a constant set of adjustments happening lately. New job is a huge adjustment. Anything "new" in life generally is, but when it is something that takes up min 8 hours a day, it's hard not to fixate on it. However, when I compare my new job to a new baby, it pales in comparison for the time investment. Whatever, just let me go with it. I like order in my life. I really like schedules and mapping out my time. I like to know when things are happening and when they are do (actually doing them is another issue...). Not having order stresses me out. It makes me not think clearly and just fumble around. I spend too much time stressing out about what I have to do, then actually doing it. Homework does this to me all the time. I'll start fixating on how much I have to do and when I'm going to do instead of just tackling it a little at a time.

I'm also adjusting to being back in school after the few weeks off, but at the same time to being almost done. 87 days until my last final, 83 days till graduation, 124 days till I defend my thesis. I can't escape the fact that I am SO close to being done, yet so far. Images of my life pre-grad school keep flashing back. I get so excited to have the free time again. Going for a run downtown after work, because I could. Socializing mid week with friends. I miss being able to concentrate on one thing and only one thing. With my classes, it feels like 3 full time jobs. Or at least 3 constants that need my attention and brain power. It will be 4 once I start my thesis and 5 if I want to put any effort into my own life. I'm pretty sure I've married the most patient man in the whole world to put up with my constant stressed out life. I just keep thinking in 12 weeks, my classes will be over and I will at least get my nights back.

It really is the little things in life keeping me going right now.