As with many other people, I tend to make New Year's Resolutions every January. Typically, I've forgotten about them by Febuary. This year, I'm actually still focused on a couple of them, which is rather surprising.
Here were my resolutions:
The losing weight is actually going well, though I haven't been doing it the whole time. I've only started dieting in the last week, but at least I'm making a conscious effort to lose weight now. I've also probably worked out more in the past 4 months than I did all of last year. Having a diet buddy helps, someone I can talk to when I need advice or motivation. Although her last journal entry will probably give me an upset stomach. Thong?!? Moi?! icky.
continue >>I've never in my life been on a diet. Well, there was this time when I was in jr. high school ("middle school" they call it now...go figure) where my mom decided I wasn't getting enough protein or something and made me drink these hideous shakes that were just the nastiest things. They tasted like chalk.
Well, now I'm on a real, honest-to-god diet. I've known for some time that I've needed to lose weight. It just never was high on my priority list. For some reason though, the time has come to make it happen. There was nothing earth shaking that prompted this decision. It's just time to do it I guess. I don't want to be fat forever.
I've got some help this time through. I have my diet buddy who I mentioned before. I have Gail helping as well. She's been reading through different books about the low-carb diets (which is what I'm trying) and is helping me to eat better. We had meatloaf (with lean beef), beans and instead of mashed potatoes, we had mashed cauliflower. Gail chopped and whipped it up, put in some sour cream (low-fat of course ;), and some cheese, and wa-la! Mashed Cauliflower! It wasn't bad at all, but the real surprise was how Cody wolfed it down. He LOVED it.
So here's to hoping the diet works, I lose weight, start feeling better about myself and get all the hot young chicks to notice me without sucking in my gut all the time. Makes my head swell up funny when I do that.
Weather wise, it's been a weird week. Sunday and Monday it was cold and snowing. Wednesday and Thursday, it was gorgeous, high 70s. Naturally, I rode the bike in to work both days. Today, it's supposed to be in the low 70s. Riding to work this morning, it was cold, and there was patchy fog. My cheeks were freezing when I got here. I hope it does get to that promised 73 degrees.
I'm settling into my new role as QA tester type person. On my first "real day" of working as a tester, they gave me some stuff to test (naturally). Real basic stuff, entering difference values for different parameters for our new bug tracking software. I changed a few things, everything was good. Then I thought to myself "well, what if I did this?", and ended up breaking the whole system. I broke our bug tracking system, but not only that, I apparently broke the system it was based off, as well as created some firewall issues for the west coast people.
Man, do I know how to do my job or what?? What's even better is the fact that I get to break it and don't have to fix it. That rules.
continue >>It's snowing.
Hard.
According to the weather reports yesterday, we were supposed to get a "dusting". There's about 2 inches on the ground now, with a forecast of 2-4 inches by this afternoon. Since when is 2 inches a dusting? You normally won't hear me say this, but I am tired of the snow. I want Spring. I want the trees to bloom, I want the grass to need cutting, I want to ride my bike on nice weekends. Hell, I'll even take the seasonal allergies that accompany Spring. I am just so tired of the snow.
Gail and I took the kids and Sarah's friend, Olivia, to breakfast this morning. Cody was asking me what the vents were above the cook's area, and that led to a discussion of how hot the ovens at the pizza place where Gail and I met used to get. I told Cody that not only is that where I met Gail, but where I got a crush on her as well. He said "Oh...so you used to body slam her?"
I choked on my breakfast, and I could see Gail hide the smile that was threatening to become an out right laugh. After coughing for a few minutes, I asked Cody if he knew what I meant by "crush". He shook his head, and I explained it to him.
I tell ya, kids sure can be funny without meaning to be.
Cody and I went to Whitetail yesterday with our Indian Guides group to do some snow tubing. In getting ready, I discovered that I didn't have a hat or gloves. As we were meeting everyone in the parking lot of Wal-Mart, I figured that I'd just pick up a new hat and some gloves there.
Well, silly me, I forgot that it's February. I mean, geez, apparently Spring is just around the corner (mind you, as I type this there's 5 inches of snow on the ground left over from last week, and it's snowing now). They had all their tank tops and flip flops out. When asked about ski caps and gloves, they looked at me as if I was silly and said "No, we don't have any of those". I was almost stunned. Wal-Mart, not HAVE something? sheesh
So Cody and I went hat-less, but the day was nice and neither of us was too bothered by it. We had a good time. I managed to find a tube that had a plastic bottom instead of a vinyl one. Got myself a good running start, belly-flopped down onto it, zoomed down the hill, crashed into the hay bails at the end and went through. It was awesome!
Also went and saw the new Jackie Chan movie, Shanghai Knights, this weekend. Oh man, I laughed my butt off. Hopefully, I'll get a review of it up and stuck in my movies section. I've let that part slack off a bit, but I'd like to get it up and running again, along with the Gallery script for picture management. Time will tell.