week(15) 2013

week 15, April 10 - 17

I drove out to check out the Run! Day Camp for Dogs. It way exceeded my expectations. The facility is very nice. The dogs have 15 acres to run on wherever they want. There's a creek on the property. The owner was friendly and straightforward. Abbie got to play with some of the dogs who were overnight boarding who can't be out on the acreage for whatever reason (e.g. one clearly preferred to lay on the couch; one had surgery a while ago; etc). There was a really small dog there. Abbie did great playing with her. She got down low and recognized she had to play differently with the smaller dog than the bigger dog. I was ridiculously proud of her. I'm going to have her start going once per week when her five boarding school training classes are over. --- Wednesday

health
The dog walk/jog continues to go well. I switched out the insoles of my shoes and that fixed my foot problem for the most part. My left ankle still hurts a bit, but that wasn't as concerning to me as my foot itself. I've added another set of lunges to the squat and lunge portion of the walk. Adding slowly is working. I was ever so slightly sore the day after adding the new set of lunges, but nothing too bad. Any pulling Abbie was doing (which on the daily walk/run was minimal) is now gone with putting her in a harness. Turtle still pulled like hell with the same type of harness, but Abbie responds very well to it. Sometimes I kind of have to pull her to come with me, so I don't know if that's harness discomfort or wanting to sniff or what. Ah well, these things are small potatoes in my life right now.

I'm down 22 lb from my high. I don't care much about the number my weight lands at as I feel healthy and sustainable at this weight, but it is nice to see it continue to go down despite having gotten my appetite back. I am eating way smaller portions due to choice, and eating more frequently. It makes me feel better physically. Eating the larger portions was just habit more than anything. I did have a 2-3 day stretch recently where it was harder than usual to resist sugar, but I didn't break. I had a bite or two of sweet stuff (a small chocolate egg from Easter candy), but didn't push it. I was proud of myself for that.

Depression stuff, at the moment, gets demoted to a section under health rather than it's own section. Woohoo!  I'm doing very well with this. I have situational sadness, but that's not the same (and I'm dealing with it quite well lately). I've struggled more with being mindful the past week or so, but as they say in the meditation guidance, "no one says this is easy."

job
I've been mulling over quite a bit lately, despite deciding to put this on the back burner for a while. One thing I'm pondering is starting my own home-based business targeting individuals, small business, organizations, etc who want to go paperless, or who want to get rid of a backlog of papers. I love organization and I love getting rid of clutter and I love my 25 page/minute, front-back at the same time, scanner. The appeal of starting my own business is that I would have more flexibility in hours allowing me to still walk Avery to school, pick her up, etc. It seems with all the changes in her life right now, me going back to work full-time is not necessarily in her best interests.

The other thing I've realized is that Sharepoint is more technical that I want to be. So I moved onto researching Salesforce.com. I think that is much more suited for what I would want to be doing in an outside the home job. So I'll ponder and research that for a while more to see if it feels right before moving forward with training. I think ideally I'd like to be a contract worker placed through a body shop(s). However, I think I'd need to work at least a year doing it full-time before I'd be able to do that. And probably before I feel comfortable. A lot changes in 7 years out of the workforce.

other
I downgraded the cable service to basic and dropped the landline. That saves $150 per month. I'm very pleased with that decision.

Last night a few of us went out to celebrate Christie's birthday. It was so nice to laugh so much.

The other day, I went to an obsucure movie called War Witch. I shouldn't have. And it should remain an obscure movie. Not sure what the 96% of critics were thinking. At least the movie was exploitative of the more gruesome aspects, particularly the violence.

Avery and I leave next Saturday - on a 6 am flight - for 6 days in St John. It's quite a slog to get there, but I am so looking forward to getting away into a warm, sunny location and seeing friends (Vic & Mike & Bear).