And yet, I can’t seem to get away from it! I want to keep track of my personal training sessions because they are awesome and I’m planning on becoming a personal/group trainer and I want to remember my own experiences WITH a great trainer so I can BE a great trainer. I want to talk about my plans for August like going to Monterey for my second anniversary and doing VEDA again and starting my first school term since 2007. (I had half a post written about this stuff when I realized, “This is the most boring crap ever, and it’s all I’ve been writing lately.”)

I used to be able to write about what happens in my life and still be creative about how I said it. I used to be able to tell true stories in a way that read more like fiction, so people actually cared enough to read it. I used to be inspired daily — more like twenty times a day! — by things I saw or read or heard, and I could easily compose a fantastic, thoughtful post that also fulfilled my biggest Reason for Blogging, which is to remember my life. Lately I’m just writing to remember, but not to retain any meaningful connections with those few people who might actually still read this thing.

Starting a week from next Monday, I’ll be engrossed in making video blogs for VEDA, and I’m looking forward to connecting “face to face” with some new (and returning!) people. I just hope I can muster up some worthwhile stuff to read here, so that I can keep those connections going after the vlogging is over.

Until then, here’s my boring update, which you can feel free to ignore, since really I just want it for my own diarying purposes.

***

Monday’s personal training session was awful ONLY because my sunburn was soooo uncomfortable. Other than that, it was a great workout as usual. Wednesday was supposed to be PT #7, but Chris was sick so he left me with a printed routine that I followed as best I could. I had a good sweat, but I know it would’ve been better with his motivation and direction. (Translation: I slacked off a little because I knew I could. This is why I need a trainer, duh.)

I’ve gained weight the past two weeks, which totally blows. I’m pretty sure there is no way I can reach 145 in the next two weeks, at least not in a healthy way. So I’m changing my deadline to August 31, since that will be after my last training session with Chris. Here’s hoping I can get back on track!

August is a whopping eleven days away, and aside from working my butt off to get toned and lose the last few pounds, there’s some fun stuff on the horizon…

August 1-31: VEDA! This is the second annual Vlog Every Day in August, and I’m half-giddy, half-dreading it, to be honest. I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it for 31 consecutive days, but I’ll sure try. Last year I jumped right in and managed to post 29 videos, most of which were not edited or scripted and therefore were, admittedly, pretty lame. But the focus of VEDA isn’t necessarily to create brilliant material; it’s more about connecting with people on a different level than we’re used to in the blogging community. We get to see each other’s faces, talk about similar topics, and develop friendships that would most likely never exist without the internet. This year, now that I have an elementary grasp on the editing program Joe put on my computer, I’m hoping to make at least some of my vlogs a bit more exciting. But I’m also more committed to my workout routine lately than I was last summer, so there will likely be a few (or more) days where I have to scramble to record my daily video and just slap it up on YouTube without any edits.

August 8: My two-year anniversary! Joe and I will be spending a long weekend in Monterey, and I am really looking forward to being with him, away from our normal work/home environment, and able to reconnect and relax together. I feel like I haven’t been a very attentive wife lately, and I want to change that. I could say so much more on this topic (and maybe I will next week), but basically: I can’t wait for our weekend away.

August 23-24: I start my first two classes at city college! I’m taking “Personal Health Awareness” and a walking/jogging class. Should be a fairly light load in terms of homework, but I wanted to see how well I do getting back into the school scene before I load on a bunch of classes at once. The more I think about deciding to do this whole fitness-as-a-career thing, the more “right” it feels. I mean, I haven’t even started yet, so maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. All I know is that I have not felt this sure of a new career path, ever. When I wanted to teach, it was, “I’d probably be good at this, so it’s probably the right thing, even though it doesn’t really excite me.” When I thought about technical writing, it was kind of the same thought process. This fitness thing is more like, “I hope I’ll be good at this, and I want more than anything to work hard so I CAN be good at this, because it is so exciting to think about doing this!”

***

Okay. There. Maybe now I’ve gotten most of the diary-writing out of my system? I had a crazy dream last night that I’ll be posting about next week because it is pretty hilarious, and after that…we’ll see if I can’t find some inspiration someplace.

Pals, I wish I could say I have some amazing posts lined up for you this week, but only time will tell. At the moment, I’m feeling really sluggish, drained, and blah. We spent our weekend in Indio with my parents, and it was tons of fun, but all that driving and staying-up-late is definitely catching up with me. So for today, I’ll leave you with two things:

1. In case you missed my zillion tweets about it, I have appeared elsewhere in the blogosphere since my last post — at Lovely Anomaly’s place, in fact. I happen to think it’s a pretty swell post, and even if it’s not, you should go to her blog and read some other stuff, because she’s…you guessed it…LOVELY!
2. Will someone please tell me how this teensy little nephew of mine…

   
   …has become THIS adorable little boy in just a few short months?

   
   (Also, feel free to laugh. Poor Grandpa just needed a little nappy-poo, is all — but doesn’t it look like Levi went all David-and-Goliath on my dad? He’s even got the hammer that he (hypothetically) knocked him out with!)

Here’s hoping for more energy and inspiration as the week progresses.

How are YOU feeling on this (all-too-soon) First Day of March?

We’re hoping to hear back in the next couple of days from the folks Joe interviewed with last week, but we have absolutely no idea what the outcome will be. Certain things happened during the interview, Joe said, that made him think it could go either way. So we are still crossing our fingers, but at the same time trying to stay realistic.

I looked at myself in the mirror the other day, before I got dressed, and noticed The Bulge that has been gradually expanding around my waist. And then I saw the twin cousins of The Bulge, Chunky and Flabby, gripping grubbily around my thighs. And even though I’ve been reading this guy’s incredible weight loss journey, I can’t help but feel discouraged and pessimistic about the prospect of losing any weight. I start eating healthier, or at least eating less. I go to the gym, work out hard, and then I’m hungrier than Fat Bastard and I eat everything in sight and then we’re kind of back at Square One. (And it doesn’t help that my allergies give me trouble with raw fruits and veggies, so I rarely eat anything green or leafy or, you know, good for me.)

I found out today that two people in our branch at work have quit their jobs. It seems there’s something in the air around here; people want out. Apparently Joe and I aren’t the only ones…

And that concludes today’s poorly-constructed blog post.

Okay, so I might be exaggerating a little. (Or possibly not. You’ll never know.) But anyway, since we’ve been getting rid of crap and making things more organized around here, I knew it was a prime time to give our condo a deep scrub-down.

It wouldn’t have happened just yet, though, if it weren’t for the fact that we offered to host a game night with a bunch of friends yesterday. Let me rephrase that: on Wednesday night, we offered to host a game night just two days later. If that’s not motivation to crack down and clean up, I don’t know what is. I mean, I wish I had taken a picture of the absolute CHAOS that was our place just yesterday morning. We’d been working little by little on sorting, organizing, getting rid of crap, and finding good places for everything…but the key phrase there is “little by little.” We were kind of moseying our way toward a clean place; but yesterday morning, we took off like a friggin’ ROCKET.

Not only did we get everything in our living room put away in a strategic manner, but we also got the bathroom organized, and our bedroom about 90% squared away. And then I went crazy with the sponge.

People, I was on my hands and knees, scrubbing our bathroom floor like Cinderella. Except without the singing or the reflections in giant floating bubbles. Or the mop bucket. So basically I just had a sponge and some Lysol bathroom cleaner, and I went to TOWN. I scrubbed down the bathtub, washed the mirrors, disinfected EVERYTHING, and ooh boy did it feel good. Granted, my hands feel like they have a semi-permanent film of GROSS all over them, but it was so worth it.

We have a CLEAN HOUSE! And an organized house!

And this might be the most boring post to read, but I’m having fun writing it because it’s the first time I’ve sat at a computer for longer than a few minutes since, like, Thursday. And that’s just WRONG. I missed you, little WordPress text box. And you, too, awesome multiple-tabbed Firefox window.

…Ahem. Sorry, just had a little moment there.

Happy Saturday! I’m off to go make some pretty jewelry, and maybe after that I’ll come home and organize my PANTRY! Ack!

***

P.S. Here’s a little (random) trivia for you: Today, January 16, 2010, was the original date that Joe and I looked at for our wedding. I’m soooo glad we went with August. I couldn’t have possibly waited another five months to get my groove on marry my soul mate!

I’m feeling particularly motivated to start writing this week’s TMI Thursday post, and thus I am unable to focus on writing a Monday-ish post that isn’t a complete drag. Probably doesn’t help that most Mondays are inherently draggy anyway. I’m really, really glad that I have Friday off this week.

Oh! And I’m especially glad because on Friday, I am FINALLY going to see my best friend and future Maid of Honor, Ashton! She’s visiting from Texas for a bit, doing planning for HER wedding, and Friday we are going to be trying on each other’s chosen Maid of Honor dresses. Yes…I am excited. I still can’t believe that we’re both getting married THIS YEAR…or that Ashton is such a major punk because she got engaged before me. But I get to walk down the aisle first, so there. *sticks out tongue*

Anyway, Friday cannot come soon enough.

And neither can FREAKING SPRING! I am so tired of being cold. Mostly I’m tired of not having enough cold-weather clothes. But I am also really looking forward to warmer weather because I might actually take advantage of the fact that I live five minutes from the beach!! Can you believe I’ve lived in Santa Barbara since August, and have gone to the beach maybe three times? Puh. Theh. TICK. I would feel like such a loser if I moved away from here having neglected the beautiful ocean breeze, the sand between my toes, and uh, HELLO? The tans! Because I know the moment I moved away, I’d be like, “Man, I wish I could go to the beach right now!”

Thus concludes today’s lame Monday hodgepodge of a post. Stay tuned for something more exciting…I hope.

I wanted to write something profound or at least unnecessarily lengthy tonight, but I’m in that funk. So this is what you get. I’m gonna fall asleep to Gilmore Girls now…

My doctor told me last week that I can avoid migraines by getting more sleep, drinking lots of water, eating more frequently and easing up on all the red wine I’ve been gorging myself on. Oh, except I haven’t had any red wine in weeks. And I definitely have been eating MORE than frequently lately. I think he was just speaking hypothetically, though. But he DID bring to mind (my mind, that is) the facts I’ve been avoiding: I need sleep, and I need to eat better and drink more water. So I decided after seeing my doctor last week that I would start becoming more disciplined with getting more sleep and drinking more water. And maybe, I dunno, possibly trying to eat more healthy food.

Anyway, I decided these things, and then on Sunday, Joe and I decided that we want to start meeting in the mornings before work to do devotionals together…which means — you guessed it — I need to start waking up EARLIER than I already do. Like, an hour earlier. Like, 5:30 if I don’t care about doing my hair or looking remotely presentable at work. Are you catching the irony here? I need more sleep, and then I decide to wake up significantly earlier than I usually do?

So, because I really DO want to get at least seven hours of sleep each night, and more preferably eight, I’ve begun getting to bed around 9 or 9:30. Not. An. Easy. Task. But it’s only been two days, and I feel good about it so far, especially because it’s really great to spend some time every morning reading my Bible, and it’s an added bonus to get to see Joe before work, too.

But I digress. And you probably couldn’t even tell that I digressed, could you? Because I think I was already digressing from the first word of this post.

Right. Here’s what I set out to say from the get-go: I woke up this morning with a headache. Actually, come to think of it, I went to bed on Sunday night with a headache, woke up yesterday not with a headache, then went to bed last night with the same headache I woke up with this morning. (Did you follow all that? I hope it didn’t give you a headache.) So all day it’s been this little annoyance. Taunting me. Telling me lies about how I didn’t get enough sleep last night even though I totally did. What’s up with that? I’m thinking either my body just has to get used to a new routine, or maybe I’m still not doing enough to promote a non-headache/migraine-prone body.

So my list of habits to either form or break in the coming days/weeks:
1) Drink more water
2) Get more sleep
3) Eat healthier
4) Eat less crap (crap = sugar, simple carbs, stuff with no nutritional value)
5) Take computer breaks during the day (Heck, my BOSS even tells me I need to step away from the computer screen for a few minutes every couple hours.) — to help my eyes rest, which is probably another reason I’m so headache/migraine-prone lately
6) Get better about exercising regularly (steadily improving on this…)

There. That’s all I wanted to say in this post.

Well, that’s not true. I also want to say, “Sally sold seashells by the seashore.” (What? I just felt like this post needed something random. It WAS pretty boring, after all. Don’t worry. You can say it. “Tabitha, this post was boring. Try again.”)