blah is better than blue

Yesterday flew by in a blur. By the time we got home last night I was totally brain dead. I mentioned last week that my boss and I had been separated in the office reorg, each of us were placed in different units. She decided not to take the new position they offered her (which was really a kick a stomach, it was basically a "de-motion" (if that's a word). I'm really proud of her for not taking it, she would not have been happy in the new position and I know that she'll be much happier somewhere else. So, yesterday, I spent 4 hours emptying and packing up her office. I'm very good at sorting and packing so I just dug in and did it. When I finished up though, it sort of hit me what I'd just done. I got really upset and had a bit of a meltdown at my desk. It was more out of anger frustration than sadness. I had a bunch of folks in the corner where my desk is, I'd lost a bunch of stuff that we needed for a mailing that was going out, my phone was ringing off the hook...it was all just too much given what I'd done all morning.

While I was in her office packing stuff up, tonne of people stopped by to "see how I was doing" and to ask after her. By the time I got my back to desk, I was totally drained and exhausted. I'd worked through my lunch and just couldn't wait to get out of there. After work, my hunny picked me and the pile of boxes up and we dropped them off at her house. It feel really weird to know that we're not going to be working together anymore. We live really close to one another so I know that we'll still see each other and keep in touch, I'm just going to miss seeing her every day. We were a really good team and I'm really sad that we won't be working together anymore. Part of what dragged me down this week was that I knew that my boss wasn't coming back but I couldn't say anything to anyone for a couple of days (until it was to be announced "officially"). Of course, everyone was stopping by my desk or phoning to find out what was going on. It was not fun.

Angst and exhaustion aside, I seemed to regain some lost footing this week. On Monday or Tuesday I stepped on the scale and showed a HUGE gain. I was really disgusted with myself but I was also in the beginning of TOM. This morning when I stepped back on the scale, I was exactly the same as I'd been last time I weighed in. The carb bloat (from all those cookies) and retained water were both gone and I'm feeling much better at the moment. At the beginning of the week, I felt like a beached whale, my face looked puffy, my gut seemed huge (or more huge than normal). Today, I feel more normal and I definitely have more energy than I've had in a while. Of course, last night I slept like the dead so that helped. I don't think I moved one bit until around 6:30 this morning.

I didn't formally exercise today but Saturday is my break day. I did do a tonne of housework though, stuff I've not had the desire to deal with over the past couple of weeks, heavy cleaning type of stuff. I cleaned the whole of the downstairs and got started on the upstairs. Tomorrow I have a bit of laundry and the washroom to do. Sometimes, when I'm longing for more storage and a proper gym, I wish we had a bigger house but I tell ya, when I'm cleaning it I'm glad that it is exactly the size that it is! I also expect that I'll workout again tomorrow. I feel stronger this weekend than I've felt in a while. I'm looking forward to exercising tomorrow, and to crawling into my bed in a few minutes. I hope that you're all having a fun / restful / productive weekend too. 'night 'night!

staying the course and silly little nsv's

For some reason, I was thinking that today was Wednesday. I just realized that it's Thursday (when I logged into blogger). Yikes, usually on Thursdays, I get out of sync thinking that it's actually Friday.

Yesterday (Wednesday!) turned out to be an okay day after all. We went out for dinner with our little old guy, which was nice. I kept my calories in line for the day and had exercised so it was a good, on-plan day.

Today is going well so far, much better than this time last week. I worked out this morning and have been eating well all day so far. I even remembered to stop and have an orange mid-morning. It made a huge difference with my hunger level at lunchtime. I'm going to do the same thing this afternoon and take a break to eat my banana.

This morning, a bunch of us were standing around discussing the reorg (okay, we were having a bit of a moaning session) and a co-worker came around with a box of chocolate bars. He was selling them for his kids' school. They looked totally amazing, dark chocolate with whole almonds and gooey caramel inside. I was strong though, I didn't have one. Another co-worker bought one and the ate the whole thing while we stood talking to him so I had to smell one and watch the caramel oozing out of the chocolate. Still I remained strong and didn't give into temptation. Yay me!

struggling

So far today, I'm feeling much better than yesterday. I slept really well last night (I woke up at around 1:30 a.m. but it was cramps that woke me up, not work) and actually felt rested this morning. The funny thing is, I felt rested and yet was feeling sluggish. I guess it's because of all the pain killer type stuff I had to take to get through yesterday. So far today, I've not had to take anything and I'm feeling okay now.

I'm about 4 weeks into a no-coffee thing I've been trying. I still have the very occasional diet coke (we don't have it in the house I just have it when we go out to eat -- am I the only person who wishes for diet sprite or diet ginger ale in restaurants?) but no coffee at all. Ordinarily, I don't have my coffee (one cup only) until I get to work. I bring it with me in a travel mug. For the last four weeks, I've been making myself a pot of herbal tea when I get in, instead. Looking back, I think that the tiredness I was feeling after being sick was probably a little bit of caffeine withdrawal. Have a stomach bug really put me off the coffee so I stuck with it.

Anyway, I'm drinking lots of herbal tea and lots of water these days. Fluid intake is not a problem for me right now. Food, on the other hand has been. Over the past week, since all the chaos started, during the day, when I'm at the office, I'm so busy that I've not been having my snack (a piece of fruit mid-morning and mid-afternoon). I didn't realize this until I noticed that I bit of a stock pile of oranges and bananas on my desk. I'm going to try to force myself to stop. I realized this morning that I'm feeling super hungry in the evenings because I'm not getting that extra fruit in during the day. The result of skipping the snack, and the stress factor at work, had resulted in some bad food choices last week. I'm trying to not beat myself up over it too bad. Thinking about it now, I realize now that I was also in the throes of PMS last week. Yikes, I can't even believe that! It's a wonder that I didn't kill someone!

For now, I'm just working at getting back on track, one day at a time. If things would settle down at work, it might be easier. I'm trying really hard to not bring the work crap home with me but that's a struggle too. In a couple of months, when the dust has settled and things get into something resembling a normal routine again, I'm sure it'll be easier. Right now though, it's pretty tough to cope with if I think about the big picture. I guess I have to look at it like I'm looking at weight loss: break it down into small, manageable parts and take it one day at a time!

it's tuesday, I've got cramps!

I wish that I had the energy and wit to write something really cool and funny tonight. I don't know when things are going to normalize at work again. I'm working at not bringing it home with me but I'm still not sleeping great. Tonight I plan to leave the bedroom window wide open and am hoping that the cool air will help me sleep better. I really don't want to start taking those pills I got from the doctor in October again but I suppose I will tomorrow if I don't sleep better tonight.

TOM started with a vengeance today too so that didn't help much. I did exercise this morning though and I'm pretty proud of myself for that. I woke up with terrible cramps and sat on the edge of the bed for the longest time, trying to convince myself that exercise would make me feel worse and that an extra hour in bed would be much much better. Hah! Calmer heads prevailed and I got up and exercised. As I truly knew I would, I felt much much better when I was finished.

At lunchtime, I met a couple of friends for a bite and we walked around a little bit (sort of took a convoluted way to get to where we were going) and it was nice to get out of the office and away from the chaos for a bit. Now that it seems like the nicer weather is here (touch wood) I'm going to try to break up my day that way every day. Admittedly, I don't do that sort of thing when the weather is nasty.

I think I'm going to toddle off to bed now. I should have enough aleve in me to knock me out (and push the cramps away) for a bit. 'night all!!

I'm back at work and back to being stressed as all get out. I cannot wait for the dust to settle. I don't mind change but what I'm experiencing right now is beyond insane. If I could, I'd love to just purge and spill my guts right here in great graphic details about what's happening right now but you'll have to settle the reader's digest condensed version, in a bit. Must stuff is still happening and I don't feel comfortable talking about it here yet. Paranoid mutha-fucka aren't I?

I'm trying to get back on track this week. Last week, some days my eating was okay, other days I hate bunches of chocolate chip cookies. I tried to resist them but my resolve was so depleted and I was so fucking tired and drained, I comforted myself with them. I shouldn't have, but I did and it was wonderful. Of course, now I'm remorseful, wishing I hadn't done it while I type this out and munch on an apple. Happily, the cookies are now all gone, all traces of "bad" food are erased from my house. This week is about healthier eating and getting lots of rest. The exercise thing went well last week and probably helped me from consuming even more chocolate chip cookies than I did.

My goals for this week:

- I shall eat only healthy foods.
- I shall drink lots of lovely water (actually the water consumption hasn't been a problem recently)
- I shall exercise 6 out of 7 days.
- I shall take walks instead of eating cookies when the stress gets to me.

updating

Well Friday was a much better day than the rest of the week. Instead of being in and out of meetings, I was actually able to accomplish some stuff. Everyone's still a little antsy about all of the changes but I was able to get some of my big questions answered. I was totally exhausted by the time I got home from work and could hardly keep my eyes open all evening. I was awake again in the middle of the night though. I was up and sitting in front of the computer from 2 to 3 a.m. I did go back to bed though and even had a nap yesterday morning for a bit. I'm feeling much better about things generally. Last night I slept the whole night through so that's something. It was actually surprising to wake up this morning and see 5:15 a.m. on the clock and know that I'd not been up and down all night. I'm really relieved that my brain has finally stopped running in overdrive about this reorg thing. It wasn't doing me or anyone else any good at all.

Saturdays are generally my rest day so I didn't workout yesterday. I didn't do much of anything truth be told. I didn't even get into the shower until like 6 p.m. Today's been better so far and the sun is actually shining so I think we'll be doing some errands and general running around today. Hope you all have a nice, relaxing Sunday!!

I will survive

Yesterday was really tough. We had back to back to back meetings all day long. By the time I finished work last night my whole body ached from the tension. I've been suffering from information overload as well, there has been a lot to digest over the past 3 days.

Part of me is really looking forward to the new job that I'll be doing but the other part of me is completely freaking out. Most of my colleagues run programs that run on the fiscal year (we're looking to start our new jobs at the beginning of the next fiscal year, May 1). My programs though, run on the calendar year so we'll be right in the middle of the busiest time of the year when I'll be handing stuff over to someone else (or to several people -- it's looking like what I've been doing will be de-centralized). I was wide awake and on the verge of tears between 1 and 2 a.m. this morning just trying to process it all. Hopefully, over the coming days, things will be made more clear about how exactly the transition will happen. I know that the only reason that I'm freaking out is because I really care about what I do and I'm concerned that things will get mucked up. If I worked with widgets or some tangible thing I'd probably not be so worried but I work with volunteers and large groups of people so I am concerned about them.

Anyway, partly due to the stress of it all, eating was good yesterday. One advantage to all of these meetings was that I had to walk outside, between buildings for the meetings so I at least had a chance for some fresh air and to stretch my legs every couple of hours. This morning I just finished a great workout. I rode almost 7 miles on my recumbent and feel really good. I don't think I have any meetings today so hopefully I'll be able to hide at my desk and get some work done.

Thanks so much for all of the support yesterday folks, you have no idea how much it meant to me!