riffday: get crazy with the cheese whiz

The title is apropos of nothing, it's just a line from my favorite Beck song.  I promise I have not been eating cheese whiz, in spite of my rant in the previous post about how over-hyped some food fads are.  Which I posted just because I was insanely grumpy. I have absolutely no scientific evidence to back it up.  Except that I went the first 45 years of my life without eating anything organic, and I seem to be just fine.

Anyway.  let's not get started down that road again.

I'm supposed to be working on my thesis right now.  There are no hard and fast deadlines until next fall, but I told my professor I'd have a first draft to him by the end of next week.  Yeah.  Like that's going to happen.  Actually, it still might, but I'm going to have to put the proverbial pedal to the metal to make it happen because I just could not get myself to concentrate that first week after classes were over, and this past week wasn't much better.  I'm going to give it my best shot, anyway.

So let's see what else has been going on around here....

Nell is graduating in a couple of weeks, have I mentioned that?  We just dropped her off about six months ago, I'm sure of it.  We are so impossibly proud of her.  She majored in international public health, did an honors thesis, spent a year rowing crew, spent a quarter in Prague, spent as many hours volunteering this year as she did studying, made a gazillion friends after heading off to the big city without knowing a soul, and generally kicked college's ass.  If you know what I mean.  She's studying for the MCATs right now and will have her med school applications finished in a few weeks, then she just has to wait to see if she gets in.  I don't see how they could turn her down.

So next year she will be back here while she waits to find out what happens with med school.  You note how as soon as we downsized she decided to come back home?  yuppers.  It will be close quarters, but I bet it will be fun, too.  MadMax is actually looking forward to it.  He thinks we are way too boring.

And speaking of MadMax, a couple of weeks ago he broke the middle school record for discus throw by 15 feet.  Which I think is more than just breaking it, that is smashing it.  His winning throw was 126' and change.  I'm taking him to the U.S. Olympic Track and Field trials at the end of June, and it just so happens that those trials are held in EUGENE, OR.  Which means I get to meet frequent commenter Julie for the first time ever.  Can't wait!  There will be pictures!

Last weekend Dean and I went to a Marriage Enrichment conference.  It was good.  I was a bit worried going in, because y'all know I am a private person, and I was worried that there would be forced sharing.  But there wasn't.  There was only one time, the very first night, that everyone had to say something, and after that, it was all optional.  We learned many new skills, but more than anything, it forced us to sit and talk to each other, probably for about 3 hours total spread over the weekend.  Lots of important things were said.  We've been having nightly check-ins since we got back, just as a way of making sure that we really talk to each other at least once a day.  So far so good.

the 4-Letter Word update:  in my weigh-in yesterday, I had lost another pound.  Which is a little surprising because although I've been exercising faithfully every day, I've been a bit lax about calorie restriction.  I haven't gone over by a huge amount, but I've only had 2-3 days out of the last two weeks where I wasn't in the red on MyFitnessPal at the end of the day.  So that brings my total loss since January up to 9.5 pounds.  It seems like I should feel more of a difference with practically ten pounds gone, but really I feel pretty much the same as I did then. 

The best book I've read on parenting teenagers had a bit in it about how important it is to keep hanging in there with curfew.  If you set a midnight curfew and your teenager keeps coming in at 12:30 or 1:00, do what you need to do in terms of consequences, but don't give up.  It's better than having them come in at 2 a.m. or 4 a.m., which is what may happen if you dump the curfew altogether.

That's how I feel about MyFitnessPal right now (you were wondering how that was relevant, weren't you?).  I haven't been under my calorie count very often the last couple of weeks, but I haven't gone way over, either.  Without that mental limit, I think I would still be constantly over-eating.  And I lost a pound.  Oh, my lord, what if this works and a year from now I'm actually at my goal (which is another 17 pounds away)(Hmmm.  Maybe two years!)  We'll see.  I didn't exercise today for the first time in over a month.  I just needed a break.  Back to it tomorrow.

And that's everything I can think of.  I've done some minor re-arranging here, mostly stuff I don't think you'll even notice.  One thing I did was add a "back2school" label, since people keep ending up here after googling "back to school."  If that's why you're here, try the posts with the back2school label.  If you want them chronologically, unfortunately you have to scroll down to the bottom and read "up."  The other thing I did was add a "subscribe by e-mail" box at the top of the right sidebar.  I haven't tried it myself, but if you type your address in there, presumably you'll get an e-mail every time I post something new.