Monday Again...

It's Monday again. I don't really like Mondays. I'm tired from the weekend, my students are sluggish and dull, and I have four more days after this one until I can have another weekend. It snowed last night, which was fabulous, but the roads were shit for the drive in. Now it is raining, which promises to make the roads even worse for the drive home. Mondays suck.

On top of that, I can't find my purse. I thought I brought it home with me Friday, but couldn't find it. So I assumed that I left it at school. Not the case, it turns out - my purse is not here. So now what do I do? I keep looking, I guess. It's just so frustrating! My mind has been so absent lately it's starting to freak me out. I lost my purse, I never know where my cell phone is, and Saturday I bought some things at Wal Mart, but by bedtime couldn't remember if I had brought the bag in from the car or even left the store with it. That memory was just GONE. How is that possible?

It's been a while since I updated on my weight struggles. The reason? I'm still at 174. I haven't lost any weight in weeks, except for the three pounds I put on during vacation. It's time for more drastic measures. I think it's time for exercise. Now let me say here that when I was living in the thriving metropolis of Bangor, I went to the gym semi-regularly. My favorite machine was the elliptical machine. I could stay on that thing for a half an hour easy - it was fun, I worked hard, life was good. Now I live 40 miles from the nearest gym. Is it any wonder my weight is an issue? Now if I want exercise, I have to go outside. In the cold. ick. I suppose I could do work like chopping wood or shoveling snow, but what muscle groups do those work? In the gym, I have a handy-dandy picture on every machine that tells me which muscles are getting sexy and which are waiting for their turn. Shoveling snow is anyone's guess.
However, this weekend brought home to me just how far I have to go still. Bear and I spent the entire weekend with our friends Blondie and Snake (not their real names). Blondie does all the things that I wish I could do but am not allowed to - she jumps on her boyfriend and he catches her, Snake and Bear pick her up and toss her onto bookcases or over puddles. Blondie is 5'3" and maybe 120 pounds soaking wet. I'm 5'9" and 174 pounds completely naked (not even a hair elastic to inflate the weight). While I acknowledge that I have never been a small woman and will never shop in the petite section, I still harbor young girl fantasies of hanving a string virile man that can lift me as though I weigh nothing. Blondie, it appears, get to live my fantasies due to genetics and a few too many whoopie pies on my part. I admit it - I was jealous. Every time she got picked up or carried somewhere, I felt fat. I felt gigantic. I loomed. This is bad, because I was actually thinking that I had improved my self esteem with the 16 pounds I have lost since this summer. All that goodness flew away like Blondie's feet through the air. The worst part was that Bear was in on the lifting and carrying. Bear and Snake spent much of the weekend building me a nice sturdy bookcase (my old was was toppling down). When finished, the bookcase was tested with Blondie - they sat her on top of it, lifting her four feet into the air to set her upon it. She perched there, no problem, grinning. Snake must have seen something in my expression, because he asked me doubtfully, "do you want us to try to set you up there, too?" What was I supposed to say? Yes, but I want you to do it as effortlessly as you did with Blondie? I'm not crazy, I know that's not possible. So I smiled, replying, "no thanks, I won't subject you to that." Bear said, "Good, because the bookcase is strong, but I dont' think it's that strong." I know that in NO WAY did he mean for that to be a negative comment about my weight. He was literally thinking about the stress 180 pounds would put on 3/4" plywood. Still, it was not very much fun to hear.
So this brings me back to exercise. I am eating less food due to some mysterious lack of hunger pangs, but I'm still not losing weight. I've noticed that I've been eating less for at least two weeks now. Surely my body should have started eating it's fat reserves by now? Since the scale isn't budging, I guess I will have to. Walking sounds fairly easy - I will have to try that. But when? It gets dark shortly after I get home, the weather is always crappy, and I leave for work only 20 minutes after waking up. I have a recumbant bike in my living room, but I can't see the t.v. from there and it hurts my but bones to sit on for any length of time. What other options do I have? I tried using sex as an aerobic activity, but it's more difficult that you'd think to get your thirty minutes a day. It is the only one I don't have an excuse for, though. Hmmm...

~Amalia~