[Elennare]

I have made it safely home from Bali! It was a lovely trip, even if it was shorter than would have been ideal. More on that later.

 

First, my challenge!

Life is starting to ramp up with things going on. The boys start school tomorrow, Little One starts derby this week, and I start derby next week. We're still looking for an activity for Little Bug, but that will probably be starting soon as well. (I think Husband has a lead on a Kung fu dojo, so that's cool.) We're still working on unpacking, so there's not a whole lot of space in the apartment, we still don't know where a bunch of stuff is, and we need to be able to dedicate a decent chunk of time to getting that done so we can have a reasonable place to live rather than a poorly organized wear house.

 

Given all that, plus the giant break I took from derby during the move, and that Little One is likely going to be moving into playing contact derby soon, a challenge focused on relatively short exercise sessions designed to get you in shape for derby quickly would be ideal. What's that Roller Derby Athletics, you're running the Pump Up Your Jam boot camp starting today, and you're letting people who don't have full-time subscriptions sign up for it? Why yes, that sounds perfect!

 

So yeah, that's what I'm doing for this challenge. Not going to worry about anything else health/fitness wise right now, just getting the workouts in and getting Little One (and hopefully also Little Bug) to join me.

 

I other life news, the house sale is in the (way too slow) process of falling through. I don't think the buyer ever had a real intention to pay more than his initial (way low ball) offer. So, when we accepted the negotiated price, we set up the deal to protect us from the typical shenanigans that lower the effective sale price. We gave as much as we were willing to in the negotiated price. The only reason the sale hasn't fallen through is because our agent and the relo company person keep trying to talk us into playing the games and accepting less for the house. We're not budging, and are starting to get annoyed, because the longer they drag this out, the longer the house is off the market and we're maybe missing serious buyers. If this keeps up much longer, I think we're going to start considering if we need to switch agents. I don't know how much good that will do, though, because the relo people will still be involved no matter who our agent is.

 

I finally officially heard back about my interview. Apparently there was supposed to be an automated email that I never got. They really like me and think I would be a great fit for the company, but they need someone with more experience with ordnance for this position. I am encouraged to apply for more positions. So, that sucks, because that interview was a Thing, but it's also about as positive a rejection as I could get. But it still sucks.

 

Husband has an interview tomorrow for a really cool position. I think he's way more likely to get this job than I was with my interview.

 

I was going to put some stuff about the trip here, but this post is already super long and it's late, so I'll save that for tomorrow. But it was a really cool experience and I'm glad we went. I didn't take a lot of pictures, but here's a little teaser. ?

[TimovieMan]

Following!

 

 

8 hours ago, Elennare said:

I finally officially heard back about my interview. Apparently there was supposed to be an automated email that I never got. They really like me and think I would be a great fit for the company, but they need someone with more experience with ordnance for this position. I am encouraged to apply for more positions. So, that sucks, because that interview was a Thing, but it's also about as positive a rejection as I could get. But it still sucks.

Yeah, basically being told you came in second in an application for just one position, sucks. Focus on the positive: you essentially beat out the rest of the field!

Doesn't get you a job, but at least you come out of it with your self-esteem intact... ?

[Elennare]

I had planned for my next post to be about Bali, but I need to vent about the house selling nonsense.

 

We got another email, as well as a call from the relo person, and then a call from "our" agent this morning.  Per our agent, they were just trying to educate us about the potential consequences of not accepting the buyer's shit offer.  After the relo person sent us an email stating that we'll have to start paying the mortgage and utilities again.  Except, we never stopped paying them.  Nothing but scare tactics to pressure us into continuing with this sale. 

 

This is not our first rodeo, we know how the game is played.  And, if they were "just trying to educate us," why persist in the same arguments multiple times after we have repeatedly stated we understand and are willing to live with however it plays out?  And then, while on the call, after using word-for-word the same argument the relo person tried to give me first thing this morning and stating she had our best interests at heart, our agent stated that her job was to sell the house as fast as possible.

 

Which...is not *our* goal.  Our goal is to sell it for the best price we can, in a reasonable amount of time.  So, that little slip has made clear what we were starting to suspect - that the real estate agent is in fact working for the relo people, not us.  We did finally get her to agree to proceed with the mutual release so we can get the house back on the market, but this should have been done like a week ago.  They kept dragging it out, trying to get us to play the buyer's game.

 

I am about this |  | close to telling the relo people we'll take the tax hit to switch the kind of house sale benefit we're getting from them so we can get an agent who *actually* has our best interest in mind rather than pushing us to sell as quickly as possible to the first schmuck who comes along.  So done with the bullshit right now. ?

[Elennare]

Ok, here is the recap of the trip to Bali!  I will do my best to make this coherent, but jet lag is currently kicking my butt and I am falling asleep at work (like, I actually briefly fell asleep in 2 meetings that were, thankfully, online. ?) so I'm hoping using my brain for this will help wake me up a bit.

 

First, long-haul international flights in economy class are pretty brutal, though they do actually feed you.  So that's a bonus.  We had a nice layover in Taipei, where the Starbucks has a different menu.  They should bring the hojitcha latte to the US, because it's really good!  Once we arrived in Bali and got through immigration and customs, we exchanged some money and got a local sim card for my phone.  I brought a very slim wallet to hold the foreign money in -  that did not work at all, because I greatly underestimated the exchange rate.  I ended up with a stack of bills that was like an inch and a half thick!  Then we got picked up and driven to the resort.

 

They took our bags as soon as we arrived and said they'd deliver them to our room for us.  Then we got some sort of really tasty drink while they checked us in.  I have no idea what it was, but it was delicious.  The room was very nice, though the second "bed" was a touch small.  In quotes because it was a sofa that converted to a bed.  The bathroom was huge, and, interestingly, the toilet was in a separate little closet.  And there was a huge walk-in closet as well.  It was around dinner time, and we were really tired, so we ended up ordering room service and calling it a night.

 

Breakfast was included with the room, which was cool.  You went to one of the restaurants in the little "Village Square" area, and ordered whatever you wanted off the menu.  There were a lot of things on there, but most of them fairly small, so we ended up getting 2 or 3 "flights" of breakfast foods.  After that, we went swimming at my parents' room.  They had a fancy room that included a patio that led into a private pool for the rooms on that side of the building.  That was very nice.  And then it was time to get ready for the tea ceremony.  We had no idea what to expect for that.  It turns out it was the couple serving tea to their families.  They started with the parents, then siblings, then married cousins, then friends.  Whoever's turn it was went and sat on a couch thing, then the assistants brought a tray with two cups of tea over.  The non-related getting-married person then served the tea to them, and then the people who got the tea gave the couple a gift in a red envelope.  Unfortunately, we had no idea what was going on, so our envelopes only contained well wishes, but we did apologize and let them know our gift for them was coming later.  After that, the ceremony concluded with all the non-married cousins lining up to congratulate the couple and receive a red envelope from them.  So, the overall idea was showing respect to the families they were about to marry into, getting blessings from their married relatives, and sharing their good fortune with the non-married relatives.  It was pretty cool.  Then it was time to change for dinner, which was a big fancy welcome dinner.

 

The next day was the wedding itself, which took up most of the day.  After breakfast, it was time to get ready, because the church was about an hour away from the resort.  While we were getting ready, there was a small earthquake!  I had just wrapped a chunk of my hair around a curling iron when I heard a rumble.  Had just enough time to think "oh, that sounds like an earthquake" and put my other hand on the counter before everything started gently swaying.  It lasted 5ish seconds.  Apparently a 4.something.  So, my cousin can say the earth literally moved on his wedding day.   They bussed everyone to the church, and gave us a boxed lunch to take with us.  No one was sure when were supposed to eat them, though, so we just kind of held on to them, and didn't eat them until we got back to the resort after the service.  The service itself was beautiful.  And the choir was really good.  We ended up in the front row, so we're probably in the background of lots of the pictures of the service.  But the boys were on their best behavior, so there shouldn't be any weird cousins in the background.   Then, after photos (seriously, there were so many photos taken over the course of the weekend it was boarder line crazy), everyone got back on the busses to go back to the resort.  And they gave us a snack box of pastries to eat on the way back.  Just enough time to eat lunch and have a bit of a nap before it was time for the reception.

 

The reception was pretty great.  It started with a cocktail hour, which included a drink that was made just for them.  Rum and passion fruit juice and a couple other things I'm forgetting.  It was delicious.  Then dinner, which included lots of speeches.  They had a fancy cake, which they cut and did the feed each other cake thing with (also apparently in Indonesia, they feed the cake to their parents as well), but I don't think they served any to the guests.  That was slightly disappointing, but the dessert that was included with dinner pretty much made up for it.  Everyone else got some sort of fancy sweet cheese thing that I understand was very good, but due to my dairy allergy I got a special menu (which I was not expecting, and that was super cool).  My desert was some sort of berry-tofu mouse, with sliced strawberries on it, topped with some sort of non-dairy basil ice cream.  As weird as it sounds, that basil ice cream was the best part!  Then, after a couple more speeches, the bride and groom had their first dance.  Then they opened the dance floor, but it was basically zumba, wedding edition.  There was a "dance leader" showing everyone what to do.  It was fun, but not quite the kind of dancing I wanted.  I was very impressed with the dance leader, though.  I don't think he took a break for the entire hour or so the dancing was going on!  They also had a separate room set up with a DJ and free-form dancing.  Husband and I popped in there for a bit and danced together.  The boys ran out of energy shortly after dinner and went to bed, so they didn't make it to the dancing at all.  We ended up getting to bed around midnight, and I think the party wound down shortly after that.

 

Sunday we actually had a day to just enjoy doing whatever.  After breakfast we walked down the beach to the turtle conservation place associated with the resort.  It was cool, but didn't have a whole lot in the way of interpretive signs.  But baby turtles!  On the way back, we stuck our feet in the ocean.  I had never been in the Indian Ocean before, so now I have been in 3 different oceans!  Little Bug kind of didn't want to, but while he was debating, he came down close enough that a giant wave took away the choice.   Then we went for a walk to the shops just down the road from the resort and got some souvenirs.  After that, we had some snacks back at the room (we probably should have had a proper lunch, but we didn't), followed by hanging out at the main pool.  It was a very nice pool.  Husband sat on the side in a lounge chair, read a book, and drank a fancy drink that came in a gold pineapple cup.  The boys and I, along with my brother and his girlfriend, ended up playing 5-person monkey in the middle for like an hour and a half, which was a lot of fun.  Then, back to the room for showers and to pack most of our stuff.  Then we got dinner at one of the restaurants (Little One fell asleep while waiting for the food), finished packing, and hung out with my aunt and uncle until it was time to go to the airport.

 

Unfortunately, Little One got very tired and had spent the day in the sun without drinking enough, which meant he ended up throwing up.  Not what you want to deal with when flying.  REALLY not what you want to deal with when flying international.  Luckily, he didn't get sick on the ride to the airport, and only threw up a few times while at the airport (none of them at a time it would have been bad), and was done with the barfing by the time we got on the plane.  The 10-hour layover in Seoul kind of sucked, but they actually had a nice (free) lounge for people transferring from other flights.  The rest of the travel was uneventful, and we made it home safely.  Oh yeah.  If you ever travel to Bali, know that little tiny folding scissors are not allowed through security.  I lost my nice pair to that.  But, it was a lovely trip and despite the travel itself being less than stellar, I'm glad we went!

 

I will come back and add some pictures later.  So, if you're seeing this, they're still coming. (Edit: this is so long I decided to put the pictures in a separate post)

[Everstorm]

Sounds like an epic trip!  I hope Little Bug is doing better at home now.

[Elennare]

Bali pictures!

 

Tea ceremony

 

Some pretty flowers around the resort

 

The church where the wedding itself was held

 

The cake

 

And, I apparently only took video of the baby turtles, so can't share those. ?

 

So, yeah, as I said, not a whole lot of pictures, but I was enjoying being in the moment. ?

 

[Laghail]

On 9/10/2024 at 12:32 AM, Elennare said:

First, my challenge!

 

 

I'm late but hella following!

 

On 9/10/2024 at 12:32 AM, Elennare said:

I other life news, the house sale is in the (way too slow) process of falling through. I don't think the buyer ever had a real intention to pay more than his initial (way low ball) offer. So, when we accepted the negotiated price, we set up the deal to protect us from the typical shenanigans that lower the effective sale price. We gave as much as we were willing to in the negotiated price. The only reason the sale hasn't fallen through is because our agent and the relo company person keep trying to talk us into playing the games and accepting less for the house. We're not budging, and are starting to get annoyed, because the longer they drag this out, the longer the house is off the market and we're maybe missing serious buyers. If this keeps up much longer, I think we're going to start considering if we need to switch agents. I don't know how much good that will do, though, because the relo people will still be involved no matter who our agent is.

 

In this market, the buyer is trying to lowball you?? I'm not even mad, just shocked.

[Elennare]

2 hours ago, Laghail said:

In this market, the buyer is trying to lowball you?? I'm not even mad, just shocked.

Not only trying to lowball us, but also being super picky about things. I guess his wife is extra super sensitive to mold, and their mold test got messed up and had to be redone, so even if we had agreed to the nonsense, it's entirely possible he would have still walked away.

 

Thankfully, after a more angry call than we would have liked, we were able to get our agent and relo person to understand that we did in fact understand what we were doing and did not want to play these games, and they finally got the mutual release. The house is back on the market, and we have already gotten more people looking at it than had before the ill-fated sale attempt. I really hope someone gives us a nice offer on it soon.

 

Because that's where the good news ends.

 

The large union (not mine) at the company I work for rejected the in actuality not so great contract offer and are now on strike. Things have not been going well for this company for a while, and this is not helping. So, there's lots of speculation about what sort of effects this is going to have on the future of the company. And management seems to be taking the tact of scaring the non-striking employees in what I can only guess is a misguided attempt to get us to pressure the people on strike to just accept the offer. That, or they're trying to put stuff in place to try to have more leverage when it's the engineers' union's turn for contract talks. Whatever their goal is, they're certainly doing a great job of destroying any morale that was left.

 

And, we just got an email from our agent about a stain on the ceiling in the master bedroom, which wasn't there before. So, it's very likely the tornadoes that went through the area damaged the roof. ?it's an easy fix and we don't have to replace the whole roof. Because we can't afford that, but will have no choice but to do it if it needs to be done.

 

At the moment, it's seriously looking like the only upside to this whole new job and moving thing is being back in the union, so I'm safe from the threats of furloughs.

 

And, I have not been keeping up with the exercise plan, because we've been busy plus jet lag has been kicking my butt. I definitely fell asleep at my desk a few times! ?  Going to make a big attempt to follow the plan this week and then see if I can slot in the missed workouts somewhere before the end of the boot camp.

[Elennare]

This week continues to be not super great, as far as following my plan goes.  It's Wednesday, and I haven't exercised at all.  Maybe I can get some exercise in tonight, but we'll see.

 

Furloughs are indeed happening for pretty much all the non-union employees (Engineers and whatnot, who are not part of the non-striking engineering union).  If the strike drags on, which based on the news reports of the continuing negotiations not going well it likely will, I will not be surprised in the slightest if layoffs for the engineering union employees follow.  I have no idea how that might affect me, because I don't have a retention rating yet.  Assuming they wait until next year to do anything, I will have one, and it will probably be the bottom tier, which would put me in the highly likely to be laid off category.  So, there's nothing great about the work situation. 

 

And, we just found out that the house warranty we have won't cover whatever is going on with the roof/ceiling.  So we're kind of stuck on that one.  I suspect our insurance won't cover it either, since it's likely water damage from a storm, but it's probably worth looking into.

 

Pretty much since I got transferred, I've been fighting against the feeling that it was the wrong move for me and both the job and the location aren't where I am supposed to end up.  But, we're here, and we promised the kids we weren't moving any more until they graduated from high school.  So far, most stuff seems to be pointing to that feeling being correct (not everything has been bad, but a lot of big stuff sure has been/continues to be) and now I feel like I'm trapped in a shitty situation I got railroaded into.  It sucks, and I don't know what to do about it.

 

In good news, my mom's birthday was on Monday, and we had a lovely dinner with my parents to celebrate.

[Everstorm]

On 9/18/2024 at 3:23 PM, Elennare said:

And, we just found out that the house warranty we have won't cover whatever is going on with the roof/ceiling.  So we're kind of stuck on that one.  I suspect our insurance won't cover it either, since it's likely water damage from a storm, but it's probably worth looking into.

 

We had a similar situation.  The insurance company claimed the roof was not damaged, but the indoor damage from "wind driven rain" was covered.  However, the indoor damages were less than our deductible, so the payout was zero.  Whomp, whomp.

[Elennare]

Well, I didn't manage to get any of the planned exercise in this week, but I did make it to the roller rink to try out my new skates. They still need some breaking in, but I think they'll do.

 

We got a bunch more boxes unpacked. Still have a lot to do, but we're getting there.

 

Little Bug needed his name on the front of his gym shirts, and since I found my Cricut machine and materials while unpacking, I was able to make his shirts all fancy for him. That's the biggest project I've done so far!

 

Things continue to be weird at work. A bunch of people are on furlough, including my manager this week. And, a very high level executive got fired on Friday. Not one of the ones I would have expected, but I don't think I will ever get any info about why. Some of the papers are speculating he's just the first of many because the new CEO wants to pick his own people. I guess we'll see?

 

I am going to try real hard to get to the gym at least once this week, but I make no promises.

[Elennare]

This week did not go at all how I expected it to.

 

Little One came down with the cold Little Bug had, and it went straight to his lungs.  So, most of the time I had planned for exercising got taken up with snuggles, especially on Monday.

 

Tuesday morning, as I was pulling out of the apartment parking lot, I got a call on my work phone.  It was from a junk removal company, saying they were on their way to pick up our boxes.  The pick up I'd been trying, for 2 weeks, to get scheduled for Friday or Saturday.  In a continuation of the spectacular communication I'd been receiving on the process, they scheduled the guy to come get the boxes on Tuesday without talking to me at all.  And, like 15 minutes after the guy called me, I got a text from one of the 3 people I had been shuffled between in the process of trying to set this up asking if I would be available that morning for the pickup!  So I turned around and worked from home, so I could be there in case anything needed sorting out.  Luckily the guy was great, and all the boxes we had unpacked are gone, along with the mountains of packing paper,  but some advanced notice would have been nice.  And we had been planning to get more boxes unpacked, so we'd have less to deal with ourselves.  Oh well.  We have more room in the apartment, at least.

 

We are slowly getting settled in, but there is still a lot of work to do.  And somehow, in all of that, my knee pads disappeared.  Which meant I wasn't able to go to derby practice on Thursday like I had planned. ?

 

Sunday we spent some time getting the living room put together.  It's almost all set.  But, it was enough all set that we could sit down at our table and play a board game, which has been one of Husband's goals since we moved it.  Halfway through it, Little One knocked over his water glass, and it exploded on the floor (this was the third drinking vessel broken this week, and the other 2 were sentimental to Husband).  And, while he was vacuuming up the small bits of glass that couldn't get swept up, he also vacuumed up the little crochet project I was working on, and it snapped the yarn.  Cue much tears.  At that point it was clear that *everyone* had reached their limit for dealing with things, so I suggested we pause the game and go watch a movie.

 

The boys, especially Little One, have been excited about The Wild Robot.  Little One read the book in class a few years ago, and absolutely loved it.  So, movie tickets were purchased, and off we went to get a quick dinner before the movie.  The waiter knocked over one of the cups of water while setting down Husband's food, and spilled it all over Little Bug.  ?  No, I'm not joking.  *disbelief*  But we finished our food in time to get to the movie before the previews were done.

 

So, no spoilers, but The Wild Robot is really good.  Like, really really good.  I highly recommend it.  But make sure you bring tissues, especially if you are a parent dealing with some *stuff.*  All 4 of us ended up crying.  Multiple times.

 

I don't know how this week is going to go.  I keep waffling between needing to be super strict and make myself work out every day no matter what and also eat  super healthy, and just giving up.  Because, on the one hand, clearly I have a lot of stuff going on and am I really going to be able to do anything until we're all moved in?  But on the other, it's not like things are going to slow down, so if I can't do it now I never will.  *sigh*  What I really need to do is figure out a nice middle ground that isn't overwhelming but also gets me progress.  Blergh.

[Everstorm]

Big hugs, you all are going through a lot right now.

 

49 minutes ago, Elennare said:

make myself work out every day no matter what and also eat  super healthy, and just giving up. 

 

I feel like this is a good time for the reminder that a foundational philosophy of NerdFitness is: fitness is a dial, not a switch.  Turn it down when life gets too busy, not off.  Figure out what is the bare minimum you can do to maintain some forward progress, and then just do that until things lighten up a bit.  Then turn the dial back up.

 

In other words, anything is better than nothing.  Do 2 minutes of stretches, or make 1 healthy meal a week.  Whatever works for where you are right now.

[Elennare]

2 hours ago, Everstorm said:

Big hugs, you all are going through a lot right now.

 

 

I feel like this is a good time for the reminder that a foundational philosophy of NerdFitness is: fitness is a dial, not a switch.  Turn it down when life gets too busy, not off.  Figure out what is the bare minimum you can do to maintain some forward progress, and then just do that until things lighten up a bit.  Then turn the dial back up.

 

In other words, anything is better than nothing.  Do 2 minutes of stretches, or make 1 healthy meal a week.  Whatever works for where you are right now.

*sigh*  Yeah, I know, and that's what I'm working on/towards.  I've just got a lot of stress and mental baggage all mixed up in what I've got going on in my life, and it's feeding the evil voice in my head.  I'm not actually going to do anything stupid strict (though really, that is the only thing I have gotten to work for me in the last 5+ years, so ?) or give up.  I'm just going to continue with my half-assed attempts at being healthy and being mired in stress, because that seems to be all I can do lately.

 

Sorry, I am a mess, mentally, today, and it's really coming out. 

 

In a bright spot, Husband got invited to the next round of interview for the position he's trying to get, that he had been expecting a "thanks, but we're going with someone else" email from!

[Elennare]

In support of my attempts to get back on track, I bought a new scale.  It's a fancy smart scale, and shouldn't have the "is it actually working?" issue I was having with the old scale.  At least, that's the hope.  It'll either be that, or it's going to look real nice while it feeds me bullshit. ?  Hoping for the former!

 

The last time I weighed myself was the start of July, shortly before everything turned upside down.  As of this morning, I'm only 1.5lbs heavier than then.  That is a huge win!  It's definitely not where I want to be, but I was afraid I was going to be a lot heavier, and that is close enough to count as maintaining the same weight.  And, I also know that since I have a new scale and the old one was weird, it's not necessarily a 1:1 comparison.  But now I have a new baseline to start over from!

 

I also did a bit more unpacking last night.  I did not get as much stuff put away as I had hoped, but I did sort out things we need immediately available vs things that can go in the storage closet.  And between Husband and I, we managed to arrange things in preparation for moving to the storage closet so that we could actually use the bedroom closet and close our bathroom door.  First time we've been able to do either of those since we moved in, so that's pretty cool.  One upside of taking so long to get unpacked is, once we actually get things put away and all the boxes out, the apartment is going to feel huge!

[Laghail]

28 minutes ago, Elennare said:

The last time I weighed myself was the start of July, shortly before everything turned upside down.  As of this morning, I'm only 1.5lbs heavier than then.  That is a huge win!  It's definitely not where I want to be, but I was afraid I was going to be a lot heavier, and that is close enough to count as maintaining the same weight.  And, I also know that since I have a new scale and the old one was weird, it's not necessarily a 1:1 comparison.  But now I have a new baseline to start over from!

 

Agree on 1.5 being inconsequential. That's like a water weight fluctuation. Fingers crossed for your next leg of the journey. 

 

28 minutes ago, Elennare said:

I also did a bit more unpacking last night.  I did not get as much stuff put away as I had hoped, but I did sort out things we need immediately available vs things that can go in the storage closet.  And between Husband and I, we managed to arrange things in preparation for moving to the storage closet so that we could actually use the bedroom closet and close our bathroom door.  First time we've been able to do either of those since we moved in, so that's pretty cool.  One upside of taking so long to get unpacked is, once we actually get things put away and all the boxes out, the apartment is going to feel huge!

 

Unpacking is hell but sounds like you're knocking things out. Well done!

[Elennare]

I have some plans for getting back on track.  First, I'm going to measure myself tomorrow morning (because I haven't had time before work) to finish putting together my new baseline.

 

I am going to give The Flat Belly Diet a go again.  Or as close to it as I can, because the book is a bit dated and I don't know if all the brands they recommend are available anymore.  I'm sure I can find things that will work, it's just probably going to take a bit more effort.  It's not a crazy crash diet, it's essentially a rebrand of the mediterranean diet, though I think it has a bit more emphasis on MUFAs (monounsaturated fatty acids).  With any luck, I'll be able to follow it without too much trouble and actually make some progress.  I suspect once I am back to playing derby I'm going to need to add some more protein in, because it looked a bit light on that when I was just glancing over the meals.  We'll see.  Assuming I can get to the grocery store, I plan to start on Sunday.

 

I have also decided that regardless of other exercise, I'm going to try to sneak in some additional movement to my day by going to the bathroom that's farther away from my desk, and also taking the stairs instead of the elevator.  The stairs thing is also largely motivated by the fact that one of the elevators has started acting weird and I don't want to get stuck in there! ?  The stairs by the door I usually come in were easy to find.  I know there's also a stairwell near the cafeteria, but I haven't been able to figure out where that one is yet.  But I'll find it!

[Laghail]

On 10/4/2024 at 4:17 PM, Elennare said:

I have also decided that regardless of other exercise, I'm going to try to sneak in some additional movement to my day by going to the bathroom that's farther away from my desk, and also taking the stairs instead of the elevator.  The stairs thing is also largely motivated by the fact that one of the elevators has started acting weird and I don't want to get stuck in there! ?  The stairs by the door I usually come in were easy to find.  I know there's also a stairwell near the cafeteria, but I haven't been able to figure out where that one is yet.  But I'll find it!

 

Sneaky exercising officially gives you a level in Rogue. I don't make the rules.

[Elennare]

Well, nothing is going quite to plan, but it is going slightly better than before.

 

Annoyingly, I was not able to find my tape measure, so measurements did not happen.  I also didn't make it to the grocery store on Saturday, so I didn't start the new diet on Sunday like planned.  And, I ended up working from home today, so no sneaky exercise yet.

 

On the up side, I found my knee pads, so I can go to derby this week.  I got groceries on Sunday so started the new diet today, and I took pictures just in case the tape measure proves harder to find than expected.  Especially since I know I have seen it since the move.

 

We got another offer on the house, but it is really low.  It's all cash, though, so that's tempting, because it would mean we could close before the end of the month and not have to keep throwing money at the house.  But, it's really low.  Our realtor wanted to discuss this morning, which is part of why I worked from home today.  The other part was because I finally hit the point where I couldn't bottle everything up anymore last night and ended up crying a lot.  But also staying up late.

 

We talked to our realtor this morning, and have provided a counter offer.  I seriously doubt the prospective buyer will come up as much as we'd like, but maybe to something we can live with.  I am mildly hopeful about things today, which is nice.

[Everstorm]

2 hours ago, Elennare said:

I found my knee pads, so I can go to derby this week.  I got groceries on Sunday so started the new diet today, and I took pictures just in case the tape measure proves harder to find than expected.  Especially since I know I have seen it since the move.

 

Some great wins here

[Elennare]

So much for selling the house by the end of the month.  The potential buyer has decided to respond to our counter offer by saying "never mind."   It would be lovely if we could get a serious buyer rather than people who just want to YOLO it with really low offers on the chance that...I guess we're desperate or something?  Not understanding the thought process there at all.

 

Day one of the diet went...ok.  I followed the plan, but ended up with a rocking headache by the end of the day.  I have no idea if it was coffee withdrawal, "hangover" from the previous night's crying, or the sudden drop in calories.  Or a combination of all of those.  So, that's not great.  I really hope it doesn't continue like that, because I will not be able to stick with it if it's going to be like that.  I guess if it does, I can skip to the regular portion of the plan instead of finishing out the "jump start" that's supposed to get rid of bloat (and is also 400 calories less than the regular plan).  On the other hand, I have been wanting to take a little break from coffee for a while, so I'll probably just power through.  And, I'm 100% certain it's water weight, but the scale this morning said I was 2lbs lighter than yesterday morning.  So I guess it's working?

[Everstorm]

How long is the jump start portion meant to last?  Because that sounds like a pretty steep cut for as much stress as you are dealing with.

[Elennare]

13 hours ago, Everstorm said:

How long is the jump start portion meant to last?  Because that sounds like a pretty steep cut for as much stress as you are dealing with.

4 days.  Then it's got a quite reasonable amount of calories.  I skipped the jump start last time I did this diet, but I figured I'd give it a go this time because I've been pretty bloated.

 

Day 2 I had significantly less headache.  I'm also pretty sure it was caused by caffeine withdrawal, given how much I was thinking about coffee and "maybe I'll just get a really small cup, to take the edge off the headache." ?  I am hopeful that there will be no headache today.  And, I'm down another pound and change this morning!  I'm certain that's going to level off pretty quickly, but I am definitely enjoying seeing the scale drop like that and am planning to try to keep the momentum of feeling good about it going, even when it slows down.

[Elennare]

No headache on day 3, and also no constant thinking about coffee.  I think that's pretty solid evidence for the cause of the headache.   I did wake up with a really dry throat that wouldn't quite go away all day long, though.  I supplemented the diet with a cup of chicken broth at dinner, followed by an immune supplement.  Really hoping I don't get sick!  I had planned to go to bed early, but shortly before bedtime Little One remembered he had a spelling test today and hadn't studied half of his words yet!  So we ended up staying up probably too late studying.  We'll see how he does today...

 

That also meant I chose to go to bed as soon as we were done with the spelling rather than prep my food for today.  I am definitely not going to be following the exact meal plan, but I actually think the cafeteria at work has stuff that will let me get close.  So that's cool.  And I was down another half a pound this morning!

[Elennare]

Day for of the diet complete!  I was indeed able to stick fairly close to the scheduled meals with what was available at the cafeteria, and dinner was as planned.  I ended up not going to derby, because we decided to attempt to see the northern lights last night instead.  No luck (stupid western Washington fall weather!), but we did get a mile walk out of it.  As of this morning, I am down 6 pounds!  That is quite the jump start to a diet.  Hoping I can maintain a reasonable rate of weight loss once I switch to the regular portion of the diet.

 

Which, I was supposed to do today, but it's definitely not going as planned.  Because I tried to do my grocery shopping for the week starting today on Wednesday via Instacart, but it turns out the diet plan is a bit dated and specifies things that don't exist anymore.  The first item on the list actually was in that category (in this case, a specific brand/flavor of cereal, that I wasn't familiar with previously, so I don't even know what exactly I'm looking for as a replacement), and my brain just kind of decided it was too much work to figure it out at the time, and that was pretty much the only chance I had to get groceries.  All that said, I honestly think I'm doing a pretty good job sticking with the ideas and calorie counts of the diet so far today.  Even if I'm not doing as good with that as I think I am, I'm definitely making an effort and that's for sure an improvement!