Back to "Normal"

Wow!  Has it really been a full month since my last post?  It’s amazing how time flies when life gets crazy on you. Actually to say my November was crazy is probably an understatement.  But here I am having survived and actually feeling pretty good about it.  To be honest, I hadn’t planned on not blogging in November, but there are only so many hours in the day and when push came to shove other things took priority.  So here’s just a brief recap of my November:

My first week in November was fairly straightforward except my mother-in-law came to visit.  My father-in-law was away in Nevada for work and so she decided to come stay with us for a little while.  I like my in-laws; they are decent hard working people.  I was working a lot of hours at work getting ready for a project so it was nice that my wife had someone to spend some time with.  I didn’t have any time to blog at lunch time, and we spent the evenings playing games with the kids so blogging wasn’t really in the cards.

The next two weeks were like a blur.  The big project I’ve been preparing for finally started the implementation phase.  That meant visitors from corporate onsite for 2 straight weeks.  As the project leader I had to bring them out to lunch and I spent those 2 weeks in a conference room with free coffee and sodas (so much for my water intake).  I knew what was coming going in, so my goal for the month was to contain the damage.  I can’t remember the last time I worked so many hours.  As a supervisor, my job is to deal with daily issues and I have a lot of paperwork.  When you act as a project leader, those supervisor responsibilities don’t go away.  I would come in an hour early every day and stay 2 hours late every night to do my “day” job.  By the end of each week I would be so far behind I had to come in on Saturdays just to catch up.  To make matters worse, I had to spend Sundays raking leaves and getting my yard ready for winter.

After 2 solid weeks, my project finally was finished, but I’ve been exhausted.  I spent the early part of last week getting myself caught up before going to NJ for Thanksgiving.  It was nice to have some time off and get a little rest. 

If I had to give myself a grade for November it would be a “C”.  In terms of diet and exercise I did not do very well, but I would give myself high marks for maintaining a strong mental state under all the stress.  My mindset is so much better these days.  In the beginning of the month I did my best to hang on and then when I struggled I didn’t beat myself up over it.  I didn’t get all depressed just because I wasn’t sticking to my plan because I’m not perfect and I knew the month was going to be difficult.  That’s probably been the biggest change I’ve noticed in me; I am able to accept that I can’t be perfect all the time.  I made it through the month and now I’m ready to pick back up where I left off.

This journey I’m on is not going to be easy.  There will be other months like this last one; months where I don’t know how I’m going to get through.  It’s OK though, I’m not perfect and I’m not going to give up.  With the proper mindset I know I can accomplish my goals.  I told my wife that for the first time in a while, I actually feel like I’m heading in the right direction.

So here I am now in December.  I hopped on the scale this morning to see that I gained a little weight over the last month so I’m setting my goal for the month to lose 20 pounds.  My stretch goal is to get to under 300 before I leave for New Orleans on the 27^th.  Today I went to work with water and healthy food in hand and I picked up right where I left off.  It was a nice feeling today; feeling like everything was back to normal.  Wish me luck and Stay Strong!

[Photo: Flickr / Tobin]