My partner in crime, Joel, recently had a change in medication he takes at night. The instructions say, “don’t take within 2 hours of eating and don’t eat for 1 hour after taking it”.

Last decent picture we’ve taken together without one of us (usually me) lookin’ doofy

Apparently, no one follows this rule. He questioned his doctor about it, and she said she just stopped mentioning it because no one follows directions. He then asked if it made the medication more effective, and she said yes. So, he (and I, most nights) now no longer eat snacks after dinner besides a small piece of dark chocolate.

Doesn’t make a huge difference for me, calories are calories and count the same at 9pm as they do at 9am, IMO, but a huge change for someone who doesn’t. He started making more weight loss progress all of a sudden and noted that his garmin weight graph for the year was starting to look like an inverted batman, like this steep drop off with a few peaks and valleys but overall heading in the right direction. Can I be thrilled for him and also similarly frustrated for me? Oh, to be a dude and able to eat +500 calories per day… sigh…

I also failed to remember that my progress seems to always follow about 3 weeks behind my habits. While I am not looking at a full inverse batman myself, I’m actually getting my shit together. But also losing my shit a little bit. Maybe let’s go reverse order and talk about the things that are making me crazy first.

Adulting:

We are currently now 3 weeks into our bathroom remodel. The full contents of two bathrooms and a large vanity are strewn all over the house, and somehow, we can’t find anything anywhere. The lovely people who did all the work are done except for some shelves on the work order that didn’t get put up (Monday!), but it’s a huge relief after fifteen workdays of contractors in the house, loud noises to the point I could barely hear meetings some days, bad smells but thankfully not to the point we couldn’t sleep, and playing the “which bathroom can I use” game (and sometimes, especially last week, the answer was none and I did the camping alternative of peeing behind the bush in the yard). I don’t mean to complain as I realize it’s a privilege to be able to do this at all, and especially the full-service version where they are doing everything for us, but holy heck, I am more than ready to have my happy little sanctuary back to the place where it’s all mine (and Joel’s) and things are in the right places.

Our underwater themed guest bath in progress.

It’s definitely caused us to be short tempered, easily frustrated, demotivated, and just plain cranky. Week 2 was peak pissypants party time for me, last week was Joel’s. At least we took turns so we could talk each other down, but the spoons, they went rather quickly these weeks. Week 2, I logged an absolute GOOSE EGG in terms of workouts besides walking. I mean, I still logged 5 hours/12.5 miles of walking, so it wasn’t nothing, but zero bikes, runs, swims, weights, or elliptical. That hasn’t happened since Covid. I wasn’t sick. I wasn’t injured. I was just so far at the end of my rope I couldn’t manage to do anything but amble. But at least I did that.

First half of the month? Pretty good. Week 4? Oops.

The end is in sight, though. My first steamy jacuzzi tub (hey, we had the wiring from the 1968 jacuzzi tub, we may as well use it) was divine. It is super amazing not to be grossed out by mildew and crumbling tile when I shower in the morning and instead smile at my very nice new bathroom. All that’s really left is to put everything back together. And that starts today.

I will also report taxes are done, we paid less than expected, and our consulted noted that we shouldn’t need to pay quarterly or do anything different than withhold a little more. So we shall.

Getting ready for pool time is already in progress. The pump did an oopsie and reverted all our hard work back to brown pondwater. Something in there is broken, we need to buy a new some-hundred-dollar-doo-dad and for now have resorted to chlorine instead of saltwater so we don’t hatch millions of mosquitos from our backyard.

I knew we’d be very much over responsible things in May, so I already kind of pre-planned a month off. In May we will:

  • Put away all the things from the bathrooms back in the bathrooms but take one more pass on better organization
  • Repaint all the doors in the house while we have the nice white paint out and replace hardware and hinges.
  • Get the pool working on salt again so we can get in it
  • Joel can start planning for his office move but that’s not yet

Weight Loss Goals:

Here’s how it’s not so bad. While I didn’t fully make up for March’s indiscretions, I did reverse the trend.

My trend weight today is 183.7, which is just about where it was at my lowest in March before the bloatening started. I feel like I’m behind, because I was making such great progress before, but I suppose in my goal to lost 12 lbs this year, I’m only 0.3 behind (my start was 187.4, I’m now at 183.7). So, instead of trying to set some crazy goal in May, I’m simply going to aim to catch up for the year. I’d like to have a 182.4 by the May 31st. Extra progress is appreciated, but not required.

Sporty Things:

After finishing the Cap10k, I realized I was without any other race plans this year and without a whole lot of enthusiasm. I’m stuck in this place where:

  • I am not enthused about triathlon this year. It’s not to say I won’t do one late season, but I’m just not enthused about any of my options early season. The Memorial Day race is crowded and inconvenient. Pflugerville quality has declined over the years. And I’m just not motivated to go crush on my TT bike or swim. And I’m also not in a place where I just feel like participating.
  • I am REALLY enjoying walks and hikes. I mean, I spent 19 hours going 50 miles this month.
  • Walks are truly the best way to lose weight (if you can walk enough and eat the proper amount of calories). When I walk, I don’t get extra hungry. Run, bike, swim? NOM NOM.
  • I am going to need motivation here soon. It’s so pleasant to go for a walk from October to about April/May. Over the summer it sucks. And I tend to pull back on my overall activity because of it.
Finding these opportunities are my jam these days

Couple this with my discovery of the Texas Trail Series. I’ve always been a little ultra-marathon curious, and this definitely isn’t that (yet?) but I think I want to spend some time this year walking (and who knows, maybe running some? I’m still running! I just don’t want to run a whole 13 miles on a trail yet.) for a morning on a gorgeous trail with aid stations and a party at the end. This is probably the first thing that’s sounded fun to me.

So, we’re planning to sign up for the one in June, and see how it goes and decide whether it’s a one and done and we should just go back to doing Sprints like other years, or whether this is a new adventure. Or maybe even both!

For May, I am splitting the difference.

  • Weights 3x week. It’s okay I took a week off, but that shouldn’t happen again for a while.
  • I would like to swim a few times. I want at least one to be in the lake. Even if I don’t triathlon this year swimming makes me happy and stretches my body out in ways nothing else does.
  • Running 2-3x week. I keep trying to convince myself I want to try to claw back to my pre-pandemic 5k time of sub-27 mins, but I know the pain to get there and not sure I’m ready mentally and I’m not sure as it’s getting hot is the best time either unless I go train inside, which also sounds BLEHHHH.
  • Biking 1-2x week. Mostly for activity/calories. IDK why because I used to absolutely <3 bikes, but I just can’t get myself excited about going fast or going far. We’ll roll with it for now (or not roll with it? hah) and maybe I’ll be back to bike adventures and chasing people down someday.
  • MOST IMPORTANTLY: make a weekly schedule instead of “do some stuff”. If I don’t follow it 100% whatever but I do much better with a plan.

Notice I’m not talking about the hip. 🙂 A week of reset was actually quite nice and it seems to be *knock on wood* happy and well-adjusted again.

And finally… Fun Stuff

After a nice long push to get the first pass edit done in March… I am going a lot more slowly now. Did I need a break? Maybe. Did I have fewer spoons the last few weeks to do something like this rather than something mindless? Also maybe. However, I’m almost exactly 50% of the way through now and the latest material (which I spent more time on) seems to be going quicker than the first ten chapters (which I think I edited very very quickly). I’m excited to get through this and give it another read. Then? Not sure if I give readers a chance to read and move onto book 3 or noodle on this one more. Now that I have the goal to write the whole story before I publish, I know I’ll have a final edit pass over the whole enchilada, so I’m less concerned with it being perfect, while also simultaneously wanting to go tear book 1 apart again. 🙂 Goal for May is to finish the edit pass, read it, have Joel read it, and incorporate our feedbacks.

My final Paris pictures are edited and public. <3 That was such a lovely, exhausting, wonderful bucket list trip. Next up? Seattle from Sept 2023. I only have a few hundred photos there so it’s a softball goal for May, which is perfect!

So, May. Let’s be better than April, shall we?

  • Walk alllll the miles, weights 3x week, short runs 2-3x week, and the rest, que sera, sera
  • Keep doing all the things to summon my own inverse batman on the scale
  • Put all the things in the bathroom back, paint some doors, change some hardware
  • Finish edit pass #2 and read and fix things
  • Edit Seattle Photos
  • Enjoy camping next week and prioritize time to relax