May 2021 – Sweat & Sparkle

Memorial Day Weekend

The body works in mysterious ways. I struggled so much this past week with adjusting to working in the office again that I skipped my workout pretty much every evening. I more than made up for it with manual labor and yard work, though, because when I weighed in Saturday morning, I somehow lost a little over 3 pounds.

I was braced for a gain, so I was shocked. A loss? This week?

I won’t overthink it. Might be water loss, even though I drank so much water while I was working outside that I was practically floating. Who knows? I am just going to accept it and be happy about it.

This weekend has flown by. It didn’t even slow down. I am trying not to think too much about it and just enjoy the holiday and time with my husband and stepdaughter. We have had a fun weekend. I am not ready for it to be winding down yet.

Shell-Shocked

It’s not that I hate change, exactly. I just hate change that is completely out of my hands, beyond my control, and not what I wanted to happen.

I have been working from home since March 2020. At first I couldn’t stand it. I like to separate work from home, and it didn’t help that my old company sent us home with absolutely nothing. My work laptop had to stay in the office. It was absurd. They expected us to continue operating as if nothing had changed, but gave us nothing with which to do it.

When I left that job (thankfully) and started the one I am at now, they gave me everything I need to work from home, and I bought a desk and set up a comfy spot just for me to work during the day, that I could walk out of and leave work behind. My cat took to spending the day in that room with me, sometimes sprawling out on the desk and purring as he watched me type and scribble away.

My resistance to working from home quickly turned to acceptance and then love. I could stroll from my desk to the kitchen to get some water, pausing to watch birds at the birdfeeder. I could spend my lunch rocking on the front porch with a book. I could just enjoy the sleepy, hazy sun spilling through a window and appreciate the beauty of our home in a way I never had before.

Late last week, my supervisor dropped a bomb: we were all being called back to the office, as of Monday morning. I fought it, requested an exception, wanted to threaten to break kneecaps, but it didn’t take long to realize I was fighting a losing battle. It was back to an office, like it or not. (I didn’t).

So here we are with that I-don’t-like-change thing. It’s been a long week, adjusting to getting up early again, commuting, being away from home all day long. The first day, all I did was text my husband how much I missed him, that I love him, and that I wanted to come home. He said it was odd to come home for lunch without me there.

I haven’t worked out much this week. I feel shell-shocked, at the risk of sounding overly dramatic, but it was a huge change that popped out of nowhere, and I had to make it work with little notice. I will give myself a free pass this week to adjust to this, but next week, no more excuses. It’s called life. I need to just deal with it.

While change is in the air, though, I decided to update my blog a little bit, make it a little brighter. I love stained glass, but the old background looked a bit like a human sacrifice was imminent. I find this one to be a bit brighter and more cheerful.

I am excited for this weekend. I earned it this week! I will do some planning this weekend to make sure that next week is more successful, as far as diet and exercise go, than this past one.

Happy Friday!

Disconnect

I suppose it’s self-evident that I haven’t been writing much lately. Nothing is wrong. I am just questioning the investment of my time and what I do or do not get out of it anymore.

It’s funny. When social distancing and working from home became a thing over a year ago, I thought that activity on sites like MyFitnessPal and LoseIt would explode. People have more time on their hands, and I figured they would increasingly seek support online since they have less access to it in person.

In reality, the opposite seemed to happen. Online support coughed, wheezed, and died. I got fed up with commenting and encouraging others, but receiving little to no support in return. It is the reason I am not active on either of those sites anymore: investing my time and energy requires a return on that investment, and I was not getting it.

I have come to feel much the same way about blogging in general. I wouldn’t go so far as to say blogging is dead, but it sure as hell isn’t the outlet it used to be. Actually typing out words, expressing thoughts in complete and coherent sentences, has taken a backseat to emojis and idiot-speak in text messages. I am not a fan of LOL, strings of crude images, abbreviations, or acronyms posing as actual communication.

I am not saying I am leaving the blogging world forever. I just feel less and less inclined to take the time to write anything when the level of activity and interaction has become minimal.

I am guilty of the same thing, though. I rarely read any blogs anymore or take the time to comment, so I am contributing to the very problem I am writing about. There is a disconnect that feels difficult to bridge.

Maybe I just need a break. Or maybe tomorrow I will shrug my shoulders and tap away at the keyboard and write another post anyway.

I am not upset, just explaining my lessened activity. I hope everyone who is still reading is doing well and moving toward their goals, one day at a time.

Hair Commercial

This morning, my husband was in and out of the garage and our office, painting some furniture for a customer. He had been sitting at the desk in the back office, taping the glass of some hanging lights to prep them for painting, when I reluctantly decided it was time for me to get back to work myself.

Not long after I left the room, I heard my husband loudly calling my name, then “Hurry! Come quick!”

I sprinted across the house, worried he had cut himself on glass, or spilled paint, or started a raging chemical fire (hey, this is my husband we are talking about. Anything is possible when left unsupervised).

I dashed back into the office, and he was sitting sideways in the chair to face the fan he had placed on the floor. His hair has gotten a bit long since his favorite barber left, and he had taken off his baseball hat.

“Look,” he said again, majestically pointing to his head and his hair flying in the wind from the fan. “I look like one of those Pantene commercials.”

I burst out laughing. He just looked so damn proud of himself. How can I not love this goof?