7ToT: just because I can.

No sign of spring around here :-(

1. Thankful doesn't even begin to describe my feeling about heading south next week for some time away from winter. I am ready for a break--and bonus! both kids are joining us. The entire time that PellMel was in undergrad/grad school and MadMax was in junior high/high school, they did not have the same spring break. But this year Mel has a job, and could request a specific week off, and she got it. Every time the four of us get to do something together I wonder if it is the last time we'll do it. Will we ever have another week-long vacation with just the four of us? Maybe or maybe not, but I'm thankful for this one.

2. Since I wasn't blogging last year, you didn't have to live through my decision to get a job, and then the process of trying to find a job that met my fairly strict requirements, and then wait to get an interview, and then wait to hear back, etc etc etc. (We watched The King and I this week so you have to imagine me saying et cetera, et cetera, et cetera with Yul Brynner inflection.) When I heard about my current job, I couldn't believe my luck-- a relatively interesting job that was a one-year position. Perfect!

3. I knew I didn't want to work long term, I just needed something to be my bridge over an unsettled period in our lives (new empty nesters, Dean had a new job, etc etc etc)(sorry). I hate having to quit a job-- it feels like you're letting people down, even when you're leaving for the best of reasons-- so having one that had its endpoint defined before it even began seemed like a gift from heaven.

4. Then about three months after I started, my manager came in one day and said she'd gone to work on the HR folks and convinced them that our positions should be made permanent. My co-workers were thrilled! But I was not. That was the whole point of taking this job. So I had to go through the whole thing of deciding whether or not I really wanted to quit (yes, I did), and getting up the nerve to actually do it. (I made myself not type etc etc etc right there.) And I did. So my last day is April 19th. Not so far off, especially since I'm going to be out next week.

5. Remember when I was doing Weight Watchers? It was a period of my life when I could not bring myself to exercise, but once I got the hang of counting points, WW worked pretty well for me. I lost 15+ pounds, and with minor fluctuations, kept it off for a couple of years. But this winter, it started to creep back on. I've made three valiant efforts to get back into counting points, but even with their new system (which I really like), I just can't seem to get myself to do it.

6. When I had success with it before, I did it almost entirely without exercising, other than going for walks once or twice a week. So this time I decided to reverse my method. Instead of counting points, I'm trying to be sensible about what I eat but step up the physical activity (and when you're at pretty much zero, that's not hard to do). We'll see if this works. I'd like to lose another ten pounds, but even if I don't, at least I want to keep my hard-fought WW loss off.

7. I want to talk some more in future posts about Gretchen Rubin's Four Tendencies, so if you haven't done it yet, take her quiz sometime so you'll know what I'm talking about. The quiz is here, and a brief explanation/example of the four tendencies is here. There's also a book and videos and probably coffee mugs and tote bags. I'm not entirely won over, but it's given me lots to think about. It's a great way to get a new take on how you look at yourself and the people around you.

So, that's it for me for now. This week is getting pretty crazy so I may not post again until after we get back from vacation. I hope spring is springing wherever you are.