Leap Day Blues

I seem to have made it through February.  After the stressful first week, the month kind of flew by even though it was extremely busy.  Today's kind of a dreary day.  Cloudy and windy although not cold.  Kind of an Eeyore type day.

I spent a lot of time on the road back and forth to different offices and meetings and even had to travel out of state for a few days.  I have held fairly steady on my diet although I am venturing off into other foods now that maybe aren't so good for me.  I'm down about 24 pounds.  I'm hoping to get down another 9 - 10 pounds or so.  That will put me at my graduating college weight.  I was in OK shape then.  

I've been doing kettlebell workouts fairly consistently.  I got 4 workouts in last week.  I'm behind in the number of workouts I want to do Year To Date but I am actually catching up which feels great.

Shelby and I booked our vacation for July.  We are going to go to Acadia National Park in our home state of Maine.  It's about a 3 and a half hour ride for us to get there.  We booked 4 nights Sunday through Thursday.  I'm hoping the weather is nice for us.  

I'm also planning a backpacking trip.  Where the snow is nearly gone already... I can't believe it.  I'm planning a trip for the end of April for the first 44 miles or so of the Appalachian Trail in New Hampshire.  I'm planning on doing it in 3 days.  It should be fun.  I'll probably be going alone so am currently working out the details on how to get a car spot or a ride from one end to the other.  

I'm also putting together my list of hikes for the year that I want to do and planning the Acadia NP trip.  

My folks came down for a long weekend and they brought Max to the movies and lunch.  Shelby and I took the opportunity to get out on our own and we went to The Revenant.  What a great movie.  We didn't do dinner or lunch or anything but picked up Max and brought him to his Cousin Owen's birthday party.  It was brutally cold and the wind chills were in the -20 degree range.  

Max we discovered has bronchitis so he is now taking medications specifically for that and is already feeling better.  After being sick for 3 weeks we finally had him checked out.  I feel like a bad parent but he seemed to get better every few days so we always said no to bringing him to the doctor.  I actually have been sick... just stuffy and run down for going on 3 weeks myself, but I don't have a cough so It's running it's course.  

I also learned today that my great grandfather on my grandmothers side was a leap year baby.  He would be 128 years old... scratch that, 32 years old.  

I'm making progress on the 101/1001.  I finally framed my MBA.  I have been reading, although not nearly enough and I've been doing a lot of planning for some of the bigger goals.  Here's hoping March is as successful and February... 86 the stress.

February Week 1

I made it through the first week of February.  It was a long stressful week.  We had a 2-4 inch snowstorm which dumped 10" in my driveway.  My son got sick with a bad cough and then the flu.  I drove about 600 miles to all kinds of different meetings and attended a few very long and boring conference calls where I couldn't understand the main conversation due to the thick accents of our new system integrator.

With all that, I didn't get sick, I snow-blowed the driveway, I wore nice clothes to work all week, I followed the whole 30 reintroduction plan for the week and I got a few workouts in.  I found that non-gluten grains aren't an issue, legume's aren't an issue, and alcohol hits me harder than it did before.  I also got to watch Star Wars Episode 7 with Max and Shelby and we had a blast.  This morning I cooked my breakfasts for the next two weeks and did a bunch of house chores.

I'm looking forward to relaxing while watching the super bowl tonight even though I can't drink a beer or eat nachos while watching it.

February Focus

Now that I'm done my January Jumpstart, I'll go over my February Focus...  see what I did there?

February I am going to focus on diet and exercise.  January was more about diet.  February will be designed to finish the reintroduction of the Whole30 and start a regular exercise program.  I'm starting with a modified version of the Angry Birds workout from NerdFitness.

This month at work is going to be very busy.  In addition to my normal job, I'm going to be on a major project which is going to make me fairly visible.  Here's are the goals I expect to accomplish this month.

• Go Hiking once
• Exercise 3 x per week.  Basically  12 - 13 times.  I need to get back on track for my annual goal here of 157 times.  
• Stick to the budget... good job so far
• Learn 1 new drink
• Read a book
• Watch the final Star Wars Movie  I've seen 1 - 6
• Wear something nicer than jeans to work every day for a week.  The way my project is going it will turn into 2 weeks of nice pants.
• I plan on doubling the Auto-payments to Max's college fund
• I'm hoping to Purge my old electric guitar and Amp for whatever I can get for them... not much

It should be a busy month.  I'm looking forward to more compliments as I continue to drop weight and I'm hopeful that we get some more snow so I can get some more snowshoeing in.