Still alive, I swear

And actually doing very well, in spite of facing the scale and going "eek!" this morning. I'm good with it, really; one of the joys of maintenance is having numbers past which I Shall Not Go, and this is entirely too close to that weight, so I've snapped out of the whiny, self-involved, but I wanna! mentality that has been rocking me around the block this whole month. I was very good today during meetings that ate up the entire morning (and featured pastries... LOTS of pastries). And I have had two excellent HIIT sessions now, Wednesday and then this morning, and yesterday I pushed up all my upper-body weights by 2.5 lbs and did pretty well with it (by which I mean that in spite of my "aaaaaaah!" response, I did not give up and pushed through and roared at the end).

So.

The challenge right now, as I see it, is being able to do more than one big thing at once. I have to be able to keep the health and fitness thing rolling without having to concentrate on it constantly, I have to, because, well, face it, I kind of put a lot of my life on hold for this whole thing. The challenge now is to be able to get my career rolling, to build my own department from scratch over the next five years, and not gain the damn weight back in the meantime. Truth be told, I also want to be able to get my book written by my 30th birthday, which means that I need to get the fuck going RIGHT NOW. I want to be established in a career, able to afford a house, and already published by the time I turn my life over to the mommy thing (a prospect, I must tell you, which scares the living crap out of me-- I don't wanna! noooo!), and I want to be fit and strong and fast and flexible, too.

Yeah, that's a lot on one woman's plate. Particularly considering, you know, that I've had to put together my own pile of motivation and ambition because my Hub is so laid back that I have to push that much harder to make this family roll forward. Yeah, that makes me nervous. I don't want to end up resenting him for being himself, so I just have to get the hang of being the captain in this relationship.

Lots of forward movement on the career thing this week: lots and lots and lots. Thing is, I discovered that one of my weird quirks is that I am very scared that I can't actually do this, although I'm not aware of that on a very conscious level-- it pops up when I'm actually having to work things out and take the things I've planned and DO them. I keep ending up stalling in mid-motion and wanting to eat, instead, and I know what it is, I know it's a blatant distraction/avoidance technique and comforting activity in one-- which doesn't make it any easier to stop feeling, I tell you. I think it will pass, as I get more comfortable with this. I've put myself into this place in my life where I love to plan, I love to analyze, but the actual implementation process scares the hell out of me. And yet, I'm distinctly dissatisfied with not implementing, with not moving forward, and in that dissatisfaction I want to turn to food, too. So really, I'm going to be challenged either way, and if I go forward at least I get other stuff out of it, so the challenge won't be for nothing.

(Taking a moment here to go AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!)

I described the feeling last night to my Hub as "not so much juggling, as... falling down the stairs." It's got the same sort of circular rolling motion, but I feel a lot less in control than I feel I ought to, and it feels a lot more like I'm the one in free-fall than the one controlling the falling objects, you know?

I don't know. I have to get this going. I want to have a career, have a house, and have the stupid college loans paid off in five years, and it's a hell of a challenge. We've got a first consultation with our new financial advisor next Friday, though, so that's good. Of all the things that will make me feel better about life, having some professional guidance on the financial stuff is tops on the list. TOPS. That'll be a huge weight off my shoulders.

I have to deal with the fact that I am not doing well on my first twelve-week BFL challenge, and that's my own damn fault. The exercise has been going very, very well lately, but the food went wacko. Half of it is that my Hub all but drops off the face of the earth when it gets hot out; he doesn't want to cook, or go anywhere, or really do anything except hide near the air conditioner. So I have to do more than I'm used to, and when I'm already kicking up the effort on everything else in my life, it gets me very cranky. I need some pampering, dammit. I feel like it's fine if he doesn't have ambition about work, or about improving himself, or whatever, but if I'm going to kick it up in those areas to take care of us, I need a hand elsewhere. Of course, that means that if I tell him this he gets all sad and guilty, and then I start getting paranoid that my wanting more things in life is making his life unneccessarily rough. Sigh. I hate being the captain. And I hate having to tell him that I need to be taken care of. It's probably the Midwestern Protestant upbringing: I feel that I shouldn't need things, and the logic that follows that indicates that if my needs are coincidentally fulfilled, it's okay, but if I have to ask then I'm a) weak and b) being a pain. Feh. I need to get over that.

I think the thing here is that I need to know what I want, and have everything I do point in that direction. I want stronger relationships with my friends, my family, and my husband. I want a rewarding career that makes good money. I want a strong, healthy body. I want to have this eating thing under control. I want to know how to relax. I want to live in a vigorous neighborhood in a comfortable place. I want to be published. I want to travel. And I want to get this life thing figured out.

So... setbacks in some areas, forward motion in others. Maybe that's how the juggling thing works. Just as long as I don't let anything fall down completely, I guess, it's still working.