So much for "if time permits"

It's been a busy week. Been a busy month, come to think of it. So far this month I have:

1) Gone back on the wagon. I saw a picture taken of myself with baby Austin and I swear, it looked like I was the one who'd just been pregnant. Back to Weight Watchers I go. I'm doing it online this time around, because the leader of the meeting I used to go to stopped leading a while back -- her life got far too difficult, and she decided she needed to step down and pay more attention to her own weight loss issues. I applaud that, it was a lesson in itself: know your limits. I usually recognize mine only when I whiz past them. I didn't really get much out of the meeting after she left, so I started going to the storefront downtown (the sessions I attended were through the university's wellness program). The woman running the only session that fit my schedule was irritatingly perky ("Tee-hee!" Squeak. Hairflip). I'm thinking that wanting to slap her is probably not a good reaction, and will do horrible things to my attitude. So I've decided to join up online. So far I've lost two pounds (only started in earnest about a week and a half ago).

2) Joined another program (again, through the university wellness thingie) called "10,000 Steps." Apparently the average person is supposed to take about 10,000 steps a day. This is a program that challenges you to do that. You get a pedometer, a log book, and directions for their use. You spend three days counting your steps and logging the numbers, then you take the average step count. Using this as a baseline, you go to a chart which tells you how many steps to take each day that week. My number right now is 4500. You aim for slightly higher step counts every week until eventually you wind up at 10,000. I'm doing this partly in conjunction with #1 on my list, and partly for training. Training for what, you ask? See #3.

3) I have decided to be part of the team my sister wants to form for the Breast Cancer Walk next October. 60 miles in three days. This is a nation-wide event,with walks happening in major cities like San Francisco, Boston, Minneapolis/St. Paul...the one we're walking in is the one in Philadelphia. I figure if I start training now, I'll be ready by October. My Ditter has been busy selling houses (yay!) so she hasn't gotten the team registered yet. But I keep prodding her, sure in the knowledge that she'll do it eventually. Either that or she'll bite my head off.

4) I've finished two embroidery projects that I started a very long time ago and felt ambitious enough to start a new one. I had the time to do this because the laptop was at the shop and I found myself with l-o-o-o-o-n-g stretches of time and nothing to do. Hey, what did I do before the laptop? Oh, that's right. I made stuff!

5) And speaking of the laptop, it's home. I'm typing on it right now. The nice man at Firedog managed to make a recovery disc (though from the sound of things, Laptop threw fits before it settled down and did what he wanted), and then he ran some diagnostic tests. Problem was most definitely the hard drive. He called me Sunday afternoon to tell me that, and said that there was one thing he'd like to try before he gave up and ordered me a new hard drive. He wanted to use his shiny new recovery disc to restore the system and see if maybe that fixed the hard drive problem. He said he thought that maybe Windows "was just getting confused about where it had stored things." Kind of like someone who's put his glasses on top of his head and is looking all over his desk for them. I'd love to take credit for that simile but I can't. That's the Chief Loon's. She also called The Walk for the Cure "Save the Tahtahs."

So anyway, I told Firedog Man (hey, why did they name their group of techies after fireplace equipment? I don't get that) to go ahead and try it. He called me an hour later, triumphant. I fetched Laptop home Monday evening after work, and have been trying to get it back to the way I had it before it left. It's been a slow process. It came back to me only knowing my name. Other than that, it was the same laptop I bought two years ago--completely devoid of any personality. I've taken the opportunity to evaluate all the crap--er, um, software I had on it before its little nervous break-down. There are a number of things I'm just not going to reinstall. Mostly games, really. If I want games, I'll go to Pogo.

6) Oh! One more thing. I went back to dance class after about a six month absence. My hip flexors really hated me the following Monday, but I was back to normal by Tuesday. Remembering back to my very first class, my rear end and thigh muscles were killing me for days afterward. I guess I'm not as out of shape as I thought.