RBOC: Sunday Morning Edition

• Update on the resolutions: This week I made it to the gym 5x, drank enough water for a small country, and kept paying attention to what I was eating (and didn't go hungry), and I lost 1.5 lbs. This with going out to dinner one time and eating whatever I wanted when I did so. Apparently, there really is something to the whole "changing your lifestyle" business.
• In other news, I've been thinking about how I'm going to build rewards into the whole fitness thing, and I've decided that for every 20 gym trips I'm going to get some kind of reward. (Rewarding the positive lifestyle change, not the loss of weight, although the loss of weight is a corollary and really a reward in itself.) I think my first reward is going to be new perfume. Once we get out of the depths of winter, I think that I'm going to make the rewards less about buying stuff and more about going out and doing fun things that I wouldn't regularly do (thus incorporating the fun resolution). Otherwise, the finances resolution will suffer.
• Speaking of the finances resolution I got my reimbursement check from MLA and so finally opened a savings account! Hurrah! And I've got it set up so money is automatically transferred from my checking every paycheck. Yes, I may be an actual adult.
• The reward for the above is that my mom and I have decided that we're going to do a long weekend in NYC for her birthday in May (she's never been). We've talked about doing this for years, and so I'm really excited that we're finally doing it. In addition, in April I'm going to visit High School BFF for a long weekend. Love my lovely teaching schedule that allows for such treats.
• In annoying news, I ran some errands yesterday and I went to this Crappy Low Rent TJ Maxx-esque place and got some sunglasses for 7 bucks. They're great. The problem? They didn't demagnetize them or whatever, so now I make all shoplifting detectors beep when I go through them. This means, I imagine, that I need to go back to the CLR place to get them de-magnetized. This place is going out of business so it's a total madhouse. ANNOYING.
• Other than that, the week was good. I wish that I had more to report, or that I were in more of a blogging mood. I know I've been pretty quiet considering how much I have historically tended to post. I suppose it's just that usually I use the blog to work out things I'm thinking about, and well, everything's going along pretty smoothly. I'm sure there will be things as the semester gets more solidly underway, but for now, I'm just kind of doing my thing and all is well.
• Perhaps I should start posting some of the recipes I'm making? Perhaps I'll do that on Sundays - like a recipe a week. I've realized that I don't tend to make stuff that is actually "diet food" but rather that I modify recipes I like so that they're lower in fat and have more veggies in them. Or I invent stuff (sometimes with greater success than others). And can I just say how happy I am to really be cooking again? The food I make for myself is infinitely better (tasting) than any of the crap that I eat when I'm not really cooking, plus cooking relaxes me.
  
• Maybe that's why I've not been blogging very much, too. I'm totally not stressed out. Between the exercise and the cooking, I've been - dare I say it? - on a totally even keel. Again, the whole lifestyle business seems to make a huge difference.
  
• But probably a lot of this has to do with my teaching schedule this semester, too, and also that I've finally come to a kind of acceptance about the job that I have and even about the location that I have. Actually, that is a forthcoming post. I need to write about that here, I think.

And with that, it's time for me to get underway with my Sunday. More later, either in the form of the post I suggested in the last bullet or in the form of a recipe or both.