For the Love

In which I 'fess up.

1. Work out 4 times this week. FAIL. I worked out 3 times this week, which is better than last week but still not up to par.

2. Log ALL my food at least 5 days this week. FAIL. I only did this one day, I am ashamed to say. I was aware of what I was eating every day, but I did not formally track my foods.

3. Run at least once. FAIL. I didn't run at all. I just wasn't feeling it. I did walk, however.

4. Read my Bible every day. FAIL. I did this 5 out of 7 days.

All in all, this week was pathetic. Which brings me to my weigh-in:

Last week: 170.2
This week: 168.8
LOSS of 1.4 pounds

I think the only reason I lost any weight is because I gained last week and probably was also retaining water. I certainly didn't put forth an effort to warrant losing weight, although just like last week, I weighed 167 on Friday. Perhaps I should make Fridays my weigh-in days! :)

I think for this week I am going to focus on all of the same goals EXCEPT for the running goal. I don't want to force myself to run if I don't want to, especially when it's so hot outside. And perhaps with only 3 goals, I can do a better job of meeting them all.

I realize this kind of progress report is anything but inspiring, but I do think it's helpful for me to keep reaching for my goals, even though I don't always meet them. I also think it's important that I blog when I'm struggling and not just when things are going well. It keeps me honest, and truthfully, a lot of my journey has been a struggle, as I imagine it is for lots of people, so why hide it?

I hope you all make goals and meet them this week!

I know all of you are just DYING to read more about my air conditioning saga, so here I am to deliver. :) Last Thursday I posted that we might have the air fixed this week, but that's looking like less and less of a possibility. We had a guy come out last Thursday and give us a second opinion on the unit, since the first company that the warranty company sent said we needed a compressor. Of course the warranty company wouldn't cover that, so we wanted to make sure it really was the compressor before we got it fixed. Sure enough, the compressor is shot. And while he was here, the repair man said that he thought that our brand of AC unit may come with a parts warranty. He said he would look it up and let us know.

Friday he called and said that we do in fact have a 10 year parts warranty, which means we don't have to pay for the compressor, only the labor and addition of Freon, which saves us a LOT of money! The bad news is that the part had to be ordered, and that's what we're still waiting on. We paid for expedited shipping, so the part is supposed to arrive within 5-7 days. I kept hoping and praying that by some miracle it would come today, even though it's only been 4 business days, but it didn't come. I would LOVE it if it came on Friday, but it's more likely to come next week. Fortunately, we are going to Memphis to stay with my parents for the weekend, so we'll get a break from the whole ordeal.

I haven't handled this trial all that well, to be honest. I have shed tears over this (more than once!), and part of me is ashamed of that. Even calling it a "trial" is silly because I know there are millions of people in the world who don't even have the luxury of air conditioning. But when it's summer in west TN and there have been several days when the heat index was over 100, not having air is a challenge. It's a challenge to try and be grateful, but I am trying. The Lord has blessed us with much, and so I am encouraging myself to "be joyful always, pray continually, and give thanks in all cirucmstances." With that in mind:

I am thankful that we were able to stay in a hotel for two nights and enjoy air conditioning and a little relief from the sauna that is our house.

I am thankful that back when we lived in our first apartment (a townhouse), my parents bought us an in-room air conditioner to use because our upstairs bedroom was miserably hot in the summer, and so now we can use that in our bedroom to keep the temperature in there more tolerable.

I am thankful that the unit is under warranty so we don't have to spend more money.

I am thankful that we don't have to buy a whole new unit.

I am thankful to have parents who live in Memphis and who willingly let us leave our dog with them because we were worried about how the heat was affecting her.

I am thankful for friends and family who love us and have been praying for us and the situation.

I am thankful that I married such a loving husband.

There is so much to be thankful for.

I feel better already. :)

What's gone up, you ask? My weight.

Last week's weight: 169.
This week's weight: 170.2

My scale is clearly broken, right? Right???

Or maybe it is the fact that though I did in fact manage to log my food 5 of 7 days last week, I didn't exactly make the greatest nutritional choices. Honestly, if you looked at my food choices over the past few months, "healthy" would not be one of the words you'd use to describe them. I've allowed myself to give little thought to eating healthy. How do I expect to maintain my weight if I can't eat healthy foods?

What's truly pitiful is that on Friday, I weighed 167.6, which means I gained 2.6 pounds over the weekend! I have this tendency to see a new low on the scale and then just go nuts with my food intake. How illogical is that?! In addition, the weekends are always a struggle for me to stay focused on eating healthy, but as Jen says, you don't get to take the weekends off on your healthiness journey. I have to pull it together if I'm going to make it to my goal, and I'm not sure what the solution is. Obviously, I need to stop eating with abandon, but it seems like I have some sort of mental roadblock I can't get past.

If anyone has any thoughts, please share them!

I decided to retroactively give a name to the goals I've set for myself, so I'm calling this my Get to Goal Challenge! The goals may change, but for now I am going to keep the same ones for a while, at least until I am doing them habitually. This week was good, but not great.

1. Work out 4 times this week. FAIL. I only worked out 2 times--Monday and Wednesday. This is a lame excuse, but it is too hot outside to do much activity, and it is too hot inside our house right now to do any activity (currently the thermostat reads 86 degrees). However, I do have access to a gym, so I need to be more proactive about planning times that I could go there and workout.

2. Log ALL my food at least 5 days this week. Success! I was so excited when I reviewed this goal and realized I had met it because I had been thinking all week that my goal was to log all my food EVERY day, which I didn't do. I did however manage to log it 5 days.

3. Run at least once. Success! I ran both times I worked out--the first time for 12 minutes, the second time for 15 minutes.

4. Read my Bible every day. I did this 6 out of 7 days, which I am pleased with, but I know I can do it every day.


Slowly but surely, I will make it to my goal weight. I just have to take it one day at a time.

How are you doing on your goals?

I had a post up here earlier, but I deleted it. It was too whiny, and I felt bad about posting such a negative post, so I took it down. So if you clicked over here from a reader and are wondering where it went, that's what happened.

The good news is we just might have the air conditioner fixed next week! I can only hope!

More good news: I don't have to go to work tomorrow. The bad news: I don't have to go to work tomorrow because my workplace is having a POOL PARTY all day long. Yes, that's right, I'm invited to don a bathing suit and swim in front of my boss. Awesome, right?

In other news, I'm doing well with my goals. Expect a full report next Monday! I also am going to try and take pictures of the house this weekend now that we have everything unpacked. Yay!

And if anyone has any suggestions about how I could keep my current layout but make my header more readable, I'd love some! All the colors I've tried don't seem to work with the background.

I've been such a lame blogger that I just realized on Friday that Blogger has all these new templates to choose from! Please tell me they haven't been around for a month or something. I'm playing around with my design, so don't be surprised if you see it change, and please tell me what you think. Is my current design too busy?

I wish I could write and say that our air condition woes are over, but sadly, they are not. We got the unit cleaned on Monday, per the warranty's request (and at our expense), but we STILL have not heard whether they are going to cover the cost of the new compressor the A/C company says we need. We put in the claim on Wednesday, and despite calling every day, we've just been told there are lots of claims and that we might hear on Monday. It's beyond frustrating, and did I mention it's summer, and it's HOT? Fortunately, my parents bought us an in-room air conditioner back when we lived in a townhouse that had horrible upstairs air, and we have it going in the living room, so if we don't move at all and just stay in there, it's not so bad. :) And our A/C also works well enough that it will cool down to 75 degrees at night, and with two fans in the bedroom, we have been fairly comfortable. I know it could be so much worse, and there are people who live without A/C all the time, so I am trying to be patient, but it is challenging, and I have to keep my negative attitude in constant check.

As for weight loss, well, I am back up to 169 after being at 167.8. I've had a sinus infection for 2 weeks, and that coupled with the no A/C issue has just left me sapped. However, the header on my SparkPage says, "No excuses, only results," but what I've been doing lately is more like, "Lots of excuses, no results!" Guess which one makes for a happier, healthier Erin? That's a no-brainer, right? It's RIDICULOUS that I am less than 10 pounds from my goal and just fluctuating from week to week! I am nipping this wishy-washy pattern in the bud!

With that in mind, I give you my plan for the week. Please keep me accountable and hound me about posting updates!

1. Work out 4 times this week. This isn't much, but it's what I'm aiming for to ease back into working out.

2. Log ALL my food at least 5 days this week. I have gotten lazy about this lately, and I'm sure that laziness plays a part in my inability to get to a new low weight and stay there.

3. Run at least once. I went for a short run/walk on Tuesday, and it just felt SO good to run again! I haven't run much since I decided not to run the half marathon, and I am starting to get the itch again.

4. Read my Bible every day. All of my routines fell by the wayside when we moved, but it's been two weeks since then, and my spiritual life needs just as much commitment as my physical life.

So there you have it--my plan for the week! I am planning to blog this week and update you all on my progress. Thanks to those of you who have stuck around in spite of my infrequent posting. I truly appreciate you.

What are your plans for the week?

I'm happy to report that I managed to shed those 3 pounds I gained earlier in May, and I ended the month at a new low weight of 167.8! That makes a loss of 3.4 pounds for May and a total loss of 93.6 pounds (up until the moment I wrote this post and actually calculated the total, I thought it was 94.6 pounds. Just shows how awesome my math skills are.).

Probably the only reason I managed to lose those pounds is because I was so busy with packing and moving that I didn't have time to eat constantly. I certainly didn't do any "proper" exercising, although I definitely was very active despite dealing with a nasty cold or sinus infection. I did try to keep my water and fiber intake up, so that must have helped some.

I wish I could say that everything is great now that we are moved into our house, but to be quite honest, I'm feeling a little deflated about the whole thing. The first disappointment was realizing that our washer and dryer do not fit into the designated laundry area but are just a few inches too wide. We'll have to either get a new dryer, cut into the wall so the area is a little bigger, or have the washer in the space and the dryer just outside it, which is the current setup.

The second disappointment was realizing that our dog has gotten fleas from being out in the backyard, a backyard that she initially loved to romp around in but now hardly wants to go out in at all. That makes Stephen and me really sad because we were SO excited for Bailey to have a yard to run around in after always having to be leashed, and now she's miserable because of the fleas. We have sprayed the yard and sprayed the house, swept and vacuumed and washed rugs, pillows, blankets, etc., and bathed Bailey with flea shampoo, all to no avail. She was already taking Frontline, but that seems to have done little to help. The last remaining course of action we can think of is to have the lawn professionally treated for fleas. If that doesn't work, I don't know what we'll do.

The biggest disappointment has to do with the air conditioning. I noticed that it didn't seem to be cooling down too much last weekend when we were moving in, but I just chalked it up to having the doors open so much as we came in and out and hoped it would improve. However, by the time that Stephen's parents left on Tuesday, it was 80+ degrees in the house even though the air was set to 74. It simply wouldn't cool, except in the middle of the night when the outside temperature went down. We contacted the home warranty company on Wednesday, and to condense a long story, the 5-year-old unit had not been serviced or cleaned at all, and the condenser coils (or whatever they're called) were almost 90% blocked because of all the dirt and grime, which resulted in the compressor pump not functioning at full capacity, which caused the unit's inability to cool properly. So we have to have the unit cleaned, which the warranty doesn't cover, and if that doesn't fix the problem, we'll have to replace the compressor pump, which would cost around $1200, and the warranty also won't cover that since this problem existed before the warranty. What's especially awesome annoying is that we had an HVAC inspection before buying the house, and supposedly everything was working fine, so it's really frustrating that basically we're having to deal with other people's negligence.

However, the house isn't all bad, and I know once we get these situations figured out, we'll feel better about everything. We love having a garage, our bedroom is huge, the kitchen is wonderful, and we have lots of ceiling fans that are helping us stay cool. It's just disappointing not to have this rosy, ecstatic feeling about the house we'd looked forward to living in for two months, especially as someone who has watched countless home shows on HGTV where the couple buys the house and it's perfect and wonderful. But as I write that, I am reminded that 1) it's TV, and nothing is perfect and 2) ultimately my satisfaction should not come from the temporal but the eternal, and that only in Christ will I find true contentment.

May you too find contentment in Christ. I hope you are all doing well. I will return to my regular, less whiny blogging sometime in the near future. :)