Self-care Saturdays. Or. The Simple Pleasure of Breakfast, Walking, and Drugstore Hair Dye.

Yesterday was the advent of a calendar of solitary summer Saturdays. Heather is taking a class at New England School of Photography for the next 8 weeks of so and we're going to be adapting our weekends to compensate.

I still have to figure out all the details of my schedule adaptation, but I'll resolve that soon enough. My job and I have differing opinions. Go figure.

Due to life and circumstance, I've been feeling powerless over the past few weeks. Powerless and tired. Last weekend the confluence of those two energies led to a weekend at home with lots of sleeping and yoga, which was a great strategy. But, I can't sleep my weekends away every week- even if I'm having more sleepless nights during the week.

So, this weekend I strategized a Saturday of self-care and a Sunday of wife-time. I'd also planned to flex my work time (working a few 13 hour days...) and take Monday off for gardening, but work decided on the contrary and I'll be in the office tomorrow. I'm taking Friday instead.

I asked Heather to wake me up yesterday morning for yoga (7:30am flow) before taking the dog out and dropping H. off at school. I then headed into Jamaica Plain where I treated myself to a vegetarian egg sandwich at City Feed (they are so yummy) while reading this week's Bay Windows and the great news about New York! I then headed to Boomerangs to donate the bagged household items and clothes that had officially taken residence in our wannabe-coatroom since April (until I evicted them to the basement two weeks ago). After returning to Chez Eugenia, Bryce and I packed up ourselves and a trunkload of hazardous materials (paint, car oil, pesticides) that's been in the basement since Heather acquired the house and headed to the City of Boston hazardous material drop-off near Millenium Park. After patiently waiting to rid ourselves safely of out trunkful of toxins, we headed to the top of Millenium for a walk- which also turned into a puppy-swim and soccer-playing. Fabulous :) We met new friends (Bruin + T-Bone) who turned out to be fellow swimmers and wrestlers. And exhausted ourselves thoroughly.

Returning home, we enjoyed a late lunch followed by a 75-min disco nap before heading to pick up a very happy wifey at school. After puttering around the house, we both enjoyed a light dinner (Toni, H. loves the peanut noodles) before going our separate ways (Heather to a disco nap and I on a date with Revlon). 60 minutes and many posed color-processing photos later, I was "ultralight 05 blonde" and Heather was refreshed.

We weeded and played with the pup once more before heading out to dancing with J. GirlSpot was an epic fail. Its advertised "cheap drinks and dancing" amount to $6.25 beers and $9.65 tequila shots sans dancing (unless you count moving strategically to avoid the chick who alternated leaping onto various queer young things to make out with spilling her frothy bottled beers over the non-dance floor as "dancing"). The upside was that we got to hang out with J and laugh hysterically while traipsing too many city blocks under 1 tiny umbrella in the Boston pour. Next time we'll stick to Kristen Porter's Dyke Night Productions and head to Felt or Machine. There's just something about a DJ that beats a pandora music station every time. I've no malice for GirlSpot - it was cute to see all the lil' barely 21 dykes out last night - but, as the name implies, it's a production in it's infancy. And, I'm just a little to old to wait for it to grow up.

All in all, yesterday was a massive self-care thumbs up. And I'll drink or give thanks to that any day. :)

Change

I'm being forced to make changes due to external forces.  And while I'm balking at the prospect of being less financially stable and losing the extras I've become accustomed to, I'm realizing there are also positive changes I'll also be compelled to make.

Exercise: I'm adding regular and varied exercise to my life. I'm purposefully building on my running schedule by adding in  gentle yoga (to stretch and even me out), cycling (because it's summer and I enjoy it), and weight lifting (to lean me down). And, thanks to the Cardio Trainer app I'm feeling successful as I set weekly goals and log my progress. Hurrah!

Weight Watchers: I've membership for meetings until late July and then I'm switching to ETools only. So while I have connection and  support from meetings I'm working on faithfully tracking my eats, which is my key to success. I skopje with my leader about the pending change and she said that when I'm within 5lbs of my goal weight to come back to meeting and she'll start me on the process to become a meeting support staff person. 2011 will be the year I become Lifetime and I will be working with the WW team by 2012.

Social connections/Interests: I have to foster more independent time and interests. I'm going to start with writing group twice a month and joining Andrea's crafting group twice a month (when it starts). I'm also looking into theater opportunities for other volunteering/extracurriculars. I want to be a call center do-gooder but have decided that my extras have to be fun or I won't do them. I also want to get out more- dancing, beach-ing, being more involved in queer community. By myself and with Heather and friends.

And last but not least...

Work schedule: I'm setting  boundaries around work, including my time and my energy. Work is not enriching  when there are more demands and less rewards. I'm building in my own rewards.

On a different note, I finally found  fat photos from December 2004, the month before I joined WW at 248.6lbs...and I've been on this journey since. There are two and I didn't know the photos were being taken- I wasn't the primary subject (I avoided cameras). So once I  figure  out how to scan them (or ask the wife to do it for me) I'll post on here so you can truly see my 6 year change...my mum didn't recognize  me in the photos at first...

PS- lost 0.6lbs at WW thought (without tracking). Am only 5 lbs away from my wedding weight again!

Commitment

At home this past week I made a commitment to myself: 12 weeks of regular exercise, quiet time & meditation, study & research. Basically, a focus on my needs.

As work isn't getting any less stressful and I've two large projects (involving lots of writing) to complete between June 6-Aug 24,
I'm going to try to negotiate some time away from the office. I think better when I'm not being distracted by everyone else's needs and the underlying strain of the recession's impact on non-profit.

So, to negotiation, dedication and commitment. Here's to summer.