Good Morning!  And yes this blog entry is coming in the middle of the night so it is technically Saturday already.  I am not completely sure as to why I am up at 4:30 AM but it is likely due to all of the things running through my head at the moment.

So let me back up and tell you all about my Friday (which I'm sure you are just sitting at the edge of your seat dying to know about LOL).  I woke up early Friday morning (around 5:30 AM).  I was feeling a bit better but definitely not 100% so I pondered what I should do that day.  Ultimately I decided I should stay home since I had only been on the antibiotics for less than 24 hours at that point.  Therefore I did the necessary calling out sick but proceeded to do work from home using my laptop from work.  In essence, I did work for most of the morning from home.  This time allowed me to get caught up on a few things which I always refer to as stragglers.  They are things you have to get done but you can put off on a busy day but at the end of that busy day you are like, crap I didn't get that done.  And since busy has been the norm lately there were a few minor things I hadn't got done.  Well I am happy to say they are done and so I am mostly caught up. 

For the afternoon I decided to actually take my doctor's advice and rest.  Didn't really sleep but I rested.  I did not eat that much during the day so I had decided in the middle of the afternoon I would "cheat" on my diet by having pizzeria delivered pizza for dinner.  My friend who does reflexology and massage stopped over around 5:00 PM and gave me a session as he felt it would help kick this disease out of my system.  I know there are nay-sayers about things like reflexology but it has helped me a lot and honestly as I sit here and type this blog--I am feeling a bit better than I did this morning.  I truly do believe this is due to the fact that I rested today and didn't push myself by going into work but no doubt the session I had also helped.

That brought me to the evening and I was somewhat excited for the evening because although I was cooped up in the house (aside from hockey games I haven't really had a night out in a while) the TV line up for last night looked good.  It was the season finale of Caprica on SyFy and a new episode of Clone Wars.  The only thing that would have made it better was a new Smallville but hey that's next Friday!  Wooohooo LOL.  Anyways since Caprica and Clone Wars are on at the same time I usually watch / DVR Caprica at 9 PM EST and then Clone Wars at 12:00 AM EST on Cartoon Network West (isn't satellite TV great)!  I hopped online and chatted with the guys for a while on top of all of this.

Unfortunately Caprica was just meh in my humble opinion last night and didn't capture my attention.  Since I did DVR it I will have to glance at it again and see if it makes sense the second time around.  I had actually planned to go to bed after Caprica but honestly wasn't that tired so I just hung out lying on the bed with the lap top surfing nonesenesical stuff with TV on in the background.  The next thing I know Clone Wars was coming on at Midnight.  Well I had to stay up just to see that and since class doesn't start until the afternoon on Saturday, I figured ok I can sleep in a bit (yeah right, look where I am now!).  So after a good episode of Clone Wars I hit the hay.

But in that in-between time when I was doing some random surfing I came across a site which I am not going to name at this time (I may at a later time but just not yet--call me superstitious).  For those of you who know me or have followed me might know, I have struggled with my weight practically all of my life.  I have been overweight since I started elementary school practically.  My major problem is how I view food.  When I am stressed:  I eat.  When I am happy:  I eat.  When I am sad:  I eat.  I have recognized the pattern but that doesn't make it any easier to remedy.  For the past five years I have begun to fight the battle of the bulge with mixed success.  Around five years ago I lost about 50 pounds and was feeling good and was seeing great results.  I had accomplished this through a combination of doing Nutrisystem and going to the gym religiously.  The problem was I had a major change in one area of my life that threw me back into my old habits and I gained much of that weight back.  About a year or so ago I started Weight Watchers along with going to the gym and was beginning to have some success again (probably around 30 pounds) but you guessed it something in my life changed and the old patterns came out again.

For the past three months I have been struggling to bring back balance to the force (ha!) in my life.  I have been struggling to get back on Weight Watchers as I feel that is the better of the two weight loss plans I have tried (sorry Nutrisystem--you were good to me but way too restrictive and with Weight Watchers you eat real food).  I have not been having the success this time with Weight Watchers that I did the first time.  That is partly due to I use "cheat nights" about two, sometimes three times a week.  Hockey games are killer with all that great food around and sometimes I just get a craving for pizza or Chinese food (my two big killers).  I got completely disgusted when I stepped on the scale today after a week of being pretty faithful to my diet to only see a weight loss of maybe one pound.  I think that is what spiraled me into wanting pizzeria pizza again (with pepperoni and extra cheese of course). 

The one thing that I have noted is that the one key element of my success during the two times I did begin losing weight was that I went to the gym.  And of course they (who are they anyways) say that the only true way to lose weight is a combination of diet and exercise and well I haven't been exercising so of course the weight isn't going to "melt away".  Because of that I have been trying to find inspiration to go to the gym by searching online for exercise programs and motivational pictures / stories but nothing has worked so far.  Well tonight I went to a site I have gone to before and looked at a person's story who I honestly had seen before but never read in depth.  And what I read tonight was so profound and the complete opposite of what I have read in other stories and honestly spoke to who I am as a person.  The person's story that I read entered fitness for the opposite reason as I am entering:  he was too small while I am too big but nonetheless the motivations are the same.  So as I entered dream land it got me thinking and I actually am excited and have a different outlook on exercise.  I spoke with a friend of mine tonight who doesn't exercise but has been talking about it and we are considering joining a gym together.  I currently have a membership I pay for but don't use but a new gym opened up that is less than five minutes from my place.  We are going to check it out and I might switch.

I really hope my excitement stays for this and the stress of the real world doesn't bring me down.  And my life is even more hectic now than ever.  In an effort to reach one of my other long-term life goals (again don't want to jinx myself so won't tell that one either LOL) I have been picking up extra hours at work on the weekends at some of the centers my company owns near Philadelphia.  I have to honestly say that I have enjoyed this change of pace as it is skilled nursing and rehab that I do on the weekends while I do assisted living and outpatient during the week so it isn't bad.  The bad part is I'm usually only taking one, if any, days off a week.  So that one full day I have off I need to really recharge the batteries.  So I am hoping to keep this schedule up along with my teaching but start making an hour or two a day to hit the gym.  It will be tough but I have to do it for so many reasons.  I will keep you all updated as to my progress here.

So, ok--yeah, wow this went long!  It is now 5:00 AM.  My alarm is set for 8:00 AM so at this rate I can at least get, realistically, 2 more hours of sleep.  That should be ok.  I have class today from 1 - 5 (it is a 1 1/2 hour drive each way) and I have to run some errands in the morning.  I am going to the University early as I need to get some things from the library and would rather do it before class than after.  That should get me home by 7 PM which means I can make it an early night to bed tonight (yeah I know party animal on a Saturday night!).  My schedule is a wee bit tough this week as I am working Sunday at my normal job because we are down one clinician this week so I am helping out by working extra on Sunday.  Then I work my normal Monday through Friday with my extra day being Saturday down in Philly.  So yeah no day off until next Sunday.  It will be tough but I know I will do it!

Well I have bored you all (for those of you who actually read it this far) enough so I shall bid you all a good night, day, whatever one says at 5:00 AM!  LOL