Today marks the start of Week 10 of Fat Club.  At the end of nine weeks, I sit here over 15 lbs lighter than I was at the beginning of the year.

I feel very lucky that I’ve steadily lost weight and haven’t yet had to deal with any of the emotional fallout that comes with gaining a few ounces instead of seeing that scale number drop.  I even said as much when I was complimented on my progress during my weigh-in yesterday.  And my leader, bless her, said, “It’s not luck.  You’ve been working hard and it shows.”

It took me a few minutes to think about it and realize that she’s right.  I have been working hard.  I’ve been tracking my food intake and my activity, and when I’ve made mistakes and miscalculated, or gone off track I’ve made efforts to account for those and counteract them with exercise and activity.  I’ve tried to take the program to heart, and I’m seeing good, steady results.  Even this week when I’ve been eating crap (I’ve had cherry pie, restaurant omlettes, Taco Bell, pizza, and sushi all within the last 7 days) I’m very aware of what crap I eat, and how much of it, and still work towards making better food choices even as I indulge.

The weight loss is showing.  My pants are all too big, to the point that even belting them looks bad from all the excess fabric bunching.  I’m hesitant to buy clothing since I know I’m aiming to lose more, and I don’t want to waste money on things I’ll be able to wear for just a few months.  I did, however, buy a pair of pants off eBay that are the same size and cut as my best-fitting pair currently, and hopefully those will tide me over until I get closer to my goal weight, whatever that may be.

Only 13 lbs away from being allowed to play with my new eee PC!

The cursed project may, in fact, be cursed, but it sure as heck doesn’t take two months of dedicated time to run.  It has been just over a week and I’m nearly done with my tasks, and I have oodles of free time in which to pick up random incoming jobs.  My boss and I have come to the conclusion that the last several people to laugh in the face of danger and fail miserably work on this project padded their time by at least a few weeks and were probably playing solitaire.  It’s less stressful this way, although the first few days were wretched, and  I think overall I prefer it.

That being said, I’m finding it very difficult to concentrate at work. This is due, I think, to three things:

• I am in the feeble clutches of a not-very-robust, but still irritating headache
• My caffeine supply is dangerously low
• I hate what I do to make money

At the same time, I could be using my unproductive work hours for personal non-work productivity, but I’ve come to the realization that I’m a slacker at heart.  I am attempting to write an engaging article for the company newsletter about what the clueless customer service people need to know so I can do my job effectively, but I think that’s contributing to my first bullet point.

I’m amazed that I’ve managed to write this much.

In geeky news, I just ordered an ASUS eee PC 901 in Sweet Pea green.  I was going to wait and order it as my “Yay, me!” for making my mini-goal weight.  However, ASUS is currently offering a rebate which ends 3/8/09, and that changed my tactics a bit.  While this snappy little netbook will arrive well before I reach my mini-goal, I won’t have custody of it until I see those numbers on the scale.  By my calculations, that should be mid-May.  Delayed gratification!

I’ve gone ahead and purchased a new domain, but I’m trying to decide what to do with all my fractured bits of writing. Do I leave it all here, point it to the new site, integrate everything, or leave it all separate? I’m getting rather frustrated because I’m not having any luck with a cohesive plan, so everything I do is pretty pointless.

If I can plan things out, it’s a good opportunity to do some housekeeping… delete old files, consolidate others, make an understandable directory structure, etc. I’m hoping inspiration strikes soon.

I don’t usually make resolutions come January 1. I’m fully aware that I most likely won’t keep up with them anyway, so rather than deal with the guilt of not keeping a promise to myself, I simply ignore the promise-making part and get on with my year. This time I’m trying something different.

I have a few things I’d like to work on, and it just now occurred to me that all my resolutions are based (sometimes loosely) on Jimmy Buffet lyrics:

1. Treat my body more like a temple and less like a tent (Fruitcakes)
2. Be more zen and enjoy life as it comes (Trip Around the Sun, Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On)
3. Follow more of my dreams (Someday I Will)
4. Depend on myself alone for happiness (Tonight I Just Need My Guitar)
5. Go more places that make me happy (One Particular Harbor)

Apparently, I just want to be more like Bubba.