Especially for an accountant like me (is it odd that I still self-identify as an accountant even though my business card has said “application developer” for more than five years now? I guess that’s an entry all in itself), the first of the month is a natural time to stop and reflect on the period just ended. It’s a small voice in my head that tells me this, easy to ignore, but now I think it’s time to get back to doing goal check-ins. Not doing them since the end of June has not exactly proven to be a winning strategy, that’s for sure.

Goal #1 – Body No news in the weight log is not good news. I thought maybe not posting my weight on the web would somehow change the dynamic between me and my scale and my diet, but it really hasn’t. I haven’t been back to Weight Watchers and I haven’t counted points on my own and I feel real hostility toward the new core plan, which I don’t even know that much about, so obviously I’ve got some issues I need to deal with. I had the most success recently on the goofy grapefruit and protein plan, which leads me to think I need to explore controlling my carbohydrates, but then I think about how the GoLean bars I like so much are no longer on the shelves at Kroger, having been pushed out by Atkins bars and their 2 net carb buddies, and I get mad about that. Like I said, issues. I must admit that I tried a PowerBar ProteinPlus (chosen because I know PowerBar from eating them on ski trips instead of stopping for lunch and these were about the same size as my no longer available GoLean breakfast standbys) and liked it, I think because it reminded me of Space Food Sticks. Maybe I could just order a case of those and start my own diet craze.

The picture is somewhat better on the exercise front. While I haven’t put any of the Firm tapes in the VCR in months, I did go to a Nia class four times in October and walked at least 10,000 steps on all the days I didn’t do Nia except for two–one a lazy Sunday, but I made up those missing steps over the two following days, and one the day I had to work until 11:30 at night thanks to a crisis that got dropped in my lap that morning. That is so much better than any month in recent memory that I’m a little surprised I managed it. Some days it felt like I was always walking–a couple thousand steps before work, a couple more during lunch, however many I needed after dinner even if that meant not getting other things done. I’m going to have to get back to the weights soon; ski season is coming up and I don’t want the strength of my thighs or lack thereof to be the limiting factor when we hit the slopes.

Goal #2 – Mind Reading? What’s that? No, it’s not as bad as all that. I’ve been listening to a lot of books in the car, but am one behind in keeping pace with my print goal because I finally started Alaska, which Mr. Karen gave me for my birthday so I could read it before our trip, something which obviously didn’t happen. I might just possibly finish it before the end of the year, if I don’t decide to abandon it because of all the bad things that keep happening to animals and people (and I’m nowhere near the part where I’m sure they’re going to do bad things to the land, too).

Goal #3 – Quilting The traditional bright spot of goals continues to shine. The ark quilt I finished this month makes four of the nine I want to complete before the end of March. Five quilts in five months? I can do that if they’re smallish, and at least three of them will be because they’re for babies. I’ve got two of them started and designs and fabric mostly picked out for two others.

Goal #4 – House Having Maria come every two weeks to clean forces us to straighten up the mess at least that often, so that helps keep things under control. I’m still behind where I want to be with the photo album and my clippings file, but I have worked on both of those projects as recently as yesterday–no, wait, I did a few clippings this morning–so they’re at least still moving in the right direction.

I guess that’s not so bad. If the body fairy would just come and magically get me back to where I was a year ago, I’d be all set.