Things That Make Me Happy

- I'm playing with my new computer, which came with a bunch of games.  There's a chess game on it.  I lost twice.  On level 2.  This annoys me.  I used to be fairly decent at chess; but haven't played in forever.  In each of the two games I lost, I could pinpoint the stupid move where I lost the game, but that didn't stop me from making it.  I really hate the idea that I've lost whatever chess-playing mojo I had.  Just played again, gave the whole thinking ahead thing my full attention, and managed to checkmate the computer.  (I knew it was going well when I took out its Queen fairly early in the game.)  Go me.


- Haven't exercised in forever.  I saw this coming; really, I did.  Back when I first got my elliptical machine, I used it each and every morning -- no matter how late for work it would make me, there were simply no excuses.  (I started at 12 minutes a day, and ultimately worked my way up to 45.)  Well, over the past few months, I've allowed excuses.  Figured that I needed sleep, too, so allowed myself to sleep in when I needed to, rather than exercising in the morning.  Result:  Very little exercising.  I realized I had to go back to the No Excuses plan (especially since I haven't lost the weight I picked up eating all that strudel on vacation).  Today was the 7th day in a row I actually got on the damn elliptical.  (And I can manage about 25 minutes without feeling like I'm dying.)  Now I have to get the sleep back in there while still exercising every morning.


- Am also working on the whole Eating Healthy thing.  One thing I managed to do (and keep to doing) was cut the frozen dinners out of my diet.  I'd gone for them because of the ease and the low calories, but all the sodium (and the processedness of it all) had been getting to me.  There are also two meals per week that tend to cause trouble for me.  One is a salad which I adore from a nearby restaurant.  It's probably over 1000 calories, and I generally split it up between two meals.  This week, I split it between three meals, without any noticeable hunger pangs.  Second problem meal is a Friday lunch at work, where I always get French Toast.  I left one of the four half-slices on my plate, again, without any noticeable hunger.  So, yay.


Haven't actually seen much improvement in my actual weight from these latter two things, but I'm at least feeling better about myself.