If You Fail to Plan, You Plan to Fail

Title courtesy of Benjamin Franklin

Disclaimer: This post is long and kind of boring. In it, I attempt to schedule my biking workouts to help get me back on track and I go off on several tangents, which are perhaps more interesting than the biking. You can read the whole thing if you want, but good luck staying awake.

I must’ve slept a total of 9 hours last night, but I still feel so tired. My meds probably haven’t kicked in, yet. I just barely took them.

I think I’m so loaded with carbs right now, too, that a sleepy feeling is inevitable.

Tomorrow is weigh-in. Not gonna lie, I am scared.

I need to get back on program. Even if the Depo is still affecting me. I feel like I’m making excuses to behave recklessly and let my hard work and progress unravel, although it might legitimately be increased irritability and depressive symptoms that are contributing to that mindset and behavior.

Still, I need to be tracking. I need to be biking. Even just three days a week would help, I’m sure.

The problem is that I do all of my appointments and errands on my 7-3 days. I always seem to run out of time to bike.

I could have two of the days be Saturday and Sunday. But I would need to pick a time and stick to it. Weekends are very unstructured, unless we’re going somewhere special. It would probably be good to add a little structure into those days.

I could do it Saturday when Derek gets up and before lunch. That way I can shower right afterward. But what time he gets up varies a bit. 11:00 would probably work.

Sunday I have WW, and what time I get home varies based on whether I have anything to do after the workshop. And I intermittently fast until I get home, so by the time I’m home, I’m sometimes hungry. But I drink lots of fluids at the workshop after weighing in, so I could probably hold out.

But the time wouldn’t always be the same. It couldn’t be too close to 2:00 because of monthly game day. 12:00 might work, but then I’m not eating lunch until 1:00 or 1:30.

It’s possible that Sunday is too complicated.

Maybe I could shoot for Monday, Wednesday, Thursday at 4:00 with an alternate on Saturday at 11:00?

All this planning might sound silly, but I’m afraid if I don’t have a very specific plan, I won’t do it. I’ll put it off until it’s too late and find excuses not to do it.

This wasn’t a problem before I started working full-time. Okay biked at 2:00 everyday except Sunday. And I loved it. I couldn’t get enough. The two days we went camping in August, I was all stressed out beforehand about missing one day, out of six days! Now I’m just so tired after work that biking is the last thing I want to do. All I want to do is sit down.

Of course, how often do I come home and sit right down? Never. Never ever. There’s always a ton of things to do here, too (you may have seen this list before in an earlier post. If so, feel free to skip all but the long one):

• Greet and talk to Derek about how work is going
• Greet and talk to Aislyn about her day
• Greet and talk to Desmond about school (extended parenthetical tangent time: this is a very quick Q&A though, that I wish was more extensive: How was school? Good. Did you learn anything interesting today? Nope. What did you do at recess? Swings. What special did you have? Art. What did you eat for lunch? Pizza. Which friends did you talk to/ play with? I dunno/ I forget. I’ll think, oh, it’s just how he is: concise. “Brevity is the soul of wit,” right? Or so saith Shakespeare. But then he’s much more elaborate and animated on the phone to his grandparents. Hmmm…so then, I wonder what I’m doing wrong with him that would explain the discrepancy. Are they just asking him more open-ended questions? Or is he already a little bit over Mama and Daddy 😢? You’ve never seen a bulleted list like mine, I break all the rules!)
• Toilet Aislyn if needed
• Rinse out any newly pooped-in clothes (usually needed)
• Throw in a load of laundry
• Swap out Desmond’s filter into a clean mask for the next day
• Throw my lunch together for the next day
• Take my second dose of Miralax
• Pick up toys and food wrappers in the living room
• Put breakfast dishes and other strays in the sink to be washed after dinner
• Open any packages that have arrived and break down the boxes
• Make sure I have enough cold sodas in the fridge

These are the things I can think of that I do almost everyday of my work week before I can feel comfortable sitting down or relaxing.

It’s possible I’ve crossed over into Crazy Town. That’s a Tina Feyism, I think. Now I’m curious, and will have to look it up…I got nuthin,’ except for that horrible Butterfly song by a band called Crazy Town. Awww, it’s stuck in my head, now, thanks, Google.

I suppose I could try biking pre-work on Tuesdays and Fridays. I’d have to hold off on breakfast, and obviously wait until later to shower and dress. But I feed the kids and sometimes help Aislyn toilet, and what time they get up varies slightly.

Those days, I will have to leave no later than 8:45 to be on time. 8:40 to be ready to work right at 9:00. It takes me 5-10 minutes to prepare and eat breakfast, so that’s 8:30. It takes me 10-20 minutes to shower and dress, so that’s 8:10. I prep, drink my coffee and do light therapy probably 40 minutes, so now we’re at 7:30. 40 minutes to do the whole workout, now we’re at 6:50. Although, obviously, I would probably do the light therapy after showering/ dressing. I’m usually done with Miralax/ feeding cats and kids before 6:30. So a 6:30 workout on Tuesday/ Friday and 11:00 Saturday could work.

Sorry this post is so boring, but it’s helping me plan, despite the wild tangent marathons, so it’s all good. I will even include a nice little disclaimer at the top, so you don’t have to read the whole thing if you don’t want. Isn’t that so considerate?

My therapist says I am very accommodating. I might be to a fault, though. Maybe I wouldn’t be so exhausted if I was slightly less accommodating. Some things are just my responsibility, though, like everything that’s come with parenting two highly intelligent, chronically and severely constipated kids.

Last thing, totally unrelated to the post: Aislyn had the iPad earlier, and was singing along with the Goodnight Daniel Tiger lullaby. Her little voice was so sweet, I had to stop what I was doing and just be in the moment, admire her like my mother used to do to Paul and me with the “admiring look” we always teased her about. Now I totally understand that admiring look.

And so I told her: Aislyn, you did such a great job singing that song! Your voice is so sweet! Because I think kids probably don’t get enough positive feedback, and so you should give it as much as you can.

I am emotional today, though not necessarily in a bad way. And still drowsy, despite my other meds. And hungry. But that might be because I ate at 3:30 a.m.