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A new week begins,
Not much change from the weekend,
Fifty steps to work!

Yup, an new week has begun, and the switchover from the weekend to the work week is starting to blur! I will have to start creating more differences between the two, like staying OFF the computer on the weekends, or at least resist the temptation to look at work email that then traps me into the “oh, that will just take a few seconds” traps that you don’t realize you are in until several hours later! My fault as the temptation is too much. Yes, I am a workaholic. But at least my commute time to work is only about 10 seconds!

Only a few minor diet side steps as my niece is spending a lot more of her free time learning how to bake, and she is quite good at it! I would not be a good aunt if I did not support her! I know, I know, it’s an excuse, and I could resist and she would be okay with that, but as I know this round will probably not succeed because of pandemic conditions out of my control, I feel it may be better to support her ambitions. She is also learning how to cook and make healthy choices too, so a great balance for a 10-year-old.

So staying in, staying connected, staying employed—those are my major goals for the week!

The weekend is now,
Time for rest and renewal,
Springtime has begun!

Ahhh. The long awaited weekend has arrived. Yet this one feels different. No hanging out in PJs all day this weekend as the desire to do so has vanished most likely due to working from home—I actually want to put on the weekend casual cloths! And that’s not the only thing that has begun to blur the lines between weekdays and weekends: I don’t need to go fill the car up with fuel, I don’t need to do oodles of batches of laundry, I don’t need to pack lunches for the week—although I probably should continue to do so to prevent standing in front of the fridge with the door open for multiple minutes only to decide to grab the unhealthy foods. I also found myself questioning what day it was several times during the week. Yes, the psychological clocks have been completely disrupted.

Another thing that has been disrupted is it’s becoming more difficult to find the staple food items in the grocery stores that I rely on to stick with my plan. Fresh fruits and veggies choices are limited, dairy products are scarce, and meats and poultry items are not being restocked. Pretty much any food item that is considered “perishable” is now problematic to find, leaving only the dried and frozen food items left: the very items that are considered bad! I’ll keep going as long as I can, but it may require visiting the stores every day or so to find the rare chicken breast or fresh avocados. Under normal pandemic-free circumstances, this would not be an issue, but going to the grocery store every day or so increases the chances of becoming infected, so welcome to the latest twist on “Murphy’s Law.”

I did make my favorite on-plan chicken stew with the chicken I was able to find at Hanniford in Brattleboro, Vermont, a few days ago. The stew should last me a few days so at least I can mostly stay on plan for a little bit longer. One snag did occur this weekend however. My niece, Eleanor, made blondies with cranberries in them. This I could not refuse. So yes, I had one tiny homemade blondie. It was very good. My 10-year-old niece is turning out to be a very good bakery cook.

A daily Haiku,
Muse to the creative soul,
Read with enjoyment.

Ahhhhhhh.

Yes, that long sigh of relief means I’m working from home today. I’m not happy about the circumstances that got me here, but I am happy that this is my temporary solution!

On that note, I’m spreading today’s joy with a treat of a video blog entry!

Enjoy 🙂

Mondays for me means a new week has begun, and while it’s important to stay on plan every day of the week, Mondays typically set the tone for the whole week to come, and I’m happy to report that diet wise I stayed on plan.

Emotionally, however, I found it difficult to concentrate on work while in the workplace as I was trying to keep my distance from other employees that were in the office. We are all very aware of the new self-distancing rules that were recently enacted (stay 6 feet away from all others), but some co-workers found it very difficult to comply, even with two co-workers in my building being ordered to quarantine themselves for 14 days as they were recently with someone else suspected of contracting COVID-19. Now I’m not saying onsite co-workers deliberately ignored the self-distancing guidelines, I’m suggesting it will take some time and practice for people to become cognizant of keeping outside a 6-foot circumference to others. For example, I am fortunate enough to have an office with a window and a door. Even so, other employees wanting to converse with me didn’t hesitate to enter my office and come right up to my desk instead of just hanging near the entrance. My office is only about 12’x8′ and my chair is about 4′ from the outside wall, so any more than 2 feet through the doorway violates that 6-foot bubble. Needless to say, this made me very uncomfortable and I was very close to just closing the door to ensure the clear space. Then came the realization that if I come to work only to sit in an office with the door closed, that’s no different than just working at home. So I ended the day making that formal request, and that made me feel relieved.

Staying on a plan,
Today was more challenging,
Perseverance won.

Ah, the start of a new week and the plateau is hanging on (sneak peek—today is the last plateau day!). Typical for a Monday aye?!? The week begins and this one promises to be a good one. Week 3 is when you begin to see the benefits of the Whole 30: sleep is better, cognition is sharp, energy is up, and the clothes are baggy! All the above is true for me so while the plateau is hanging on for dear life, the universe is not rooting for it.

One of the side-effects of all this, however, is the desire to go cloths shopping as the wardrobe in your current closet (assuming you’re like me and can only keep seasonal cloths in your closet at any given time) is all too big. Not a bad problem to have, but hang on folks because there is more to go and anything you/I buy today will be too big in another two weeks. Search in the back for those belts that stopped fitting about two years ago and use them as the temporary fix, and we’ll (well, ”I” anyhow) go shopping in a few more weeks!

Pains, gains, struggles, etc.? No, not really. I did experience some muscle soreness in my knees, but that was a result of humid weather and a couple skiing accidents a few decades ago! Your situation will probably be different than mine as I’ve been here before as this IS round two for me and I’ve followed this plan a couple of times before, but this is the first time I’m doing multiple rounds back to back with only a few days between.

Any-hoo, it’s a new week and things are looking up!

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