I figured I’d better do a weigh-in today, since it’s been three weeks. Yikes! The time has been going by so fast and it feels hard to keep up. I’ve really been enjoying the time away from my blog, though. It hasn’t really been for any reason other than my needing a mental break from it, and it’s definitely helped.

I wish I could say that my weight has gone down a significant amount since my last weigh-in, but I definitely wasn’t expecting it to. Nothing has changed as far as my diet goes (which isn’t a good thing) and I want to create better habits. This month has been kind of crazy and I need to do a better job at handling changes to routine.

As far as today, I was at 145.2, which is down only a little from the 146 that I think I was at three weeks ago. Since my habits haven’t changed, I can’t expect my weight to 😉

The boys on Eli’s baseball team asked if I would take pictures at their games again this year, and that made me feel good! So of course I agreed. It’s a surprisingly big time commitment, though. I usually take about 250 photos during the game (I do a lot of bursts so that I can have fun action photos), and then I have to upload them to my computer so I can weed out the ones that didn’t turn out or have multiple similar ones. (I usually narrow it down to about 100.) Then I try to make sure I have photos of each kid. And then I upload them to a shared album so the kids can download what they want. I really enjoy doing it for them, knowing that they are excited to have them.

Despite the changes in routine, I haven’t been eating *too* terribly. I haven’t had any sweets/desserts at all (and since I don’t crave sugar right now, I’m not going to chance it for a cookie or something). I recently bought a cookbook called Vegan Asian by the blogger at The Foodie Takes Flight (Jeeca Uy). [I’ve been buying cookbooks over the last year or so rather than using recipe sites–there are just SO MANY ads on sites that it takes way too long to simply check out the ingredients in a recipe to decide if I even want to make it.] I’m glad I got this book because it’s absolutely amazing. My favorite cookbook for sure. I’ve made several recipes and all have turned out delicious.

The only problem is that many ingredients aren’t exactly healthy. There is a lot of sodium (mainly from soy sauce) and a lot of oil (for stir-frying). Also, I’ve been eating portions that are definitely bigger than they should be.

I’d like to get back to not eating after 7:00 pm (that is the biggest help when I want to lose weight, I’ve discovered), but it’s nearly impossible with Eli’s baseball schedule. His games are usually at 4:00 (sometimes as far as 45 minutes away) and a lot of them are double headers. So we don’t get home until 8:30 or 9:00!

As far as exercise, I haven’t been doing my morning runs anymore and I would really like to start them again. The reason I stopped was that I injured my knee in the stupidest way possible. I was cleaning out the garage and I was trying to remove a drawer from a small nightstand. I bought it at a garage sale ages ago with the plan to refinish it; but when I tried to sand off the paint, I discovered that it must be some sort of magic paint because it will NOT come off. I gave up.

Anyway, the drawer was stuck and I couldn’t, for the life of me, get it to open and come out. (I had an idea of how to use the stand without the drawers and I wanted to try it.) I grabbed a hammer and started trying to hit the drawer outward–it was budging a tiny bit. After several hard hits, it was finally starting to come loose. I pulled back the hammer and swung really hard, thinking that final blow would get the drawer out.

Well, the hammer smashed right through the drawer’s bottom (which was just thin plywood) and landed right on my goddamn kneecap! The pain was blinding and I couldn’t even move. I was really worried that I shattered the bone–how could a direct blow from a hammer NOT?–but I wound up with a very deep bruise and a very painful knee. It hurt to even move my foot for about a week, which is when I stopped my morning runs.

I should have started right back up but so much time had passed and “one more day” wouldn’t make a difference (story of my life). And now it’s weeks later. Someone sent me a link to a challenge for a run streak in May, which is mental health awareness month. You can sign up (kind of like you would a race) and it’s a virtual challenge to run (or walk) one mile a day for all of May.

I really like that idea! Since I’m passionate about mental health and I would like to get back to running, it seems to be a good fit for me. I haven’t made the commitment yet, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to.

I met a friend at the Metropark on Sunday for a six-mile walk. She’d chosen the last place we walked so it was my turn to choose. I found myself feeling nostalgic for the path where I used to do a lot of my long runs with Jessica (and even by myself). It turned out to be a bad day for that particular park (it was flooded in a lot of areas because we’ve had so much rain) but seeing people out running on the path gave me a little pang of longing to do it too. I find it so inspiring–whether the person is very fit and fast or out of shape and slow, it inspires me all the same.

I know I’ve said this a few times now, but I’m going to make my goal for the week to be a couple of runs–not just around the block, but at least a couple of miles. If it’s too hard, I’ll take walk breaks, but I think I can manage a couple of miles if I run slowly enough 😉 ALSO, I’m going to post a Friday Night Photos before my photos get out of hand!