Work has been utter madness.

I've slept 6 hours of the last 60+ hours.

Going underway again tomorrow.

Eff.

It's 8 PM on a Friday night. I'm trying desperately not to think about how many pounds of chocolate I would like to eat. (Diet is going pretty well, I'm about halfway through the 6 pounds I'm trying to lose. But I miss eating.) I'm bored and don't feel like doing anything and am somewhat regretting my "who needs friends/other people" approach to life.

But the moment will pass and then I'll be happy again about being able to spend my time as I wish.

Got to go see J last weekend. It was amazing, of course. Plenty of good food, good times, and cuddlyness. Over far too soon, and now I am back here. Bummed. Really bummed about that. Like to the point that I haven't showered in over four days.

Took my first actuary exam on Saturday. Got the pass screen at the end which means I almost definitely passed, but it won't be official until I get my score in about 8 weeks. That's good, and I'm ready to start prepping for the next exam (Financial Mathematics!) but also feeling really hopeless about the whole thing. It's very hard to see how I can get a job in the actuary field when I move to Hawaii. It's hard enough to find a job when you aren't geographically restricted, and that's a pretty big restriction. Not to mention that I haven't got any experience in the field so...well. Whatever. No point in worrying about it now. I'll probably end up a barista living on J's couch, and that's not so bad, right?

Work is annoying the shit out of me. Everything I do is pretty pointless. I either have three things scheduled at once (which are usually all just being done for the check in the box, not for any real utility) or I have a day with nothing planned and I wonder how the fuck I am supposed to fill my time. I'm just so fucking over it. Got another 454 days to go, though.

Gained a few more pounds over the past couple weeks. Not happy about it, and so I'm back to calorie counting. A pain in the ass but the most effective way for me to track my intake. Besides, eating a whole pizza for lunch isn't actually going to make me happier anyway. I haven't been working out since my half marathon, between recovery and my trip to SC. I keep saying I am going to get back into it but then I just don't feel like it. It's hard to motivate myself when I don't have a goal or a plan. I want to sign up for another race, but we've got several long underways coming up that are interfering. Maybe I'll just do P90 again or something.

Anyway. At least the sun is coming back and no matter how shitty each day is, it's one day closer to something better. I hope.

UPDATE: After a workout and a long shower (two shampoos!), I am feeling a lot better. Still shitty, but a lot better!

Two hours, three minutes, and forty-two seconds. 9:27 min/mile.

I feel great. Fucking fantastic!

Race tomorrow. Holy crap! Don't feel all that ready, but oh well. I am excited and nervous! Have to go pick up my race packet today.

My weight gain is really starting to get out of control. It freaks me out, but the more I freak out about it, the worse it gets. So I'm just trying to do my best, and hope J doesn't hate my body when I see him next weekend!

I am not good. Being back is even worse than I thought it would be.

Well, nothing to do but get through it. And carry around a lot of Kleenex.

Looking back on 2012, it was a good year for me fitness-wise. I did P90X (well, okay, I did P60X and then P30X and P30X...) which gave me some nice muscle tone that my heavy cardio routine wasn't doing. For 2013, my goal is to achieve a balance between the two. I have my half-marathon coming up in like 9 weeks (!!), so I'll be doing a lot of running to start out the year. But I will also be doing strength training probably about twice a week. And once the half-marathon is done, I'll probably swap it--two days of running/cardio a week and the rest strength training. See how it goes, I guess!

For the half-marathon, my goal is really just to finish. No stopping! My time goal is 2 hours 15 minutes, which is basically 10 minute miles, my jogging pace.

In 2012, I biked 376.5 miles. Most of that is because I bike about 5 miles a day for my commute, which will be continuing for much of 2013. I like having that built into my day, just a few minutes to get my heart going.

I did 15.5 hours of cross training, which includes elliptical and rowing and jump roping and other random activities. Most of that was when I was underway, so I expect to be seeing a lot of that in 2013.

I swam 2750 meters. Not that much, I think that was only 2 swimming workouts all year. When the weather gets nice again I hope I can get back in the pool. More than twice in 2013!!

I hiked 11.6 miles. While I love hiking, not sure I'll have a chance to do much more than that in 2013.

And finally, I ran 224.3 miles in 2013!! My goal for the year was 200, so I am really pleased! I want to hit 200 again in 2013, but being underway so much that may be difficult. It was a lot easier to get all my running in this past year when I was mostly working at a shore command!

Overall, I am pleased with 2012. I think I was probably the most fit I have possibly ever been. I certainly think I looked my best (not right now, unfortunately--with vacation, I didn't exactly end the year on a great note!) and I'd like to keep that up going into 2013. It helps that J is really fit and motivates me to always be better!

Can't believe it's 2013. I say that every year, and it's true every year!

Costa Rica was, of course, insanely amazing. Lovely country, so relaxing and beautiful and just away. And being able to spend a whole 9 days with J!! It's almost like having a real boyfriend...

And now I am home, and it sucks. Take normal post-vacation crash blues, add in long distance renewed separation from J, not to mention the intensity with which I hate my job that I am returning to in less than 12 hours, and a few other random blah things and it is a recipe for utter depression.

But. That's life. Time to suck it up and keep pushing through the hard times that make the good times possible.

J is coming today! (Not until 11 PM, unfortunately...)

I haven't seen him in 3 months and 17 days! So I'm going to enjoy every minute of our 36 hours together...

Over the past couple weeks that I have been home, I have been eating really healthy. I gained 7 pounds when I was underway and I wanted it GONE. It's been a slow but successful journey back to my ideal weight. I'm not there yet, but one of the guys from work was having a chili cookoff today, so I decided fuck it. My first chance to bake in a while!

I didn't want to do anything too fancy or tricky. I mean, yeah, a champagne cupcake with strawberry filling and whipped cream topping sounds DELISH, but this is a chili cookoff! We're watching football! Let's stick with some more classic flavors.

My choice:

Dark chocolate cupcake


+

Banana caramel filling


+

Peanut butter frosting


=

Perfect deliciousness


They were a HUGE hit! Everyone said they'd vote for the cupcakes to win the chili competition. :) It makes me so happy when other people enjoy what I bake. The problem is that there weren't a ton of people there, so even though some people had 2, there were still 2 left for me to take home. Which means today is NOT going to help the slimming down!! Time to go brew a nice cup of (decaf) coffee and dig in...

ETA: Yup, amahzing!!