some assembly required

I feel like such a fraud. I have so many different pieces in place and all I need is the glue to hold it together. I'm low on motivation, and that happens to be the thing that holds it well. I've been letting things go and I really need to take control back. I need short term goals.

I don't hate my job, but I would not mind doing something entirely different. I have not found my calling yet it seems. Shuffling paper is not what I live for. I ended up tossing about 1100 documents today. That's about 1500 pages I went through. I listened to the radio and plowed through it. Amazingly I still have another box to go.

I understands that office jobs pays the bills that will come inevitably. I just don't feel like I'm in the right office. I don't hate my job at all, but the down time recently has been killing me. The whole idea of having to find something to do. I feel so wasteful.

I did not lose any weight compared to last week. But considering I gain back a bit last week, I am stepping into the wrong direction. I can do it. I just don't feel like it. Once again I feel like I'm doing this for other people and it does not sit well with me.

I'm sick of doing things to please other people. That being people around me. I just feel like I'm holding back myself because I need to please other people. Meanwhile I can not figure out what makes me happy. I just feel like I'm back to pieces, like I was before.

wind

This weekend was excessively windy, but it was great. I did not get much done, but it was still great. I feel rested and I finished a book. I feel accomplished.

I did a bit of rearrangement. The macchiato daily blog is not just my mug shot any more. I made it into a blog of random photos and daily projects. Most of these photos are going to be from my phone and not of the artsy blog quality. I think it's a good place for me to just show off what my days are like and random observations.

I finally finished another book and I'm craving for more. When I first started out on this quest of reading, my goal was to try to clear out the huge amount of great books I have accumulated over the years. I have been reading, but mostly downloaded classics off my phone out of convenience. Meanwhile I had been rewarding myself with more books. I'm in a bit of a paperback deficit here. I'll work on it.

first day of spring

There is something funny about having a fresh start. You become bold and wanting to steer yourself into a different direction. I am running again. It feels good. I've been running 4 miles every few days. My goal is to run 5 miles four to five times per week and be able to run at least one half-marathon length every weekend. It will take some practice.

About being bold, I'm somewhat butting heads with people at work. Politely of course. If you want me to take something off your hands, I need to know what you want me to do is all. I don't do vague. There needs to be consistency. I wrote a couple of epic emails to half the department to get some clarity. I am good at being diplomatic and analytical when I give background to my questions. I think it shows I can be a good manager. It's not that I hate my job. There is no room to grow. I hope I get that other job.

It might rain tomorrow. I want to get some good pictures of fresh leaves. My photo blog is coming along quite well. It requires little maintenance. I just need to queue up another batch of photos this weekend and I'll be set for the next few months. I just need to take more photos in the time being.

We drove up to Communications Hill last night. He lived up there for a few months. It's breathtaking. I did not know there was such a place close by. Granted the town homes are cramped, but the view sure is nice. Something to consider for the future.

The weekend could not come sooner.

I need a sign

I've been looking for a new job within the company while I still have the chance. I feel so very uninspired by the lack of prospect of the position I am in. I have an interview sometime this week for a filler position in the next department over. It will be a good change if I can get it. If not, I'm looking at the prospect of going back to school if I really can't find anything else. I got lucky on my only job interview right out of school. I don't want to be over confident with my next job.

I don't know what I want to do when I grow up. All I know is it's not this.

the shirt I wore last night

This reminded me of the many weight loss commercials I've seen over the years. Skinny people holding up their fat pants showing how far they have come. I dug up an old shirt to wear to sleep last night and it was loose. I remember it to be fairly snug when I wore it last. Feels good. I want it to be even bigger. More work is needed. 5 miles tomorrow maybe?

I won't bore you

I realized at some point in time that one of the things that went wrong with my previous incarnation of the blog is that I started putting my projects on here. Inception, progress, ranting, and reiteration. I often can't remember what exactly it was I put on here and inevitably the ideas get lost.

I got myself a notebook with the intention of writing them down. Didn't happen. I don't feel like lugging around a notebook and such. I'm online all the time. Why not just start a blog and use that like a notebook or something? This way I can share it too. So came macchiato projects.

It's pretty self explanatory. I made it so it is easy to navigate between projects and various updates.

I'm tired. I should have been asleep two hours ago. Then I dragged my tired butt up to the house and am in my other bed. 4.59 miles is a lot any way you slice it.

nest

It happens every spring. A pile of twigs on my stairs. Some confused dove spends an entire day arranging twigs precariously on my porch light for a nest; only to be startled by the opening of my door and dash off, scattering the twigs on my steps. A false start.

It's been unreasonably cold the past few days. This is what I call half-ass weather. If it's this cold, it might as well be snowing. A few weeks back it was, don't bother me with this drizzle, might as well be pouring. I like my weather conditions to be full on. I know I'm pretty well insulated, but I still don't like this cold.

I've been thinking about my options lately. It doesn't look like I have too much longer on this job. I might be out of it as soon as May. I can look for another job or I can go back to school. I went to Borders for a bit last night to look for study materials. the GMAT doesn't look too hard. I can handle that with a bit of a brush up. Interestingly enough the LSAT caught my eyes. I know I want to get some graduate studies under my belt, but law? Maybe. I did enjoy the legal issues classes most when I was studying HR. I can probably do it, but I just don't think I want it bad enough.

pictures

I finally looked through all my pictures in flickr. I pulled all the ones I like into my favorites folders. I went ahead and queued up all the pictures of just myself on the daily me tumblr as backups. I now need to work on putting those new "favorites" into the queue of my photo blog. I've been meaning to do this for a very long time. As time moved on it got more difficult because of the sheer amount of photos I have.

I've been meaning to document the projects I want to work on. I realize I've been working on it unconsciously. Revising my various blogs, reorganizing my room, picking through my photos, and queuing up my photo blogs. Next I need to update my library thing catalog and sort through my scrap book stuff. Everything is connected.

As soon as I figure out what pieces I can use to put in a layout, I can start printing out the best pictures for each and vice versa. I don't know how much more layouts I can work on. I honestly think I do a much better job at making little crafty things with my craft supplies then making layouts. With the investment I made in art supplies, I almost feel obligated to create something.

I need to get back to reading. I really lagged behind. I also need to finish up the throw I'm crocheting. I think I need to make some sort of schedule. I need to work all my projects and workouts into my lazy days. As a matter of fact I spent an hour making a huge rubber band ball. Great use of my time. But at least I know what I need to do. Some things are rolling along.

I like how everything in coming together.

the whole weightloss thing

I woke up this morning thinking about how much I need to work out and such. I'm done with the whole progressive distance from 1 mile thing. It doesn't work. I need to start at 5k at the very least. Then when I was browsing consumerist this morning I found this: http://www.344pounds.com/. It's the most inspirational blog I have ever seen. This guy was at 344 pounds and already lost 32 pounds in 6 weeks.

There are a few things I need to keep in mind. For every 3500 calories burned, it's a pound. I think it's time I start guesstimating my calorie intake. That goes hand in hand with my exercise plan. I'm thinking perhaps I should change my meter on the iPod from distance to calories. That might work a lot better. I can gradually increase the workout level/distance. Maybe I should put back together the whole DDR setup again. When I get a bit lighter that is.

One main part of how his plan works is his eating habits. He said you can eat whatever you want, just limit the amount of intake. I have been saying that for a very long time. While I was reading that part I overheard somebody talking about changing her diet etc. How many times have I said it doesn't work? It doesn't. Anyone who does it will just start binging again. Drink lots of water. I just had 10 oz of water while writing this. I can do this all day long.

I find the only way I can motivate myself is to quantify all of this into numbers.

Let's do a little bit of math. I'm at 189 right now, I rounded up for once. I want to be at about 120 eventually. We're looking at about 70 pounds. Let's say I eat about 2000 calories every day, more give then take. I used an online calculator and it estimates I use about 2000 calories per day. Which make sense because I've been maintaining my weight at that point. From that I estimate my intake to be about 350 more then what I should have to maintain weight because I have been gaining about a 10th of a pound a day. So it looks like my calorie intake is about 2350 with the basal rate at about 2000. For every mile I run it's about 120 calories. Which means I need to run at least 3 miles to keep my current weight. If I want to lose a pound a day I need to run 29 miles plus that 3 miles to maintain what I had before. 32 Miles. That's more then a marathon. Obviously I need to scale down. I can most likely manage 5 miles per day at the current intensity. Obviously more calories will be burn at a higher intensity, but I would like to keep it at 120 just to lower expectations. I can probably do 5 days a week at 5 miles. That is 3000 calories burned. I need to burn 2450 to maintain my weight. That is and extra 550 burnt. Which translates to .15 pounds lost per week. At that rate it will take me 9 years to get to 120 pounds.

Let's say I want to lose half a pound a week. That is 1750 calories plus the 2450 for maintain. So that's 4200 per week. 35 miles. 7 miles for each of 5 workout day. That is doable. I can lose another half a pound if I stick to 2000 calories per day. That changed my outlook to 2 years 9 months to get to about 120 pounds. If I watch the things I eat I can cut that down to 1 year 6 months.

840 calories per workout day. I would like to round that up to 850. I can do that in a couple of different forms of exercise. Running is preferred. The elliptical and stationary bike also works. At the moment I don't want to commit to any sort of class. I can split up my workouts as well. As long as I get that 850 per day.

I feel so inspired.