And it begins...again

Hello again my friends, and Happy New Year's Eve.

I'm officially caught up on all your blogs and I'm totally motivated by your motivation and happy to hear Christmas celebrations went well.

My Greyhound adventure on Dec. 23rd was interesting. When I got there I noticed they had combined the smaller town gate (i.e. Olds, Didsbury, Carstairs eventually getting to Edmonton) with the semi direct bus to Edmonton (via Red Deer). The line was gigantic at the gate and I quickly realized most of these people were trying to get to Edmonton. My bus to Olds did board on time at 3pm but I was sitting next to a guy on his way to Edmonton. He had purchased a ticket for the 1:30pm bus to Edmonton but I guess Greyhound doesn't actually count the number of tickets they sell for each bus. Once the bus is full it takes off and then all these people have to wait for the next one. Sort of reminded me of cattle. This bus takes 5hrs to get to Edmonton because it's stopping in a few towns along the way so originally he was expecting to be in Edmonton by 6:00pm ish now he was arriving at 8pm. The funny part - he was taking the bus to Edmonton to catch the train to Toronto. My thought was - dude you should have flown. I did suggest to him that next time if he takes the bus pay a little more and get a reserved seat ticket that's a way better chance of actually getting on the bus you want.

The week with Dad was great, I had my nose in a book almost the entire time and read all of the Kim Harrison books plus the Patricia Briggs books I got for Christmas. I didn't touch the Beck book as I think I'll be doing that tomorrow. Watched a lot of CBC and realized I do enjoy Stephen and Chris, and Fashion File.

My grand New Year's Eve plans are to put on my PJs watch some movies. I have a lovely bottle of wine in the fridge. I have no desire to do anything else.

I registered for WW meetings online today as I could save the registration fee that way. I also pre-paid for 12 weeks.

My memory card died so I couldn't take pictures of some of my "stay on track" plans but I'll tell you about them for now and pick up a new card on Saturday so pictures are coming. I borrowed one idea from Skinny Me and that's the daily planner/journal idea of tracking my progress. Congratulations go out to her on her engagement as well :) I've come up with the coloured dot thing to track my cardio, strength training, yoga, vitamins, staying Op and flossing. I'm really good at sticking with these things for a certain period of time and then I abandon them. I want to track why I abandon. I might overtime put this info into a graph - yes I am a total geek and damned proud of that.

The vitamins, flossing and staying OP are daily goals. I still need to sort out a plan for the cardio, strength and yoga that's realistice for me and doesn't cause me to get overwhelmed and abandon the whole thing.

I will purchase a 3-month journal when I got to my first meeting on Saturday as well. I've always preferred those to the one week ones.

I once (a long time ago) had to weigh in at a different meeting because I couldn't make my usual one. At that meeting they gave each person a chain of coloured paper clips. One clip for each pound you lost. At one time I had a chain of 25 paper clips on my fridge. The clips came down when I lost my weight loss mojo. I want to put the clips back on my fridge and even make a chain to keep at work as a visual guide to keep me from straying.

Of course there's also the X-Weighted Challenge that starts next week. Normally I'm not so good with challenges but I think this one will be different as it's really a challenge against myself. If I were to win a prize I'd think I'd go for the gym equipment. Training with Paul and a make-over with Fred would be fun but over quickly. I've watched the show since it first aired and I know the biggest part is overcoming your own demons.

I've reset my weigh in on the sidebar of this blog and I'll reset the tracker above the title also once I have my starting weigh in.

It's pefectly realistic for me to hit my goal weight in 2010 and heaven help me I'm tackling this head on for the last time. Third time is the charm - right?

All right my friends, if you are going out tonight please be safe and may we all reach out goals in 2010.

Hugs!!!