Baby, It's Cold Outside!

This morning, it's 23 below 0 in High Plains City.

Roxy went out this morning to pee and came right back in, holding her foot up off the ground -- I imagine that the snow got caked in her pad and she was feeling the cold.

On tap for today -- working at home! I'll probably make a bit pot of stew or chili or something, and bake some cornbread.

In other news, I'm keeping up well with my decision to exercise 30 minutes a day and have added on a determination to cut my portion sizes. Result: I've lost 7 pounds! Woo-hoo! Still about 30 to go, but still... progress is sweet.

Of Tiling, Asbestos, and a New Diet Plan

Yesterday, our college administrative person (who is utterly fabulous, so I don't blame her for this AT ALL) (really, I don't blame anyone, I'm just whining) emailed everyone whose office resides on my floor to let us know that after noon today, we won't have access to our offices for a week. Why, you may ask, in the middle of getting ready for fall classes, would this happen? Well, we're getting new tile flooring in the hallway and the stairwells. Oh, and in order to take out the existing flooring, they have to do asbestos abatement. Enthusiasm for this project was sparked when we had our accreditation visit last spring (which we passed! with flying colors!). Part of getting-ready-for-the-accreditation-visit was spiffing up the buildings, which included retiling and repainting the hallway on the first floor, where most of the action is. Third floor? I don't think the accreditation visitors ever made it up that far! So anyway, I'll be heading in to the office early this morning, hoping to finish AT LEAST getting the readings lined up for one of my fall courses (the one I'm completely revising) so that I can work on other stuff at home.

Like the 300-page dissertation I have to read from a field completely outside of my knowledge base. I'm interested in this field, but not knowledgeable at all. Remember the science geek attempts? It's in that field: geology/geophysics. I'm the outside member, as in way outside. Let's just say that the title includes lots of things I don't know about, like "lattice-preferred orientation analysis" and "abyssal peridotites." Whew.

The science geek project, by the way, is still ongoing, but I'm in such lower-level courses at the moment that it feels like one of those dreams where you're trying really hard to run, but your body will not move? Like trying to run through big vats of yogurt or something.

Anyway, in other news, I have been running on my treadmill all summer, and not losing any weight (which is ANNOYING!) so I decided I should probably pay attention to my diet as well. I've downloaded this software, which is still in its trial period. But I'm thinking about purchasing it, because I really like the ability to track what I'm eating and how much I'm exercising. If nothing else, it gives me something positive to do in that direction. And -- other than hiking for six months at a time -- this process of tracking intake and output is the only way I've lost weight in the past. So, I'm shooting for losing about 25 pounds by January.

A Week in Review

I can't believe it's already been a week since I last blogged. It's been a week of just crossing things off my list, nothing really interesting.

This morning, on the other hand, was a landmark for Slogger. It was our first time walking to the coffee shop since his heart attack. I think he's been capable of walking that far for a couple of weeks now, but the cold weather gets to him more than it used to -- this morning it was in the 40s, although on our way back home the wind really picked up. Luckily it was at our backs.

I tried with the bread machine again yesterday, with the same results -- the dough rose and then fell like a rock. I'll keep experimenting and see what I can figure out, but my stock of hard, heavy bread (suitable for making my own seasoned bread crumbs!) is getting a bit on the huge side. What else can I do with homemade bread that is hard as a rock? Any ideas? I already used the bread crumbs to make turkey meatballs (this to go with my super-flavorful but salt-free marinara sauce).

I'm working on exercising every day, though this week was not the best for it. I'm still operating on my plan of giving myself non-food prizes for exercising at least 6 of the 7 days in the week -- needless to say, this week I get no prize. Oh, well. I plan to do better next week.