Why wait for New Year's?

I've decided I can't afford to wait until new year's to make the changes I need. I've been in a depressive funk ever since mid-October, when my father died. My Aunt died just over a month later, and my unemployment runs out at the end of the month. These are what I blame for my non-stop face-stuffing and refusal to go to bed at anywhere near a decent hour.

This is me. Tired, after several nights of 4-5 hours sleep. Sad, because I'm not very happy with myself. I haven't been treating myself very well, and it's time for that to change.

My current long term goals are to lose weight, finish remodeling my parent's house, teach myself SQL, and get a job as a database administrator. I'm changing careers from administrative assistant to IT, with no job related experience to back me up. I don't have much faith in my on-line master's degree, so plan to teach myself a marketable skill as a way to sell myself to employers. That is the SQL. I can't get a database administrator job until I learn it, though I will start putting in an application a day starting January 1, for practice. I'll have at least a base knowledge at that point, enough to start selling myself.

My parent's house should be done some time in January. I've been remodeling it and renovating it for almost 18 months. I have already completed the entire 3rd floor (2 rooms and a bathroom), first and second floor hall including stairwell, front and back bedrooms, 2nd floor bathroom, and sewing room. I am currently working on the master bedroom and dressing room, with the kitchen and a first floor repaint still on the schedule. I need to finish this before I go back to work, as there will be little time after.

I want to get down to a size 8. I'm guessing that's around 30-40 lbs., and I know it's 4 pants sizes. I'm not as concerned with the numbers as I am with how I look and feel. This is how I look now.

There is some muscle under there, but there's a lot of there hiding it. I have a year-long marathon training plan I've been haphazardly following (read: doing most the runs and none of the cross-training).

So, what am I doing towards these goals?

The house remodel is taking care of itself. I work on it 4 days a week, for 3-6 hours depending on what needs to be done. The current schedule looks like this:

• Finish sanding mudding repairs on the master bedroom, dressing room and closet walls and ceiling. Hopefully I'll be done with this by the end of next week. This is the hardest part as it is physically exhausting and my back does not like the ceiling work
• Texture the ceiling. I think I can do this in one day, but it might take two. It's another project that is hard on my back and neck, as I am constantly looking and pushing a mud-laden broom upward.
• Prime all fresh mud - This should only take a day. One long day, as it includes almost entirely coating walls and ceiling, but still. One day.
• Paint the ceiling. Definitely one day. 
• Paint the walls. One day. This will also be the day I touch up some of the other areas, like the ding in the front bedroom from putting the TV where it is now.
• Paint the trim. I'm thinking this will be two days, because trim always takes longer than you would think. 

So it looks like the bedroom will not be finished by Christmas as I'd hoped, but it will be done before the new year. Then I'll move downstairs and get to work on the first floor. That will likely take about a month, as there is major patching in the kitchen and dining room, and the carpets are coming up. I think I'll pull those between painting the walls and painting the woodwork, so we won't have to be so careful of paint dripping, but the woodwork won't show where the carpet used to be. I miss these conversations with my Dad, as we figured out together what needs to be done, how to do it, and in what order.

Yes, we. I'm enlisting my family for the painting of the first floor. We're planning a painting party, to get it all done in one day. There's no way I can hold off getting a job long enough to do it all myself, and I really need the time I'm putting in at the house to study the SQL.

For the record, I do have a plan to support myself for at least the next 4 months, and my tax return will hopefully extend that another month or two. This is if Obama does not push through the unemployment extension currently on the table. The bill it's in is being argued, but that portion does not seem to be under contention. I can only wait and see what happens there.

The SQL goal starts this coming Tuesday. Monday we hand in our final team project for the Masters of Information Systems degree I've been working toward over the past two years. The plan is to put in at least an hour a day studying, more when I am not working at the house.

The weight loss goal requires I do something every day as well. I've revamped my marathon training schedule to include 4 days a week running where before it had three. I took all the cross training off the plan, since I wasn't doing it anyway, but that doesn't mean it's off the table. Yesterday I did 100 situps on my Pilates ball. Today I'm doing the run originally scheduled for yesterday. I'm also trying to eat healthier, though the quantity has not changed much. I'll get the eating under control eventually, when I stop feeling so much like I have a huge empty hole to fill. I know from past experience fighting it too much just makes things worse. I'm taking the "one thing at a time" approach, and at least focusing on burning the calories I'm consuming.

So that's where I am today. I started another blog called How Do I Get There From Here? where I plan to focus on this journey. I may or may not copy some posts over here. I'm not sure which blog will survive, or if they both will. My whole life is in a state of flux, so why not my blog life as well?