August and everything after

I truly cannot believe it is already August.  Where is the summer going?  It's one of those strange things about life that once you're out of school, time has no logical beginning and ending points throughout each year. Days turn into weeks turn into months turn into entire seasons and suddenly summer is almost over.

On the other hand, I've been waiting a long time for August.  While I never wished for summer to be over, I definitely wished for my vacation to get closer.  The second and last installment of our vacation was paid today, so we are officially all set!  I can now honestly say that I am really looking forward to leaving for my vacation LATER THIS MONTH!  Sure, it's not until August 31st, but it's true all the same.  :-)

I have been sitting here racking my brain and I can't think if I've *ever* taken ten days off for anything before, not even my wedding and honeymoon.  If I did it at all, that would have been the time, and that was in 2002.  So best case scenario, it's been TWELVE YEARS since I've had that much time off.  It's five actual work days thanks to the Labor Day holiday, and we'll be at the beach from Sunday-Sunday, so I get a little cushion of down time at home before and after, which is lovely.

Last night all of my plans went kind of awry.  Initially it was a trainer night, but I'd asked about rescheduling to an earlier session in the evening since a friend was possibly going to be in town.  He couldn't swing the reschedule, and ended up not feeling well, so we just cancelled the session entirely.  I ended up heading out around 9 pm to pick up my friend from his hotel.  R is just in town until this evening, so we managed to get together for a late dinner/dessert.  It was good to catch up, as he's got a lot of things going on right now and I think he needed an outlet.  He remains entertaining, too, but it was nice to see the real side of him instead of the usual entertainer every single second.

In other news, today is the first day of my tracking using My Fitness Pal.  Time to start taking note of everything I eat and drink, as well as logging my exercise.  I'm not going to lie-I'm not excited.  But I am hoping that this level of accountability, not only tracking it myself, but having to send my trainer the weekly report, will at the very least shame me into making better choices.  ;-)  My willpower can be decent, but I'm way out of practice, so I know the next few days in particular will be very tough.  I hate the feeling of being so crazy hungry because I'm used to ingesting so many empty, useless calories all the time.

Taking a step back in terms of my eating habits can only be a good thing, though.  I definitely eat way too much sugar on a daily basis, and I definitely eat a wholly inadequate amount of vegetables.  Fruits I'm hit or miss on.  I'm not going to be too obsessive about sugar levels just yet.  I don't want to beat myself up over eating a greek yogurt that has a fair amount of sugar when I'd have been eating chocolate chip cookies otherwise, you know?  Change is slow, especially the lasting kind.  I've done this before, I just have to focus and do it again.

I figure it's not a bad time to start with my vacation a month away.  Sure, it would have been better to start three months ago if I wanted to look and feel my best for my beach time, but a month of change is better than no change!

Tonight's plans, weather allowing, revolve around going to a Nats game with my friend, A. We got our firm's seats, which we've had before and are awesome.  The weather is really gray and gloomy today, with rain predicted throughout most of the weekend, including today.  I'm hoping that the forecast of off and on rain with a likely lull during the evening hours holds so I can get to this game, as I've been to only a couple this season.

Time to wrap it up for now I suppose.  Happy friday to all!