RTT: Wherein I Fall into Autumn

• I have a voice again!  Turns out, I also have strep throat.  Which I’ve been unknowingly spreading around my family and my kids’ school and the gym for the past however many days.  In my defense, I haven’t even had a low-grade fever and honestly thought it was a cold.  I need to practice my innocent look for when people around me start coming down with sore throats, though.
• Tuesday is my weigh-in day, so those of you who just pop by for Random Tuesdays are going to get to watch my weight plummet as I go through the program over the next few months.  This week, down 4.5 pounds, for a total of 8.5-ish.  You may commence with the happy dancing on my account.  Oh, and I can take my jeans out of a hot dryer, put them on, and zip them up with nary a breath held.  That, my friends, is real progress.  (My arms and shoulders are so sore from working out, however, that I can’t open a jar of applesauce.  Ah well, small victories.)
• It’s Fall!  I know, September 23 or some such day was the official start.  In my mind, though, it comes with October.  I need to pull out all the fun Halloween decorations.  Unfortunately, with the house a wreck, there’s really nowhere to put them.  First things first, I suppose.
• Whereas October 1 means Fall! Halloween! to me, to Jason it means Bring out the Christmas music!  Seriously.  It’s apparently genetic, since one of his cousins mentioned something similar on Facebook recently.  Still.  October??  It’s only because of my very strict must-Trick-or-Treat-and-finish-Thanksgiving-dinner-first policy that the Christmas movies aren’t pulled out around now, too.  I have my priorities, you know, which include raising my kids to value the importance of spookiness, dress-up and giving thanks.
• I’m joining this.  I ordered my sketchbook over the weekend.  Who’s in?  You certainly don’t have to be an artist…I can’t draw worth anything and am turning mine (I think) into a hand-lettered storybook.  Everyone from very accomplished illustrators to moms and kids coloring may participate.  I encourage anyone who wants to share any creativity to jump on in!  My mom and sister have ordered their books, too.  I’m even more excited now that they’ve added Seattle to the tour.  I can’t help but think it would be a really fun project for homeschoolers.

This Is What Exhaustion Feels Like

I have been this tired, or a bit moreso, a few times in my life.

On our return from Model United Nations my Junior year in high school.  We had actually gone to The Hague, worked our tails off, and had a great time.  I was beyond tired when I got home.

Similarly, after a certain school trip to France.  (Hey, you get lots of cool field trip opportunities when you go to high school overseas!)  I believe I slept for nearly 24 hours after returning from that trip.

When I had a toddler and a baby.  Who cried a lot.  And didn’t sleep through the night.  I was exhausted for months.

This time, the exhaustion is new and different: it is completely physical.  I am, essentially, a lazy person.  I am sedentary.  I don’t like getting up and moving around.  When I was a child, my mom had to take my books away and practically push me outside to play with other kids.

And now, here I am, going to the gym five(!) days a week.  Spending up to three hours(!) there each time.  Granted, a chunk of that time is taken up with walking to and from my car, showering, changing, filling ice bags and icing my knees, etc.  Still.  I am working out.  A lot, for me.  Compared to how those three hours of my day have been spent in recent years (I read a lot of blogs.  I crochet or knit.  I scrapbook.), this is quite the shock to my body.

I had an idea going into this experience that the workouts would bring me energy, not zap it.  And I’m sure they will…eventually.  For now, though, I am — and there are no other words that come close to describing it — simply exhausted.

But in a good way.

I think.