FAT Tuesday

I was fat. A new high this morning. Two pounds above the "OMG! I must cut off my left arm now!" weight I allow for myself. I have been thinking about giving up sugar for Lent. I would allow sweetened stuff - just not sweetened with sugar (or natural cane juice as the organic foods call sugar). I hadn't quite convinced myself of this yet because currently at home we have banana bread, Coldstone cupcakes, birthday cupcakes, and a piece or two of sachre torte and upsidedown cake. I can't bring myself to throw them away - and they will not survive until Easter. After my weigh-in this morning, however, I think I WILL be giving up sugar. Katie and I - while firm believers that the "not on Sundays" thing as cheating - have already decided we are having meat on Sundays, just because our most recent Let's Dish session was heavy on chicken. We have some fish foods, but mostly all meats. They will probably survive until Easter just fine - but they take up a lot of space, and we can't justify buying more proteins when we have a freezer full already. So we are having meat on Sundays. Maybe I will allow THIS SUNDAY ONLY to be a sugar-ful one.

I am getting a salary cut. Just 5% - which is less than my last pay increase in July, so it isn't TOO terrible - but it is still a cut. I am spending my disposable income on my trip to Norway, so I am looking for ways to save a bit on my expenses. Unfortunately two obvious ways that have come to mind are 1. quitting the gym and 2. not doing yoga next quarter. The gym would save me $493.74 annually - which hardly seems worth it, but OTOH I haven't been using the gym as much as I should be. Except for water ballet - which I haven't been to in about a month! Yoga next quarter I was already planning to do a "pay as I go" thing - since I am going to miss several weeks during my trip. I don't know. Yoga is the more expensive of the two ($17 per week instead of $18.99 bi-weekly) but I USE it a lot more - and really enjoy it. What I REALLY need to do is finish all of the changes I am making in my house and get that upstairs room actually MADE into an exercise room. I have the treadmill, weights, DVDs and - if the floor is emptied up - space for yoga. That room will be a REALLY NICE exercise space. I just need to finish it. Of course, that is actually an additional expense - for the floor and the paint - but it is money I have already earmarked. Maybe I can get more of that done this weekend.