January

It’s January. Kids are back in school this week, Bobby finally got his giant pants back from the dry cleaner where I was having them hemmed (he didn’t feel this was necessary, but they were literally under his shoes by about six inches) and is delighted by them, I’m spinning a million plates doing boring tax work (62 1099s written, about 15 to go) and preparing my big price increase/contest launch for Feb 1. I always forget how insane January is for me - every year I think it’s going to be so chill and relaxing after the holidays but get hit in the face with a ton of tax deadlines and event stuff that has to happen RIGHT NOW. Chill it is not.

A lot is going to happen in the next two months. First, I’ll have real insight into how my financial year is going to look after I do the price increase and also my taxes; boys will turn twelve and fourteen; and I hopefully will be about ten pounds thinner. Diet started in earnest a week ago and it’s been going fine - I even survived lunch with a friend today by taking half home - but for how overweight I’ve become, it’s going to be until mid-April before I reach my goal weight if I even make it that far. I can’t even imagine how hard it is for people who have so much weight to lose that it’s a years-long process of constant dieting and working out. For example, if I had to lose in the neighborhood of 50 lbs, it would take a full year. A YEAR!! Ugh. You can see why people don’t bother. I still have that unused bottle of terzepatide in my medicine cabinet from last year, but honestly I don’t know if I’ll ever take it. I don’t feel the need. But it’s easy to say that now, when I’m pumped up and motivated and full of discipline. Talk to me in six weeks when I’ve plateaued and am SO OVER IT. 

Still, my closet is full of clothes I can’t wear - especially pants. And when I do try to wear the bigger ones I just feel like a stuffed sausage. I hate it. So dieting it is. 

I’m going to wait until after Feb 1 to decide if we should do the elaborate Colorado road trip I had mapped out for us this summer. As much as I’m longing for a family road trip again, I just don’t know if I can afford it. These trips usually run north of $3000 or $4000 when you factor in lodging, activities, food, gas, pet sitter, gear for whatever we’re doing, etc etc. I’m going low key for spring break - trying to figure out how to spend a night or two in Bombay Beach and then head to the cabin for a few days, catching Gary Numan at Pappy & Harriet’s on the way home. I can always do a cheaper Hawaii trip (with free hotel and almost free flights it’s actually cheaper than a road trip) but I kind of wanted to reserve my points for a winter break Hawaii trip at the end of the year instead. Boy, I wish we had more money for travel. But we just don’t, and probably won’t for some time. 

In the meantime, ICE is rampaging through our cities - I’m getting daily notices from both kids’ schools about ICE activity around the schools and have had to tell the kids what to do if they see ICE causing trouble (at this point, get the hell away since those motherfuckers are just randomly shooting bystanders now). The H and I have whistles at the ready; otherwise we just sit here and quietly (or not so quietly) seethe. Boy, this regime can’t end soon enough.