Monday Musings

Side note before I even begin: I'd like to acknowledge that I brazenly stole the title for this post from the lovely Caitlin over at ChasingChels.  If you haven't read her blog, I highly recommend it - homegirl is whip-smart and wise beyond her years! But anyways, I digress before I've even started...

It's Monday night, which means...the hardest part of the week is now over! I have to admit: Mondays are tough business around here. Getting up and going to work after a long weekend is always a bajillion times harder than normal.

Our Thanksgiving was a huge success: we cooked up a storm (no joke, I was up at 0530 to start cooking so that the oven would be free later for the bird), and although we wound up with waaaaaaay more food than we needed, it was all delicious.  All our guests went home with goodie bags full of leftovers, but we still spent the weekend drowning in leftover madness.

As it turns out, all that rich food didn't fare so well with the estomago. I didn't eat much rich food, but I think my stomach has gotten used to all the fresh, low-fat foods that have become the mainstay of my diet since joining Weight Watchers -- and the combination of a little bit of dark meat plus a bit of butter-laden pie was enough to send it careening into serious misery.

I wound up spending the better part of Friday and Saturday convalescing on the couch, sipping kombucha and chicken broth in an attempt to placate my very angry insides. Lesson learned: high-fat foods and I don't mix. At all.

Once I recovered my ability to tolerate solid foods, I hit the ground running on my grand Thanksgiving recovery plans: lots of veggies and quality time in the gym.  This was my view this morning while getting my sweat on:

I followed it up with a green smoothie:

Having exercised and had myself some kale, I'm happy to report that I'm doing much better and am back to feeling like myself again. :)

And, with that, a quick November Challenge update: my challenges for the bulk of the weekend focused on reaching out to friends who I haven't talked to in a while.  I tend to have paroxysms of guilt over my awful communication skills, and I usually spend months beating myself up before reluctantly calling my friends to confess my sins.

This time, though, I decided I was going to a) stop punishing myself, and b) get over the "Omigod, they're totally going to hate me for failing to stay in touch" fear and just do it already.

So, I first called one of my dearest friends whom I haven't spoken to in ages.  And whaddya know, she wasn't upset at all -- to the contrary, she was really happy to hear from me, and it was wonderful to chat with her.

I also sent a long-overdue note of congratulations to my old college boyfriend, who got engaged earlier this year.  He and I dated 10 years ago (which now seems like a different lifetime) but we've periodically stayed in touch since we broke up.  

I felt awful about having taken such a ridiculously long time to congratulate him, especially since he was pretty quick to congratulate me when Brandon and I got engaged.  So I wrote him an email, apologized for being absurdly late in sending my well-wishes, and let him know that I wish him and his fiancee all the best -- and now I feel much better.

I hope everyone had a fabulous Thanksgiving and that any lingering case of the Mondays has abated!