Free food is everywhere

Between people bringing in holiday cookies, vendors sending gift baskets and office holiday lunches and potlucks the available chow is everywhere. Starting a few days prior to Christmas I began not eating my normal low-carb fare. I figured why should I deny myself special treats and be miserable while everyone else is happy and enjoying yummy foods?

So I ate everything I normally don't. I had rolls with my dinner, ate candy and cookies and had potatoes and pizza. I figured I would put on a few pounds and just lose it again starting next week. Much to my suprise, I have actually lost a pound since I last weighed myself a week and a half ago. I guess I've adjusted my habits to not over indulge and having those few treats hasn't thrown my whole system into fat storage mode. While I'm not counting on this trend continuing, it is a relief to have enjoyed holiday goodies without porking up.

So, I'm going to press my luck and enjoy snacks and drinks for our new year's eve party and then go back to my normal diet. Perhaps the slight spike in blood sugar levels over two weeks has reset some metabolic mechanisms and my diet will be more affective when I return to it. Here's hoping I can get down another 5 pounds by the end of February. Wish me luck...

16 months of school left

I need 29 more credit hour until I graduate. Were I a full time student that would mean 2 semesters. But, since work only pays for 8 classes a year and I couldn't keep up with more than that anyhow it's going to be about a year and a half. I might knock off a little time at the end by taking a class or 2 at the local community college for transfer credit. My goal (and the wife's) is to have a graduation party concurrent with my son's kindergarten graduation party. It should work out well even with a bit of time taken out for family vacations.

3 of 15

Wow, I am one of three people on a skeleton crew working this week. There are 15 people in my group and 12 of them are trying to burn vacation and personal days before the end of the year so they took off this entire week. Luckily it's REAL slow and I'm just taking care of little stuff without stressing.

Doing the holiday break

Today is my last day of both class and work for a while. I'm not going back to work until next Monday and not going back to class until mid-January. I hope it'll be relaxing...

I have started to enjoy myself a bit. I ate half a dozen Christmas cookies from the bucket a coworker brought in today. They were yummy and not worrying about carbs for a bit was very satisfying. I'm definitely going to stuff myself on Christmas Eve at my parents and then again on Christmas Day at our house. We're having brunch and everyone in the wife's and my families are invited. I think it will mostly be grandparents coming over though. Should be lots of yummy holiday-esque foods which I'm going to gobble up.

Best wishes to you all (my loyal reader?) and a joyous holiday season.
-R

Does anyone read this

If you actually read this could you please let me know? I don't care if it's a comment or an email or whatever.

Please and thank you.

I hate Sarbanes-Oxley

Yes, Sarbanes-Oxley was drafted by consultants and/or consulting companies. They wrote the review and auditing portions of the law to assure themselves of billable hours every year on top of normal financial auditor work. This law imposes onerous requirements on my work and the work of many others basically under the guise of "No one can be trusted ever" and "We're going to charge you to make sure you don't trust anyone". The whole thing works under the premise that every person is complicit in illegal activities and a criminal and that they must constantly be watched over and have their work second guessed by multiple other people. It's a HUGE waste of manpower, extremely innefficeint and quite degrading to the people working under its guidelines.

But, I guess that's what happens when your country moves from being a free nation to a police state. Welcome to Germany 1938, "May I see your papers?"...

I am not a criminal nor would I even consider fraud or outright theft. My work is honest and efficeint. But, now the latter quality is impossible. I have so many external procedural compliance requirements that even copying a simple file requires 2 forms, 3 approvals and an auditable log which can take hours. It used to require about 10 seconds and typing in a copy command.

I HATE SARBANES-OXLEY!