I need to blog. I need a lot of things. But I need to blog.

These blogs will be for me. I'm going to have a lot of ups and downs and public accountability has helped in the past. But that "public" aspect is going to have to come second to the fact that I'm probably going to have a lot to get off my chest. And blogging seems to help me sort out my thoughts.

I'll admit, that thought-sorting tends to lead to some pretty long and rambling blogs. But so be it. Rereading them often helps me figure stuff out.

My weight is currently 183. It had gone as high as 186 a week ago. That was horrifying. I saw flashes of 5 years ago. I realize I currently look like the second photo in my progress montage. I want to look like the 4th again.

Stress has been through the roof. My son's ADHD makes morning and evenings stressful. Those are the times where his medication either hasn't kicked in yet, or has worn off. behavioral swings are hard to predict when his meds aren't in effect. When I get to work I detest my job... more on that in a moment... and things with my husband haven't been going well either.

I've made frustrated comments about my husband in the past, but I never really stated we were in "trouble". He has anger issues (no, he doesn't hit me - he just gets grumpy and snaps at me or gets angry and argues with me about almost everything.) He aknowledges he has anger issues, but he isn't motivated to really put in the work to try to fix that. We started seeing a counselor, but after about a month of sessions he decided she wasn't giving him worthwhile suggestions. I don't know if she was or not, but this fits his MO when he doesn't want to do something, so I have no idea.

Then on Thursday round 11 or 12 of layoffs at my company finally claimed me. I'm actually glad. As I mentioned, I hated my job but my salary was high enough that I wasn't willing to walk out voluntarily. So for the last 3 years I've gone to work every day dreading it. That's no way to live. I don't think it's even slightly coincidental that my struggles with my weight started after I switched to that job.

Everything kind of hit at once... my stepmother died, I switched jobs, my son was having behavior problems at school (pre-diagnosis of the ADHD), things with my marriage weren't going well, and I injured myself three ways taking me out of my exercise routine. And I definitely turned to food as my comfort. And since the weight didn't come back on immediately I fooled myself into thinking I was fine. No, I still had a lot of muscle that was burning the calories for me. And since then my weight has been spiralling up. Slowly, but upward.

The good news is that the layoff won't be effective until Sept 11th (yes, ironic - Sept 11th changes my life once more) and then I'll have 3 months of severance which will take me through the end of the year. And now I have the opportunity to try to find a job that will fit me better.

I still have some of the typical layoff fears... will I find a new job quickly enough? Will it pay enough? Will it be within a reasonable commuting distance? Will I leap at the first offer and find myself in another job I hate? But I also realize that this is probably the best thing that could have happened.

On top of the $$$ through December, my company has also hired a transition assistance/outplacement service for us. I've already dusted off my resume and sent them a copy for critique. There's also an AF writing coach I sent it to and already have feedback from him with suggestions on what to change. Luckily it's just minor tweaks... nothing huge.

Ideal timing would be to have a job in early Oct. That would allow me to overlap the new job with the severance pay, but would still give me 3 weeks of "vacation" before starting the new job. My biggest fear is "what if it takes into 2013 to get a new job?"

Steve's company (American Airlines) declared bankruptcy last year. And they're trying to dig out of their hole. For a while it looked like they were going to try to furlough 400 pilots (of which Steve would be one). But with all the hoopla about the unions supporting a merger with US Air, American has backed off a bit and told the pilots they do not plan to furlough now. So for a while we thought Steve was going to be losing his job. It has only been in the last week that it now looks like that won't happen. So it has been a job emotional roller coaster for a while.

Today I did really well. I ate great right up until the end of the day when I found a box of E. Guittard white chocolate wafers I had in the pantry left over from some truffles I'd made a couple months ago. I ate probably about 20. Not good. But I did get out for a 5.4 mile run tonight while Beth was at Parents Night Out with a friend at her gymnastics place.

Today I had to disenroll the kids from their swimming lessons. They've been in year-round lessons for a few years now. I've always viewed swimming as one of those skills that they need to absolutely master. But it also costs $290 a month. Considering they are both good swimmers for their ages, and quite safe in the water (though I wouldn't leave them unattended in the ocean) we've decided to take them out for now. Chances are good that whatever job I get won't pay as well as my current one. So it's time to start slashing as many expenses as possible.

I figure that even if everything turns out fabulously... I get a new job right when I want it, I love it, it pays better than I'd been anticipating... cutting expenses will be a good thing in the long run. We can probably all use a reminder of what is a "need" and what is a "want".

Plans for tomorrow: I'm going to make my whole wheat yeast waffles in the morning. I haven't made them in a long time. They have to be prepped the night before, so I did it. Then I may take my daughter to the zoo (we're members- so essentially that's "free") and then swing by an amazing military pool I recently saw online that wasn't there back when we lived down in San Diego. I'm looking forward to checking it out. It has a 40-something foot water slide that Beth should be able to use since it just requires a swim test, and not a minimum height (like our community pool).

For the next couple months I'm going to continue to do my job. That's what they pay me for, and that's what I owe them: especially my awesome co-workers who have said some really great things to me the last couple days. But I also will go back to taking care of myself. I'm going to make time for running again (what can they do... fire me? ) and I'm certainly going to leave work early or arrive late if I have an interview or a job fair (as I do on Tuesday). I actually clock my hours since they are charged directly to the government. So the hours I'm not there I just don't get paid as much. It's a weird set up since I'm a "salaried" employee... but if you don't have the PTO available to charge (which I don't) and you're not there, you can't charge your time to the customer. Makes sense, but that's also not the typical definition of being a salaried employee. Gotta' love government contracting.

[Edited to add: Oh, and the irony of all this is that I moved up an age group for my AF Fitness test this year - turned 40 last Sept - so I wound up getting a 98.2 on my fitness test. Worst shape I've been in in 4 years and I whipped out a very high "excellent" on my test. Kind of sad.]