How many times have you hit that point -- personally, professionally, in a relationship -- where you just throw up your hands and say "I QUIT!"

I did it this weekend.

I was working a lot of extra hours this weekend. I'll spare you the boring details; suffice to say, our contractor fell through, and I had to reorganize our database of 15,000 + supporters with the new legislative districts.

Feeling pretty good starting off, I tracked how fast I was going, and I was getting through about 100 addresses an hour. On the one hand -- woo hoo!! Almost two a minute is really fast, actually.

On the other hand -- 15,000/100= how many hours?! And I still have schoolwork, board commitments, volunteer commitments...plus the normal work that goes into my typical day between 9 and 5.

So I was already frustrated. Instead of taking a three day weekend, I had worked all day Saturday, it was Sunday, starting to get dark, and I was STILL working. But I had made it through about 1/4 of the database, so even if it was a lot of hours, I was making really great progress.

Then my laptop crashed.

I had been saving pretty regularly, but a lot of the data ended up corrupted. I lost a little less than half of the work I had done. Which equated to about 7 hours that would have to be redone.

So I "quit." I threw up my hands and yelled at my computer for crashing...I yelled at the board member who's email was hacked for giving me a virus (though it turns out it wasn't a virus), and when I found the plug pulled out of the back of the laptop (which for some reason does not recognize it's battery) and the cable wrapped around a very playful Miss Kitty, I yelled at her too. And then I felt bad, and picked her up and cuddled her and then we played with Mr. Mouse on String.

This is a feeling I'm very familiar with in my personal life. Right after Christmas, I REALLY wanted to throw up my hands and give up. I had gained 10 pounds (much of it water weight, but still...) since Thanksgiving. I'm an outdoor person who hates the cold, so I wanted to run the trails....but couldn't. I wanted to go for a bike ride....but couldn't. It's just common sense when there's that much ice on the road.

My grandmother's favorite saying, whenever we were complaining about being in trouble, or even just running out of something, was "You made your bed, now you have to lie in it."

I made my bed. I made bad food choices, I skipped workouts, I didn't save a backup of my work on a flash drive. And at that moment, I was LYING IN IT!!

But just because I'm lying there doesn't mean I have to STAY there!

Backtrack to Sunday night. Coming off a really busy and stressful week, this much extra work was the LAST thing I wanted. And then the laptop crashing, losing my data -- well, it was the straw that broke the camel's back. I poured myself a BIG glass of wine, and ordered a pizza, and stormed around ranting and raving s.

I quit for a second. I laid down for a second. And then I poured a glass of wine, and thought about just staying in that bed.

This is one of my biggest challenges. I'm tired of having to get back up. I'm tired of falling off the bandwagon, and feeling like I've lost ground. And I'm REALLY tired of feeling like I'm starting over.

Well, I have lost ground. But that doesn't mean I can't walk it again. Maybe this time, I'll do it without stumbling or tripping. Maybe this time, I'll see a patch of wildflowers I didn't notice before.

The weekend was not great. I was busy, I was frustrated, I indulged in a pizza and a bottle of wine after the laptop crashed. I was still fully quit in that moment. And it really sucked, when I calmed down, realizing that I would have to retread so much ground. But it's a new opportunity, and a chance to do it better than I did last time. Figuratively AND literally, and yes, I'm talking about a healthy lifestyle and my database research.

I've spent the last few days alternately seething over losing my data and deriding myself for that pizza, that wine, for not exercising more, for not eating better, for actually ordering takeout when I had made a TON of soup that was sitting in the freezer waiting to be eaten.

And then last night, I realized that by going down that spiral, by obsessing over what happened this weekend instead of focusing on my Tuesday evening, on trying to do better NOW and find opportunities NOW...I was still lying in bed. Mentally, I was not making a healthy lifestyle choice.

No more self-castigation. I made my bed. I'm lying in it. And I'm getting back up.