I feel ugh. I've had so many good things happening, maybe this is just a natural chemical downturn in my body, so that's why I'm letting things get to me more than usual.

- Wholly derailed and unmotivated on my health goal. After gaining 1.5 lbs. over the past two weeks, and getting behind on the grocery budget, and the cold weather discouraging outdoor activity, and having to work later so I don't want to take the time to walk home -- I'm just not finding the extra strength to push through this rough patch. I'm not eating "on plan" this week and I feel just under-the-weather enough to not be able to push myself to work out. I'm trying to figure out what to do to get myself on track again. I wrote down some fitness goals for next week, so hopefully I'll follow through on those and that will help.

- As I just mentioned, our Costco stockup/grocery run for our cabin weekend wiped out our grocery frugality progress and we're once again dipping into the next fortnight's grocery money. This past weekend I even decided to ignore my diet plan to make a super-cheap grocery list. Somehow we ended up spending even more than we usually do. So I want to do a pantry challenge as much as possible for the next couple weeks, and stick to low-cost food, which is going to mean straying from my diet plan for awhile longer.

- I sent a big payment to NT's student loan on Monday. Well, they've decided to create a completely new site, and now my payment isn't showing up. It aggravates me because every day when I check in I can see that interest is accruing on the debt, and I can see in my bank account that the big payment is gone, so my $1125 is just sitting out there in the ether doing no good on either end. If it hasn't hit by tomorrow morning they're going to get an earful from me!

- NT's classes are crazily reading-intensive this year, which means he hasn't had a chance to review his portion of the estate documents. Until we all look over them, I can't ask my lawyer friend to review them. Until he reviews them, I don't want to schedule an appointment with the lawyer. Until we meet with the lawyer, I don't know what my parental rights are regarding AS's child. Until I know what my parental rights are, I don't know how to approach my HR or what to ask them for. Until I know that, we can't make plans for how we're all going to schedule our parental leave (not to mention plan the budget for our unpaid leave). It's a logjam of stuff-not-happening!

- As mentioned earlier (because all of these things are feeding off each other), I feel oogy. Can't tell if I'm sick, or just going through a slightly depressive period, or if my body is reacting negatively to being off my diet & exercise plan. But we're unusually busy at work so I don't feel like taking a health day unless I get actually, undeniably sick.

- Needless to say, feeling like I'm not going to try NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) this year. Since I usually (OK, always) get behind and give up halfway through the month, I don't think this would help my doldrums any.

OK, done whining. Let's try to remember the good things:

- My work gave me a lovely bouquet to celebrate my raise, and it's been brightening up my office all week.

- My 19-month-old daughter has shown a real aptitude for learning letters! She can usually recognize A, E, F, H, I, M, O, S and Y, and even points them out on random things when I'm not even trying to get her to say them.

- I've done some good decluttering at home (bathroom cupboards, toy shelves) and have been pitching in more with housework the past couple weeks (since NT is partly out of commission with homework and AS with pregnancy, I've been meaning to step up my game).

- Been looking online for Caribbean vacation deals for January, and it looks like we should be able to find something well within our budget. Just need to save up a bit more money, and also decide exactly what we want.

- It's time to leave work, and I'm all caught up for the day!