But it's not New Years...

I'm a mess.

I am up all night, I sleep all day, I am messy, my house STILL isn't unpacked, I am FATTER than ever... ugh. I am grossed out by what I have let happen to myself in the last few months.

I have no excuse. I don't have a job, my only job now is to maintain myself and my home and I can't even do that.

I am a bad wife. We went to the grocery store, and this is what we bought:

*Pizza Rolls
*Lean Cuisines & Budget Gourmets
*Claim Jumper frozen dinners
*Gatorade
*frozen Taquitos
*sour cream for said taquitos
*3 different kinds of potato chips
*two half gallons of ice cream (buy one get one free!!!)
*bottled water
*frozen popcorn chicken
*cereal
*milk
*guacamole

My poor poor husband married a lazy woman. Never mind that he is lazy too. I gotta get out of this funk! So here's the plan:

Step One:

FLYLADY. I feel like such an old fuddy duddy saying that, but I know that it works. I am not signing up for the emails, but I have a "control journal" that I spent all night updating. All of the little lists really do help to remind me of what needs to be done, so that things are getting cleaned around here on a regular basis. Not just the big stuff, like the bathrooms and kitchen counters, but the details, like the baseboards and ceiling fans.

When we moved out of the old apartment, it took forever to clean. I was appalled at how dirty the windowsills and baseboards were. The corner behind the bathroom door where no one ever looked was nasty. The top of the fridge was just gross (we are both short! you can't SEE up there!). I am not letting that happen again.

Step Two:

Start cooking again. I am a good cook. I like to cook. I have a ton of gadgets and spices and oils and stuff so that I can cook. So why am I buying so many premade-prepackaged-full of preservatives-and-fat foods that are so flipping bad for me? Because I am LAZY. There, I admitted it. I just have to stop.

So, I made weekly menu planner forms, and also weekly grocery shopping lists. Now that we have a car and there are two grocery stores within a 2 block distance, there is no reason to try to buy a months worth of groceries at a time. I will just buy what I need for the week, and if something runs out we can always run to the store for JUST THAT THING and NOT POTATO CHIPS!!! I have a designated menu planning day, and a designated shopping day, and I plan to stick to them. Next week's planning is already done!

Step Three:

Take better care of myself. I have gained a LOT of weight this year. About 15 lbs to be exact. That's ridiculous. I know what it was. It was a whole lot of sitting on my butt, refusing to exercise, and eating whatever I wanted in whatever quantities that I wanted.

Now, I have never been one to "work out". But here I am, in this new apartment, with FREE use of a real gym, not just a fitness room, and have I taken advantage of that yet? NOPE! But I am planning to do so now. I have made a date with a friend to go work out 2 times a week. I will try to go one more time on my own, alone.

As part of my Control Journal renovation, I also created a Daily Diet Tracker sheet. There is where I will write down what I eat, how much, calories, fat, Weight Watcher points, as well as keeping track that I am getting food from all of the food groups in the quantities I should.

I have found that when I have done Weight Watchers before, I have a tendency to skimp on some things to make room for others. I read somewhere that when you give people a set of rules, they immediately, whether it be consciously or not, start to look for ways to cheat or bend the rules, but still be "legal". I have done that. I know that a whole kit kat is worth five points. I need to be using those points on healthier choices, and that's what I really want to focus on - healthier choices.

Step Four:

Get Organized! I forget things. I slack off. I don't do what I need to do until the last second. It's not a good way to be. Maybe the Paxil is working a little bit TOO well in that department?

I revamped my Control Journal, not only updating the cleaning lists and daily routines, but I also changed from a monthly to a weekly calendar format. The calendars in there were from last year still, and they didn't even have any info on them!

I went through and added holidays and birthdays, and made them for the rest of 2005. I plan on WRITING THINGS DOWN and making sure I follow through. First thing I wrote down- my workout dates with my friend! Gotta love it!

I also want to start submitting to magazines again. It was like, eh, I got published, no point in keeping it up! But I gotta admit, there is something of a thrill involved in seeing your name in print in a national publication! So I also plan on adding submission/call deadlines to my calendar.

So there you have it. The four step Miss M! master plan for personal re-vamp-ation! Yes. That is a word. I decided. :)