DiploJournal

I’ve got a few days of classes remaining next week, but I’m now officially in transition mode.  There’s a long checklist of things to get done, but plenty of time so it’s relatively low stress.  The impending snow storm this week-end will also limit the distractions so I can focus on getting organized and packing things up.  It started snowing this morning and it’s supposed to keep going through tomorrow night with an expected 15-24 inches.  This would apparently break the all-time annual snowfall record for the DC metro area.  I’m convinced it’s a plot to get me used to weather in Ottawa.

Although I went through the pack-out process in October, it feels like a lot longer than 3-1/2 months ago.  The movers came by this morning to do a pre-move assessment.  Unlike most officers, I’ll be driving to post so I can fit a lot of my stuff in the car, leaving only a small subset that will have to be packed up and shipped.  Thankfully, I’m moving into a furnished place downtown so I don’t need to worry about acquiring more stuff.

The drive to Ottawa looks like it will be pretty relaxed.  Although it’s only about 10 hours, I’m going to stop for the night somewhere along the way because my lease ends in Virginia on Friday and I can’t get into my new place in Ottawa until Saturday.  I now have a four-wheel-drive instead of the convertible I drove out from California, but I expect I will still be driving a little more slowly and carefully heading through the snow-belt on I-81 to Scranton, Syracuse, and the Canadian border.

Now if it will just warm up a little so the two feet of snow melts between now and Friday…

I haven’t really subscribed to the whole new year resolution thing in the past.  Given all the changes over the last few months, however, I’ve developed some bad habits that the new year might just help resolve.  Nothing earth shattering, but each change would make me much happier in the long run.

1.  Eat better.  I’m living alone for an extended period for the first time in a quarter-century and my diet has certainly suffered as a result.  Too much eating in restaurants or take out.  As much as it is a pain, I’m back to recording what I eat, a technique which has helped immensely in the past.  I will give myself one day a week off, but otherwise record my daily intake.  I’m also going to shoot for preparing and bringing my lunch three days a week which should also help.

2.  Exercise more.  More than zero can’t be that hard, can it?  I really do have no excuse with additional time, less responsibilities, and a fully functional gym two floors below.  I hate using gyms, though.  I’m going to try a few things to see if some combination works for me.  I’m going to walk to the Foreign Service Institute (about 25 mins. each way) rather than drive.  I’ll try to get to the gym a couple times a week.  I ordered a TRX for use in the condo.  I really liked it at my last gym and is easy to use at home for the years ahead.

3.  Listen to more music and watch less TV.  The TV is on a lot.  I spend very little time actually sitting on the couch watching, but it is on almost all the time as background noise while I work, eat, read, etc.  I’ve found a solution to routing music from the computer to the living room so iTunes and Pandora can now be heard where I spend most of my time.  Exceptions:  sports and while using the TRX (i.e., resolution 2 trumps resolution 3).

4.  Update the blog more.  I’ve been slacking, I know.  I’ll aim for shorter, but more frequent, posts.

I’ll revisit each resolution in a couple of months and see how it’s going.

I had a couple requests to add a subscribe via email option, so after a little bit of research, I signed up for Google’s feedburner service.  Here’s the link:

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