Only a few weeks ago, it was still dark when I'd drive home from gym at 7 am. This morning, upon leaving my house at 5.30 am, the sun was already starting to come up, and by the time I was out the shower after my workout, it looked like a summer afternoon outside (minus the bending trees of course).

Earlier sunrise = longer days = unequivocal proof that summer is approaching, despite it being yet another blustery day in Cape Town.

This is not only great news because it means shorts weather, holidays and drinking on the beach, but because it makes getting back into my gym routine that much easier.

I confess, I've been a slacker for the past couple of weeks, snacking on peanut butter toast and slowing down to a record low of two gym sessions last week.

I'm not going to complain about my weight loss grinding to a halt (it's my own fault after all) but what is frustrating is that most people start gymming and eating healthily to lose weight, whereas now, I have to hit the gym five times a week and eat like a rabbit just to maintain. The second I stray from the straight and narrow path of the treadmill, I seem to gain. Tis very frustrating dear readers...

Rocking the Daisies in numbers

Number of units of alcohol consumed: unknown, due to inability to count after finishing 1 x halfjack of vodka and 1 x bottle of jager.

Number of very cool live acts seen: a good handful (won't go into details for fear of being heckled)

Number of cracking hangovers: 2, but swiftly sorted out by a food tent offering the likes of Miss K, Knead, Hudson's and Butler's. You have to love this festival – the difference between a trance party and RTD is that there's more on offer than butternut quiche and organic carrot juice. Pity the Vida queue was always miles long.

Number of showers while at the festival: 1.  I've come a long way from the prissy, pre-African-road-tripping girl I used to be.

Number of oddly shaped sunburns: 0. Hah! Finally.

Number of Seth Rotherham sightings: 1. He's short. Hahahahahahaha.

Number of pretty, teeny, tiny girls wandering around in shorts and bikini tops: plenty. Sigh. Nothing like being surrounded by hotness to make one feel like the elephant in the room, especially if one is back to being seven kilos from one's goal weight.

I leave you with this absolutely essential fact

Anatidaephobia

The fear that you are being watched ... by a duck.

This week's been alternately dragging and flying by, so it only really hit me this morning that it's already Thursday, which means dashing out of here at 3.30 (hells yeah), rushing home to pack and make myself beautiful (attempting to at least), picking up Boyfriend from the airport, and then heading off to Darling and Rocking the Daisies tomorrow.

Must pack (oh you know how much I love to pack) this afternoon quickly too. Made a mental list at gym just now of stuff NOT to forget:

• Toothbrush. I don't care how manky the rest of me is (well, I do, but there's not always much to be done about it), I cannot handle furry teeth.
• Mints. See above.
• Suncream. I refuse to spend the latter half of the weekend as the butt of various lobster jokes.
• Wellies. For in the boot, in case it rains and Cloof Wine Estate turns to mud-wrestling central.
• Sunnies. The ultimate protection not only from the sun but from having to subject people to my morning face.
• Red Bull. Getting old, can't party like I used to without some kind of rocket fuel.
• Toilet roll. I do not trust port-a-loos. Period.

Should be a good weekend. Friends of ours are leaving at 7 am tomorrow morning to get a good spot, and another guy is dropping off a gazebo at my house this afternoon (one of two, just by the by). These people are serious.

Just saw the recently released untouched pictures of Madonna (it's a well-known fact that I hold the former queen of pop in the lowest possible esteem, so people regularly send me nasty things about her). Starting to wonder about celebs and their self-image...

I doubt any woman's perception of herself is exactly spot on (at least I'm hoping not, given what I see in the mirror) but I wonder if constantly seeing yourself retouched to within an inch (sometimes at least 20) of your life doesn't screw with your sense of reality.

For example, if you're a 52-year-old ageing pop star trying to hold onto your glory days of leotards and pointy cone bras.

I'm sure when Madge looks in the mirror she sees the sexy, photoshopped D&G self, and not the tired, manic, I-have-scary-veins-because-I-live-on-yoga-and-ambition self. Maybe someone's even papered over all her mirrors with the first version, to protect a mind clearly teetering on the edge of dysmorphia.

I just feel sorry for little Lola really. Imagine trying to grow up normal when Mum's practising full plies in high-leg onesies on MTV.

(For the record, Madonna is said to be pissed off about these shots being released without her consent. So it's not another well-intentioned publicity stunt a la Britney.)

Revamp in the works

Things are changing around here, so if you arrive and the blog is hideous, in little bits and pieces, or shocking orange, don't be alarmed – it's a work in progress.

Later...

Okay so nothing's changed dramatically yet, but keep an eye out next week after my Daisies hangover has worn off ;)

Wow, I'm surprised nobody offered me some cheese with my whine last night.

Yet another day of sunshine here. I was about to tentatively announce that Cape Town has finally caught on to the fact it's summer, but I see rain forecast for the weekend. Quelle horreur, because Boyfriend and I are going to Rocking the Daisies this weekend, and I would be much obliged to the universe at large if I didn't have to camp in the mud.

In other news, it's Cape Etc listings time again, which means days of phoning up restaurants asking them anything from 'Do you still do double-baked, three-cheese souffle?' to 'Is there really a live TV feed from the kitchen to the bathrooms?' and 'Are your chandeliers shaped like cabbages?'.

Most people in the office now think I've lost it (either that or have a serious penchant for oyster carpaccio, which I was shouting down the phone at a waitress, trying to make myself heard over restaurant din).

In other, other news, I have a feature about online dating to write, if anyone fancies volunteering either a success story or (more excitingly) disaster stories?

Just a random shitty Monday

Which is weird because
a) I woke up really happy.
b) I said no to cake.
c) I'm only working a four-day week.
d) I had muffin (no article necessary, see below) for lunch.

Actually, maybe that's the problem. I came in to work early and therefore missed gym, and then proceeded to eat – if not a lot – then some quite random shit today, including a muffin spread out over most of the afternoon, a handful of walnuts and a chunky slice of cheese all on its own, half of which wound up in the bin because it promptly made me want to vomit.

So what's the answer? Never, ever, ever skip Monday morning gym again? Remember to do my healthy food shopping before Woolies closes on a Sunday so that I'm not left eating the bizarre contents of my office drawer and perenially empty kitchen cupboards?

It's like as soon as I mess up my perfect little routine (I'm boring okay?) it feels like the whole world is being weird and I just want to go to bed and start the day over again, making me almost certainly the only person in the world who wants two Mondays in one week.

Why can't the world be like a video game? Save and reload baby, save and reload. That's what I want to do to the last 14 hours.

The weekend in numbers

(How long has it been since I did one of these??)

Number of birthday dinners on Friday night: 1. Perfect combo of cheese and wine, cake and conversation for Noodle's 24th (gosh we're getting older every year).

Number of lie-ins on Saturday, instead of going into the office as planned: 1. So sue me, my keen bean spirit wore off when I weighed up the relative comforts of my bed and office desk chair.

Number of what I'm going to call 'road trips' because it was Biscuit's first really long drive: 1. To Romantiques in Hermanus to continue the birthday celebrations. Romantiques, apart from being the most legendary antiques/vintage clothing and accessories/china/WW II memorabilia shop, is a 20-seater cinema that screens old movies (for free). It's so old-school, the owner sits in the back and changes the film reel, and the popcorn costs R4.

Number of  fashion shoots helped out with: 1. Okay, okay, it was for Bunny's mock mag for her thesis, but we had a photographer and a super skinny model and multiple wardrobe changes in our trailer (Warren's truck with sheets hung up for modesty) and I got to stand around holding the big light reflector thingy like a dork and used industry speak like 'Well, see what the art director thinks' and there were tourists pointing at us and taking pictures, so was all good fun.

Number of excess kilojoules consumed: about 10 000, between Friday night's three courses and Sunday night's pizza. Not going to gym this morning hasn't helped me feel any less mammoth, though resisting having a slice of one of the four cakes in the lounge for our office manager's birthday gave me some semblance of self-control back.

The first!

5.8 kg from goal weight (yes!) 

Happy October first dear readers (and happy birthday to TheUlandaGirl).

I love it when the first of the month rolls around. Makes me feel all new-starty and full-of-potentialy. Especially when I wake up nearly two full kilos lighter then a mere four days ago (yes, yes, it's probably just water weight).

And not only is it the first, it's also Friday – tee gee eye eff everyone, are we used to five-day weeks yet?

C is for cereal and carrots and (rice) cakes

6.4 kg from goal weight (sigh, this is why one shouldn't weigh every day)

Last day of ABC alphabet soup! Does Vitamin C water count as a C? I'm going with yes...

Today's plan then...

• Breakfast – cereal (hi-fibre bran)
• Snack – (rice) cakes
• Lunch – cereal (muesli)
• Snack – carrot sticks
• Dinner – cereal (Pro-nutro – god I love this stuff, and almost never let myself eat it.)

Made it to gym this morning for a little cardio too (hey? hey?).

EDIT: Had a few almonds after my rice cakes, because I am clearly a retard and cannot spell.

Damn

Damn, damn damn. Three little biscuits, a small box of popcorn, a hot chocolate and a bite of Bunny's scone were so not part of the plan today (and only one even legitimately begins with B). Nor was hi-fibre bran for lunch particularly nutritious, but by the time one o'clock came around my tummy was growling too much for me to go out and make an attempt at finding something to make a salad with.

Oh well. On the bright side, when I came home from the movies I found that my brother had come over, and he and the rest of the house (look how I get around saying 'parents') were having Nando's for dinner. And though the fresh, crispy, buttery Portuguese rolls and the lovely warm chips were practically calling to me, begging me to eat them, I have instead dived into my laptop and am studiously avoiding them.

So points for me there at least I guess, despite the pre-movie, movie and post-movie slip-ups.

Incidentally, if you're wondering why B is not for

Bacon
Banana
Barley
Beans
Beets
Blueberries
Bok Choy
Brocolli or
Brussel sprouts

it's because, well, that would be one hell of a despressing day. On the bright side, given the amazing baking prowess of our freelancer who is in today by some willpower-testing joke of the Diet Gods, B may just be for (one, very small chocolate) biscuit later this afternoon.

It also may be for (small) box of popcorn at the movies tonight. Maybe. We'll see.

B is for Breadless! (Which is what I've been, and plan to be for the rest of, this week.)

6 kg from goal weight

Possibly my toughest challenge yet. I love bread in a Big Way. Most people who know me know that if I were on death row, I'd request a nice slice of toast with Flora as my last meal.

My family has teased me for years about my addiction. I love bread in the way some people love chocolate, or bacon, or, say, their children.

I love fresh bread. I love toast. I love croissants. I love bagels. Ciabbatas, baguettes, rye, seedloaf, white bread – hell, I'll even include banana bread, despite the fact that the fruit itself is anathema to me. If I had to choose one meal to eat for a year, it would not be chocolate (close second) or pizza or (christ almighty) salad, it would be bread.

Get the picture?

In my opinion – and I don't want to offend anyone who subscribes to organised religion here but – there's a reason that the Catholic Lord's Prayer says, 'Give us this day, our daily bread...'

The problem is, because I love it so much, it's pretty much my fallback meal, which means I am seriously lacking in the nutirtion stakes. Lunch is usually toast with avo, cottage cheese, regular cheese or peanut butter or Marmite (depending on how far gone the month and the money is). Dinner in winter was quite often soup with a slice of toast. On weekends, breakfast – toast.

Therefore in order to challenge myself to change my woeful eating habits (the whole point of this crazy week by the way), I am nixing the bread and trying to come up with other alternatives.

And just by way of a round-up, I survived yesterday's A day thus:
4 cups of tea (give a girl a break)
3 bowls of all-bran
2 Granny Smith apples
1 large handful of almonds

Not bad?

Some frivolity: the back-up dress

So I'm going to a day wedding in November, and have decided that last night's impulse purchase is definitely my Back-up Dress.

What's a Back-up Dress I hear you ask?

Well, the Back-up Dress is something I like to think I invented. After always screeching around boutiques at the last minute, looking for the perfect dress to wear to some important event, I realised that I could obliterate all that unnecessary stress with this simple solution:

The Back-up Dress is a dress that, although not exactly the showstopper you had in mind, is nonetheless perfectly wearable and already waiting in your closet, putting your mind at ease and allowing you to shop for The Perfect Dress at a more leisurely pace. And hey, if you don't end up finding it, no worries, you've got the BD – and it doesn't even have to be little or black.

Note: important features of the BD include that it still make you feel lovely inside and that it be preferably returnable.

A is for apple (and all-bran, and almonds)

6.4 kg from goal weight

I survived the water fast.

Decided that hanging out at home feeling limp and miserable wasn't going to cut it for the last few hours before bed, so took myself to a little pre-loved sale in Vredehoek with Noodle. Little did I know that upon walking into our friend's flat I would be greeted not just by clothes, shoes and bags at silly low prices, but also by a table bearing popcorn, melba toast, a selection of cheese, and Graham Beck Railroad Red – just a few of my favourite things. Managed to assuage my by then grumbling tum with ice water and the impulsive purchase of a dress by Copelia.

So, onwards and upwards, and on to, as promised, the new plan. Have decided that until the end of September (where did it go??) I am going to let a letter of the alphabet dictate my diet for the day. So between now and Thursday we're playing Alphabet Soup! Today is A, and if I managed a day of nothing but water (incidentally probably the first day since I was about six that I haven't had at least one cup of tea) then I'm fairly certain I can make it through Tuesday on All-bran, apples and almonds...

Well thank god, the work day is nearly over. Looking forward to going home and vegging, possibly having a nice bubble bath.

Not that today was particularly hard. Somehow didn't even hear the faintest of tummy grumblings through the day, probably thanks to all that water I've been chugging down. Who would have believed I'd actually make it through?  (Yes yes, I know there are a good couple hours to go still...)

Only stumbling blocks were Martha Stewart's Cookie of the Day recipe, a decided lack of support for what I'm trying to accomplish, the smell of our staff writer's microwave popcorn wafting over to me, and this quote, by Isabel Allende, who I am currently reading:
 
I repent of my diets, the delicious dishes rejected out of vanity, as much as I lament the opportunities for making love that I let go by because of pressing tasks or puritanical virtue.

Anyway, I'm sure breakfast tomorrow is going to taste like a little bit of heaven. Despite how easy today actually turned out to be, I'm not planning a second round. I've proved my point to myself, no need to be extremist...

Okay I'm a weakling

I've been awake since seven, which means I've only been fasting for a measly six or so hours, but already I'm fantasising about a sandwich. I guess thanks to my usual grazing habits (oh and er, a weekend bingeathon) my tummy feels like it's missed a good few 'meals' already.

It also doesn't help that I'm working on a run-down of Cape Town's best restaurants and wineries, which means describing in detail all manner of wine, cheese and all things delicious, not to mention the pictures I'm stumbling upon online.

But I will not cave.

Day one

7.7 kg from goal weight 
(There's no way in hell I'm posting my actual weight – I may die of embarrassment – so for now this will serve as my running tally.)

So here I go, attempting to survive the day on nothing but water. In an attempt to make this more doable, I skipped gym this morning. Felt lazy not sweating out the weekend's excesses on the cardio circuit, but I think it was the sane thing to do.

Managed to get out of bed and into the office on time without my morning cup of tea, so so far so good I figure. Of course, now I'm all optimistic and thinking about extending it for more than a day, but I realise that by one o'clock I may have to be forcibly stopped from licking other people's lunches, so for now I'm sticking to the modest goal of a one-day fast.

Didn't sleep well last night. When I was wasn't jumping in and out of bed at every noise in the street thinking it was someone breaking into Biscuit, I was worrying about today. Not worrying that I may be tired, or hungry, or weak, or not able to work properly, but worrying that something would happen and I wouldn't be able to see out a day of no food. The blow my self-esteem would take from that, would be awful. I mean, if I can't control my body for just one day, I must really be quite pathetic.

Anyway, I decided to use that lying-awake time wisely and come up with a plan for the rest of the week. Won't bore you with it now, but look out for Alphabet Soup, coming to a blog near you!

Warning: this blog is about to get extremely single-minded.

It's now very little more than three months until I turn the grand old age of 24, and I have decided that I will NOT go into another year of life having not achieved my weight-loss goals. It almost doesn't matter to me that I've ticked the others off (degree, tick. job, tick. first car, tick, published, tick...) when there's still this constant batlle between me and my scales.

So, in an attempt to prevent myself from getting in my own way (and because nothing else seems to have worked yet), I am now going to go public with my mission. Hopefully being accountable to the internet at large will give me that extra bit of willpower I need to resist slices of buttery toast and various office birthday cupcakes. This is either going to work like a charm, or be a very embarrassing exercise in public humiliation. Here's hoping for the latter.

I indulged in my last day of dietary freedom by going to Raw Cafe with Bunny where, despite the misleading name, we managed to drown ourselves in coffee and cake so good that the backgammon game we'd initially been very excited about fell by the wayside. A great little spot incidentally, which seems to catch the spillover from the ever-popular Sidewalk Cafe up the road, though Raw deserves the business in its own right.

Feel a little bit sick now after the carroty-icingy-chocolatey fest (how did I make that sound yuck?), so much so that I'm almost looking forward to my water fast tomorrow.

Yes that's right. I – the girl who can usually only sustain a diet as far as morning teatime – am about to embark on my very first fast. Feels like the kind of thing to do to kick this project off right. Nothing so dramatic as a Master Cleanse or anything, just a simple day of consuming nothing but lovely, cleansing, calorie-free, good-old aych-too-oh. A mere twenty-four hours, starting tomorrow morning. Baby steps I figure.

Happy Braai Day!

YES, I am blogging because YES I am in the office even thougb YES it is a public holiday in South Africa and YES it is typical that just when I decide to take what is technically a weekend day to catch up on work it happens to finally stop raining.

At any rate, I won't be here much longer, so thought I would send my plaintive cry of 'poor me' into the world and then finish up writing about any and every decent restaurant in Cape Town, because it's not like talking about butter-poached crayfish tail and white chocolate croutons (not together obviously) is making me hungry or anything...

So after multiple fresh starts and, er, less than multiple kilos lost (an ego-cushioning way of saying zero, zilch, zippo), I have decided that it's time to accept that the whole exercise-and-healthy-eating thing is NOT the be all and end all of weight loss.

It's time for something more drastic.

After spending the past couple of hours (we went to print early okay?) googling all manner of diets, eating plans, detoxes and exercise regimes, I have decided that I need to do one or more of the following:

1. Visit a dietitian.
2. See a psychologist.
3. Hire a personal trainer at Virgin Active, or take part in Wembley's Biggest Loser programme. 
4. Join Weight Watchers.
5. Do a mad detox, like the Master Cleanse or Debaloo's awful Danish Royal Hospital diet.
6. Find a pro-ana site and learn to starve.
7. Save up for liposuction.

Sadly a few of these require some serious money, but hey, I'm prepared to throw drinking money at the problem if needs be. Will whittle these down over the weekend into some kind of a plan and kick off (yet another) fresh start on Monday morning.

Looking up

The Cape Town sky is still steely grey but my own personal thunderstorm has rolled back out to sea thank goodness.

Pointless post. Just wanted to let the universe at large know that I will no longer bite off your head / eat your children / dissolve into tears at a moment's notice.

It was touch and go for a while there...

Black Tuesday

God another one? I hate experiencing myself in a bad mood. Maybe it's something to do with my pathological need to be liked, but when I've got the cartoon thunderclouds hovering over my head, even I don't want to be around me.

Woke up in a very unhappy place this morning, largely thanks to the endlessly frustrating tug of war between me, my body and my bedroom mirror. This was exasperated by the fact that I was running late, and then couldn't decide what to wear on yet another stormy day in Cape Town. It's the 21st of September, isn't that supposed to be some big meteorological turning point or something? Why is it still winter?

So I rushed out of the house, hating my sartorial lack of effort, hating my body, hating my breakfast cereal, hating the weather and just generally feeling hateful.

You know those mornings when you drive to work, and part of you is wishing you'd get involved in some nasty car accident, just so that you wouldn't have to deal with the coming day? That was me.

Sighness. Black Tuesday indeed.

Rain, rain, go away...

Okay Cape Town, get it together now. It's spring. What's with this windy, rainy, cloudy thing you've got going on today?

Schnoodle loodle grrrARGH *whirr* ping! &*% kapfffffffffft.

I really don't feel like being at work right now. Unfortunately, it's not even quite noon yet, so here's to another five hours of what seems to be an office-wide Glum Monday. I know why I'm down (1 x miserable weather forecast, 1 x plane carrying Boyfriend away last night), but I'm sitting here wondering about everyone else's mood too.

The other problem is, even though I don't fancy being here right now, I'm not too keen to be at home either. Or out. Or at gym.

Ever have that? I wish someone would come and put me into some kind of space-aged sleeper pod where I could switch off for a little while, and only resurface when I was good and ready to smile and participate in life again. Just a few blank hours to shake off this dialtone kind of mood, and then go back to being busy, enthusaiastic Jade.

Failing that, I'd settle for a chocolate brownie.

Anyone?

The weekend in numbers

Number of G&Ts on Friday night: Just 2. But they're growing on me. I find lately the drier the alcohol, the more I like it. 

Number of comped dinners: 1. Working for a foodie magazine has its benefits. Boyfriend and I spent a lovely evening at Brio (the old Riboville) in the CBD on Saturday night, where we were stuffed full of good food and wine and looked after like royalty. A girl could get used to this...

Number of new experiences: 1. Had snails for the first time at the aforementioned fabulous dinner. Quite pleasant and not at all garden-y, although that may be because they were smothered in Roquefort cheese.

Number of kilometres Biscuit got from a quarter tank: 250. Colour me impressed by my little fuel-injected darling. I swear it's because I talk to her every day.

Number of tornadoes that hit NYC, where friends of mine are honeymooning: 2. Waiting anxiously to hear from them (the couple, not the tornadoes).

Number of TV sex gods who came back from the dead: 2. Eric Northman and Chuck Bass. I love it when they don't really kill off the good-looking ones.

Number of lessons learnt: 1. Trying to detach yourself from a potentially painful situation does not guarantee you won't still get hurt.

The good, the bad and the ugly

The good

• I survived another team-building hike on Friday. Just barely though. The half-hour meander to Crystal Pools turned into a six-hour up-and-down slog when we decided to try for the pool on top of the mountain (our first mistake) and subsequently got lost in the ledges.
• It's only Wednesday morning and I've already been to gym four times since Monday.
• Boyfriend is arriving tomorrow night, only two weeks since the last time he was here. Gosh, I nearly feel like a normal couple.
• My awesome financial advisor gave me a box of chocolates yesterday, just to say thanks for investing my hard-earned ducket with him (and pretty much guaranteeing I'm going to stick with him – you feed a girl chocolate, she's never leaving, I'm just saying...).

The bad

• Work's been a little, er, manic this week so far and I haven't had the chance to blog. I know my legions of loyal readers are heartbroken...
• Still can't shake this cold, although I suppose when I do things like go swimming in the miserable Cape Town weather I have nobody to blame but myself.
• It's more than a week till payday and Biscuit's petrol light is on.

The ugly

• Lady Gaga's VMA meat dress. And (better? worse?) this (clicky clicky).
• I went for a random cholesterol check over the weekend, and discovered mine to be surprisingly high (surprising because I exercise, am not a steak girl, can't remember the last time I had an egg and don't smoke).

So I decided to try and be all self-aware and start journalling in my lunch hour again. Didn't really work out.

My whole life I've had this love/hate (mostly hate) relationship with keeping a journal. I've tried – god knows I've tried – to be one of those girls who keeps a series of pretty notebooks in which she scrawls her deep and meaningful thoughts or blow-by-blow accounts of her daily adventures, usually in pretty script-like handwriting.

Well, after many attempts between the ages of six and 23, I feel I can safely say that that is just not me. As much as I'm terrified of forgetting whole chunks of my life because nobody is writing this shit down, I've also decided it's simply not worth the angst.

This is what happens:

1. I buy an overly priced but extremely pretty bound notebook and begin to scribble down my thoughts.
2. I  reread the page and want to vomit at my own naivete/wishy-washy authorial voice/messy scrawl (okay I've been told I have the neatest hanfwriting anyone's ever seen, but being a perfectionist, nothing is, well, ever perfect). 
3. I  persevere for a few days, weeks or months with sporadic entries and various catch-up lists, trying to ignore my wonky margins and schizophrenic handwriting (it varies depending on my emotional state when writing). 
4. I give up and either chuck the half-used up notebook into my memory box (something I am good at keeping) or rip out the pages and surrender them to the bin.
5. I feel paralysed with fear that one day when I'm 90 I will have forgotten this fight/epiphany/happy weekend because it is not recorded in black and white. (For some reason this seems very important.)

See? Angst. And not worth it. So I give up. My written legacy will just have to be my best-selling magnum opus.

I think, I think, I think...

I think I'm going to take the week off gym.

*Waits for the universe to come crashing down around ears*

I missed out on yesterday morning's cardio session as was taking Boyfriend to the airport, and on Friday Team Copy-eds is taking the day off to go on our annual team-building extravaganza (read: walking up to Crystal Pools to laze in the sun with books and tea and the gentle rustle of baboons trying to steal our picnic lunch). Also, I'm not feeling 100%, and since I'm already missing two days of exercise, it seems logical to make this my once-in-a-blue-moon off week.

Doesn't help that immediately after the idea occurred to me I remembered that lately I've been eating like every meal was my last and have gained one of the kilos I lost, making a week's reprieve a bad idea as well as undeserved.

Still, I may just take the leap and give in to being a fat, lazy lump for a week. Apart from my self-esteem, my goal weight and my endorphin levels, what could it hurt?

So I managed to make it through Monday floating on a cloud of post-anniversary-weekend-away-in-Franschhoek happiness.

This morning, not so much. Woke up feeling rather flat, which is such a downgrade from yesterday's sparkly glow that it feels almost like a Black Tuesday. This could be for any or all of the following reasons:

1. I hate what I'm wearing today.  
2. I have made the opposite of progress on the losing weight front.
3. I have a meeting with my financial advisor again today, at which point I will have to tell him that while I am thrilled with his services (that sounds dirty), a review of my finances has revealed that I haven't a cent to invest at the moment, so very sorry. I really don't like saying no to/disappointing people.
4. I'm sick.
5. I'm restless.
6. I'm broke.

Okay, that was cathartic. Maybe I can shake this negativity after all.