Life update and 20/20 recap

It's been an interesting couple of weeks. On Memorial Day weekend, L. and I went out with L.'s realtor to look at some potential houses between L.'s and my work places. We ended up finding a really nice house, and making an offer on it. However, we've gone back and forth a few times now with the sellers but I think we may have finally come to an agreement. It's been an emotional rollercoaster. Even though the wedding is only about four months away now, and we've been planning to move in together for some time, it's still a big step and we're finally taking it.

Aside from trying to figure out all of the decisions that come along with house offers, we've been trying to figure out what to do with my condo and L.'s townhouse. We already knew that we were going to rent out L.'s townhouse, but we just weren't sure when that would happen. If the sellers accept our counteroffer from tonight, we'll at least know when we have our new house and that will give L. the timeline to work with his property management company to get some folks in as renters.

My condo wasn't such a sure thing, though. Although it's a great place, and about the best location one could ever ask for, there are a few complications. First, there's an upcoming assessment on the building to replace siding and windows. This is fine, considering the building is 25 years old and it's definitely time for that kind of maintenance. That happens for all houses, not just condos. So, I wasn't really bothered by it except I wasn't sure whether we could take the financial hit in addition to losing money each month for mortgage and homeowners dues. It was all just adding up kind of quickly. But, L. called his CPA today to talk about how much of those expenses we can write off if we decide to rent the place, and it turns out that we can write off the mortgage interest (as usual) and also the HO dues (since they're an expense of renting and we won't be able to charge enough in rent to cover even all of the mortgage payment). So, that kind of tipped everything in favor of renting the place out. The other factor tipping it in that direction is that selling kind of sucks right now, and it may make more sense to hold onto this place for awhile and try to ride out the sinking economy, or at least to reap the benefit of having all of the updated work done on the place if we decide to sell later on. We'll see. Now I just need to call a few property management companies and figure out which one to use to manage my condo. Fingers crossed that it will all work out and I'll get a good renter in here. I'm kind of excited that I can hold onto my place, since I worked so hard to get it and it's one of the things that I'm really proud I was able to do on my own in the wake of my divorce and all of that ensuing mess.

I'm finishing up my final week phase 1 of the 20/20 program. As of weigh in last week, I'd lost 46 pounds. I don't really anticipate losing anything this week, because I have definitely not been on plan with my diet. Not that I've been eating crazily out of control or anything, but I'm definitely not adhering to the optimal percentages of protein, carbs, and fat that make my body run and burn calories so well. Also, I'm sure that I'm not eating between 1200-1400 calories. I'm more in the 1800-2000 range, which would be fine if I weren't still trying to lose weight. The problem is that my stomach has felt like it's been in knots for almost a week due to all of the stress with the house stuff and trying to figure out stuff for my condo. So, I gave in to crackers and gingerale several times to help out with some of that. And yesterday, I did have fries and a McFlurry. I gave into my stress eating, which probably isn't the best thing but it's what I did. As long as I don't do that all the time, it should be OK. Thankfully, I'm feeling quite a bit better tonight, so I'm hopeful that I can get back on track with things soon. I'm happy that I'm at least not going overboard with anything, but it's not optimal and I don't want to waste a bunch of time on my program not eating better. I think now that things have calmed down a little bit and we won't be running around so much after work to make appointments with realtors, etc. things should go back to a little more of a normal schedule. Like my nutritionist and trainer said, right now it's kind of life happening. And there has to be room in everyone's lives for that to happen here and there. So, I'm trying not to stress out about that on top of everything else.

So, next week, I'll go in for updated lab tests to see how everything like cholesterol, etc. pan out after being on the program. In a few weeks, I'll go in for my updated fitness tests to see the difference between starting and now. Should be interesting to see the difference. And I start phase 2 on Friday, but I hired my trainer for that extra day a week so that I can still workout with him three days a week and keep my level of exercise and challenge up. That will be really key in losing these last 20 pounds. I definitely have it in for those last fat cells...