Eek, running on empty

This last week has been so stressful for me.  Actually, it's not just this last week but probably since this last month or so that I've returned back to work from summer break.  Ah ... those were the days!  I was able to get up at a leisurely hour (somehow I figured out how to get 8 hours of rest each night), go walking for a few miles and pretty much do what I wanted.  Getting back to the pace of working, going to school, doing my program, exercising and just life has left me exhausted.  I came home today from work, had my dinner and then found myself crawling into my bed for a little nappy-poo.  I don't even remember falling asleep. 

The truth is that not getting enough sleep is completely dangerous.  I was shaky at work today from it and that's just not good.  A couple of people have noticed it on my face, although I'm trying to do a good job at masking it.  Don't ask me why I feel the need to cover it up.  Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I just want to appear like I'm handling things or some such load.  The truth is no one can function well on three hours of sleep a night and that's what I've been sporting lately.

So, to that end, I'm doing what I can to clean things up a little bit.  A friend and I started a walking group at work, which will begin on Monday.  I sent an e-mail out to people in the office saying we're going to start walking and asking if they'd like to join us during lunch.  We'll still leave time to eat food, but this is really our way of getting out and exercising at least every day and destressing.  I'm totally all for having less stress in my life.

I also have become somewhat addicted to blog reading.  It's not a bad addiction in the grand scheme of things, but between the blogs I was following through Google Reader and messages coming into my e-mail, it was too much for me to handle.  So if you have a blog and I've stopped "following" you recently, I definitely am still reading but I need one list to work off of, which are all the blog links posted on my site.  That way I can see when people have posted something new, I'm not trying to maintain too much and it's just more manageable to me.  I get so much from what other people write about.  Often times, the things they go through are the very things I go through as well. As I continue to lose weight and change so much in my life, it's vital that I stay grounded and follow the example of what is working for others as well.  I need to make the time for that, just like I need to make the time for exercise and sleep.  We're in this together ... and I wouldn't have it any other way.