I’ve got at least one more travel post coming down the pipeline, but, in the mean while, real life continues. My husband pointed out to me that it has been almost a month since the day we departed for our trip — it certainly doesn’t seem like that long ago! But I suppose I can’t keep living in Lovely Mediterranean Dreamland forever, can I?

Since we’ve been back, preparation for the fall semester has ramped up to 100%. Shit is getting real, as one of my colleagues says. We’ve got meetings, orientations, and all sorts of other things to do. I’m preparing for a new course format that I’ll be working with for the first time this fall, so I’ve been up to my ears in all kinds of work for that, both theoretical and practical. I’m thinking that if I do as much work as I possibly can before school starts, I’ll have much better odds of having everything run smoothly later on. Fingers crossed.

I have also found it necessary to buy — or at least shop for — new school clothes. I keep thinking that with the right outfit, surely I will teach even more effectively. Right? Right. Please tell that to my bank account. At any rate, the new spoils include a beautiful tweed pencil skirt, new pair of shoes (kitten heels — I hate that term), new black straight-leg trousers, and a blouse and cardigan. I need more warm-weather blouses that are not sleeveless. I want to be comfortable, but I do not need to be selling tickets to the gun show every day, you know? If you have seen any such blouses, particularly on sale, let me know.

In other news (I don’t think I’ve mentioned this?), one of my very best and oldest friends is getting married this fall and I am in her wedding party! I am quite happy and excited about it. When I turned over the calendar page to August, though, I realized that our little bachelorette trip, set for Labor Day weekend, is coming up at the end of this month. That is soon, y’all. I had better get all of my ducks in a row. And perhaps by “ducks,” I mean “lewd candy.” You never know.

Speaking of candy. While I found it relatively easy to shed all the vacation-induced water bloat after we came back — my feet were pretty happy to deflate from the size of Christmas hams, let me tell you –, I would still like to lose somewhere between 5-10 pounds. This is the same 5-10 extra pounds I’ve basically had on for the last year and have only ever been semi-motivated about shedding. Losing an amount that small probably requires not only exercise and healthy eating, but a detail-oriented focus on diet to a degree I normally find unpleasant. At any rate, I would like to really try. Some of my favorite trousers are simply uncomfortable to the point of biting into my waist and this aggression will not stand.

To this end, I am trying to work more closely with my Fitbit and stay within the recommended calories (I may have more to say about that later), to drink more water (and actually log it so I am accountable and can’t just go by the vague feeling of having drunk a lot of water — a vague feeling that is often only based on having had one glass of water because even that often feels like a lot to me, hello!, I prefer my water to contain coffee or bourbon), and to try adding some different exercises in addition to my normal runs in order to shake things up and “suprise” my body. They say it’s good to “keep your body guessing” in these situations, so maybe one of you could try sneaking up on me every now and then.