I know I haven't updated in a very long time. Suffice to say that I love the new job and it's keeping me very busy, but happy. I will write more when I can.

I really miss my blogland friends and hope you're all doing well.

I really want to thank the people who thoughtfully commented on yesterday's post. They helped me a lot, because it helped me think about what I'm actually thinking about when I think about quitting meetings.

I think that I wanted to tell myself it was OK not to try so hard to lose, which it isn't really. As John said, I'm so close. But I'm creeping further away, and I think that quitting meetings might be giving myself permission to give up. That's not what I want to do. I definitely need to lose those 5.6 pounds. Sure, no one else might be able to tell the difference, but mentally there is a big difference between almost at goal and at goal.

Laura N. is right, it may help to keep me anchored while everything else is changing. And now that some of my major worries are out of the way, I shouldn't be able to make excuses for not sticking to it. Ironically, the long commute may make it easier to stick to my food plan, because I won't have time to snack. I don't like to eat in my car.

By the way, I'm reading Nina Planck's Real Food and am looking forward to writing a review of it when I'm done. It's an interesting book.

It may seem to be a weird question for someone who has a blog with "Weight Watchers" right the name, but I have been thinking about giving up on the meetings. I am going to be commuting a long way to work and back for a while, and meetings would cut into my little remaining free time.

I could, theoretically, do Weight Watchers without the meetings -- I have all the stuff. In my experience, I haven't done a very good job of it on my own, but maybe I could try harder? I don't know. I am thinking about doing WW Online, or just waiting until I'm more settled.

Meetings are sometimes really great and sometimes I feel like I'm counting down the seconds. I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet.

This week's weigh-in was crummy, just like I knew it would be. I haven't been following the program very well so my results haven't been great. I don't know if I need to spend $11 a week to find that out.

I'm really not sure what to do at this point. I might try next week without a meeting and see how it goes.

I know the real estate market is slow, but if your agent leaves a picture of your house on the real estate web sites with snow in the yard, maybe it's time to find a new agent. I've been spending an inordinate amount of time looking at these sites and it's amazing how many agents do things like this. In one listing, the agent made sure to display the beautiful flowering crabapple trees in the yard. That was probably a nice touch, in April or May. In August, it seems like malpractice.

Agents are supposedly obligated to put their client's best interests first. But as Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner explained in Freakonomics, a fairly big difference in price for the seller means only a small difference in an agent's commission.

So for an unscrupulous agent, sending the message, "MY CLIENT IS DESPERATE" is an OK move. Maybe someone will make an offer, even if it's a crummy one, and they'll make back the money they've been spending to advertise the house since April.

I don't think it's usually anything that sinister, though. I think the agents take the photos, slap up the listings, and then either don't think to update them or don't have the inclination to go back and take new photos. It really sends a message to future clients that they work hard to make sure you get a good offer, doesn't it?

Sorry I haven't posted lately. I found out this week that I have a job. I'm thrilled and overwhelmed and so grateful. I just went through the ritual of deleting all the Chronicle of Higher Education and HigherEdJobs.com alerts that used to send me new jobs that fit my interests. The day I accepted a job, I had to turn down another offer for an interview and cancel one that I had already scheduled.

I have a lot of work to do to get ready for this change. I need to freshen up a few things around the house before it's ready to go on the market. I have to hope for the best in a very slow real estate market, but on the flip side, I'll have the advantage when I'm the buyer. Luckily, the new job is close enough (barely) to commute for a while until we can take care of these things.

I had wanted to finish the first draft of my dissertation yesterday but my mind was racing too much for me to focus on writing. I did manage to get a few pages done yesterday, and I think that I can reasonably wrap it up today.

It seems so strange that so many things are resolving themselves almost effortlessly now. I feel a little weird -- my system has been used to a certain level of stress for the past few years that I am not sure I know how to function like a normal person again. Wish me luck!