Your post pretty much summarizes my life concisely but I am still struggling to get the exercise part down. I'll be looking forward to see what you churn out!
Unsolicited Advice:
For exercise, I found that yoga has worked extremely well for me. I started in January and it has been going great!
A few factors have really kept me motivated to go:
1) For the first 10 weeks, it was run like a college school class. The roster was fixed. Attendance was taken.
2) It is expensive. When I pay this much for something, I feel obligated to use it. In this case, the first 10 weeks were a Christmas gift so I really felt obligated.
3) I can practice outside of class literally everywhere. This is impossible for a lot of gym workouts.
4) It is hard. I feel seriously challenged.
I did Tae Kwon Do in high school. A lot of the above points also apply to martial arts. Plus if you do martial arts you get extra style points according to http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html
What are you struggling with in terms of exercise, if you don't mind me asking? I had a lot of trouble getting into an exercise routine until recently, so I might have some tips, but different people struggle with different things.
Really just following through consistently. Recently I was trying to start out slow and do 30-45 minutes of brisk walking several days per week. I did it for 2 weeks before something came up and I missed a couple of days and I never got back into it.
Until today (yayy) I have been working the graveyard shift at work. I'm going to give it another go with a more sane schedule and focus on being consistent on the times I do go exercise.
