What a Shotty Blogger...

Ok guys, so true to form - like my weight loss took a hiatus, so did my blogging.  Let's face it.  I'm a shotty blogger.  Guess what though?  It's a new year, so I suppose I get another chance at blogging.  .... Right?

Well here it goes..

This year's resolution.. drum roll please...

Save more money on my groceries.  Yes, you read correctly.  Nothing in there about eating less, moving more, losing weight, getting healthier.  Because those are goals I'm keeping to myself right now.  I want to save money on my groceries by buying more fruits and vegetables and less pre-packaged, pre-made foods. I want to save money on my groceries so I'll have more money to spend on *gasp* a gym membership.

Truth be told the only way I've ever truly been successful at losing weight has been when I was a member of the gym.  I do plan on running outside once the weather tames.  We've had more snow the past two winters than I can recall in a very very long time.  (Here in NC snow and ice bring everyone to a standstill, even the city government closed for a day).  I'm also hoping that my work schedule will soon become more like that of a "normal" person.  This is the second big hold up in me joining a gym (first being cost).  We do have a 24 hour gym right down the road, but it's ridiculously expensive ($50 a month plus a joining fee) for a teeny tiny little gym.  We'll see.  While it's been hinted by my boss that I should have no worries at all about getting this new position, I do in fact have worries.  Quite a few worries, mainly because it's taking so long to get an answer from the board (It's been almost a month).

In lighter news, I've lost 8.8 pounds in the last week and a half!  Yay for that!  Amazing what drinking water can do... and cutting out bacon... and bacon grease in cooking... and candy bars from the vending machine.  That 8.8 pounds even includes a lovely little "cheat day"  Which included a healthy breakfast of oatmeal and raisins followed by lunch with the girls at Olive Garden.  I had unsweetened tea, soup salad and breadsticks (I did have two bowls of soup - the chicken gnocchi) and dessert.  Dessert consisted of one of their mini dolce thingies.  Then I had dinner with a different set of "the girls" at a place called Pastabilities, where I had a vegetarian pasta dish.  They had beautiful serving sizes, normal serving sizes not these plates that are three times bigger than your head.  Even though it was delicious, and I had a "normal" serving in front of me, I still could only eat about a third of it.  Later that night we had some multigrain chips and fat-free sorbet.  So while I did indeed have a cheat day, I still felt pretty good about my choices.

I'm still nervous about going back to the doctor for a second check on my cholesterol levels.  I went for a physical maybe a month or so ago and got a call saying my cholesterol was too high.  How embarrassing.  I've let myself go so much that it's impacting my health as well as my happiness.  Then a few weeks ago I hurt my knee.  I worked two extra shifts and apparently the extra work and my extra weight didn't get along.  When I went back to the doctor they said I had patellar tendonitis.  Neither time I visited the doctor did anyone mention anything about my weight.  I attribute this mainly to the fact that everyone I saw was my weight or heavier.  I know, however that the added weight has a lot to do with my joint problems.  The nurse who called about my cholesterol levels told me to take two fish oils a day (yuck) and "try to move around a little more".  She didn't say you need to exercise more, or you need to get off your lazy bum and do something other than hang out on facebook.  What happened to doctors giving you the cold hard nasty truth?  What happened to the scare tactics?  What happened to the "if you continue on this path you'll send yourself to an early grave" speech?  Huh.

Maybe I'm just too melodramatic about it.

You Bought a What??

Okay guys, I think I've got Dearest in on making some raised beds and starting a garden this coming spring.  I want to try and start making compost now though.  I've got a line on some food grade plastic barrels and I want to buy one to use to make compost and another for a rain barrel.

I realized though that if I'm going to start growing vegetables I need to decide which ones I want to grow... and I need to learn how to cook them ;)

I've never been what I would consider a great cook.  I just recently started to gain some self-confidence in the kitchen.. thanks to bacon grease.  Horrible horrible I know!

Anywhos... I've always been intrigued with butternut squash, spaghetti squash and acorn squash.  I've never eaten them, that I'm aware of at least.  They always have them in the grocery store though, and I've heard people mentioning that they like them.  Well I bought an acorn squash.  It was the smallest, and I figured I should start on a small scale to hopefully reduce waste if it didn't work out for me.

Of course when I got home Dearest saw it and proclaimed "What is that"?  I'm honestly amazed that I got out of the grocery store with it.  I was asked by the checkout lady the other day what a pomegranate was.

So far what I've seen has suggested baking it with brown sugar, which made me think of a sweet potato.  I need to do some more research on this one.

Tonight for dinner - chicken vegetable soup.

How do you work in your vegetables, and what would *you* grow?

Testing 123 ... Is this thing on?

Ok so if you haven't figured out by now, i'll tell you - I'm a geek. A slowly evolving one but one just the same. I just added the blogger app to my phone.

Hopefully this will help me be able to update a little more often and only make my blogger addiction worse. :)

So this is a test post just to make sure everything is working properly and all that.

Just as a preview note - any of you grow your own vegetables? I've been toying with the idea but really don't even know where to begin. More on this later.

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Life Right Now

So today I went to the ATM, grumbling all the way because it was an unexpected stop... and it was raining.  While I proceed to impatiently wait on the machine to spit out my cash, I let out a terrorfied yelp.  The ATM BIT me!  Apparently in my haste I managed to get my fingers a little too close.  I realized quickly that maybe my plans for today weren't supposed to go as planned.  I also realized that I have anger management issues, bad ones.

Sometimes my anger really does concern me.  I'm a bottler.  I shove everything deep inside to deal with later, then it just all spews out over something really insignificant.  Then I feel like dumbass.  I have horrific road rage.  I really am trying to at least substitute with calmer phrases such as: "I hope your socks fall down"  or "I hope you get a really bad wedgie" or "I hope you have a ginormous booger that no one tells you about".  Typically I only think of these later while stewing in my guilt.

I've also felt pretty unbalanced around Dearest lately.  I think a lot of that has to do with his work situation.  I'm used to him being home for a month, then being gone for two weeks, so I get a chance to miss him.  This time he didn't have any work though, and he came home early from his last rotation.  He's been home almost two months.  Almost every day of those two months.  All day.  Playing Xbox.  Not even going to go into that one..

I am grateful to get to spend the time with him, don't get me wrong - but I demand a pretty generous amount of alone time.  Me time.  No one else in the way time.  I haven't seen any of that in a while.  Perhpas that's part of my problem.

I apologize for the lack of rainbows over here lately.  My life really isn't horrible, the weather has just been a bit cloudy.

You need the clouds to appreciate the sun.

Getting Over the Hummph

"If we don't find positive things, maybe we should examine what it is we're looking for".
-- Christy Jordan


I think it's time for some re-examination, what am I looking for?

I'm in a ginormous slump here so in order to get out I think I need to remind myself of why I should.

I'm obsessed with food.  It's a contant battle for me.  I love food.  I love thinking about it, seeing it, eating it, planning new combinations and learning how to cook new things.  I also use it for comfort.  I'm bored - I eat.  I'm sad - I eat.  I'm happy - I eat.  I even use it as an aphrodesiac.  There is nothing that will put me in the mood more than a good meal complete with a cocktail and dessert.  I use food to show my love and appreciation of others, and they do the same for me.  I've even eaten so much food before out of boredom that it's come back up.  My body literally said hey - no way, there's no more room, this stuff has got to go out!  Back out the way you came!

I'm not really discriminatory in my love of food either.  I love healthy food, and junky food too.  I do tend to lean towards easy and cheap, which of course, is generally less healthy.  This is simply due to a combination of time and budget restraints.

I don't despise exercise.  I love the way it makes me feel afterwards.  I love the rush of endorphins, the feeling of accomplishment, feeling stronger and the feeling of sweating out toxins and the day's stress.  I do however, despise the way my lack of self confidence combined with my social anxieties makes me feel before and during exercise. 

A long, long time ago I used to be not a mere gym rat, but a gym queen.  I was completely confortable to not only work out alone, but to work out with the really hot sweaty guys - because I knew I could.  I loved seeing their eyes pop out of their head when they realized I not only could keep up with them I could beat some of them (on leg day at least).  Nowadays, I'm back to my plump shy self who can barely even remember what a workout routine is.

I'm always dehydrated, simply because I hate drinking water.  I don't like it plain, with lemon or lime,with crystal light or even gatorade mixed in.  I like the bubble sting and burn of my diet pepsi.  Until I get burnt out on sweet soda that is.  Then I just may spring for a couple of bottles of Sobe Life Water - if they're on 99 cent special that is.

I'm always tired, beat down and exausted.  I used to not feel this way all the time, and*that* for me, is the kicker.  It's not how fluffy I look in the mirror, how grossed out I am when I see my rolls through my t-shirts in my reflection in a passing window.  It's that I can't go up and down my stairs at home more than once in a five minute period without feeling like I have to sit down.  Feeling like I always want to take a nap.  Knowing that the reason we've put off going hiking for two years is because I don't have the endurance to keep up with Dearest.  THAT is why instead of getting another honeybun out of the vending machine today I went to the cafeteria and got a salad with fat free dressing and a yogurt cup.  THAT is why I AM going to get more fruits and vegetables in my diet.  THAT is why I'm going to try my darndest to re-evaluate my reasons for stuffing things in my mouth before they they get there.

I can't promise every day is going to be perfect because I know it won't be.  It will never be, and that's okay.  I am going to promise myself that I'm worth feeling better than this, that I'm worth feeling my age - not ten years older than I really am.  So even when it feels like no one else thinks so, I know I am worth this and I'm done with people making me think otherwise.  So there.  Hummph.

Blah Bickety Blah

Okay guys, I'm not going to lie to you here.  I've got nothing.  My inspiration is not lacking, it's pretty much non-existant.

I think every now and then "hey I should start running again now that it's cooled off"  or "hey I should check out that gym down the street".  Then I go look in the cabinet and think "oh I wish I had a little debbie". 

I've just been living day to day taking things as they come.  I went to the grocery store the other day and the lady at the cash register remarked "wow look at all these healthy veggies!"  as if it was unusual to see someone buy such things.  I told her not to worry, they would all be appropriately cooked and smothered with either bacon grease or cheese.

Last week I worked a lot.  I'm still tired from last week.  The past two days I've slept 10 - 12 hrs a night.  I'm still tired.  A combination of working swing shifts and other jobs I'm not used to definately took its toll on me - physically and mentally.

I feel like a good work out would do me a lot of good right now, but to be honest I'm just too darn lazy.  I'm in a lazy bum rut.  Blah bickety blah.  Granted I've done a lot of physical activity lately - but it just doesn't make me feel the same way that a good kick butt workout does.

So here's hoping the restof you are finding motivation, determination, and healthy choices.

Oh and by the way.. please excuse the mess while I revamp the way things look around here..

Related articles

• What Inspires You? (chicagonow.com)
• Dieting: It's Always Easy in the Beginning (thejebbica.com)

Picking up the Pieces

Okay.. so I'm currently sitting here with a rice crispy treat the size of my head.

Well.. almost the size of my head..

Don't try and talk me down... I'm going to eat this sucker.  There is no doubt about it.

Just wanted to let you guys know.  :)

Thanks by the way - for hanging around.


Things have been crazy lately.  Quite literally.  Dearest and I have been dealing with someone with some... stalkerish tendencies for quite awhile now.  Sadly this isn't my first rodeo with this kind of situation either.  At least I've got some experience dealing with it.. but geez that's just sad.

Hence my hastey entrance into blogger seculsion (and crazy paranoia land).

For now - we'll leave that at "that".

In other news, I don't think I've run since ... July.  ?  Not sure.  Not on purpose at least.  My weight has stayed pretty stable but I've noticed a huge difference in my level of "squishiness"  Ew.  I tried for a bit going on a mediterranian style diet.  While tasty, anything that requires me to cook so often just isn't going to work.  I'm too lazy to work 10 hour days, cook and clean.  It's that simple.  Hey at least I know it.

Dearest, bless his heart is just scared to death of the oven.  If he can't cook it in the microwave you'd better believe he's just going to go to the drive thru for dinner.  Oddly enough though I hear rumors that he is a pretty mean cook - over a fire pit. 

Other than that though I've been celebrating over the fact of just cooking something period.  I got my Southern Plate cookbook in the mail this week.  Now this is NOT a diet cookbook.  This is NOT a healthy living cookbook.  This IS a feel good, southern tradition cookbook.  It WILL make you cry, and laugh.  Well - I did anyway.  I'm a huge Christy Jordan fan and well I'm just so darn proud of her.

*update: previously mentioned rice crispy treat is now dessicated*

So yeah, I haven't gained any ground on weight loss, (in fact the batteries in my scale died about 2 months ago) reached any goals, run any miles, or any of that good stuff.  However - amongst all of the bad that's been hanging around lately I've realized that I'm pretty darn happy.  Yeah I'm still wearing the same size clothes, but I feel good.  I'm not hiding under the covers with all of the blinds drawn shut.  I'm not wearing baggy sweats, or going days without showering.  I make a concious effort to fix my hair and put on some resemblance of make-up before I go out into the big bad world.

Picking up the pieces baby.