*

10 pounds down 32 pounds to go!

Friday, September 28, 2007

"Now, we can do this the hard way, or... well, actually there's just the hard way."

To err on the side of caution, how these words haunt me. I mean, I totally get it. I understand err on the side of caution very well. Like lived my whole life by those words kind of very well. I mean no offence to Fat Runner Girl at all because that is exactly the advice I would have given, wear a suit and conservative shoes and an understated bag and also sit up straight. Those are all the things everyone says about interviews and for very good reason because a good first impression is just that important. It's just that I'm finally getting tired of living in fear. I have sent out many, many resumes in the last five years. A slew of resumes, possibly a murder of resumes a month or even a gaggle. I like the bird references because I feel like my little birds of hope printed on high quality bonded paper fly off to sing my praises and then get caught in a storm and end up in Paraguay, and I've heard the commute to Paraguay can be a bitch.

What usually happens is that I get an interview and it's such a shock that I don't have to go to Paraguay that I immediately search my wardrobe for my most conservative outfit, shine my most conservative heels and put a sensor on my brain so as to permit zero of my actual personality to leak out. After doing this for so very long and having such hopeless results I had nearly convinced myself that what I have to offer isn't good enough. Only I realize now that I haven't been giving my all to this process. Trying to find a new job in one of America's most depressed local economies is sort of, err, painfully difficult. I've been insulating myself against what I see as the innevitable: failure. There's so much insulation that no one can see me and the air is getting thin.

I've been examining this for awhile, my complete innabilty to take a risk and have some faith. Yesterday Mackenzie left a comment and I hit up her site, the top post is about being afraid to take risks. Hello, that is me, I'm afraid of everything and I always have been. Some of the biggest errs I've ever made have been on the side of caution. I've been insulating so many areas of my life for so long I hardly know how to live another way. I've decided that I can't go on saying "I'm not happy" and making no changes and expect to get happy with no work.

It's a bit ridiculous to pin my happiness on a pair of boots. It's also a bit ridiculous pinning it on a job. One job in a sea of jobs that I may or may not ever get. I guess I just want to get them or not get them based on the real me. I'm tired of hiding out and trying to sneak into a coveted position. Honestly, I wouldn't be excited to hire me, with my insulation and black clothes and personality squashed into nothing. I think of myself as a creative, innovative person and I've been presenting myself as washed-up and desperate. So the overall point is not the boots, it's the me shining through that I want to convey while sitting straight and speaking clearly and directly. With eye contact.

Normally I'd end there but I have more news, the car is still broken and we haven't heard about it because Matt's mechanic has been searching the junkyard for a new part. Or a junky part, but it'll be new to the car. So I'm carless and the Matt will have to take me to my interview, and the grocery store and clothes shopping to the tune of endless "does this look okay?" and "can I wear this?". His excitement is palpable. His dedication is palpable too and I think it will be interesting to see how he does all the things I do, with me. It's the end of the month which means it's use up the worthwhile coupons time and I know he wants to spend his saturday night comparing tuna prices between Target and Shaws. We also get to hit Bed, Bath and Beyond for the new scale, since I just got my rewards card. Whoo! Now I just have to decide what to get. This one seems to be a favorite, any other suggestions?

Thursday, September 27, 2007

"you have acres of time, in which to plant crops"

Dear Fashionistas,

I have need of your exalted wisdom in a very important matter. Is it appropriate to wear boots, calf height and mid range heel, with a skirt to a job interview?

Thanks!

Love, Amy


I'm just really not sure. It's for a museum, not a drab office, so I feel there is a little wiggle room but I don't want to wiggle myself out of an opportunity because I look a touch too bohemian. I also don't want to dress how I think someone who wants a job should dress. I'm not sure how to explain that. It sort of reminds me of college when I took a summer art class with one of my best friends. We could take free classes at the community college, as pampered private college ladies, so we did. Ours was a class full of characters: our teacher was flambouyant gay artist guy, we had a bottle raven haired goth guy, and generic athletic guy #5.

Generic athletic guy #5 was really very nice, nice in that he didn't ever beat us up or call us dykes to our face and in my experience you can't ask for much more than that from generic athletic guy. He would come in to class and talk about drinking the beer, watching the sports, doing the chicks and he was majoring in general studies and athletics. Hello generic athletic guy! Anyway, I feel like when I'm getting ready for an interview I look like Desperate Job Seeker # 8. I do not want to be Desperate Job Seeker #8. I want to be unique individual with talents and skills that dazzle and awe.

Can I dazzle and awe and wear boots? And a skirt? Because seriously, none of my pants fit right at the moment. Obviously I'm going to be shopping 'till I'm dropping this weekend, but I've found that desperate need is shopping kryptonite and I need a back-up plan. Or twelve. I'm seriously tired of shitty job interviews and I'm thinking that I need to be myself to sell myself. So, you lovely style mavens, help a girl out. To boot, or not to boot?

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

damn jemima's witnesses

i just ordered from the oriental trading catalog and now i'll never know peace again. my mailbox won't anyway. but you see, they had the goldfish i needed and no one else did...and i had to get those rubber bendy pencils for my nephew because uhm, i had to. i want to make these cute things for all the kids for christmas and i needed plastic goldfish. i'm buying them now because if i don't do it right when the impulse strikes i'll never do it and it'll be january and i'll say "i really wish i made those things for the kids, i'll do it next year" and we all know that's bullshit.

right now i'm blogging because there's this scary thing i have to do and i don't want to but i really have to do it today. and i really don't want to talk about it because i need to not dwell. there will be time to dwell, dwelling is innevitable, i just want to keep it really positive right now and also fluffy. i don't know if i've been projecting a very glass is half full attitude on the blog lately, or anywhere really, but i'm making an effort. even though my car has been taken ill and i'm still not in a job i want or taking any classes ($$$) to make that happen i'm trying to focus on the good things.

good things:

matt and i went to the common ground fair and there are so many things i can't wait to plant and grow. we went to look at apple trees, which we want to start next spring, and i fell in love with all the flowers and all the agricultural plants. i have an intense desire to grow my own beans, is that weird?

i'm definitely seeing a difference in my clothes, fark the scale.

the balanceball is way more hardcore than i gave it credit for and i love it. we had bleacher seats for the concert last night and i learned that sitting straight up like that really works your thigh muscles (ow) and it just made me feel so validated that all the things i do really do have an impact whether or not i'm always aware of it.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

dear reader in chicago

every once in a while there will be some really great questions in my referral log and i feel compelled to answer them. does trader joe's take discover? yes, they do bless them. how to make shirts for fat people? i don't know but i hope you find out, it's a worthy cause. is eating mouldy cheese bed for you when you're pregnant? uhm, i don't know...cheese is mold right so it's probably more gross than lethal. what does bad fat do to you? with short sentences: i think. it gives you. heart disease. but i'm not a doctor.

the one thing someone searched for specifically on this blog was before photos. there aren't any. not before, during, or after(not yet atleast). it's a photo free zone. photos of me anyway. it's not that i don't sympathize because i like photos too. i always scan to the first days of the blogs i read to see where people started out and watch how they change, the same reason everyone likes photos so much. so i really do get it and i've thought about it, it's just not for me at the moment.

i have some very practical reasons for not having pictures of myself up. practical one, i've made too many personal things public here to want to add a photo. practical two, like most people who haven't always loved the way they look i have very few fat pictures of myself. practical three, i live in the dark ages with no scanner and no internet service at home so even if i had a photo of every day of this process there is no way i could post it. i do hope for all of these things to change. if i change jobs i'll be less candid and much more able to post a photo. i intend to take more advantage of recording my life in pictures before i wake up at 40 with no photo albums to bore visitors with. someday, if i ever have disposable income again, i will have internet and a new computer and a pony to round it all out.

so, that's not at all what i was going to write about in my second post of the day. i meant to say a little something about the dumb thing i did this weekend. saturday i took one of my handicapped customers shopping. she just moved and she needed shelves and there is just nowhere to make that sort of a purchase in town. it was extremely spiritually fulfilling and the longest day i've had in a very long while. there was traffic everywhere and it's just not that easy to get around target with a walker. do you think the stock boy with the giant cart would move for a handicapped person, no, he won't so don't be silly. but that's not the dumb thing. the dumb thing was eating breakfast at 7 am and then not having anything else to eat until 3 pm.

i usually only abstain from eating for that length of time while i'm sleeping. you're shopping with someone who has MS and you're going to whine because you're hungry...no, you're really not going to do that. and it was fine really, it wasn't an emergency and i had a snack in my bag incase i started to feel faint. i never felt faint, which used to happen to me all the time, so i didn't pull out my granola bar (or one of my nut bars which would have been perfect on this occasion). and then it was three o'clock and we were at the olive garden and i was eating my salad and my teeth were chattering. not from cold, from some sort of blood sugar famine. that has never happened to me before. it continued through the meal and afterward for about an hour. has anything like that ever happened to you?

not a paid advertisement

but i did get free samples! someone nice asked me to try out some stuff and tell you about it and i'm all down with nice people giving me free stuff (see previous post re: discover) so this is me giving product reviews a try. i'm a big fan of the nature valley chewy granola bars so it was neat to try their roasted nut bars. they're completely different. really not a granola bar after all. the peanut bar is roasted peanuts and sunflower seeds in a thin salty sweet coating to hold it all together. the almond is the same, uhm...but with almonds too.

my taste testers (read co-workers) really loved them, they called it a salty peanut brittle. they both really love salty sweet and they liked that it was all nuts. i liked that too, and i liked the sunflower seeds. one of them says if you check the target website you should find a coupon to test them yourself for free at target. there was another coupon in this weekends' paper if you like them and you want to stock up.

i would totally have published that yesterday if my car wasn't broken. actually, it's not broken, it just didn't start when i needed it too. apparently it starts just fine when the mechanic turns the key. hehe, the irony. matt is very worried and had it towed so they can do diagnostics on it, the one thing he can't do himself at home. so i was home and carless all day yesterday and i spent the whole day watching heroes on dvd. how adorable is hiro, he's my favorite.

i had to do some exercise since i spent the whole day in the house so i tried out the balance ball. the dvd that came with the beginner kit is really just a sampling and not that taxing overall but some of the exercises were pretty hard. i didn't think it would be that hard to sit on the ball, arms up and lift one leg and i was very wrong. that easy thing was really hard to do without rolling over and i'm realizing today that i used a lot of muscles to stay stable while sitting. i've got to try it a few more times to decide whether i want to advance and get the full length workouts on dvd. right now i don't like it as much as pilates, but i think it will be good to learn a few of the exercises to do while i'm sitting around or watching tv. just sitting on the ball and balancing uses more muscles than sitting on the couch so why not make the most of it?

Friday, September 21, 2007

tough choices

i pay every single one of my bills with my discover card. everywhere i shop, if they take discover, i use my card there. when i made my original get out of debt budget i forced myself to use cash for everything because that is what you have to do. you really have to see the cash leaving your hand to take control of it. so it was a hard decision to switch to the card. i made myself a deal that i could use it if i paid it off every single month and for two years now, i have. what's the big deal? well, the cash back is the big deal. i earn about 20 bucks every month just for paying my bills.

where the hell am i going with that, somewhere really see because i always upgrade to the gap or borders or bed bath and beyond gift card for 25 dollars. an extra five free dollars. i know i'm their pawn playing their capitalist consumer game but since i shop at those stores anyway, why not save the money? those pants i was whining about yesterday, i should shut the hell up about it already because i didn't actually pay for those. it's bad karma to whine about free pants and as it stands i need to save like 400 kittens to break even on my pants karma build up.

i've been trying to decide what to do with septembers bounty...the gap for new size tens or bed bath and whatever for a new scale? i'm leaning toward a scale because the one i have is crap, and yet i can't seem to stop using it. if i had a new one i can hit the old one with something heavy, which seems would be very special for all of us. matt offered to run it over with the back hoe, now that would be a great video, but i don't think it would be as a thoroughly theraputic as hand to hand. i'll have to get some gangsta rap to play in the background too because i'm feeling the office space copier scene as inspiration.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

a truth widely known

it is a sure thing that mere weeks after you breakdown and buy more size twelve pants, you will very slowly become an eleven. which sucks because there is no such thing as eleven, not really, and so you will wear your brand new twelves and they will get baggier and baggier. they will be especially baggy in the rear and you will think "but why not the waist? why always the ass? WHY?" and you will be irrational and hypocritical because you've been whining for ages about being in a rut and you should be GLAD that your ass is baggy. glad, i say.

since my cooking class went awry i've decided to really cook atleast once a week. something just for me, as in not meat based, and something new that takes me out of my usual vegetarian side dish rut. so i've been spending a fair bit of time here. it's a website called eat better america and i'm digging the vegetarian section. i think i might have mentioned the site a while ago, a long while, it's been in my browser for ages mostly unused. this, looks awesome and so does this. and they both use up things in my cupboard so it works for my grocery list too. i like seeing recipes that are close to something i'd make myself on the fly but with more guidance. and i like having a nutrition panel to refer to aswell because at home that's not something i think about when i'm cooking. i tend to classify things as either good or bad and i know i'm not always right.

the excellent news on the cooking front is that i'm slowly turning the boyfriend into a vegetarian too! on monday i made a stirfry and threw in some shrimp because traditionally matts need meat for dinner and he said "it's just as good without the shrimp, you can leave them out if you want to save money". it leaves a protein gap i'll need to figure out but probably he gets enough meat in a day that one meatless meal won't be a problem. i've also got him hooked on my pizza margherita, which was pretty damn good if i say so myself, and he requested that recipe for every pizza night because it's so much less greasy. of course it's less greasy, you usually put bacon and pepperoni on your pizza...but i'm not complaining because it is a lighter recipe and it's better for both of us. now i just have to trick him into eating tofu and the transition will be complete.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

169, redux

how do you tell someone that things will change, get easier, if they just hold on a little while longer? i'm actually refering to dieting here but those words are maybe a bit too wilson-phillips suicide hotline. what i'm thinking of is a comment i made recently (hi!) that sort of drove me crazy. the writer is going a little nuts on her diet, hating every minute of the healthy food she's making herself eat and was looking for suggestions. it made me think how important it is to experiment and play with your menu because forever is a very long time.

i can't imagine how awful it sounded to be hating your salads and have someone come along and say by the way you know you have to eat like this forever. put that way it's a red carpet to mcdonalds. i wish i had better words at the time. actually i wish i had better words now because the forever part is still true but i don't want it to sound like a prison sentence. there is no way to explain to someone that dedicating yourself to this lifestyle changes you inside as much as out. with every day that passes i find myself becoming more and more the person i never believed i could be. and worse still i have this burning need to talk about it all the time with poor grammar and too much out of date slang. dude.

i never thought i'd like eating salad and i never thought i'd be able to pass up dessert and not feel cheated. i was one of the masses who was willing to work hard for a little while and get skinny but ultimately go back to the way i lived before, and uhh still be skinny because i worked so hard that one time. heh heh, the old days. the laughter, the tears, the utter stupidity. the cold hard truth is that it doesn't work like that. that's why it's important to like what you're doing and that's what i was trying to get accross with such very little success. you owe it to yourself to find things you like, food, exercise, a hobby for when all you can think about is cake and you really don't want to eat a whole cake. it's not reasonable to hate every day of your life just to have a smaller clothing size. every body deserves more than that.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

rebel without a donut

this morning i couldn't find my favorite belt. i'm still a little sad about it because the one i'm wearing instead does nothing for the outfit and i'm trying to wear my clothes more effectively. the missing belt is perfect, especially for slimming, because it doesn't have holes. it's a cinch buckle (it sounds like it could be the technical term for it) so you just move it where it should be and in a cinch, you're belted. it suits my current mood for using my wardrobe more effectively and i'm going to tear my house apart looking for it when i get home.

i'm going through a belt phase, especially the wide hip hugging belts. i have a few of those i bought on the cheap in various places and i'm slowly trying to build a season one bones look (i can find no pictures of the gorgeous belt/skirt combos from the series, i'm all for hearing about it if you know what i'm talking about). i've had one or two that i love for months that i haven't worn. whenever i put it on i feel like i'm not projecting the emily deschanel image in my mind and i end up changing. but then last week i decided that i need to wear the things i buy and enjoy them, or get rid of them. i wore two belts with two skirts and got belt specific compliments each day. i'm very slowly learning to get over myself and just be what i want to be and wear what i want to wear, the confidence is what shows more than the clothes and it only took me 26 years to figure that out.

i've been going through my wardrobe a lot lately because i'm feeling cluttered. the clothes really don't take up that much space, but the volume is keeping me from wearing my best things because i simply forget about them when they're at the back of the shelf. last week, in addition to belt week, i made a very serious effort to wear my "bare leg" skirts because time is against me weatherwise. i'd love not to fit these sizes next year so i'm trying to get the most out of things, but to do that i have to wear them. that thirty dollar skirt from the gap that i've worn five times, yeah, i need to wear that every day this week to get my moneys' worth.

speaking of money and worth, remember that cooking class? i was so excited about that and it started monday without me. i pre-registered like the good student i am and somehow they lost me. but the story doesn't end there because i called and they immediately let me enter the already full class. and then, friday, as i checked the time and place i noticed the fine print fee of $40 per class. i'm astonished that i missed that the first time around because my life is all about money and fine print, but miss it i did. so i lied, made up an excuse and got myself taken off the list. i just do not have an extra $200 right now. matt was upset that i didn't talk to him about it first, he wanted to make it a birthday gift for me.

the truth is that neither of us has that money hanging around and i especially need to be making good money decisions right now. i'm not feeling great about my money situation at present. in reality things are fine and i'm not headed for debtor's prison, but i'm feeling stressed about it and that's not good for any of my current goals. it's a very real fear that i could be broke and sad and fat again if things get too out of control and it's taken me a few weeks to work through it. i'm not completely off the cliff with it, but i'm feeling better. saying it out loud makes me feel better. i couldn't do that two weeks ago, i was literally too afraid that i would be tempting fate and things would come crashing down. i'm just not sure how much more living in a holding pattern i can take this year.

Monday, September 17, 2007

wow, that picture blows

the thing about the camera phone is that it sortof sucks. it's not a camera and it's barely a phone and i would really hate it if i didn't on purpose spend so much money on it with the premonition that i would regret doing so almost immediately. i just can't give myself the satisfaction, if you know what i mean. but here is my ever-increasing pilates library. can you tell that there are six ana caban dvd's there. what you can't see is the toner ring and balance ball that i also bought. i'm single handedly keeping gaiam in business, or my employer is anyway.

this is not the toning ring set that i have, but hell if i can find it. i pulled it out on saturday to see what it was like. i did my usual weights and stepper workout* too just incase i didn't go the distance with the toner ring. i didn't go the distance with the toner ring, incase you were wondering, but i did love it. it kicked my ass. i estimate i got about 20 minutes into the 40 minute program. i only did half and it still kicked my ass. yesterday my thighs burned as i walked up the mountain and today my arms are still sore. it's awesome.

i've missed the way my muscles feel when i really exercise them. i stopped stepping every day when i started running every day. when i stopped running every day i didn't start anything new unless you count whining. i did the same pilates, the same daily walks, ate the same more or less careful meals and i maintained. and somehow that surprises me. i've been trying to re-establish the mindset that i had when i started out and it's required a hell of a lot of thinking. more than i thought. deeper than i thought. ironic that the deep thinking is deeper than i thought the thinking would be.

i spent this weekend alone because matt is having a fantastically busy period at his job. it was a little lonely but it was a good opportunity to see what choices i make when i'm completely on my own. they were all awesome choices. i make really great choices 95% of the time and i have to accept that it is not enough. i've been living a maintained life with a maintaining mindset and hello, i'm not ready to do that. it's a lot fun and it's comfortable but it's not getting me what i want. it's time to start pushing the envelope again. it doesn't matter what used to work or what works for other people. i have to find the combination of diet and exercise that will make me lose now. the person i am now needs to find a new combination of efforts to meet my goals. it's a lot like starting over, but with higher expectations. i hope they don't hold me back.

*what, weights. i never talk about weights. one of the other things i realized i haven't been doing like i used to is to hit ye olde stepper machine every day. i used to do that every day with co-ordinating hand weights. hehe, and i wonder where my ooomph went.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

cathartic

i don't actually have any idea what this new thing is that i'm going to do. i just know that i need to stop trying to put the round thing in the square hole and going batshit when it doesn't work out. i do, however, have a great desire to toss my scale. part of me is convinced that if i had a new one it would show me a new and improved truth and i could go blithely on. in reality, if i bought a new scale, it might be more accurate but probably it won't give me a magically skinny number. probably it will be a lot higher and make me very sad.

getting a new scale is something i've been considering for a while, getting rid of the scale all together is something i didn't consider until last night. i'm a little nervous about the prospect. on the one hand it would be a really good shake-up and give me a chance to see just how well i maintain in my natural environment. on the other hand i won't have the data that keeps me in certain parameters. i just might need that data to keep going.

you see, before 2006 i didn't have a scale and hadn't set foot on one for years. i went years without knowing the numbers and can track my weight through history only by the clothes i was wearing at the time. when pq did her driver's liscense post it was the first time that i considered what i put on my own liscense in 2004. i guessed at 185 and now that i think about it, i guessed pretty damn high as i was wearing the same sizes i am now at about 15 lbs less. it's ye olde adage that how we feel about our bodies doesn't always reflect reality. but the moral of the story is that when you don't pay attention on such an epic scale it's very easy to wake up one day and weigh 40 pounds more than you thought. whoops! and i really don't want that to happen again.

i wrote most of the above yesterday and then i left it. i really feel nervous about the idea of ditching the scale and i just wasn't ready to put it out there. i think it's been very good for me to put a number on the various stages my body has been through lately. 175 was when my doctor commended me for losing 20 pounds, a very validating moment. 170 is known as the age of compliments, they've been coming in daily the last few weeks and that's good validation too although it sometimes makes me uncomfortable. i'm ready to know what 165 will bring and it's well beyond time to make that happen for real.

the idea behind going scaleless is that it's the one thing i haven't tried. i have never tried to let go and just be healthy and exercise how i want to and not have expectations every morning. that might be a good thing all around, just letting go. and also i feel like introducing my 5 dollar scale to one of matt's big ass sledgehammers would be very cathartic. and calorie burning.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

little things make my day possible

today hello kitty helped me pack my lunch. if i hadn't had my lunch bag and freezer pack i would have scriggled out of my usual yogurt for lunch and ordered thai food. but then i ate a kit kat so i guess i'm at a draw, err, with myself. but i totally had to have that kit kat because apparently i'm supposed to be looking at bridesmaid dresses. did i mention that? the my best friend's getting married and i'm going to be a bridesmaid and i'll be contractually obliged to wear a dress thing? well, she is and i am and i will, be. obliged, that is.

i have known for as long as i've known my best friend that i would be in her wedding. you know the way you know something in it's total finality without it ever being discussed. she will get married and i will be there and i will do everything in my power to make sure it's the day of her dreams. that's it, it's one of those things that you know and accept and never think of again. and then you realize you have to do all of those things in a historically infamous dress and you get a little light headed. me, taffeta, fainting couch. end scene.

she is adamant that we choose the dresses ourselves and have what we want and be comfortable. it's not by chance that my bestest friend is so easy going. what i hadn't considered is how difficult it is going to be to choose a dress, the ramifications of which are so vast and far reaching. so many things to consider, walking, standing, photos and yet more photos, dancing, and of course, weeping. and that's without the very practical "will i be able to enter public in this dress sober" question.

i'm a little worried about that last part. i'm not huge on marriage for myself, not to say i don't appreciate the good job so many people make of it, but i really never ever ever wanted a wedding. the thought of any number of people coming to an occasion where i was more or less the sole attraction makes my skin itch. the great thing about being a bridesmaid is that it's a window dressing job. bridesmaid = curtains, beautiful view = bride. at least this is what i'm trying to convince myself of to make the venture possible in my mind. i have just about a year to come to terms with wearing a fancy dress and getting in better shape for it. even though i've been waiting since the fourth grade, a year seems unbelievably short.

it's funny that i'm using curtains as a metaphor for the dress nerves. very scarlet o'hara. very still picturing my physical appearance akin to parts of a house. it reminds me of something that sort of works into how i'm living my life at the moment. my mother had these curtains for ages and ages that she kept remaking a la gone with the wind. first they were huge drapes which was much before me and i've only seen pictures. later she used parts of the drapes to make these giant padded valances and smaller window curtains when the moved house. then she had it all sewn in to a sofa and used trimmings on new curtains to retain the frighteningly matchy hotel lobby quality of the living room.

why am i writing about my mother's bizarre depression/victorian/hilton window trimming fascination, i really did have a reason. i feel like this is what i'm trying to do with my life and my continuing efforts to reform my body. i'm trying to use the same fabric clipped and re-arranged to form something new and better and it's really not working. it worked well enough to help me change from a person who needed to lose fifty pounds to a person who needs to lose 20 pounds, but it isn't helping me get any closer to goal and/or to feel any more fulfilled. it is genuinely time for something new.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

do these cookies make me look fat?

today i am eating some of the cookies i baked specifically for matt. which reminds me of this. i tried to craft a response that was both honest and didn't make me look like a be-pearled june cleaver fembot but it can't be done. atleast not by me which was sort of the point which is why i need a whole post to sort it out. maybe my brain couldn't get around the irony of saying that yes, i do have to keep cookies for the boyfriend and usually it's not a problem but right now i'm eating three that i stole. heh.

that stole is causing me a problem too. i baked the bastards, i even quasi-invented the recipe (because i lost count on some things and had to do some "fixing"), and still i feel like i stole it from him. not that he'll care. or notice. i know i don't need them so they're stolen, my subconcious is telling me that i'm stealing from my own good health. or something deep like that.

i've lost my point which is, my food issues have nothing to do with him. that was what i really wanted to convey in the comment i never wrote for that post. we have ice cream and some sort of baked treat in the house pretty much every week and it's hardly ever a problem for me. i don't feel like i have to keep it out of my house to protect myself. sure there are foods that i choose not to buy because i will eat all of them and i don't need to. like i could have an apple pie because i could have one piece and leave the rest for matt but he doesn't like pumpkin pie so it would be all me or all trash can. both of those choices stink so generally i don't buy something that i alone like.

in the comments on that post a lot of people were saying adults can get their own cookies, or whatever, they don't need to be cared for. that's all true. but aren't we dieters adults too and responsible for our own decisions. it's more difficult to keep trigger foods out of a house with two adults living in it. if i had extreme issues with the foods i keep around for matt, we'd have to talk about it. there are things i could do, i could bake him his treats and send them all off to work with him on day one. he could buy his own treats and leave them at work. there is just nothing i could do about his nightly ice cream. it's not reasonable that he shouldn't be allowed to have something he likes around for his convenience. we don't live in the sort of place where he could pop out for an ice cream in less than an hour and anyway that would cost a fortune. if i was constantly eating his ice cream it would be a problem i wouldn't be sure how to solve.

obviously that post got me a thinkin'. i don't know if i would be better off diet wise living on my own, or not. living with someone, whether or not they're paying close attention, keeps me accountable. i could spend all evening eating ice cream or meat or whatever and he probably wouldn't notice, but it is still in the back of my mind the same as it always was that i'd rather no one see me do that. in the end it's up to me to do the right things for myself. the only way i will succeed is to change how i do things and react to things because there is only so much i can do about my environment. and i'm ending with another cliche, cat sweatshirt here i come.

Monday, September 10, 2007

back from vacation and longing for the bread baskets...

there is an indefinable something about canadian bread. we bought a few loaves to take home, we're so fond of edible souvenirs. the customs guy thought we were nuts but he let us take it home so that was cool. it seems we ate our way accross new brunswick. but we also walked 5 miles a day so things evened out. i bought tea, which is way better in canada, and brown sugar cubes. i had been looking for the brown sugar cubes in every market on all our trips to quebec, and alas, they've been in st stephen the whole time. if you count the buckwheat we picked up at king's landing it was more like an international grocery shop than a vacation. it's no secret i have a weakness for supermarkets.

the weakness for chocolate was less of a problem. it's sort of a bummer at the moment, but we missed the chocolate museum. now i'll never know the gnawing possibilities. pretty much matt and i did the same thing my mom and i did when we tried to go five years ago. we walked around the retail shop for half an hour thinking "this museum bites" and then as we drove away we saw the entrance. we didn't turn around because we're lazy bastards, but it's only an hour away if i ever get an uneradicable urge. overall we had a very good time walking and eating and visiting a ton of historical sites. they're marked with beavers, how cute is that? who doesn't like a beaver? i wish i took a picture.

i'm regretting not taking pictures of our room too. it was a motel on the edge of st. andrews. fake flowers taped to the wall, doilies, a distinct grandma scent and of course what would a motel be without ant traps? very chez memere. but it was quiet and the shower was awesome and i think we might have gotten it half price. it did have cable tv, which i'm sure my meme doesn't have, and we watched a lot of news. they have, like, facts on the news in canada. and the elected leaders say "nuclear" correctly. y'all are so lucky.

we only spent a few days in canada because we're not just lazy, we're also cheap. the rest of the time i spend with my family, shopping and trying to use up my company perks. i went eye glass (es, i'm not sure) shopping with my sister because it's nice to try frames with someone who will tell you the truth about how you look. matt always says "nice" so he won't get in trouble and now he's banned, not that he minds. anyway, i picked out two frames and could i buy them...no. my precription is out of date. they wouldn't even sell me the empty frames. they're an accessory, not oxycontin. that was in new hampshire. will the lenscrafters of maine care that my precription isn't new, i seriously doubt it. so i had them ship the frames back to maine and the bastards sent them to portland. south portland. the very kind and thorough south portland lenscrafters called me three times while we were in canada using premium cell prices to tell me my frames arrived. bless them. when i called them on our return to free nights and weekends the man said "why did nashua send them to portland when your last purchase was bangor?". i don't know sir, i just don't know. it's only, what, a 4 hour drive from my house, i'll just pop over shall i?

it seems i'm not over that yet and i may still have to hit the optometrist if they stand by the rules. it less crappy news i bought a bunch of fancy pilates stuff with my fitness stipend. i've been meaning to try the balance ball so i got one of those, i got a stretch band set and another toner ring leg thing. it seems i'm either all or nothing on the pilates front and i'm in a definite on stage. i memorized the moves on the new dvd and i did it alternating days while i was off work. and don't i feel smug. i love knowing i'm doing good things for myself and i don't care how cliche that sounds.

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Multimedia message

i'm officially on vacation. expect photos of the chocolate museum. there just might be homework.