On the shocking of the sports store staff

I just hobbled back from Cadillac Mountain Sports. I was surprised the last time that the clerk could hear my clicking. This time it was a boy clerk and he was visually pained by the sound. It was sort of awesome, except OW. He helped me to two kinds of compression brace and neither of them made the clicking stop. There is a larger "oh my god" kind of brace but it's a little pricey. I am cheaping myself out of proper medical care.

I postponed my fancy knee doctor appointment until I could get health insurace or independantly wealthy, whichever came first. That was when I stopped running for fear of my knee cap falling off on the road. Then it was mostly better but it still clickety-clacked going up the stairs but that was all. Then I got a bee in my bonnet about running again and I ran for a few weeks. I am a moron, I see that now. My knee has become hideously clicky. With a new and improved grinding sensation!

The last few weeks I have been stepping for 20 minutes (it never hurt my knee before I took up running on the hills) and then I do 25-30 minutes of Pilates. Every night. I felt like I wasn't doing enough and I had no excuse not to do those things. I have been really happy with the results of kicking my own ass. Even having had the infamous three cupcakes and other infamous things and having a tiny meltdown about some water weight, I'm still showing a loss this week. Precarious as it is. I know I wouldn't be 169.8 on the new scale if I wasn't sweating to the oldies all night. There is part of me that knows that the less weight on my knee the better and then there is part of me that hears and feels the badness in my knee doing Pilates. For anyone who doesn't do Pilates or isn't familiar, it is not knee intensive. You spend most of the time on your back (heh) and I can't think of any reason it should hurt my knee. In short, I'm freaked out. Almost freaked out enough to shell out for the knee doctor.

The take-over is sort of the best thing ever because it means I can insure my ass in January. If I can last that long. I already scrapped all my heels and bought some fancy Earth shoes and I even wear them. I'm going to think about the big giant brace some more and maybe buy it on Pajama Day. If anything is worth shopping at the crack of dawn in jammies it's that.

"I'm on the squad, which is great,'cause I feel like cheering and leading others to cheer."

This morning was a great morning because the new scale dipped under 170. I sometimes think it does that on purpose. Somehow the scaale knew I just wrote this whole thing about weighing a million pounds. And then, what, two days later it's completely where I thought it should be. Hating an inanimate object is such a waste of time. I'm pissed that I let myself get really upset about it when I didn't need to. What's worse is I knew I didn't need to get upset about it, like I knew I didn't need to get on the scale in the first place having spent my morning eating and drinking and making merry. Making merry of a morning is fun and all but not so much when you need to step on a scale to check in with your self worth.

It's starting to get old, the ups and downs of my mood being tied to a digital readout. Ten, size ten. Why, why, why can't I just take that joy and run with it? It's pretty damn awesome. Matt tried to reason with me, and that's the reason he used. He also said, more than a little sheepishly, "doesn't ones' menstrual cycle sometimes add false weight?" That's clearly an Amy-fied version of his words, but, there was something very clinical and please don't yell at me about the way he said it that I wanted to convey. Did it work? There's something about the use of "ones'" that just says "don't whoop my ass because 'ones'' could be ANYBODY".

In other news, completely irrelevant and unrelated news but oddly parallelled in hypocrisy to this post, the old site is back up and running. Have you been yearning to know how much of an ass I was in college, yearn no more. The link is in the sidebar. Proceed with caution, or atleast brace yourself for the bastardization of grammar.

Blogging? from home? you jest!

I just spoke to the most wonderful woman in the whole world, the lady at the new phone company. It's not like Verizon ever did anything to me, nothing particularly evil, but seriously if you just called Verizon would they know your name? I called to change our address. The address we waited so long to get, was in fact, wrong. The town called us a few days after I sent the forms to the phone people to say "Whoops, that number we gave you is totally wrong". The phone lady said "Oh, he gave you the wrong address...of course it was him". And so she changed it and then she said "by the way, I put through your work order yesterday and you should have service when you get home". Excellent. We, read Matt, have to connect the wires and such but if I really wanted to I could do my NaBloPoMo duties from the front yard. In a parka.

In which the blogger experiences vast and satisfying relief

The damn scale is back at 171 and I can totally live with that. No more weighing after breakfast, it's emotionally scarring. As is going to the dentist, which I did yesterday as per why my morning was so messed up. I needed to eat early so I wouldn't be hungry like the wolf but I also needed time to brush my teeth 47 times because that's what you do before going to the dentist...so they won't know you're a slacker. I had this college professor who used to live in Gloucester, Mass. Gloucester is a fishing community, a lot like Bar Harbor. Her husband had a doctor who simply adored him because he wasn't a fisherman and therefor his body wasn't trashed at 35. Usually, note the tone, going to my dentist is the same for me.

Every other time I've been to the dentist here in Maine, as opposed to in New Hampshire, they exclaim over my teeth. "They're so beautiful, you do such a good job" they used to say. I always enjoyed that because in New Hampshire they behaved as though my teeth were just short of falling out on their floor. "You should wear your retainer because if you don't the SUN WILL CRASH INTO THE EARTH AND WE'LL ALL DIE", is the chair-side manner you get at a New Hampshire dentist. I was really looking forward to hearing how gorgeous my teeth were and how they should be in Hollywood or something and I was disappointed, to say the least.

My hygienist spent the whole time "hmm"ing at me. That's just a shade less nerve-wracking than "ooops". So she did her thing to the tune of an orchestra of refridgerators and then called the doctor in. And he "hmmm"ed too. It's the dentist and you have all that stuff in your mouth so you can't exactly call them on the "hmm"ing so I'm waiting for the verdict and the talk about dentures or whatever and they start talking in dental speak. "Number 7 lower has a calcification, not yet fractured, put a watch on that...Number 16 upper has a thing that we can do a thing to before it becomes a thing, make an appointment stat for that one". My "stat" appointment is in January. How "stat" is January? You reckon if it was really bad they'd have told me? Or is it part of the dentist mystyque?

"A vague disclaimer is no one's friend"

Matt didn't work yesterday, he had like a house to build or something, so I did my commuting alone. It's sort of nice to be alone sometimes. I think about all the wild and crazy things I can do on my own...in Ellsworth. They're getting a Super Walmart soon so you know that town is going places. I, being me, chose to go grocery shopping. Jif was on sale and I had a coupon. Two coupons. So I bought four jars. If nothing else Matt will have peanut butter and whole wheat cookies every day for the rest of his life and I'll get the eternal joy of knowing I spent only 1.15 on fancy name brand peanut butter.

I was standing in line while the woman in front of me meticulously double knotted all of her shopping bags (I was totally eyeing her frozen peas too...good thing she tied 'em up tight). There was a young man behind me who, in retrospect, was smiling and trying to catch my eye while I was thinking bad thoughts about knot lady. And then he gestured to the jelly in his cart and said we'd be a good pair.

Peanut butter and jelly...get it? It was sort of sweet really and now I'm thinking I could have been nicer. I was a little too focused on being impatient but then maybe a litany of my sexual history wouldn't have been better than blowing him off. It was one of those things that just make me think "god, I look like such a straight girl...". It always sort of shocks me when boys do things like that. Like, you know, talk to me. Apparently I never noticed when girls hit on me either so it's probably safe to say the problem is all me. I guess I really am that self involved.

What else...life's supply of peanut butter...oh yeah, the damn scale...that's relevant. The old scale said 173. THE OLD ONE. Based on the current conversion of weights and measures that's A MILLION POUNDS on the new scale. I weighed later rather than earlier and after breakfast and a big glass of juice because I needed a fiberless sugar injection at 6 am and also the vitamin C. It's probably a little off for a number of reasons but it's not that off and it has me a little crank to the y. It might be time to only bake things that Matt likes and I don't, like bacon cupcakes and sirloin muffins. If I made all his food look like meat I'd never want to eat it. Or I could use my computer money on a treadmill. That's a decision that's going to seriously suck when I have to make it.

And I didn't forget dear Heather in the comments:

I've been tagged by another blogger. Here are the Rules:

Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog
Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird
Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs
Let them know they are TAGGED by leaving a comment on their blog
1. Link to my tagger.

2. Seven facts about me:

I've never been drunk and no one ever believes me. It might be against the law to live in Maine and not be a lush, I should check.

My oldest sister gave me my name. She wanted Emily to be called Amy, but my dad had his heart set on Emily. They promised her the next daughter would be Amy thinking they would never have another...ha.

I once set my cat on fire, but not in a serial killer way, and seriously she was fine, maybe I shouldn't bring that one up.

I taught my goldfish to eat from my hand. Both of them actually.

I'm secretly glad we're using paperplates to conserve water. I feel bad about the waste but I REALLY hate doing the dishes.

Circle of Friends is my favorite book. I read the paperback into bits in highschool. Later on someone bought me the hardcopy as a present but I wish I still had the paperback.

Matt thinks our tiny kitchen table came from a motel. I have no idea why he thinks that, I got it from my sister. His story is better though, I like to think of all the stuff it would have seen if it really did live in a motel.

And this is where I do that meme killing thing that I always do. I don't do forwards, I don't do chain letters and I don't care if I don't get rich in the next ten minutes because I didn't hit send. I'm a killjoy, make that thing number 8. It's damn hard thinking of 7 things you, as a blogger and professional narcissist, haven't already told the world. It's a mission to all those who choose to accept it.

Ignore the grilled cheese

Check out that salad! The Whale isn't all bud light and golden fried.

"Ain't no use running fool, I know where your mama parks your house."

Lauren, a true Mainer, was going to suggest a generator. Matt, a true whatever he is, is building a windmill. Maybe Dutch, he could be truly Dutch. He's always wanted a windmill. Every windstorm that passes makes him a little more determined. He's been channelling his inner Tesla for awhile now. Originally he wanted to rig the generator to be bio-diesel and back feed so the Hydro would have to pay us to burn vegetable oil, but now he's into the windmill thing...mostly because it will piss off the town. He's got this need to build everything he ever wanted before the state makes it all illegal, like our boiler. They want to make it illegal to burn recycled oil for heat because...uhm it's better for the earth...it makes us independent of the oil company...oh yeah, it doesn't make the state any money. Lucky we're grandfathered. Not that I'm bitter.

What I am bitter about is that I ate three cupcakes yesterday. Three. And since I can't blame the state for that, I'm blaming daylight savings time. How am I supposed to know what it's feeding time at the zoo when they change the damn clocks. It couldn't possibly be my fault. I'm a cupcake victim here. A frosting martyr.

I used to be so good at the intuitive thing. Hungry? eat something appropriate. I think the minute I tell myself I can wait, I don't need to eat right now is the minute my plan goes to hell. I've been bouncing between "eat at regular intervals as told by clock" and "eat as needed" and you really can't operate both systems at once with success. I don't think the clock way is ever successful and yet I am always using it as a guide. Is the clock omniscient? Does it think I need more iron?

I thought I was doing really well. My thing as of late is to stuff myself with vegetables and fruit whenever I'm hungry. The cupcake three came out of left field on a sort of wacky day and I'm dissapointed at how dissapointed I am. They're just cupcakes, sure you didn't need three but...but that's the attitude that keeps me where I don't want to be. No one needs three cupcakes in a day, not ever. Next time if I'm still hungry after my lunch, I'm taking my three bucks to Subway and getting a sandwich. Atleast there'd be vegetables in it, even iceburg lettuce has a better reputation than three cupcakes.

"Careful, you don't want to train them to eat flesh"

My boyfriend is broken. One of the many manly things he did yesterday caused a very bad thing to happen to his back. Which is bad for him, but good for me. How? How could I be glad that he's broken? because he wants to take up Pilates. He says "I want to strengthen the muscles in my lower back, Pilates does that right?". Another convert, I'm so pleased. I'll have to get him a tall person mat...when he can walk again.

Everyone is griping about daylight savings time. It was strangely light when we drove to work today and Matt is all kinds of pissed that it will be dark while we're driving home. He won't be able to do any of his body breaking things, the horror. I hate the dark too but pretty much this is Maine, it's dark and it's cold and soon it will be even darker and colder. I'm pretty much grumpy about the disruption of my snack schedule. My stomach says it's snack o'clock and my brain says it's almost lunch time so just wait you won't die o'clock. Damn you daylight savings.

I missed out on the novelty of having a whole extra hour of sunday because the power was out. I still had that hour, but there was no music to listen to or movies to watch, or, you know, heat in which to enjoy it. I was just deciding how I could cook 2 tuna steaks, some salmon, cod, an entire chicken and some beef tips before the entire freezer got it's rot on, when the power came back on around dinner. If it was January I'd just take it all outside but damn, it's not that cold and I was just thinking there's no way I could cook the Noah's Ark of freezer contents in one night let alone get it eaten. And then Matt says "Oh, if you were worried about it we could put the generator on". Forget the expensive ass Trader Joe's meat products, I could have lost my Haagen Dasz Coconut Sorbet! I haven't tried it yet but I know it's delicious. There are somethings you just know, with your soul, ya' know? And with 100 less calories per serving than their ice cream. I should be glad that the worst wasn't realized and I didn't spend my evening eating sorbet surrounded by rotting meat in the dark. The sorbet part doesn't sound so bad though.

Multimedia message

ye ancient fruit pyramid

Multimedia message

Ready for her close-up.

Speaking of addiction

Skinny Matt asked for cupcakes! How could I refuse?

Twinkie Math

Have you ever noticed that in every shopping center with a Weight Watchers store front there's also a bakery? When I was growing up we didn't have a bakery exactly, we had a Hostess factory outlet next to a Jenny Craig. The Hostess outlet was next to the corner store and was a three minute walk from my house. So was the Jenny Craig, not that that ever made a difference to anyone in my family. My brother Matthew had a serious Hostess addiction when we were growing up. Even though the outlet is gone now junkfood is still the one thing he gets for Christmas from my dad, a box of something dipped in wax chocolate and wrapped in plastic. My dad would say it's the only thing Matthew really likes and he's not exactly wrong.

Back in the day when Matthew announced a Twinkie run someone else would cough up for a Snowball or something. This is where I go off on a tangent but does anyone remember Steve Martin's scene in Father of the Bride where he's tearing open bags of hot dog rolls to remove the superfluous buns? Placing a Twinkie order with Matthew was a little like that. If you asked for a Twinkie and you gave him a dollar, he'd open the pack of two Twinkies and give you one. The other was for shipping, I guess. In order to get your dollar's worth of Twinkie you had to play his game, we called it Matthew math. If you wanted a package of Twinkies, you had to ask for two. When Hostess had some anniversary in the early nineties every pack had three snacks, that really complicated the system....one equals two except for when one equals three. I sometimes forget how much junk we ate when my mom was at work.

The Matthew math thing keeps popping into my head randomly due to my scale. I thought I would want to kill the old scale when I got the new one and now I'm using both of them and it's really not healthy. If scale a is this and scale b is that...how much does the self-loathing weigh? There's this thing in the back of my head that if I never got the new scale I would think I weighed 165 right now. That wouldn't be so bad. That would be damn awesome. And exactly now in real time a customer just told me I'm wasting away to nothing and all I could say was "not really". Not really, I could make a graph and a power point presentation and a musical with a cast of hundreds for all the data I have to the contrary of not really. "Not really", that was just lame.

And yet still

That last post was mostly written yesterday afternoon. I finished it up this morning and I totally lost some of my grump in the process. Yay! I sometimes need to remember that I can't control other people and I can't control what other people think of me and wow it really doesn't matter anyway because except for my inability to lay off the Halloween candy I'm really very happy right now. Long ass sentence. I haven't had any candy at all today and it has nothing to do with the fact that there isn't anything good left. I genuinely don't want it today. Score!

I got some good computer news this morning. Mr. Nick has shared with me that the upgrade to the MacBook has come out so now I really do feel free to click buy on my next jaunt home. I might buy a baby Ipod too while I'm at it. Because I can. I'm going wild and crazy with my dispensable income, off the reservation with a tax free shopping high. I could get a Chihuahua and be Paris Hilton by next tuesday.

Not hard enough

So I said before that I get a lot of email about money, more than I get about weight. Which I guess makes sense considering how things turned out. It would seem to the casual observer that I'm better at one than the other. I think the thing is that I'm a tight ass about money and not about snacks. I'm realizing that I give myself no slack when it comes to going over-budget but when it comes to over-eating and under-excercising I rationalize like it's my job.

So, emails about money. I feel like I'm talking a lot about email lately. Which is ironic because the emails say all I talk about is shopping. I'd like to talk about shopping more actually. I'd like to say that I went to Gap.com and bought a bunch of warm wool pants but I can't say that. I did go and I wanted to buy, oh yes, but my choices were: full price and cuffed (difficult to hem), sale price and pleated (blech) or sale price and available only in size 8 ankle. Please, if I'm going to use my vaulable hoard of coupons and giftcards I'm not wasting it on pleated pants. See that there, where I mention the coupons? I don't like to pay full price for anything, toothpaste, cd's, food, and definitely not clothes.

I try to keep myself in check on the talking about coupons thing. I'm not jaded enough to think that my getting 10 Taco Bell Seasoning packets and two boxes of taco shells for fifty cents is as exciting for anyone else as it is for me, but that was a seriously awesome day for me and my tiny, tiny life. I suppose if you read only bits and pieces of the site you might think that I spend all my time shopping, just don't ever accuse me of spending all my money. I have a budget for clothes like anything else. When I underspend it gets added to the next month and ditto the other way around. It's called managing your money.

I wish someone had told me what to do when I was drowning in my debt. I was too ashamed of the mistakes I made to ask for help when I needed it. I was very lucky that I was able to fix it on my own. Unbelievably lucky. The kind of lucky that makes me want to send CapitalOne flowers and my first born. You'd feel like that too if they offered you 1.99% for life when you thought you might have to declare bankruptcy*. It wasn't all luck though, I made some smart decisions on my own.

This October marked the fourth year that I have lived on my own in Maine. That's 48 months exactly. I have not had cable or any kind of tv service in all that time. If tv service costs a conservative $30 a month, I'd still owe $1440. If I had a home phone line that whole time at roughly the same cost I would still be in debt by $2880. Internet service via crappy Juno is $10 a month, add another $480 for a total debt of $3360. Netflix was the one expense I kept even when in my heart I knew I didn't need it to live. I recently upped it, but for most of that time I had the tradional menage a trois plan at $18 a month. If I hadn't kept Netflix, I'd have been free and clear two months early with a bonus of almost $900.

It's not that much fun living without all that stuff, which is why I'm setting up phone service at the new house, but none of those things are necessary to live. If I had looked ahead four years I would have cancelled Netflix for two more months of financial freedom. Why am I putting all this out there again? I guess I still have my bitch on from earlier this week. Don't tell me you admire me and ask for my help and then criticize me for wanting to buy clothes to keep warm. I've made sacrifices, maybe not as many as I should have, but I'm free after my next paycheck and it has nothing to do with the budget I set for clothing. If you'd rather have your cable tv than a savings account, rock on. If you think the internet is more important than paying down your credit cards, fine. I just don't want to hear about it anymore. You can't fix anything if you're not willing to work hard enough.



*Little did I realize that I couldn't have afforded to declare bankruptcy. Can you hire a lawyer with plastic?

"Sure.We can work out after school. You know... If you're not too busy having sex with my mother."

It seems to have taken forever but I've finally gotten down to 170 on the new scale. This new scale business has really thrown off my reality, not that it matters I suppose. I'm still fatter than I want to be so why worry about the actual number. It's sort of blowing my mind lately how little I know my body. I'm the same size I was in college but all my rings are too big and so are my shoes. Of all the places I want to lose weight, fingers and toes aren't on the top of my list but what can you do.

In the great closet clean-out of yesterday I found some pants I wore in highschool. They're Limited size twelves from ten years ago. They fit me through most of college if you count fitting as zippering and buttoning 80% of the time. I tried them on last night and lo they fit exactly the same as when I bought them, badly. First and foremost they're too long for me. I'm just not tall enough, or long-legged enough to wear pants that aren't short. Why I didn't have that clarity in highschool I don't know, it's not like I got shorter since. Second, the waist is distinctly too small for the size. I know, I know, that's what all fat people say but really the cut is just all wrong. Unless it's supposed to be pouffy around the rear and thighs and fit at the unnaturally high waist, it's a bad cut. I've been carting these damn pants around for ten years for no reason.

The really bad part is that they were one of my grail items. They were the pants that I loved that I really wanted to fit into again. Why did I love them in the first place? They were expensive, atleast for a highschooler, they're a relatively swank brand but not that special, not anymore anyway. I think what I liked the best about them was that they were small, wearing them must have made me feel good. I've been carrying them around like they're gold, ten year old corduruoys that are too long, too tight, too pouffy and genuinely out of style this many years later just because they were the smallest pants I ever fit into. What a waste of energy.

On being the bank's bitch

I read a lot of websites about money, and debt and just general finance. I spend more time researching personal finance now than when I was my most indebted, ironic. Anyway, I guess I wandered into the right job because finance really does fascinate me. Reading about banks, what people think of banks and what their experiences are is fascinating. Fascinating and frustrating and sometimes downright infuriating.

I might have a chip on my shoulder about this because I work in a bank and I hear a lot about fees and how unfair the bank is and all that jazz. Last week my boss wandered into an article titled: "Banks to customers: Drop Dead". Now that's just silly. If our customers were dead who'd pay our salaries? The first line is my favorite though: Who's coming to the rescue? The rescue? Sure, it sucks that you signed a variable rate mortgage for a house you couldn't afford but it's not the bank's fault. The bank didn't make you buy a house you couldn't afford, you made that choice for yourself.

Banking is one of America's most regulated industries but what does that mean to a customer? It means that the bank has to give you fine print details on any potential way they can screw you. If I don't hand out the right papers when I open an account for someone it means the bank is in violation of the law and then I get fired. I can agree with people who complain about service and ineptitude at their bank, mediocrity is everywhere but you're the customer. There is no shortage of banks and no reason not to shop around, you don't have to do business anywhere that doesn't meet your standards and needs. I'm worn out over hearing people complain about things they can control and choose not to, atleast financially.

Why am I on this today all of a sudden, because I read this amazing article, blurb, whatever about the housing "crisis" this morning. Can you call whiplash consumerism a crisis? Losing your house to a fire is a crisis. A flood is a crisis, a never ending war with an increasing death toll...that's a crisis. Wanting more than you have and leveraging your future to get it is dangerous and foolish, but it's not a crisis.

There are some other great money articles on that site, one about going homeless to pay off debt. That may be extreme for most, but it worked and I admire the dedication. I've gotten to the point where when I hear that someone is in debt over their heads but they still have the Tivo and the internet and a shiny new car and eat out all week...I just have no sympathy anymore. If that's the life you want and you're willing to pay for it from beyond the grave, go for it. Just don't blame the bank, it's not the banks fault, no more than it's McDonald's fault that people who eat there three meals a day get fat. Forget flouride, they should put personal responsibility in the water.

Does it get cold in California?

That would be snow, on my car, this morning. I'm not best pleased. It's only October and I need to grow some because 30 degrees is nothing. It's balmy. January and the survival panic inducing cold that comes with it is going to kick my ass if I don't get over it. It occurs to me that it might help if I bought warm clothes, you know, like wool. All of my skinny pants that fit best right now were bought in the spring and summer and are decidedly not made of wool. As much as I don't want to buy more clothes in this size it's not reasonable to wear cotton all year. Not here anyway. It's time to get some new winter duds.

The questions is what to do with the old ones? I've got limited space and a desire to not be a twelve come spring, so I'm going to donate my current warm weather stuff. Normally, I'd take it down to the SPCA box and do a dump and run. We have a little disagreement over whether bags are yardsale items or not, I say not, so I'm always in fear they'll yell at me for donating. The horror! Instead of running from my charity this time, I think I'll pack some things up for this organization pointed out on Fat Chic.

They're collecting clothing for victims of the fires in California. They're also collecting bags and belts and all the other things you might need to, you know, live a normal life. Oh, and money too if that's your thing. They're particularly in need of plus size clothes. We all know it's hard enough to find plus sized clothes when you aren't in an emergency. If you've got clothes in good condition and you don't need 'em, send them along. You'll do more than just make someone's day.

Halloween Candy Bitch-fest 2007

If Trader Joe's made a better can of black bean soup, I wouldn't have had a lunch of mini Snickers. It is totally their fault. The vegetarian chili is good, why not the black bean soup? I'm at the end of the line with convenience style black bean soup. The canned version stinks, the dry add hot water version really stinks. It looks like I'm going to have to actually cook it myself, which I'm sure is a violation of my bean soup civil rights. I'm certain of it. I'm so calling my lawyer.

This morning was rough, but this afternoon rocks. The best thing about having a long complicated morning is that the afternoon flies by comparison. I've had time to take a look back at Halloween last year and think about this eating candy all the time malarky. Last year I wanted to be the person who doesn't buy a bunch of cheap candy just because it's cheap. I wanted that crap off my radar. Reading that puts into very sharp focus how much I haven't achieved lately. Instead of thinking "cheap over-marketed processed crap" whenever I see a pile of Halloween candy I've been thinking "yum". That is not ok. I guess I've been glossing over how I feel about these little things because I don't feel good about them and I don't want to think about it. Way to lead a healthy life.

It's not the specific foods that are a problem for me. Anything in moderation is ok, even Halloween candy. Things haven't been in moderation and I haven't been really thinking my decisions through. The last two weeks I've been making an effort to buy the right food and enough of it so that I don't get home and have to think about what's for dinner. This weekend we went to Freeport to pick up a dresser, I didn't do any outlet shopping because I didn't need to. I didn't need to and I really want to get out of debt and order my new computer more than I want to shop sales at Banana Republic. So why did we stop at Chili's for lunch when we could've gone home and had lunch at a perfectly reasonable hour? No one would've starved to death. It wasn't a particularly special place, or special meal. It was just lazy and there is no way that I can exercise enough to make up for lazy food decisions and still lose weight. I can't do both and it's getting old. I used to be so good at thinking "do I really want this" before sitting around to watch tv or eating a piece of bad candy. Time to flex the most important weight loss muscle, the brain.

"His blood sugar must be low. Carl, eat an orange!!!"

Something is up with me today because the only thing I can get excited about is hatchet murder. And it's very cold. And starting next week the sun will rise while I'm driving to work, and set while I'm driving home and why wait to be pissed off about that when I have all this free time today? I guess I'm a little grumpy today, I'm drinking some instant breakfast right now so if I'm writing puppies and sunshine by the end of this post we'll all know why. But what, it's only monday and a lot of things have gone wrong. In bullet form:

*It's not my fault you overdrew by 5000 dollars and got charged a load of fees. The bank sent you a letter on thursday that you overdrew. You got the letter friday. How can I get the letters out sooner, I dunno, I'm not psychic. Next time overdraw on wednesday, you'll get your letter sooner.

*"We can't change the date on this form, we have to go by this date and it's the wrong date, can you edit the date and make it the right date, I know I just said you can't but can you because then it would be fixed, you know, the dates have to be right."

*In a letter from Capital One: Dear Customer, you asked for more money and we won't give it to, sorry. Only I didn't ask for more money and when I called to see who was making requests on my behalf and how screwed up my account was you said it was a glitch. It's very bad for your credit score to be denied credit, especially if you didn't ask for it in the first place. This is where the hatchet murder comes in.

*Did I mention it's cold, I've been shaking all morning and the heat is at 11.

*Today was supposed to be a no candy day. It only took about twenty minutes of this, dare I say, crap to tempt me into one shiny wrapper and then another. Bite sized frozen Twix suck, and are no proper replacement for therapy or drunkenness.

"Haven't you figured it all out yet, with your enormous squishy frontal lobes?"

I should know better than to go grocery shopping without my list. I should really turn around and leave the second I realize I don't have it because no matter how hard I try, I will not remember what was on it. I will get home with no chicken and no onions but with Pepperidge Farm cookies because they were on sale. They're damn good cookies, but they just don't work as well in stir-fry as you'd think. So now I have to face the grocery gauntlet again in order to cook dinner. Aargh! I'm extra bummed about it because I made up my meal plan in advance and everything. I've been slacking on that lately and it's never good. That's how you end up at Pizza Hut crying into your pitcher of soda.

It's been a really long day. A long week. I'm so glad it's over. I'm looking forward to the weekend so I can go for a run, or atleast a walk. It's officially too dark to run before work and after work. Only three more dark ass months to go! It really does creep up on you, the shortening of the days. I don't mind so much when it's warm out, but when it's cold and dark it's just depressing. Matt has this lamp that's supposed to generate happy sunshine in your living room. We always have it on, it's great for facials if nothing else. Not that staring at the dirt in your pores is that great for the morale. I think it's time for a make your own fun weekend. Maybe I'll hide the magnifying mirror and the scale and put it all aside until Monday. And I'll do Pilates while I watch Pride and Prejudice. I spent my evening re-arranging my living room so I can watch the computer and the tv at the same time. I'm sure it defeats the point of Pilates to do it while watching Colin Firth's dive into the pond strip show but it's better than sitting still and breathing heavy.

Not so deceptively delicious

Matt's mom and I have long conversations about the care and feeding of a Matt in his native habitat. She's put a lot of effort into making sure he didn't literally starve to death when he was younger and very, very sick with Chron's. He's not as sick now, thankfully, but feeding him is still tricky. Mostly it's tricky because both his mom and I make a habit of sneaking things into his food. I almost never tell him what he's eating. It's just easier. "Oh, you don't like cheese? Have some Tiramisu. You'll like it!" and ofcourse he does. I did eventually tell him that the main ingredient is Mascarpone and maybe he should stop saying he doesn't like cheese when he eats it everytime I serve it, but it's more fun to fool him.

This week I finished up an experiment in whole wheat baking. I've been slowly incorporating whole wheat flour into some of his favorite cookie recipes. I finished up with completely whole wheat peanut butter cookies. Most of the recipes need more work but not the peanut butter, peanut butter is perfect as a whole wheat cookie. The only downside is that I got caught. He noticed the difference this time. He asked what I did differently...because he liked them better than usual.

I really shouldn't have been worried because I'm the one with the hang-up about whole wheat, not him. I really hate whole wheat bread. I know it's supposed to be better for me and all that, but instead of switching I just stopped eating white bread. I never bothered to do the research or compare labels. Earlier this summer I picked up some King Arthur Whole Wheat and White Whole Wheat flours to experiment with for baking for sale purposes. I never really got around to that for, uhm, a few reasons but I still had all this flour and there was no sense in letting it go to waste. I started out using it just to get rid of it, and then I found this table.

I couldn't believe it, it's almost 10 more grams of fiber in the whole wheat per cup. That means that two whole wheat peanut butter cookies have a gram of fiber while the white would have .2 grams. It makes me feel that much better about feeding him cookies every day, and better about stealing one or two for myself. So, I'm a convert. I still hate the bread and I'm not sure how the switch would work for a cake, but it's great with cookies. I can't believe it's been almost two years of trying to live a healthier life and I just got around to whole wheat cookies. Next epiphany: Jazzercise!

Well duh...

This is an article about, well, a lot of things. Education, youth, government, and randomly junkfood. I'm in accord with most of it, I'm sure we'll be living a real life Idiocracy soon if not already. I'm not sure what point they're trying to prove with the word junkfood here and there. Kids don't get enough exercise, no one does. There's too much tv watching and too much standardized testing. The junkfood though: do we eat it because we're stupid, or stupid because we eat it. I'm not sure what they're trying to say there.

Mrrow

Chairman Meow is a big cat. She's a Maine Coon, a breed reknowned for their largess. They're meant to be big, it's their job, and the Chairman is no slouch. My friends in Maryland both have cats, tiny little delicate creatures with sleek coats. Those three cats take up the space of my one cat, less when her fur is ruffled. They're always asking after my "big fat cat" and I always say "she's not fat, she's big furred". I used to think that I had a large frame and I'd never be smaller than a twelve, no matter how skinny I was. The dread big bones excuse.

It turns out I have itty bitty bones, they're just covered in fat. And muscle, I know there's a lot of muscle too, but mostly the fat. Remember that time I said I'd never be a size 8? I really believed it then, that my bones were huge and unwieldy and not fit for such a small size. I need to spend less time thinking because I'm not that far from becoming a size 8. There are no Mammoth genes hidden in my DNA. Just about 20 pounds of fat to burn off. I almost wish I could keep deluding myself that my bones are huge and my body is meant to be big and it's ok to eat all the time because I have to keep up my strength.

I can't believe it's only thursday and my big "eat the fruit!" challenge is almost over. I'm not sure how well it's going. Does eating three bananas and a pomegranate on friday night count as success? It's been sort of a weird week weight wise and I'm not sure how to categorize it. I wanted to have glowing success by tomorrow but I've had some bumps in my road. On monday my bestfriend's sister was here to visit for a possible move, so we had lunch out. I had to take her somewhere good, it would be excellent if they moved here. But that's nothing to last night's dinner at Pizza Hut.

Yes, Pizza Hut, I'm deeply shamed. We each had sort of a horrible day yesterday. I spilled the milk for my healthy Carnation Instant Lunch all over my new suede bag. I was out my lunch, all my stuff, and my new $8 dollar bag. Can you get milk stains out of suede? it seems not. You really can't get it out of mail or checkbooks either, Matt's bills got trashed...but I'm totally reusing the stamps, those bastards are expensive. And then home to no salmon defrosted for dinner. We didn't need pizza, particularly Pizza Hut pizza, but it felt right at the time. We had fun...and breadsticks, it was awesome. Sometimes it's nice to just let go, it's not a setback...it's just a pizza.

Good enough

I had something way less random in mind for a post and then all of a sudden it was time to go home. Somedays just fly, even when there is nothing interesting about them. Just time passing quickly while I stuff myself with mini Halloween chocolates. I'm supposed to have a healthy salmon filet for dinner. Odds on I make macaroni and cheese instead. It's definitely a mac and cheese kind of day.

New and improved

Just as an FYI, I've changed the contact email on the sidebar. It has come to my attention that Juno bites. I've had that email address forever. Forever like since my parents upgraded our Apple2E to a Dell and I found out there was more to computers than green and black pixels the size of dogs. I set it up when I was 14 or so and defined myself by being an Ani Difranco fan. I was the coolest with my fan addled email addy. It's been good to me, lo these years...mostly. I never got spam. Increase your penis size? not me. Letters from billionaires trapped in Nigeria? pas moi. Little did I know it's been systematically deleting my email. All this time, whenever I couldn't find an email, I just assumed I deleted it. Whoops, I'm a scatterbrain! Is scatterbrained the right word for losing ten years of email? No, I need something with more syllables to really grasp the stupidity there.

Not that I need every email I've written since I was 14. "Ani is cool, so is DMB" "Yeah!" no, I really don't need those emails. But there were somethings that were important and are now gone. I was supposed to mail Jennette some clothes two sizes ago. Only my sister took a long time deciding what she wanted and not only did J-dog slim out of that size during the hemming and hawing, I lost the email I needed to close the deal. It seems that even without the spam, Juno can't handle my e-load. Never could, only I'm just now realizing it. So I've moved everything over to Gmail. The grass is greener and full of storage space.

I've made another change too, as both of the old blog readers will have noticed.

Dear Readers in Dublin and Lynn, Massachusetts: Thanks for sticking around the old digs. I didn't want to delete it and I didn't want to keep it, so I've made it authors only. Sorry. It's at once too embarrassing and too dead to revive, so Athena is now the only game in, err, my town. Welcome!

"I shot J.R."

I spent approximately one million dollars at the grocery store last night. Or maybe only $55. Being over-budget grates on my nerves, even if it's only 5 dollars. I bought a lot of great stuff though, the fresh and expensive kind of food that health conscious people buy. I picked up a pomegranate and a minneola, grapes and bananas, organic fat free milk and these painfully overpriced snap pea snack packs. 'Course just getting to say "snap pea snack pack" makes it worth the money.

You know how the "experts" or whoever say you should only shop the outside of the store because that is where all the fresh food is, they're completely right. The best stuff is on the outskirts of the store, but it's a serious budget breaker. It's going to be my challenge to get it all eaten while it's fresh, so this week I'll have no choice but to fill up on fresh food. It's amazing to me how I can make such a luxury into a hardship. Poor me, have to eat these grapes and that organic yogurt, so tragic.

Budgeting has been on my mind, like a vice grip, more than usual because I really want that new computer. Using my Discover card for everything is great and I really like earning the cashback, but it's hard to be on a budget and use plastic. Every budgeter knows you use cash because it gives you a better sense of the money actually being spent. This month I started using a register for my card, like the register for a checkbook. That is an eye-opening experience. Adding it all up yourself allows for no disillusion at all. Those three sets of Flight of the Conchords I bought for Christmas presents, oh yeah, no forgetting about that until the bill comes in the mail.

I get a lot of email about money questions, well, debt questions. It doesn't always occur to me how much I write about that stuff here. I can't deny it's a huge part of my life. I wonder what it will be like in a month or so when that's all over and all of my energy is spent on my other project...you know...those last twenty pounds. Maybe I'll have a calorie checkbook...banana credit 172...30 minutes of pilates debit 200. And then maybe I'll have an intervention.

Inches away...

I almost bought a new Macbook this weekend. Maybe not even inches, maybe it was centimeters. I was a click away from free shipping and Apple goodness at my fingertips. I pulled away at the last second, it would not be a responsible decision to buy a new computer right now. Next time though, the next time I'm home in tax free NH I'm buying one. So I'd better get my saving on between now and then. I was a very responsible shopper this weekend, I only splurged on a pair of clearance jeans at the Gap in a size 10A. A for Ankle, or Amy is short. But damn, a 10. I can honestly say that I never thought that would happen. Ever.

It's a little anti-climactic because while they fit better than my 12's, they don't look that great. No, that's not true. The jeans look great, it's the flesh that is not contained by the jeans that looks awful. I need a full-body jean, a jean jumpsuit. Or a girdle. Or more sit-ups. A lot more sit-ups. It occurs to me that I'm not going to be really happy with my body for a long time. I get to a point and I feel better than I ever have and then I move down a size and I feel like crap again. I am always reading my archives to keep some perspective, to remember what I could be going through. Last year, tomorrow, I was buying new jeans in a size 14 and worrying about taking my diet control too far. This year I don't think I'm being careful enough about the food I'm eating (see fastfood entry below) and I'm hating on my size 10 body. Maybe next October I'll have some balance to reflect on.

Multimedia message

this is what you get at mcdonalds when you ask for no meat: a meat salad.

Kinky

I'm not going away after all so I'll be trying out my ice cream maker tonight. I'm assuming it's going to be like trying out crack, or Netflix, and I won't be able to stop once I start. I'm very bummed that I won't be seeing my nearest and dearest this weekend but I am glad to have a day off for no good reason. The last two weeks have been full of bizarre happenings, and stress, and too much cold medicine.

The post I erased, if you saw it, was full of the bizarre. Matt and company are completely serious about the do-it-yourself demolition of some boulders in his brother's yard. I, being that I'll be visiting Nashua instead of Maryland, am completely serious about looking for a bridesmaid's dress for Holly's wedding. Her sister found something perfect in the right color on a clearance rack so I'm going to start looking for my own bargain. She asks only that it be Peridot, and long, the rest is up to me. The wedding's not till October of next year but if I can find a forty dollar dress like her sister did I'm buying it. If it doesn't work I'll just sell it on E-bay, or make it part of her wedding quilt, the options are endless.

I've been trying really hard not to think about all the weight I want to lose before she gets married. It's a guaranteed 10 pound gain to plan like that, so I'm forcing myself to roll with it. She says with gritted teeth. I have plenty of time to keep exercising and eat lots of veggies and take care of myself. Mantra, mantra, mantra. I've never had to fit in to a dress for anything before, geex it's not ever my wedding and I'm thinking like that. If I buy large they can take it in till the cows come home...can't they? It's a shame you can't stuff silk and taffeta in a dryer.

There's a feeling in my gut that I'll be shopping and eating all weekend with my family. There's also a feeling that I'll be dragging my sister Mac shopping to take her educator discount for a test drive. That would be bad for my getting out of debt plan, but good for my soul. All of a sudden I'm completely out of the patience I thought I had honed getting out of debt in the first place. I got the forms for setting up a phoneline today and I just can't wait to have internet at home. You know you're desperate when dial-up turns you on. Cross your fingers we get hooked up next week.

And last but not least, there were some kinks in what I thought was a very easy upgrade. I'm working on it it but if I've screwed up your link, let me know.

A life in three words

I can't decide if I want to be happier about finally shifting the scale to 173.6 or making my second to last debt payment. I should probably not put this in writing, as surely a tree will fall on my car when I do, but it's sort of weird to me that I'm going to be out of debt before I'm at a reasonable goal weight. At the start both, uhm, problems were equally severe but I sort of thought I'd fix the weight thing first. I guess two years ago I wanted to be thin more than I wanted to be solvent. Or maybe I just thought it would be easier to lose 50 pounds than pay off thousands of dollars in debt. I imagined I'd always be pushing a rock up a hill on that one.

Have I ever mentioned exactly how much debt I had? No. I'd much rather tell strangers about my flesh rolls than leave that number to posterity. I suppose your weight is a more difficult secret to keep. When you're broke it's easy to pretend you're not, no one knows but you and your creditors. It comes to the same of ignoring a problem and having it snowball and then getting lost in an avalanche. Looking back, I don't know how I survived. I just don't know how I got through the days.

I've been doing a lot of taking stock lately, trying to appreciate what I have. All of my frustrations seem to be coming to a head at a very bad time. I suppose that's a little redundant because there is no good time for your frustrations to come to a head. "Frustrations" are by definition "frustrating". Otherwise they would be called "good times" and there would be ponies and mixed drinks and balloon animals. I like to think I've learned that you have to go through hard times to have good times but the concept is an easier sell when everything goes right.

This morning there was this thing on the radio about summing up your life in three words. We never listen to the radio. We usually listen to books on the morning commute but we just finished Harry Potter number four (Matt is very concerned about the return of this Voldemort character!) and there wasn't enough time to start something new. One of the radio examples was "running is prozac", which really resonated with me and how I'm feeling lately. I keep telling myself I'm not supposed to be running and yet I can't seem to stop. I've gone out every day since Sunday. There is some part of me that wants to be outside and running and it's screaming louder than my injury. I think I was supposed to hear the radio this morning and get some validation on my needs.

My three words: Meant to be.

What are yours?

"That's disturbing. You're emotionally scarred and will end up badly."

It's been taking me forever to write posts lately. I've become the perfectionist editor that I hate. You'd think that if I know it makes me nervous to check my statcounter I wouldn't do it. But I do, just like the damn scale (174.2, again.), and then I feel a little smothered when I try to post. I didn't want to write that. I still want to delete it. It's the truth and that's what this place is supposed to be. The place where I come and tell the truth of my life, whether I like it or not. I felt a similar need to edit and re-edit after the Wall Street Journal blurb. I hate editing because I hate re-reading things I've written, there is always room for improvement. If I dwell too long on perfection nothing would ever get posted. The more time you spend editing the truth the less there is and then what's the point?

I'm used to this being a dance like no one is watching kind of place. There are a lot of eyes lately. Fancy decision making eyes. Many of which belong to Blogher and their ads department. Noticed that did you? The ads? Matt and I talked a lot about that. Talking about blog business with him is fascinating because it's not his world at all. Explaining the intricacies and talking them through with him makes him a really good sounding board. He asks questions I would never consider, he has a very different perspective on it. He thought it was a good idea to go forward with the ads, and so did I. I thought it was going to take a lot longer and it didn't, I'm still getting used to it. They're snappy at BlogherAds! Women on a mission. Since I'm a woman on a mission too it seemed a good idea to join up.

I just have to work through the feeling of being watched. That is sort of the point of a blog, the audience. If we didn't want an audience we'd all have the diaries with the little padlocks littering our bedrooms. There is a certain thing about being a weightloss blogger and then putting yourself out in the world. The thing that everyone you meet, talk to, email with knows the exact digits of your weight. Because you told them. On the internet. I have to remind myself of that all the time when I'm not sure about revealing something. If you can post your weight, you can say you ate a brownie in a ramekin. Is that sabotage for other people (and I got the e-mails and I'm sorry it bothered folks) or is a part of my truth? I say it's a part of my truth, I do pilates and I eat brownies and obviously I'm not losing any weight. So you don't have to tell me I'm never going to lose weight that way, I know. Thanks for the thoughts, but I can only do my best. Don't we all?

"And I never stepped on the cracks 'cause i thought i'd hurt my mother"

In the things I didn't expect to do department, this weekend was chock full. I bought myself an ice cream maker on clearance at Target. Do I need more reasons to eat ice cream, no. I bought it anyway. It's a lot of work so I won't be making ice cream all day/every day, probably. Although really it would be perfect if you had to make all your ice cream yourself and have like a waiting period...like with buying a gun. Safety first and all. Oh, and then Matt and I taste-tested the new (ish) pub in Bangor...and we tried a fried mars bar. The food was excellent, the fried candy was bizarre. We each had a bite and then finished off the whipped cream it came with. Fried chocolate! I dunno. I guess I expected the inner fat girl part of me to enjoy it more, like finding the holy grail of sumptuous foods.

The MDI marathon was this weekend. I thought about coming to town to see it, runner solidarity or something. But running, it's not really a spectator sport unless you're cheering on a friend. One of my sisters lived in Japan for the Olympics and the only tickets she could afford were for the cross country skiing event. She didn't go because pretty much you're paying to see people ski for about ten seconds until they're past you in the crowd. She spent her money in the bar after the events instead, a more worthy cause. I did, however, go for a very ill-advised run this weekend and it was awesome.

I am forever giving myself hell, in my head, about calling myself a runner. It's one of the many arenas in which I just can't seem to give myself the credit I am due. This weekend the weather was beautiful and crisp and I just wanted to run, so I did. I was careful of my knee and I walked the hardest hills. I'd say I ran about 2 miles of flat stretches. How many miles do you have to run to be a runner? I've given myself a glass ceiling on the subject. If anyone else said they ran for pure joy, I would call them a runner. Why not me? I need "give yourself a break" tattoed on my forehead.

Gin and tonic with a straw

Cheesecake for breakfast and pizza for lunch because I am dedicated to the healthy life. I'll be prostrating myself to the gods of the raised heart rate as soon as I get home tonight. Indoors, as it's pouring today and praise the lord for that. I need some water in the well so I can do some laundry and wash some dishes and run a bath without the devil on my shoulder. Everyone I know in the flesh remarks that Matt and I live a pioneer life. No cable, no phone, no internet, we are a modern day little house on the prairie. I made all those choices and took the distancing myself from the world in my stride, for the most part, but I just don't want to live without water. It's getting cold for the outhouse and it's a serious drag taking the laundry into town to wash. That would be the line right there, driving half an hour to do laundry. The line when crossed means that I lose my grip on sanity. Just so y'all know when I'm gone one day never to return it's because I had to take the towels on a joy ride to Ellsworth.

I've been thinking more and more that I need to do something about my un-interneted (un-internote?) state at home. Funny enough it was a topic of discussion at dinner with the SugarCrook. Funny because it's hilarious that I live the bulk of my life on-line and have no internet access at home. Hilarious as in not very smart and also a little bit ridiculous. So, ofcourse, I'm putting the cart before the horse and am shopping for computers. I don't have the ready cash for said purchase but there's no harm in looking. And drooling. And panting slightly if I were to be completely honest. I've got to learn all about wireless and Mac's and Air ports (do I even need one of those? I don't know, that's where the learning comes in). It would be good to figure all that stuff out before I go and make investments. It would also be good just to get dial-up and be satisfied for the short term, but that would be way too easy.

Another hilarious topic at dinner was the State of Maine and its' many eccentricities. It's such a card, the State of Maine. One of our favorite discussions is our lack of address and the unlikelihood of our getting one. I, being not on the deeds for the property, have less information about the address thing than Matt does. I hadn't thought about it for awhile but it does impact our ability to get trash picked up, saved in an emergency, and obtaining services like a phone line. I suppose if there was a fire they could follow the smoke, but why leave that up to chance? Like the guido death mobile parked on the back road. We don't have proof there is a body in the car so the police won't come and take it away (my imagination isn't proof enough, apparently). We'd have to pay to have it towed. Except we can't, because it's not technically on our property. So the mystery death car has property rights and we don't. And no one seems to know who makes the decision on what our address is. The state doesn't know, the town doesn't know. They're very close to having "Kiss our Asses Lane" coming off their state highway and then we'll see who knows what. Ahem.

Oh, and the scale...a whole pound down. It's a tenuous relationship we have. I have the feeling it's more accurate than I want, considering the number of brownies I ate this week. Still dropping though so that's something. Patience is a virtue, patience is a virtue...

"Send whips of opinion down my back"

I keep reading posts about de-lurking day and I'm ashamed to say that I completely forgot about it. It occurs to me that I'm a terrible commenter in general, I don't give good feedback as in I give no feedback at all most of the time. I was just talking to Holly (best friend, getting married, bridesmaid dress decision of doom) about the colors for her wedding and she remarked that the groom's mother was sort of ambivalent about it. Holly has a big greek family unto which ambivalence has never fallen. Nothing passes in her family without fanfare and hand gestures and much discussion at loud volume. I've always thought it was sort of wonderful to visit her family and be a part of it, it's like living in technicolor after stepping out of Pleasantville. So to her receiving a shades of gray response is automatically equivalent to negative.

Holly is one of those people who squeal with delight and gasp with horror and it's completely her natural state of being. I love the drama of her responses to things. I spent most of my youth honing my skills to elicit those responses, but I never learned to be that way myself. I know Holly very well, so well that I've adjusted my Pleasantville demeanor up a notch to almost pastel over a period of years whenever I'm with her. But my natural state of being is not effusive, more defused. I'm pretty much the same way with blogs and emails and comments. Is that too much like a bad break up? It's not you, it's me...and give me back my black t-shirt.

What I'm really trying to say here is Hello Lurkers! Did that come through before, with the rambling? No, you say? So I'm cold and obscure? Excellent. I know there is something special about each of the blogs I visit every day, something that brings me back click after click. When I check my stats and see so many of you who come here day after day I flatter myself you see something special here and whether or not I know you by email or in comments I want to thank you for stopping by and encouraging me to blog on. Happy lurking day to you all.

And in fat news, which you may have noticed I've been avoiding as if it were contagious, I hate my new scale. 170 freaking 5. I know it says you have to wait a few hours after you get up and have an empty stomach and be naked and apparently the moon has to be in line with the seventh house because that number is b.s. I hate it. I'm not getting up at 3 just so I can sit awake and not eat or drink and wait till I'm about to leave the house at six and then strip and weigh for an accurate reading. That's just not going to happen. I know I'm still losing, my damn pants are all falling off. I've had to shrink every pair of jeans and then I get one good hour of proper fit. I know it could be lean muscle and not fat and blah blah blah but mostly i'm embracing the irrational. If anyone has suggestions regarding their tanita scale I'm all over hearing them. Tell me I'm not alone, I'll wax rhapsodic for you I swear!

"Well baby I've been here before, I’ve seen this room and I've walked this floor"

It sometimes appalls me how very little I do with my time. The Matt will be working ridiculous overtime this week, and then in his spare time setting a foundation with his brother, moving rocks for our future foundation and also cutting a winter's worth of firewood. I am baking cookies tonight and going out to dinner tomorrow. Those are my strenuous plans for the week. I'm also scheduled to Pilate this afternoon. Is that a verb? That should totally be a verb. I'm going to Pilate my ass off. And then bake cookies.


Matt suggested I bake him cookies: a. because he likes them and b. because it warms up the house. My mother used to have a lot of unwritten rules for our house growing up. No one ever opened a box of cookies before she did, we never had soda except for pizza night, and she never turned the heat on before Thanksgiving. That was always the big one, no heat before Thanksgiving. They call them sweaters and you wear them, layer upon layer, until the end of November come hell or hypothermia. I used to think it was just a stubborn New Englander who feels no cold thing but apparently for a house to be warm you must pay for the oil or the wood or god forbid the electricity. Funny how growing up and paying bills gives one such clarity.

Long story, completely new paragraph...I've been freezing lately. FREEZING. Cannot be warmed, immune to heat, clinically dead except for the breathing. I think my blood circulates like three inches before it's like "dude, it's cold out i'm going home for cocoa". It's really very annoying. Particularly as it's induced Matt to sarcasm. He's the most completely sincere person I've ever known and I've driven him to sarcasm with my whining. "Maybe it's the weight?" my ass. Ofcourse it's the weight, chubby is the ultimate layering. 30 pounds is the sweatshirt you never have to tie around your waist. I've become one of those girls who is always cold and I'm not even at goal. Imagine how acerbic I'll have my partner by then...maybe he'll start reading the New Yorker.

"You're just the torch to put the flame to all our guilt and shame"

I am right now trying to think of something to say. The weekend was sort of crappy. Uneventful when it should have been all business. What can you do. I'm trying really hard to roll with the punches. The scale is a bit up, but my twelves feel even larger than usual and my ring is about falling off. It should be tighter given the suspected water gain, but it's not. I'm starting to worry it'll just fall off one of these days. I'm almost wistful about that, though I really don't want to lose my school ring. Hood girls are weird about their rings, it's so much more than just a bit of gold to us.

I spent the weekend making Christmas crafts and baking. Because I'm 26 going on 80. I also pulled out the Halloween decoration, as Matt described it. The one and only. Last year I bought a plush Hello Kitty candy pail and I got to re-visit my neuroses when I came across it Saturday as it had the tags and the receipt still in it. PastaQueen compares compulsive shopping to compulsive eating, where does a compulsive returner fit in?

I've always been a returner. I had thought that I was getting better with my decision making but I guess not because I did a lot of returning this weekend. The skirt from Target that didn't go with the boots I bought and the boots I bought at Macy's that didn't go with that skirt, both returned. The dress from the Gap that I only bought for the skirt but then couldn't find anything that worked to cover the top, returned. The best one and the one that made Matt the most insane, which is always a bonus, was the scale. I bought the scale originally two weeks ago and I meant to buy it with my Discover bonus card thing-y. Only I tore through my bag and accidentally removed it before we left to go shopping. So I bought it with said Discover and Matt who is so good at rolling with the punches said "gee, you buy cooking crap all the time...don't worry about it". Which is totally normal. I could use it another time, but then I couldn't obsess over it like a freak. Obviously, I had to go back and buy another one with the card and then return it with the old receipt. Obviously.

Sometimes I think I could cure cancer with the brain power that goes into thinking about crap like that. Crap like if "I use this coupon at the store that doubles and I do it on a sale day then the carry the savings to the 11th power....." is always running through my head. And again I'm looking into lobotomy. It's a theme.

Sexy, Sexy Ramekins!

"Just because this is never going to work, there's no need to be negative."

Remember when I wrote about being twelve and locking myself in my room to do push-ups and sit-ups to the tunes of fuzzy local television? I remembered a tidbit about that era recently, something I had almost forgot about. I was flipping through another of the new Pilates dvd's and on the back Ana is doing this sort of inverted pedaling a bicycle in the air thing. Hello, Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman! Remember 1993-1998 when Jane Seymour was huge and her babies were Gerber babies and she married Sully and lived on the wild frontier? I do! I don't remember being obsessed with her, per se, but apparently at some point I watched some kind of biography/interview of her where she talked about her figure and they taped her exercising. I definitely remember her doing the inverted bicycle thing, although I didn't know it was Pilates. And I probably didn't care anyway because I was thirteen and I just really wanted to be tiny like all the other girls. I really believed the bicycle thing was the secret because Jane Seymour was tiny, and rich, and she played a doctor on tv. Jane Seymour wouldn't lie to me.

I added the bicycle thing to my daily repertoire of sit-ups, push-ups and the three mile bike ride I took on the dangerous back road with no helmet on. And then I'd come home and have a bowl of spaghetti with no sauce(fattening!) but plenty of cheese(protein!). It's a shock I didn't wake up one day Kate Moss, what with my unflinching dedication. In retrospect, it was probably a good thing that I was so young and smaller than I ever knew because now I know how dangerous it is to randomly do a Pilates move you saw an actress do on tv that one time. I'm lucky I never hurt myself. Or got run-over. I couldn't say if I lost weight because of all my efforts, we never had a scale that worked. I have no idea what I was measuring against, or how I gauged my success. I have this vague feeling that it didn't matter because no matter what I did it wasn't going to be good enough.

I really hate thinking about that time in my life. I suppose puberty equates to years of self-loathing for a big chunk of society and we've all grown because of it but I'd really rather have the memories surgically removed. Liposuction of the brain. Lobotomy is so under-rated.

'I'll be fine. I think I've figured out how to steer by gesturing emphatically."

Saturday night Matt took me shopping. I needed interview clothes, kicking ass and taking names clothes. I bought a lot of things with the knowledge that I couldn't really pop back to the mall before Monday, not having a car and all (which is getting very, very old now...point of fact). I picked up a shirt and tights and a dress, and a skirt and a very expensive bra (of course it wasn't part of the sale...of course) and more boots. I tried on some pants too, size ten pants. They fit! Not well enough for an interview, but they buttoned without hassle and it looks like I'm getting very close.

The interview, it went very well. The nice man said I was personable! That's good right? Personable. I'm crossing everything I've got because I think that job could be a really good fit for me. That's the last I'm going to think of it so I don't completely jinx myself or go completely insane when I don't get called for a second round. Positive, Positive, Positive.

Hey, I got the new scale. I already hate it. I mean, it's honest and it says I weigh 173.something. Bastard. That's the kickster with getting a new scale, so much to learn about the new regime. I guess my new starting point is 173. Which I'm trying really hard not to think about because hello, size ten. I couldn't button a ten the last time I thought I weighed 173 so I'm going to keep it positive in this arena too. I just need to keep up with everything I'm doing and eventually I'll get where I want to go.

Everything I'm doing is pretty much pilates 'till I just can't pilates no more. I tried another of my new dvd's on saturday, it's like a pilates sample platter. The latest one is actually the first one I bought, the Body Band Challenge. Ana always does this little intro before the program starts and I always listen because I've learned a lot from the previous intros. On the Body Band Challenge intro she says all the usual stuff about working your core and breathing and yadda yadda "this is the most challenging workout I've ever put together". Say what? I know I've been saying that every new dvd/tool kicks my ass but this time I feel particularly validated. I sort of wish I had gone into it thinking "this dvd is for wusses" rather than "most challenging ever" but I think I did pretty well. I couldn't do everything, I did a lot of watching with trepidation but I think that's an important part of the process. When I master it won't I be smug?

"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?

"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?

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.