Thursday, December 15, 2011

The Gods Must be Crazy – or Just Hate Me

We put up our Christmas tree up last night.  It isn’t as decorated as I’d have liked, but BF was helping and this is our first Christmas together so I wanted him to feel like he had a say… oh yeah, and I wasn’t supposed to be on my feet so I really couldn’t have had a say if I wanted. 
I must have been in a mood last year when I packed all the Christmas decorations, because I can’t find half the crap I display around the house.  Okay… I can’t find any of the crap I display around the house.  So  the most we have this year is a lightly decorated Christmas tree and the four stockings I’ll be tacking to the wall a little later today.

So this is what my foot looked like last night when I got home.  Not a pretty site. 

Well this is how my day is going so far.  My neck muscles hurt from work.  My upper back hurts because of that time of the month.  Oh Yeah… it’s that time of the month, body aches from a relapse of my cold and my cankle looks like I have elephant man syndrome.  And to top it off, my skin is stretching so much from the swelling that it’s starting to itch!  Can it get any worse?!?  I’m sure it is so I’m offering a peace offering to the Gods.  I promise to be a better and kinder person (although I'm not sure how I'll improve on perfection) if you will please back off so I can have some relief of some type.

HO HO HO… Merry Charlie Brown Christmas!

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Good Grief Charlie Brown!


Somehow I managed to prolong my appointment with exercise.  Well, not actually… I know how I did it, but I didn’t do it on purpose.  So yesterday, after dinner, my boyfriend and I had to drive over to a car lot to pick-up his car.  Well instead of pulling into the lot, to change drivers, he stopped on the street right outside the parking lot where his car was waiting.  Me, seeing a car was going to pull up behind us, tried to run a Chinese Fire Drill.  – for those of you that don’t know what this is, it is when the driver and a passenger get out of the car, run around the car and in the process switch drivers.  Well in doing this I managed to step into a crack in the street, rolled onto my ankle and just about destroyed any possibility for joining a dance troupe in the near future. 
As I crouch there in pain next to my car trying desperately not to scream out in pain, my wonderful and loving boyfriend tells me to stop faking it and that no way can a sprained ankle hurt that bad.  I was only wishing that it was a sprain.  But no… I did not just twist my ankle, I rolled onto it and put all my weight (and there is a lot of it – the weight that is) on the ankle.  As I did this, I remember the last time this had happened.  I couldn’t wear shoes for months and was told not to walk or lift or pretty much live until the swelling had gone all the way down.  Well it wasn’t possible then and it isn’t possible now.
Back to my “accident.”  5-10 minutes later I’m still crouched over in pain wracking my brain how I’m going to stand up and hobble over the two steps into the car and drive (YES!!!   I STILL HAD TO DRIVE!!!) home.  At some point my bf tells me to suck it up; still not realizing what really had happened.  If I hadn’t had so much pain in my leg, I would have popped him one for that comment.  Bf manages to help me hop into the car and I carefully place my foot into the foot well.  As I drive home, I make sure not to move my foot at all because I can already feel the pain emanating from my ankle to the opposite side of my foot.  I’m also trying to not cry since I need to drive home on the freeway and as we all know - tears will blind our view if crying while driving.   So to combat my pain, my teeth are chattering away like I’m in the middle of Antarctica – naked.  (btw… my jaw hurts from grinding my teeth all day today when walking, sitting, rolling my ankle again…) 
As I drive into my garage, I allow myself to finally cry in pain.  Which still my bf is completely amazed at how much of a girl I am acting like.  Well I hobble over to the couch and carefully pull up my pant leg and notice that my ankle has swelled up to the size of a baseball.  I show my bf and his comment is “I don’t notice a difference.” Why this comment?  Because I was lucky enough to be born with cancles.  I laugh at this through my tears. 
I did apply an ice pack immediately,  and have been advised by my friend (who majored in Sports Therapy/Medicine or something like that) of applying ice in 20 minute intervals and wrapping my ankle down to my toes. 

As a side note, I have stopped drinking soda and have started my “students” diet today.  What is that you may ask?  Well, I’m living off a student’s budget until after Christmas so all I could afford to purchase for breakfast this week was some instant coffee and granola bar, cup-o-noodles and granola snack for lunch and macaroni and cheese with canned veggies and spam for dinner.  Notice no mention of soda in my grocery list.  Weighed myself and I will only admit that I need to lose at least 60 lbs to be down to my goal weight.  Only 60…

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Found in my Junk E-Mail

From:  Christmas is Coming
Subject:  Super DISCOUNT. BUY NOW VIAGRA..CIALIS!!!

'nuff said...

Monday, December 12, 2011

This is the First Day of the Rest of My Life...

And so my new life begins…
I had to wake at the God-awful time of 5am this morning.  My neighbors have roosters so you’d have thunk that waking up at that time wouldn’t be hard, but it was!  My body is not used to waking up at that hour.  I dragged myself out of bed this morning and took a nice hot shower, made sure everything was packed in the car (for my new job) and headed out.  With only 15 minutes to get to work, I forgoed my Starbucks stop.  I raced to get on the freeway only to be met by all of the other San Diegoans.  Oh my gosh!!!  Traffic.  That is so foreign to me.  I’ve never had to drive in traffic before.  My commute was always 10 minutes at most… from home… no freeway… with a stop for coffee if I so desired. 
Well, no more coffee here.  Today wasn’t even my regular start time.  Tomorrow will be a half hour earlier.  There better NOT be any traffic at 6: am.  Ugh… 6am.  And… I need to make something to share at our potluck also!  I’ll be making the tide-true Mexican meat dish of Mole.  No it is like a mole on your body.  It is Moe Lay.  Now say it with a Hispanic accent.  There you go.  Now shut up, because it still sounds silly when you say it. 
Anyways I digress… I got to work and got the key to my new office.  No… I’m not chill like that.  I share this new office with 7 other people.  But Adriana and I are the first ones in the office so far.  Well, I had to lug everything in from my car… in the rain, with only help from Adriana, Elaine and some very nice man who brought in my 2 ton tub.  It brought up my asthma and I couldn’t stop coughing for about an hour or so.  Very annoying.

I’m almost completely settled in… except for the fact that I can’t get on to our network.  Where is most of my work?  On our network.  Grrrrr….
Well, I managed to forget my gym clothes at home so I guess I’ll be exercising, tonight, with the Slim in 6 DVD I have.  I also need to go get groceries.  Since I don’t have a lot of money, I’ll be focusing on getting food for tomorrow’s potluck and then lots of cup-o-noodles and hamburger helpers for the week.  So much for eating well this week. 
As a side note... my mom referred to one of my cats as Snookie.  SNOOKIE!!!  It started up my coughing again because I was laughing so hard.  MOM... my cat's name is Sniffles not Snookie.  She sleeps around the house - not around the Jersey Shore. 
Hope the rest of my week turns out better.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

The Grave is Calling Me...

I'm dying here. I am here to write my obituary, because I'm sure this cold is going to take my life.  It's already started because I'm losing weight.  Isn't that the first thing to go when you are dying?  So... Maybe... I'm exaggerating just a little bit.  But I am pretty sick.  Son (we'll call him Juan Guillermo - yes another name I wanted to name a child - when I was going through my latin phase.  JG for short) has been home sick ALL week.  Took him to the doctor on Thursday and was told "he's sick."  Since he's been out sick all week, I was required by law to get him a doctor's note.  Well the doctor wrote the note stating that JG couldn't go back to school until Monday.  Thank goodness for that because today (Saturday) we are both still in bed.

Well... I started feeling Tuesday evening.  I hoped that it was just my imagination.  Because we all know that parents are NOT allowed to get sick... EVER!!!  I woke up Wednesday and decided I was going to stay home.  Felt pretty good most of the day, but sick enough to stay home.  Thursday I woke up feeling as if a bomb was exploding in my head.  Well boyfriend guilted me into going to work.  Something about want to spend my vacation time on vacation, in a month, instead of now while sick.  So, I went to work, promptly called the doctor for my son and waddled through the day.  BF was a sweetheart and tool us all to dinner that night, but by the time I'm usually eyeing the dessert tray, I was daydreaming of my comfy bed at home and the wonderful sleep that was awaiting me.

I did fall asleep immediately, and woke up the next day feeling even 100 times worse than the day before. It didn't help that a big wad of something decided to lodge itself into my breathing passage and I woke up gasping for breath because I could not breathe or cough.  Somehow i was able to loosen it and Ailish, of course did the, necessary waking of my chest and repeatedly stating "you almost died."

I have some urgent work awaiting me at the office so no time to feel sorry for myself.  I jump in the shower and get my daughter out the door.  As I'm taking her to work all I could think about was making the pounding stop inside my head and why on earth is the sun so fricken bright today.  I mean, not even my sunglasses are helping me out.  I get to work and am confronted by one of my co-workers.  Typically she's okay, but for some reason all I want to tell her is to back the f-off and stop talking.  I process my 10 minutes of work and promptly tell my boss "See Ya!  Urgent matter taken care off.  Going home."  He's got his own stuff going on so he pretty much brushes me away with a "whatever."  Actually my boss is really cool, but he knew I was not into working and I really don't take time off from work so...

As I'm driving home, all sounds are still driving me crazy and aside from my normal symptoms of having a head cold, I'm now feeling my saliva decide to have a meeting in my mouth.  Never a good sign.  As I drive up to my mom's house, I realize I have a sinus cold AND a migraine.  Will this pain never end???

I promptly take my Excedrin migraine and literally pass-out.  I did wake up in a much better mood a little later because the migraine new it was no match for the meds.  Well, I've been in bed ever since.  I did try to have the requisite diet of the sick: chips and sour cream.  My tummy didn't like it and quickly dispelled it from my body.  So, I've been pretty much living off of 7-UP.  One benefit is the weight loss I mentioned earlier.  My pants are loose again!  Yeah!  I'll take weight loss anyway I can.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Blogs Galore And No More...

Have you ever noticed how many blogs are in the WWW?  I've been checking the "next blog" every day and every time I do, I find loads of blogs out there.  But... none of them are updated.  The ones that are updated are obviously for family to keep in touch or of a religious demeanor.  Well, I don't want to read about other people's families.  I've got my own and of my family, three of us already have our own blogs that have relatively little to do with family.  And... if I want a blessing, I'll go to church.  I don't want to be bombarded with quotes from proverbs.

Aside from stalking the blogs I am following, how does one find quirky, witty blogs???  If anybody knows, throw me a shout.

Monday, November 28, 2011

Exercise - Really???

I managed to get three days of exercise in this weekend.  And I was pooped after every excursion.  Just wiped out.  If I could have taken a nap after every session, I would have,  but unfortunately, my boyfriend doesn’t' play like that.  He's hardcore.  He runs about 10 miles a session.  If we go into the gym he'll do about 40 minutes of running and will then do about 20 minutes of circuit training.  I get exhausted just looking at him..  Shoot, I'm exhausted just thinking about. it.  Anybody up for a nap?

Well, my sessions went like this, an hour at the gym on Friday, 50 minute hike on Saturday and a 45 minute leisurely walk on Sunday.  I believe I’m supposed to add time every time I work out and not have it dissipate.  I’m not looking forward to the exercise I’ll be required to do once I move in two weeks, but a I am still gaining weight, I’ll be starting my exercise routine immediately after moving; ½ an hour in the morning before going to work and 45 minutes to an hour after work. 

This is the model of what I'd like to look like after losing weight.  Now imagine almost 70 lbs extra with the weight focused on thighs, hips and gut and not as much up on top and you have me.  Not pretty...

I refuse to purchase new clothes in the next size up.  I have loads of nice clothes at home – that have managed to shrink over the years.  Okay… so they haven’t quite shrunk.  More like I’ve “grown” out of.  But, I’d love to be able to wear them again before they are so out of style that they are in style for my daughter.

Two side notes:

1.       Boyfriend and I have almost ALL of our Christmas shopping done.  Only three more gifts to get. 
2.      One of my sisters had a Saturday Thanksgiving dinner at her place.  First one for her.  I offered to contribute a cheese ball for the soiree.  Apparently it was a hit!!!  And it was really simple to make so… I’m thinking I may put the Swiss Colony out of business this year with my own cheese spread gifts. 

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Atkins Thanksgiving

About 3 years ago I was on an Atkins kick.  I stuck with it even through Thanksgiving.  I ignored the yummy delicious food, at my grandmother’s, house so that I could stay on track that evening.  I didn’t even have any ham or turkey for fear of ruining my appetite.
So I race home with kids in tow and started to steam my cauliflower for my “faux” potatoes.   As they are steaming I start to work on my low-carb sausage stuffing.  I’ve already made my Atkins Pumpkin pie and homemade whipped cream. 
Well, little did I know how “faux” these potatoes would be.   I mean… everybody on the Atkins blog raved about them and stated how much they tasted “just like real mashed potatoes!!!”  They not only didn’t taste like them, they didn’t even resemble them.  That’s okay, I figure… I have more food coming down the pike…
The stuffing… was a greasy disaster.  Again, it was a variation of the side dish of stuffing.  There was no bread in it, but loads of meat and grease.  I tried to burn off the grease, but nothing helped.  Not even placing this “stuffing” on a load of paper towels and patting it dry could fix it. 
Well all is not lost because I have ham steak for us.  By the time we got to our so-called thanksgiving dinner, the ham steak was cold.  I did try to warm it up and it just got dry instead.  At this point, I’m still making an effort to salvage my Atkins Thanksgiving dinner so I take a safe taste of each item (safe; as in barely placing any food on my tongue.)  It all revolted me.  I actually told the kids not to even try the food.  My boyfriend is such a sweetie.  He actually ate a full plate of everything.  Kids and I ate Mac-N-Cheese.
There was one saving grace.  My pie.  It was actually really delicious!  I think I ended up getting filled up on that sucker.  Maybe it was also good because I was starving.   Moral of this story is: no matter stringent your diet is or you are trying to get healthy and lose weight, there are some holidays that are not meant for diets.  Thanksgiving is one of them.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Happy Unanniversary

Yesterday was my unanniversary.  I'm sure you are wondering what that is.  Well... technically it was my wedding anniversary - but I'm not married anymore.  I picked my day to start a wedding tradition.  Little did I know that I would truly follow the tradition of bad marriages for that date.  See... my grandparents married on that date (horrible marriage) as did my parents.  Sadly, they too are divorced.  I figured I would break the chain, but keep the date.  Well, unfortunately, I kept all the traditions.  So... since my mom is very much alive and kicking, we've been celebrating our unanniversary for the past 10 years.  Oh my gosh - 10 years already?!?

Usually, we go out to a nice lunch, but this year we thought we'd keep in on the down-low.  You know, we are just tired of painting the town red every night.  Two single women of our looks and caliber is too much for the men of our town.  So... I may be exaggerating a "little" bit.  We did decide to keep it pretty mellow this year.  Steak and potatoes for dinner and TV time.  Kids were with their dad, so we have complete peace for about 3 hours.  Ah... bliss...


Friday, November 18, 2011

The Transfer

I've been waiting for this job transfer for over a year now.  Not hoping for it... but waiting for it.  I've been waiting for the date my start date for my new job.  And it has been provided!!!  Yeah!!!  This job is 200 miles away from my hometown.  So it is a big thing to be transferring.  But it is also very bittersweet (that'll have to be another conversation). 

My BF and I purchased a house back in the early summer.  After looking at hundreds of homes, we finally settled on our home.  It's a beauty and has enough room for my children to have their own space, a yard for me to do my gardening, a place for my bf to put his feet up at the end of the day, enoughs square footage for my cats to run around and plenty of space for visitors.  The one major downfall?  My job hadn't tranfered yet.  Essentially, I've been living out of a suitcase for three months and then livning with mom for the past month.  It hasn't been easy, but we have all made it through it. 

home-sweet-home

Well let me tell you, that living out of a suitcase wreaks havoc on your pocket book.  Well actually eating fastfood for three meals a day - for three people - is very expensive.  But at least I didn't balloon up like Aunt Marge did on Harry Potter.

Aunt Marge

In a week, all my planning and scheming will fall into place.  I'll be able to eat properly and exercise every day.  I'm sure you are wondering that if I've been living out of a suitcase, why didn't I use some of this free time to go to the gym at least.  Suffice it to say, that I've had tremendous guilt over leaving my kids in a motel room while I go to the gym.  Something about that just didn't seem right to me.  And... on the days I didn't have the kids with me, I usually stayed with friends or family and I wasn't about to come and go as I pleased.  I'm just not set up like that. 

So my Christmas gift to myself (aside from the food processor I plan on purchasing this weekend) will be to start eating healthy and to exercise EVERY DAY. 

Gym Membership - Check
Slim in 6 DVD - Check
Zumba DVD - Check
Silly gym clothes - Not! 
Pair of sweats, t-shirts and sneakers - Check

BTW... I forgot to past a link to the blogsite that provided the One Minute Blogging.  it is: http://oneminutewriter.blogspot.com/

Thursday, November 17, 2011

One Minute Blogging - News

I got this tip from one of my sister's and liked the blogger enough to follow it.  So I'm gonig to write any and all thoughts regarding a new related issue in one minute.  Here I go...

Sandusky - Creep, perv, killer of childhood.  He states he never raped/harmed kids because he loves them and is like a big kid himself.  Sorry... but my kids don't do any of the things he's done and are also repulsed by his actions.  Sicko...

Okay... that's my one-minute report. 

blog on eating to come later in the day - when my darned picture finally uploads...

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Technical Difficulties

I'm ashamed to say that I'm not computer literate.  I'm much more than my boyfriend, but that doesn't really say much.  Well it's taking me a while to get this blogging thing down pat.  I think I can finally see my followers (yeah to my sister) and now I'll know when anybody is stalking me.  Now my only hope is to get a cult following like my sister. If anybody has any suggestions, like subjects to ramble about or help with my page, then yell them out to me.

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Changing your lifestyle sucks!

I've gone a whole week without eating any fast food.  Yay for me!!!  I went two days without any soda, but immediately found out that I need to ween myself off instead of going cold turkey.  I've discovered that I develop UTIs without my soda.  Apparently I don't drink enough water on regular basis.  For some reason I can't stand plain water.  Imagine that!  So... I've gone back to having soda every day, but I'm now weening myself off slowly.  I'm also resorting to crystal light to flavor my water and fake out my palette. 

On a side note, I am enjoying the fact that my meals aren't burgers and tacos any more.  But how long until I'm sick of baked potatoes and tortellini. 

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Daugher's Not Exactly Sweet Sixteen

My daughter turned 16 yesterday at 7:14 am.  My precious baby,  the girl that has helped with all the gray in my hair.  Since the girl is only 16 we are going to call her Ailish.  I always wanted to name a daughter this name, but my ex thought it was a little out there.  It's actually a gaelic version of my name.  Anyways, I digress. 

My daughter has been asking for a sweet sixteen party ever since she realized she wasn't going to get a quince.  And let me tell you, it has been almost her whole life of her planning this non-existant "party."  This has been a very rough year for my daughter.  She's gotten herself in trouble and it looks like she has finally learned her lesson.  Last year she go herself in soooo much trouble that her birthday was cancelled.  CANCELLED!  That should tell you how bad she was.  This year, she didn't exactly earn the rights to a big bash, but I would have loved to have had a Chuck E. Cheese party for her or something.  And in case you think she is too old for the big Mouse.  She already went to another Mouse's House the week before as my gift to her.  Apparently Chuck is popular with the 16 - 23 year old crowd.  Don't ask... I'm amazed myself. 

So... we had a very quiet and private dinner for her at home instead.  What did she want to eat?  Comfort food.  Tunafish Casserole, baked carrots and homemade tres leche cake.  It was all divine!!!  Mom (grandma to my Ailish) made the dinner and Ailish and I made dessert.    So divine that I HAD to have a second piece of cake.  thankfully, the pieces of cake were about 1/4 of the slice they sell you in the panderia (Mexican Bakery). 

Alish's dad came over for the meal and was actually friendly.  (Brief overview of ex and I - we are on speaking terms and sometimes that is it.)  He had pleasant conversation with my mom and myself and it almost appeared as if there was no animosity between the two of us.  It made for a very nice birthday event.  One of my sister's also came over to celebrate with us.  :-)  Needless to say, it wasn't exactly the party bus my daughter had envisioned for her birthday, but at least she got her parents to celebrate at the same table for the same meal and not throw eye daggers at the other.  What more should she ask for?

On a side note - I stuck to my no soda plan yesterday (and so far today) and I did not go to any fastfood joints either.  But, I was starving by the time I got home.  I think I ate far more casserole than I should have, but then again, my stomach didn't complain. 

Monday, October 31, 2011

Time to Face the Facts

I'm FAT!  If you compare me to all my friends (and I mean all of them) I'm sure I'm actually average, but by BMI standards, I'm the "O" word - Obese.  I've done Lindora (lost about 10 lbs and then gained them all back).  Weight Watchers (That worked until it didn't).  Atkins (the weight came off nicely and then plateaued - infact I never got off the plateau until I stopped Atkins and then I gained it all back, plus some).  Counting Calories and eating healthy.  AND I've exercised.  I've actually had two trainers.  I didn't lose very much weight with the first one, but... i did strengthen my endurance.  I lost about 15 lbs with the 2nd one.  He worked my butt off twice a week and I'd go in and exercise another 2-3 times a week.  This was also when I watched my calories. I managed to lose only 15 lbs in about 3-4 mos and have now gained it all back.  Now, I just wallow in self-pity.  I exercise periodically (cough, cough) I don't overeat, but I'm also eating a lot of fast or easy food.  There's a reason for that, but I'll explain that on another entry.  I can't really start "eating healthy" for anywhere between a week to two months. (again, I'll explain on another entry), but I pledge to cut out soda (I'm going to die... I know I will) and fast food.  I'll still eat quick food, but not fast food. 

This is what I hope to fix by becoming either "average or smaller than average."
*shave off some weight
*build muscle
*lose my asthma
*lower my cholesterol levels
*my feet will stop hurting
*maybe - just maybe - find my ankles again.