Tag Archives: funny

Fueling the Food Beast

Posted on by
13

Have you ever monitored a toddler’s diet?

If you have kids, you probably remember the many, many questions you had about the proper feeding of a two-year-old:

How long can a sippy cup stay out of the fridge before we risk botulism?

Are six bites of turkey really enough to sustain this kid until dinnertime?

That’s a remarkable diaper load for six bites of turkey.  Oh, look….he apparently ate a blue crayon, too.

Please don’t tell me he’s chewing on the French fry we gave the cat to play with.

<at a ballpark, or church>  Oh look, he’s eating…um…a saltine?  WHERE DID HE FIND A SALTINE CRACKER?!?

(Side note:  Rest assured, I totally did not poison my kids.  Well, not on purpose, anyway.  You do the best you can, but those suckers are quick when they wanna be.  Toddlers totally fool you with their propensity for copious amounts of drool and general lack of motor control.  You let your guard down and risk a quick blink, and when you open your eyes you find them covered with a massive wad of ick.  This is why my daughter’s first solid food was actually a ladybug.  But we were just notified yesterday that she received a full scholarship to the university of her choice, so either bugs are good for you, or they clearly didn’t slow her down much. #mombrag)

Anyway.  The point here is that toddlers’ lives aren’t focused on food.  To them, food is fuel.

Kids have a normal, healthy relationship with food.  When they’re hungry, their little bodies TELL them to eat – so they reluctantly stop trying to draw on the cat with a Sharpie, and find Mom or Dad to demand a snack.  And when they’ve had enough, and are no longer hungry, they throw the rest of their food on the floor so they can be released from the restraints of the high chair and go do something devious fun or educational.

Toddlers don’t eat when they’re bored or when they’re sad.  They have lessons to learn, things to break explore….They’d MUCH rather be playing, or throwing a tantrum, or plotting to smear something red and sticky on something CLEARLY not meant to be sullied, like the wall, the couch, or the carpet, than sit down and refuel.

Simply put, toddlers have better things to do than center their lives around food.

That must be so very…freeing.

I mean, these kids – babies, really – have a completely unadulterated approach to food.  Get some when you need it, forget about it when you don’t.  It’s that simple.

<insert philosophical quote about the innocence of youth>

I cannot be the only person to whom this seems to be a completely foreign concept.  Can I?

Dr. P (the therapist) and I talked about this a bit.  Eating “normally” is a long-range goal for me.  (Or so SHE says.  I’m not quite ready to accept “normal” if it makes the scale go up.  Sigh.  She’s got her work cut out for her, that’s for sure.)

But what does “normal” even LOOK like?

Maybe I can learn something from my toddler days?

<looks under hotel bed for abandoned potato chip>

OK, maybe notsomuch.  I mean…yuck. <shudder>

But defining “normal” eating isn’t all that easy.  We can define an eating disorder pretty quickly – here’s an example found on ANAD.org*:

An eating disorder is an unhealthy relationship with food and weight that interferes with many areas of a person’s life. One’s thoughts become preoccupied with food, weight or exercise. A person who struggles with an eating disorder can have unrealistic self-critical thoughts about body image, and his or her eating habits may begin to disrupt normal body functions and affect daily activities.

*National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders.  You’re welcome.

So whatever we consider “normal” eating isn’t…that.  Okay.

Perhaps it means tossing the food scales, deleting the food tracking apps on my phone, and just eating when I’m hungry, stopping when I’m full, and letting my body weigh what it wants to.

Sounds simple.  But then, the most complicated things often do.

Sadly, one of the consequences of a life filled with the all-or-nothing yin-yang of food extremes is that you completely lose the ability to discern when you’re actually hungry.  It makes sense, really – if you’ve spent years spinning yourself around in a constant complete 180 between splurging and starving, dieting and binge-eating, deprivation and indulgence – is it any wonder that I have no natural ability to know when and what I need to eat?

After 30+ (!!!) years of gaining and losing weight – of alternating between Dieting:  Extreme Edition and gorging on the all-you-can-eat platter at the Screwitall Grand Buffet – I have no idea – zero – on how to listen to my body.

I’ve spent most of my life basically flinging my appetite back and forth violently between the ceiling and the floor trying to break it.  It should be no surprise that I’ve been successful.

Left to my own devices, I truly think I could go for days without feeling hunger.  And then, once I realized that yeah, I probably need to eat something, the dam would break wide open, and it’s all HIDE YOUR KIDS, HIDE YOUR WIFE in my kitchen.

My fridge be all like:

(Retro meme from back in the day for y’all)

In all seriousness – very occasionally I feel hunger – but not often.  But when I “allow” myself free reign – eating what I “want” – I can eat WELL past the “full” point, until my stomach is sporting a food baby that would fool the eye of the most experienced midwife, and I seriously do NOT have room even for the legendary wafer-thin mint. (Bonus points if you know the reference.  My apologies if you didn’t, and clicked on the link, and now cannot unsee it.  I truly am sorry.  Here’s a bucket.)

When I’m in “food mode,” I can easily keep up, volume-wise, with my 6’4″ hubs and I blow right past my 15-year-old.  Yes, I can eat more than a growing teenage boy.  Why is there no trophy for that?!  (Probably the same reason that there is no award for stopping up a commode that you bought SPECIFICALLY because it can flush an ENTIRE BUCKET OF GOLF BALLS.  Not that this has EVER happened.  If it did, I’m not sure whether the perpetrator (poopetrator?) should be mortified or impressed.  Probably both.  But that’s beside the point because THIS IS ENTIRELY FICTIONAL AND TOTALLY DID NOT HAPPEN.  GOT IT?)

Maybe I’m actually part camel.  Perhaps eating nothing for weeks and then EVERYTHING in a day is normal…for me.

This is FINE, as long as my body does what my mind wants it to and drops ten pounds.  But that clearly isn’t how it works for the camel.

camel:

That’s hott.

I very much do NOT wish to resemble a camel, in any way, shape or form.  But I suppose being cool with my body, regardless of its size, is PROBABLY part of this whole “normal” dealio.

Right?

Except….what woman in the US is OK with her body as-is?

Anyone?  Anyone?

<crickets>

We know that nearly 35% of the US population is obese.  And despite the fact that only (only!) 1 in 5 American women are on a diet – and that this number’s lower than it was a few years earlier, when it was closer to 1 in 3 – we’re not happy about how we look.  It turns out that two-thirds of women are trying to lose weight, and 39% of us let it impede our happiness.

I guess we’re just not using the d-word to describe all the meal-skipping, raw vegan, high-protein gluten avoidance we’re trying.  Diets are so 1990s, anyway.  It’s all lifestyle choice, right? Or was that what we were calling it in 2005?  <head scratch>

Regardless of whatever label we’re slapping ourselves with this week, a lot of us are still desperately trying to be thinner.

So…given all that….what, then, is normal?

And if I’m not clear on the what, how on earth do I find the how?

I don’t wanna be a camel.  I want to be a car.  Cars have it pretty easy – they have a gauge right on the dashboard that tells you how full or empty they are.  (They even have a little arrow to tell you WHERE TO PUT THE FUEL.  Well, unless you’re Nissan, then SCREW YOU, I guess.)

gasgaugesucks

Actual gas gauge from actual rental car. Actual WTF moment.

And once you get the pump set up?  It automatically SHUTS OFF when the tank is full.  It’s nearly* idiot-proof, stopping when the car’s had “enough.”

*Yes, I still occasionally get gas on my shoes.  Because I even overfeed my car.  I HAVE A SERIOUS PROBLEM.

It’d be hella easier if we had dashboard gas gauges.  Maybe I can get one installed with the next upgrade.

Until then, we’re stuck trying to tame the food monster.  Which makes a harmless, innocent cookie…

giantcookie

Ginormous cookie served BETWEEN lunch and dinner at a recent conference. Because OBVIOUSLY sitting on your duff learning about the Affordable Care Act works up an appetite. Note size of cookie relative to pen. Yowsa.

…look a bit menacing.

pepperface

ROASTED RED PEPPER REVENGE YO

I’m not sure I can wrestle the monster back into its cage.  I think after 30 years of having unrestricted freedom, it’s gonna put up a fight.  And frankly, I’m not sure I’m ready to invest the effort and energy to work on containing the beast.

But I do know that food isn’t a monster.  Food isn’t the enemy.

The enemy is the one staring back at me in the mirror.  And she’s gonna be pretty tough to tame.

Midweek Marketing: Going Against the Grain

Posted on by
8

As you know, I started this blog  with the intent of focusing on recovery.  But as of late, I’m not feeling all that brave, especially after recent events, and more especially because I’m just coming off a two-day food bender, and subsequently have gained two freaking @Q#(#@$(#@* pounds, which will take me four weeks and a blowtorch to undo. IF I’M LUCKY.

*insert a few more expletives.  Colorful, vibrant, grandmother-shocking expletives. 

UGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH

Transitioning from a full-on binge to “normal” (read: diet.  re-read:  not) eating is tough.  Your body is coming off its sugar high, and the afterburn sends mixed messages to your brain.  And by “mixed” I mean that every voice inside your head, along with a few it’s recruited from the outside, are SCREAMING at you to EAT EAT EAT EAT.

Blah.

Two f(#@*F&G** pounds.

**More expletives, please.  Get creative, peeps!  Use your favorites as noun, verb, and adjective. 

So, while I’m sitting on my hands trying not to stuff my face with both Ben and Jerry, I’ll leave you with some of the other random thoughts in my head.

A few days ago, Nikki at The Undiagnosed Warrior was kind enough to nominate me for the Encouraging Thunder award.  Now, Nikki is an amazing young woman who has been dealing with a debilitating illness – the cause of which has continued to evade many trained medical professionals.  Ya gotta be brave to face chronic illness day after day; that’s true tenfold when your illness doesn’t have a name.  So if you need a story of perseverance and determination, check out her blog!

encouraging1DA RULZ:

When you get this award, you can:

  • Post it and the logo on your blog
  • Pay it forward by nominating others

You cannot:

  • Abuse or misuse the logo
  • Claim the logo is your own

If you receive the award you should:

  • Give thanks via comments and likes in the blog of the person nominating you
  • Mention the person who nominated you in your award blog
  • Discuss your purpose in blogging in your award blog

I feel a bit like I’m cheating, because I actually won this award before.  But the rules don’t SAY only one per participant.  Not that this would stop me.  If I can scarf through an eight-serving bag of popcorn in one sitting, do you think I’m gonna even blink at a “limit one per customer” rule?

If you’re still not sure, ask the demonstrators at Costco how many Bailey’s truffles I scored last weekend.

Wait.  On second thought? Don’t.  I don’t think we need, like, an actual NUMBER here.  Never mind.

So anyway.  You can read about why I started this blog here.  Essentially, I was taking a wild stab at recovery.

As I mentioned above, though….these past two days were bad.

Very, very bad.

This weekend, ice cream and dill pickle popcorn were my binge foods of choice – namely, because I had them in the house. See, that’s how binges normally work:

Step 1:  I buy groceries like a normal person, taking time to select items that actually sound good.  (Side note:  I know the experts say never to shop when you’re hungry…but if I don’t, I won’t actually BUY anything.  I have to shop when I’m physically hungry, or I leave the store with new makeup instead of anything I can actually eat.  And if I don’t buy food that looks appetizing, it just sits about my pantry like ugly wedding gifts, and I just won’t ever get around to using it.)

Step 2:  I fall off the wagon and binge-eat a certain food item (or items.  Yeah.  More like items.)

Step 3:  I CAN NEVER BUY THAT FOOD AGAIN because I will eat it all in one frenzied nonstop session like there’s a prize at the bottom and getting it is my JOB.

This is why I can’t buy stuff like frozen pizza, ice cream, pudding, cookies, chocolate peanut butter, kettle corn, potato chips, anything from Culver’s, or cereal.

Especially cereal.

Cereal is the WORST.

One time?  I ate an entire fifteen-ounce box of Peanut Butter Puffins.  IN ONE AFTERNOON.  (Note to self.  Do NOT eat whilst Facebooking.  It’s trouble.  Especially when peanut butter anything is involved.)

barbaras product image:

Image from http://barbaras.com/

And don’t let’s pretend “well, at least this is HEALTHY food,” mmmkay?  Because the second ingredient is – guess what? – SUGAR.  And the box is SUPPOSED TO FEED FIFTEEN PEOPLE.  That’s 1,650 calories of cereal, folks.  (And it wasn’t even the only thing I ate that day.  NOT EVEN CLOSE.)

So at the tail end of my dill-pickle popcorn binge, I was watching the Patriots totally SPANK the Cowboys, and between plays they announced that Jason Witten (tight end, Dallas) now has his own breakfast cereal.

(The stars were not so lucky on Sunday.  BOOYAH.  SUCK IT COWBOYS.)

So as I’m sitting there on the sofa, crashing rapidly from my sugar rush face-first into a carb coma, I started thinking about other cereals the NFL could market.

And they sounded…kinda dirty.

(Just in time, too, since apparently you can’t get your jollies from the pictures in Playboy anymore.)

What do you think?  Would you buy any of these?  Tape them to your face, go long, and not stop until someone calls a personal foul?

In Chicago:  Cutler’s Crispy Bits

New England:  Brady’s Frosted Patriot Power Os 

Denver:  Peyton’s Protein Clusters

Pittsburgh:  Big Ben’s Marshmallow Poofs

Seattle:  Wilson’s Brown Sugar Nut Toasties

I can’t say any of these splits MY uprights, exactly.

Yum, yum.  Guten appetit!

For this award, I’ll nominate a2eternity, adjustremembered, and wehaveapples.  Thank you, ladies, for saying some of the many things that need to be said!

Humpday Chuckles: Photopourri

Posted on by
8

Have I mentioned that I’m not a fan of clutter?

Long before Hoarders became a watercooler topic, I had a Hoarder-like experience with my ex and his family.

The ex’s parents had a four-bedroom house crammed full of…stuff.  Clothes, books, shoes, more clothes.  The bedrooms were wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling piles with a narrow path from door to bed.  The family room was only half-useable; the rest was filled with “stuff we might need someday.”

His mom was a child of Depression-era parents, and she couldn’t bear to donate or toss anything that might have use.  His dad?  Well, he retired early and frequented garage sales, auctions, and flea markets, and accumulated an impressive collection of…

Guess.

No, really, c’mon.  Guess.

CAKE PLATES.

Were you close?

No, of course you weren’t.  Of all the things for a seventy-year-old man to collect, this probably wasn’t one of your first five thousand guesses.  But for some reason, this is what he always found – and brought home.  And he had HUNDREDS.  I’m literally being literal here. HUNDREDS.  Stacked along every wall, shelf, crevice, and ledge.

But I married his son anyway.  (And that wasn’t even the biggest red flag.  Not by a longshot.)

I should have known I was in trouble when he wouldn’t let me cancel the newspaper subscription – even when several weeks’ worth were found – not only unread, but still rolled up – under the couch.  The tipping point came several years later when we bought our second house – it came with a four-car garage, but we had so much stuff THERE WAS NO ROOM FOR ME TO PARK.  My reaction was to throw out an entire closet full of plastic Cool Whip and cottage cheese containers.  NONE OF WHICH HAD MATCHING LIDS ANYWAY BUT FOR SOME REASON WE HAAAAAAAAAAAAD TO KEEP THEM

<breathes deeply into paper bag>

To this day I have an aversion to clutter.  When I relocated out West, and had to move from my three-bedroom, two-bath abode, the movers scheduled 8 hours and an empty tractor trailer to pack up the contents of the house.  They were finished by 11AM and had my life’s belongings in less than a fifth of the trailer.

Anyway.  I was thinking of this as I went to organize my Blog Pictures folder (which now has a sophisticated system of color-coded subfolders.)  As I was reorganizing, I found some…uh…gems…that I haven’t posted yet.

So before I file them, I thought I’d share them in one big honkin’ motley medley picture parade.

Let’s start with a billboard.  I pass this one on occasion when I’m traveling and it always makes me chuckle.  I mean….well, look at it:

billboard1Belle:  “Oh, Beauregard….of COURSE I’ll marry you!  Where ever did you FIND this GEM? It’s so…”

Bo:  “I giddyapped and went to Kirk’s!  YEE HAW!”

Belle:  <weeps softly into her sweet tea>

Today’s Weather:  Rain, yo.

That’s chill.

Word.

rain_word

Next, I’d like to share a religious symbol with y’all.

I may have mentioned that I sing in a band on occasion.  Normally, when we perform at a church, we’re up front, to the side of the altar, facing the congregation.  At this gig, we warmed up and started the service – so far, so good.  Then, as the pastor started to speak, I turned toward the altar to face him…

…and I saw…

This.

DoveUnfortunately, the keyboardist and I saw it at the same time, and turned into poorly-behaved schoolkids who could. not. stop. snickering.

(We haven’t been invited back to the church yet.)

I’m sure one of the church elders lovingly handcrafted this artifact and graciously donated it to the church, along with a significant endowment, resulting in no one wanting to offend the dude and his money by suggesting they display a nice spray of lilies instead.

One question.  If a dove bearing an olive branch is a symbol of peace, what is this supposed to symbolize?

Never mind.  I do NOT wanna know.

Here’s a feline edition of “Where’s Waldo?” adapted from my cat’s last trip to the vet. Can you find him?

CarrotVet

You know how cats like boxes?  Mine turned into one.

Olliebox

One more.  A little while back, I posted about my hair.  I really like my hair.  It’s really thick and wavy, and it’s supposed to look something like this:

FabHairYoBut wavy hair often has its own ideas.  Today it had something a bit more avant-garde in mind:

bedhead

#iwokeuplikethis LEGIT.

Thank goodness for hats.

becausehatsHave a great week, peeps.  😉   <MWAH>

Food Issues Aren’t Child’s Play

Posted on by
20

Remember the playground?

When your parents parked the car, or when the bell for recess FINALLY rang…where did you run first?

I was all about the swings.  Unlike the monkey bars, they didn’t require much athletic ability, and they didn’t scald the skin on your thighs like the metal slide did on a hot summer day.  Didn’t we all pinch our fingers in the chains at least once when we were lost in the challenge of swinging hard enough to fly all the way around the bar?

(I recognize that some of you are too young to remember a playground that had actual safety hazards.  But back in MY day <hitching up suspenders> we didn’t have plastic coatings over the chains.  We had shiny metal slides that heated up to skin-blistering, egg-frying temperatures in August.  Seat belts on the swings?  You have GOT to be kidding.  And we had NONE of that sissy-boy recycled-tire mulch at the bottom of the monkey bars.    We had good old-fashioned DIRT.  Soft landings = soft adults!  Got a boo-boo?  Pop that sucker back into joint, rub some gravel on it and get back outside!)

Anyway.

As adults, I think we look for that same thrill that the playground used to give us.  We all need to find our fun, right?

Some of us look to extreme sports (100-milers.  The Ironman.)  Others look to death-defying activities.  (Bungee jumping, anyone?  Skydiving?  That’s a big helping of NOT ME.  But you go on with yo’ bad self.)  And a few get way too absorbed in the drama of politics, Big Brother, or Facebook.

Some of us get a little lost looking for that playground thrill.  That’s where things like gambling and alcohol come into play.  And for me, obviously, food.

Recently, the hubs and I went to our local State Fair, where they historically feature diabetes and obesity “on a stick.”  (Delicious, delicious diabetes.  OMNOMNOM)  You can find something for every palate – pickle juice Popsicles, chocolate-covered bacon, funnel cake, and deep-fried everything from candy bars to cookie dough – even butter.  (But butter sort of terrifies me, so we are NOT having any of THAT.)

I joke occasionally that the State Fair is “the one day I allow myself to eat.”  Now, I’ve been trying desperately to get these last ten fifteen five few pounds off, and I’ve been trying to not go all eating-disorder starvation crazy about it.  For the last four weeks, I’ve conscientiously eaten 1200 calories a day and gone for a run 3-4 times a week, with long bike rides on the weekends.  Balanced.  Healthy.  Right?

So I knew the fair was coming up, and I know I like to eat fair food, so I decided to just have a day of “screw it” and eat what I felt like eating at the fair.  One planned afternoon of once-a-year treats.

And eat I did.  I had:

  • a blueberry/honey/chipotle muffin (they were gluten-free, so I had to try one)
  • a scoop of chocolate raspberry wine ice cream (fabulous)
  • a beer-battered fried brat (also gluten-free!)
  • a “triple peanut threat” milkshake (peanut butter, Reese’s pieces, and Butterfingers, which probably aren’t gluten-free, but my throttle was jammed firmly into don’t-give-a-s#it gear at this point.
  • a chocolate-coated pecan nut roll (gluten?  WHO CARES SUGAR SUGAR SUGARSUGARSUGARSUUUUUUUGAAAARRRR)

Now, that’s a lot of food, but trust me, in past years, when I didn’t need to worry about not eating wheat, I’ve done a LOT worse.  (Add not one, but TWO, orders of deep-fried cheese curds, and probably a chocolate sandwich, which YES, is as good as it sounds, and maybe some sweet potato fries with a small lake of ketchup.)  So, given that this was a planned indulgence, this wasn’t TOO bad for a full day of food, especially when you’re walking all day, too.

Right?

Right  If I’d have STOPPED there.

I had been having quite a time on the monkey bars, enjoying the view up high, until I slipped, fell hard, and whacked my elbow on the unforgiving pavement.  THUD.

Unable to do anything halfway, I gave moderation a hostile middle finger and ate half a king-sized pillow bag of popcorn once I got home.

And, despite sticking religiously to my diet for the rest of the week – zero weight loss.

Well, what did I expect, exactly?  I guess I should feel lucky that I didn’t gain from my dalliance with debauchery.  I know that one day off from diligence – one bad meal, actually – will cost me (I wrote about why here.)

But I also know it’s dangerous to dance close to the edge of that oh-so-slippery slope.  Because with eating disorders, there is no “just once.”  There’s no minor diversion.  No day off.  It’s black or white.  All or nothing.

It’s kind of ironic, actually.  I mean, when you’re starving yourself (alternating with periods of stuffing yourself senseless) you spend a lot of time on a scale.  And if you’ve ever waded in past your knees in the eating-issues pool, you have a food scale, too.

The scale.  A symbol of balance.  A precise measuring device calculating, gram by gram, the distance of an object from zero.  Calculating the mass between the amount of space you take up and the amount of space that’s acceptable to occupy.

Physically, you’re constantly working with this instrument to find balance.

Yet, when it comes to the food?  Mentally, we can’t get off the seesaw.  Up.  Down.  Back up.  Quickly down.  One minute, you’re briefly at the top, and in the next moment, you’re bouncing painfully off the ground when your partner bails from the ride.

It’s all or nothing.

And we all know how it SHOULD be, right?  Mentally, we should strive to be balanced, aiming mightily for that elusive “moderation” bullseye, while physically, the scale should be an occasional, twice-a-year checkup at the doctor’s office.

My relationship with food, and my weight, should look like this:

But it feels more like this (except picture the elephant tumbling @ss over teakettle to the ground in a thunderous crash):

Or this:

Or, more accurately, this:

Somehow, I need to move myself to the center of the seesaw.  It doesn’t HAVE to be all-or-nothing, right?  Most people eat when they’re hungry, stop when they’re not, and don’t burn up so much freaking mental energy on this stuff.

They just DO it.  It’s like breathing.

It’s not so automatic for me.  I have to keep reminding myself to find my balance.

Keep shifting to the center.

Try to balance.

Fall.

Get back up.  Rub some dirt on it.

Try again.

<sigh>

Anyone wanna go back to the swings with me?  Let’s leave all this food baggage in Mom’s purse on the ground, and just rock back and forth for a while.

If I lean back, and point my toes to the sky, I’ll go higher and higher, alternately reaching for the moon and gently floating back to earth, not having a care in the world.

For a moment.

See Saw, Margery Daw

Katie shall have a new master

But she shall lose just two ounces a day

Because she can’t starve any faster

Liebster, Revisited: Part 3 of 3: How I Met the Hubs. And Shoes.

Posted on by
6

For those of you just tuning in now, this is the third and final installation of the challenge presented to me by sonofabeach96, who kindly nominated me for the Liebster Award:

liebster3(You can find Part 1, and Da Rulz, HERE.  Part 2 is HERE.)

Eleven simple questions, eleven long, convoluted answers.  Okay, I swear this is the final chapter in this disjointed series.  Then we can move along to something interesting, like politics, paint drying, taxes, or landscaping.

<snurk>

So, the rest of the questions:

What is your favorite vacation destination, and where would you want to travel if money were no object?

I actually haven’t really had many vacations, other than to see family.  Which, as much as I love them, doesn’t count, because being around family requires you to wear heavy, impenetrable armor, and after a few days, it just wears a gal down.

But I do have a couple of dream vacations.  I want to visit the West Coast (the last time I was there, I was sorely tempted to cancel my return ticket) and see mountains, ocean, and giant redwoods.  (Oh, and yeah, a few wineries.) I want to take a cruise to Alaska.  And I’d like to eventually visit Hawaii, because it’s both warm AND beautiful.

But the thought of being on a plane for four or five hours exhausts me – I’ve had several jobs where I’ve had to travel a lot – like 75% – and they’ve sucked all the glamour out of travel and basically ruined me for airports for life.

If money were no object, I’d sit in first class, and I expect it’d be a heckuva lot nicer.  Plus there’d be no hurry to return.  So maybe, in that case, I’d squeeze in a side jaunt to Australia.

BECAUSE KANGAROOS.

If you’re married, how did you meet your spouse?

The story behind my “starter spouse” is, unfortunately, not all that interesting.  We were in college together and married right after graduation.*  Very typical, very average.  And, just like everyone** else, we got divorced a few years later.

*Technically, I was three credits shy of graduation.  Details, details….I did finish three years later.

**I actually only know one couple who married right after college and stayed married.  Actually, she was my roommate and he was my ex’s roommate, so they spent a good bit of time together somewhat by default, and eventually decided to be a couple.  We always thought they were really odd together – culturally, spiritually, physically, personality-wise – they just never appeared as a matching set.  As the Brits would say – cheese and chalk.  But then again, who really had a good man-picker in college, anyway?  Clearly not EVERYONE ELSE who wound up divorced.  Twenty-plus years later, I guess they WERE the odd couple, at least in tenacity.

The story behind the hubs is much juicier.

Fast forward a few years.  I’m going through a divorce and juggling a new job.  In the midst of dividing up a life’s worth of possessions and trying to establish a “new normal”…I met someone.

It was a lousy time to begin a relationship – all the experts on divorce recovery will tell you “take time for yourself” and “don’t rush into something new.”  But I was never great at following a vague “they say” (or, for that matter, any voice of authority.)  Plus, I was enjoying my freedom – I had recently come to discover that my first spouse was mentally abusive (and likely suffering from some sort of personality disorder.  We flunked out of three therapists (which is a story for another time) so I never found out for sure.  Suffice it to say that if it walks like a duck, it ain’t a donut.)  

And this was not the relationship to start, for a number of reasons.  In addition to the fact that it was a long-distance relationship, he simply wasn’t available, and neither he nor I knew the difference between drama and love.  So while there was admittedly a lot of passion, it was the over-inflated extremist version that would rival any long-running soap on afternoon TV.  And I hadn’t learned enough about relationships to understand that while, on paper, he appeared to be the polar opposite of my ex (physically, politically, socially, etc.,) the reality was that they shared some startlingly similar personality traits (controlling, belittling, demeaning) that I failed to recognize until the bitter, melodramatic termination of the relationship.

And we pretty much had nothing in common, save loneliness.  Hard to build a long-term bond on the absence of something.

I didn’t marry that guy.  (Although, we looked at rings, and I bought a dress – which, after several moves, is currently sitting in a local consignment shop, tags still on it, ready to complete YOUR dream wedding!)  But I did endure about two years of emotional highs and lows, the soaring and plummeting of which would earn the envy and admiration of amusement park thrill ride engineers globally.

To further complicate matters, I had just been offered another job 900 miles away, in this guy’s metro area.

Kismet!  This was MEANT TO BE!

(Maybe.)

And then we broke up.  Again.

My sister decided that enough was enough, and perhaps I could try to meet someone else.  With renewed resolve, I reactivated my online dating profile (it had been created, utilized, and deactivated several times between our frequent breakups and reconciliations – you know, for added entertainment and histrionics -) and changed my location to my pending address.

Ahhhh.   A fresh start, a new city, a clean slate, a whole new buffet of man candy.   My sister and I clicked through profiles, evaluating and reviewing each one.  (Side note:  Online dating is like shoe shopping.  You can sift through a ton online, but until you walk in them a while, you really don’t have any idea whether they’ll actually work with your wardrobe and your lifestyle.)

A profile popped up.  “Ooh!  He’s cute. His ears are kind of big.  But he’s cute. Click him!”

So I did.  And I liked what I read:  He sounded intelligent and honest.  Plus, he was cute.  Waaaaay out of my league cute.  But…what the heck?  My last boyfriend was fond of saying, “You miss all the shots you don’t take.”  So I shot.

I composed a message – I commented on a few things he listed in his profile, and closed with, “I think peeling some mental onions with you could prove interesting.”

He said he fell for me right there.  (Aww.  <barf>)

So what happened to the other guy?  Well, he did try to get me back.  (No one saw THAT coming, right?)  His argument was – I kid you not – “We weren’t really broken up.  We were just taking a break.  We were supposed to get back together in a couple of months.  You weren’t supposed to meet someone else and fall in love.”

(Sorry.  Couldn’t resist.)

I’m embarrassed to admit that he and I briefly got back together one more time before the hubs and I became exclusive.  But our final breakup was empowering – I used my words, and my voice, and by ceremoniously dumping him, I was able to purge my soul of both him and my ex-spouse, and define how I deserved to be treated.

(Odd how it sounds like much of my eating disorder.  Like I “had” to stuff myself with pizza and ice cream one last time before I started The Official Diet.  Hmm.  Gonna have to think about that one.)

After the final fireworks died out and the audience went home, I emailed my now-hubs, told him I’d love to see him again, and the rest is history.  And while we’ve had some challenges over the last year, it would be unfair of me not to mention that he’s been absolutely amazing lately. He’s trying so very hard and has put in some tremendous effort after I was clear with him about what was so troublesome – especially lately.  (Funny how that works in healthy adult relationships….you rationally and calmly state what you need, and you get it.  It really can be that easy.)

P.S.  The dating site I used?  Don’t laugh.  Plenty of Fish.  It’s free.  Which means…well, you know what it means.  The hubs often tells people that he found me in the “FREE” box at a yard sale.  <snort>

Describe your personality and what type of people are you drawn to?

I think I’m drawn to people who have the traits I like in myself.  So, here’s my list:

  • I like funny people who can laugh at themselves, but not at the expense of others.  (Well, maybe a little.) <snurk>
  • I like people who have opinions they’re not afraid to use – as long as they use their ears and their brains as effectively as their mouths.
  • Bonus points if you have great shoes.  BECAUSE SHOES.

Speaking of which – here’s my latest haul.  Enjoy!

shoerunning

My most expensive shoes are my running shoes….

shoegold

GOLD SHOES. TWELVE DOLLARS. SCORE.

shoepinkpatent

These just make me happy. Lipstick for the feet!

Liebster, Revisited: Part 2 of 3: High School Never Ends, Cars, and Christmas Trees

Posted on by
7

This is a continuation of my last post, where I started responding to sonofabeach96’s  nomination of me for a Liebster Award:

liebster3Because I’m the verbal equivalent of Niagara Falls, I couldn’t get it all into one post.  So here are three more of the questions…and three more long-winded answers:

What were your high school days like?  Good, bad, or indifferent and why?

On the surface, high school wasn’t that bad.  I wasn’t really bullied.  I had friends.  I was involved in every music activity our small district had available.  I got excellent grades.

But it’s hard to reminisce about high school without noting, as a point of reference, where I was with my eating disorder.  It’s like having a sterile, undisturbing stock photo of a smiling family set inside a dusty, chipped, weather-beaten picture frame.

The story’s in the setting, not the scene.

Ninth grade started with a bang, because <dramatic pause> I met a boy.  When you’re fourteen, this is typical.  When you’re fourteen and chubby, and he likes you back, it’s life-changing.   He was older (by one year – oh, the SCANDAL!) and was (of COURSE!) as thin as a rail with a sky-high metabolism.  (Seriously – weren’t they all?)  I coasted through most of freshman year with a lot of “firsts” – first kiss, first date, first formal – and, for the first time since fifth grade, didn’t focus too much on my weight.

I ended my first year of high school wearing a size 11 and weighing about 145.

And then summer hit.  And with the heat came last year’s clothes that were way, way too small.  And by August, I was appalled to discover that my marching band uniform had shrunk.  Significantly.

Now, as an adult, I can objectively look back and see that truly, I was pretty much “normal.”  Probably a bit chubby, especially compared to the track stars and cheerleaders.  But surely I didn’t stand out as the fattest kid in the class.  I understand intellectually that I didn’t look all that different from my classmates – to this day, when I occasionally page through an old yearbook, it never fails to strike me how downright NORMAL I appear.

But at the time?  I was FAT.  And Something Had To Be Done About That.

I knew all too well what worked.  I quit eating.

I started tenth grade a good 25 pounds less than I had ended freshman year.  I walked into my first day of my sophomore year with my size 7 jeans hanging off me.

Bolstered by success and compliments from my classmates, I kept going.  I kept going despite occasional blackouts.  Despite a blood pressure of 80/40.  Despite lectures from the school nurse.  Despite missing family meals.  Despite peer praise turning to worry.  Despite bodily functions ceasing to exist.  Despite my (new) boyfriend begging me to eat.

I finally settled in at just barely over 100 pounds, logging every calorie and measuring every morsel of food (including mustard and Crystal Light – I was hardcore, bro).

This was my existence for the next two years.

Outwardly, things looked to be great – I was thin, I was active in music stuff, I had a boyfriend who loved me dearly and was going to take care of me ALWAYS, and as long as I controlled my body and the food I put into it, I was safe and secure.

Then, during my first semester as a senior, my boyfriend – my first love, the boy who swore he’d marry me one day and would love me forever – unceremoniously dumped me.  (Because college, ya know.)  Suddenly, after over two years of coasting in the shade, the sun was beating down on me, burning off the fog and forcing its bright, harsh light directly into my eyes, commanding my pupils to constrict as my eyes ached from pained, constant squinting.

With absolutely no idea how to cope, I started to eat.

Once the dam broke, it was impossible to stop the flood.  I gained fifty pounds the last half of senior year, as I filled the time with extracurricular activities (read: boys) trying to find my self-worth while simultaneously feeding my starving soul with anything I could get my hands on.  (Unfortunately, I was feeding it the equivalent of onion rings and Twinkies.  But I had to start somewhere.)

I left for college in the fall with the Bright Future of weighing 170 pounds and having absolutely no idea what to do with my life.

So…yeah.  High school was…high school.

KatieSeniorPic

And here I am, twenty-five over twenty years later, still wrestling the same pigs and getting just as dirty.  True, I have cuter shoes and no boa.  But still….

What was your first car? 

The first car that was actually MINE was a 1991 Chevy Lumina.  I’d love to say it was a sweet ride, but the only people to say that about this car is the bluehair-and-Bingo set. 

I mean…just…gaaaah: 

Really makes a statement, doesn’t it?  In addition to its edgy, bad@ss look, it also featured a speedometer that pegged at a hairnet-blowing 85mph.  Which is totally un-American, and un-German, and un-everything-under-age-seventy.

So why did I have this?  Well, as is the case with most first cars, I wasn’t actually involved in picking it out.  It actually came into my possession courtesy of my now-ex-in-laws.

See, my former mother-in-law cleaned houses for a living – generally for the elderly.  Consequently, they often paid her in either quarters, baked goods, or castoff clothing.

Still, she persisted.  We think she was hoping that someday, one of her clients would kick the bucket and mention her in the will.

That never happened.

But, since most of her customers were in their late eighties, they did hop the heaven bus to harp lessons on occasion.  And, as the stereotypes dictate, they often left behind an older, low-miles vehicle – which she’d then volunteer to buy, at a bargain price, from the grieving family.

I kid you not.

(I guess it’s a small reward for choking down loaf after loaf of soggy, well-intentioned pumpkin bread.)

At the time, my then-spouse and I were newlyweds – and I had finally, after years of resistance*, learned to drive.  So we needed a second car, and this one met all of our requirements and qualifications (read:  it ran and it was cheap.)  It wasn’t exactly hip and trendy, but it was only a couple of years old with less than 15,000 miles on it.  SOLD!  I drove that sucker into the ground, tooling around in it until we eventually popped out some offspring and traded it in for a minivan.

*Side note:  I didn’t actually learn to drive until I was 24.  Why?  Well, if you asked me directly, I’d tell you, as I flipped my hair and narrowed my eyes coyly, “I always had a boy or two to drive me around.”  That was partially true; I also had an older brother and a younger sister who were more than happy to play chauffeur.  But the truth?  I’m hopelessly uncoordinated, easily distracted, and a champion procrastinator.  Plus, I wanted to spend my babysitting dinero on clothes and shoes, not gas and insurance.  Priorities, ya know.

What is the one thing that grates on your last nerve?

OK, there is NO WAY I can only pick only one thing.  I talked about a few Things I Hate in the Love/Hate Challenge (which took me SIX posts.  I am ridiculous.)

But out of all those posts, there was one thing I missed that absolutely drives me to shoot fire from my face holes and rant in unholy tongues.

It’s Christmas lights that BLINK IN SECTIONS.

They don’t twinkle.  They don’t flutter off and on to music.  They just ALL flip on and off AT THE SAME TIME, like some idiot minion is half-wittedly turning the switch off and on, off and on.

Off.  On.  Off.  On.

These are usually at the house that’s hung just one string, usually lining a roof or a window. Or part of a roof.  Or half a window.  Or until the string of lights just ran out.

THEY’RE LIGHTS THAT DON’T EVEN TRY.

And please note – when I say “you didn’t try,” I have a pretty high threshold for what I consider gallant effort.  Witness our family Christmas Tree a few years ago:

frogpoolnoodletree

Shout out to Problems with Infinity (http://problemswithinfinity.com/) – see? SEE?!?

Yes.  It’s a stuffed frog and a pool noodle.  BUT IT SAYS “TREE” SO IT’S LEGIT.  And I didn’t have to step on a single needle.  I WIN.

This tree is creative and unique (and affordable, I might add!)  But lights that blink in sections?  It’s like Christmas just gave up.  It’s Christmas sadness.

Don’t be that house.  Don’t be the Holiday Spirit Slayer.  Leave your lights on, in all their energy-sapping, glowing glory.  Your neighbors will shovel your walkways and bring you cookies, and there will be world peace and harmony.

Or, at least, I won’t have to violently hurl the Fruitcake of Christmas Past through your front window.

Liebster, Revisited: Part 1 of 3: History of My Career

Posted on by
24

Recently (OK, it’s been a couple of weeks, because summer, yo!) sonofabeach96 was kind enough to nominate me for a Liebster Award:

liebster3This feels a little bit like cheating, because I actually won one of these before, and wrote about aliens and my cat.  But this one is a different COLOR, and like shoes THAT MAKES IT TOTALLY DIFFERENT so I’ll make room.

Before I dig in, lemme tell ya about sonofabeach96 – he writes about life and family, and seasons his posts liberally with great music.  He’s a good read, so go check him out. kthx

DA RULZ:

  1. Make a post thanking and linking the person who nominated me and include the Liebster Award sticker in the post.
  2. Nominate 5-10 other bloggers and notify them of this in one of their posts.
  3. All nominated bloggers are to have less than 200 followers.
  4. Answer the 11 questions posed by your nominator and create 11 different questions for your nominees to answer.  Or, you can repeat the same questions.
  5. Copy these rules into your post.

And now for the questions, which are sure to provide fascinating insight into the mental supply closet that is my psyche….

(Some of these are repeats, so I hope y’all don’t mind some backwards links.  Actually, I think I’ll list those questions first, just to get them checked off.)

What is your favorite movie and why?  I have two:  Hitch and The Incredibles.  You can read why here. 

Do you believe in an afterlife and/or ghosts?  Oh yes indeedy.  Here’s THAT post.

Describe your family and its dynamic.  I think most of it, and how it plays into the hot mess accomplished, mature professional I am today, can be found HERE.  

And now, some new stuff:

What is your career and is it what you’ve always wanted to do or did you just fall into it?

I work in Human Resources.  NO ONE wants to work in HR when they grow up.  No one even really knows what that IS, honestly.  I think “human resources” comes from an ancient Gaelic term meaning “shoveling employee drama that stinketh like elephant droppings”.

ihatepeople

Getting into HR was a total accident.  The kind where you’re juggling hot coffee and a plate of danishes, and your stiletto catches in the sidewalk, thrusting you rather violently and ungracefully into the cement, resulting in 1) hot coffee all over your white blouse, 2) scuffing your heel up beyond any hope of repair*, 3) tearing holes in the knees of the ONE pair of pants that don’t make your thighs look like they need their own zip code, and 4) all the pastries you were carrying landing sticky-side down in the dirt.  (Krispy Kreme redefined.  Bleck.)

*what nail polish and a Sharpie can fix.  (Don’t judge.)

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a meteorologist.  (OK, to be fair, not a lot of kids have THAT dream, either.)

I started college with no idea what I wanted to do for a living, and ended up gravitating towards education.  (Hey, I’d spent twelve years in school, it was the one thing I knew about.  I really wanted to study diet and nutrition, since that was the OTHER thing I knew about, but as a fat freshman, I didn’t think I’d be all that believable, so…. Voila!  Education it is!)  Unfortunately, after a fairly significant investment of four years and 175 credits, I learned in my last semester (during student teaching) that, while I enjoyed the actual TEACHING part of the job, I just could not stomach school politics.

The last straw?  I gave a kid a D in music class, and his dad threatened to kill me.  Note – the kid EARNED that D, refusing to participate, or listen, or do anything.  Essentially, he was a little a$$hole.  And his dad came to the school and told me I’d better think twice about keeping his precious little groinfruit off the honor roll, because he’d hate for me to be found dead in the park across the street like that 13-year-old girl they found there six weeks ago….(and I’m like, yeah…that totally just happened.)

I’m SURE this kid is enjoying a lucrative career now, thanks to Daddy’s stellar influence.  Somewhere that serves french fries.  If he’s not in prison.

The kicker?  The principal said I should consider the guy’s offer.  Uh no.  Little Lucifer got his D, and I washed my hands of the mess of trying to mold tomorrow’s society.  (Epilogue:  it broke all by itself without my help.) 

Unfortunately, when you study teaching but decide to pursue other careers, you really don’t have too many other readily marketable skills.  However, I had worked in college for the Conference Services department, managing the ins and outs of various camps and classes in the summer. (Yes…”band camp”.  And cheer camp and choir camp and art camp and robotics camp and football camp and pretty much everything else camp.)  So, with the handy skills of distributing keys, collecting payment, and working holidays under my belt, I got a job working the front desk at a hotel.

Hotels are crazy businesses.  Because people stay there, and people are nuts, especially after dark, and times fifty when you add in “I’m on vacation!” and alcohol.  For example – did you know that the reason there’s no roof access from hotel stairwells is because people go there to jump off?  There’s a whole book of “wow, people are totes craybeans” procedures around all kinds of stuff like that.

Unfortunately, employees aren’t much better, so eventually we had to fire someone for absenteeism or stealing food or sleeping with a guest or something, and no one wanted to deliver the message.  Which stumped me.  I mean, with all the crazy sauce the guests were slinging everywhere, employee discipline seemed like a fairly logical progression:

flowchartfiredSimple.  No guesswork here; I was just telling them they had arrived at the end of the chart, right?  This wasn’t complicated, or difficult…yet no one wanted to do it.  I guess they were afraid the person would be…angry?  Cry?  <eyeroll>  Whatever.  Just gimme the phone, Nancy-pants.

And that is how I got into HR.

Quickly, I became a pro at terminations.  Which served me well, career-wise – after working in manufacturing for 20 <gulp> years, and with all the ups and downs of the economy, and its myriad permutations of rightsizing and downsizing and layoffs and restructuring – not to mention the occasional employee bad behavior (and yes, there are some GREAT stories there…but we’ll save those for another day) I have had to fire literally hundreds of people.

At one company, we (read:  I) went through six rounds of layoffs in fourteen months.  And I sat through them all.

One by one.

It was…sucktacular.

If you could be anything, career-wise, what would you choose to do and why?

HR, of course.

frognope

I actually have a plan for this.  Once I can afford to retire HAHAHA who am I kidding win Powerball and become independently wealthy, I’m totally quitting HR for good.  I’ve told my coworkers, and my boss, this very thing – the moment I can afford to no longer work, Kate will turn into a puff of smoke and a screech of tires.  <poof>

My actual exit will be more subtle, though.  Because once I’m a bazillionaire, I need to fade into the sunset so people aren’t hitting me up for cash.  So one day, I’ll leave for lunch (which I have done maybe three times in as many years) and simply won’t come back.  My coworkers will start to miss me later in the afternoon:

“Uh…where’d Kate go?”

“Gosh, you know, I haven’t seen her in a few hours….Wait.  Didn’t she say she was going to lunch?”

“Yeah…which is weird because she, like, never goes to lunch.  She usually eats her six Cheerios at her desk.”

Eventually, one of them will text me, and I’ll simply reply “still at lunch.”  Which, a week later, will be freaking hilarious.  Right??

But I digress.

So my dream job?  I’ll learn to play guitar and sing folk songs in coffee houses and wine shops around the city.  I guess that isn’t really a job.  But I don’t care, because I’m independently wealthy now, and your rules no longer apply to me.  Neener neener.

I’ll continue answering the rest of the questions in another post….because by now, your nether-regions have likely fallen asleep, and you probably need to get up and stretch.

But without further ado…here are my nominees:

NOTE:  This is a zero-obligation nomination.  I swear my feelings will not be hurt if you don’t do this.  It’s just a way to give y’all a shout-out and say thanks for hanging your mental skivvies out on the line for all of us to gawk at.  Heh.  😉

But if you’re game….here are YOUR eleven questions – certain to provoke riveting and inspiring trinkets for conversational fodder…. 😉

  1. Describe for me your favorite piece of jewelry.
  2. Regarding #1, tell me where you got it, and who gets it in the will.
  3. What food should be made illegal, and why?
  4. In exactly fourteen words, tell me how you feel about clowns.
  5. Tell me how you got that scar.  (Pick your favorite.)
  6. What’s something you enjoy eating that others might find odd?
  7. What’s your favorite thing to look at/see in the sky?
  8. What’s the most interesting thing you’ve found while outside?  Jewelry, money…?
  9. What’d you do with what you found in #8?
  10. Have you ever stolen anything? Besides my heart.  <barf>
  11. Have you ever won anything?

Enjoy, kids.  😀

You…Should Take the Segway….

Posted on by
12

As far as earworms go, this is a decent one to have.  🙂

So in my quest to get outside of myself a little bit and try new things, I stumbled upon the opportunity to try out a Segway.

Wait…a what?

A Segway is basically an electric scooter – except it doesn’t have a seat.  You stand on this contraption and lean backward or forward to make it go or stop.  The thing is designed with computerized sensors and gyroscopes that somehow sense your motions and respond accordingly.

Which I read as “the computer will SMELL YOUR FEAR and laugh maniacally as it pitches you violently to the ground.”

The Segway whistles innocently as it searches for a place to bury the body.

It looks pretty menacing.  And, for the record, the dude who bought the company in 2010 was promptly thrown off a cliff by one of his products.  TRUE STORY BRO.

But, on the other hand, thousands of people ride these things every year.  I see Security zipping around the airport and the mall on Segways all the time.  And many major metropolitan areas have local tours, given while riding Segways.

So…how bad can it be?  If you can chuck a group of jet-lagged novices on these, and generally have a reasonable expectation that you’ll end the tour with the same number of people you started with, it’s gotta be somewhat safe…right?

I located a local Segway tour and signed myself and my son up.  (My daughter wasn’t all that interested.  Plus, this way, if my son and I perished in a terrible Segway fire, there’d be someone to inherit my jewelry.)

My son was mildly interested in trying the Segway. He was decidedly less interested in the tour itself, however.  (He’s 15.  Can you blame him?)  Most of the available tours feature historical sites – “historical” coming from the ancient Greek word meaning “boring crap your grandpa won’t shut up about” – so I decided to sign us up for the sculpture tour, instead.  I figured that was our best bet – buildings might not be all that exciting to a teenager, but an unusual sculpture might get at least a “blink and shrug.”  Or just a blink.  (Like I said, he’s 15.  I set my expectations accordingly.)

The day of our tour was hot – it was about 90.  (Which I actually love, because I’m always cold.  I recognize that pretty much everyone else is dying when it gets that hot, but I just stand outside and soak that shiz up.)  Because it was stupid hot, my son and I were the only two people signed up for the tour that day.  BONUS – undivided attention!

There are a few things you have to do before they’ll let you tool around on the Segway.  Those bad boys can zoom up to 12.5mph, so safety first, right?  You have to watch a safety video, put a helmet on, and…um…something else I think I missed because I was finishing level 432 on Candy Crush.  Then you can take off on the official tour.

But before they make you invest all that time in safety, they give you a quick trial on the thing, to make sure you aren’t a complete lost cause on the balance front.  (Which is nice, because generally, gravity hates me, and sometimes, when I’m trying something completely off the rails like, I dunno, WALKING, the ground jumps up completely at random to slap some sense into me.)

(Hmm. I wonder if someone called ahead and warned them about me.  Maybe that’s why no one else was on this tour.)

So I was introduced to my Segway.  Her name was Eunice.

SegwayEunice

After a quick primer, they had me hop on and try some quick maneuvers.

I got on, and enthusiastically leaned forward.

And promptly ran over the instructor’s foot.

My son was not amused.

You can HEAR the eyeroll....

You can HEAR the eyeroll.

My son is a natural athlete (with a KILLER arm, by the way #mombrag) so he was fearlessly flying around on the thing in no time.  Being a world-class klutz, I wasn’t quite as confident.  But, after a few minutes, I was deemed passable.  (Clearly, the bar was so low, I ran THAT over, too.  And I never fully got the hang of standing still, so every time we stopped for a quick explanation on a sculpture or sign, I sort of coasted back and forth.  Sometimes gently into a wall or a stop sign.  I’m sure I appeared mildly drunk.  I’m sure they’ve seen worse.  I mean, tourists.  Right?)

The tour was pretty cool.  I’ve lived in this city for nine years (!!) now, and saw a million things I’ve never seen before.

We crossed historic bridges:

SewgayBridgesegwayintocityexplored some of our city’s many bike trails:

segwaybiketrailand checked out some…art, I guess?

segwaysonspooncherryYeah…this is called, creatively and literally, “Spoonbridge and Cherry.”  Because it’s a bridge that’s a spoon, and there’s a cherry on the end.

SegwaySpoon

This is located in an 11-acre sculpture garden outside a local “modern art” museum.  Now, I don’t pretend to know anything about art – but some of the displays are…well….Last time I was there, they had a wall of salt and pepper shakers.  Like Hell’s Yard Sale.  Which I would have understood if they had CALLED it that, but it had some other lame name like “Modern Salt Shakers of the Century.”  And the time before THAT, there was a whole room dedicated to the variant shadings of cubism and graphite.  Which means SOMEONE DOODLED ON GRAPH PAPER WITH A PENCIL.

I will never understand art.

I tried, I really did.  I studied the sculpture for a moment, cocking my head and squinting intellectually.  Cupping my chin in my hand, I pondered aloud how the tonality of the structure might be modified if the artist had chosen to represent the cherry with, let’s say, an olive.  I remarked that the timbre would quickly shift from whimsical and insouciant to somewhat disillusioned, yet sophisticated.

Glare from my son.  “MOM.  No one eats olives with a spoon.”

(Actually, I do. At midnight.  When no one is looking.  But apparently, that’s still a secret.)

The rest of the tour passed without incident.  And by “without incident,” I mean that we had to take an off-road, unplanned detour down a pedestrians-only, bar-lined street, DURING HAPPY HOUR, due to road construction, and I crashed soundly and resolutely into a bridge.  Which caused the tour guide (YES, the one whose foot I flattened) to solidly rearend me, sandwiching me between himself, Eunice, and the wrought-iron guard rail.

Hil-freakin-larious.

In my son’s words: “Dude.  You were going straight, and you just didn’t TURN, and BOOM!”  Soooo descriptive.  And helpful.  I cannot WAIT until you get your permit, buster.

I suppose he may as well learn that I never go out with anything less than a bang.  <takes bow>

P.S.  Yes, that’s me in the pictures.  (Well not the maroon T-shirt; that’s my son, obviously.)  I’ve added and deleted these photos several times. I may delete them again after I hit “publish.”  Because I hate pictures of myself; I can’t look at one without scrutinizing what’s too big and too lumpy and too much and too everything.  And then I wasn’t going to point OUT that it was me, because that’s calling attention to the whole thing, which means you are totally going to go back and click on the pictures now.  Right?  But part of the reason I’m here is to deal with my food and body issues – and normal people wouldn’t think twice about posting what SHOULD be perfectly innocuous pictures of something fun they did, because it’s NOT about the size of my azzmatazz, but about the event, and if I hadn’t SAID anything, no one would even have THOUGHT to check out the width of my thighs.  So this whole paragraph is mental anxiety vomit about me TRYING TO BE NORMAL, which defeats the point entirely, but there ya go.  I get a Participation Trophy for showing up, right?  :-/ 😉

Sunshine on My Blog Page Makes Me Happy

Posted on by
12

Anyone else remember that song?

When I think of John Denver, I either think of Sunshine on My Shoulders, or, peculiarly, Kermit the Frog.

I’m not entirely certain why my brain equates John Denver with the Muppets. I know he was featured on the Muppet Show a few times, and this was the early 70s (which where my formative years, NOT because anyone I knew was smoking anything suspect.  Then again, I was a kid; what did I know?)  Although John Denver appears to have had a full life and career outside Kermit’s world, it simply doesn’t exist in my brain.

Anyway…sunshine’s on my mind today.  Both Chelise at Caterpillar to Butterfly and Nikki at Undiagnosed Warrior nominated me for the Sunshine Blog Award (so I get TWO pretty things to hang on my wall!  And they’re ORANGE!  My fave!!!)

sunshine-blog-awardsunshine-awardDA RULES:

  • Thank the person who nominated you in a blog post
  • Answer the 11 questions set by the person who nominated you
  • Nominate 11 blogs to receive the award, and write them 11 new questions

So that means I have TWENTY-TWO QUESTIONS to answer.  Yowza.  This could take awhile….

What is the most important thing to you?   I probably am supposed to say something poignant and sentimental here about my kids and the hubs. 

Realistically, though, the longest item of focus in my life has been my weight. 

Wow…that’s kind of…pathetic, isn’t it.  (Not a question. A statement.)

But I guess if I’m being honest here, my weight is something I’ve kept a close eye on fairly consistently for…<does quick math> THIRTY-THREE-FOUR FREAKING YEARS. 

Yikes.  That’s kind of an eye-opener.

Seriously – I need to think about this for a bit.

Do I really want this to be my legacy? 

<shuts laptop and goes outside to mow lawn and contemplate meaning of life vs. weight loss>

OK.  I’m sweaty now, and have clippings stuck to my neck.  (There’s probably a fetish site for that. NOT GOOGLING.)  Burned 300+ calories, have well-manicured lawn, and am no closer to setting life goals.

Ah well, it’ll grow back and I can try again.  <shrugs>

<tucks into rest of post>

If you could go anywhere right now, where would it be?  Back to bed with my coffee.  Ahhhhh. 

As far as physical places go – I would love to take an Alaskan cruise, although I’m a bit iffy on the whole cold-weather thing.  I really want to spend time on the west coast – mountains AND ocean and ginormous trees, and lots of wine.  What could be better?  (Also will take recommendations….HINT HINT)

What’s your favorite thing about blogging?  Camaraderie.  I love my new invisible friends!  

What’s your favorite thing about yourself?  I crack myself up.  🙂

What has been your biggest challenge in life so far?  I think the hardest time in my life was my divorce.  It’s like breaking a Fabergé egg.  You have this thing (marriage) that you’ve worked up in your mind to be beautiful; to be treasured and protected – and you have to smash it on the ground and sweep up the pieces, reordering them into something that will never resemble the ideal ever again.  You and your kids WILL get to a point where things are OK…but it won’t be the Fabergé egg.  That no longer exists.

Whoa.  Deep. 

Do you believe in love at first sight?  Only with shoes. Everything else needs to be tried on and worked into the wardrobe, and sometimes, no matter how fabulous he appears to be on the rack, he just doesn’t work with your lifestyle.

Where do you see yourself in ten years?  Hopefully I’ll be a grandmother and taking FABULOUS vacations out west!  (No pressure, kids.  Even though I have fed and diapered you since birth, and have sacrificed <sob> SO MUCH for your happiness….)

How many languages do you speak?  What languages do you speak fluidly? English only.  Although I used to understand Spanish fairly well – I’ve worked in a few bilingual facilities; between that and four years of high school Spanish, I often only needed an interpreter one way.  (However, no amount of language training can prepare you to explain how an HSA works.  Heck, it’s nearly impossible in English.)

What do you think is your best post so far? Link it.  I’m picking two, because I’m a thug rebel like that.  Why I Hate Deer is one.  The other is a little darker but I needed to get it out of my head:  Frosting

What’s your favorite quote?  “The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion.” ~ Paulo Coelho

If you could recommend one fellow blogger for me to follow, who would it be and why?  Click on Problems With Infinity.  Quirky humor AND PICTURES.  LOVE.

Favorite vacation spot? Sadly, I have no idea, as I haven’t been on one in over ten years….

Favorite time of day?  Evening.  I’m not quite the night owl I used to be (thanks for NOTHING, societal norms) but I do my best thinking after 4 PM.  Or maybe I just LOOK good in comparison because by that time of day, everyone else’s battery is pretty much drained.  Ha.

Ocean or Lake?  Mountains. 🙂

Dogs or cats?  I’m a cat person. You can read about my eating-disordered cats HERE.

Favorite season?  Notwinter.  THAT TOTALLY COUNTS.  Fall = Football, Summer = Warm, Spring = Flowers and End of Winter.  All good, all not winter. 

Zodiac Sign? Both sides of my brain are firmly Gemini. So is the hubs. Makes life interesting, if you like seesaws and being randomly off-balance.

Exerciser or Couch Potato? Genetically, a couch potato.  I do exercise, but it’s always a chore.  It’s like brushing my teeth – I may never LOVE it, but I’ll DO it, because I don’t like what things look like when I don’t.

How long have you been blogging?  I started this blog 2/4/15.  It’s been six months and over 50 posts – wow, that adds up!

Camping or Hotel? This is much like asking, “buy new shoes or stab self with fish hooks?”  I love indoor plumbing.  I do NOT love schlepping 100+ pounds of crapola from house to forest in order to sleep outside when Man has invented PERFECTLY GOOD devices for this in sheltered areas. 

Nor do I relish the thought of hauling all the sweaty linens, dishes, and shelter, with freshly accumulated dirt and leaves, back home to have to clean and put away.  Seriously – hauling half a week’s worth of groceries kind of sucks.  You want me to carry my bed, my food, AND my roof around the wilderness?  Just thinking about that makes me too tired to actually go outside.  HOW IS THIS FUN? 

And there’s no WiFi.

I seriously think y’all who enjoy this are just pretending.  I simply cannot wrap my head around it. 

Favorite movie?  Again, I have two.  While I normally lack the attention span to sit through an entire movie (two hours?  Kill me) there are two that I’ll watch over and over and over again.

First:  The Incredibles.

blah blah

(Weird glitch isn't letting me caption this. Photo from http://movies.disney.com/the-incredibles)

So many gems in that one.  I seriously overuse “You got me monolouging” and “WHERE.  IS MY SUPERSUIT” and “Abort! Abort! There are children aboard!”  And I reference Bob’s opinion of incessant graduations ALL.THE.TIME.  Go HERE and read ALL the quotes.   It’s totally a scientific sociological specimen.  100%. Seriously.  WATCH THIS.  Now.

You also need to run out and go see Hitch.  BECAUSE IT’S HILARIOUS.

Photo from http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/hitch/

Every adult in the dating world needs to watch this – after you do, you’ll feel strangely better about the whole mess.  I promise.

This is another one with so many relatable quotes I can’t even.  “Don’t need no pizza.  They got plenty of food there.”  BEST QUOTE ON BAD DANCING EVER.

See?  Now you’re intrigued, aren’t ya.  GO WATCH IT. It’s on Netflix and it will TOTALLY brighten your day.  Like sunshine.

Passing the torch along to eleven bloggers who do a nice job of spreading light.  I won’t be offended if you don’t take this challenge on.  Just know that you brighten my day.

<barf>

  1. theGoodVader
  2. Happiness, Health, and Hypnosis
  3. sonofabeach96
  4. fattymccupcakes
  5. karmasarma
  6. Mermaid in a Mudslide
  7. This Little Diary
  8. Cat in the Cactus
  9. Remember the Good Stuff
  10. a funny thing happened when I was learning myself
  11. surviving the specter

YOUR QUESTIONS:

1. Describe to me, in detail, your favorite pizza.  (Bonus points if you can make it sound sultry.)

2.  Congratulations!  You just won a boat.  What do you name her?

3.  INTRUDER ALERT!  Someone’s breaking into your house!  What do you grab to fend him off? 

4.  What is your least favorite household chore?

5.  A stranger hands you $100 and one condition:  you have to spend it on something COMPLETELY frivolous, or a puppy dies.  What do you spend it on?

6.  Say something spiritual about doing laundry.

7.  What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten (on purpose?)

8.  What’s the oldest thing in your fridge right now?

9.  Describe your sleeping space. 

10. Thrill rides:  Yes or no, and why or why not?

11. What’s your favorite joke?

That oughta do it, for now. The sun is setting on this post.

<gong>

The Love/Hate Challenge: Part 6 – SHOOT IT SHOOT IT SHOOT IT

Posted on by
10

I am pleased to announce that this is the FINAL INSTALLMENT of this challenge!  Loud cheers and huzzahs!

<faint slow-claps from two bored audience members>

I do enjoy these challenges – because although I like to write – and it’s good for me to do so – sometimes breaking the inertia and getting started is the hardest part, and these challenges give you somewhere to point your feet once you actually get off the mental sofa and open the front door.  But this one is starting to look like an evening gown in my closet that I bought for a fancy party four years ago – while I still love it, I need to get it to a consignment shop before it’s no longer fashionably relevant (and before I get too fat to wear it, and just looking at it makes me cry.)

lovehatechallengeDA RULES:

  1. List 10 things you LOVE
  2. List 10 things you HATE
  3. Nominate a few suckers to do the same

10 THINGS I LOVE and 10 THINGS I HATE (in unranked order)

PART 6:  THE FINAL CHAPTER

When I first started working on this series, I was having trouble coming up with ten different things.  (Now that I’m at the end, I have like six more things to write about…so I guess this challenge was a good starting point.)  But I was having trouble getting off the starting block, so I asked my kids for help brainstorming.

(Yes.  I should have known better.)

Me:  So I’m writing about ten things I love and ten things I hate.  What are ten things YOU hate?

Daughter:  My brother, my brother, my brother, my brother….

Me: <cutting her off>  That’s cheating. Your brother is ONE thing.  You can’t list him ten times.

Son:  OK then.  My sister’s face.  My sister’s head.  My sister’s mouth.  My sister’s singing.  My sister’s bu….

Me:  <cheerily> HEY!  Who wants ice cream?

Sigh.

The Love/Hate Challenge has been up WAY past its bedtime….time to shut out the lights and tuck this one in.

10.  I hate deer.  But I love messing with people.

Remember when Bambi first came out?  Wait…of course you don’t.  That was like, 1942 or something. But I do remember watching it in the movie theater.

Incidentally, did you remember that Bambi was a DUDE?  Next time I’m at a bachelorette party, and the fake-cop comes in to strip, I’ll try shouting “Take it off, Bambi” as I shove dollar bills in his general direction. I’m sure it’ll be super effective in getting his attention.

I also distinctly remember the scene when Bambi’s mother died. Strangely, I was the only one who leapt to her feet and cheered.

What?  You were sad?

Don’t be.

The only good deer is a dead deer.  And here is why:

Deer suck.

They really do.  They’re sort of like the rich teenagers on Gossip Girl (which I am NOT currently bingewatching with my daughter) – when people see them, they ooh and ah over how pretty they are, and everyone wants to get close to them and snap pictures to share on social media.

But then they randomly do totally b!tchy things like eat your flowers or randomly leap in front of your car when you’re zipping down the highway at 72 mph, and as you’re looking over the remnants of your petunias or your crumpled fender, you suddenly want to mow them all down with a fully loaded AK-47.

So far, I’ve been lucky – I haven’t actually struck a deer yet.  Since I grew up in rural PA, I recognize that I’ve beat the odds here.

But my time will come.

They’re all waiting along the highway, watching me, waiting for that PERFECT moment when I’m tooling down a nameless country road at midnight, juggling a refresh on Google Maps and a hot cup of Dunkin’.  Then – only then – they will strike.  And once they do?  It’s ON, futhamuckers.  It.  Is.  On.  You spill my coffee, we will have words.  <angles bazooka menacingly>

In the meantime?  I married into a family that hunts.  And while I support the swift obliteration of the entire species of glorified rats with antlers, I’ll admit I’m not the biggest fan of using them as decoration.  I mean, if you want to make an impact, hang the severed heads outside, where they can serve as a horrible warning to the survivors to stay the h#ll off my lawn.

(Side note:  My grandpa was a salmon fisherman, and once he cleaned the fish, he used to nail their heads to the pine trees by the garden.  He said it kept the snakes away.  I can’t tell you whether it worked or not, but you can bet your sweet bippie we never had any salmon digging up our gardens and dinging up our bumpers, that’s for sure.  To be fair, salmon skulls aren’t really all that cuddly.  Would YOU raid a garden decorated with this?)

fishhead

Fish heads aside, most folks insist on displaying their kill indoors. So my options are either to get used to it…or help them kick it up a notch.

I present Exhibit A:

antlerwig

Tragically, after running away to Vegas, Amber paid the ultimate price for hard, fast living.

Recently, my kids and I were at a birthday party for one of the hubby’s relatives.

Now, these are perfectly nice people….but after a while, I was frantically looking for a graceful escape route when the birthday girl’s grandmother monologued for TWENTY MINUTES about how relaxing and rewarding it was to…

…wait for it…

…iron.

Wait, what?

Iron?

Yup.  Everything.  Baby clothes, sheets, it’s all so soothing.  And she won over her husband because of how meticulous she was about pressing his underwear.

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

I can’t even.

I think we still have an iron.  It’s stuffed in the back of the NOPE closet next to the bucket of Hell No and the box of Never Again.

I do remember the last time I ironed, actually.  It was October of 1999 and I was about 12 weeks pregnant with my son.  I was getting ready to go on a business trip, and my pants (already!!) didn’t fit, so I had to dig out pair of maternity pants.  They had only been in storage a few months, but were wrinkled beyond recognition, and iron repellant* hadn’t been invented yet, so I attempted to iron.

And promptly burned my arm.

And immediately quit ironing forever, because I was traumatically scarred FOR LIFE.  That shiz is dangerous, yo.

irontragedy

See?! SEE?!??!?

* Iron repellant = Downy Wrinkle Releaser.  If that stuff doesn’t work on an article of clothing, it goes in the Goodwill bin.  Ain’t nobody got time for dat.

Anyway.  After that absolutely riveting tale of uncreased unmentionables, the kiddos and I were bored.  And when my kids get bored…let’s just say I can either create a diversion, or become a victim.  I learned my lesson at the LAST family party, where my daughter stole my phone and updated the spelling dictionary to change over seventy-five common words to autocorrect to “poop.”  (She also changed her name to Her Royal Highness, and her brother’s to something unprintable. <shrug> She comes by it honestly, I guess.)

So we decided to play a game with the party balloons.  There were about a dozen trophies hanging on the wall.  First kid to score an antler basket wins $10.  GO!

It took about 10 minutes (it’s harder than it looks with 12′ ceilings.)   My son is $10 richer, and in my opinion, it was money well spent.

AntlerToss

The final nomination for this challenge is sonofabeach96 – because we recently bonded over coffee.  😉

And with that – CHALLENGE CLOSED. <mic drop>