my list: 101 things in 1001 days

1 learn to play the guitar
2 re-learn french
3 finish my novel
4 finish my poetry book
5 graduate with my mfa
6 see disney world
7 go to ireland
8 get my third tattoo
9 pierce my belly button
10 pierce my upper ears
11 bungee jump
12 sky dive
13 snow board
14 weigh less than 200lbs
15 learn to drive a stick
16 fly first class
17 get out of credit card debt
18 buy a house
19 visit seattle
20 become a sophmore burner
21 learn to swim
22 get my passport
23 become an expert at reading tarot
24 complete the breast cancer 3 day
25 visit vermont (completed 12/30-31/06)
26 go to canada(completed 12/31/06-1/1/07)
27 go roller blading again
28 visit & return from mexico
29 write a song
30 see the salt flats in utah
31 have a spa weekend
32 finish my bartending classes
33 make a quilt entirely by hand
34 celebrate mardi gras in new orleans
35 go skiing
36 go to italy
37 make my own candles
38 take swing dancing lessons
39 go scuba diving
40 get my 4th tattoo
41 get my 5th tattoo
42 go to the garlic festival in gilroy, ca
43 enter the pillsbury bake-off
45 make my own spaghetti sauce from scratch
46 spend a week in alaska
47 complete NaNoWriMo (@ least 50k words)
48 pull taffy
49 spend a year being selfish
50 learn another lanaguage (other than french)
51 do a past life regression
52 have at least one end game character on WoW (completed 1/14/07)
53 practice palmistry
54 play in the ocean
55 see new york city (not by plane)
56 go the grand canyon
57 tour hoover damn
58 invent a cocktail
59 try a REAL martini (not-a-freakin-fru-fru-it-ends-in-tini-so-it's-a-martini)
60 find my spirituality
61 become ambedextrus
62 run for more than a minute
63 become lost
64 find myself
65 finish my james dean collage
66 read "the inferno"
67 write a fan letter to stephen king
68 write a thank you letter to stephen thayor
69 send my mom flowers for no reason (completed 02/27/2007)
70 take my dad to a movie for no reason
71 surprise my grandma with lunch/dinner
72 get up to enjoy the sunrise
73 watch the sunset
74 get to at least 30 states on my list
75 go to hawaii
76 make home made chili
77 rollar blade around lake phalen
78 win a game of cribbage against jenn-jenn
79 drive to california
80 dance on myrtle beach
81 make my parents proud of me
82 forgive grandma ginger
83 talk to my dad about vietnam
84 go to the top of the empire state building
85 have my dad teach me glass etching
86 make kuchen with my mom
87 have matt teach me how to change the oil in a car
88 help matt restore my dad's mustang
89 save $5,000 & keep it in the bank
90 write my dad's story
91 learn to lucid dream
92 create a garlic recipe to enter in the gilroy festival
93 take a photography class
94 become a pool shark (ok, reasonably good at pool will suffice)
95make a new year's resolution that i stick with for one whole year
96 go to a wild game with my dad
97 see a cirque de solel performance
98 interview grandpa caruso for a west 7th street book
99 do 10 real push-ups without dying
100 let myself write at least 30 minutes a day
101 finish this entire list in 1001 days

meet my newest pet: gwennie

adopt your own virtual pet!

care bear philosophy

it's been said by too many people in too many ways, that the ending of one thing should be thought of, not as an ending, but as the beginning of something else. also, when god closes a door, he opens a window. yada yada yada. it's a tired & worn out phrase, ideology, something warm & fuzzy to wrap ourselves in when something in our life goes awry & we need to feel better about our past & where we still have to travel in the future.

fuck. that. shit.

sometimes a girl needs to wallow. with a long island. or a big mother-effing bottle of tequila.

i won't say that i regret anything that's happened in the past two years, because to say i regret it is to say that, if given the chance, i would change it, & i wouldn't change it. because that's not the way i roll.

like everything in my life i'm trying to look at the opportunities that are being presented to me now instead of what i'm losing. & it's hard, because, well, the afore mentioned long islands &/or bottle of tequila for starters. but beyond that, 'cause i hate saying good bye. & i hate admitting that i'm wrong.

& most of all, i hate failing, at anything. & i feel like i failed. big time.

no matter what anyone says, it's how i feel. & i won't apologize for how i feel. it cheapens you, & your emotions, to apologize for them.

& that's all i have to say about that.

holiday hangover

i think i ingested five & a half pounds of sugar over the past two days. my tummy is pretending it's a sailor & tying itself in knots, my blood is slogging through my body laden down with the sugar crystals, & my head is heavy & fuzzy, & all i wanna do is sleep.

oh holy hell i feel like crap!

& here i swore i'd never do that to myself again. never again would i stuff my face so full of food that i felt hung over the next day from the excess, & yet, oops, i did it again. except without the pop soundtrack, skimpy clothes, or suggestive dance.

what is it about christmas, or any holiday for that matter, that makes us not only feel it's ok to over indulge, but makes us feel entitled to gorge ourselves past our limits?

i won't do this to myself on new years eve, i guar-en-tee it.

merry christmas!

it's december 25th again & all over people are celebrating christmas. for each person christmas means a different thing. for some it really is a true religious celebration. for some it's all about the gifts & getting that perfect gift (how many people elbowed old ladies this year to get their hands on a wii?) & for some it's just an annoying day that all the stores are closed & you can't even get a big mac at mickey d's.

for me, christmas is about family. unfortunately, most christmases my dad has to work, 8am-4pm, which sucks, a lot. then again, there have been quite a few years that i had to work on christmas day also. the gifts are nice, don't get me wrong. but in a way i'm more excited about giving to my family, seeing their faces when they open those packages that i put so much time into picking out, & not so much time into wrapping.

right now it's 2:30pm & all over america kids are blissed out from playing with their new presents, tvs have wii controls embedded in them, & adults are half schnockered from too much egg nog. & here at my house, we have tbs' 24 hours of a christmas story on the boob tube, the dog is wandering around looking confused, my brother just woke up & is in the shower, my sister is plotting her day after christmas sales plan, my mom is making a sandwich, & i'm curled up with my laptop & my cleo cat. all of us waiting on four o'clock when my dad will be home & we can really start enjoying the holiday.

my fondest memories of christmas from when i was young is the look on my dad's face when my mom would show up at his work, with all of us kids, bags stuffed with sandwich meat, dollar buns, chips, cookies, kuchen, cans of pop, & vhs tapes with our favorite christmas movies. & we'd invade my dad's work for a few hours, eating a christmas lunch, talking, watching movies, drinking hot cocoa. & it made his day just a little bit better.

no matter what you are doing today, i hope your day is good, that you get at least a small christmas miracle.

good bye, travel well, mnboy

a friend of mine has an "activity partner" that has been nicknamed "minnesota boy," shortened to mnboy for the purpose of text messages. i have yet to meet the infamous mnboy, he seems to dodge every chance to make my fabulous acquaintance, but it still seems like the polite thing to wish him a fond farewell.

he's decided that minnesota is played out, has nothing to offer him, (though, personally, i would beg to differ). so he's packing his jeep & heading off, to the south, to the west, i guess where ever the feeling moves him. georgia has been mentioned, so has the fabulous bay area. & though i've never met the boy, up close & personal, i do wish him the best.

it's been said that he's a blog fan of mine, so why not wish him well on his future travels, & at the same time, make him blog famous? he already is semi-blog famous, anyone remember the august post let's hear it for the boy? mnboy was the misfortune's mike in the story, who stacked shit from his garage on top of his car to fall into his apartment with his junk hanging out? yeah, i still smile a little when i pull that one from the archives.

to send mnboy into blog fame we'll resurrect mike & suzy from their aliases of august to give the most recent, & last installment, of their adventures.

on sunday i was over at suzy's place picking her up for a christmas party, & i see this rather delish boy walk out of her apartment building wearing pj bottoms & a hoodie & i mentally say "oh baby" & then a part of me thinks, "i bet that's mnboy." no reason, i just think that. then the delish boy goes over to a jeep, gets in, sits there for a hella long time, making me think that cutie wasn't the famed mnboy, just someone who lives at suzy's building, then the jeep reverses, i see the plates in my review (florida i note....which IS where mnboy's parents reside) & suz is running terribly late so i think "BUSTED! she was getting some sunday boom-boom & that's why she was late."

& i really was going to call her out on it, but she came out to my truck after i'd been sitting there for a good twenty minutes apologizing & looking all rushed & harried (& she had christmas pressies for me) so i felt bad & decided not to call her out on it.

fast forward to wednesday morning. i pull up to her apartment building & see the same jeep with florida plates in the parking lot. hmmm. & she admitted that mnboy was still there asleep in her bed. double hmmm. so she gets in my truck & i ask, ever so casually, "is that mnboy's jeep?" & she says yes & i did the whole ah-ha! thing.

which led to confusion. suzy wanted to know what in the hell i was talking about. i thought she was playing it super cool, acting like she didn't know anything about the cute boy in the pj bottoms strolling out of the building & getting into the jeep in question. & then we discovered, she wasn't being coy, playing sly, or anything. he hadn't really been warming her bed saturday night or sunday morning. she hadn't seen the boy. & from my description of the apartment cutie he sounded like i did indeed see the elusive mnboy exiting the building.

& suzy was mad.

& got madder through out the day. she kept popping up over my cube wall & asking me, what did the pajama bottoms look like? could i see the dude's arms? did he have tattoos on them? hair color? style? was i for-absolute-cross-my-heart-&-swear-to-die-super-positive that i saw that jeep? & i answered the questions until i was blue in the face. & i didn't read the plates, but i saw the jeep, saw the florida plates, & even (quite lamely & half heartedly) put forth the explanation that it could be that there are two identical jeeps with florida plates not only in minnesota but chilling at that building in minnetonka.

through out the day suzy texted mike to get his version of the story. & we, suzy & i that is, not mike & i, came to the conclusion that no boy would be dumb enough to have two booty calls in the exact same apartment building when he doesn't even live in said building. & mnboy mike maintained his innocence, & i maintained what my brown eyes saw, & suzy wound up confused but knew i wouldn't lie to her.

& suzy was just going to write the whole thing off, mnboy would be moving & no longer a mnboy, he'd be a caliboy or gaboy, but someone else's boy anyway. until we pulled up to her building after work. & what do we see parked right across from the front door, almost in a mocking way, if cars could mock. yup, the jeep with florida plate. & suzy looked at it & asked if it had tinted windows, which it did.

what happened next was both hilarious in the moment, & after, & slightly terrifying at the same time. suzy flung open the door of my truck, nearly fell out of it, actually. grabbed her gym bag & keys, as she was trying to shove my crap back into the truck. she yelled that she'd call me later as she slammed the door & ran into her building. first off gang, i have never seen suzy run, i was in straight up shock over that one. & then i thought she just may kill him. & then we'd have a dead mnboy to deal with. which can be fine in the summer, but it's winter, the ground is frozen & i didn't have a hole prepared anywhere.

so i sent her a text:

don't kill him! you're too pretty for prison!

she didn't kill him. mnboy told our little suzy that he loaned his jeep to a friend to get a christmas tree & that he had his friend's car. & my description sort of fit him, & other cute boys with dark hair, hoodies, & green plaid flannel pj bottoms. but he still claims it was the other cute guy with the jeep with florida plates (is anyone thinking this sounds like the fugitive....i swear it was the one armed man!) at the apartment building sunday evening. & considering the other jeep with florida plates is still in the parking lot, still covered in melting snow, & supposedly mnboy is at his own apartment.

& from all of us here at beckah's blog, meaning just my bad self, we say "bon voyage, mnboy. so long, & thanks for all the fish."

PeNoWriMo

i didn't do as well during NaNoWriMo as i would've hoped. i made it to about 8,000 words, i know it wasn't into the 9s, but somewhere in the 8s. about 16% completion is what i reached, not spectacular at all. so i decided i'll do it again, in january, & i'll hold myself accountable online. yes, the ticker does say exercise, but they didn't really have any other ones that would work for this.

currently i'm in the process of changing the spare room in the basement from jack's room back to an office for myself. yeah, the room is kind of dark & does have the horrid brady-style paneling on the walls. but it has a door & it's all mine, so it's a pretty good start.

i'm still trying to finish my novel for my thesis. wish me luck gang, the official countdown begins on january first, but i'm taking the last 12 days of december as my gearing up & getting ready time.

surgery on the horizon

i had my last meeting with christine this morning, the dietician at hcmc. she said that i was doing really well & that she was going to pass my information onto the people that do the scheduling for the surgical team. she also said, again, that if it wasn't for my insurance requiring me to meet with her three times that she would've passed me right away on the first appointment, that feels good, i will admit, to know that i was doing everything possible to lose weight & that someone in the medical community supported me & said "yes, she needs our help to get to lose weight." it's also an odd feeling of defeat & shame. that it really & truly means that i'm failing/failed at the weight loss battle.

the psychiatrist also had good things to say about me. so the next stop on the fa(s)t train is the surgeon. at hcmc they do the meetings with the surgeons every other week. the way it was explained to me is that the surgeons alternate weeks, the meetings are on friday mornings at 8am, the surgeon meets with several people as a large group, discusses both roux-en-y & lab band surgeries, & then after the "group" meeting, the surgeon meets individually with each patient to discuss the specifics of the surgery they are interested in getting, any personal questions they have, & all of that. the surgeon writes to the insurance company including notes of the dietician, psychiatrist & all the information they have to show why this person should be approved for weight loss surgery.

the timeline is looking something like this: it'll be some time in january that i meet with the surgeon for the first time, then about 15 days to get the response from my insurance, after that is a go, then we'll look at scheduling the actual surgery, which is looking like possibly february at the earliest, depending on when all of the rest of this is going to take place. it's really odd to think that by the time spring is here that i may have surgically altered my body & the way it handles digestion meaning it'll alter the way that i interact with food.

to quote joey: WHOA!

yeah, pretty heavy stuff we're dealing with here, pun possibly intended. then again, there is still hope for me. i did lose some weight on the challenge that i did with jenn this past fall. it wasn't a total success because she won (yea jenn!) which means that i lost. the competition. some weight, but not enough. & we're starting another challenge on january 5th. that will be the starting weight day. & then hard core from there. it'll be me, jenn, & angel again. we'll also be joined by a few other coworkers. so i need to just get my ass dedicated & do what i need to. i hate to lose, ya know.

& this last competition, since it's right before the (possible) surgery, is my very last chance to do it on my own. yeah, maybe this seems a little odd to try to push myself to lose a lot of weight before i intend on getting weight loss surgery. but the thing is, if i postpone the weight loss surgery path right now, it'll take me that much longer to go through the process again if/when i fail (again) at this on my own. i really don't know for sure where i stand on this. i know that i really wish that i could do this all on my own. but i also think that i've really reached the point where i cannot do this on my own, i need some extra help. & i need to realize that there's absolutely no shame in admitting that you need someone else's help. sometimes being strong really does mean admitting that you're weak & need intervention to get yourself to the finish line.

it's all about the motivation

it's been said over & over that a lot of life & what you accomplish with the time that you're given is about the effort you put in, & related to that, about how motivated you are to achieve. what is often lacking in that whole description is the fear part.

trying to succeed at anything is scary. because you may fail. & no matter how many people believe in you & cheer you on, there's still that little itching of doubt in the back of your brain. that voice that sounds like (your over critical grand parent-abusive ex-second grade teacher-FILL IN THE BLANK) that voice that gets stronger sometimes the harder you try. the voice that tells you: you aren't talented! what do you think you're doing? no one is going to want to read anything you write. you're a loser. you're a failure. don't even try because you'll fail big time. give up, it's easier. give up, because you'll never, ever, EVER make it.

& it's hard when those voices are in your head, competing for your attention. so what happens when you're motivated, but you're terrified? i have the drive, i have the desire, i have the will, but i'm petrified. not so much of success, but of failing. & i'm told, by several people, i have nothing to fear. i have IT, whatever that may be. but i'm still scared.

dismal results: weigh in #22

so, my last weigh in over the weekend was 267.4. not the best, but i guess also not the worst either.

original weight: 323 lbs
last week's weight: 273.5 lbs
this week's weight: 267.4 lbs




PS: ticker has changed, so i can't have more than one per post, i'm not even sure if the accurate results will be displayed each week.

it's been pretty quiet around these parts. . . .

yeah, so i haven't been much in a blogging mood lately, & to be honest, this is probably the time when i should be blogging. i have a lot of stuff rolling around my head, having to do with weight loss, my (canceled) wedding, my parents, my job, my thesis. . . .just basically everything in my life!

what i have noticed is, that in general, it's been pretty quiet out there in blog-land. most of the blogs that i check on a daily basis have been averaging one update a week, some even less than that.

even though the end of the year is busy for many different reasons, i think that i need to make this blog one of my top priorities. not just because jenn has been not-s-subtly letting me know that she wants to read more blogs, but also because it keeps me writing something & it helps me to sort out some of those marbles rolling around my head by throwing them out into the universe.

so i'll try to do better at this. i have a bunch of blog ideas floating in & out of my scattered subconscious. yeah yeah yeah, i know, per the great & powerful yoda there is no try!

& for the record

happy twelve-twelve!

weigh in #21: BLECH!

i have gained, back in the 270's, i hate this. where's the cheesecake?

original weight: 323 lbs
last week's weight: 265 lbs
this week's weight: 273.5 lbs

um, yeah, so seriously guys, how can a few cocktails equal an 8 1/2 pound gain in one week?!

can you tell i'm bored at work, yet?

Your Personality Is Like Acid

A bit wacky, you're very difficult to predict. One moment you're in your own little happy universe... And the next, you're on a bad trip to your own personal hell!

What Drug Is Your Personality Like?

& i couldn't reisist this one

Your Stripper Song Is

Barbie Girl by Aqua "I'm a Barbie girl in the Barbie world Life in plastic, it's fantastic You can brush my hair, undress me everywhere Imagination, life is your creation" You're hilarious and cute - yet you still pull off sexy!

What Song Should You Strip To?

shortest personality test, ever

Your Personality Profile

You are dignified, spiritual, and wise. Always unsatisfied, you constantly try to better yourself. You are also a seeker of knowledge and often buried in books. You tend to be philosophical, looking for the big picture in life. You dream of inner peace for yourself, your friends, and the world. A good friend, you always give of yourself first.

The World's Shortest Personality Test

weekly weigh in #20

so weighing in a day early, does that mean i theoretically could weigh less if i did my weigh in tomorrow on my normal day? can a person lose ten pounds overnight without the loss of a limb or liposuction? probably not. but it's nice to hope that i'd have a better number if i had just 24 more hours to work my butt to the bone. owie, now that sounds painful!

in all seriousness though, i do need to start taking the competition with jenn more serious, not just because of the money thing, but because it's kinda my last chance to do this on my own. & i want to give it my all.

one thing that i know that i could be doing, but haven't been doing at all lately, is my pilates videos. in the past when i started doing them not only did i lose inches & tone up pretty fast, but i also lost lots of weight. i have no clue what it is about pilates, but it is really great for anyone looking to get fit quick. when you're doing it the workouts seem easy, but then you wait a day & you're beggin for mommy & some advil & really feeling it! but it's a good feeling. & i miss that.

so, here's the stats, better than some weeks, & halfway down to the 250's, but still, kinda a bummer since i was at this point a couple of weeks ago! but still, four pounds lost is four pounds lost.

original weight: 323 lbs
last week's weight: 269 lbs
this week's weight: 265 lbs

& i found the tubby catepillar ticker, so i have to use it since this is going slow, & i'm tubby, & it's pink. & of course measure progress with a star, cause' i'm a super star! hehehehe.

i never used to believe in writer's block

i always went through life thinking that each day you had the control to shape the day as you pleased. i never understood when i heard people complain about writer's block. sure, there were some days that i had more trouble concentrating & writing than others, but over alli never really had a problem, until recently. my advisor has told me that it's probably due to stress & all the bullshit going on in my life, combined with the fact that i really don't have my own little sacred writing space, which is something that every writer desperately needs. & then, of course, the fact that as of late i haven't given myself the permission to write.

so mix that all up, bring it to a rolling boil, & you have frustration & writer's block. although in a way it feels more like creative constipate. it's as if i have all these ideas & phrases rolling around in my head but when i try to get it out on paper or out onto my computer it just won't move. like there's something stopping me from producing.

& what kills me the most about all of this is in the past i have been uber prolific, always writing any chance i could get. i was the kid in high school with a tattered notebook that i carried everywhere with me & i wrote at any chance i could get. i was the kid who got yelled at in english class for writing on my stories when i finished my english homework. yeah, i was totally that much of a writing geek. ok, while my teen years were miserable at best, due to being fat with glasses & braces, at least i had my writing. & at that point in time i really felt like a writer.

now i kind of feel like a fraud. i want to do this, so badly, & yet, somehow i'm just not able to make it happen & that makes me want to punch someone in the balls.

weekly weigh in #19

yup, another gain. bleh.

original weight: 323 lbs
last week's weight: 268.25 lbs
this week's weight: 269 lbs

being thankful

as 2006 winds down in the frenzy of the holiday season, i'm trying to approach the end of the year with a positive attitude & optimistic outlook on life. since thanksgiving typically starts the beginning of the holiday season, now is a perfect time to work on my new attitude. & since thanksgiving, historically, is a time to count your blessings & say what you're thankful for, that's how i'll start my end of the year.

things that i'm thankful for:

~my family who supports me no matter how much i annoy them
~my friends who always stand by me, even when i'm not the most likeable person
~my dog walker who makes me feel like the most important person on earth
~my cat cleo who keeps me humble
~my cat toes who reminds me that there are normal animals out there
~that i'm able to wake up every morning in a free country
~that i'm able to move on my own accord
~that i'm a strong person who's able to help support those around me
~that i have two jobs that i enjoy
~that i have a college education
~being able to follow my dreams

so it's a little bit touchy feely, a wee tad emo, but i really am thankful for all the blessings in my life. it's so easy at that time between thanksgiving & christmas to become so self absorbed in getting to all that places you just have to be, getting the right gift for each person, getting things wrapped & shipped & baked. it's hectic & crazy. & here in minnesota it's generally cold as a mofo outside so you just want to stay in & eat lots of comforting fatty foods & drink lots of hot chocolate heavily laced with baileys. which makes it hard to be thankful or greatful or joyous about anything.

& at this exact moment, the thing i'm most thankful for is that jenn has made me her pity project & keeps me on track by dragging my butt to the Y & giving me that, "oh, you dirty whore" look when i eat chocolate. & the competition does help, because i just realized we're competing for enough money to buy one of us a new ipod. mmmm....now that'd be a sweet sweet christmas present to myself.

maybe tomorrow i'll just have a salad.

me as a tarot card

You are The Moon

Hope, expectation, Bright promises.

The Moon is a card of magic and mystery - when prominent you know that nothing is as it seems, particularly when it concerns relationships. All logic is thrown out the window.

The Moon is all about visions and illusions, madness, genius and poetry. This is a card that has to do with sleep, and so with both dreams and nightmares. It is a scary card in that it warns that there might be hidden enemies, tricks and falsehoods. But it should also be remembered that this is a card of great creativity, of powerful magic, primal feelings and intuition. You may be going through a time of emotional and mental trial; if you have any past mental problems, you must be vigilant in taking your medication but avoid drugs or alcohol, as abuse of either will cause them irreparable damage. This time however, can also result in great creativity, psychic powers, visions and insight. You can and should trust your intuition.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

it's cold in them thar basement

yeah, so our furnace went out, again. which means we need to get the repair guy in, again. i swear, ever since we've had our furnace replaced we call in a repair person once a year at least to fix the stupid thing. & it's always when we start freezing that we realize it's not working. grrr. so last night i slept in long underwear & thick fleece socks, laying on a heating pad, with four blankets on top of me. luckily it was enough to keep me warm.

&, if you recall from post a few days ago, NaNoMoWri i was talking about cleaning & ridding my house of a bunch of junk. & because there's so much junk, i have to get a ton of it cleaned up before the furnace guy can come out & repair the thing, yeah, we won't talk about the details on that one. but needless to say, even though i was in iowa this past weekend, i wound up doing a bunch of cleaning last night so that our house can once again have that wonderful modern invention of heat.

i also did venture a little bit into the area that is to be known as my office, & it is a bit scary. lots & lots of work do need to be done back there. most importantly it's a lot of dusting, vacuuming, & picking up because no one has been back there for several years. it has a great deal of potential though, which i'm excited about. & i really think that i can have it all straightened away by the end of this coming weekend. i need to work on it each day & just keep plugging away at it.

once we have heat again it'll be lots easier. the basement is a bit nippy right now. but it does look better after the work that i put in last night, & i'm going to try to get in at least a half hour of work tonight even though i have to go grocery shopping tonight & get gas & i have to be at work at 7 am tomorrow, which means i need to be on the road by about 6 am at the latest. EEK! but at least, after 8 pm on wednesday, i'll have some time off work, from both my jobs, a whole four days! i am really looking forward to that chill time.

i'm especially chomping at the bit to be able to give myself some writing time. there's just ten days left of the NaNoMoWri, & if i really want to finish with the 50,000 word limit then i'm looking at doing 5,000 words a day for the next ten days. yeah, i know, get off my keister, quit with the blogging & get with the novel writing! so here i go, again on my own.

just 'cause it's a vacation doesn't mean the rules are null & void

so i'm sitting right now in a hotel room in west des moines iowa, on a little mini vacation. basically it came about like this:

josh: hey beckah, whatcha doing saturday?
me: meh, nothin' really, why?
josh: i kinda want to do something, i have some time off work
me: what're you thinking?
josh: iowa for ribs?
me: omigod, that's exactly what i was thinking!

& while i'd only been kinda half thinking of iowa for ribs, the idea kinda grew on me. & with next week being a half week at work & all, i thought "eh, what the hell, a small trip out of town will be ok. & hopefully i'll be able to give myself some writing time while i'm at it."

so far no real writing has been done, but i've painted my fingernails a lovely shade of lime green. we had dinner at bennigan's & i had a bowl of soup & split a desert with jack. so far no regular pop, no alcohol, no snacks, no real breaking of the rules. & it's hard 'cause i do have this mentality that when i go on vacation it's a total fuckin' free for all.

exhibit a: the april trip to san francisco for my tattoo. we went to the stinking rose & indulged in yummy garlicky good food. we had in & out burger double-doubles three times, two each time with fries, of course, & then the snacks & the alcohol & chocolate & ice cream. & i basically took a nice little break from reality. & with the GP looming on the horizon i need to change a lot more than just what & when i eat. i need to revolutionize my relationship with food & how i think of my socializing time.

i really don't know if it's just an american thing, or a minnesotan thing, or if it really is universal, but in my world socializing is very often synonymous with food. & good food. & lots of it. most often when i'm with my friends & family when i'm eating it's not even necessarily because i'm really hungry, but a lot of it is all about opportunity. just like our dear friend kevin costner was told "if you build it, they will come," if the food is there i'll eat it. yeah, i know, totally a fat girl thing to do, but it's more of a human thing. i've noticed that a lot of not fat people will munch on food that's in front of them even if they're not hungry.

it also helps my resolve that i spent a great deal of time this morning at the Y, almost an hour & a half of serious exercise. that really does make me less likely, typically, to sabotage myself with food. then again, tomorrow i'm going to be at hickory park with my face in a plate full of ribs, but not like i do that every day. there is a gym here at the hotel, & even though it's about quarter after 2 am, i'm seriously contemplating a wee bit of sweat time before we check out. or i may start working on those 50,000 words before i turn in for the night. or i may just turn off my lappy & cuddle up with my pink fuzzy hello kitty pillow.

weekly weigh in #18

& yeah, so the scale went up, again. the whole weight loss debacle is horrid when you're pms-ing, want to bathe in chocolate & stuff everything in your face, hurt so bad from cramps that you want to curl up & sleep & most definitely don't want to hit the gym, & then at the end of the week of NOT bathing in chocolate NOT eating everything in sight & going to the gym even though you hurt like hell you still gain weight. wtf, mate?!

*sighs* but at least my numbers of my tickers are not overlapping my starting weight. & my starting weight on each of them is STILL more than my current weight. i guess i need to be thankful for the small things, right?

original weight: 323 lbs
last week's weight: 266.25 lbs
this week's weight: 268.25 lbs

perfectly so

i had my second visit with christine this morning for my gastric bypass requirements. & i brought in all of my logs for my diet, exercise, vitamins & all that good rot since october 23rd. & she was wickedly impressed that i've been keeping track the way i have. i also told her that i'm trying to stop drinking beverages along with my meals. she said that's a pretty good habit to get into because it's one of the things that many people have problems with post-surgery, so it's good for me to get into the habit now. & i was straight up with her, i told her that i haven't been perfect, i've had the occasional snack & i've indulged in take out & still sometimes drink diet soda with my meal, but i'm working on all of it.

she also said that she can't wait to see me post surgery because i could be a poster child for the surgery. & in a way that feels really good to hear all of that. especially with the chaos of the last few weeks in my personal life. it feels so great to feel like i'm doing really well at something. although, i think a lot of my success is going to come from my mind set. i'm going into this knowing that i have worked really hard in the past. i haven't done as well every single day as i could've, but over all i've really put lots of effort into changing & losing weight. & it isn't weakness to ask for help. in a way, it takes a lot more courage to admit that you can't do something on your own than to just keep plodding along because you're too proud & stubborn to admit that you need someone to lean on. that's been a big thing for me. admitting that it's ok to ask for help when you've done everything you can on your own.

i know i've had some very mixed emotions in the past about obesity surgery, but i'm feeling very good about this. like i'm finally doing something really positive for myself. but even though i have this on my very near horizon, i don't want to pig out & just figure, oh, well i'm having surgery, what does it matter? cause it really does matter. i feel like i need every day prior to surgery in order to get myself prepared for the rest of my life. things that i take for granted now, like chewing my food, are going to have to be mindful activities post surgery. & the more good habits that i develop now, the less work i'll have to do on the post surgery side.

one thing i never realized is that even though i didn't really think that i snacked a whole lot, i really kinda did. & i'm trying very hard to resist snacking at all. if i get really hungry i'll drink some water, pick up a book or turn on my computer & 99% of the time that urge to eat goes away, & on those few times where it doesn't go away, then i have a small snack 'cause i figure that means that i really am hungry. but it's also pretty nice, taking snacks out of my life. i feel like i'm obsessing less about food. i plan my meals, eat at my meal times & then that's it. & i'm actually cool with it. odd, huh?

the biggest thing i'm worried about in this whole thing is my parents. they are, well, less than fans, of the GB. they are actually pretty much dead set against it & wanting me to do everything under the sun in order to try to lose weight before i go that route. the thing is, i have done everything under the sun. as a kid i was in a weight loss program where i saw a dietician, physical therapist, & psychologist. i've seen dieticians on at least 3 separate occasions at my main clinic as an adult. i've worked with my doctor. taken over the counter diet pills. i've done slim fast, weight watchers, richard simmons food mover, & south beach. i own so many fitness dvds & videos that i could open my own store. i own free weights, exercise mats, two different versions of the firm. & not only do i own all this stuff, i've used it. i've given up sugar & fast food cold turkey in the past. currently i'm using splenda, brummel & brown, diet soda, diet ice tea, watching my intake, taking multi vitamins. basically everything that i can do besides quit my job & dedicate five hours a day to working out, which would, frankly, make me want to shoot myself.

so biggest challenge over the next couple of months will be getting my parents on board with the whole thing. my friends are very supportive, even my sister, rachel, is supportive. but my parents are still digging their feet in the sand & refusing to budge on their opinion, which kinda hurts me a little. christine did warn me that often times the family dynamics will change after someone gets the GB & loses a lot of weight. which makes sense to me. especially when one person loses a lot but the rest of the family remains obese, which will be the way with my family. but i really also want to encourage & inspire my family to take control of their lives & their weight & do something proactive to change their current course.

over all i'm very happy i'm doing this right now instead of waiting another ten, twenty years. my biggest fear now is that for whatever reason i won't be approved for surgery, & that would really be disheartening & demoralizing for me. but i have the dietician thing down. i'm meeting with my primary care doctor next week to discuss the whole thing, so the only big hurdle left is the psychological evaluation which is the week after next. i took the mmpi, so they'll have the results on that, sit down & talk with me, & then it'll just be a matter of waiting a bit to figure things out. all the while continuing to do what i've been doing, eating well, exercising, & mentally preparing to turn my life inside out, upside down, & revolutionize my existence.

NaNoWriMo

i was leaving hamline today after meeting with larry & telling him once again, that i didn't have any writing for him to read. & once again i showed up to campus feeling like a failure for some how not being able to do what was once easier for me than breathing. & while i was there i told him about the wedding, & feeling like a failure & a fuck up for some how not being able to write. & he listened, & told me that i was in no way a fuck up, that everyone has those times. where the one thing that you love to do, want to do, crave & yearn for, is the one thing that you're unable to do.

one thing i told him is that lately my writing has started to feel like just one more thing on my lengthily daily to do list. & he told me that i needed to get it off my to do list & bring it back to being enjoyable. something that i take comfort & refuge in. & he's right. he also mentioned that i need a sacred writing space & that with enough time & practice that my writing time will feel like sacred time, but that i have to believe it, tell myself, & not let anyone or anything intrude on that space.

so for the first time in a while i'm feeling hopeful about my writing.

i'm still living with my parents, which is less than ideal in SO many ways, but the one thing that i could have going for me is that we do have an office, in the basement, next to my room. it's technically my mom's, but she hasn't been able to use it for some time due to the accumulation of junk that has slowly infested our house. & she said that her office can be my office. so i need to step 1: clean out the backroom junk blocking said office & step 2: clean out the office itself. inside the office there's a computer desk & another gorgeous wooden desk. sure, it's in a basement, but it has the potential to be my sacred space.

& believe it or not, i'm not working at the group home again until december 9, 2006 because i took some time off for myself. so i can really get this emptied out & have some ME space! i think i know what i'll be doing this weekend, any guesses?

& all of this rambling brings me to the title of this happy little blog, NaNoWriMo. which is short for national novel writing month. which is basically a bunch of people from all over the country are trying to write a complete novel during the month of november. there's some guidelines set out, it should be 175 pages, about 50,000 words, completely written from november 1-30th. now, admittedly, i'm 13 days late in entering this. & some folks are probably well into their novel, but i'm thinking of taking a crack anyway. i still don't have a usable novel for my thesis. i have the general gist of the whole dang thing, but nothing usable, just a lot of nonsense, which doesn't work well for anyone but willy wonka.

so i've got a pretty huge 17 days ahead of me. let's see. i am going to clean out the office, beautify it, create my sacred writing space & give myself permission to write.

to all my friends, i love you most dearly, but i may be less than pleasant when turning down invites over the next month or so while i finish my novel. so please, if i tell you no i can't do something because i have to write, don't be offended. especially if i'm less than kind while saying no, i'll do my best to keep the chubi hidden, but she may emerge on occasion.

luckier than some

my mood, my blog, & my person in general have been fairly dark lately. not goth-i'm-gonna-slit-my-wrists-cause-pain-is-fun dark, but more just melancholy & very un-beckah like. & i won't apologize for it, because there has been a lot weighing on my mind lately, besides of course my butt. & with as hard as i tried to conceal my emotions, somehow they came out in little ways, in my blogs, my off hand remarks to friends, in my interest, or lack there of, in certain activities. & i'll admit it, i've been fairly upset over the past couple months about a lot of stuff going on in my personal life.

but this blog isn't about that.

ever since i posted the blog last week stating that my wedding was being postponed with no reschedule date, i've received a lot of support from my friends, family, coworkers, & my writing advisors. & while i've been keeping myself wrapped up, coccooned in my own little sphere, others have been noticing, & caring, & doing what they can to help.

what i realized today on my way into work is that i'm very lucky. instead of being alone in all of this with no one to talk to, turn to, or cry to. i'm surrounded by people who love me, are willing to listen without offering advice, people who are there for me without strings, without needing repayment, without asking anything of me. & in that way i am so much luckier than many people.

& that feels so great. to know that i have so many people in my life who love me & care about me & genuinely want me to be happy. i know for some people this is a NO-DUH kind of thing. & in a way i know that i have people that if i'm in dire need of help that i can call them & they'll be there no matter the time of day, night, or windchill. but it's so unexpected to know that there are more people than i knew concerned for me.

i'd like to take the time to say thanks much to everyone who's helped me over the last couple of weeks. even if it was just exchanging text messages, playing phone tag, or one line emails. it's all really helped me get through those really tough days & helped me to finally start to see some kind of good that can come from all of this. so thanks much, everyone. i really appreciate it.

weekly weigh in #17

um, yeah, so party like a rock star & gain half a pound. *sighs* but better half a pound than three or five or ten. so, all in all, close to a wash. i'm still in the 260's, which makes me happy. but not any closer to my goal, which makes me a sad panda.

but, on the upside, my tickers are still pretty well away from my starting points, & that does make me pretty happy that progress has been made & that i haven't lost too much ground. it just means that i need to be more dedicated & consistent in my efforts. going forward with a positive outlook.

original weight: 323 lbs
last week's weight: 265.75 lbs
this week's weight: 266.25 lbs

you look like you're losing weight, or so they say

& that's what people have been telling me, a lot, here at work. but in a way i don't know that i believe it. ok, yeah, so in the last two weeks i did lose ten pounds, but before i did that people were saying i looked like i was losing weight. while i was pigging out on a regular basis, drinking on the weekends, & forgot my way to the gym even though i have to walk right by it on my way into work every day.

& in a way it's really discouraging, makes me feel like an imposter, & all these other oddly complex feelings of guilt & shame. & sometimes i wonder, are people just being nice because they know that i'm going to the gym (semi) regularly? & they see me sucking down the gallons of water. & choking down lean cuisines everyday. is it that they want to encourage me to keep trying to make myself healthier eventhough it doesn't appear to be working?

it's very odd, but when people start to notice my weight loss & congratulate me on it i start to feel super self conscious. & then i feel like if i don't continue to lose weight that some how i'm disappointing them because they took the time to notice the changes in me. & then slowly the sweets creep back in, & the fast food, & the other foods that are detrimental to my health & well being.

sometimes i wonder if all fat people are great self sabatogers. i really think that if there was an olympics for self destructive, self deprecating, self sabotaging behavior that i would most definitely be a medal contender. not like i WANT to be that person that does those hurtful things to myself, but i really feel sometimes like i can't help it.

being fat is emotionally complex, like taking an afternoon stroll through a mine field. when i'm out in public people, all the way from small children to adults, think it's perfectly ok to stare at me. it's ok to make loud comments around me about "that fat chick." it's ok to scruntinize what i'm eating. what i'm wearing. just because i'm fat. & i'm made to feel like i'm less because of my size. like i'm not as worthy of the good things in life. i don't deserve cute clothes. i should be uncomfortable in: movie theater seats, restaurant booths, airplane. that's the punishment due to me because i'm fat.

& it really pisses me off. i mean, it's not kosher for me to go up to the white trash mom in the mall & tell her to make her fucking brat shut the fuck up 'cause the kid is annoying as all hell. it's not ok for me to go up to the skinny bitch in the tube top & too low too tight jeans & tell her she looks like she should be working university & getting five bucks a blow. it's not ok for me to go up to the overly built guy wearing the sleeveless shirt in january & tell him to lay off the 'roids before his boys shrivel to raisins. & YET all these people, & more, find it socially acceptable to comment on my fat butt wearing the apple bottoms. eventhough my clothes actually fit, i'm not being rude or obnoxious, & i'm not asking any of them for a goddamn thing.

to all my fat brethren out there: i request a call to arms. let's not sit back anymore & take it. next time i hear someone commenting about me i will speak up. i will get in their face. & i will make it personal. the problem is, the masses think it's ok, that fat people don't deserve to be treated with respect & dignity. i say we reclaim our dignity, demand respect.

& for all of you who don't know

jack & i are postponing the wedding. so feel free to reschedule your lives for july 7, 2007. 'cause my wedding ain't happening then.

we're still working some stuff out, but a wedding is kind of far away in our priorities right now. i'll keep everyone updated on the event.

thanks much.

i don't believe in fairytales, anymore

like almost every little girl, when i was young, i believed in fairytales. that good always, no matter the odds, would triumph over evil. generosity & good deeds are rewarded, while selfishness & ill will are punished. magic exists in many forms. that for every princess, there was a prince. & that they would all live happily ever after, because that's the way the universe is meant to be.

some days i wish i could go back in time & shake that little girl hard, make her teeth rattle, & tell her that it's all a bunch of bullshit. that in the end, all that you can really count on, is yourself. & if you don't start off believing in yourself then you're in for a long hard path until you get to that place.

i want to tell her that there won't be a prince, on a white horse. there won't be a castle. or that one perfect kiss that saves anyone's soul. there won't be the birds, the stars, the hearts or the sappy music to signal the happy ending. i want to tell her to stop looking for all of that. i want to save her a decade of her life wasted on that myth of happily ever after. i want her to focus on what's really important, her art, her vision, her future, herself.

& if only i could go back in time, maybe i could save that girl from having to learn every lesson the hard way. to have to learn over & over that thinking with your heart is as insane as trying to breath with your spleen. it's an impossible situation that will only end in frustration & defeat. maybe she'd believe it if i was the one to tell her she was smart, beautiful, capable, talented. that she really could be anything at all under the sun, she just had to dream & believe it. not get distracted by chasing pixies into the witching hour.

but i can't travel in time, although if i could i would SO be the first to think up you tube. & then i'd have a million dollars so i could buy a green coat, but not a real green coat. 'cause that's just cruel. sometimes it's nice to wish a bit though, to think & hope that maybe in some way i can bend time, just a little, so as not to actually travel back, but to reach that little girl, through our ancestors, so they can guide her & save her the wasted time.

& yes, the people we are now are because of the people we were in the past, shaped by the experiences along the way & the events & encounters of every day of our life. & yet, i'm not in the mood for that philosophical bullshit. because what's to say that the person i am at this moment is the best possible version of myself? what's to say that if i would have only been stronger as a child that perhaps i'd be a much more powerful person today? that maybe, if my head wouldn't have been so far up in the clouds that i'd be better grounded here on earth. my dreams realized. living my dreams instead of just sitting & pathetically wishing that maybe one day i'll be able to find the time between the two jobs & the inane errands to actually finish my book. to actually do something with my life.

maybe one day i'll stop trying to breath with my spleen.

sometimes i hate the weekends

yeah, so basically all of my good eating & hard work went straight out the window this past weekend. i had pizza, long island ice tea, french fries, smore's malt, a chili dog. . . .ugh, i feel sick just thinking about all of it. & it's not like any of it was really any good. ok, the long islands were pretty tasty, & the after effects of those were SO nice, but other than that, the rest of it was not even worth it!

& that's the frustrating part. that i've been busting my butt all week long, working out before work, after work, eating those stupid lean cuisines with no snacks, resisting the cakes & donuts & danishes & all of that at work all week long. then the weekend comes along & it's as if all of my restraint & will power is left behind me at my cube in minnetonka.

i know there's a difference in the motivations behind eating. & this past weekend i wasn't eating because i was hungry, to fuel my body. i was eating because i was: bored, upset, it was there, any & all of the above. & yeah, i know that's a bad thing to do, it's not healthy, in any way. & it's a behavior that i really need to change for good. i mean, i thought that i really had changed it, but i guess this also proves that sometimes in times of extreme stress it's much too easy to revert to the old familiar habits that have been your long time companions. too bad mine haven't always been something like yoga or biking. then again, i'm not dead yet, so there's still time to change it all.

this past weekend wasn't all bad. i did see an interview on you tube with david grohl, thanks to miss jenn, that really made me pause & consider the way that i've been living my life. he kept saying that he feels so lucky to be able to spend his life doing something that he actually enjoys. & that he doesn't feel like music is work. in a way my situation is not terribly dissimilar in that i want to be a writer, it doesn't really feel like work to me. the biggest difference is that while he's getting paid to live my dream i'm working two jobs that are just OK in order to survive & meanwhile i'm letting my writing slip to the side.

the other thing he said is that every day he wakes up thankful to be alive & have another day to live. yeah, semi hokey, i'll admit that. but there's also something to be said for that thinking. right now i wake up many days dreading what's to come. work, bills, all of that crap, & i'm not really taking any time to experience the joy that life has to offer. & that's not good. i used to take great joy in the beauty & the wonder in each & every day, even the ones that i wasn't so jazzed about like the frigid cold days in winter, or the ones where i would really rather curl up in bed than go to work, but even then i found something to appreciate in the day.

forgiveness

i've been doing a bunch of reading lately on losing weight, getting healthy, & decreasing your stress levels. & one thing that has been popping up more & more in my reading is the necessity of forgiveness for a persons overall mental well being. & i'm not sure if i'm consciously seeking this out due to nigglings at the back of my brain, or if it's the universe's way of telling me that in order to really move forward i need to, in one clean swipe, free myself from those sticky webs of the past that are still clinging to me as i refuse to completely, with my whole heart, forgive those who have wronged me. at this moment in time there are three main people that i'm holding grudges against that i really must let go of.

& so

i forgive ms. petch for being a heinous bitch & essentially ruining my childhood. i entered her classroom a bright, happy, extroverted, vivacious child. full of energy, spirit, creativity, & an inner light that defied my years on earth. i left her classroom at the end of second grade a sullen painfully introverted kid who turned to books & food for comfort. i forgive her for the abuse & mental torture she put me through. as she bounced me from the "dummy" reading group, to the average, to the advanced. as she taught me the definition of humiliation by repeatedly making me a laughing stock in front of my classmates. i forgive her for instilling in me doubt that i was: smart, capable, valuable. i forgive her for stealing from me years of being an outgoing bubbly person while i hid behind that scared little girl who wanted nothing more than to blend forever into the orange & brown walls of the classroom.

i forgive my parents for not coming to my defense & pulling me out of that second grade hell hole. i forgive them for being too wrapped up in their own problems while i was growing up to notice the food missing from the cupboards as i ate my emotions away in secret. i forgive them for not being the role models that i needed them to be. for not modeling a healthy relationship with food. for not teaching me at a young age that fitness was something to be enjoyed, not dreaded. i forgive them for not seeing me for the miserable depressed teenager who tried to take her own life because she'd rather be dead than fat. i forgive them for seeing me as who they wanted me to be, instead of who i really was.

i forgive tssob (the southern son of a bitch) for stealing seven years of my life. i forgive him for telling me in one breath that he loved me & that i was damn lucky he did because no one else would want me. i forgive him for making me believe that was true. for hurting me so deeply that i can never completely trust another human being again. i forgive him for making me doubt that: i'm smart, talented, beautiful, & a force to be reckoned with. i forgive him for turning me into that pathetic girl that let an abusive guy rule her life because she really & honestly believed that one day he would come through on his promises. for being the kind of person who is only happy when he's holding someone else down. i forgive him for the lies he told me, that i foolishly believed. & i forgive him for the years of abuse in which he never laid a hand on me, but still left deep scars, none the less.

i had really thought that as i drove away from the playa in september of 2004 that i had left all of this behind me in the ashes of the temple. that i had let it go up in the flames that day, scratched onto scrap pieces of wood. but sometimes symbolism is just that. & while i thought i was ready to wipe all of this from my mind, my heart wasn't quite as ready to let go. & the hatred is weighing me down. so with this blog, i release my hatred & blame from my soul. letting the dark holes left behind fill with the positive people & blessings in my life. fall into winter is a season of death, but also a season of rebirth, & another chance to start again & hopefully get it right.

weekly weigh in #16

yippe, good news to report, finally! i feel like i've been a broken record, losing & gaining the same damn three to five pounds week after week. i feel like i've made some serious progress now. & i am totally willing to give credit where credit is due, & if it weren't for miss jenn i wouldn't be down in the 260's right now. & i'm really grateful & indebted to her. there were days over the past two weeks where i have come very close to actually hating her when i was dragging my tired bummed out self to the Y after getting off work at 8pm. so much thanks miss jenn for being my inspiration & motivation when i needed it.

but this also proves that working really hard can pay off. i'm still leary about having too much hope, but i'm so happy to be in the middle 260's, i was hoping to be at 263 by thanksgiving, but now i'm hoping that maybe with lots of hard work & self control i can be dipping my toes into the 250's, & a new pair of jeans at torrid!

& aren't my newest tickers so cute? with the ticking & the moving & the OH PROGRESS! : )

original weight: 323 lbs
last week's weight: 271 lbs
this week's weight: 265.75

& a very happy halloween to you all

no holiday candy for me, ok, well, i lied, i had ONE small jellied spider 'cause it looked black so i thought it was licorice, WOOT, turns out it was just grape, lame. i mean, it was ok, but definitely not worth it in the end. & there is a lesson in that, when craving pure black licorice, go to the source, don't mess around with what may or may not be actual licorice candy.

biggest challenge of the day for moi would have to be the ginormous sheet cake that sat next to the printer today, carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. i did resist it, but just barely, i walked by it several times gazing at the box so tempted for just one little tiny nibble, but i did resist. & no, i don't really feel any better about myself for resisting. i know that i should, but here's the thing, in a way i have such a long ways to go before i'm remotely satisfied with my body again that passing up one little damn piece of carrot cake is not going to make me step out in the aisles & dance to brass monkey. not today.


so another halloween is nearly gone & it was, over all, a rather big bust for me. no parties, no apple bobbing, no pole dancing contests, no egging or tp-ing of anything, just an hour of over time & then going home to watch some bad cable tv.

but at least i got to look vicious at work:

being an adult

i've come to realize that being an adult is so much more than working a full time job, getting married, buying a house, having kids, investing in a 401K, watching CNN & giving a damn, or not being carded when you buy booze. being an adult is, in a way, all of those things, but even more than that, part of it is simply knowing yourself well enough that you can learn from the mistakes of your past, listen to that voice inside your head, & ask for help when you really need it.

my mantra since i was about 13 has always been "i don't wanna grow up, 'cause baby if i did, i couldn't be a toys 'r us kid." & in many ways i don't want to grow up, i don't want to lose that playful, idealistic, completely random & whimsical person that i've been since birth. but at the same time i want to be a woman in control of my life, my destiny, & the trajectory that i take in the upcoming years.

the biggest thing is i don't want to look back from old age with regret. true enough, all of us will have some regret in our lives, but i don't want to be consumed by the ghosts of my what-ifs. i want to stand firm in the convictions of my decisions & say that yeah, i made some mistakes, but i stand by them for what they taught me about myself, others, & the greater world that i live in.

i know i'm being oblique right now, speaking in generalizations & the foggy shadows of the unsaid. but suffice to say, i'm standing at a much more than a cross roads now, i've come into a field with many possibilities & so many directions in which my life can branch off, & i need to consider the next few steps carefully. i don't want to be overly cautious & miss out on a great life adventure, but i also don't want to be reckless & find myself regretting my impatience & short sighted view.

so please say a prayer, or a chant, or just think happy thoughts for me over the next few weeks & months.

weekly weigh in #15

it's the fifteenth week that i've been weighing here on my blog & i have a loss, again, FINALLY! yippee! it's also the end of the first week of my competition with the farm people & jenn & i are neck in neck in our percentages. so, competition is close & i'm motivated to win.

money money money money, money!

it's also nice that my numbers are not overlapping on my bottom ticker. that really makes me happy.

original weight: 323 lbs
last weeks weight: 276 lbs
this week's weight: 271 lbs

& the results are officially in

so the results from my sleep study are FINALLY in! & basically the answer is that i have something even milder than mild sleep apnea. it's something that lots of people have, where you stop breathing, slightly, more like a wee tiny bit of obstructed breathing, a couple of times during the night. it's so mild that they don't even routinely treat it with a CPAP machine, on occasion they'll suggest a dental device, but normally not even that.

however, because of the fact that i am looking at gastric bypass, the nurse at the specialty center needs to get in touch with the people at hcmc because occasionally the surgeons will want even the mildest cases of sleep apnea treated for about two months before surgery in order to have one less possible cardiac complication at the time of surgery. & so the optimistic estimate of january '07 may have been a bit premature since i now have the results of the sleep study.

& further more they want me to do this other "test" in which i wear some kind of a watch that measures my activity levels, and at the same time i need to keep a sleep log, to help them better figure out exactly why i've been so blasted tired lately. & i'll have to wear the watch & keep the log for 2-4 weeks, & it's going to be about 4 weeks before i actually get the stinkin watching thingie due to the fact that they are mondo expensive & the sleep clinic only has a couple of them.

actually, i think i need to call them back & see if i can leave a message for the nurse that i talked with today because i was in such a hurry to get out of there so i could get to work on time that i didn't clarify if she was going to call hcmc soon to find out about the CPAP, or if i was going to have to do the watch thing & THEN the CPAP, if needed, which would be absolutely ridiculous since that would be a few months wasted.

action plan? well, my bad self is going to take a lesson from my blog of a few days ago about persistence & call both HCMC & the specialty center today to get all of my follow up questions answered. i do also need to find out when i need to meet with the internal medicine doctor at HCMC & when i would be meeting with a surgeon & all of that jazz. & find out who needs to do my notification to medica, i want to make sure that all of my t's are crossed & i's dotted with smiley faces.

interestingly enough i was all philosophical & patient about this whole surgery thing, but now that it looks like it may be seriously delayed by something that is being reported to me as a very-mild-not-even-of-concern-because-it's-so-mild-sleep-not-even-actually-apnea. so, let's keep our fingers crossed that the surgeons at HCMC don't really want me to have a CPAP. or, if they do insist on me being on CPAP for two months, that i'll get that sooner rather than later & that i won't have to wait for the other acitography test & the stinkin watch that takes a month for me to be able to get.

the only bright spot in any of this is that the doctor's office scale reported me as weighing less than when i weighed in at the Y last week. but, it's not an official weight since it was done two days early at a non-official scale. yeah, it has to be all neat & tidy for purposes of the great pork off, aka farm people competition.

& yet another blog from the princess

yeah, so one blog is not enough for yours truly. i've created another blog with some of my partners in crime. i won't put the whole 411 up here since the first blog entry says it all. so here's the link & it's also on my list of links to the right. cheers.

http://farmpeople.blogspot.com/

weekly wacky weigh in #14

since it's no longer on wednesday i had to change the title a wee bit, but the concept is still the same. my porky self steps on a scale, records the numbers, & shares it with the whole wide world.

original weight: 323 lbs
last week's weight: 273.5 lbs
this week's weight: 276 lbs

ugh, up i go again. but here's the thing gang, i'm starting on a new adventure with miss jenn, a bet of sorts, & i hate to lose, so let's see where that takes me.

the value of persistence

normally i'm a pretty laid back, believing it'll all work out in the end kinda gal. but i've had this odd niggling lately concerning my student loans for this semester at hamline. i've been religiously checking my account on piperline, daily or multi-daily. i even called last week & was reassured that these things take time & not to worry, i dropped off my forms so all will be okie-dokie. have a cookie.

but the annoying niggling wouldn't go away. so i called them this morning on my first break at work. still no word, but at least i got transferred to someone's voicemail. i left my message with all my info, my phone number, & went back to work. & still, niggle niggle niggle, at the back of my brain.

when my lunch break rolled around at 3:45pm (YES, my lunch break is at quarter to four in the afternoon, but that's another whole blog) i decided instead of my usual walk in the gym that i would give them another call. just in case they learned anything. & it's a good thing i did. this time i got transferred again, but the lovely lisa answered instead of me getting her voicemail, she took a look at things, asked a couple questions, & said she wasn't sure why my money wasn't there. a bit more digging & whoops, i don't have a guarantee statement on my file. which i know i filled out 'cause you only have to do it once & then as long as you don't change lenders you're g2g*. & since i've been going to hamline since last century & borrowing from my same bank the whole time, i knew it was there. lisa took my number down, made a call, then called me back in about 4 1/2 minutes to let me know my form wasn't matching with my file, but it's all fixed, my money should be there tomorrow. all should now, really, be okie-dokie. have a cookie.

& there's why it's good to be a bit of a bulldog. sometimes it ticks people off, but if i wouldn't have kept calling it would be the end of october, i'd be getting another bill from hamline for my class this month & i wouldn't get my loan money until november, if i was lucky. i also feel like i really got something accomplished today, there was a problem, i got it identified & solved. 'cause i'm a woman, w-o-m-a-n. oh yeah.

*g2g= good to go

on the fa(s)t train

so right now looks like i'm on the fa(s)t train to surgery. i had my meeting monday morning with the nutritionist, christine. i brought my information on my multivitamin, we went over my questionnaire that i handed in at the information session, & went through some other standard questions that she had to ask of me at our first meeting. & i was brutally honest with all of it.

she was really happy with what i have been doing & said that i was an ideal canidate for surgery. she also said that she hadn't met anyone for quite some time that she thought was as ready & as perfect a canidate as yours truly. she also said that because of my insurance i would need to meet with her for a minimum of three times & she apologized for that. when i told her i didn't mind & that it would give me time to get mentally ready for the surgery that seemed to impress her even more. i even told her, it took me years to get this big, i know that it will take time to change that.

so i'm having to meet with her a total of three times, with a month, or more, in between each session. she said that i may be having surgery as early as january. & that my next steps are to get my personality evaluated & my head shrunk. which, of course, she didn't say it in quite those terms. but i do need to take the mmpi (minnesota multiphasal personality invintory) & then see a psychologist after that. i also may need to see their on-site internal medicine doctor, i think that i need to do that anyway for my insurance. so january would be nice, but if it's later that's fine too.

christine basically told me to just keep doing what i have been doing. i have all of the big changes already done that they want people to do before they get gastric bypass surgery: no snacks- just 3 meals/day, no calorie beverages (more than 10 calories/8oz=calorie beverage), & exercising regularly. she did say she understands with my back being all broken & messed up that i haven't been working out as rigorously, but i have been trying to do more walking in smaller chunks to make up for it.

for my next meeting with her i'll have my daily sheets that i've started keeping. i track my exercise, water, vitamins, meals, daily steps & comments on the day. i'm also keeping track of my weights, starting this friday. & it's all in a nice little white three ring binder which is so handy for travel.

in addition to josh & marty, i learned that my sister's roomie & good friend crystal recently had the GB just at the beginning of october. i wish her well with the results & a quick recovery. i mentioned to rach & tina that i was thinking about doing this & they're supportive of what ever i decide to do. as are the fabulous miss jenn (already of blog-fame) & the blonde miss jen (who also works with me & miss jenn). so far all of my peers are very positive in whatever i choose to do. unfortunately, my parents are going to be tougher to get on board.

i broached the subject last night with my mom & she was adamant that i not even think about getting the GB. she said that i shouldn't do anything as drastic as permanently alter my body just to lose weight. & i understand that i'm her baby still & that she worries about me & doesn't want anything bad to happen to me. but i'm also going to be going to hcmc, which is one of the best places in this region. my insurance also has "centers for excellence" which are the hospitals/centers that they have certified to be the best & this is on their list. i feel very comfortable & confident with the medical staff that i've met there thus far. my mom even suggested that i try either a hypnotist or an accupuncturist to help me lose weight. yeah. my mom who thinks that wiccans will go to hell 'cause they're devil worshippers is suggesting alternative medicine to me as a way to lose weight. she even suggested a chiropractor, which she loathes the entire profession due to personal issues.

uh, yeah, it's not going to be pretty. & i haven't come to this decision lightly either folks. i have tried. for years. & years. i have tried everything from south beach to weight watchers to manic exercising. i have met with dieticians & doctors. i've auditioned for the biggest loser. i am light years from where i was at 19 when i drank 4-6 cans of regular or cherry coke a day. i barely drink soda & if i do it's diet. i used to hate working out with a seething white hot passion. & now i love it & i'm super upset that i'm being benched again due to my back. i hated water & refused to drink it until i was around 23 or so, now if i don't get my 64+ oz a day i feel like somethings missing. those are three huge things right there. & i still seem to be stuck. i know that i can't do this on my own. i know that i need some kind of help in order to get to my goal.

& while it would be lovely to be a svelte size 2 & incredibly gorgeous, i have no such lofty ideals in my head. i want to be healthy. i want to be able to RUN again. i haven't really ran since i was in first grade. i want to go sky diving. horse back riding. snow boarding. mountain biking. bungee jumping. i want to be able to do it all without being winded. i want to go to a doctor's office & not have to sit on the bench or stand because the chair arms will cut into my thighs. i don't want to have to analyze the tables at a restaurant so i can pick the "big" side so that it's not cutting into my stomach. i want to have energy to do all of the crazy travel that i possibly can. i want to ride a roller coaster again. to go shopping & not have to be limited to lame giant or the other fat chick stores. i mean, yea for fat girl stores 'cause they weren't around when i was in high school, i had to order my clothes through the mail & hope that they fit. but i want to be able to go shopping at any store that i please. i want to spend a day walking the streets of paris & not worry that my feet & knees will ached & i'll be miserable for a week because there's too much weight on them. instead of sitting on the sidelines & watching my life i want to be out there actually living it.

weekly wednesday weigh in #14

i'm moving my regularly scheduled weigh-ins from wednesday to friday so that i'm more motivated to be good all week long & it's close enough to the weekend that i'll be able to keep that number in my head through saturday & sunday. so look for the newest update this coming friday.

claustrophobia, party of one

yeah, so i had my mri this morning. & normally i'm not claustrophobic. i don't fear small places. i don't get all jittery if i don't have tons of space. but man alive, this morning i was ready to have a first rate panic attack. i wound up being able to get through the imaging by closing my eyes & concentrating really hard to the morning show on ks95, which, the bastards, happened to be mostly commercials during the time that i had the headphones on. phooey on them!

so mri's were totally not made for the robust person. i mean, i know i'm not any skinny mini, but i'm also not shamu in human form either. & the little tiny tube was so small that my arms were brushing on either side & the top was just a few inches from my nose. definitely not a comfortable feeling. i felt hemmed in & trapped. like a cat under a laundry basket. i could see the outside word, smell the fresh air freedom, but it was just out of my furry grasp.

*note to self* no longer funny to let the cat get trapped under the laundry basket.

on the upside, they originally told me that i would have to lie perfectly still for a whole hour, & the imaging only wound up lasting about 30-40 minutes & then i was free. free-ee fallin' (name the tune & artist on that one) now i'm hoping that i don't have to stay guessing for weeks on end while the interpretation is done on the actual images. i'm so ready to just get a definitive diagnosis & start treatment for whatever it is that i have.

the pain meds are only helping very minimally. frankly, it scares the beejesus out of me that i can take two vicodin at night, wake up an hour & a half later in sheer agony, & then fitfully sleep for a few more hours before finally getting up for the day. that is not normal. that is so far out of the realm of normal for me. normally those things knock me out so completely that just one of them will have me feeling fuzzy for up to a full day or more. i don't want to be that girl, the one who's dependent on meds just to function.

& on the other end of the spectrum, i took a nice brisk walk this am with miss jenn when i got done with my mri. sitting around & moping & being miserable isn't helping me much, so i thought that perhaps some exercise might do a body good. my right butt muscle was totally killing me from my 20 minutes on the treadmill yesterday during my lunch break, but i pushed through that pain, & the back pain, & actually did the whole 26 minutes. we think it was a mile around the "nature trails" at her apt.

so until i get the medical okie-dokie to go back to my more intense workouts, it'll just be some walking for this chica. so walking with jenn, with jack, with my puppy walker, on a treadmill, in the halls at work. . . .i could almost write a dr. seus-ish book about walking & the places i'll go. & being relegated to just walking bums me out incredibly since i just got three new work out dvds last week. blech. no pilates for me for a while. but possibly the yoga. as long as i'm not on my back for too long. yeah, um, we'll let that one go for now.


ps "nature trails" = torturous hills & windy paths covered in mud, twigs, & other debris.

broken china doll

right now that's basically how i'm feeling, like i'm broken. cracked. flawed.

i haven't whined & moaned about it much lately on here, but i've been having a bunch of back problems lately, which have kept me from exercising. & kept me from doing much of anything except whimpering pathetically.

back in september i did go to a doctor, for my back & the horrid stabby headaches that i'd been getting. & he basically barely looked at me, didn't really believe me, & told me that it was probably just that i had bad posture &/or work station habits, to get evaluated for that & i'd be good as new. yeah. right.

at the beginning of october i had my yearly physical & mentioned this pain, which has been getting increasingly worse, to my brand new doctor. & of course i mentioned the stabby headaches & the other problems i've been having, & thankfully she was concerned & didn't dismiss me. which led to me having an x-ray on my lower back on friday october 6th, which led to me getting a prescription for heavy duty pain killers & an mri tomorrow & a preliminary diagnosis of: slight scoliosis, arthritis, & compressed discs aka the unholy trinity of back pain.

& i've shrunk an inch & a half.

yeah, how much does that totally suck? i used to be 5'6" just back a couple years ago. i'm now down to 5' 4 1/2". which is really really uncool. not only do i have crippling back pain, but i'm shrinking too. i now officially qualify to shop in the shortie section, all of my "regular" jeans & pants are getting too long on me. pants that i've had for a year now don't fit my height anymore & i'm walking on my hems. blech. double blech. i mean, yeah, on wow* i totally have a gnomish personality, but that doesn't mean i envy gnomes their height.

so i found all of this out last week on wednesday. & they wanted to get me in for an mri asap, but the only time they had last week, on friday, conflicted with my work schedule. so i'm going in at the crack's crack of dawn, i have to be at the imaging center at 6:15 am in order to be in the mri by 6:30am. & then after that i should have more information. i don't even know what to think about all of this. i'm seriously upset about the fact that i'm having so many problems, so much pain that just won't go away. & then the fact that back in september i was given the royal brush off by a doctor who barely gave me the time of day.

wish me luck gang that i get some kind of silver lining in all of this cloud cover. right now i'm getting used to the constant pain, & i really don't want my stasis to be a state of pain.

*wow=world of warcraft

weekly wednesday weigh-in #13

so, here's a nice pic of me to liven things up : )

& here's the stats you've all been waiting for. . . . .

original weight: 323 lbs
last week's weight: 273
this week's weight: 273.5

moving on up, from the eastside

ok, so not exactly the theme song to the jefferson's, but i already live on the east side & i'm trying to fly far far away.

so yet another little spat with my mom this past sunday, which then turned into me fighting with jack because i was: a) upset about my mom's insistence with little barbs about me not getting married in a church b) hurt that she seems to want to ruin my wedding, which then led to me: a)getting hurt because jack wasn't more perturbed on my behalf b) picking a fight with jack & bringing up every little tiny thing he has ever done which irks me & then resulted in me curling up in a ball & sobbing miserably on my bed.

i hate this vicious cycle.

& so i've decided to stop it. dead in its tracks. & while i love my parents, i really can no longer live with them if i want to be able to talk with them, ever, in the next five years. believe it or not i get along very well with my dad. i rarely to never argue with him about anything. but i'm routinely upset with my mom & often fight with my brother. & i am so sick & tired of the whole thing i could just simply vomit.

of course, there's also the fact that my mom seems to take a bizarre pleasure in undermining my attempts to lose weight. seriously gang, why must a diabetic keep that much candy, cookies, & sugar in the house? do we really HAVE to always have at least one gallon of ice cream in our freezer? i would like to think that it isn't a necessity & we really shouldn't have that crud around, but i seem to be the only one willing to quit it all cold turkey.

while in the midst of fighting with jack & crying i did text miss jenn & tell her that i planned on running away from home. which, really did seem like a viable option at that point. i was ready to pack as much as i could into my saturn & run. & somehow i decided i had to move out of my parents house. as soon as humanly possible. i even decided that if i couldn't find a place that i could afford that would let me have my beloved puppy, that i would have to give him back to the shelter. that was the hardest part is realizing that i may have to give him up. & then i asked jenn if she would help me find a place.

not long after that she texted me some info on a place in plymouth, decently close to my work, that said they love large dogs. i went out there yesterday and took a look around the place. they had a nice indoor pool, but the rent was just a bit more than i was willing to pay, none of the utilities were included, & the space seemed pretty small. so the hunt goes on.

i have an appointment tomorrow morning for another place in plymouth, then an appointment friday night for a place in brooklyn park, so we'll see how things go. i'm hoping to have a new place by november 1st, but by christmas day at the absolute latest. me & puppy need a new living situation. one where i have my own space, where i'm in charge, some place of MINE.

& of course there's the added benefit that i won't be seeing my mom nearly as much which means i won't be fighting with her nearly as much. i'll probably stop by there once every two weeks or so, visit them on the weekend that i work at the group home.

i know i know i know. i'm sure lots of you out there are saying that "seriously, you're twenty freakin nine years old, bout time ya left the nest." which i do whole heartedly agree with. & i did have an apartment for a while with my sis. however, i wasn't working enough hours to keep it on my own & i didn't really want a random roommate, so i had to give it up & move back in with my parents. but i just recently figured out what i was paying them per month to live there, which is way too much money to live in their basement & share a single bathroom.

wish me luck, please, that i find a place that i can afford & still keep my puppy. i really don't want to give walkie back to the nice people at st. francis. they're great people, a no kill shelter, but i don't want to give my puppy up, we kind of need each other.

just call me a peach, er, rather, how about a plum?

i'm so wicked tired. blech. i stayed up until 2am dying my hair plum pucker. now it's not as scary as it sounds, it actually looks more like a deep brown with purplish undertones. it's this funky new stuff from clairol called, herbal essences color lift mousse. basically it's a small can of mousse with the hair dye all mixed in, you put the entire can on your head, leave it there for a goodly bit, and then rinse it out & voila, a color for you to try for 8-10 shampoos to see how you like it. & of course they tell you how to get that color for longer if you really super duper like it.

tonight i'll have to have josh or jenn or jack take a pic of me in all of my royal purpleness, cause believe it or not folks, it actually looks quite good on me. i've insisted for a while that i would look so much better with reddish hair instead of the boring brown that was given to me at birth. so since i was about 16 i've been dying my hair on occasion to get a different version of me with my new do.

so early early this morning while i was going this i wet my hair, then towel dried it, & started releasing the mousse from it's impossibly tiny little can, mixing it into my damp strands bit by bit. & i looked at myself in the mirror, looked at this little can that couldn't've been much more than 3 inches tall, & said "yeah right, hopefully i won't wind up looking like a deranged purple zebra in the morning." but i kept on. squirting & spreading, squirting & spreading. & then all of a sudden my hair was literally saturated with the purple mousse & it just kept coming out of the can. i swear, it was like an everlasting gobstopper, it just wouldn't stop. at one point i thought about stopping with the can, when my hair was so gunked up with mousse that i had all of it standing straight up in the air, artfully covered with purple foam, but i'm also cheap enough that i couldn't just throw any of it away, so i moussed until i could mousse no more.

my hair isn't as purpley as you would imagine, or even as much as i might've liked, but it is an attractive color on me. deepening my natural color, making it darker & giving it more depth & richness. you can kinda sorta tell that there's a hint of purple, or at least reddish, to my tresses.

while i did like the concept of the mousse, no mixing or the sort, it was almost as expensive as my regular hair color & it only stays about on third of the time, which is rather sucky if you ask me. & my normal color has more dimension to it, so i think i'll start canvassing the stores now to locate my natural instincts egyptian plum. & at the targets that don't carry it i'll request that they start carrying it. never hurts to ask, right? worst thing they can do it say no, which really isn't all that bad if you think about it.