A little something new...

I've decided to start a new blog.  Not a replacement blog.  Just a new blog.  It will devoted to all my creative pursuits (which does not include gluing buttons to ANYTHING).  If you would like to check it out, click here. 

This blog will continue to exist.  It will be rants and ravings and just general stuff. 

Adventures in Food Journaling: Day One

I've been rather neglectful of my blog here lately.  I have diagnosed myself with chronic fatigue syndrome (WebMD was the source) and all I do is work and sleep.  I am falling asleep now but decided to write instead.

Because I am overweight and unable to get off the couch due to my undying need to nap, I started working with a health coach.  I have changed so many aspects of my diet but I'm not losing much weight and I am still mistaken for a hibernating bear.  So she suggested I start a "food journal".  The template she gave me was very simple to follow and really just had me listing what I ate and how I felt.  Since I am completely incapable of writing my feelings in 2 words when 50 would do it, I am doing my "food blog post". 

Day 1:
Today is my first day of journaling.  But due to my inability to get out of bed in the morning, I do not get up in time to fix my daily green smoothie (green = spinach = does not equal Popeye biceps).  I hit Starbucks instead.  Breakfast consisted of a skinny vanilla latte (which is healthy because it has the word "skinny" in the name!) and a cinnamon roll.  But, due to my lateness and my 6th graders' lack of knowledge about working a computer without a minimum of at least 10 different directions said to each one individually, my cinnamon roll was actually brunch.

Brunch:  1 cold cinnamon roll.  It wasn't quite as worth it as I had imagined.

Lunch:  I was late to school, remember?  Lunch came from the cafeteria for the first time this year.  And Thursday is steak and gravy day!!!  I had a brown slab of unidentifiable meat, a scoop of mashed potatoes, gravy, carrots/peas (veggies!), and a roll with butter.  I'm not really sure where any of this fit on my imaginary plate of proteins, vegetables, carbs, and fat, but I am pretty sure all of it just fell under "fat".  On the bright side it wasn't as salty as usual!

Snack:  I didn't eat one.  I was too full from my steak (?) lunch.

Dinner:  Since I was one Happy Meal from being the star of "Supersize Me", I got chicken tenders and fries from a drive-thru.  I figured I was on an artery-clogging streak and decided not to interrupt that.  Oh, and a sweet tea. 

Dessert:  My health coach told me about blending frozen bananas with a mix in of choice for a healthy "ice cream" treat.  I couldn't wait to try it!  I blended my bananas with dark chocolate (fruit and antioxidants...this will counteract EVERYTHING I have eaten today!).  It tasted weird.  It was nothing like my vanilla Hagen Dasz in the freezer.  I'm going back to premium ice cream, not bananas disguised as ice cream. 

Overall, I'm impressed with my food journal.  Oh, not the food....just the journal. 

My coach would be proud. 

How not to sell a car

I have been thinking about replacing my 2003 Honda Accord which has 118,000 miles on it.  Parts are starting to die, and these are expensive parts.  So I have been casually searching for cars just in case I run across the perfect one (which is a barely used spectacular car for super cheap). 

The other day I received a flyer in the mail from my local Honda dealership that had a scratch off thing on the back.  I scratched it off and it said I was a winner!!!  The prizes were a new car, a new tv, or an umbrella.  I figured I had one the umbrella but I had to go see for sure...

Six million other people received the same flyer and they were also "winners" because everyone was carrying around umbrellas.  I was ok with a new umbrella so I waited for someone to come take my winning card.  A salesman (who was tall and lanky with eyes that faced in opposite directions...I couldn't tell what he was looking at half the time) came over and just started talking to me and before I knew it I was zooming around town in a new Honda Accord for a test drive.  I knew I was wasting the poor guy's time and I had no intentions of buying the car, but he offered to let me drive it....so I said yes!  This is where things got a little weird....

Mr. Salesman was just making small talk and I was trying to be polite.  He said he was from Charlotte and was just here for the big sale.  Then he started asking me if I was single, if I had kids, if I wanted kids, what places I would recommend for dinner, what I liked to eat for dinner, how close I lived to the dealership and how often I visited Charlotte (I answered never.  And I also told him I didn't eat food).  Then he touched my shoulder and said that he really liked my blouse.  Um, thanks Mr. Creepy.  I floored it back to the dealership. 

Once I was safely back among other people in a public place, he decided to pull out all his moves to sell me that car.  When he touched my knee and asked me what he had to do to get me in that car I was done.  I told him I just wanted my umbrella so I could go.  Although I was ready to dash out of there without the cheap umbrella just to get Mr. Creepy to leave me alone!

I'm waiting for him to call....he has my phone number.  He also has my address....I am making sure Bailey is on guard duty tonight....

Also?  I knew more about cars than he did....idiot.

Pinterest Dreams

I, like almost every other adult woman in the universe, am addicted to Pinterest.  I scroll through multiple times a day.  I pin and pin and pin the day away.  I have even won money with some contests using Pinterest.  I love it and the inspiration I get from it.

But then there is a side of idiocy on Pinterest.  I am amazed by the number of people armed with a glue gun who think their work should be in the Louvre.  And then there are the masses that comment and repin their crap (oops, I mean "crafts").  One of my favorites continues to be buttons hot glued to anything.  Picture frames, mirrors, lampshades, candle sticks, hair pins....and the list goes on.  "Oooooo!  I wish I had thought of this!  It looks just like sea shells!"  No it doesn't.  It looks like buttons glued to a frame.  And most any person can glue stuff to stuff to make more stuff.  If this is beyond your abilities, please do us all a favor and put the glue gun down.  Now back away slowly....

Some other ideas that have left me shaking my head are homemade band-aids (these were really just fabric glued to regular band-aids...why???).  Anything baked with a Reese Cup in the middle is another popular choice.  Can we say diabetic coma? Last night I went to bed after spending (or wasting) some time on Pinterest and instead of being excited to try new projects, I was saddened by the amount of hot glue, glitter, and buttons.  It was with these unsettling thoughts that I drifted off to sleep.  And proceeded to dream vivid dreams about Pinterest.

In my dreams, I read a fellow pinners idea to add fish (yes, real fish) to your washing machine.  The purpose was not a creative aquarium.  Instead the fish would eat the dirt from sheets.  But just sheets.  Why this was a better idea than using hot water and detergent wasn't clear.  This was a dream after all.  Instead of being appalled at the idea of adding live fish to my spin cycle, I was all about it.  I went out and bought a bunch of ugly fish to add to my washing machine.  These weren't pretty fish like my very own Splash Gordon, these were long and skinny silvery fish.  I started to add them to the machine but they kept flopping out because I forgot to add water.  As they were flopping in the kitchen floor, Phoebe the cat was in kitty heaven.  I scooped them all up and filled the tub with water.  I then added a set of sheets and started the machine.

Can you guess what happened?  The gyration of the machine chopped the little fishies into bits, similar to anchovies in a blender.  I was left with fish heads on my sheets.  Pinterest had turned me into a fish serial killer!!!

And this is why you should pin responsibly.  Although I'm sure that if I pinned this as a real story (like the carp who ate dead skin off your toes as part of a pedicure), some fool out there would stop gluing buttons in order to add fish to their laundry (yes, that is the faith I have in humanity....).

Just add it to my file...

I know I have bright red files at just about any place that I have to contact for customer service issues.  I can only imagine what their notes about me say.  And I know these places keep notes....today I heard about a family trying to get their cable installed by Comcast.  After going around and around with Comcast over the lack of installation ("we'll be there in a couple of hours" had been their catchphrase for a few weeks), they called again.  This time they reached Comcast's customer service office located in a foreign country where the agent's grasp of the English language was tenuous at best.  The helpful agent read the notes that popped up on the screen: "do not install....S.O.B."  I am not sure what exactly the customer's reaction was, but I can assure you mine would have been calling news outlets and using social media to my advantage.

Anyway, on to my story.  I went to PetSmart today to get Miss Bailey's nails on steroids trimmed yet again.  Her nails grow even better than the weeds currently taking over my backyard.  When I walked it everyone ignored me for a moment (including the girl arranging pencils).  Finally someone asked me what I needed and I told her I wanted a nail trim/grinding done.

Groomer:  "I'm sorry, we can't do that."

Me:  "Um, what?"

Groomer:  "We can't do that."  She gave me no explanation.  I guess I was just supposed to leave at that point and not ask anymore questions.  But I don't operate that way.

Me:  "Why not?"

Groomer:  "That person called in sick."

Me:  "Ummmmm, ok...."

Groomer:  "See, she hurt her knee and can't work on a bad knee."

Me:  "I didn't ask why she was out.  But why can't anyone else do it?  You are all groomers, right?"  At this point the girl arranging pencils was suddenly completely absorbed by the task.

Another groomer in the back:  "They won't let us.  We aren't allowed."

Me:  "Allowed to do what?  Your job?"

Same girl in the back:  "It's not profitable and they won't let us do it."

I glare at pencil girl.  It slowly dawns on her that I'm not leaving.  Seems to me that paying someone to arrange pencils would be less profitable than charging a customer for a service provided.

Pencil Girl:  "You can go to the vet at Banfield.  If they aren't busy they can do it."

Me:  "Really?  They are allowed to multitask?"

Banfield was nice enough to work me in quickly.  They did a decent job on her nails and charged me more than the grooming center would have.

I came home and immediately sent an email to PetSmart's corporate office.  I used every bit of my 2000 character limit.  I haven't heard back yet.  But I am sure that someone is writing my name on a red file right now....

To go or not to go...that is the question (July's Bella)

           It’s approaching, it’s just around the corner.  As it gets closer I can hear the Jaws theme growing louder in my ears.  Ba-dum, ba-DUM, BA-DUM…the fear sets in as the ominous event nears.

My 20^th high school reunion is this August. 

Many people look forward to their reunions.  They want to catch up on old times and laugh about all of the fun had during those four years.  I haven’t yet decided if I will attend or not.  I am not one of those adults that feels the need to relive their high school glory days.  There were no high school glory days for me.  I am not in contact with anyone I went to school with (besides Facebook, and that doesn’t count).  My fate in high school was sealed in junior high; I was overweight (or big-boned), I wore big plastic glasses, and my teeth were all crooked.  I was the classic definition of a geek.  I wasn’t popular, I wasn’t athletic, and I couldn’t even make up for those short-comings by being smart.  I mainly tried to blend into the concrete block walls. 

                 

           Although I changed physically by high school (I lost the weight, I got smaller glasses, and I got braces); my social status remained the same.  I was teased, sometimes mercilessly.  Gym class was the worst.  I was always chosen last for any team.  Why do we force kids to choose teams anyway?  Why can’t teachers just assign teams so that no one feels subpar and unwanted?  Anyway, I was last.  Sometimes I lucked out and was next to last.  The best was when I got to be team captain and a collective groan went through the gym because nobody wanted to be on my team.  I hated games that involved running around bases.  As I would approach the base for my turn to hit, kick, or whatever other humiliation the PE teacher had in store for me, the other team would all yell “MOVE IN!!!!  CLOSER!!!!  WE NEED TO SEE THE HAIRS IN HER NOSE!”  Ok, that last one is a lie.  I don’t have sticky out nose hairs.  Some kids would try their hardest to kick that stupid ball over all of their heads.  My goal was to head back to the end of the line as quickly as possible so I would usually kick straight to first.  I barely made it two steps before the rolling ball was caught and I was out (or what I considered “safe”).

                As all of my classmates cried on graduation day, I was ecstatic.  I was done.  I never had to go back.  I moved on to college where I could start fresh.  People would get to know ME, not only see me as the nerdy seventh grader who just longed to get through the day without being the butt of any jokes.  So why would I want to go back and relive all of this?  

I used to dream of my high school reunion.  I would be model slim with long and silky hair.  I would have my doctorate and my husband would look like George Clooney.  Life didn’t turn out that way.  Life turned out normal.  I’m not skinny but I’m comfortable in my skin.  My hair is frizzy but I embrace my inner Medusa.  I have multiple degrees, but none high enough to put Ph.D. after my name.  And I am not married (much less to George Clooney…but we all know he will never get married so I’ll use that as my reason why).   I feel no need to go back two decades and catch up with people that never paid any attention to me before.  It has taken me a very long time to leave that girl behind, with all of her insecurities and dreams of invisibility.  I’m scared that if I go that girl will return and I’ll hide behind the potted plants.  

Yet there is part of me that wants to go, to prove to myself that I am no longer that person.  I want to believe that I am strong enough to be the person I am now.  I want to say goodbye to the insecurities and be proud of who I have become.  And I also want an excuse to buy a new dress.  Possibly a green one that will blend in with those plants….

               

June Bella

The Traveling Red Dress

If you are not familiar with Jenny Lawson (a.k.a. The Bloggess) and The Traveling Red Dress, take a moment and look her up online.  I’ll wait.

Are you done yet?  Are you as inspired as I was?

Jenny started the Traveling Red Dress after she fell in love with a red ball gown.  

“I want, just once, to wear a bright red, strapless ball gown with no apologies.  I want to be shocking, and vivid and wear a dress as intensely amazing as the person I so want to be.  And the more I thought about it the more I realized how often we deny ourselves that red dress and all the other capricious, ridiculous, overindulgent and silly things that we desperately want but never let ourselves have because they are simply “not sensible”.  Things like flying lessons, and ballet shoes, and breaking into spontaneous song, and building a train set, and crawling onto the roof just to see the stars better.  Things like cartwheels and learning how to box and painting encouraging words on your body to remind yourself that you’re worth it.” – from TheBloggess.com

I have never considered myself beautiful.  When I get dressed for work, my goal is presentable.  When I get dressed for errands on the weekend, my goal is to not be naked.  That is how much preparation goes into my daily appearance (not much, admittedly).

Then I read about The Traveling Red Dress on Jenny’s blog.  I followed it over to Facebook and found women offering up dresses to share.  I posted that I was looking for a dress and within 30 minutes I had one promised to me.  I had no idea what the dress would look like, and I opened the box from Brooklyn with some trepidation.  What if it is ugly?  What if it doesn’t fit?  What if it shows my legs or my wobbly bits?!  And the dress was perfect in every way.  

You may think it is a little narcissistic to play dress up and pose for professional shots.  But it wasn’t that way at all.  For one afternoon, I felt beautiful.  I felt like anything was possible.  If I could take myself (with all of my self-consciousness and insecurities) and strut the streets of Lynchburg in order to pose for photos; I could do anything.  

I am my own worst enemy.  Nothing holds me back more than myself.  On the inside, I am creative and colorful.  But my outside is reserved and wants to blend in with the background.  For a couple of hours in March, I let my inside out.  It was difficult for me to let go.  But it is even more difficult to hide when outside in 50 degree weather in a shockingly red strapless dress. 

From this experience I learned that I need to let my outside show more often.  I need to take chances and do what I want.  I need to stop holding myself back.  I need to be me.

If you have the opportunity, get your own red dress.  Be true to yourself for one day.  Realize your potential and worth.  And maybe, just maybe, you might find yourself being a little more open and a little less afraid.

A big thank you to April Moore of April B Photography and Lindsay Benoit of Artistic Trendz in Lynchburg for a day of magic.  You can find more of April’s wonderful work at www.aprilbphotography.com.