Eat Like a Bachelor(ette)

Ok, so the crash diet quickly crashed. I don't even think I followed it for a full day (though maybe 24 hours-ish between Friday and Saturday). I may try it again, but I was super DISCOURAGED by my friend H. telling me about the horrors of soy (I needed to have soy snacks to stay full on the go) and my other friends K. and N. giving me a super hard time about the diet in the first place ("You don't need to lose weight. Just be plump."). Argh, you guys are killing me here! So instead I totally gave in to holiday treats and have eaten whatever, both yesterday and today. Today is particularly egregious, however, at least so far. Here it is:

Breakfast
A small glass of grapefruit juice
An entire bag of microwave popcorn

Mid-morning snack
A small bag of caramel corn with peanuts and pretzels, conveniently given to me by my coworker as I was finishing breakfast--the perfect complement!

Lunch
A small slice of fruitcake from the office kitchen
Salad of mixed greens with sour cream/hot chili garlic sauce dressing

It can only get better from here, surely.

The Kate Middleton Diet

My life is fairly boring right now, so for want of anything better to do, I'm going to start a crash diet! I haven't really ever done this, so it will be interesting. I think what I'm going to do is eat three eggs a day for a week and see what happens. I might get some non-fat Greek yogurt too. This diet is kind of inspired by the Kate Middleton-tested Dukan diet, which has a first phase of only lean protein. Most of the items on the protein list are meat, however, which I don't particularly like (and I don't really want to fathom what starting to eat a diet predominantly consisting of meat after almost NEVER eating it would do to my digestion!) or want to buy. My idea is to make a cheap grocery diet. This will also work well, as I'm about to finish off pretty much the rest of my groceries. I will have a bag of salad to work on tomorrow, as well as some Indian simmer sauce, but after that I will be all set to start my diet! Oh, and I might buy some oat bran as well, because apparently you're allowed to have a small amount of that each day, as well as water. Let's see if I lose some weight, this will be funny!

I Have a Blog

And I'm not afraid to use it! Today started off seeming like a blogalicious day. After all, it's Monday, the day when things start to happen that you will spend the rest of the week trying to clean/finish/control/dismember. I got off on the wrong foot, of course, by hitting the snooze; and I blame that for the fact that for about an hour this morning I though it was Tuesday, or possibly Thursday. I did do my workout, simply because I couldn't up with a plausible excuse not to--I felt mainly fine, especially after the hot shower last.

--Interruption: Baby brought into office! Cooing, labor stories, and spit up ensues.--

Living Dangerously

Do you ever eat a crumb of something without being entirely sure what it is first?

Not Thin

The issue is not that I'm fat. No, there are no self-hating thoughts going on here, no "agh, I look so UGLY and soooooo FAT" vain nonsense. I've never either wanted nor particularly tried to look like a twiggy supermodel, so I'm perfectly satisfied with my appearance as not in keeping with that so-called ideal. I have, however, considered for a while (since freshman year of college, wouldn't you know it!) that I'm not exactly thin. I'm not truly lean and muscular in the way I would like to be, in the way that means not just "I can fit into that dress" but "I can run five miles" or "I can swim 5000 meters" or what have you. It's a kind of thinness that's a secondary effect of physical exertion and a well-maintained eating plan. And the precise reason I do not have this type of physique is, plainly, I'm lazy. I have not bothered to do the planning, scheduling, cooking, and exercising to get to that place. I'm starting to wonder, though, if it might be time for me to grow up, get organized, and get over my psychological aversion to nutritional planning that has developed as a natural defense mechanism to the overly hyped and utterly unmaintainable diet fads that have grown around me as I have grown into an adult woman. It might be time not just to eat whatever I feel like eating, whatever is most convenient, whatever I've happened to buy this time at the grocery store, but actually something thought out and planned ahead of time; to stick with cooking things on my menu plan (well, to MAKE a menu plan to begin with) and not just bail in favor of a Chipotle burrito or tuna sandwich from the Main Street Deli; and most importantly, to get UP in the morning and work out, instead of rolling over and sleeping for another hour! I know I'd feel better, mentally, if I did all these things . . . .

I Hate Being Charged Interest

The most terrifying thing to me, now that I am on my way to conquering my fears of cutting my own hair and scrambling up a 50-foot rock, is having to pay an outrageously high interest payment on one of my credit cards. Yet, to be frank, this reality looms! The answer is clear and sobering: take money out of savings and pay the darn thing off. Argh.

Rope Burn

Yesterday, while climbing, I got rope burn on the base of my right thumb. I must be doing something wrong there. Also, in my climbing partner's (!!) last climb, he was really racing up there, and I was doing my best to take in the slack quickly, but I also wasn't watching so I don't know exactly what happened when he fell. His hand was bloody at the end, so I hope it wasn't my fault for not taking enough slack and he fell farther than he should have. I kind of don't think so, though, because I definitely caught him with my brake hand as soon as he fell. It was just sort of surprising, since I wasn't watching him! He got tired. Anyway, all that to say, belaying is still marginally more nerve-racking to me than climbing. I suck pretty equally at both, but somehow I feel safer on the other end of the rope . . . oh despite the fact I forgot to tighten and double-back my harness for my very first climb! :o sheesh.

The Story of My Lunch

As narrated in a series of IMs to Kathleen:

me: not entirely sure if a ham salad sandwich was a good idea
but it is a yummy idea!
me: My tummy says, "Humm, that was interesting!"
but I will further oppress it by sending vitamins down
hahaha

The End

Also, today I wore my warmest (though also ugliest) boots and my very warm Marmot Intervale Jacket--which I got this summer at the unbelievably good price of $50 on REI--and of COURSE . . . it's sunny and warmish - 68 degrees! Lovely. Warm. I know my strategy from here on out -_-

I Can See My BREATH

What is happening?? Winter, why are you here so soon? Will I never be warm again?

"At Least It's Modest"

To give my blog a little life, a little verve, a little . . .well, basically some pics . . . I'm going to do a new series called "At Least It's Modest." This will feature outfits/dresses/clothing I consider horrible and unfit for human wearing (or at least that don't look good on the humans who happen to be wearing them), but AT LEAST they don't show too much skin!! You aren't going to see all the many, many wretched, horrible AND skanky outfits that are being worn on this blog. No sir, wouldn't be caught dead in that!

So without further ado, here's our first specimen:



It's the actress Leelee Sobieski, and yes I did steal it from this blog.

Comments

I admit it, sometimes I like to see "1 Comment" underneath my blog post, even when it is my own comment! I don't really know why. I mean, it's not like I can fool myself into thinking the comment is from someone else . . . is it?

Shopping List

CHEESE
fresh fruit
lettuce
veggie burgers
Bailey's
ironing board
white apron
one other thing I can't remember . . .

Cutting My Own Bangs

The other day (well, night, actually) I created a fringe on myself. So now I have bangs! Even my coworkers were impressed when I said I cut my own hair, and they are guys. Oh, the other thing that's funny is that night I put an oblique and mysterious status update on Facebook, to make people wonder what I was up to. Kathleen guessed right away, since she was the one to whom I was chatting when the bangs idea came to me. In fact, this was the exact exchange on Tuesday:

me: should I get bangs???
Kathleen: sure
me: I should
whoa
Kathleen: why not?
me: I don't know
it's probably just what I need!

So, of course, after work I stopped at K-Mart and bought a pair of hair-cutting scissors (which, by the way, cost way more than I thought--$10!--but I will no doubt make use of them again) and then after I got home from my choir practice I Googled "how to cut your own bangs" and, at around 12 a.m., I started snipping away. Scariest thing I've ever done. I mean, other things are scary, because you think, "Ahhh, I could DIE!" but this was scary because OMG, I could be ugly. Yeah. But the bangs turned out just fine, in the end.

A Friend's Blog

To the one person who may be reading this, I have been asked to share the link to a very dear friend's blog. She is a much better writer than I am, and certainly deserves the shoutout, so take a look and pass the link along yourself if you like what you see!

Can I Skip It?

I have never felt more like skipping my birthday for a year than I do now. I simply have no idea what to do for it, whether to have a party for myself, to go off on some wild adventure, to stay at home and do nothing . . . ? I don't even want cake and ice cream! It is odd. What do you do when the prospect of a birthday no longer seems exciting and fun?

Redesign

One good reason to put off redesigning your blog is that they come up with better and better new free templates you can use. So that is what I have done. And now, magically, you can see the full picture of me in the Cotswalds, which before was just a segment of the beautiful hills and sheep. Let it be noted, however, that I no longer wear my glasses, because they are broken. I am either sight-ful, with contacts, or battily blind without them.

Climbing Is Cheery

Recently, I've been in the process of taking up climbing (as in, rock climbing, only right now it's in the form of bouldering at the gym, because I have no partner yet), and there are two main things I've picked up so far. First, climbing is cheery! Yesterday at the gym, as I was scratching my head at the boulder wall, and putting together one or two moves, mostly the wrong ones, this kid came in, strapped on his shoes, and began climbing each wall in turn. Every time he got off, whether he had sent it (that is, completed the wall by grabbing the top) or not, he'd jump off and land with a big smile on his face. That, I think, is what climbing is all about. And, coincidentally, that is when I decided I could do the wall that I had been staring at, after he nimbly walked up it. So I sent it too. :)

Second, climbers are smart. If it comes to a thing you do for the love of it, you try to do it the best way possible. So it seems to me that a lot of climbing involves thinking yourself through the process--thinking confidently and quietly, the same way you are going to climb it. And this is precisely where I fall down. I am used to taking the mental shortcut, if I can find it. There are no shortcuts in climbing. You think through all of it or none of it. Even if you don't realize you are thinking, you have to be thinking. Because it's the muscle-memory and the spatial reasoning working together--that is what the great climbers can do.

A third thing I could mention, which doesn't even bear mentioning, is conditioning. You have to be very strong, physically. This is something that pertains to the malleability of our bodies, though, so I don't find it to be a big issue. If I keep doing it, I'll be conditioned for it, right? The attitude and the thought process are the more valuable lessons.

I'll Sit and Cry

Only when they make me!

Change

I was just watching the 60 Minutes interview with Archbishop Dolan and he was talking about how people shouldn't focus on the Church's rules and restrictions but instead receive her rich heritage with joy and gratitude. His entire face lit up as he said this. In my case, none of the Church's doctrines or moral teachings are a challenge to me in the sense that I have difficulty believing or obeying (for the most part, anyway) in my day to day life. On the other hand, what I'd want to change is how long it takes God to do some leeeetle particular vocational things I'd like to happen around, say, NOW. I CAN'T do what I want, I'm limited by God's not opening this or that door . . . wait, what does this sound like? Yes, you got it: it's simple dissent! Instead of complaining--which, incidentally, I'm supposed to have given up for Lent--I need to be grateful for God's immense gifts in my life. Instead of asking for change in the circumstances of my life, I need to ask for a change of heart.

Made-Up Sayings

At some point when I was young, my dad told me, "Laugh and the whole world laughs with you; cry and you all get wet." Upon reflection, this saying epitomizes our shared optimist philosophy: it's better to laugh so that everyone can have a good time, but at least if you cry you all get wet and that becomes funny too! Unfortunately, thanks to the powers of Google, I just discovered that this saying, which I took to be a wise dictum handed on through the ages, is actually a bastardization of a couple lines of a poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. The actual lines are "Laugh, and the world laughs with you; / Weep, and you weep alone."

So now I'm chagrined, because I just repeated what I thought was a real saying to my coworkers, only to have them all aver that they had never heard that before. I'm chagrined because I should have expected this from my dad, who also repeated many a line from The Far Side or Deep Thoughts (by Jack Handy) to me as if they were wise sayings. (Coincidentally, my youngest sister has a memory store full of Jack Handy quotes, which she can pull out on any occasion.) And I am chagrined because it's a rainy day and now I have a depressing quote on my hands. Weep and you weep alone . . . no way! :-)

Subversive Fashion

In the metropolitan area nearest me, the fashion for ladies tends very much in the pants direction: nice dress slacks and sweaters for work, skinny-cut and hip-hugging jeans with long tops for play. I don't particularly care for either of these looks, instead opting for skirts and dresses most of the time. I can definitely make it work and still not look out of place, but it takes a little wardrobe creativity. Basically, the idea is to start with the basic, boring look and twist it--with just the right colors and textures. Difficult, but possible!

Songs of the Day

It's really great to get a Monday off for a federal holiday. The only problem is that it puts you behind in songs of the day! You have to listen to Monday's as well as Tuesday's. Oh well. I suppose there are worse problems, in the grand scheme of things.

Protect Yourself

Am I going crazy in here? I feel like I would like someone to protect me from this crazy, bad world, but at the same time I have the conflicting thought that I am supposed to protect myself from it. I don't mean on the spiritual level here, either. I mean on the practical, day-to-day level. Are feminine women now supposed to be able to stand on their own, face and fight all these evils? The signs point to yes. But I don't want to.