When a body gets eighty sixed

Oh hi there! It's been so long since I've been here--Nov 10th, is that right? So long that I forgot the password for a long time until I just found it. Ha ha! I hope all of you are well in 2012. I've been working on the ultimate eighty-six since October 31st...losing weight. I mean, how bad can it be to start a diet on the best candy day of the year?! UGH! Anyway, it's taken up a considerable amount of time and effort, but it's been really good for me and I feel a lot better--more focused, more driven to get things done. I didn't set out with a defined goal; I find weight loss can be a really depressing experience when you set a goal and it doesn't happen. I didn't really even tell anyone about it until I knew it would take. I just began by really working out and watching everything I ate. I did the Insanity workout program (also Zumba 2-3 times per week) and ate no more than 1600 calories a day and about two weeks in it started happening--I was losing weight and my body was getting thinner! I was 8 pounds down three weeks in, 12 pounds down five weeks in, and 17 pounds down by the end of the sixty-day program. It has been a life altering experience as anyone that has ever known me knows that I'm a night owl. That has all changed--I get up at 5:00 a.m. each day now to work out for an hour (a workout that at first made me wish for death, I'm not kidding, but now I love it), eat breakfast, and I'm at work by 7:30/7:45. The once sleep deprived me is almost always in bed by 10:00 p.m. getting 7 good hours. Now my grandma stays up later than I do! I've continued with my "diet", Insanity, and Zumba. I don't really want to call what I eat now a diet because I'm still eating a ton, just no real junk like tons of needless sugar and carbs. I do have a few cheats here and there--a beer, a piece of dark chocolate, or even a slice of pizza--but I'm still losing and I just passed the 20 pound mark a couple of weeks ago. The crazy thing is that I didn't even realize I needed to lose that much, but in looking at my body and thinking about how I really feel now, I know it was definitely the right thing to do. I don't have any concrete goals ahead of me for losing more, but I would like to get down 25 pounds total which is just a couple pounds over my college weight and get more toned. If it doesn't happen I'm still very happy with where I am right now.
I know only about five people follow this site, but I hope that maybe my small life success will inspire you to be a better you in 2012!
I may start another blog where I post a page of a book I've written every day...email me if you'd read it. We'll see where that goes.
Take care of yourself and I'll write again soon!

The Shower

The shower is where a bunch of stuff lurks that I once bought thinking I'd use it. I mean, I really had the best of intentions. I looked in there just now and trashed three things I know I haven't use in AT LEAST a year. The one body wash had hard water stains on it so bad I'm not sure it could be opened. Now, ask me what I did once I threw this stuff away? Replaced it with new stuff I bought today that I hope to use more frequently. AH! But, the good news is that I did get rid of something!

De-pants!

I got rid of two pairs of pants last night! I only have about forty left to go! I mean, if I haven't worn them in a year I should get rid of them, right? (The answer to this is yes...only my mother tilts her head to think about this one!)

I don't accept it

I don't accept two things today:

1) That the Sears Tower is now called Willis Tower (WRONG)
2) Women that work out with their hair down (WRONG)

Sorry I don't have more to say than this, but I'm sure I'll come up with something better soon.

Shut up!

I feel like I've posted about this before, but maybe not. People who look at their phone during a movie or play should be taken out front and flogged. It's annoying. The whole screen lights up and it ruins the ambiance. They make some device where you can jam the signals of cell phones around you (like in the immediate vicinity) and I think I'm going to look into it. Then again, then the idiots would probably spend even more time looking at their phones because they'd want to figure out what was wrong with it! AH!
I really don't have much more to say than that.

People who cut in line

Has it been that long? No post since August 23rd? You might ask if I've been under a rock or hiding out somewhere...nope. The answer is the general business of life has been interfering with my ability to blog (add in a touch of laziness and working on other writing projects and that's really about all I've been doing).

My post today is about people who cut in line. I don't like them. I was at a festival on Saturday and I confronted a woman about it telling her where the line began-way behind me and everyone else in front of me. She made some comment like "I wasn't talking to you, I was talking to the lady up there." She pointed, referencing the woman working the booth who had no idea that some cutter was manipulating the system. And with that flippant comment, I was really angry (not to mention I'd had a glass or two of sauvignon blanc so I'd found myself with a tad bit more courage than normal...even though I would have said something anyway). Then, she proceeded to ignore me and go to the front of the line anyway and get what she wanted before everyone else in line. She started to walk by me again and I reminded her "like I said, the line begins back there...we're ALL waiting." She proceeded to act like she didn't hear me and give me a general look of unbelievableness (if that's a word) with an obvious trace of fear that I actually confronted her and because I'm sure her whole life is based off of doing what she did without comment from anyone around her. Now, what I really wanted to do to finish our "conversation" was to smack that plate of cheesecake out of her hand that she had just purchased by cutting in line. I know, I know, definitely not a lady-like thing to do and definitely not a way to make a good example with children. So, instead I just gave her a look, the look that told her I could make an example of her if I wanted to but I was going to take the high road. The one good thing that came out of it was the woman behind me seemed pleased that someone said something. The bad thing that came out of it is that is actually ruined my time for a moment, and I just don't like that.

Anyway, today I condemn all of the people who cut in line and remind them that karma is always lying in wait.

Turn it down/Pull them up

I would like to eighty-six the idea that someone should be allowed to listen to music so loudly in their car that I can hear it (even when I'm several cars away). Please don't assume I want to listen to your gangster rap, bad 80's tunes, or even Frank Sinatra. I may not be in the mood to be subject to your tastes. It's just so annoying. I put the eighty-sixing of this concept right up there with guys who thinks it's cool to wear their pants around their knees so I can see their underwear/boxers. Ridiculous. I'm not even sure why this isn't public indecency. I actually had an attorney tell me once that one of his clients attempted to flee from the scene of a crime but couldn't because he kept trying to pull up his pants and was incessantly tripping on them. What an idiot because he committed a crime and then he wasn't even smart enough to wear pants that fit properly so he could get a away.

Map to Nowhere

It is without fail that I keep lots of things I shouldn't. I have a large collection of maps (and other useless pamphlets) from trips we've taken. I think my hope is that I'll go back there again--or that someone I know will go and I can save them some time and point them in the right direction of something we did while in a certain location. The problem with this last point is that I can rarely find this stuff when other people are practically en route. So, yesterday I found myself throwing out some old literature and maps from places we haven't been in a while. I even took a moment to look up the old map I had for a place we went to several years ago and I found it to a fairly useless map as a major road had changed. Thus, to the recycle bin it went. I think in the future I'm going to make it my goal to pick up as few pieces of paper I can about a place I'm visiting. Perhaps I'll learn to listen better and simply report based on what I remember. It just seems easier on our place and the environment.

For God's sake man, throw it out

Has it really been a fortnight since I've posted! UGH! Please bear with me as I need some comfort during this hard posting time...
The worst of all things lurking in my needing to be cleaned out wardrobe is a swimsuit from yesteryear. YIKES! There is nothing quite like an old swimsuit to darken my spirits--reminding me of the ten pounds I can't lose and the just-dug-up look I maintain (even in the midst of one of the hottest, sunniest summers ever). Thus, it is with great pride I now trash the yesteryear swimsuit. I do note that I got good use out of it, as it couldn't be worn anymore if I wanted to as there's some elastic that would surely give way from overuse and an extra pound here and there, but it must go.
I think tomorrow I'll have a salad and multiple glasses of water to comprise my daily caloric intake.

Good idea, bad day

I set a goal for myself today: clean some clothes out of my closet. Well, I've finished. I have four suits I plan to try and sell through a consignment shop and four other pairs of nice dress slacks and some shoes. It's a win-win for everyone! I was also able to successfully separate out summer from winter clothes in the closet, which made me realize how much I'd like to live somewhere where I ONLY need summer clothes. Plus, I love palm trees, the ocean, and locales that offer lots of opportunities for adventure (not where I live now at all). Anyway, as to the closet, I made serious progress and for that I'm proud. But, there are problems with goals. My timing was absolutely horrific as it's almost ninety today and the humidity is ridiculous and, here's the big kicker, our air conditioning is broken. AH! And it's Sunday so there's little to do until tomorrow. Besides the toilet (and indoor plumbing and sanitation in general) air conditioning is one of my favorite inventions! I hope I didn't make any hasty eighty-six clothing decisions as my brain seems to be operating at half-capacity. After I get done posting this I plan to head out and station myself in a nice book store or mall that has the air on full blast.

Good Kitty, Bad Litter

Yes, bad cat litter is cheaper than the good stuff. And yes, there's a reason for that. I have fallen prey to cheap cat litter in the past and it happened just a week ago! NEVER AGAIN! (It's like generic mac n' cheese...never the same as the real stuff!) Just spend the buck or so more and save yourself the issue of stink and a shoddy product.
As to future eighty-sixing...I've been eyeing some books and I actually found a place to take and recycle them. Let's see how long it takes me to get them there.

The Hook

My Grandma tells good stories. She probably doesn't know this, but it's true. I thought about this after my last post (about the day she was born). She always starts with a hook at the beginning - sometimes it's long, sometimes it short - which is what all audiences want and look for in stories (and writers really love them).

I was talking to her on Sunday at a family gathering and the issue was brought up about how someone smokes and we don't know how they can afford it (amongst a myriad of other reasons not to smoke). My Grandma said she was always glad she never smoked. She said a lot of her girlfriends smoked back in the day; we all know this was due to cool celebs that glamorized it and lack of scientific evidence that it killed you (painfully). Right after she tells us she never smoked, she starts telling this story about her mom buying a 6-pack of Coke every Friday to bring home to her and her siblings. (She brought some kind of food, too - I think it was hamburgers - but it was secondary to the Coke so I've forgotten). The Coke was something they looked forward to all week - I'm sure because of how little money they had for such extravagances.

The problem was this: there were seven people in her family. Now, I'm not a math major, I leave that to people that actually think math is fun and someday "it comes to you", but I can figure out that if you have a 6-pack of Coke you're one short if you have a family of seven. Anyway, what everyone would do is open their bottles and pour a little in a cup for the youngest, my Grandma's two-year-old brother. The problem with two-year-olds is that they really don't like the concept of once something is gone it's gone until next time (unless next time is two seconds from now). So, this little two-year-old had this mindset; thus, when his Coke ran out he went hunting for more. Apparently, he chose my Grandma as his victim. (Now...at this point, you're thinking what I was thinking: "Where is this going? Weren't we talking about smoking? Why are we talking about Coke?" But you must know my Grandma. As I said, she tells good stories. She has the most unassuming, unexpected way of coming full circle so be patient!) Anyway...her little brother starts pulling on her Coke bottle. Now, my Grandma's just a kid at this point, so she's not gonna go down easy. She wants to drink her Coke, plus she's thinking that she's already given her little, bothersome brother an equal portion of her share same as everyone else. Well, her brother keeps pulling and pulling and she keeps pulling and pulling...and then, he lets loose as she's pulling and the bottle hits her front right tooth dead on - the permanent one - and it smarts like hell and she can just tell it's not right. This sends her to the dentist.

My grandma reminds us that she's about ten-years-old at the time - the time when teeth are half-in/half-out and you're mostly snaggle toothed anyway - so it's already an awkward time (particularly to be a girl) and another missing tooth just won't help. She tells us how the tooth next to her big, now damaged tooth, the permanent incisor, hadn't come in yet, so that looked awkward. And the eye tooth she had wasn't permanent so the dentist pulled that as he thought that was where the nerve problem originated. Alas, it wasn't, it turned out her front tooth really was in bad shape - sort of dangling and just not that useful. She talked about how her teeth looked awful bad for a period of time and that her school picture was a shame, her with her some here, some there teeth. She used her hand to show us how they were at a complete angel in her mouth. And then she talked about the plastic piece they put behind her front right tooth to hold it in place. She said it was the most awful thing and that anything she ate with a strong taste would stick to that piece of plastic and she'd be tasting it for days.

Then, she brought us back to her girlfriends. Those girls that I'm sure wanted to be just like Lauren Bacall and Betty Davis - the young women that were always getting a cigarette lit from a handsome, mysterious actor. The girls that smoked because nobody knew better and it's what everyone was doing, right? They tried to get my Grandma to smoke. She said she took one drag and it was awful! That plastic piece behind her tooth tasted like nasty cigarette smoke for days. She just knew she couldn't smoke. And her last words at the end of the story were this: "I've never been so glad that my brother knocked out my tooth. If not, I probably would've been a smoker." Don't you just love my Grandma's ability to make light out of something most people would be angry about! I drove home that night thinking that most people could really learn from her and try to find the good in the bad when possible - me included!

And that is the art of my Grandma's story telling. I hope I did it justice. And what's the tie in to eighty-sixing? My Grandma's poor eye tooth and the eventual loss of her damaged, front tooth (her brother was nowhere to found the second time around).

Time flies...

Has it really been THAT many days since I posed. Geez. No real excuse; just time getting away from me. I saw a few people this last weekend at my grandma's birthday who said they had enjoyed reading my blog. First, thanks for coming my grandma's big day. She's a great woman and deserves a day all about her with the people that love her most! Second, thanks so much for complimenting me on my blog. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to stay true to my NY resolution to eighty-six something each day, but I'm doing the best I can!

My post today is about eighty-sixing old ideas (did I say I had to eight-six something tangible - I don't think I did?). When I called my grandma to wish her happy birthday today -her actual birthday is Flag Day - she told me a funny story. I called her around 6:15 p.m. She thought this was ironic as she was actually born around 6:15 p.m. on a Sunday. My grandma told me that her grandma - who was a midwife - was there with her mother to bring her into the world. She told me her dad thought it was great that she was born at 6:15 p.m. so he could make the 7:00 p.m. church service (in his quasi-defense, I'm pretty sure he was doing the preaching). It made me laugh and think. My first thought was that it's OK to miss church if your wife just had a baby (even if you're giving the sermon). My next thought is that I'm glad we've eighty-sixed the idea of men being absent parties when their children are born (or shortly thereafter). Now that's progress I can sink my teeth into!
Hopefully I'll be writing to all of you again soon!

You can't eighty-six this

Today's post is based on frustration for those things one simply can't eighty-six. I know, it's pretty much not what this blog was supposed to feature, but I need to expound. Today's feature is our two cats. They are wonderful, love them both, but after a nearly $500 vet bill a couple of days ago I pondered who else may want them. And it's not like there was a major problem - it was mostly wellness crap - that ran up the bill. The worst thing is I can't remember the last time I spent $500 on my own "wellness". But, when I look at them I can't help but think they are the only creatures on this planet that don't judge me; and if they do, they forget like five minutes later.
Thus, I will snuggle with them and remind myself of that which one cannot eighty-six. [insert long, drawn out sigh here]

The Agony of the The Feet

When a pair of shoes is so painful you can't even remember why you would buy or keep them, get rid of them. That's my eighty-six feature today as I trash a pair of heels that just don't work. I think what probably happened is they were the only pair left in the store and I really loved them and they weren't my size but I thought hey, i can wear these, they aren't that bad! Well, shoes come in sizes for a reason - like everything else - so people with different size feet can get the size they need.
Anyway, I digress and another pair of hells is getting the boot (no pun intended).

Flippity Flop

It's so sad when a pair of flip flops finally dies...it's usually when the piece that goes between your first and second toe tears away from they actual sole of the flop. Anyway, it's happened...and with my favorite pair. I guess it's a sign that I need to go shopping for summer. I suppose some day it will stop raining and there will actually be sunshine and a reason to wear a pair of flip flops. I suppose some day I'll lose those last five pounds, too, so that shopping seems more bearable!

Note: As you can see, I'm blogging less these days. I expect to eighty-six something at least once a week from now on; I'm just too busy with other writing and work to post each day right now! Check back in weekly to see what has gone by the wayside.

Cool it

I'm back...and I'm taking a fan to work tomorrow that died and Mark resurrected from the dead. I asked one of my employees if she wanted it and she said it would be a good idea "to fan all of the cabbage stink away from her desk." I thought that was pretty funny - because it does smell sort of like cabbage by her desk because she's by the kitchenette and apparently someone likes cabbage - and I figured she definitely deserves the fan.
Speaking of fans...I'm going to go find one right now and stick my face in front of it...it's hot in here tonight!
One of my friends is having a garage sale on May 20th...I can't even fathom the amount of stuff I could give her to sell. Let's see what I come up with...more to come!

HIATUS

I will be back tomorrow, Sunday, May 8, from my brief hiatus.

R.I.P., P.O.S.

Well, our DVD player finally bit it. My mom was kind enough to get me a new one which is now installed. We won't miss the old one - which I think we paid $15 bucks for at a super store - but hey, you get what you pay for (especially when it comes to poorly made foreign crap).
Mark is going to take it apart for fun - who knows, maybe it will work better when it has less pieces.

Dancing its way out of here...

Well, Dancercise will be heading to the Goodwill. I think I'll put a little note in there that it's the worst DVD set EVER, but I guess I won't really need to do that; watching it for 30 seconds provides enough context for the entire set.
My worry is that I shouldn't even take it to the Goodwill. I guess maybe someone will think it's worth the buck or two it'll be priced at.