Day 8: 127

Don't quite know what's happening with my weight, I can't figure out why I've stopped losing. Happy hour at the Cantina really screwed me.

We're heading to Florida on Saturday for a few days to visit my aunt & uncle in Daytona Beach. I am soooooo looking forward to kicking back for a few days. After this long cold winter all I want to do is lay on the beach and bake for a few days, let the sun see my limbs and warm my bones once and for all. My aunt & uncle also have a very sweet set up, because they are rich and have no kids so they can afford two separate ocean-front condos: one for them and one for guests. Which means we get to stay there, hang out with them at dinner and be on our own the rest of the time. That may sound selfish, but trust me, being a childless older couple, they get sick of visitors very easily so having us stay in a separate place will be a welcomed reprieve from entertaining.

So sufficed to say, I'll not be posting for a few days, starting Saturday....so you'd better get your fill of my delightful thoughts and observations while you can.

Day 7: 127 pounds

I am really addicted to 43things. It's so inspiring to see all of these things that people want to do, as banal as "make my bed" or "learn Microsoft Access" and as profound as "list three things every day that made me happy" or "figure out what the hell I want to do with the rest of my life". I found this one woman who, from her photo, looks to be in her sixties or seventies, and she has all sorts of completed and in-progress goals. This is so incredibly different from my own parents, who have no goals at this point other than "find a new house." My parents have to total blue collar "this is our lot in life and why try to change it" mentality. My dad is a bit of a lost cause, but my mom has always been someone who I thought could be so much better than she is. She's very smart and is very curious about things, but never acts on any of it. Every night she comes home from work, cooks dinner and flops on the couch in front of the tv. Part of it is laziness, but sometimes I think it's almost as if she feels like she's not worth putting any work into. I think she spent many years living paycheck to paycheck, and now that we're all out of the house and she has a little more wiggle room, she doesn't know what to do with herself, so she just keeps to the status quo. I think in her mind, taking a class or going on a trip is something you do when you're rich and have the luxury of time and money.

Here's the problem though. She's about to retire at the end of the month, so although she doesn't have a ton of money, time is not an issue anymore. I would love to think that she's going to take this opportunity to enroll in an art class or join a book club or volunteer somewhere. But in reality I think she's more likely to live out the remainder of her years in front of the tv. Maybe I can talk her into starting a 43things account to identify the things she wants to do.

Day 6: 126 pounds

Oh. My. Lord. Today is torturous. I don't have much going on at work, so I've just been inter-webbing all day. I hate days like this because it makes me feel like I'm not earning my pay, and I can't think of anything else to look at on the internet, and I just sit here glancing at the clock every two minutes. On the upside, I'm meeting some friends for happy hour, but having that to look forward to is probably just making things worse. Of course happy hour is going to turn to sad hour tomorrow morning on the scale if I can't maintain my willpower and skip the nachos.

Elfreth's Alley


One of my favorite signs in the city


Day 5: 127 pounds

Instead of being productive today, we spent the afternoon walking around Old City. Although actually in a way it was productive, because it fulfills my 43things goals of "be a tourist in my own city" as well as "take more photographs". We walked down Elfreth's Alley, which somehow I had never done before, and stopped in at a few bookstores, where I picked up an old sewing book and a copy of Edith Hamilton's Mythology for my assistant, who has decided she'd like to re-explore her 8th grade interest in Greek myths.

Friday night we went bowling and I proved that Dorothy Mantooth, although perhaps a saint, is not a good bowler.

Day 4: 127 pounds

Why is it that it's 10:54pm on a Saturday night and I'm already contemplating bed? I'm also already thinking about Monday morning, when I'm slated to have a showdown with one of my coworkers over a situation that happened earlier this week. I absolutely hate confrontation, the mere thought of it turns my stomach. Any confidence that I have in my position is immediately drained as soon as I have to deal with a situation in person. It's why after all these years I've finally learned that the best way to handle my sister is to just say nothing, because I'll never win anyway. I am completely unable to think on my feet, and am very easily bullied into submission during an argument. Let's face it, I'm a lover, not a fighter. Wish me luck.

I think tomorrow needs to involve some sort of nice long walk, now that my cabin fever has finally broken.

day 3: 128 pounds

In the interest of simplifying all of these goals I'm setting for myself, I've finally started a 43 Things account! It also has an option to post entries from there onto your blog, so the posts on here might start to look a little short and random. Considering how much I love making lists, this is very exciting for me.

Day 2: 129 pounds

I am so excited that spring has finally sprung! There is nothing better than the beginning of spring and the beginning of fall. They always seem to come around just when you think you can't bear one more solitary second of the previous season. Of course this beautiful warm weather is going to vanish as soon as Saturday hits, and I can't even enjoy a nice walk tonight because I have drawing class. Maybe I can convince the teacher to let us have class outside, but everyone knows teachers never go for that.

Sometimes working for a clothing company feels so pointless. I like my particular job when taken out of context, but there's so much pressure to be proud of the brand, blah blah blah, which is tough considering I'm really not all that into clothes. We had this big meeting today to discuss the future of the website, and everyone has all these grandiose plans. And the ideas themselves are pretty cool, but I kind of feel like, "Jesus people, it's just clothes, we're not splitting the atom or curing cancer here. Can't we just do our jobs and go home?" Why am I expected to be so emotionally attached to a for-profit company that caters to people who are willing to spend $168 for a hoodie? I suppose one could argue that the lifestyle is what drives people to purchase things, and that money pays my salary. It's just tough for me to drum up so much excitement for a somewhat shallow "cause."

Here is one of my favorite songs, and quite seasonally appropriate:



My absence yesterday was due to the internet being broken in our house and also busy-ness in my real life. I'm not falling off the wagon with the posting every day, even though not actually posting every day would probably qualify as "falling off the wagon."

Ok, so the "no fried foods" resolution is sort of working out, although I've been a bit liberal with the definition of "fried." I sort of intended it to mean mainly french fries, because I tend to eat them with every meal. Instead I've let other things slip through, like bacon and potato chips, which are also fried. The bottom line is that this resolution does not seem to be helping me lose weight. So it's time to go to the mattresses. I need to just hunker down and start my chicken/rice/vegetable diet, which is usually pretty successful, albeit incredibly boring. But something's gotta give here, I tried on some clothes at Target last week and wanted to cry in the dressing room. So maybe the way to push myself is to list my current weight in each post, which will perhaps humiliate me into losing weight.

Here goes:

Day 1: 130 pounds

Ahhhhhh babies. I had a weekend full of babies. Big babies, little babies, familiar babies, stranger babies, new babies, old babies, crying babies, laughing babies, sleeping babies, smelly babies, all sorts of babies. All of these babies make me feel like I'll be satisfied with a dog for a while. Sure, I know, they're all magical little creatures, and no matter what, you love yours more than anything else in the world. I get that, and I know I'll feel that way eventually when I decide to have one. But the one thing you *cannot* say about babies is that they enhance your freedom, because that they certainly do not. They require so much undivided attention and I'm just not ready to take that attention away from myself just yet. I mean, in my head my vision of myself is still a girl barely out of college, I just happen to have a ring on my finger and a mortgage in my name. The babies I was mostly around were even particularly good and cute babies, so these sentiments are nothing against them. I just couldn't handle that feeling of getting into bed every night and wondering where the hours went. I feel that way now and all I do every night is make dinner and possibly watch a movie. I'm not all that great at time management, so I could definitely see myself being one of those mothers who lets the house become a pigsty, gets fat and surly, doesn't shower, and bitches constantly about how she has to do everything and is still unappreciated. Because let's be honest, that's pretty much me right now.

I do love kids, but this is such a scary part of a woman's life, when she knows she's going to start hearing that tick-tick-ticking pretty soon and she's going to have to make a decision. Plus you start gradually passing from the majority to the minority, when you become that childless couple who has nothing in common with everyone because you don't have any poopie diaper or breast feeding stories to share with the group. You find yourself constantly just saying, "Hey, did you hear that new album?" or "Have you seen that new movie?" and quickly afterwards feel dumb because you're asking people who have all they can do to stay awake until 10pm after their draining day of feeding, burping, napping and soothing. I always say that I just wish you could have kids later than this, because these days no one has their shit together before the age of 27, which only leaves a few good years of enjoying your career and your disposable income and your marriage before you have to start worrying about your eggs drying up. Of course, the kicker would be that if by the time you start trying to have one, you can't get pregnant, because then what good were all those years of taking a stupid little pill every single day and having a panic attack when you're a day late, wondering if that time you took it in the afternoon and not the morning is coming back to bite you in the ovary.

God, I sound so angry about this. I just really hate ends of eras, even if the next one is good, too.

Contrary to popular belief and expectation, it has turned out that Charlton Heston did not, in fact turn out to be the last man on earth. Charlton, I salute you and your entire oeuvre of egomaniacal performances.

Gotta get this post in under the wire!

Earlier this evening I was in the shower and I had a realization which in my brain went something like this:

- "Crap, I forgot to call Gary [my brother] today and confirm that we're going to come up tomorrow morning. It's probably too late to call, I'll call in the morning."
- "Ok, if we plan to leave at 9:30, is that too early to call?"
- "Nah, he's got a baby now, they'll be up by then."
- "Actually, they'll probably be up way earlier than that. What time do babies usually wake up?"
- "I bet you just have to get up super early and feed the baby, and then you're up, and the baby is up, so that's it."
- "Oh my god, if I have a baby I'll never be able to roll over and go back to sleep again! Well Greg can just feed it. Wait, what am I talking about? He doesn't have breasts...it will have to be me. I can never sleep in again!!!!"

I honestly love sleep so much that the thought of not sleeping in anymore makes me unnaturally sad. I mean, on the average weekend morning I don't greet the dawn until about 11am. I know that it will be the same deal when we get a dog, but at least a dog we can take out first thing and then come back and go to sleep, since dogs sleep most of the day anyway. In theory. But with a baby that's it, you're up until it takes a nap, and that may or may not coincide with when you would like to take a nap. I think I'm going to have to rethink this motherhood thing. Perhaps instead of a baby I should just buy some luxurious bedding.

We're headed up to see the baby tomorrow morning, and then up to Salem for Erik/Jakob's birthday festivities. All I can think about it pancakes at Brothers'.

Have to keep up my resolution, right?

I'm a proponent of capitalism, because I like to have nice things and to not have to wait in line for nine hours for a Big Mac. That being said, I think there's a fine line between embracing the American dream and working yourself into an early grave. I'm always sensitive about the pressure that my company puts on its employees to climb the proverbial ladder. There's not really a lot of room there for anyone who just wants to put their head down and do their job, because you start to be looked upon as someone who doesn't want to succeed. Here is a perfect example that made me a bit sad.

We work with a small local web development company who built our website and continues to host it and do development work. My boss loves them, and has been trying to get them various gigs with the rest of our company for the other websites. We've been shopping around for a new company-wide image hosting service and my boss arranged to have them work up a quote for custom software. The problem is that it was his idea, not theirs, so although we had several calls with them and walked through the possibilities, they were slow on the uptake and now the other brands have decided to go with a different company for the service. My boss was pretty devastated and embarrassed, having stuck his neck out repeatedly for this small company that he believes in and champions, only to have them lose the deal. Granted, I believe that if this company has a lot on its plate right now and doesn't have time to build us complicated software on a very tight timeline, they should have been more up front with us and declined the opportunity altogether.

That being said, I tried to explain to my boss that maybe they don't really want all this work that we're throwing at them. Maybe they don't have endless time or resources to devote to these big projects, and that maybe that's okay. He then said with a tone of distaste and disbelief, "You know, sometimes I think they're more interested in just sitting around and being nerdy computer geeks than actually growing as a business." That made me so sad, because it really drove home the idea that there's no room in this country for people who are satisfied with where they are in their career. I love the idea that their company just wants to be a bunch of nerds having fun and getting some work done in the process, that they just want to have enough work to sustain themselves. In this world if you're not looking toward the next big thing and desperately trying to climb higher and higher, you're suddenly a loser with no aspirations. This country really is just a bunch of workaholics that don't consider outside interests to be a legitimate focus. The irony is that kids are being pushed so hard these days to diversify their extracurricular activities, just so they can get into a big important school that will allow them to get a job where they sit at a desk their whole life and kill themselves to advance their career. And for what? I can't quite figure out if we work so hard so that we can make money to pay for the lifestyles that we want to live, or if work is really just a game, and lifestyle is just a byproduct of the excess money you earn during the game. Because really, it seems to me that the people who make enough money to live in a huge house with a plasma screen tv and drive a Lexus and send their kids to prestigious schools wouldn't actually have any time to enjoy these lives that they've worked so hard to create.

I'm not against working for a living or having responsibility, but when is enough enough? My goal is to work hard enough so that I can earn enough money to live a simple but comfortable existence. Of course, once we have kids, we'll have to earn a bit more to be comfortable, but in general I'm pretty happy with where I am right now. We have a nice house, we go on vacation once a year, we go out to dinner at least once a week, we give some to charity, I can take classes when I want...what more is really necessary? Maybe I am a communist.


Speaking of communism, I still love this commercial:

Well, I have a healthy baby nephew, Nicholas James. I must say it was a bit of a shocker that my brother would name the baby after my dad, being as he's not exactly the most popular person in my family, but I guess Gary has more pride in the family than I do. But I'm so excited and happy for them, more than I even thought I would be. I was worried for a while that they wouldn't have kids, and it really upset me because I think they would both make such great parents. But now they have a son, and Gary can coach little league and have someone to watch football games with, and we have a little testosterone to even out all the estrogen going on with my nieces.

And today's rain reminded me of this song, which I actually only know from Looney Tunes, but it's a good one anyway, and everyone at work enjoyed my rendition.