When Did That Become Optional?

I'm looking forward tomorrow with a mix of motivation and trepidation. It'll be day two of fasting for this week. I am motivated because Monday really wasn't that bad and it was a challenge that I was able to beat. I am anxious because... I don't know. I really have no valid reason to be nervous.

I guess this is proof of our innate ability to be our own worst enemy. I know I can survive and feel good through tomorrow's fasting, so why be nervous?

Just typing that little bit was very therapeutic for me.

Here's my rant for the week. Okay, maybe just today. And, it really isn't a rant, more of an observation of great annoyance.

In the two hundred to three hundred miles of driving I do in an average week to and from work, the gym, the store, and outings on the weekend I am noticing more and more people who don't seem to have turn signals on their cars. I mean, I'm sure if they had them they'd use them, right? Right?!

Just a gentle reminder to the world at large:

It is not rocket science. 

You want to turn a direction other than the one in which the road you are on is traveling? You effing indicate!

Changing lanes? Pretty much a fantastic idea for you to signal.

You are turning left in the left turn only lane, YOU STILL USE YOUR SIGNAL!

You're turning out of a parking lot? YOU STILL NEED TO INDICATE! 

This is a pretty basic rule of the driving world... It is so strongly ingrained in me that I apologize to whomever is listening (even if I am alone in the car) if I forget to signal. Hell, I even signal when it is unnecessary some times. Mainly, if I am going around a 90° corner (common in the surrounding farm areas).

You may be wondering why it is such a reflex for me, well, when I was younger I was pulled over for failure to signal... The cop didn't care that I turned off without signaling because I was a little shaken by the ass hat that almost side swiped me.... Neither here nor there.

Friday I will give you the highlights of tomorrow's fasting and how it feels after my workout (tomorrow is my gym night, Monday was Collin's).

Now to play some Need for Speed (much cheaper than a ticket).

This Will Either Be a Glorious Experience or a Horrific Experiment

As I have shared for a few months now, I have been stuck on the scale. Seeing only the slightest improvements by eating regularly (I think I discussed how we had virtually stopped eating at work and then would over eat in the evenings; if I didn't well there's the cliff notes version of it).

I physically feel myself becoming slimmer and have eye witness commentary (because they are always reliable), but the scale's mind is slow to change. A pound this month, a few ounces here, nothing as substantial as the effort I feel I am putting in. Which is a recipe for a disastrous back slide.

I have a co-worker who has been steadily slimming down. She is already slender but with her petite frame and being towards middle age noticed she was developing a bit of a tummy. She is big into natural and organics and energy and so on. She started doing intermittent fasting; commonly this is called the 5:2 diet, but as you know, I LOATHE the word diet. I am going to refer to it as the 5:2 method or IF (intermittent fasting) method.

She has been singing its praise for months. I kind of shrugged it off the way I do when people start going on about what sounds like a fad diet. Then another gal in the office decided she wants to try it so lady A brought the book for this methodology in for lady B. Since it was floating around I asked if I could borrow the book. I wanted to give this thing a read.

I did. I read the whole thing in less than a week. I may be gullible, but I am sold. The science behind the method is fairly sound (though I can guarantee there is something out there that will argue against it) and the various trials really peeked my interest. Further more the lab results on participants blood work and the improvements on their body compositions is astounding.

Being a nerd, the biological and chemical side of this whole practice has me bouncing off the walls.

I am just going to give you the bare bones premise of the methodology and if you find it as interesting as I did you can check out their website and book here: The Fast Diet.

The idea is that for five of the seven days of the week, you eat a normal, balanced diet; with the occasional treats and so on. The remaining two days of the week you only consume 25% of your "feed" day calories. So, as a woman you'd eat around 2,000 calories a day, five days a week and then only consume ~500 calories  two days a week. Everyone's opinion on the when to consume the calories is different, but the common thread is to basically fast. If you need a definition of what it is to fast check out the wiki page here: Fasting.

Many religions fast in one form or another for various reasons. Again, for the in depth check out the site and so on. The main difference I find with this compared to all the various fad diet babble I have heard is that it is completely flexible and sustainable.

All this I could go on and on about, but it's not for me to convince any one else to try this crazy thing. It's for you. As I experience this super fun method I will share my results and notes. That is one thing they strongly suggest is taking little notes, ESPECIALLY on the fasting days. That is just what I did, today, my first official fasting day. I wasn't sure how I was going to approach this; I was prepared to need to have a light snack (granny smith apple) if I absolutely needed it. But I didn't and it felt GREAT.

The following are the notes I jotted down throughout the day:

9:30A - I feel hungry and "shaky" but I think it's a mental thing. More water and tea.

10:15A - Feel surprisingly focused and alert. No hunger pangs. Just made some herbal tea (passion and orange) to cool and pour over ice once black tea is gone.

11:45A - Lunch hour is upon us and I feel a little intimidated. Looking forward to our walk in 30 minutes.

12:47P - Lunch walk = great. C struggling with the hungries. Asked if he was writing anything down when it was overpowering, he said no. Wished he'd known how it helped earlier. He had an apple. Told him that's fine. He gets 100 calories more a day than me anyways. Zen tea brewed and cooling.

1:15P - Realize going to Pinterest is/would be a bad idea on FD (fast day). Luckily before going to it!
Small victory

2:05P - Struggling, not sure with what. Just feeling my mind screaming for all sorts. Not emotional... I think. I can make it. 3 hours +/- until a delicious dinner. Just need to finish work! IPO here I come.

3:55P - I DID IT!!

Then we came home, bathed the gremlin and had a deliciously wonderful dinner. I made a light soup with the leftover pad thai veggies from last night. Edamame, broccoli, zucchini, red bell peppers and tofu in chicken broth (seasoned by the leftover sauce from last night and some ginger). It was soooo good.

Now the real struggle: to make it to bed without snacking. I can do this...

Our plan is to fast Mondays and Thursdays (they also are the most common days). Once we reach our goals we will switch to a 6:1 method. Obviously, when we get preggo this will be 100% on hold. It is not healthy to repeatedly fast while trying to grow a human.

As I start to see results (or lack there of) I will be sure to share with you. I will also share my notes as we go from most of the fast days unless it's super boring such as repeatedly writing pickle... Ha!

I will not be giving up my Thursday gym night, plenty of people fast and are still active. We each have one gym night affected by the fasting so it is balanced. We'll see how this goes.

As always, you are welcome to leave your thoughts below. Am I crazy? Have you ever tried something similar? What ever you want.

Now for some tea and anime. *smiles*

Why Have I Waited So Long

It just dawned on me that it has only been in the last year or so that I have been fully open with people about how Collin and I met. I don't know why; I really can't think of a valid reason. There's multiple invalid reasons that mainly revolve around other people's opinions and at this point those really have no bearing... They never really did, I guess.

Our meeting was unconventional at the time and in many ways still is. The summer we met was a weird one for me with a lot of change and growth and turmoil and drama (for lack of a better word). It was dramatic for Collin too but that is not my story to tell. He started the summer dating someone that was not me, but that ended in the weeks prior to our story's inception.

The summer of 2004 I pushed away a person I thought was a best friend and was trying to help a loved one at the same time; one situation was the catalyst for the other, but I am past the point of blaming, bitching and complaining. If not for the extreme events that summer I can't say we would have met when we did. I have no doubt we would have met regardless, but the when may have changed.

It was mid-August, I was looking for someone. I was nineteen and felt like I had to find someone to be dating. I was an adult. I talked to a couple people and went on a date here and there. All of them I met online. And all of them I killed.... Okay, no, that's not true but it made it sound as creepy as everyone made online dating seem.

One night, I found myself in an Oregon chat room on Yahoo (my rooms of choice) and I was talking with all the other Oregonians about this, that and the other thing. When some dude with the most "creative" screen name started to chat me up. It started with some random comment in response to something one of us said (still not 100% sure if he initiated the private message or me) and little did we know it would blossom into more than a decade of weird and adorable banter between two identically twisted souls.

We spent the next few hours messaging back and forth about everything. We exchanged pictures and the old A/L (we kind of knew the S part from the get go) and eventually started up our web cams. It was completely G rated and in hindsight the webcam thing was kind of funny; we would watch one another type.... Woohoo!

The next day I worked for a few hours and as soon as I got home we met up on messenger and spent some time chatting. After a bit we decided we should talk on the phone. We then spent the next few hours on the phone until he had to leave for work. I'll never forget that night because it was the first time I heard a voice that I can now not imagine a day without. Also, there was a minor earthquake that night and I remember calling him right after it happened (it was minutes after we had hung up). Nothing was damaged and I was not hurt, but I still had that urge to call him.

At the time he was a security officer in Salem and working graveyard shift alone. After he got to work and relieved the previous dude for the night he called and we spent the next four to six hours talking about everything and nothing. Music and cars and our lives and our families. All in all, just that evening and night we spent over ten hours on the phone together. Yea, this was back before unlimited calling... I don't think about what it did to my cell phone bill...

Amidst all this conversing we decided we wanted to meet face to face for realsies. It was terrifying for me since I already felt this intense connection to a person I had never physically met. I worked the next day but he was off that night so he agreed to come to Lincoln City.

He almost didn't make it because his dad took him out for a drink to chat him up about moving on from his last girlfriend (it was pretty serious) and Collin told him that he was coming to meet me. With the faintest of buzzes (ah, we were young and stupid, but he was definitely below the legal limit) he made his way to my apartment. We were going to meet at my work, but he was running late because of the aforementioned beverage.

I was in my room, halfway out the window while I smoked a cigarette (young and stupid, young and stupid....) when I saw him walk through the parking lot to my place... I still swear my heart skipped a beat. We spent the first few moments basking in the reality of one another's presence and then... Yea, I'm not writing a romance novel here. Let's just say we spent the evening "talking" and enjoying each other's "company"...

The next day I had to work. I already knew for me that this was game over. I was lost. I was inexplicably and irrevocably in love with this person I had only known existed for three or four days. What the hell...

Back to the story; I got ready for work, Collin decided to call off for his scheduled shift that night so we could spend more time together and then he offered to take me to work. As we made our way to his car (which was actually his grandma's while his was in the shop) my mother happened to walk by and said, "Hi, Alicia........... Hi, Alicia's friend....." I just waved hi and kept walking.... To his surprise and my own we found the car was gone. I asked where he had parked it and he pointed to an area in front of some other units.... They were really strict about not parking in front of other apartments.... My stomach filled with dread as we walked to the manager's office. Luckily I was friends with the manager. I asked if she knew where the car was and she regrettably told me that it had been towed.... Well shit...

Collin called his parents and let them know what had happened and they said they would come pick up the car the next day, but he needed to get his ass home that night. He called a couple friends and some of them agreed to come down and get him later. He hung out around the mall while I worked and even bought me lunch. Afterwards we walked to the bank so I could make my nightly deposit for the salon and then walked back home. We shared a few more hours together before his friends arrived to take him back to the Tron.

When we parted ways it felt like my heart was being ripped from my chest. Very cliche I know, but it is an accurate description of the physical pain I felt by the absence of his presence. We held on as long as we could and then they had to leave. He promised to call once he got home and we swore we would find a way to get together again soon.

I was exhausted after minimal sleep over the last four days since our first private message. I promptly passed out while waiting for his call.... I never heard the phone ring and was a little saddened when I woke up  the next morning. Turns out he had called, but my sister had taken my phone from my room.... Yea... Anyways,

After work that day we were online chatting more and we had the biggest, most impacting conversation of my life at the time (and I'd like to think his as well). I will never forget how sheepish we both were about the whole thing. Our wedding date has more significance than many know, and is just further proof of how cheesy we really are. Anyways, on August 21, 2004, after both of us trying to feel out the other person's intentions, we professed our budding love for one another. It was fast, really fast, which is why I am not one to really talk about the speed of other people's relationships (unless the timeline was shorter than ours, then they're nuts, fucking nuts. Hahaha)

We were married a year later, to the day. In just over two weeks we will be celebrating our tenth wedding anniversary. I can count the number of "fights" we have had on one hand, and I'm sorry but I do not agree with the school of thinking that claims this is unhealthy for a relationship. Even the fights we have had would not be classified as such by others. It's just not how we deal with our issues. We talk about everything. Other than gifts and similar type surprises, we have no secrets. Period. We will keep yours, so don't worry, but please don't expect us to keep them from eachother. If you've told me, he knows; if you told him, I know. Plain and simple.

The only mystery left in our marriage? We don't shit in front of each other. Hell, we rarely even take a piss in front of each other...

So think about this: we openly communicate with each other, we keep zero secrets and we give each other private time when they need to use the bathroom... Also we don't do each other's laundry beyond maybe throwing a missed article in the wash with our own or moving clothes to the dryer. Otherwise he washes his and I wash mine. We share responsibility for household laundry.

I think these points are our "secrets" to a happy marriage, but alas, this is just my opinion and what has worked for us. As gross as this may sound, we still hate to be apart for more than a few hours. We are completely content to do our own thing and we do (such as me typing these thoughts out or him studying nerd stuff), but we enjoy being together even while doing separate things.

Our relationship is heading into its twelfth year; our marriage, its eleventh year and I can't imagine having spent the last decade plus any other way. I can't even begin to fathom the adventures in store for us from here as we grow and our family grows (yes, we hope to try for an addition sometime next year or the following).

To Collin, who I know has read every single word and probably even had his share of flashbacks to the big bang (try not to laugh, I can hear you in my head) that started the universe of our love, I love you more, always and forever. Thank you for being the perfect match for me in every way imaginable. Thank you for putting up with my crazy, my insecurities, and my overactive imagination. I can't imagine a life without you; past, present or future. As creepy as it is sometimes, you are in my head and completely in tune with me. I will never, ever, ever be able to fully express the endless fathoms of my love for you. I can't wait to see what you have up your sleeve for our anniversary (he has been planning this event for over two years).

There it is. It's all laid bare before your eyes. Judge me if you want, but that won't change what I have or what I have built.

If you take anything away from this, I hope it is the belief that soul mates exist (not necessarily in a romantic capacity, but they are there) and that there should be no secrets in a relationship.

Honesty is the cement slab the foundation of your love is placed upon, and without it the house that is your relationship will likely be unstable and destined to crumble.

This Paperclip Is My Grenade Pin

My house smells of chocolate and deliciousness right now. I keep taking slow deep breaths. I am salivating worse than Pavlov's dog. 

Tonight I am making my second batch of granola and this time we're going dark chocolate. The aroma wafting from the oven is unbelievable. Like brownies, but way healthier. Just so we are all clear. This was never meant to be a foodie blog and it never will be, but I will still occasionally share the wealth of knowledge I have found and tried on Pinterest. 

To be completely honest, the reason I would fail at food blogging is my focus on making the food. I am absolutely horrible about taking the pictures during the process. That said, sometimes I remember, and it just so happens I remembered tonight!

Before I can forget, this is where I got this recipe: Yummy Mummy Kitchen. Oh, and this is the recipe for the almond granola from last week: Whole and Heavenly Oven. Side note, I did not follow either of these recipes to the tee, but mostly. 

Now for random pictures of me putting the granola together. (Another reason I am not a food blogger; I am no good at telling stories in between pictures of food I made.)

The first picture is all the dry goods mixed together (oats, coconut, almonds and chia seeds).

Next we have the ooey gooey chocolate mixture poured into the dry ingredients.

All mixed together. The orange bowl has sentimental value. I bought it when I was nineteen from the Dollar Store so I could make candy bar pie (cheesecake with chocolate ganache and Snickers candy bar pieces on top) for Collin's second visit. 

All the yummy ingredients spread out on the pan (covered with parchment paper) before going in the 300° F oven for about forty minutes.

 It came out of the oven a few moments ago. It's not as cluster-y as the recipe from last week but I think I know something I can try to remedy that. Next time I will give it a try and I will do my best to share the results.

I almost didn't post tonight because my laptop was having mental issues with launching Chrome... No idea what the dealio was, but after a quick reboot I was good to go.

I'm debating spending some time on my other writing project, but my brain is a little drained from work today. Change is something that is rather difficult for me to deal with, more so than I care to admit. At work I feel like change is in the air. I think what rattles me is that it doesn't feel like direct change, but more that stuff around me will be changing. It's unsettling.

So, next post will be two weeks and one day before the anniversary weekend extravaganza starts. I think this will be a great post to begin the no holds barred, tell all of the spark that started what has been the most wonderful and love filled eleven years of my life (so far).

If You Don't Try You Fail

I was making up a hundred excuses as to why I was going to skip posting tonight. Mostly because I am tired; today was just one of those days. Then the more I thought about it the more I knew I needed to do this tonight. End of story. I put my big girl eye drops in and here I sit, gently stroking the keys with a tale in my mind.

This past week has been nothing if not interesting and a little conflicted.

In an effort to try to bring in some extra income I was inquiring about selling a line a products that I know and use. The more I thought about it the more it dawned on me that I should use my energy to follow a passion, not just bring in some extra change. Again, here I sit.

I am going to commit myself to making some sort of income, no matter how feeble, off of my writing skills (and now the horror of any grammatical errors that may be painfully apparent in this post pops into my mind). I may dabble in some free lance stuff; I've already wrecked my chances with one online writing firm because I rushed through the application quiz after a long and typical Tuesday. Sad fact, there is no do overs with this firm. Oh, well. There are other options in the world.

After much pushing from outside intruders, I am also working to type a book. While doing this I am researching self-publishing and may or may not send the manuscript out to some publishing houses, but first one must have a manuscript... Right? One book that I am using as a rugged guide gave me a twisted challenge: for every chapter I read of his rough and tumble book I must take the time to pen a chapter of my own. Last night I put down about one thousand words. They may be rubbish but I figure it's a healthy start.

I hope to NOT detract from my posting on here, and still plan to share my little gems with you. Hell, most of what I post on here has little to no place in the book I am working on either. I may reach out to all of you as more words find their way onto the pages to see if there is interest in being Beta-Readers for the book. As more of it blossoms I will share the subject matter of the book and let you choose from there if there is an interest for you.

All that said, let's move on to the real fun of this past week and the reason this is my first post since the 20th.

I may or may not have mentioned issues related to my right eye in the past month. Quick recap: June 27th woke up with some irritation in my eye like I had been dealing with off and on since late March; no biggie went about my day. That night woke up in severe pain as it felt like my eye was being prodded by a burning fork while shards of glass moved about. I spent most of the 28th in misery barely able to open my eye. No drops relieved the pain. Previous occurrences had me believing I was dealing with repeated sties, but I had never had them before. I went online and was happy to see my doctor had an opening on the 29th at four something.

Monday morning dawned and I was exhausted and suffering, but off to work I went with eye patch in hand (we had purchased some cheap, uncomfortable thing the day before). Looking at my monitor was nigh impossible and the fluorescent lights were like staring into the bright noon time sun. I was in agony. On a lark I called my medical provider and explained my situation to the nice gal on the other end of the phone. Miraculously they had an immediate opening if I could head over right then. I snagged Collin and off we went.

Once there the doctor checked for foreign bodies - nada. Then he checked for sties - nada. Then he did a fluoracil on the eye; this is where they put fluorescent dye on the surface of your eye and look at it with a UV light. Before this he also blessed me with numbing eye drops. This was the best feeling since before this all started. He reported the presence of three scratches on my eye: one to either side and the third (like a bastard) straight down the middle. After all this, the doctor felt it may have been a form of sicca syndrome related to my psoriasis. Sicca syndrome commonly causes dry mouth and eyes. He gave me prescription for eye drops, ordered some labs to check my immune system (psoriasis being an auto-immune issue) and referred me to ophthalmology.

Fast forward three weeks to last week. Tuesday night I woke up to the all too familiar pain. Not again. I had been pretty much symptom free since the prescription eye drops kicked in around the 1st of July. The only blessing was that my follow up with ophthalmology was in five short hours. It didn't have a chance to get as severe as the previous episode.

I went in, explained all the symptoms, sensations and pain that I had dealt with. I explained the grainy, rock-like feeling when I would wake up. I expressed the discomfort caused by light and even the movement of my eyeball. The doctor took a good look at my eye and performed another fluoracil on my eye. After all of this she informed me it was not sicca syndrome, but she knew exactly what it was.

Brace yourself, the name is pretty self-explanatory:

Reoccurring Corneal Erosion Syndrome

In layman's terms, my eyelid is trying to peal my cornea off of my eyeball. Well, at least it is with the first layer. The way she described it was a little better... I guess. The first layer of the cornea is extremely delicate and it attaches to the other layers with tiny legs or tendrils. What happens when a person has the aforementioned syndrome is that their eyelid's mucus membrane dries out (typically at night) and sticks to the cornea. When the eye moves or attempts to open without proper lubrication the eyelid begins to tear the first layer of the cornea off. Given there are so many nerves in the eyeball it is EXCRUCIATINGLY painful. Thankfully, the cornea is one of the parts of human anatomy with the fastest healing time. By the time I was at this appointment she could tell that it was already repairing itself.

I am grateful I finally have an answer as to why this was happening. Better yet, we have a treatment plan. Yes, this is something that is completely curable. It just requires me to put an ointment that has a similar consistency to antibiotic ointment in my eye, every night, before bed. This helps retain the moisture in my eye and provides a protective layer. During the day I am to administer one to two drops three to four times a day to keep the eye well hydrated. I go back for another follow up on the 10th, and barring any further incidents I just need to be sure I keep my eye ball happily hydrated as needed.

If I go in and we find that things aren't healing up as they should, the next treatment option is a contact bandage. Basically, they would place a clear lens over my eye to keep the cornea moist and protected. I would need to wear this for TWO MONTHS with visits every other week to have them change the bandage. Um, no, thank you, please.

The doctor didn't even want to talk about the next step AFTER the bandage should it also not be a viable treatment option because it would mean I get to go visit the corneal specialist. Good people I am sure, but yea, no.

She is confident the first treatment plan she has prescribed will work. I am too. So far, so good. I just need to remember to put my drops in when I am at work. Once it clears up the eye drops will be completely on an as needed basis.

With this, I had kind of taken a break from here since I spend eight hours of my day staring at a monitor for work. This is one of the things that does not help the issue. Apparently, there are a lot of things that can exacerbate this syndrome; dry air, air conditioning, heat, not blinking enough, staring at a computer screen too long, and so on.

I will keep you all posted as to how the follow up goes.

Next post: Why the hell have I never made granola before??

Out of This World

The rest of our long weekend was AMAZING. It was so restful and wonderful and much needed.

Saturday I did the normal and dragged my happy ass to the gym at 5am. After my return home I made a delicious savory breakfast of hasbrowns, sausage and eggs.

We all went for a walk to get the mail and then played in the backyard for about an hour. Eventually, little miss sassitude was hitting a limit we know all too well and it was nap time. While she snoozed away Collin went to visit his grandma for a bit. After nap time we had lunch and then made off on our grand adventure for the day: IKEA.

It is a really good place to go and wander around. I like to get ideas while we are there about various updates we want to make in the coming years. The wee one enjoys walking around and touching everything within her reach. She also loves the carts for going through the show room because they have these poles that come up next to the seat with a little metal flag at the top. Her adoration for them is due to the semi flexible nature of the pole and the "boing" vibrations. I also try to take a minute to peruse the "As-is" section for anything I can do something with. This trip we struck gold since I decided to meander back into the "handy person's" corner where they keep odd shelves and excess cabinet doors.

For five bucks a piece I found these nice sized smooth, white cabinet doors. I will be using these in place of canvases for an art piece I have been wanting to do with my toddler Picasso since we re-did our room. Considering canvases of similar size are twenty to thirty dollars each, I made out like a bandit. I am hoping we can find time for the art project this coming weekend, but I need to pick up more foam brushes first.

Toddler art is awesome and with the internet at almost anyone's fingertips, projects are plentiful. I am still steadily building the digital collection of all the inventive arts and crafts we have brought home from "school." Our little Monet loves arts and crafts time and I truly hope I can always keep that passion going for her. I have no ambitions for her to become some famous artist (unless she wants to), but I know how important creativity can be for other things such as problem solving.

Late last month and earlier this month they did space theme at school and oh, what disgustingly adorable things they made. Other than Pinterest, I have no idea how they come up with all these awesome projects (I have talked to the teachers and I know when their creative tanks are getting low Pinterest is where they go). They made footprint spaceships; I like to call this the S.S. Always Right.

This next one has to be one of my all time favorites (so far); like, I kept the physical copy favorites. Side note: 95% of the art she does gets scanned and tossed otherwise there would be walls covered in it and the clutter would be a nightmare.

The Alien Inside:

Back to the master bedroom project though, I plan to order some standoff wall mounts to mount the pieces once mini Jackson Pollock and I are done.

After a busy, busy day we came home and I made dinner (fish taco salads for the adults, yummy) and the whole time the little demon was walking around saying, "Night night." It was barely 5pm. This went on for the next hour with only a mild respite during the actual meal. By six, the wee lass was beside herself with sleepiness and was becoming increasingly whiny. We are the meanest parents ever, you know, forcing our child to stay up past six on a Sausday evening... What the hell.

As you can imagine we allowed the bugger to retire for the evening and then we began what we had decided would be a grade B-D movie night. And boy, did we start it off right with Sharknado 2! It was so epic and horrible and hilarious and ridiculous. It was a masterpiece. But it coculdn't hold a candle to the second movie we watched: ZOMBEAVERS! How could a person go wrong with a movie title like that? You can't. By movie number three I was fading fast but we made it about forty five minutes to an hour into Mega Shark vs. Mecha Shark before I decided I must seek the comfort of my bed.

This movie night proved something very important to us: we can control what we eat and what we associate food wise with certain activities. As we drove home from IKEA making a plan for our evening post toddler bed time the first thing my brain thought was, "Movie night == CANDY, om nom nom nom. So disgustingly good...." Whoa unto the part of my brain who went there for the healthy woman beat the pulp out of them within a minute. Suddenly the words were coming out of my mouth, "When we stop to get the fish and chicken do you want to get some fruit to munch on with the movies?"  YES! A small victory in making the right choice regardless of the situation.

So, that's what we did. we bought some red grapes and some cherries and we gnoshed on it the whole evening. It was delicious and I felt so much better for it.

Sunday was the anticlimactic day of the weekend. Where the shadows of work begin to loom on the horizon. It was still a great day. I got all the laundry done and mostly put away (I still have the kitchen towels to fold). I cleaned the garage... Again... Now that we are done with all the current projects throughout the house I don't think it will be too hard to keep the garage in good shape.After miss teething's nap we went to get gas and then visit Collin's grandma so that we could all visit. We got home and I prepped dinner, and then slagged off to the gym for another brutal work out. Both Saturday's and Sunday's included over three and a half miles on the elliptical in forty minutes. Someday I hope to translate that pace to the pavement. Some day. After the elliptical I did the normal weight machines, always striving to up the weight little by little as I become stronger.

It was 9:30 when I had the horrible realization that I would have to go back to work today. It made me sad, but all in all it wasn't that bad today. I was expecting a couple hundred emails to sort through and was pleasantly surprised to have received less than 190. I think my customer's are appreciative that I communicate my planned vacations to them as much in advance as possible (I put it down in my signature). I was able to quickly organize and respond to everything that had come in and I don't feel anymore behind than usual, so that made the afterglow of this weekend linger on, making it feel even more restful and restorative.

Makes me curious for what it will be like when I take maternity leave in the next couple years when we have baby number two... It will probably be surreal. With number one I only took two months (that was all I could afford) and it was over in a blink, but at the same time it was nice to re-enter the world (I've never been confident in my abilities to be a stay at home mom... I'd get really restless I think). At my current job we are allowed to take three months. It seems like such a long time, but in the same breath it seems like it is never enough. Blah! I don't like talking about this topic; it's a little too deep and a little to intimate, yet something that can so easily be misconstrued and twisted about.

Puppies and kitties.

I think I have earned an episode or two of anime now that I have ruffled my own feathers. First I need to get stuff together for tomorrow.

Hope you had a moderately tolerable Monday!

The War of "Good" and "Evil"

In my current personal journey the good is the mindful healthy choices I make and the evil is all the mindless indulgences, no not indulgences, consumption. I find that there are certain points where I struggle with this fine line more than others.

There is a constant war in my mind between the healthy woman emerging and the fat chick in the corner. More and more the healthy woman is winning, but there are still these lapses where I swear the fat chick ties her up in the corner to make her watch while I over indulge in unearned and unnecessary "treats." Basically I catch myself mindlessly eating and there is this voice in my head screaming, "Why? Why are you doing this? What are you doing to me?"

It's sad and scary.

I recently read a blog post from another woman who has traveled a very similar and parallel road to the one I am on. She hit her goal, more or less, but she still struggles with the same situations I find myself in. She still sees the her from the start, and she too recognizes that there is no end. Ever. The best I can ever hope for is to continue and maintain. Even once I hit my goal I will still have to maintain all the results. There will never be a day where the above battle isn't happening within me.

Every now and again, when I am in my darkest of places, the fat chick begs me to give in, just give up, I will never win.

But then I have these amazing glorious moments. An amazing work out. My pants fit a little looser. I can chase my daughter without running out of breath. The healthy woman exalts. She screams from the mountain top that she is alive, she is strong and she is damn well going to win this battle. She is stronger than the fat chick could ever hope to be.

Ever.

The triumphs of the healthy woman can be seen in our summer adventures.

Today was our second visit to the Oregon Zoo. We are members so we can go whenever for free. We've gone twice in just over a month. Both visits were great weather and since the wee one hadn't had any shots today (she had her 18 month check up last time we went) she was able to walk probably about a third of the zoo. She loves it. We practically had to drag her from the lion exhibit today. She was mesmerized.

She is also infatuated with the cheetahs (any big cat really), the bears, the giraffes and the elephants. Okay, so she is mostly infatuated with the entire zoo. Below is a picture from the first visit. The cheetahs were sleeping right by the viewing glass. She wanted to say, "Hi." A lot.

Today the cheetah was also laying there, but it was awake. When it yawned and rolled over we were certain it might startle our little zoologist (I mean it's a big kitty with a big mouth and some large teeth). She wasn't phased.

Another awesome summer adventure was our outing to Silver Falls State Park. She was enthralled by the waterfall (South Falls), but once we got to the point where we were to go behind the falls she had a complete meltdown. Someday we will make it the whole way around the little loop from the top around the bottom and back up. It was a beautiful morning with the temps in the low seventies.

After our halfway hike little miss enjoyed a half hour straight of going down the slide in the shaded, deserted play ground near the swimming area. It was thirty minutes of her chanting, "Slide, slide, slide...."

She is growing so fast.

I've decided to get an undercut next time I am in my stylist's chair. I think this will help me maintain my sanity while I am growing my hair out. It's just getting to be past shoulder length. My goal is to grow it to at least between my shoulder blades. There is something I want to do with it color-wise that I need length for it to look how I want it. Plus there are some hairstyles I'd like to try out as well. So as much as I hate my hair sometimes, I am going to push through. I think the biggest issue is the fact that it is summertime and warm.

Tomorrow morning I am going to hit the gym. I get the best high from my workouts. Last night was awesome. three and a half miles on the elliptical in forty minutes, followed by thirty reps each on the inward and outward hip abduction machines at 170 lbs. Then thirty reps on the leg press at 170 lbs. and then the machines that make up the 30-minute express circuit. I felt so great afterwards. I wish I could find a way to hold onto that feeling between workouts. I could see myself easily becoming a gym junkie if there was one closer than where I go.

Now to drink the rest of my detox tea and watch some anime