Diet Log

I'm not very good at keeping pen-and-paper food logs, so I'm going to use this blog to record what I eat. Really, you don't need to read this. I really just need to get down (quite a few pounds) before I go to Cancun next summer!!

...of unconditional love.

She kept screaming at him.

"You're hurting me! I don't want to go any further! You're hurting my back."

"No, honey, it's okay. This man over here is going to help you down the stairs. It's okay, you're not going to fall."

"YOU'RE HURTING ME! I don't want to break my leg again. My back hurts. I think it's falling off. NOOOOO, YOU'RE HURTING ME."

Love is patient and love is kind. But what happens when love throws a curveball? What happens when dementia and chronic injuries take over one-half of a relationship?

Tonight I saw the most beautiful relationship. Despite the yelling and the scene, it was clear that the elderly man loved his wife. For the second year in a row, I've watched the dynamics of this elderly couple. The couple probably should have retired their season volleyball tickets long ago. But yet they come to every single game.

What's that say about love? I know it speaks volumes about the old man's patience and faithfulness to his wife. I can't even imagine what he goes through on the eve of every volleyball match. Getting her dressed...putting her in the car... driving miles to the Coliseum...parking the car and walking her to the front door... helping her up the ramp to her seat. And what happens if she need to use the bathroom in the middle of the match? He has to convince her all over again that she will indeed not break her leg again.

I can only imagine having a love as strong as that couple's. From where I sit, he hasn't so much as batted an eye at the amount of work it takes to go to Nebraska's volleyball games year after year. And could you imagine her humiliation as three people help her down two steps? But love shows no humility.

I'm sure they hold tight to their health and their happiness at the end of each night, grateful for each day spent together.

...of someone with no talent.

I wish I had a talent.

I became really inspired by Julie and Julia on Monday and have decided that I need to find some sort of talent. I loved that Julie figured out how to cook and then proceeded to cook her way through Julia Stile's cookbook. Seriously, it had to have been the most creative and most talented way to blog ever. I should really read the book.

My sister, Jacy, is a good cook. I find that to be talent. She's also quite the artist and imaginator. My older sister, Gina, is also an imaginator...and a baker. I seriously can't name one thing both Jacy and Gina aren't good at. My dad can invent things and draw things out and make them happen. My mom's the most optimistic person I've ever met and has a way with people. I don't know one person who doesn't like being around her.

Then there's me. No talent. No absolutely positive trait that distinguishes me from the rest of the world. I may go on a great qwest for a talent. Maybe that's what I should do in this blog - find something I absolutely love and finish it for once. I love poetry, yet I can't seem to finish anything I've started - ala Julie in Julie and Julia. She would start things and never finish them. I need something... crochet? knitting? baking?

Believe me I'm not searching for any compliments here. I legitamately have zero talent.

Suggestions would be great.

...of a girl who misses her first love.

Let me get this straight first of all - I don't miss my first love, but yet the fun that came with having a first love. Or maybe I do miss my first love. Who knows. All I know is that while I was sitting in my "relaxed pose" at my first yoga class tonight, I could only think of weird first love memories. The instructor told her class to think back to a happy time in our lives and my first thought was the drive-in theater when I was a sophomore in high school with my first love in the backseat....

I'm not a typically lonely or needy person. I don't always have to be in a relationship. In fact, rarely am I in a relationship. Nor do I go on dates. Maybe if I were skinnier I'd be more apt to go on dates...who knows. But in all reality, I do kind of miss the excitement of my first love. My other loves weren't near as exciting. They were the same old kissing leads to touching leads to... well you get the picture. But with the first love, everything was shiny and new. Neither of us had experienced any kind of mental or physical relationship like us before.

My first love is getting married next June and I've been having a lot of reflective thoughts about him. "Could that have been me?" "Should that have been me?" "Holy shit, what if that was me?"

I know that things happen for a reason. And we're not together for a very specific reason. God may never give me something as amazing as a "first love," but hopefully he'll give me true love. Someday. In the long-distance future.

For now - dating? hermm....we'll see about that...

...of the reflective.

Is this the end of the moment or just a beautiful unfolding?

Who knows.

I try to write my posts with a sense of humor. My sense of humor is rather odd, but that's who I am. Tonight, I'm not feeling too funny. Just more or less reflective. My mood may be in direct proportion to the rainy weather, but I could also be realizing that I'm coming to the end of a moment.

My resume:
Five year degree in English (May 2010)...ladeefrickingda
Weaknesses: directionless, emotionally unavailable, chronic fatigue, fatness
Strengths: organized, plays well with others?

And the million dollar question: What the hell am I going to do with my life?

I always had great dreams of making it big somewhere. I wanted to be a doctor, but come to find out I'm really shitty at science. Like really shitty. Then I wanted to be a fashion designer/business owner. I guess I blow at math and accounting, too. Okay, I'll admit, it wasn't so much that I wasn't good at the subjects. But did I try in those classes? Nope. I maybe, MAYBE, went to a total of 5 accounting classes all semester. I was "too busy" or "already knew the information." The D- on my transcript looks like a gaping black hole in an otherwise pretty okay shard of paper. I only entered English because I thought that being an author someday sounded like a good time. I can paint the most vivid pictures in my head only meant for paper and for sharing, but is there really money in writing books or poems? Only if you're a sell-out like Danielle Steele.

So far I've narrowed it down to joining Teach For America or taking the LSAT. Neither of which really trip my complete trigger. Well, Teach For America does, but I'm really nervous that I wouldn't get in. Why would they take me? ME? I may not even apply because I'm so scared of rejection.

So, not only do I have no direction in my immediate career future, but my so-called love life has gone down the shitter too. It's my fault. I turned into that married broad who never, ever wanted to do anything sexually physical with a guy. Seriously, the thought of a cock makes me want to puke. ughhahahhhahaa. I think that may fall under the "emotionally unavailable" category on my resume. I really don't want to be with anyone right now. But what happens in 5, 10, 15 years when I do want to be with someone that all the good ones are taken? What if I passed up the man of my dreams because his frickin' penis made me shiver and crawl into a dark, guarded hole. Will I be regretful that I didn't act now? I suppose everything happens for a reason. I just hope that unwritten law applies to the cynics as well.

...of a stalkerish fat girl

Let me clarify: I'm not really a stalker. Well, not in a professional or creepy sense of the word. Sure, if you give me the name of your girlfriend or perhaps even the name of your boss, I will be able to track that person down in, like, 30 seconds. But again, not in a creepy sort of way. I'll just find out that person's interests, hobbies, relationship status. If facebook doesn't work, then I move to MySpace. If MySpace fails, then off to Twitter, Google, HotorNot, EHarmony. Believe me, I can find people. I can find out if you're dating a creep who pretends to be a doctor. You could just give me a first name and I could still track that person down. It's really quite a talent I must say. Like a regular ol' detective. Sometimes I get caught up stalking people of my own. I have this amazing talent of remembering things...like ex-boyfriend's passwords or security questions. Once again, it's not really in a creepy way. They shouldn't have shared that information with me in the first place. I get caught up looking at old pictures of ex-boyfriends much of the time and wonder what the hell happend to me. When did I become the one who let myself go? I promised myself I would never, EVER be like that. I would never let a guy control my life. Yet, I still ended up letting men control my life - right down to my eating habits. And then I let them ruin my life by stalking them on social networks and finding out they can lose weight much easier than I can. It's realy quite brutal. I should give up my stalkerish days...I may be a much healthier person. But right now, I'm due to chug a beer and smoke a cig and stalk some more.

...of the employed.

I know people are looking for jobs. I'm not ignorant. Recently, a girl in the office said that her friend got a job at Red Robin and supposedly Red Robin receives over 40 applications per day. People are that desperate for jobs.

I have a job. Sure, I'm a student at UNL, but I've also been working for the Athletic Department for four years now and I'm going on my fifth year. I've also held other jobs in college as well. The summer of 2006, I worked 8-4 at one job and 4:30-10 at another. I had no life. And for some reason, I have no money to show for it. Even though I'm not near as busy as I was in 2006, I still wish I could have a break. Somedays, when I think about going to work, I feel like a cartoon character. Literally, I'm just like Wile E. Coyote trying to escape the Road Runner's tricks. You know how Wile E. sometimes sees a terrible mess up ahead (like some TNT ready to blow up in his face), yet he can't stop himself from running into it. That's what I'm like. I have my throttle down and I'm full spead ahead toward work, but I decide last minute to hit the breaks. I don't want to go in. I can see myself kicking up the dust. Screaming and kicking.

Don't get me wrong, it's not like I don't enjoy work. Really, I have it pretty easy. I'm in air conditioning. I have great co-workers. I work in fricking Memorial Stadium for Christ's sake. But there's part of me who just wants to be that normal summer student who works as a lifeguard or at a summer camp. I've never had that chance. Oh well...better than being unemployed.

...of an old jewelry box.

Getting read for bed, I glanced into my closet to find a shrine to Josh Hartnett (siiighhhh...what ever happened to him? I still remember trying to track him down in Minneapolis when I was no older than 14!) I took a quick twitpic of the shrine to show my fellow tweeters what a nerd I am and that's when I saw it: my broken down jewelry box. Mom and Dad gave it to me for my 18th birthday and, planted inside of one of the drawers, was a pair of diamond earrings from my dad. To this day, my 18th birthday remains my favorite.

Somehow my mom managed to strategically place the jewelry box on the shelf of my closet forever. It was like the box was stuck there with crazy glue. After a few of the drawers bonked me in the head, I finally plopped it on my dresser. Nothing appeared to be in the box at first. The first three drawers were completely empty (or perhaps they were full until I dropped them on my head while finagling the box out of the closet...). But the side cabinet did not fail me - it had some fantastic high school earrings and necklaces in its grips. One of the necklaces even appears on my neck in my senior pictures.

Then I ventured onto the bottom drawer. More treasures! Two dime-sized earrings sat side-by-side. They were both for my top ear piercing (in my left ear). Both infected my ear terribly, but I insisted on wearing them constantly. Well, only until my classmates claimed I had cauliflower ear and forced me to see a doctor. I guess my ear was badly infected - who would have guessed?

The next drawer had an unused pair of prom earrings (big fake diamonds surrounding some sort of cheap black jewel), a slider charm bracelet thing (please tell me you remember those! They were the shit back in '04! Instead of being all dangly like a real charm bracelet, the charms were attached to little silver plates-like things which slid nicely into a uniform bracet), and my class ring!! Eeeek!

As I glance down at my class ring, memories fly back to me. Sports, band, the back seat of a 1998 Chrysler Sebring convertible.... I don't think I ever even wore the ring in high school. In fact, I believe we were forced to order them sophomore year. What the heck were the Josten's people thinking? We were required to put our graduation year around the centerpiece, but did they take in account the people who got held back a grade and couldn't graduate in time? I, fortunately, was not one of them, so I will wear the ring around for tonight and place it back in it's tiny little box in the morning.

...of a fat girl (who wants to be naturally thin).

I absolutely love Bethenny Frankel's Naturally Thin book. I picked it up at Target a month or so ago and I was pretty skeptical. I've started reading about 15 different diet books and they were all so unrealistic with recipes that I couldn't possibly afford to make. Bethenny's book is completely different. It's like an un-diet diet book. She includes all sorts of hints and tips to eating like you're naturally thin. I've been trying to practice the naturally thin techniques since I bought the book, but today was finally the day I really enforced the techniques.

My sister and I went to Schlotzky's and I ordered something Bethenny recommended in her book (half a sandwich and soup). However, I could only order a whole sandwich, so I ordered the smallest veggie sandwich the joint makes. Then, I took half of the sandwich and placed it into a to go box before I could even smell it! Out of site, out of mind! I finished one half of my sandwich and even left some of my soup in the cup because I felt like I was full already. (It probably helped that I had a really, really tight belt on! Maybe that will be my new diet secret...wear really tight belts!) I'm so used to going out to eat and eating everything on my plate because it's "rude not to eat all the food" or "there are starving children in Africa." Bethenny assured me that there is no reason to finish an entire plate of food. It's actually just plain gross.

Today's Log:
Breakfast-bowl of Special K
Lunch: Half of a veggie sandwich and a cup of vegetable beef soup

Snacks...lots and lots of water!!

Yay me!

...of a fat girl (on losing weight).

I'm starting to get a little discouraged. I realize that skinny girls have a tough time losing weight, but I'm a big girl. Shouldn't it just, like, fall off of me? Like that Ruby lady who started out at 487 and lost a hundred already? Why can't that be me? I hired a personal trainer, I'm making drastic eating changes, I'm reading all of the literature about being healthy, and I'm exercising like a banchee and my fat won't budge! I know that several years of unhealthy habits got me in this situation and the fat's not going to just melt away. But I thought maybe a pound or two would.

Log:
Since the last time I wrote, I had a few tortilla chips and some salsa for a snack. Then I had some broccoli and rice for supper with a handful of white cheddar crackers. Okay, not the staple for perfect eating, but I'm poor today, so it's all I can afford. I'm pretty sure the broccoli-rice combo was a year out of date...

...of a fat girl.

Any post titled "...of a fat girl" will be my thoughts exclusively. Just like a diary. I'm the fat girl. Catching on? Good. Any posts titled anything else will be any stories/quotes/other people's stories through my eyes as a fat girl. History of my fatness will come later...

Also, I may share what I have eaten so far today so you know that I really am trying to be less fat...Dieting never works...But if I'm held accountable through my blog, then I hope to lose some weight! Maybe in a few months I can be "...of a skinny girl!"

Today's eats:
Breakfast: Cereal and milk
Snack: Slim Fast snack bar
Lunch: Peachy/Orangy Juice Stop. Yum.

...of my cell phone.

Who in the heck let me have a cell phone?
Seriously.

April 2008: My Samsung slider was the first of a long string of bad luck with cell phones. I lost it in Palo Alto, Calif., after about six gallons of Jager and eight bottles of Guiness. To this day, I swear someone stole it from me...however I was constantly reassured that no one would even want a phone as un-cool as my Samsung slider.

August 2008: Then there was my teal LG slider. I thought it looked hip because it had a full keyboard. Evidently the toilet I flushed it down liked the sleek look of my LG as well. Word to the wise: don't even attempt to reach in and grab your fallen cell phone from an automatic-flushing toilet. The water's rush will take the phone from you and spit toilet juice all over your arm. Gross.

January 2009: Next was another teal LG slider. Don't trust a one year old with a glass of wine. That's all I'm saying. Wine is some sticky shit.

I've had my pretty little Blackberry for a few months now. Although it hasn't been lost, flushed, or drenched, it tends to send a ton of drunk text messages. It's also been known to give it's number to lame-o men in it's drunken frenzies. Blackberry takes loads of embarrassing pictures, too. Two nights ago, it thought it would be fun to tell my ex-boyfriend where to stick it.

If something happens to Blackberry, I'm giving up on cell phones for good. Calling cards and pay phones are probably my best bet. It's a little hard to give random guys my numbers if the only way to reach me is through a pay phone...