I've been sick

But the camera is fixed and I have Christmas lights up everywhere (including on my bike) so rest assured, your overdue post is on its way and it’s full of visuals.

Religious Views

The past few years have been ones of great personal growth for me in the area of my spirituality and relationship with God. Many of you who are close to me know that I have often struggled with the role that religion, especially organized religion, should play in my life and in the way I understand my spiritual needs.
I consider this struggle to be one of the most intensely personal undertakings of ones life but it is also extremely social; impacting the way you relate to not only your family and friends, but also to your culture at large. In fact, much of what informs the choices I make today about the way I approach religion in my life is based, in large part, on my understanding of the interplay of culture and society in my personal life.
This perspective is not a conclusion. I believe that I will continue to adjust and change my ideas about religion and my relationship with God as long as I live. I believe that is a good thing; a necessary thing even. The changes I have made in this respect over the course of my life have often been at the influence of an event (getting married sparked a huge quest for answers) or a new perspective offered by a friend (or my mother who is one of my best friends) but never before have I been so moved to change my life by a single image.

I mean, that is f-ing priceless. I want all my children to grow up to be her.

Clean Teeth

Every few year my Mother-in-law’s extended family has a massive thanksgiving. Her parents (DH’s Grandparents) get together will all of their siblings. And all of them invite their children (my Mother-in-law’s generation), and their children’s children (our generation) and even their children’s children’s children (DH has one cousin with a little girl.) I had been to one of these celebrations before so this year (my second) I was better prepared. I was prepared for close to 100 people singing children’s songs rewritten with Thanksgiving themed lyrics. I was prepared for the very competitive board game playing. I was prepared to handle all this without a drop of alcohol.
I was so prepared that I even made a double recipe of cranberry sauce. Of which a recipe and a half is still in my fridge. Now this could be because it was one of 4 types of cranberry sauce and people were only taking a bit of each. It could be because it clearly did not include Jell-O and therefore was passed over by a certain type of person. Or it may be because it “tasted like toothpaste” to quote a certain cousin who was unaware that the cook was in the room when he announced his opinion of the dish. I have to admit that after he said that, it did start to kinda taste like toothpaste but honestly what was I supposed to do?
You see, I get Domino magazine. This makes me fancy and sophisticated without being stuffy. In general it has no practical application in my life because all the spaces they decorate have soaring ceilings and truckloads of inherent charm. Plus all of their recipes are stupidly simple to make but call for expensive and hard to find ingredients. So you think to yourself “I could make that and I will just substitute shitake mushrooms for that black ear cloud fungus stuff” and then you realize that now all you have is stir fry with shitake mushrooms. Sigh.
So I took a look at their thanksgiving menu and decided that I could make their stupidly simple cranberry sauce which sounded good because it included crystallized ginger. Except that unless you are Starbucks or perhaps you are the type of person who plans your cooking of things enough in advance to go to more than one store, crystallized ginger hard to find. The store by my house did not even have fresh ginger because apparently all of Safeway and all of China are in some sort of disagreement that prohibits ginger from being exchanged. Starbucks (which is in this particular Safeway) has it. They put it in their Gingersnap lattes and it sinks to the bottom if you forego the whip cream and it sits there shedding it crystallized-ness becoming a mushy ball of stringy ginger goo just small enough to fit through the drink hole in a cup so you can choke on it after otherwise enjoying your calorically and financially costly treat. Remembering this distasteful experience I offered the barista 20 bucks for a shaker bottle of it but she laughed like I was joking and told be that everyone seemed to be looking for that this year.
So I bought cranberries, ginger in a jar, and fresh mint. Somehow the crystallized ginger could be replaced by fresh ginger but not simply by ginger puree in a jar so I thought that adding the fresh mint would, you know, add that something special. And it did, because really have you ever heard of toothpaste cranberries? Me neither but I have leftovers so if you decide to visit this week, be prepared to try some.

The Idea of Fire

Thanksgiving is a bit late this year. That is how I am going to justify putting the Christmas music in my CD player yesterday. I really should have a little more shame and not tell you that I practically cried tears of joy at the sound of Mariah Carey’s voice singing “All I Want for Christmas is You” but I am generally shameless so now the world of the interweb knows my secret.
I seriously am way more excited about putting up Christmas stuffs than I am about moving into my house. I really think I was supposed to be a 50s housewife because if I think about it, I could be very happy getting overly excited about holidays. I would spend my time concocting signature cocktails for my dinner party celebrating Christmas or Independence Day or the third Sunday in August. . . Any excuse really because if there is one thing I love as much as Christmas and party planning it has to be cocktails . . . or maybe wine.
I am also extremely excited to have a fireplace this year. I hate fires inside in fact I am not so much a fan of them outside either. Really, it’s mostly the idea of fires that I like. And I like the heat. Ok, so maybe I just hate the smoke because it gives me migraines and I also maybe don’t appreciate the special kind of unpredictability that fires possess that often results in leaping coals burring holes through things I am wearing. BUT I do love the possibility of fires and I really really love the cheese-tastic plug-in electric light up log insert thingy that came with my fireplace. Next to a gas fireplace (which is all the heat and none of the smoke and therefore a basically perfect invention) this little thing is the most awesome I could hope for. It really is the embodiment of the idea of a fire.
The other reason I am excited about the fireplace is that it has a mantel. Which is awesome if you are trying to channel a cloistered 50s house-wife because you can hang stockings on it and arrange your Italian, hand painted collectable figurine nativity set on it. And then you can plug in your fake fire, put on Nat King Cole Christmas, and read your home décor magazines while you drink hot buttered rum and wait for your hubby to get home from work.
Jesus I am the worst feminist ever.

No visuals

A few weeks ago I was vey proud of myself for fixing our digital camera. Sadly, as with many good things in life, this pride in my self-sufficiency has met an untimely end. My stubborn camera has decided it wants to be broken again. That is why you will not see pictures of week three of our home improvement epic. This is especially sad because now is when it is all coming together and starting to look like a house that people could live in. There is real paint on the walls! The kitchen has been cleaned! There are new, old light fixtures (antiques I spruced up) and even new outlets and outlet covers. I actually can go over there without thinking “what was I thinking? I will NEVER be able to move in!” Yes we have hit the rewarding stages of the process and none of it will be displayed here.
Luckily I am way more stubborn than my camera. It will eventually bend to my will and at that point you will all get a before-and-after post. I love before-and-afters. Almost as much as I love lists and by God do I love lists. In fact I am pretty sure that a post very soon will be a list of “what were they thinking” moments encountered while remodeling. Now you have so much to look forward to!

Midlife Crisis Plan

Everyone knows about my plans when I get old. I am going to get very fat and spend hours every day at the YMCA doing water aerobics. I am going to get there on the bus which I will ride for free by arguing incessantly with the bus driver over my transfers and whether or not they are expired. And on the weekends I am going to crash weddings pretending to be so-and-so’s great aunt whoever, drinking cheep wine and eating more than my share of cake (I have to stay fat somehow!) Yes this is my retirement dream. It took me years to perfect. But now I have discovered something else I must do and it will require that I not be old, fat, and possibly drunk. So you all get to be the first to know about my budding “midlife crisis plan.”


It starts with this. I am going to join The Sprockettes when I turn 40. I figure by then I will be in desperate need of pink Lycra and black fishnets. I get to be the one trying to pop the other girl's head doff using the strength of her massive rock hard thighs.

More on the disassembly of houses.

So it’s been another weekend of progress at the P-Town pad. This weekend we had help from my father-in-law and his wife plus my Mom, not to mention the usual suspects (myself, DH and the ever helpful Marrs family)
The first major accomplishment for the project . . . NO MORE WALLPAPER! Here we pose with my In-laws in the last room to be cleared of the evil plague that is wallpaper.



Do you know what happens after the wallpaper is all gone? Skim-coating. Basically a fancy word for “learn to apply plaster to your walls” Here my FIL and DH prepare to “mix it up” (the plaster that is)

And here they are actually performing said mixing.

Here is my FIL still full of enthusiasm for the plastering portion of the project, mainly because he has not yet begun to experience the fun that is skim-coating.

Here DH and FIL get down to business.



After 6 bags of plaster have been mixed and applied, DH is sent to the black hole of money and time that is Home Depot to pick up some more, where he discovers that it is just as cheep to buy pre-mixed plaster. Sigh.

Here I am applying the much easier to work with pre-mixed topping compound.

Here is DH attempting to look menacing.

This is Micah. He is helping if by helping you mean following me around asking if there is anything he can screw. Typical man.

Here the team (minus my mom who is behind the camera) takes a brake for sustenance of the Mexican variety.



Basically, we are getting pretty close to being able to apply our fancy VOC free paint. Which we still have to go buy. I don’t even really want to think about all the cupboards and baseboards and cleanings that also need to be primed and painted (and in some cases sanded beforehand) I also don’t want to think about the “office” where I took down more classy 70’s wood paneling to discover . . . well, lets just say it was not a wall as you and I know it. I also don’t want to think about the decorative wall of bricks built ON TOP OF the orange shag carpet in there. Suffice to say, the office project is on hold. Instead of focusing on all that, I will just post this picture of our Toilet Paper Dispenser.

Why yes, that is an alarm-clock-radio and a phone and you can bet your booty-licious moneymaker that it works and we are keeping it. Come visit, it will be next to the guest bed.

How to dismantle your home part 1

So the remodel has begun. That is to say, I have removed much wallpaper and not accomplished much else in the past 4 days.

This happy domestic scene just shows you how crazy we are. We are all excited about our little pink house that needs so much help. Amazing how you can love something and also want to change everything about it!

This picture represents how our life would progress living in our new house if it were to be stylistically preserved. We would have to name all of our children "Chase" regardless of gender and take to wearing dangerously high cut running shorts. It would not have been good for anyone. Taj even looks a bit frightened.

That is why we had to start tearing things apart. In this photo my Husband and his Step-dad discover the "weird black cancer causing glue-tar" that was holding our lovely wood paneling up on the wall behind the fireplace! Notice that I am standing safely behind the camera, away from the bio-toxins.
Other fun discoveries include this weird black stain.
And multiple layers (5 in some places!) of really old wallpaper!

Some of it, like this green leafy scene, would actually not have been bad if it did not cover every wall in a small room.It all had to come down.
Kind of a daunting prospect.
but in the end we have a wall full of glue and the discovery of some very nice hardwoods!
Taj, however remains unimpressed. We think he was enjoying the 70's life and may be a bit sad that the carpet full of 30 years of smells is going to be thrown out like trash. The life of a dog is a hard life indeed.

Stay tuned for the second instalment of our home improvement adventures where we learn how to skim coat and answer the question on every one's mind "will the weird water-soluble goop on our ceiling fall off when we apply our low VOC water-based Paint?"

In support of equality

I do not want to look a gift horse in the mouth. I am extremely happy that we have someone who is not Bush going into the Whitehouse in January. I am ecstatic that he is a democrat who claims to plan on addressing the state of healthcare in this country. I am in awe of the historic significance of electing a minority, a black man, to the presidency for the first time in American history. But all this happiness and hope and optimism is tainted by the ignorance, self-importance, and just plain nosy rudeness displayed by voters who assert that marriage (or even parenthood) is a narrowly defined right only to be granted to those who fit their image of right and wrong.
I know we have all heard these arguments before but I am hurt and I feel betrayed and I want to talk about it again. So here we go.
First of all, in this fine country of ours, all over the country, we have this little thing we call equal rights. And there was a historic case in which we struck down "separate but equal." Civil Unions are the poor minority schools of this equation. They are not as good and everyone knows it. So don't try to argue that gays can just get a civil union and call it a day.
Another common way to attempt to win this argument is to bring God into it. Now I make every effort to live my life in a way that brings God's goodness into the world and I am not in the least being sarcastic when I say that. Whatever or whoever God is to you, it is the same message of love and forgiveness and hope, and faith in the human spirit that drives people to and within religion. And I am not going to argue about what the bible says concerning marriage and homosexuality or whether it is to be read literally, I am simply going to make two points.
First, whatever the bible may say about the definition of marriage or about homosexuality, it says far more about love for all of humanity, and forgiveness and reserving the judgment of others for God. So whatever message you have gleaned from the bible, these important, oft repeated, overarching themes must take precedence in your life.
Second, in addition to equal rights we have something else in this country called the separation of church and state. That is why, if you are married by a member of the clergy, your officiant will name both God and the state as having separately granted them the authority to unite you in marriage. So if marriage is only a sacred sacrament to be administered and defined by God, then the state has no business giving marriage licenses to ANYONE, Gay or Straight and “marriage” should have no legal definition and remain entirely in the realm of religion.
The United Sates of America should not be in the business of dictating morality. It is a government. A secular Government which was created to allow people the freedom and responsibility of making their own moral choices. Not for their neighbors; not for their siblings; not for their coworkers, and not for their friends, but for themselves alone.
So even if you believe that homosexuality is wrong and that God gave the sacrament of marriage as a gift to bless the union of a man and a woman I do not see how that puts you in a position to legislate morality to the other citizens of your state or of this country. If the sanctity of marriage is threatened by its application to two consenting adults, then perhaps the fight should be to remove the label “marriage” from the public realm and rename the legal contract by which we recognize the commitment of two people. Because this is not about semantics, this is about rights and equality and I hope that in this, the twilight of a historic milestone in the struggle for equality, we do not lose sight of the ideals we are so proud to watch come to fruition.

Go Vote Your Ass Off

There is a whole lot of extreme voting going on out there today. Living in mellow Oregon, I voted by mail and get to sip my free cup of coffee from Starbucks and simply listen to the war stories on NPR. But seriously dude . . . 7 hour lines, camping out since 4am, rain, snow, hail . . . voting today is like being a freaking postman! And I applaud you all. Truth be known, I was feeling sorry for everyone who had to put up with going to the polling place and I was even feeling a little self important and maybe in my head there was a tiny bit of “Oregon is paradise” preachyness developing about our progressive statewide vote-by-mail system. Then I read Dr. Spoke’s ode to the neighborhood polling place and suddenly I was a little sad too. Thanks a lot Papa. I will take the shout out though as a consolation prize (I’m the kid who voted three times and was telling my grandmother how to vote at the age of 5) because we all know how much I like attention.
But really, the most exciting part of the news today so far is that the voter turn-out has been crazy-mad-bad high. It’s causing long lines and breaking machines and all sorts of madness but people are enthusiastic about voting. And that is awesome.
Now lets all hope that we continue to get awesome news all day (and tomorrow too if it comes to that) because Aarwenn can attest to the fact that I have never voted for the winning presidential candidate, and watching our guy lose last time was not pretty.
Me + Despair + Tequila = . . .
well let just hope it doesn’t come to that.

Fear of pen and paper

I decided to celebrate Halloween this year by doing the scariest thing I could possibly imagine . . . signing mortgage papers.
Seriously.
Terrifying.
Experience.
I mean I am really quite proud of myself for not fainting, barfing, screaming, crying, or really showing any overtly visible signs of the minor mental breakdown I experienced. The entire series of events seemed orchestrated to bring about my demise. First of all, my incredibly patient loan officer and real estate agent both assured me that the escrow officer would call me to schedule an appointment and that I did not need to call her. Basically this was their nice way of allowing her some peace and advising me against subjecting her to the same level of harassment out of me to which they had already become accustomed.
So I took their advice and I waited. While I waited I called each of them. I also emailed each of them. I also made my husband email them and perhaps I even pestered said husband to call them as well. I am not really such a neurotic person it’s just that things do not register in my plane of reality until they have a color-coded place on my Google-calendar. Therefore a lack of a solid appointment or even a specified day that appointment would take place, meant that I did not feel confidant the signing of our mortgage papers would ever happen.
Then, on Friday October 31st and about 11:00 the phone rang and it was our escrow officer. Now it is entirely possible that it was in my best mental interest to schedule the appointment not too far in advance of it actually occurring, thus giving me less time to stress out and increasing the chance that I would not curl up into the fetal position at the thought of that much debt and therefore be unable to leave the house much less drive to an office and appear mentally competent enough to enter into legal contracts. Yes it is entirely possible that if the escrow officer had called days in advance like I wanted her to, I would have been dragged into the office by my husband whimpering and slobbering all over myself. BUT if I could have been called perhaps, oh I don’t know, 30 min to an hour before I needed to be there? That would have been just awesome.
Instead a very cheery lady called me to find out if I “had time to come on in and sign papers” RIGHT NOW. So in a flurry of paperwork and forms of identification and phone calls to previously mentioned, incredibly patient, loan officer and real estate agent we made our way down to the title company’s office. Where we were greeted by a receptionist who offered me candy (because it was Halloween) and coffee (because the only thing in the world my nerves needed less that sugar was caffeine.) So I am sitting in the lobby vacillating between thinking that I might have some coffee because it would be comforting and realizing that I am already shaking and even decaf would probably send me over the edge into full on convulsions, when a cheerleader comes out and announces she is our escrow officer.
Yup, a cheerleader.
This annoyingly cheerful woman was so fit and thin that she was apparently able to fit into her old high school cheerleading outfit 20+ years after the pom-poms were put down. I, on the other hand, had not yet managed to do my hair, put on make-up, or even eat breakfast. Sigh. I can tell you that God is up there somewhere though because she was very efficient and thorough and we were out of there in under an hour with zero questions to take back to our real estate agent. I will however, probably be unable to attend football games due to my new phobia of cheerleaders.

back to remodel

So my BFF asked me to start contributing to her blog. I am very excited about it and I have posted twice. I would have posted more except . . . well . . . its supposed to be a happy blog. I don’t mean happy in a “warm-puppy-that-smells-like-flowers-giving-you-butterfly-kisses” kind of way. It’s just that I am not really supposed to bitch and moan and complain about politics or how cold my office is or the sudden appearance of cockroaches IN MY SHOWER THIS MORNING! (See, Portland is not always Paradise.) No, this other blog is supposed to be a mental safe-haven. A place you can rely on to find something to be glad about.
But as much as I am a happy person, I am much more entertaining as a sarcastic person. So writing for her blog has been a welcome and healthy challenge. But it has also reminded me how much I enjoy writing for THIS blog where I can be the snarky, pessimistic bitch that you all love.
Also, we are buying a house. A house that was built in 1944 and is salmon pink. A house that has wood paneling and pearlescent, textured vinyl “wallpaper.” A house that has wonderful built-ins, beautiful hardwood floors and amazingly cool art-deco kitchen cabinets. Basically, the process of fixing up the good bones and banishing the ill-advised decorating scheme will give me plenty to talk about. If by “talk” you mean “attempt to remain cogent as I pull my hair out strand by strand and recite Jean Paul Sartre’s The Age of Reason in the original French”
But really, it should be a good project.
That I will have to live with.
And in.
For years to come.

TMI

So I have been tagged. I am going to break the chain and not tag anyone else because the only person who ever even thinks about reading this is probably the very same person who tagged me. If I am wrong, however, feel free to remind me that you read my blog by replying to this post with your answers.
And now here are “7 random things about me”

1. I have a photographic memory. I know where things are because I can picture where I saw them even if all I did was walk through a room once. I can only find something I wish to reference in a book if you hand me the same version that I originally read because I will know that the sentence I am looking for is on the right hand page, ¾ of the way down in the middle of the second to last paragraph.

2. When I brush my teeth, the last step before I put my toothbrush back in its holder is to tap it on the side of the sink 3 times. Not twice and not 4 times. I always do this.

3. I can’t stand the idea of being pregnant. I could go into detail about all of the things related to pregnancy that frighten, repulse and offend me but I won’t. This however, does not in any way diminish my intense desire to be a mother; ideally a stay at home mother even. My little sister volunteered to be a surrogate for me so that my husband and I could have our own biological children but after researching that option we have decided to simply adopt children. Apparently, “social surrogacy” (using a surrogate when you are physically capable of bearing your own children) is a really hot button issue with people.

4. I am a born and bred Treky (as in Star Trek Fan.)

5. I have an “over-disclosure” problem (see #3) and I tend to tell strangers intensely personal things. This bothers my very private husband a great deal.

6. I plan out everything. Usually in spreadsheets. However, my filing system consists of me putting things that seem worth saving in a box. The end. That is the whole system. I figure this keeps them roughly in chronological order and therefore, to find something all I have to do is figure out when I last saw it. This system is not limited to papers and my boxes of “filing” often include chap-stick, pocket mirrors, umbrellas, key-chains, pictures (sometimes in frames), jewelry, foam stress balls and any number of other such things. This habit also exasperates my husband.

7. I have almost unhealthy interest in both King Henry VIII (or more accurately his reign and all the subjects and people that encompasses) and the holocaust (but not any other aspect of WWII.) Neither of these historical obsessions is new. They both date back to sometime around the 4th grade.

Eat Something

I know. I am totally a bad person for not posting for so long. I have been spending most of my time feeling sorry for myself because I could not go skiing. I have been spending some of my time feeling sorry for myself for letting my weight start to creep in the wrong direction from lack of skiing. And finally, I have been spending the very small remainder of my time being lackluster and depressed because I have let my weight start to creep in the wrong direction from lack of skiing.
Basically, not skiing is ruining my life and the Food-fest that is my office is not helping. Basically my weekdays go like this
5:30 – DH gets up and I contemplate going to the gym but fall back asleep instead.
6:30 – my alarm starts to go off.
7:00 – I get up and run around to get ready.
7:30 – I leave the house (interesting side note: 7:30 is also my start time!)
7:45 – I get to work
8:00 – someone gives me a doughnut while I am eating my sensible breakfast
9:30 – I attend a meeting where halved Costco Muffins are passed out.
11:00 – someone passes out the candy/cookie dough/cookies/popcorn that you bought from their kid as a fundraiser.
Noon – as I am cooking my lean cuisine, pizza/BBQ/Teriyaki/Hamburgers arrive and I am loathe to turn down free food.
2:00 – there is a birthday/retirement/promotion celebration which involves much sheet cake
3:30 – A woman in my row refills her candy bowl and I decide to have “just one”
4:45 – While going to pick up my dishes from the dishwasher before someone steals them and I never see them again, I am faced with the smorgasbord of leftover meeting foods. I have 7 pieces of cheese, 3 slices of garlic bread, 2 brownie bites and an undetermined amount of salsa and chips.
5:00 – I go home and start dinner
7:00 – after snacking while I cook I eat as much dinner as my husband does.
9:00 – I want dessert (or nachos)
10:30 – I go to be having skipped the gym and consumed about 5,000 calories.
Weekends are worse because I always plan to go skiing and then I find that my leg still hurts when I put the ski boots on so I send my husband off to the mountain with his friends and eat nothing but wine and microwave popcorn all day.
Dear lord in heaven let me break this wicked cycle of self destruction by getting on the mountain this weekend!

The wheels go 'round and 'round

When I worked at my fathers bicycle shop as a mechanic there was one story we would hear consistently. Man or woman, old or young, all nationalities and income levels, the story of why your bike is creaking, groaning, screeching, broken, twisted, shredded, clicking, stuck or just plain not working always starts with the words “I was just riding along.” This phrase is so over used by those who neglect and torment their bicycles that it has become quite the joke at the shop. 90% of the time, after fixing the bike, a good mechanic can tell what caused the problem and it is almost always the rider’s fault. Through neglect, malice, or ignorance people do terrible things to their bicycles and after wrenching for many years I have vowed never to be one of them. I pay loving attention to the state of my bicycles; cars however, are a different story.
My abuse of cars is a matter of historical and public record. From the time I “stole” my car with Aarwenn while we both still only had permits and ran it in to a pole at a Starbucks only to lie to my parents about how it became scratched latter, to the more neglectful habit I have of never (and I do me not even once since I have owned it) washing the outside of my current vehicle. From the 2 cars I have run out of oil, seizing the engines and totaling both cars, to the fact that I am so used to driving a stick that I slam on the break while looking for the clutch in automatics. I am like the anti-car. I have no mercy and even worse, no sense. Since getting married I actually clean out the inside of my car on occasion and pester my husband to change the oil on a semi regular basis but this minor change in behavior hardly makes up for all the years of abuse. What does make up for it is this. Today, as I was driving back to the office from lunch, my car began to wail and screech at such a high pitch and intensity that dogs from other counties and perhaps other states were howling. That alone would not make up for my behavior but the noise did not start out small and quiet, it simply turned on at full force, accosting me with its embarrassing, attention grabbing, cacophony of sound and causing me to swerve as a looked for its source and become very red in the face as a realized it was my own car. But even that would not make a dent in the grievances against me. What humbles me to the core is that when I got back to the office I had to call my dad and say “Papa, I was just driving along . . .”

2 inches

It will be no news to some of you that my height has been called into question as of late. At a holiday party this December I compared my height to some of my friends who have always been sorter than me and realized that we are the same height.
This is disturbing for many reasons. The first and most obvious reason is that I am shrinking. You would be upset if you were shrinking too. In fact, you might be even more upset than I am since I know that it is happening because of my scoliosis. Which brings us to the second reason it is upsetting; it means my scoliosis is getting worse. One might think that that is the extent of my reasons to be upset. That person would be wrong.
I am actually most upset because I am now not a tall girl.
There was a time in my life, when I was 5’7 ¾”. I was almost as tall as my “little” sister. In fact, my massage therapist said I would be taller than her if my back were completely normal. That time was early 2004, I was 22 and I will now refer to that period of my life as the “height” of it even though that will confuse people.
Some months latter, when I came home from Europe I had lost that ¾” and I reluctantly put 5’7” on my driver’s license when I renewed it. Since massage therapy had given me almost an inch, I figured that my compressed spine left me at this height. Sad, but that was that.
Fast forward a few years to last month when I realized for the first time that my back has compressed even further. So now I am going to the chiropractor and having them measure my height at the doctor’s office. Yesterday the nurse pushed me up against the wall and said “we will call it 5’6”. I was going to protest because I had recently be told at another office that I was 5’6 ¼” and, damn it I want that extra ¼ but before I could even protest she continued with “you are almost there so we will just give it to you.” Almost there!?!
Honestly the biggest issue for me is feeling small. It permeates into other areas of my life. My husband has noticed I have begun talking even louder than normal and normally I am a loud talker. I have quit wearing high heals because I don’t want people to think I am trying to look taller. I don’t want people to know that my newly discovered shortness bothers me so much. This discovery has bloomed into an identity crisis as if those 2 inches I lost held all the confidence and individuality of me.

Evil Elves: In which I reveal (in real numbers) my weight loss goals.

I have this tendency to take some tiny tidbit of information and latch on to it, repeating it out of context and distorting its message and requiring myself to adhere to its now ridiculous ramifications whatever those may be.
Case in point: I read once that women who have larger weight loss goals are more successful in their weight loss endeavors, where success is measured in pounds lost.
The logical explanation for this is that women who are trying to lose 100 or even just 50 lbs generally have more weight to lose and everyone knows that the more weight you have to lose, the faster it comes off in the beginning so even if you did give up at the 3 month mark (which is usually where I lose it and order a double cheeseburger with a side of everything else to go) you will still have lost more weight than a person trying to lose 10 lbs who sticks to it and meets their goal.
However, my twisted mind has decided that this statement actually means I will lose weight much better and faster if I set some pie in the sky “I used to weight this in high school” type goal. So now my ticker on SparkPeople says 118. It says 118 not because I think I should weigh 118. It says 118 not because I can really even plan on or conceive of weighing 118. In fact my real goal in my heart and soul and mind is 127. But somehow, my superstitious, overly optimistic and blindly emotional side INSISTS that having changed the number on my very public ticker will somehow shift the favor of the fates in my direction and pounds will melt off my frame. Why? Because I now have an unattainable goal and the evil little elves of hell that sit around making it their business to ensure that I never. ever. ever. get anything I want will think that I won’t be happy until I get to 118. Therefore they will let me get to 127 without even worrying their evil little heads about it and I will win and that, my friends, is how the universe works. Yes it is.


Disclaimer: Reaching my real goal of 127 requires me to lose less than 10 lbs and my doctor has advised me at a healthy weight range for me would be 116-140. So yes, this is a vanity diet and no, I am not going to starve myself and end up a crak-head-esque waif. Besides, we recently established at a holiday party that I am much shorter than we previously believed and if I have to be short at least I can be skinny.

My Best Self

2008 is going to be the year I become “My Best Self.” This statement means many things. It means that I am going to work on my eating habits and my exercise habits. It means I am going to start shaving my legs regularly and stop glowering at strangers on the street. It means that I will stop trying to kill the snooze button with overuse and start trying to get some yoga in before work.
It does not mean that I am going to become a morning person or regularly wash my car or begin to enjoy to company of children. I mean there are some elemental facets of my personality. But becoming “My Best Self” (Yes I am aware that every time I type that you all want to sing the “My Buddy/Kid Sister" Song. That is actually ½ the reason I keep writing it.) does mean that I need to go to the chiropractor.
You see, I have a bad back. This was discovered at some pivotal moment in my pre-pubescent years at Jason Lee Middle School. They lined us up in two rows with our backs to one another in the nurses office and we all had to pull our shirts up and bend over. (inset inappropriate joke here) While I was feeling ashamed that all he other girls needed bras and I did not yet (come to think of it I still don’t but I wear one anyway. Go figure) the mentally challenged, lazy eyed nurse was simply noticing that I had scoliosis. Of course she did not tell ME this. She let everyone else go and made me sit with her while she filled out some paperwork and asked me questions. Then she called my mother.
Now, 13 years latter, I have decided to start going to the chiropractor. The guy I went to see on Tuesday is a large, jovial man. He is so cheery in fact that I initially relaxed quite a bit about the whole process. We chatted about my pain. He offered me some coffee. He had me change into a hospital gown. He explained the areas he would target. He positioned me on a massage table. He told me to breathe deep.
Then. He. Body-slammed. Me.
If I had known this would happen, I would have maybe chosen a slimmer chiropractor.

I'm Back! This time with a bettery powered iron in my backpak.

I am resurrecting my blog for 2008. As usual, I have no good reason for doing the things that I do. One not so good reason for starting to post for this blog again is that 8 is my favorite number and therefore, 2008 is going to be the best year in the history of my life ever. I figure people should know about it. Another not so good reason is that I re-read my old posts and I realized that I used to be funny and have semi-meaningful things to say. I am pretty sure that this is no longer the case. While assuming there is a casual connection between my current lack of whit and my current lack of bloging might be less than well founded, I really don't care much. Just like when DH (my Dear Husband for those of you unfamiliar with the abbreviation) tells me that my vitamin supplements are worthless placebos, or when medical research disproves the effectiveness of anything sold by Susan Somers; I plan to forge ahead unscathed by the disbelievers. So there you have it, like it or not I am back. And this time I am pumped up on calcium supplements and digging out my Thigh-Master.
Now I would like to make another announcement. I am considering joining the Extreme Ironing association. Yes, there is really such a thing and yes I am really interested in it, as everyone with a pulse should be. First of all I love the outdoors. I live climbing mountains and rocks and other such things. I also love skiing or sliding or rappelling down once I have reached the top. I love the feeling that is gives me; mainly the (often blatantly erroneous) impression that I am the master of myself, physics, the universe, and everything.
Another thing that I enjoy immensely is a well ordered house. I love things to be organized and pretty. I like stacks of folded laundry, neatly made beds, systematically arranged bookshelves and well pressed clothing. The problem with loving order is that the onerous of KEEPING order will inevitably fall on our shoulders. And there are some tasks that must be done that I simply cannot stand doing. Dishes, as anyone who has ever lived with me knows, are not something that I do; at least not without a fight. Ironing, however, is one of those enchanting things that exist so rarely in our world, which both needs to be done and brings me great joy to do. It is not that I simply take satisfaction at the sight of a well done crease or nicely starched collar. It is not that I am relieved and overwhelmed with a sense of accomplishment once the ironing pile is no more. All of those things are nice, but it is the actual act, the anal-retentive attention to detail required, the warmth, the smells of clean linen and lemon starch, the simplicity, the precision; all this together makes ironing nothing short of glorious.
That being said, you can imagine that I went numb with shock and disbelief that I had not had the idea to combine these two activities earlier. I am, however, ecstatic to find that I am not alone in my seemingly paradoxical tastes. That being said, you can look forward to pictures of my extreme ironing attempts just as soon as I save up enough of a lightweight board and a battery powered iron.