BLOGGED ALONG THE WAY: VIVA ESPAÑA EDITION: JUNE 10

I feel like a zombie. Sleep and wakefulness make no sense. I’m unsure what day it is or where I am. Apparently I forgot to change one of my clocks and woke up in a panic thinking we were late, only to have a very annoyed Steve tell me it was only a bit after midnight Madrid time. Yikes.

This morning I looked up how to ask "Can I pet your dog?" in Spanish, and this is what it gave me:

"Puedo acariciar a tu perro?"

 

Even with the Google bot recording telling me how to say it, my mind wouldn't wrap around the pronunciation. I blame it on being tired.  So I asked our tour guide, Pedro, how to ask to pet someone's dog. Even with his excellent English, he didn't know what I was asking him.  I had to show him the words.  It seems like the word "pet" isn't one he was familiar with, so when he finally understood, he repeated that phrase above, and with some explaining, we finally understood that "acariciar" is like "caress."  So I'd basically be asking someone if I could caress their dog. I ain't doing that.  I'll just do hand motions and lunge directly at the dog. They'll either let me pet their dog, or I'll get maced.  

Oooh, and before we left the hotel, a marathon, or some kind of race at least, went past our front door.  We stood outside and cheered people on for a long time.  That was fun. For all we know it was just a jogging club, but they were wearing numbers and looked tired, so we cheered!

 

Hooray, running people! 

Today was our first full day in Madrid, and after breakfast (still with the bread, you guys) we were taken to the Prado Museum. There are loads of amazing and famous paintings and other artworks at the Prado, but we were only given a tour of those painted by Spanish artists. (We also weren't allowed to take pictures, so *sad trombone sound.*) As someone who loves art, and especially art painted my famous masters, I was annoyed at the very narrow theme we perused, but also as someone who loves art, I got to see a lot of beautiful works and I'm ok with that. We still saw a lot of stuff that I'd heard about. My favorite was one by Goya, called "The Nude/Clothed Maja" which was a set of two portraits of the same woman (but with her face changed because SCANDALOUS!) One of the portraits was actually nude and one was clothed, and the dude who they belonged to would change them out depending on who was going to see them.  People get so worked up about nudes today and that stuff has been going on since the dawn of man. Although, I guess getting painted nude took a lot longer than a Snapchat would. I bet she got cold!  :)  We had a local tour guide that seemed very passionate about what he was showing us, so I was still entertained, even if I didn’t get to see everything I wanted to.  I did get to see Las meninas, which I'd studied in college, and that was worth the price of admission alone!


We left there and returned to the hotel. I’d love to say that in our free time we explored the city, but Steve and I have napped every chance we have gotten to try and feel more human. I won’t apologize! Besides, the first concert is tonight and we don’t want to be exhausted for that.

The concert was held in a small, mountain village about an hour away called Miraflora de la Sierra and it was...well, it was effing charming. It looked like a place specifically designed to make you love tiny villages in Spain! It looked like something created for Epcot.

 
The place was hilly and surrounded by twisty streets and cafes. We arrived during siesta, and of course promptly shouted the place to the ground like true Americans (oops.) It was cold up there, and started to rain, but the rain sort of stopped just in time for the performance to begin and the people in the town came out to listen. The band sounded amazing and the spectators seemed to truly love the concert. People danced and clapped, and at one point they started chanting what we thought was “roll tide” but apparently was the Spanish word for encore*. Haha, that was confusing!  The concert lasted almost two hours because the conductor likes to keep going despite weather or exhaustion, and we were freezing and wet by the time it was all over.

We were supposed to have dinner in Miraflores, so we packed out this place called the Bohemia Cafe and had an amazing dinner, laughed a lot, and made a lot of noise. In fact, we closed the place down and had to be chased out by our tour guides. It was a great evening. I like traveling with this group of people (at least thus far) because we all have something in common and all want to have a great time.

 Try the lamb. Trust me. 

We’re back at the hotel now and getting ready to sleep. Tomorrow, or later today rather, we are moving south to our next destination! Goodnight!

PS: I am so dehydrated. There is so much wine and so little water. Help me.

*I found out later that they were saying "Otra! Otra! Otra!" but the way they said it really did sound like they were chanting "Roll Tide" with an accent. I wasn't the only one who thought so, so I know it wasn't just my lack of culture, thankyouverymuch.

BLOGGED ALONG THE WAY: VIVA ESPAÑA EDITION: JUNE 8-9

June 8-9, 2018: The Adventure Begins

This morning, Steve and I got up bright and early! Ok, Steve did. I was still dead asleep when the alarm rang and had to be shamed into getting out of bed. Shut up, I like sleeping!

Anyways, we both eventually got out of bed and finished up our last minute tasks, because today was the beginning of a new adventure! As we did in 2016, we are going on tour with one of the concert bands that Steve performs with, only this time we are headed to SPAIN! Woo-hoo! Also, as an interesting twist, we are also bringing along one of our best good friends, Anthony, who has learned how to play auxiliary percussion and will also be playing with the band. I’m the only one of the three of us who is just going along as a groupie and I’m perfectly ok with that!

We rented an SUV, picked up Anthony and headed to Atlanta to catch our flight.  Honestly, not much of note happened on the way there. We drove, we stopped at a Cracker Barrel, and we made our way to the airport without incident! It was pandelerium as usual at the Atlanta airport, but we managed to check in, find our group, and get on the flight with only one person in our party (a tuba player) to catch grief from the airlines. Apparently someone in the TSA thought the tuba was some type of dangerous weapon and needed to interrogate the poor guy before they’d let him and his instrument pass. Oy.

The flight, too, was fairly uneventful, in the sense that we were crammed like cattle into coach and expected to be able to sleep. I took upwards of two melatonin tablets in an attempt to head off the worst part of arrival jet lag, but even with that, I only barely dozed. Eventually, though, we made it to Spain, breezed through customs (thankfully) and headed out to our waiting tour busses.

Normally I’d separate the days into new entries, but y’all...with the time change and the lack of sleep, the 8th and 9th felt like one long ass day, so forgive me for blending them together.

Madrid is a beautiful city with a lot of graffiti on every damn thing, but still, it’s a big, bustling city full of trees, gorgeous architecture, and statues of things. That sounds like a rather simplistic way of describing a place like Madrid, but honestly, that was my first, and sleep deprived, impression. We were taken to the main bull fighting ring in the city and allowed to get out and look around a bit. We didn’t go in, but that was ok. It was huge and beautiful, and we’d been instructed to take pictures and get a coffee or something while our tour guides got coordinated.

Ole?

We decided that coffee sounded ideal, so we walked to the first cafe we saw and descended like locusts. I ended up getting hot chocolate, and it was one of the most delicious things I’ve put into my face in months! I swear, it wasn’t like anything I’d ever had before. It was more like hot, thick, delicious, melted brownies than a beverage. It was also almost too much for me and it made my whole head tingle. I still drank it all and licked the cup! Haha!

This evokes feelings very close to the same ones I felt about the Belgian Caramels.

Full disclosure, due to the experience of traveling to a new place and for convenience, we are going off of our very strict, very calorie controlled diet while we are on this trip. I’m very nervous about this, because I genuinely don’t want to gain back a lot of weight that I’ve lost, and I know I’m going to just due to the fact that we couldn’t possibly carry our meal replacements with us AND we had no idea what to expect from the food in Spain. I already know I’m going to lose a lot of ground, but hopefully we can regain it (re-lose it?) when we get home. I’ve worked too hard to lose this weight to eff it up for keeps. I’m just going to have to be ashamed of myself when I get home, because I'M IN SPAIN AND I’LL EAT WHATEVER THE HELL I WANT!

Ahem.

After we left that area, we were taken to a tourist area called Plaza Mayor, which...I’m still not 100% sure wasn’t a place straight out of The Twilight zone. It was a town square of sorts that had a strange little, steampunky children’s fair type thing in it.

Yes, those are toilets. Is this even real life?

I don’t know, I was punchy from the lack of sleep and confused at the crowd, but Steve, Anthony and I rallied and went out to find some lunch. We stopped at a little outdoor cafe, where they ordered paella (a dish both of them were interested in trying) and I ordered some grilled octopus! Woot! It was delicious, of not a little scary to look at, but I ate a whole tentacle myself!

RELEASE THE KRAKEN!

By then it was time to go to our hotel, thankfully, and we made our way to the Hotel Agumar. Nice place, tiny elevators.

We got settled in and hung out until dinner. The hotel has a buffet that we have already paid for, apparently, so we stayed in at dinner time. I know I'm talking about food a lot, but it’s practically a while new experience for me again, haha! The food was ok, but I had the feeling that the kitchen staff heard a bunch of Americans were coming and pulled up a kids menu from an American restaurant to acts as a guide. We had antipasto (I think...cheese and meat stuff anyway) and then chicken legs, spaghetti, and French fries. A strange combo, at least. Also, I think I’m going to overdose on the bread here. I can’t stop eating it!

DO NOT JUDGE ME

After dinner, we took a walk to a local, huge park, which was described as their “Central Park” and we looked around a bit. It was getting dark, but we could tell it was a beautiful place, and there are so many dogs that I want to pet! Madrid is a very dog friendly city, so I'm going to have to learn to ask if I can pet their dogs so that I don’t get in trouble!

We finally made it back and collapsed into bed. I literally have my own single bed. Perhaps they don't realize Steve and I are married, but you know what? I don't care in the least.  The jet lag still has me and my body is confused at the time, but hopefully it won’t last long. Goodnight!

OOPS

Years ago, when I still worked at the Sprocket (ptooey) one of the first non-science movies we showed at the IMAX was one of the Spider Man films.  It was also the first movie they let me decorate the theater lobby for, so I went all out and strung white string all over everything, created a big spider web in the center of the balcony, and I even opened the Darth Vader costume that we kept on a dummy in a sealed display case and tied its hands together and added a note that it was "Courtesy of your Friendly Neighborhood Spider Man."  I was clever.  You know this.

Darth's hands were fisted on his hips, in a way I'm sure anyone would recognize from pictures of him from the movies.  He was in a total power stance, so I had to pull his hands off of his hips to tie them together.  No big deal.  I didn't unbend his arms or anything, just pulled them off of his hips and loosely tied them in front him.  Everyone thought it was funny.

The problem is that someone else cleaned up the lobby.  They opened up the case, removed the ties, and closed the case again without replacing his fists on his hips, so his hands remained bent, but slightly in front of him, as if he was flexing his biceps.  At the time, I kept meaning to reopen the case and fix him, but I got busy and completely forgot to do it.

I just saw a picture of the suit in the case and his fists are still off of his hips.  Ol' Darth is still flexing those biceps 11 years later.  I wish someone would fix it, but I don't know if anyone else notices.  It looks stupid like that. 

Oh, well.

via GIPHY

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) Ok, I'm going to say it.  I think I'm getting paranoid.  Yesterday, after church, I drove from Huntsville to my mom's house to see her on Mother's Day.  While still in Huntsville, just as I'd turned from an access road to a highway, a white car got behind me.  I don't know why I noticed it, but I did, and it stayed close behind me. I didn't think much of it at first, because traffic was kind of heavy and I was behind a slow moving truck, but when traffic thinned out and I passed the truck, the car passed it too and stayed right on my bumper. I thought, "OK, this isn't weird yet, but I have to turn up here and the car probably won't be going the same direction."  I was wrong, I turned, the white car turned.  I thought again "OK, this probably isn't weird yet, I have to get into this turn lane. That car probably won't turn here."  Again, I was wrong.  The car followed me into the turn lane and onto the new road.  I thought that was odd, but once again, people live out that way, so it wasn't out of the realm of possibility that this person knew someone on the road we were on, but they didn't turn anywhere.  They stayed right behind me. 

Now, the road to my mom's place gets more and more rural and spread out the farther you go, and unless you know someone, or go to the high school, driving out that way doesn't make sense.  The white car was still behind me at what I realized was the last reasonable place that person could be going without actually going to my mom's house and the car didn't turn off.  I decided that if this person was actually following me, I wasn't going to go to my mom's house, I'd go someplace public. I actually floored it and squealed (accidentally, I wasn't channeling the Dukes of Hazzard on purpose) away from the white car and down the road as fast as I could.  The car was still behind me.  I did a no-signal "bat turn" onto the road that I used to live on, which literally no one drives down unless they live there or are visiting someone who lives there, and thank heaven, the car didn't turn.  I kept driving until I made it to a gas station where a lot of people were and got gas while scanning the street ahead of me, just in case.

I'm not completely unreasonable. I know that the person could very well have family out that way, but it seemed so strange to have the same car so doggedly behind me the whole freaking way, when that drive was so very specific to where I was going. I kept thinking I had pissed someone off in traffic and they were going to have a road rage incident or something.  I was unnerved, but ultimately unharmed.  Also, I was kind of embarrassed, because...I mean...I could have been someone I went to high school with going to visit their own mother.  Oy.

Oh, and this morning as I was leaving for work, a black car that didn't belong on our street parked in front of some houses just up from us and just sat there.  So I sat there and watched them.  The people inside eventually got out, but I didn't know them or what they were doing.  My best guess is they are garbage pickers or the like, but I don't know. I should have taken pictures of them just in case, but it felt rude to do that. I'm, like, a pair of binoculars away from becoming Gladys Kravits, aren't I?  :)

Seriously, though, I've got to get it together.  I don't want to be a paranoid person.  There's this man at our church who is a paranoid schizophrenic, and he drives me ape-poopy because he's constantly asking me if he's going to jail or thinking that people are wanting to steal from his family.  If I devolve into that kind of mess, I need someone to kill me.  Not even kidding. Poison me, shoot me, hit me with a car, I don't care.  That is not the kind of life I want to live.

2) Steve and I had a fun Saturday.  He got a wild hair and asked if I'd go to Six-Flags Over Georgia with him.  As you know, I do not enjoy theme parks, but I said I'd go because...well, you do that kind of thing for people you like, I guess.  Also, we had a new Doctor Who audio series that we needed a long drive to listen to and that sounded like a good opportunity to do that.

I unexpectedly enjoyed myself, though. I'm still not a huge fan of theme parks, but it wasn't that crowded. The longest we waited to ride anything was about 30 minutes, that was because the ride had closed for a bit and was reopened in the middle of the day, so everyone who wanted to ride it got there at the same time we did.  We didn't spend the whole day there, because Steve has a season pass and will inevitably go back with his buddy a couple of more times this summer, so he didn't feel it necessary to do everything.  We rode a few rollar coasters and such and left.  It was hot AF though, and I made the bad decision to wear jeans. I don't really have casual shorts that fit, and I didn't think linen ones would fare well at a dirty theme park (plus they would look terrible with my walking shoes.)  So I was sweaty, but not angry about it like I usually am! Haha!

Afterwards we drove down to Senoia, Georgia, which is this neat little place where movies and TV shows are filmed.  I mean, it's a legit town, but lots of stuff has been filmed there because it's quaint or something.  Currently, it's where the set of (and you'll have to forgive me if I misspeak, because I don't watch the show) the walled town in The Walking Dead is located. I assume they still film there, because the set is there and they sell TWD merch in the stores on main street.  It was a very cool place, though, even beyond the sets.  Where we were there was a main street lined with shops that you could wander down and go in and out of.  I love places like that.  We ate at a very good Irish pub and left there.  Steve wanted to show me Pinewood Studios, which is where a lot of movies have been shot, and so we drove forever until we found it.  It's out in the middle of nowhere, but I suppose if you're going to have a massive 18 or 20 sound stage complex, then you need lots of room. It was very cool though, and since I'm fairly sure Thor (my imaginary Marvel boyfriend) filmed some scenes there, I was practically hanging out with him.  :) 

It was a nice day.

3) We had some vandalism at church the other day, unfortunately.  During worship services, someone drove into the parking lot, busted the windows of a couple of vans and stole some stuff out of them.  The weird thing is that the people who's cars were vandalised were from the same family (who was here celebrating the dedication of their baby.)  It isn't clear if their cars were targeted or not, but we did get footage of the car and people (although you can't see the tag, and the people weren't clear) who were responsible, so hopefully the ass-hats who did this will get caught.  One of the things stolen was a wallet (and no, I don't know why the wallet was in the car to begin with) and the dumbest thing the theives did was to take one of the stolen debit or credit cards to a grocery store a mile away and try to spend $1000.00 on gift cards which triggered the protection on the card to tell where the money was being spent.  The police have seen the footage and hopefully will catch the jerks who would do a thing like that.

I spent that afternoon combing security footage so that we could make copies for the investigator, as I am one of the few people who know how it works.  Do you know how boring it is to watch security footage of a church parking lot?  No?  It's pretty darn boring.  Now I just hope they catch the people resposible and make them sorry they'd do a dickish thing like that.  I wish I could find out who they are and...make them feel very, very bad for their actions in a non-violent, certainly non-vigilante type of way. 

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) We went to see The Avengers: Infinity War a couple of days ago, and it was really good!  I was not expecting how it ended, and for once, most of the Internet decided against being jerkfaces and I didn't get spoiled before going (although I did avoid as much as I could online.)

I'm not going to spoil it here, because you may still go and see it (you really should) but I do want to mention something that has me a little befuddled.  I have been reading about the movie and people's reactions to it, and I'm wondering if I'm...weird.  Again, not going to spoil it here, but the ending had some unexpected, um, occurrences.  I've read a LOT of comments where people said they cried and I saw pictures of my niece with smeary mascara tracks after seeing the movie.  I was confused after the movie was over, but I certainly didn't think it was sad.  In fact, I didn't think it was sad at all, but the popular consensus is that people were basically in tears during the last 15 minutes or so.

I wonder if something is wrong with me. Should I have been sad?  Are my emotions malfunctioning?

Seriously, though, if you haven't seen it...go see it.  It's quite good and funnier than I expected.  You might cry, even.  You know, if you're into that kind of thing.

2) I get to eat food again!  Granted, I'm still limited as to how much and what kind, and it's only one meal a day, but actual FOOD! I'm so excited that I might cry.  I am also going to have to be careful, because I'm afraid I'm going to eat too much.  Even though I didn't hit the 60 pound loss mark they thought I would, I have still lost a (allegedly) noticeable amount of weight and I never, ever, ever, EVER want to have to do anything like this again. Ever. Please God no.

I'm still on the "transition" part of the program for a few more weeks, and I still have to attend classes, although they are on Wednesdays now, and I still have a few weeks left of those classes, but that's ok.  This has taken a heretofore unknown level of self control that I was unaware that I had.  Sure I slipped up a couple of times, although not enough to sabotage myself, but for the most part I stayed the course.  Now, let's see if I can just keep doing well for myself from here on out so that extreme solutions such as these will never be needed again.

Also...I still can't tell a difference as to what I look like, except that none of my pants are the right size anymore.  I look exactly the same to myself.  It's weird.

3) Speaking of what I look like...  The other day I posted a picture of myself on a thing.  It wasn't a good picture, and it really wasn't meant to be one, but a bunch of people liked it, even people who normally don't engage with me on the particular platform.  Did...did I get "Bless Your Heart" liked?  Good grief, social media can make you paranoid, can't it?

4) You guys, I think I'm almost ready to get another dog.  I'm not sure, because the loss of Butler and Bear still sting a lot, and I tend to hold on to feelings like that for an insane amount of time, but I think I might almost be ready to think about talking to Steve about perhaps getting another dog.  We can't do it anytime soon, due to traveling and whatnot, but maybe in the next year or so.  Maybe.

I don't know, though.  It's kind of like...oh, yes, let's get a dog so that I can be completely wrecked again in another few years when it dies.  Loving someone and then losing them is hard.  The heart can only take so much, and I don't know how much of mine is left.

5) We're still doing the virtual races and I'm still having fun with it.  If Steve ever says that he's finished more races than me (and he has, to be fair) it's because he chooses short ones, where I have chosen longer ones.  That's practically cheating, right?

Also, I think I actually want to do some real, live races as soon as I figure everything out.  Well, right now I feel that way, so who knows?  Probably stick to 5K ones, though, but that's nothing to sneeze at.  I'll leave the longer ones to people who know what they're doing! :)

(WHEEZE)

I know this isn't really something that warrants an entire blog entry, but I'm going to tell you anyway, because I thought it was funny and for just a second, I thought I was going to die.

I got cold.  I suppose it was the ice in my drink that did it, but I got really frigging cold while sitting at my desk and couldn't get warm.  I decided that I was going to do some laps around the lobby of the church to warm up a bit, which I did.  It's a boring thing to keep walking in circles, so I decided to take a turn down the classroom hallway for a change of scenery.  At the end of that hallway is a room that looks like a living room, and when I got into that and turned around, I saw a body lying on one of the couches.  It was covered from head to ankles with a blanket and it wasn't moving. 

Look, I'm always terrified I'm going to find a body in our church that isn't supposed to be there, either alive or dead. That sounds crazy, but I was just told that last year a homeless man got into our church and tried to stay overnight, and was only found before we locked the doors because the security guy didn't see him come out at the end of services.  So, yeah, people get into our church sometimes and personally, I don't want to be the one to roll up on them.  So I did the only thing I could think of: I silently screamed and took off down the hallway.

Y'all, I am not a good runner in the best of times, wearing workout clothes and shoes specifically designed for running, but damn it if I didn't Usain Bolt my flowery dress and dress shoe wearing ass down the hall and into the pastor's office. I just knew there was going to be an issue and that I may be called upon to defend myself with hornet spray and my baseball bat and I was NOT ready for that.  Only, when I got there, the pastor wasn't there. 

As it turned out, the pastor was the person asleep (thankfully) on the couch in that room.  He had gotten cold as well and went down there to cover up for a few minutes and he dozed off.  So I was running through the church like a crazy person, ready to lock myself in a closet and wait until everyone else in the building was dead so that I could make my escape, and all it was was my boss taking a nap in a weird place.  I almost wet my pants.  At least I got a good laugh out of it!

I sincerely hope that I am never in a situation with an intruder, because if today is any indication, I'm going to end up being the woman running up the stairs instead of out the back door.  This was not my finest moment, but it sure turned out to be a funny one!

HARRUMPH

I've written, like, three different things here and nothing was worth saving.  I could have just deleted everything and not published anything, but damnit, I came here to write a thing.  It isn't my fault that nothing interesting came of it!

Sorry.  I'm alone and bored and my friends live in different states than I do and I don't have time before church tomorrow to drive to see either of them because Indiana and Georgia are too far for impromptu drives.  Eh, well.  I don't mean to complain, I'm just restless.  Everything will revert back to normal tomorrow, everyone will be home, another week will start, and that is just full of possibilities, isn't it?

Anyway...I hope your day was marvelous, whatever it consisted of!  :)

PS: I found out that I might be slightly allergic to cayenne pepper.  What a weird thing to be allergic to.

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) Steve got offered a job in Charleston!  But in "of course he did" news, he turned it down without even considering it.  However, for one, bright, shining moment in my head, I had bought one of those cool old houses and was going to be near the coast, and have the ability to walk anywhere I needed to go, be in easy distance of some amazing food and work in one of the many museums out there.  That part was fun.

But Huntsville is good too.  I know people here.

2) I got a strange opportunity a couple of weeks ago from a cosmetic subscription service that found me on Instagram.  They were looking for "influencers" for their brand and they thought I was sassy, or some such thing.  At first I thought...WTF?  I mean, you know me (I guess you do, anyway) and you know that I'm 40 years old and maybe not the most attractive lady out there, I only have a very few people who follow me, and generally most of them don't pay much attention to anything I post. If you've ever seen most of the IG influencers, they are usually very young, very pretty, and have a LOT of followers watching what they do.  Maybe this company was going in a different direction, I dunno, but for them to reach out to me was kind of hilarious.  At first, I wasn't going to do it, because of everything I just mentioned, but the more I thought about it, the funnier I thought it would be if I did it.  Seriously, can you imagine me shilling for something like that?  So I asked some questions and agreed to do it.  Why not, right?  I'm not a Kardashian (OMG, I spelled that wrong and auto-correct fixed it for me.) but maybe I could have some fun with it.

HOWEVER...I did some looking around at different people who are considered "Influencers" for things online just to see how it worked, and...well, ultimately I just realized I didn't want to be that guy.  I mean, sure putting on makeup is fun, and taking pictures of it is fine, but I didn't want to be the person who is constantly hash tagging everything on my face and talking about how awesome this or that is because I get benefits from it.  I know people like that and they annoy me. The company was going to pay me, but only if people I knew bought this service, and it was such a low payment that it was really not worth it unless I somehow gathered tons of new followers and they all paid however much for the thing.  Ultimately I felt like it wouldn't be a thing I'd enjoy doing and I'm almost 100% certain none of my friends who follow me on those apps would have enjoyed it either.

There is only one thing that kind of bothers me, though, and that is that I tend to get excited about this kind of thing, tell people I'm going to do it, and then decide it isn't for me in the long run so it seems like I just flaked.  I feel like I punk out on things too much.  Granted, in this case, it wasn't because I got nervous about it, or thought that I couldn't do it, but still, I feel kind of like I failed at some new opportunity I was offered by not following through, but I really, really didn't want to have to take pictures of my face all of the time and push discount codes (link in bio!) on people who have very little interest in cosmetics. It just wasn't for me.  Still, though, I wish I didn't not do things so much.  It's not like I get a whole lot of offers!

Anyway, if you are a friend of mine on any of the social media apps, don't worry, you don't have to see my eyeliner 12 times a week! :)

3) OK, I know this is going to fall into "Kelly hears Robots" territory (and screw you guys, I totally did hear robots no matter what you think) but I'm fairly certain that someone tried spying on our house with a drone the other night.

To the left foot of our bed we have window that faces our neighbors house.  Where it is located, at night we get some light from the street lamp in front of our house, but it's partially blocked by something, so about a 1/4 of our window has light while the rest is dark.  The other night I was in bed, and I noticed that a light was flashing in the corner of the window that is usually dark.  It was flashing somewhat slowly, but consistently.  At first I thought maybe the wind was blowing and a branch was moving out of the way to let more light in, but that couldn't be it because the closest tree to our window isn't blocking the light.  Also, we have very deep eaves on the side of our house, so the corner of that window is in shadow all day except for about an hour after the sun rises.  I lay there and watched the light blink for a few minutes and asked Steve "What is that?"  He didn't know, but almost immediately the light stopped blinking and didn't come back.  So the only reasonable idea we could come up with is that someone was flying a drone near the top of our window and could hear us talking.  I even went outside and checked the next day, and the top of our window is too high for anything NOT flying to get to, unless whatever it was had a ladder.  So either Roof Critter is a robot or someone was up to shenanigans with a drone.  Bless their hearts for finding such a boring place to spy.  Heh.

No, I'm serious, it totally happened.

4) Ya know...I've lost some weight. Not the 60 pounds that I was told I would, but more than just a couple of pounds.  So...when people who haven't seen me in a while look at me, they always say "I can tell you've lost weight. How much have you lost?" Without fail, when I tell them, they always say "I can really tell it in your face." I never know how to respond.

Honestly, tell me, how damn fat was my face before?

A MEMORY

I may have written about this before.  I don't remember.  Leave me alone, I'm an old woman!

I remember watching a movie, or maybe a TV show (I'm not sure) about a woman who lived in an apartment building where a new tenant had just moved in upstairs from her.  The new guy was an artist, and he fell in love with the woman, but the woman just thought of him as a friend at first.

She invited him over for dinner one night and they sat and talked all night until she fell asleep. When she woke up the next morning, she realized how much she liked the guy and went upstairs to talk to him, only to find out his apartment was empty and all of his paintings were gone.  The landlord was showing potential tenants the place and he couldn't tell her anything about the guy who had lived there.

The lady didn't have any proof that the artist-man had ever lived there, so she thought maybe she had imagined him until one day she was coming home from work and she passed an art gallery with a big painting of herself sleeping, wearing the dress she had worn the night they'd had dinner (which sounds creepy, but it was a nice painting and not weird) with the guy's name in the corner.  It had been sold, and the gallery was closed, so she couldn't go in and ask anyone about it. She just smiled and went home.

I really don't know the point of the movie (show?) and I know that sounds like a creepy thing to happen, especially looking through the lens of modern thought, but I always thought that was the most romantic thing ever.  That someone would think she was so beautiful and that he loved her enough to create art based on her.  I know that sounds sappy, and you'll just have to give me a break because I am not very sappy about many things these days, but to my little girl self, that was just the best thing I could imagine.  I always wished that someone would like me enough to do something like that.  Granted, I have never looked like that lady from the movie, but still...I always thought that would be nice.

What is very ironic (at least I think it's ironic. Darn you, Alanis!) is that I married a man who doesn't even like to take pictures, much less make art, so I doubt there will be anything inspired by me on anyone's walls!  That's not a slight against him or anything, I promise, I just think it's funny. Life is weird that way sometimes.

So anyway, what I'm saying is that if you (whoever you are. I don't know who reads this!) love someone, I hope they inspire you to do great things.  If they do, then do those things for them.

EVEN MORE RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) A while ago, I unexpectedly came across a man that I'd gone to school with years and years ago.  I didn't know him well at all, which is surprising due to the smallness of my school, but we ran in different circles.  I knew he existed, but I don't think we ever spoke.  As it turned out, he was working at one of the medical labs that our doctor was affiliated with at the time, and he was the nurse that I happened to get when I went in for my blood tests.

After realizing we knew each other, we spent the next 10 or 15 minutes talking about this and that (which I'm sure made the people in the waiting room just thrilled) but during that time he let me know that his life wasn't going well.  He wasn't looking for pity, I could see that, but I assume the life troubles that he was going through were bad enough that he needed to talk about them to someone with a familiar face.  I won't give details, as they are not mine to divulge, but needless to say, he was unhappy and didn't see a way to fix his troubles.

I was a bit caught off guard, but I did my best to listen and give him advice, hopefully good advice, or encouragement, or something that might help, but I didn't have much time before I had to leave.

Unfortunately, not long after that, I found out that he committed suicide.  His troubles had just gotten too hard to deal with, I guess.  I wish more than anything I could have said something that would have helped him, but I failed at that.  I realize that if he was to the point of depression that he was telling his life issues to a women he barely knew, it wasn't anything that a quick conversation could fix, but I still feel guilty about it.  This didn't happen recently, so I don't know why he has been on my mind so much lately. I just wish I could have helped him, even a little bit.

2) I had my last visit with the behaviorist!  Woo-Hoo!  Unfortunately, I did discover a thing about myself that is not so great.  Not terrible, but not great. We were talking about different types of support that we all have in our lives.  We have Listeners (who are people that listen to you when you need them to, but they aren't that invested in you personally and they don't really give advice.) Info Givers (who give you information about solutions to the issues that you face, and who are slightly more invested than the listeners.) Emotional Supporters (who are your cheerleaders, and who are highly invested in your life) and Challengers (who challenge you in lots of ways - to the point of sometimes being harsh, but who are also highly invested in your life.)  It was a neat little class.

It's important to have all of these kinds of support in your life, even if you don't particularly like some of them, and we had to figure out which category that we personally fall into.  I know that I play different roles to different people in my life, but I tend to be very much a challenger the majority of the time. Being a challenger is not...great.  I mean, the words "Metal Plated Bitch" were not spoken, but heavily implied.  I always thought I was nicer than that.  So I'm sorry if I've been a challenger when you needed something else!  I try to be a cheerleader as much as possible, and I don't mind listening (although I do tend to talk a little too much to be good at it) and I'll give you any information I can find to help you out of a tight spot if I can!  If it matters, when I am challenging, it's usually because I want you to do good things and make good decisions and be happy and successful, so it isn't a malicious challenging, I swear!

Finding out negative stuff about yourself sucks, but it does help to know about it so you can fix it!  Silver lining!

3) A weird side effect of the  program I've been in has been that I have absolutely no idea what I look like now.  I know that sounds crazy, because mirrors, but in my eyes, I look exactly the same as I did.  Other people say that they can tell I've lost weight, but I can't.  I see pictures of myself and I look just like I did before, and I see myself in the mirror and I only look slightly different.  It's very strange!  Another thing is that I have no idea what size clothes I wear anymore. I still have clothes from when I lost weight before, but they are a bit too small, but the clothes I have now are too big.  I'm sure there is some kind of temporary mental body-dysmorphia going on, but I wish that would go away so that I'm not so confused when I look in a mirror!

Update on the program: Doing OK, even though I haven't lost as much weight as they thought I would.  Personally, I think God won't let me lose too much because He knows that if I look too good I'll be naked ALL OF THE TIME.  I would, too. I'm not even ashamed of that. 

4) I have a feeling that I sound someone melancholy today, which I'm not, so I'll show you something fun.  Some of you have already seen it, but I'm kind of proud of it:

I made a medal holder for our race medals!  Yes, I know it's silly, but if I'm going to get them, I might as well put them somewhere where I can see them. Then when (if) I move on to real life races, I can put those medals there too.  If I don't get many medals, then it'll be a good place to hang lone socks until I can find the mates.  It's win-win!  :)

HEH...

Guess what?

I finished my virtual race in Sweden and Norway. It took me a very long time, but I still finished!  I got some good advice from a lovely friend about these races, so I've decided to have as much fun with them as possible. 

The best part is that I beat Steve by 11 miles! Yay!

Now I'm starting a new one in the Ring of Kerry.  It's about 104.5 miles, I think. 

I'll keep you updated!

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) Guess what?!  Actually, I may have mentioned this before, but I can't remember, so I'm mentioning it now.  Steve's band is going on tour again this summer in Spain and we are also taking an extension trip to France afterwards!  Woo-Hoo!  More world traveling!

It's still too early to do very much to get ready for the trip, but one thing we have done is check with our doctor about getting any vaccinations that we might need.  I know Spain and France are not third world countries where we'll get African Snow Giraffe Pox or anything like that, but apparently we were supposed to have gotten some kind of vaccinations before going to Ireland, so we checked and as it turns out, we needed vaccinations for Hep A and B. That is a series of three shots over several months.  Greeeeeeeeeeat.  When I called to make the appointment, they also discovered that I haven't had a tetanus/diptheria/whooping cough booster shot since I was 14, so I was going to have to get that as well.  Whee.

So I got my booster shot and my first Hepatitis shot (I didn't scream or faint, thankyouverymuch) and the next day my arm felt like the Incredible Hulk punched me.  It didn't help that I got the shots after a boot camp session where we did a lot of upper body work, so I feel like I have the flu on one side of my body.  This trip to Spain better be freaking worth it.

2) The behaviorist gave me a new task to do and I can't help but laugh about it.

One of the tricks that he has give the participants in our program is that we need to put ourselves on a points/award system. Actually, it isn't a bad idea, because it gives you something to work towards and it helps you get a tangible reward for doing the things that you need to do.  Classic carrot and stick kind of thing, right?  We pick a specific thing that we want, but can't justify spending the amount of money it costs to get it for no reason.  We then pick 4 activities that we have to do, assign each thing an amount of points, and keep track of what we are doing and at the end of each week, we pay ourselves (actual money, because this guy doesn't play around) and when we finally hit our goal, we can buy whatever it is we chose.

The reason it's funny to me is because I tried that before.  Well, sort of.  I did that, but instead of working on the points system, I put aside a certain amount of money into a savings account every week and told myself that when I lost my goal amount of weight, I'd use that money to buy something (I think it was a necklace or some other frivolous thing that maybe cost $150 dollars, but I can't remember exactly.)  So that's what I did.  Every week, I'd put the cash aside and save it.  As it turned out, I never lost my goal amount of weight.  In fact, I can't say I lost any weight at all.  I also didn't buy myself the necklace I wanted.

Instead, I ended up buying a car.  That's how much I didn't lose weight.  Haha, so I'm not sure this points system will work for me.  Silver lining, though, is that maybe I'll be able to buy a houseboat or something this time!  :)

3) I'm almost done with my first virtual race.  Whee!  I'm just going to start another one when I'm done, though.  You should do one with me!!!!  The app is called yes.fit.  Do eeeeeeeet.  I need people to compete against.  You'll probably win, but still...shiny medals and the knowledge that you kept me motivated!

4) I can't remember what was supposed to go here.  Please pretend I was witty and insightful, and maybe made you tear up with joy. :)  Oh, and if you can go ahead and add a random, life affirming quote after that, I'd appreciate it.

DUDE...

First off, let me apologize for talking AGAIN about the stupid weight loss program I'm in.  It has temporarily taken over my life and I can't help that.  Also, I don't have anything interesting going on at the moment, so bear with me while I talk about this.

A few weeks ago, I was feeling discouraged about the whole thing.  I mean, like, I went on a mini rant about it to Steve, because it sucks and I'm hungry all the time and I lose weight very slowly.  It was just a moment of pique, because there are weeks where I do everything by the book and lose zero weight and it's irritating.  You understand, right? OK, so I go to the weigh in, find out that my weight hasn't shifted at all, and I do the rant.  I did this privately, to Steve (who has a fat head and is losing weight rapidly because he is a man and biology works differently for men) and I got it out of my system.

I'll pause here to explain that this is usually how I work. Sometimes there are things that stress me out, or make me mad, or even things that concern me for one reason and another and I'll have a moment of rantiness about them.  I just do.  It's not always fun, but I have to get the initial reaction out of my system so that I can think about it rationally.  I'm not completely unreasonable, I just need to have moment of emotion so I can put that part behind me.  You know how it is.

Anyway, so I have this rant. I express, privately, about how much I hate doing the whole thing and about how it isn't working, and blah, blah, blah.  I happened to mention that it sucked that Steve is losing weight so fast (again, I know that's just a way men and women are different) and that it wasn't fair.  I mean, it isn't, but I'll take it up with God one day, because it isn't anything we can do anything about. So I'm discouraged all through that evening's class, but I'm over it by the time it's all over.  No big deal.

We always have this slip of paper we fill out at the end of the class giving feedback about whether or not we thought the class lesson is useful to us, and there are places to write comments. So Steve, God love him, decided to take matters into his own hands.  I know he thought he was helping, so I'll give him credit for that.  In the comment section, he mentioned that it was fine to have these classes when everything was going well, but they don't do much good for the people who may not be doing so well in the program as others. ( I paraphrase, because I didn't read what he wrote and didn't know he wrote any of that until the next week.)

So the next time we go to class, I get stopped in the hallway by one of the lovely, well meaning people who run the program and asked to step into her office.  There she gave me a very special pep-talk about how great I'm doing and how my weight loss is normal, and how there is no way I can compare how I'm doing against Steve because - well, blah, blah, blah.  It was so awkward.  I was completely mystified, because I hadn't said anything to anyone about how frustrated I was, except for Steve.  Y'all...I was so embarrassed.  Steve shouldn't have done that.  It isn't a big deal in the scheme of things, but honestly, I'm capable of having a rant to any number of people if I feel they need to know my opinion about something, but I don't usually do it in front of anyone that A) I don't know and B) who doesn't know me well enough to understand how I work.  I wasn't going to quit the damn program and I wasn't so upset that I was going to go home and eat an entire BBQ chicken (which happened once when I was a teenager, but that's another story.) I was just frustrated.  I wasn't even really frustrated for long, either!

The worst thing is that because of all of this, I seem to have been branded as a hyper-competitive, over-emotional, somewhat troublesome member of this class who has to be treated with kid gloves.  You can tell every time someone talks to me that they're talking to me like they're afraid I'm going to cry.   I have no idea how to let them know that I'm not any of those things!  Nothing I've done or said seems to change their mind.  So not only am I not getting to eat normal, human food, I am apparently a kind of problem child to these people.  I dunno, it sucks, but I only have a few more weeks on the program, so if I have to be this (alleged) delicate princess in their eyes, I guess that's OK.  It's just weird that I can see this happening and can't fix it.  Oy.

Anyways, things are otherwise going fine, if not incredibly slow. I'm doing alright.  Now, if you would, please go and have a burrito or a hamburger for me.  I'm begging you.  Maybe just some fries...  Just send me your mental joy of it, but keep the calories to yourself. :)

MORE RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) I have done something that I was JUST making fun a while back.  I signed up for a virtual race.

In case you aren't familiar, a virtual race is where you download an app, pay a fee, and then sign up to participate in one of a dozen or so "races" that are a certain distance long.  Your mobile fitness device will keep tabs on you while you walk, run, or whatever it is you're doing, and add the miles together until you meet or surpass the equivalent of the race distance.  It's pretty straightforward.  The only thing that really bothers me is that it feels like cheating a bit.  In a real race, you've got to haul your cookies for 13 or 26 or however many miles all at once, getting pelted with hail or running when it's hot.  This program really just adds in all of your normal walking, running, or working out and stitches them together, so it's not like you're doing it all together, and you can do this "race" over however long you want to. So it feels like cheating, but I suppose that's ok if it motivates you to keep moving, which is the point. I'm kind of glad we aren't doing this one all at once, because it's some kind of viking challenge and it's 65.3 miles long!  This particular one is the equivalent of starting somewhere in Sweden (there's no name on the map) to just past Hell (in Norway) to reach the fjords.  At least I think so, because the map is confusing.  Oh, and we get a medal at the end, so I guess that's ok too. We paid for it with our entry fee, after all! 

It's actually Steve's fault that I did this.  Well, sort of.  He signed up, and not to be outdone, I signed up as well.  He's really doing great with all of this fitness stuff right now.  He's lost over half of the weight that they told him to (and we aren't even halfway through the program) and he looks great and feels better, and he's basically a poster boy for this whole mess.  He's very gung ho about it all, and I wish to hell I felt the same way.  I basically do this stuff with him because I know the only way I'll do is if I'm not doing it alone. Plus, I'm trying to get motivated in any way I can. So I'm going to eat my words and sign up for these virtual races and get clever medals that I someone will have to get rid of one day after I'm dead!  Maybe we'll get good at it and one day do a real, outside and in person race!  Who knows?  I mean, I'm running a fake race through Norway, so anything is possible at this point!

2) I didn't watch the Oscars last night, but I did see some Red Carpet footage.  Eh, that's the best part anyway, seeing people in fancy clothes.  Anyways, I noticed that Gal Gadot, the woman who is currently playing Wonder Woman (my hero) in the movies these days was wearing a dress very similar to the one I wore to my senior prom!  She was totally copying me, you know.  I mean, I know she's a statuesque, ex-military, former beauty queen bad ass who is playing my favorite comic book hero of all time, but still...I think I wore it better!  ; )

     

 

L-R: Brian, Wonder Woman and some actress. 

Ok, well, it's not exactly the same. Shut up! Wonder Woman is totally copying my look.  At least that is what I'm going to tell everyone who'll listen!  Haha! 

3) Last night I had to talk to the behaviorist again. I feel like I have more appointments with him than anyone else, although I might be paranoid! We got done with our session and he said "Next week we'll be talking about raising your self esteem, but I'm not sure if you need any help with that..."  Oh bless.  I'm so good at faking it that I convinced a trained professional.  Well, like they say, fake it till you like yourself! Heehee.

I CAN’T SLEEP

I am supposed to be sleeping, but I’m not having any luck with that.

Because I can’t sleep, I’ve got thoughts that have been running through my head.  Stupid, night time thoughts, but they won’t go away.

You know, I wonder if anyone really knew me, and I mean REALLY knew me, would they still like me? There are so many different versions of me. I don’t think anyone really knows me that well. Not even Steve.  I’m pretty open with people if I trust them, but not even the two people I trust the most to tell my real secrets to know everything.  Not that I expect them to care about that, haha, but still, it’s strange to know that there is a whole part of me that no one knows about.

Maybe that’s the way we’re supposed to be, though. Maybe that’s how we keep friends.

What a weird thought.

I wish I was sleeping.

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING: AGAIN

1) This past weekend we (Steve, Anthony, and I) went to a sci-fi convention here in town! It was the Huntsville Comic and Pop Culture Expo.  It isn't big or fancy (yet), but we had a great time, I thought.  There were a lot of great costumes, so the people watching was so much fun. I sat on the Iron Throne, I met Jermaine "Funnymaine" Johnson - who is the guy to does the funny Alabama football recaps during the fall, and I met Kevin Sorbo.

If you remember (and I know you probably don't, but I'm going to pretend you do) several years ago, I saw Mr. Sorbo at Dragon*con and he, along with his entourage, almost knocked me down a flight of stairs.  He didn't even look my way as I had to catch myself.  He had been on my list since then, but it turns out the man is actually pretty nice.  Anthony was wearing a Saints shirt, and he stopped and we talked football with him for a minute.  He's a BIG Vikings fan ('cause he's from Minnesota) so we teased him a bit, but he had a good sense of humor about it.  Turns out he's very nice and probably wouldn't almost shove me down a flight of stairs at this point in his life, so he's no longer on my list. Is that really all it takes to get on my good side?  Pretty much.

There were a lot of booths in the vendor area that had cool stuff to buy.  I have to say, the vendor area is probably my favorite place in any Con I've ever been to, but that's because the sheer amount of local artists (and maybe not so local) that have stuff on display.  I don't have a lot of room for stuff like that right now, so I didn't buy anything other than a DIY Funko Pop figurine.  I'm going to make it into a Me figurine, because who wouldn't want their own Funko, amiright?  Haha!

One funny thing that happened was that at one of the vendor booths, I asked one of the guys running the booth if he had a particular figure Anthony was looking for, and after staring at him and wondering why he looked so familiar, I realized we graduated high school together and had gone to church together for a few years.  He hugged me and I asked him a few questions, but I have no idea if he knew who I was until right before I left him.  Heh, that's fine.  We didn't talk much in school, so it wasn't like he was my long lost BFF or anything.  It was good seeing him, though!

We went back that night to see Jermaine Johnson's stand up act, and he was very funny.  Go see him if you get a chance!  He does more than talk about football.

2) OK, so Steve and I have been on this weight loss program for roughly 8 weeks, which is halfway through the worst part of the program, and duuuuuuuude, it sucks.  Well, let me be more clear, it can suck.  It's easier than it was, so I'm grateful for that, but I'm losing weight so slowly and Steve is losing weight so quickly, that it's hard not to wonder what I'm doing wrong. I know that men lose weight faster than women, so that's not s huge surprise, but still, so far...6 weeks of nothing but liquids, 2 weeks of mostly liquids and one meal replacement bar a day, my fitness tracker app thinks I have an eating disorder and the people at the hospital (who are lovely and supportive) have asked if I was still following the program. I am, I promise! I don't think they believe me, because everything is happening so slowly for me. It's insanely frustrating.

I haven't cheated on the program, although I've been tempted, but I don't want to mess up whatever ground I've gained thus far. I'm constantly hungry, which they said I wouldn't be, but maybe it's just me. I already knew I was an emotional eater, but geez, I never knew how much of one.  Before, if I had a bad day or something was bothering me, I'd always eat something that made me feel better, because food is good and comforting, but now I can't do that and sometimes I have no idea how to handle myself when life gets on my nerves!  Hehe, don't worry, I'm not a complete basket case, but it's hard to change a lifelong habit and I'm still trying to find my footing.  I'm getting a bit better at it!

The behaviorist and I talked about how some parts of our lives were controlled by our "Logical Brain" and some our "Primitive Brain."  He told me to imagine having a 6 year old in my head, and that 6 year old controls how I eat.  If you give any normal kid a choice between a hamburger and a salad, most kids will pick the hamburger.  If my logical brain was in charge, I'd go with the salad, but apparently the 6 year old is loud and persistent.  For a couple of weeks, I tried very hard to rule myself in most areas of my life with my logical brain, but you know what?  Screw that. My logical brain is boring! I can't live like that. Plus, I think my primitive brain is more like a 20 year old, so technically I'm not letting a child choose my food for me.  However, I have been eating only what I'm supposed to eat, and my primitive brain has been pouting, but she is just going to have to chill until I see this thing through. I am determined to do that much if I can.  Just between you and me, though, I'm pretty sure my primitive brain is in charge of lots of stuff, because I don't think I'm very logical, and doing the fun, inappropriate stuff is usually my go to.

I'll tell you what, though, it's hard. I was describing this to a friend of mine, and I think the worst part is that I know I could just quit this program and do whatever I want, but I have to constantly stop myself from doing that. Imagine wanting something so badly that it almost hurts, knowing you could go out and grab it, but not letting yourself because you don't want to screw something up?  I'm really not good at telling myself no, I guess.  Ugh...denial is not my strong-suit. 

Anyways, I'm still chugging along.  I don't think I'm going to be anywhere close to the goal weight they set me at this point, but I'm trying very hard!  That's got to count for something, right?

AN UPDATE

I didn't expect to get any answers from my medical tests today, but thankfully they didn't let me leave until they talked to me about what they found. 

Everything is OK.  When they told me that, I almost cried. 

I can't tell you the absolute, pants wetting fear that I've lived through these past weeks. That probably sounds like a bit of an exaggeration, but it is not.  Every moment my brain wasn't fully engaged elsewhere (and sometimes when it was) little thoughts would creep in that would scare me to death.  Not really understanding much about what I might be facing, all I had was worst case scenario ideas to think of.

OK, so what happened is that I found a lump in my breast.  It was sizable and completely new, and I had no idea what kind of thing it could be.  I was going to ignore it and hope it would go away, but that seemed kind of stupid and dangerous of a thing to do. I'd had people in my family with breast cancer and to NOT get checked out felt fairly irresponsible.  So I went to see a guy (I got a boob guy) hoping he could tell me it was nothing to worry about, but he couldn't tell what it was either.  He said he was "pretty sure" it wasn't anything serious, but there were just a few things that kept him from being completely sure, so he sent me to have diagnostic tests done.  Today I was scanned and ultrasounded, prodded and poked, and thankfully what they found couldn't be classified as cancerous. 

I have been so afraid, you guys. Seriously. I'd been practicing how I'd have to tell people I was sick, and wondering how bad it might get if I was. I was considering what kind of plans I'd have to make and Steve and I had many talks about how we'd handle it if it turned out to be cancer. I know that seems extreme, but when you are potentially staring that in the face, it's not easy to be 100% cool about everything. I feel like a weight has been lifted off of me.

So thank you for sending me your good vibes and your prayers, and the positive juju magumbo.

My boobs live to fight another day. :)

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING:

1) Have you ever just had everything break on you all at once?  That is what seems to be going on with us right now, and it's really frickin frustrating!  I mean, things breaking or whatever isn't necessarily a terrible thing when it happens one at a time, but when a bunch of stuff happens at once, even the little small, first world problems that happen, it's like we're cursed!  Haha!  So to help alleviate some of the frustration, I'm going to find the silver lining for each one if I can.

A) I broke our garage door.  Well, I didn't break it myself, but I didn't realize the cable had slipped off of the pully that raises and lowers it. I tried to close it, and the cable tangled in the wheel, the door got partially ripped off of its track, and the little arm that helps guide the center of the door as it lowers got stuck and cracked the door panel down the center. We had to call Steve's dad, one of his dad's engineer friends, and that guy's grandson to come and help us try and fix it.  We couldn't fix it and in the process the whole door fell off of our house.  We had to zip tie the broken door to the opening to the garage until a repairman could come and get the door rehung on the track. Now we have to get a new door.  Silver Lining: Now we go out of our front door more often and the cat gets a lot more attention! The cat enjoys that.

B) The fridge is slowly dying.  We have no idea what is going on with the refrigerator, because sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, so when we think it isn't working, we will go in there and realize everything is cold. Good deal!  Then when we go back, everything is warm.  Bad deal! We're having to toss all of the food from the freezer and fridge, which is quite a loss. So. Much. Cheese. Is. Gone. Silver Lining: Right now we aren't eating normal food, and our "food" such as it is, doesn't need to be refrigerated to stay good.  Losing all of the food is bad, but we can't eat it anyway, so now we get to start with a clean slate when we get to eat again in May!  We also have an old fridge in the garage where we had some of our frozen food, so it isn't a complete loss.

C) There are lots of other, little things. One of our outside doors has a problem with the knob that makes it hard to close, one of our windows needs to be replaced, a piece of our siding got blown off in a storm, and since we have had so much rain, we can't put a ladder in our yard at this point to fix it because the ground is too soft. The hot water line for our washing machine has a leak, the newel post on the steps to the stoop has broken, and the ice we had in January caused a break in our driveway.  Silver Lining: None of that really matters in the long run. I mean, yeah, it's annoying, but it's all fixable!  Do we look like the white trash residence in our neighborhood?  Probably, haha, but we'll get it all fixed at some point!

2) Ok, so I'm going in for my medical tests tomorrow morning and I'd like to ask again for good vibes. It's probably nothing.  I hope so anyway.  I'm a little nervous, but I can handle anything that comes my way if I have to! I mean, I don't want to have to handle this kind of thing, but if I have to, I can.

But I don't want to have to.  That's all I'm saying.  I really don't.

3) Wow, this has been a fairly negative Nellie kind of post!  Sorry about that!  I'm not particularly angry or anything, I guess that stuff has been on my mind recently.  Good stuff has happened, I promise!  The weather is nice today. We saw Black Panther last night, and it was a good movie.  I'm learning to shoot a handgun, so if you need a bodyguard, I'll be available as soon as I know what I'm doing.  I got some new running shoes and I'm going to get the first solid food I've had in over a month tonight! So things are fine. Sorry if I sound unpleasant. I don't mean to, I promise!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME

I am officially 40! 

I know, I sound very excited about it, don't I?

I actually had a very nice birthday, I really did!  I got to talk to, or at least I heard from (by FB messages/a fun video/flowers), all of my favorite people in the world, a nice lady at my church brought me tea, and the choir sang Happy Birthday to me after church last night. I didn't know what to do with my face the whole time, but still, it was nice.

The only dark spot on the day was having to sit across the table from my father in law, who was eating a burger and fries, while all I had was decaf coffee, but as that is no one's fault but my own, I can't be too upset about it. :)

Anyway, I hope the rest of my 40s will be as nice as my first day of being in the club.

Thank you so much!

PS: What the hell is the point of decaf coffee?  I mean, I like coffee, but DECAF?  There is no point to it. At all.  Thank you and good day.

 

via GIPHY


 

AN ADDENDUM

Ok, so the doctor is sending me for some routine tests next week, so I should know something by that point. Yay? I’m going to spend the next week doing everything I can to not worry about it, because that is not how I want to live my life!  Anyone want to help? Haha

So...there we go. I don’t know any more than I did earlier, but I’m sure everything will be ok.

I AM SCHRODINGER'S CAT

You know, I wasn't going to write about this.  I told myself that it would be better if I just waited to see how things turned out first, because I might not have to write anything at all, you know?  That talking about something personal, even on my own blog, might make people kind of uncomfortable.  I mean, I know that the majority of the people who read this are my friends, but still, why talk about anything before I know, right?

However, my current anxiety levels are about as maxed out as possible in my current medicated state, so I'm going to throw this out into the universe because I need to.  I'm going to be purposefully vague.  Not because I want people to guess or ask questions, but because I haven't gotten to the point where I can comfortably talk about it straightforwardly, even in theory.

Last week I became aware of a possible heath situation. I say possible, because what I noticed could be nothing.  It could also be a Bad Thing, maybe even a Really Bad Thing, and of course when faced with a potential Really Bad Thing, it's hard not to worry about it.  I was hoping it would go away, but it didn't, so I had to make an appointment with a specialist to see what is up.  They couldn't see me until this afternoon, so I've been a little freaked out for about a week now.  I've tried not to think about it, and to do stuff to take my mind off of it, but it's not an easy thing to do all the time.

See, if the Thing is nothing (and there are many types of nothing it can be) then I'm good.  If it's a Bad Thing, even just a little Bad Thing, then all kinds of things will go to hell. I would be sick. Not just sick, but Sick. I've pretty much gone through the scenario in my head already, and so many things would change and I'm not on board with that. At all. My biggest fear is that people would be uncomfortable and wouldn't know how to talk to me and I'd be avoided right when I needed them the most, or that they'd start seeing me as a "Sick Person" instead of just seeing me as me. I'm aware that real friends don't do those kinds of things, but it is a fear I have, OK?! 

I know that I should be positive and believe that until I know for sure what is going on I shouldn't worry.  I know that.  However, right now it feels too uncertain.  I very much don't want to be sick.  I am scared.

Maybe it really will turn out to be nothing and all of this worrying is supremely silly and all of you can point and laugh and thing "Wow, she sure gets worked up about nothing, doesn't she?." I certainly hope so.  I'll let you know one way or the other.

So, if you have a minute today, could you please put some good vibes out there for me?  I would appreciate it.

OY: A QUICKY

I don’t know what it is about being on an elliptical machine, but it makes me think of things, remember things, and figure out answers to problems that I didn’t even know I had.  I guess it’s the repetitive motion and me trying to ignore how bored I’m getting.

Anyways, today I was on the machine, and I started thinking about when I went to Ireland in 2016. The first day we were there, circumstances happened wherein we didn’t get to eat for many, many hours because of our schedule. We also couldn’t get any cash to buy food from the hotel vending machines because the closest ATM was out of order. It sucked and was very frustrating, as you’d imagine.  That first night, we went out to a pub in Dublin with some of the other band members, but after a drink or two, Steve and I decided to go back to our hotel because we were hungry and tired.

On the way out, we saw a grocery store and walked around in it for a few minutes to see what it was like before we headed back to sit in our room, hungry and exhausted.

It didn’t occur to me until today, almost two years later, that we went to a grocery store and for some reason didn’t buy anything. We were in a store that sold food, we were hungry, yet we didn’t buy food! 

I blame being tired, but man, that was stupid.

ZERO TO SIXTY IN SIXTEEN WEEKS...ALLEGEDLY

I mentioned a while back that Steve and I were going to undertake a new weight loss program through one of our local hospitals.  I also said that I would try not to talk about it that much. However, as it seems to be the thing that is currently taking over every aspect of my life right now, I'm going to talk about it today.

(Don't worry, I've already got someone on stand by to tell me to shut up if I talk about it too much!  Haha!)

OK, so...

Almost three weeks ago, Steve and I went to our orientation meeting to learn about the program, receive our first batch of "food" (yes, that's in quotes, and I'll explain in a minute) and talk to the nurses, dietitian, and behaviorist to find out what is expected of us.  Every single person we talked to is very enthusiastic about the program and how successful it is, so that was nice.  We were given folders, lessons, appointments to see the different health professionals, and a month-long membership to the hospital's gym.  (We already have a membership to that gym, although we haven't been in a while, but don't tell them that!) The program doesn't have a snazzy name.  I don't know if it has a proper name at all, actually, unless you want to call it what I've referred to it as: Optifast800: Hell in a Juice Box.

So how does it work?  Well, The very first, and apparently most important rule of the program is that for 16 weeks we are not allowed to eat. What's that you say? We aren't allowed to eat? That is crazy! Well, yes. Yes it is.  But, that is, hand to God, the first thing that they told us.  We are not allowed to eat anything.

Stop looking at me like that.  I swear, it's the truth.

The dietitian said that to begin the process of losing weight, our digestive tracts needed to heal.  Heal from what?  Did someone tell him I'd been eating broken glass and staples again?  I dunno, but food - and by that I mean solid, you-can-chew-it-food, is tearing us apart.  I guess.  Again, I don't know, because that part wasn't explained well, but we got the gist.  No eating is allowed.

Well...shit.  Ok, then.

What we are allowed to have is a series of liquid meals that either come already mixed in juice box form, or that come in a powder that we have to mix with water. We have chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry flavored shakes, and pouches of powdered soup (because we need sodium) that are either vegetable, chicken, or tomato flavored. The shakes kind of taste like watery protein drinks and the soup tastes kind of like the pouches that come with ramen noodles, only thicker (except for the tomato soup, which is horrible and indescribable except by facial expression and grunts of disgust.) I'm not going to lie, none of it is very good, but it's balanced and portioned out depending on our situation and how much weight we need to lose. I get a total of 5 of these things a day. Eventually we will graduate to replacing one of our shakes with a meal replacement bar.  I'm not sure I'm going to remember how to chew! We can season our food with anything 10 calories or less, so we've learned to get creative. We can also have sugar free Jell-O for a treat. Whee. At any rate, all of this is so we can reset ourselves (?) and lose the weight that we need to lose. It was decided by the doctor that I need to lose 60 pounds.  Honestly, I thought he'd tell me to lose more, so... silver lining!

So I haven't had solid food, except random sesame seeds that happen to be in spice mixes that we're allowed to use in our soup, in three weeks. I have not cheated on the program, even though I've been tempted! Unfortunately I haven't lost much weight at all.  I have yelled at Steve twice.  Not because I was mad at him, or because any of this is his fault, but because I'm having a hard time adjusting and he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I'm not proud of that, but it is what it is. I mean, I only have 3 things I enjoy these days and eating was one of them, now I don't have that, and I'm down to two of them!  It's frustrating! Steve is very sanguine about everything and he's doing very well with all of this and has thus far lost a lot of weight. Sometimes I want to hit him with a shoe.  Again, not his fault.  Ok, maybe a little his fault!  ; )

We have to attend weekly meetings, kind of like AA (we aren't supposed to talk about anyone else in the program or what they say) and I was worried that it would be an all evening thing, but luckily I get to come home at 5:30 or so afterwards, so that was a relief.  I've already had my first meeting with the behaviorist, and he seems like a pretty solid guy. I assume at some point I'll be in his office crying about something and have a breakthrough about why I like to eat so much.  Who knows? I'll have to see either him, a nurse, or a doctor once a week from now until May. I'll also have to have blood work every two weeks until a point in this program where they deem it unnecessary, but I don't know when that is!

This week we start working with a personal trainer, and hopefully she will be able to help me know what I need to do physically not just to lose weight, but to help my body be healthier.  I also told her I want to get to a point where I can run for funzies, so...we'll see how that goes.  She seems to think I can do it, so why not?

There is a part of me that really isn't sure I'll make it all the way through, much less lose 60 pounds, but I really want to succeed.  Not just to lose the weight, but to stick to something that is very difficult. I'm not generally a quitter, but damn, this program is tough!  I also want to make sure I don't do anything to deter Steve from succeeding, and I know me doing this along with him is very helpful. 

I'm currently making a kind of video diary of the process, so if I keep up with that, one day in the distant future, I'll show you how much "Fun" I've been having during all of this!  All I can ask is that you keep your fingers crossed for me, and maybe say a prayer for Steve!  Haha!

God, I'm hungry.

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) You guys, I got my hair cut the other day. It was going to have to be a pretty drastic change, and when I was talking about it I swore that I'd go to a legit salon and get it done.  I got as far as trying to call the salon I wanted to go to only to find out that it had closed down. BOO! 

As you know, I have too much anxiety about getting haircuts to be able to make an appointment several days out.  If I think about it too much, I will overthink it and get too nervous to go.  So I usually just go to a place that is walk-in friendly.  That sometimes means that it isn't always staffed with the most skilled of stylists, but what are you going to do?  I didn't really want to get it cut.  I liked having long hair!  However, a weird health issue caused my hair to freak out, so a lot of it had to go.

I don't have a horror story about the haircut this time, amazingly enough.  My hair looks OK.  It's not great, but I don't hate it. The damaged part is gone at least, so it looks less fried, even if it is a little Dorothy Hamill-esque.  The funniest thing is that the men around me think I'm very sensitive about my hair, and would be mad if they didn't notice.  Granted, I didn't say anything to Steve just to see how long it would take him to realize, but he is notoriously inattentive to stuff like that.  My boss and coworker, though, have made a point to mention that they've noticed, I guess in case I start crying about it or something. 

Y'all, if I ever genuinely become the kind of person that cares so much about the way I look that I'd get mad at random men in my life for not noticing if my hair is shorter, I'm going to need someone to come and slap me around a little and help me gain some perspective, OK?  I'm giving permission.

2) I have been kind of haunted for the last few days thinking about those poor people in Hawaii who thought they were about to be bombed off the face of the world.  Steve's bosses (lovely, kind people) were vacationing out there when the false alert was sent and he told me that they called their kids to say goodbye and just went out to sit on the beach and wait for it to happen.  HOW AWFUL IS THAT?!  It's bad enough that they thought they were about to die, but to go outside and wait for it to happen feels like the most helpless, and freaking brave if I am going to be honest, thing I've ever heard.  Also, how did their kids feel?  To think that was the last time they'd get to talk to their parents? I'm sure it's nice that they got to say goodbye, but still.

It made me wonder what I would do if I were in that situation.  I suppose we never know what we'd do until we are put into a specific position, but I'd want to send messages to my friends and family to say goodbye and that I loved them. In what is probably not a very mentally healthy exercise, I've been internally composing what I'd say to the people who mean the most to me.  I wonder if I'd be embarrassed if I sent those messages and didn't die.  I mean, there are some things you might not say out of decorum or societal rules or whatever, so what would happen if you said something you thought was your final words and then you had to face that person again?  On one hand, you'd want to tell them what you had to tell them in case you didn't get another chance. On the other hand, some things can't be unsaid and might make things weird.  Ugh, I get knots in my stomach just thinking about it!

It also made me wonder who'd send me a message.  I wonder who'd remember me enough to say goodbye if they had just a little while left to live? I might not want to know, though, because it might not be anyone!  Bleh, the whole thing is awful.  I'm glad it didn't actually happen. 

3) I've already told some of you this, but I'm going to tell you again because I'm still mad about it!

A week ago, as I was leaving church, a lady stopped me and said that she needed to show me something.  Apparently, there is a woman in our church (a mentally challenged woman) who had been making a habit out of picking her nose and wiping what she found onto one of our church's pew bibles.  GROSS!  Beyond the pale gross!  She said that I needed to get rid of the offending bible.  Why?  Because I'm the secretary, that's why.  My job description says I have to do duties as assigned, and I suppose that picking up soiled bibles is a duty as assigned.  I was so disgusted.

Of course I didn't have any gloves (because you bet your ass I'd be triple gloved and in a HAZMAT suit if I had them at my disposal) so I had to suffice with a handful of tissues to guard myself and I had to pick of the bible and figure out what to do with it.  Now, I know that a bible is just a book, printed pages and ink, and we have a lot of them so if I had to get rid of one it wouldn't be a big deal.  However, I just don't feel comfortable throwing away a bible.  I know it's irrational, but that is just how I feel about it. So I had to find a place to hide the booger-infested bible in hopes that it wouldn't be noticed.  Now I just have to hope no one finds it and flips through it.

Why is this my job?  I have a college education for Pete's sake! Mucus was NOT IN MY CONTRACT!

4) We've started on the weight loss program I talked about in an earlier entry, and so far I hate every minute of it. I'm hungry, grumpy, sleepy, cold, and I feel like I'd give just about anything at this point to have solid food. I'm going to write more about it later, because thus far it's been quite the experience and it's a lot to unpick.  It's not the adventure I was hoping to take first thing this year, but it's the adventure that fell into my lap.  Stay tuned.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

It’s January 1st and the first day of 2018! Aren’t you excited?

Ok, well..then aren’t you glad to be alive?

Eh...ok, look, whatever, I’m glad you’re alive and that should count for something.

Thus far my new year has consisted of sleeping late, eating breakfast for lunch and being in my pajamas for an inappropriate amount of time, but what do you want from me? I had a day off and it is freaking cold, so I’m not going to apologize.

As usual, I’m not going to make any resolutions. I probably should, but I’m not good at that sort of thing. Besides, if I fail, I’d feel terrible, so I have more of a “New Year’s Vague Hopes For the Future” thing in mind anyway.

I do know that, while not a resolution exactly, I hope to enjoy myself as much as possible and hopefully take a few of you lovely people along for the ride. Life is short, after all. Tell me what you have in mind and let’s go on a few adventures.

So come on...take my hand and let’s see what is out there.  My treat!