life

Quick Note

Hi guys! I promise that I am still alive and working on the blog, just in the hidden back room.  My day job unfortunately has me under piles of paper leaving very little time to get things posted and up.  But since it has been awhile since I posted I wanted to swing in and give you a glimpse into what has been happening in that hidden back room.

Things are in full design mode for my upcoming Etsy shop; I am working on some stamped metal jewelry as well as screen printed notebooks.  I am just trying to narrow down a few designs and will get the shop listed hopefully by the end of next month; with a few select pieces just to see how things go.  I have been trying to find the right materials for the jewelry because there are just so many options out there I am still trying to learn which are the best quality.  The notebooks I have already waiting to be printed I am just trying to decide if I want to print them as they are ordered or all at once.  It’s funny what goes through your mind when you are starting an Etsy shop.

I have also been dealing with the fun oddities of owning a home.  I tried to buy a new fridge since the current one I have is just not working for me anymore.  I went and picked out this lovely new Kenmore Elite Grab-N-Go fridge from the Sears Outlet.  It had a couple dents in it but I was told they are totally functioning.  So I bit the bullet and bought it saving approximately $2500 on the cost because it had a couple dents.  Well a week later on Valentine’s day I was patiently waiting for my lovely new fridge to get there.  It of course did and I was so excited, it got hooked up and looked all pretty in my kitchen.  But that was were the fun ended, while the installer was testing the water line nothing was happening.  Fast forward 5 mins I notice that water is now on my floor but we can figure out where it is coming from.  He was checking the line on the back and it wasn’t dripping.  That is when I decide to open the french doors and was greeted by a rush of water.  The fridge had been collecting water inside the entire time we were pushing the water button on the outside.  Needless to say I had to send my Valentine’s present to myself back and I am stuck with my boring fridge until after tax season.  When I will have more time to take time off of work for deliveries.

On the tail end of this delivery when they were turning the water off and on under my sink it loosened up something and I got a leak.  Which of course I didn’t know about until a week later when I went in for dishwasher soap.  I managed to narrowed down the leak and kind of knew what I needed to do in order to fix it.  But that meant I would need to head to Lowe’s where I get to be that girl wandering around with no clue where to go in the home improvement store.  I stood and stared at the wall of valves for what seemed like forever until I saw an employee, unfortunately he had to pass me off to a gentlemen who was only moderately happy to help me.  I say moderately because he admitted it had been a long day for him and I could tell he really didn’t want to help me.  But he sucked it up and helped me find the right valve.  I went home all ready to switch the valve out and then quickly learned that while I have all the brains to do this I lack the brawn to complete the task at hand.  I did manage to put some teflon tape on the threads of where the leak was coming from and when I screwed the tube back on it seems to be holding the leak at bay.  But while the leak may have stopped I am still in need of replacing the valve because I sense that when I get a new fridge again this could happen all over again and I want to prevent that.  So lucky for me I have a step-dad who has the brawn to come over and get the valve off the wall for me sometime in the near future.

Of course all of this is happening during the busiest time of year for me at work.  I am working crazy hours so I have to admit I am dead tired once I walk through my doors at night so I am a little slow at getting posts written.  Hopefully I will get a break and can get something up over the next few weeks.  So please stay tuned as I work through all these kinks!!

Looking Back on 2013

In just a few short days we will be embracing a brand new year! It seems like it was just January 2013 a few moments ago.  It is amazing how the years are just flying past, one moment you feel like you have months ahead of you and then you realize it is just days before 2014 shows up! I wanted to take some time out to reflect back on 2013 since it has just flown by and talk a bit about what I hope for 2014.

I will start with what I hope will be a bigger success in 2014 an update out on my Weight Watchers journey; 2013 didn’t go as planned for me at all.  I hoped I would be about 70 pounds down by time we got to the 31st of December but instead I am only down 29.5 pounds.  It was 30 but I gained weight a few weeks ago and I am slowly taking it off again.  Which really has been the typical story of this journey.  I spent a lot of the year doing this roller coaster of gain a pound, lose a pound, gain a pound, lose one, so on and so on.  It was/is very frustrating.  I would be doing everything right but still stay on that coaster which then after so many weeks of that it lead me to fall back into old habits.  I started ordering a lot of meals that start with a number, eating unhealthy snacks or not eating regularly at all. I also did the whole I still have X amount of months/weeks/days left of the year to get back on track.  Then bam it was the end of the year and here I am 40 pounds away from the goal. I am trying to not be too hard on myself about it, I mean we are all human and this wasn’t going to happen over night by any means and 30 pounds is still a nice chunk of weight to be gone.  I know that the journey wasn’t going to be easy no matter how much I wished it was which does make it easier for me to hopefully get back on track.  Even though it is not officially 2014 I have already started to get myself back on track, stocked up my fridge and pantry with all my favorite things.  Like Belvita breakfast biscuits in cinnamon brown sugar (tastes like graham crackers) and blueberry (tastes like a blueberry muffin in cookie form); the whole packet is 6 points which is great for a quick breakfast or hearty snack.  I have also been buying whole pineapples and cutting them up to fulfill that something sweet craving, keeping lemons & limes in my fruit basket at home to add to water so I avoid soda and actually getting at least 30 mins of exercise in a min of 3 times a week.  I hope to increase the workout time back to an hour a day but right now I am going into my busy season at work so I am starting small so hopefully I wont stop once work gets crazy.

I jumped back into this blog in 2013 officially and while many moons have passed I am still working out the kinks on making time for the blog and what content to put on it.  So I hope in this coming year I will become more regular at posting and get things more organized.  I really do enjoy blogging and sharing my life, crafts & food with everyone and want to make this a more regular thing.  I think I am my own worse enemy when it comes to it, because I have grand ideas and then I talk myself out of them and I need to learn that blogging is about being bold and I should really starting going with my gut no matter what!

In 2013 I took up screen printing and have really enjoyed it.  I don’t get to be too creative at work dealing with taxes and bookkeeping all day so it is nice to have an art hobby to do on the weekends.  I have been wanting to sell some of my screen printing items under the Blurred Lines name on Etsy, but for some reason I have been holding back and finding reasons to wait.  Here I am again being my own worst enemy.  I need to stop holding myself back, so hopefully in 2014 you will see some of the fun geeky items I have planned for purchase! Doctor Who fans need to defiantly watch out because they are going to love my Moleskine notebooks & t-shirts!

My next big crazy plan is to get my cupcake business up and running officially by the end of next year.  In 2013 Clark County finally adopted Cottage Law which allows people to make and sale items from their home.  Before this was illegal and everything had to be done in a commercial kitchen.  Which of course has always held me back, I don’t have enough clientele to warrant paying for space in a commercial kitchen. I am hoping that I can get things in order so that I can schedule a meeting and get my official license after this coming tax season so that I have the spring/summer time to get the marketing up and running officially.  This is something I want to do on the side and do not plan for it to be full time work, at least not right now. Who knows what will happen in the future.

2013 was also the year of change for me, I let some friendships go officially; which was a hard thing for me to come to terms with and I even struggle with it today.  Which is funny considering I know it was the right decision to walk away but at the same time it is never easy to lose someone you care about.  I can say that luckily while I was struggling with the loss of one friend an old friend who I had lost touch with came out of the woodwork which I am grateful for because she was a good friend and it great to see that we can overcome the past and reconnect.  So here’s to 2014 bringing in new friendships, fostering old friendships, and maybe a boyfriend or two.  😉

No matter how much change went on in 2013 the year itself was pretty good; I got to go to Cozumel Mexico for the first time, saw my first whole dinosaur skeleton, saw a space shuttle up close (it’s smaller than I thought), and even managed to move a step up within my job.  So it certainly was a good year for me but I am very ready for the New Year!  Leave me a comment below telling me about your 2013 and what do you have planned for 2014? Or tell me what did you plan to do in 2013 that you just didn’t get finished, that now you are determined to do in 2014?  I can’t wait to hear from you! Happy New Year everyone!!

Thanksgiving Madness

This coming Thanksgiving will be my third time cooking the big meal all by myself.  You would think that I would be relaxed and know what I am doing; which is so not the case!  For some reason this Thanksgiving has me all frazzled.  I am researching how to time out the dinner so things stay warm and when to pop which dish in the oven with what.  It is like a well choreographed dance routine that someone has yet to teach me.

For a little perspective and because every person that has cooked a Thanksgiving or Christmas meal has at least one crazy oh my goodness story.  I want to let you into my kitchen for last Thanksgiving.  I was cooking dinner for my folks, great aunt, and two of my friends, this is a total of 6 people including myself.  Seems simple enough, I got myself a fresh 15 lb turkey so I wouldn’t have to deal with defrosting and that I would be able to brine the turkey.  (Fun Fact: you can’t brine a frozen turkey because they put saline inside the bird to help them freeze faster so you would get an extremely salty bird, if you brined it)  It is now Turkey day it started out easy, woke up took the bird out gave it its bath and then popped that baby in the oven.  I then made my butter wine basting mixture and got to roasting.  I basted every 30 mins and my bird started turning that gorgeous brown color and things were just peachy.  Then I got a call from my friend who said they decided that they were going to go to their coworkers house instead of mine; so here I was a planned dinner for 6 turned into 4.  The upside is at least there would be less people not more at my dinner, but that still sucked to hear the day of.  So I am back to basting and thinking of all the yummy leftovers we will have, then bam out of nowhere the bird was unexpectedly done! What!? How can it be done it should have at least one more hour to go, and my guests aren’t going to be here for over an hour.  So here I was frantically calling my parents telling them to get over here because the turkey was done early.  Which then meant that I had to rush to cook everything else because I thought I had a whole hour left to cook the sides.  So I am sure your thinking this doesn’t seem that exciting or funny; and you are right up until this point it isn’t unless you could see me trying to get a hold of the folks; who of course aren’t answering their phones, running around my kitchen boiling water for potatoes, trying to get the bread out of the can and into crescent rolls, and then ultimately forgetting to get the gravy started.  All while trying to keep the bird covered so it would stay warm while I waited for my step-dad to get there and carve that sucker.  Because this girl still has no clue hot to carve a turkey or chicken without it just being chunks.

So here I am with a dinner done too early and the sides only partially done when everyone finally gets to the house.  I get them into their seats and start laying all the food out that was done, while finishing the gravy that I initially forgot about.  Then we eat and it is all delicious even with all the chaos.  Now stay with me, I still haven’t gotten to my crazy funny Thanksgiving story.  We finish our meal and I enlist my step-dad to finish taking the bird down to the bone so we can put the leftovers in the fridge.  He is happily carving away and pulling the meat off then all of a sudden he stops and asks if the meat looks cooked.  I was like what are you talking about of course it is cooked it was the right temp and we already finished eating.  Well it turns out that the top 7/8ths of the bird was cooked but the bottom portion was not.  So even though the turkey said it was done and registered at the right temp it wasn’t actually cooked all the way.  Now the crazy part is how does the bottom of the bird be the only part that doesn’t cook?  This is closest to the heating element of my stove.  Also this wasn’t the first time I have ever cooked a turkey it was my second, and the first one was perfect if I do say so myself, so I had no doubts that I could manage a turkey last year.  Well obviously I can only manage 7/8ths of a turkey.

Which brings me to this Thanksgiving, I think I am freaking out and am unable to focus because I am scared I am going to only cook 7/8ths of my turkey this year and I really do not want to repeat that.  But the other issue I am thinking about is how do you keep the turkey warm while you cook all the other sides.  Every blog post I read says they let their turkey rest from 30 mins to an hour before carving and it is still hot.  How is this possible?  I can’t even let a whole chicken rest sitting covered on my counter keep warm for 15 mins.  So how do these people manage a whole hour?

Luckily I get a little reprieve because football controls our family life and the Green Bay Packers are playing Thanksgiving Day my parents and I will be at the local Packer bar to watch the game.  Which means we will be having our Thanksgiving on Friday, which allows me one extra day to do things.  Especially since as of today I still haven’t done a single ounce of shopping; but I have made multiple shopping lists so that is a step in the right direction. I think.  I am planning to make the stuffing from scratch for the first time, brine my turkey for at least 24hrs, and bake my first apple pie in years.  Since I am freaking out I am considering making the mashed potatoes in the crockpot.  A lot of the recipes I read online seem to really like the set it and forget it approach, but at the same time what if they suck then I don’t have any potatoes.  I think I need someone to tell me to calm the heck down things will be fine and who cares really.  Worse case scenario we have to go out and eat.

So what is one of your oh my goodness stories or do you have a tried and true tip to make the turkey day schedule a breeze? Please leave me a comment below so I know I am not the only one freaking out over how to accomplish a holiday meal!

Breaking Away From Facebook

I am just going to assume it is safe to say that if you are reading this you have a Facebook account.  Who doesn’t these days?  Pretty much every business, person, and pet has one.  Hearing that someone doesn’t have one is so rare that when we do hear it we are shocked.  Which brings me to today’s post, I have decided to leave Facebook behind and break away.  You know what?  It isn’t as easy as it sounds.  You would think that all you need to do is deactivate/delete your account.  In theory you are right, but before you can do that you have to take into account the pages you’ve created or websites you use with that login.  Which of course I do both, so that means no deactivating my account because I still need to get to these pages/websites.  But before I go into all that lets go back to why I decided to do this.

Recently I have started to notice that Facebook has become more of an irritation rather than a fun way to keep up with everyone.  It use to be so nice to see what people where doing; whether it was traveling, getting married, or having babies.  You got to be a part of things even if you couldn’t be there in person.  It started out this way but over the last year I would catch myself scrolling through my news feed just trying to see what people were saying but could rarely see these statuses because they were clouded by all the ads, game suggestions, sponsored likes and the shared photos from other pages.  It has become about the money versus the people.  Most of my feed has now resorted to people just reposting photos from other pages versus a status.  Then you add that most of the other social apps like Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest link to Facebook accounts so you then have to deal with all those posts on Facebook and if you use those apps on there as well.  It was so much over kill that I noticed I was getting more and more irritated each time I logged on to Facebook.  Every time I had to scroll past a sponsored ad or like I would just cringe.  You would think that if I noticed myself getting irritated that I would just stop checking but at that point it was part of the routine that I just couldn’t help myself.  I caught myself checking Facebook randomly without even really thinking about it on my phone; I would check it in the morning and all through the night.  It was like it was a habit or even an addiction.  I had to click the app and see what was going on.  I would say to myself something interesting has to be going on then I would click and find out that it was just e-cards and political posts over and over again.

I then began to notice that the app for the iPhone was acting weird it was showing me posts that were three days old which I had already seen.  Then I would get these random notifications that a friend was doing something somewhere in the city that I have no connection to.  It was becoming a thorn in my side and I was no longer getting anything from being logged on and that was when I decided I needed to take a step back.  I started with first saying  “I am not going to check Facebook for the rest of the evening”, then I would catch myself an hour later clicking the app on my phone during a commercial.  I tried this for a couple days failing each time and ending up back on the app.  I eventually got to a couple days ago where I decided to take the leap and delete the app from my phone.  Hopefully preventing me from accessing without thinking.  Honestly that was really liberating; it was like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.  Who would have thought that something so simple would have that effect.  I do catch myself zombie like trying to go to the app but then realize the app is gone and put the phone down.

While I made it through the next few nights, and was very happy about that.  It was nice to not have it as part of the evening.  I do have to admit I did ended up checking Facebook the next morning approximately 13 hours after I deleted the app while at work.  I was not surprised at all that I hadn’t missed anything because that is exactly what happened I didn’t miss a thing, it was still all ads, sponsored likes, game requests and shared e-card pics.  I ended up checking a couple times throughout the day while at work out of habit but I quickly closed the tab and moved on.  Even as I write this post I will admit I looked this morning at Facebook after going almost 24 hours and it still is exactly the same and I am not missing things at all.  It is a bit easier to not check it, especially since I am seeing that there is nothing special going on.  People are still posting all the same things that I am just not interested in anymore.

Now at this point you are probably saying why not just delete you account and move on.  Which trust me I want to do, but I don’t think people realize how connected everything today has become to Facebook.  For me I manage my jobs page on Facebook; so in order to do this I have to be logged on as me so I can get to the admin page.  So I am bound to it through Facebook.  Then you have to think about all the other things that Facebook links to, like Pinterest.  My account is linked to Facebook.  Well I like Pinterest so if I get rid of Facebook will I loose my pins and have to start over?  Even Groupon & Living Social allow you to access their sites with Facebook login, well if you don’t have an account you can no longer access those things.  The other way that I have noticed the take over of Facebook has been through blog contests.  A lot of the contests that I have seen late require you to Like their page on Facebook in order to gain an entry in their contest.  In general even when I enjoyed Facebook I didn’t do those type of entries because I didn’t want to share all my Facebook information with the blog.  I have always thought about the fact that each time you use that login somewhere you are sharing that information.  We do it so easily these days that we begin to get blinded by how far Facebook’s reach has gone.

Now I am not against social media as a whole, I am a big lover of Twitter and Instagram.  I still use them daily but because they are only really focused on one to two things I find them easier to enjoy.  I don’t cringe or feel irritated about their content so it keeps me going back.  So how do you feel about Facebook these days?  Do you still love all the changes and find that it is a great site?  Or are you like me struggling with the choice to leave?  Leave me a comment and tell me your perspective!

Life Lesson #1

I read this blog post this week that has really stuck with me.  It was over at A Life Less Bullshit; written by the very talented Nicole.  I have been reading her blog for years and she always has this way of saying things that just make you think.  Plus it doesn’t hurt that she isn’t afraid to use all caps and cussing which of course enhances her writing not distract from it, because it just shows you how human she is.  While I have been a fan of hers for awhile nothing has stuck out to me more than her post titled “Do Whatever You Fucking Want”.  I mean right there in the title it is pretty straight forward and so simple; yet so hard to follow.  Which has got me thinking; am I doing whatever I fucking want to do?

I have always seemed to pander to people in my life in some way.  I do what they want to do, hide the way I feel, don’t talk about what is going on with me because they need me to listen to them, and find excuses for why they treat me the way they do.  Then there is the whole how I treat myself, why am I not baking all the time, writing that children’s book, sketching on weekends, decorating my house, dining at local restaurant alone, or not doing this or that; because I am scared of how others will perceive me.  Which is why Nicole’s post was so great because she point blank stated you need to do you.  Ok I summarized what she was saying into five words but you get the gist.  At some point in your life you have to realize that there is no one else that can do you and you need to stop fighting yourself and do whatever you fucking want.

 A few days before Nicole’s post came out I made the decision to splurge on a Nespresso machine.  Of course me being me I had to do the math and make sure that it was a wise financial decision.  Even though this machine was for me and only me I still couldn’t help myself and had to go to my Mom and lay out all the numbers and get her opinion.  Not only because I truly do value her opinion but also because I felt I needed her approval.  Which is funny since I am 30 years old, own my own home, and have a job.  She does not control my finances or have any say on where or when I spend my money but yet I still needed her approval.  Luckily for me she was all for it, I think it was the numbers especially since she is an accountant. Which leads me to my current obsession which is of course every latte, cappuccino or espresso I have made in the last 4 days.  I have been blowing up my social media tweeting & instagraming it all the time I am sure everyone is sick and tired of hearing about it but oh well!  I have caught myself second guessing if I should tweet this or that about my machine because I am so excited to have it that I just can’t help myself and you know what that is ok!  This is something that I am in love with right now and it is ok to be a total dork about it and get hyped up on espresso whenever I want because it is what I want.

So not only was I totally inspired by Nicole’s post but she also has a great Change Your Story post which completely relates, because we have to learn that it is ok to make changes to who we are and move forward.  I am not sure if it is more noticeable now because we are so inundated with social media so everything we do is broadcasted to the masses in some way or form.  So we second guess our choices, because people are going to see this or know that we are doing this.  But we have to learn that it is ok to stop doing something or to even start doing something because it is what we need or want to do.  It is up to you to make those changes and to realize that you are your own worst enemy.  We are also our hardest critics, every move we make we over analyze and it just doesn’t make sense. We need to learn to be our biggest cheerleader instead.  I catch myself not wanting to share my blog on my own personal facebook, because I don’t know how people will react.  But why do I care?  Well I care because I want to be liked, we all do.  It is our default reaction to not do something because someone we know may have an opinion on what we are doing.  For me I decided that I wanted to be more active on my blog and try to find my voice online; it is going to have its own struggles.  If I want to share this blog I should and if I don’t then that is OK because this is something I am doing for me.  People on facebook, or twitter are all living their lives doing their things they don’t care that I am over here writing about restaurants, my crappy day, my emo moment with a friend, or even that lovely dinner I cooked last night or maybe they do care and they want to cheer me on who knows.  It is ok for me to choose to not find out right now.

So what I want everyone to do is make sure that you are doing you!  If you want to reconnect with that long lost friend then do so, if you want to hole up on the weekend and not talk to a single soul that is ok too, just do something that is for you and learn one step at a time that it is perfectly acceptable to do things just for you no matter how big or small it is.  Feel free to leave me a comment telling me how you plan to do you I would love to hear about it, because your story may help me or someone else learn how to take that step.

Internal Struggle

I have been having a couple hard days internally.  My brain is over analyzing the things around me and just wont give up.  I posted about a few weeks back about changes in friendship and over this last weekend it just for some reason showed me how much things have changed.  And I am struggling with it, I am a sensitive person anyway, I tend to take things personally whether I should or not.  Most times I can rationalize things and don’t let it get to me other times I just can’t help myself.  The joys of being human we can’t always control our feelings.  So over the weekend I just realized how much I miss having my friend in my corner, but at the same time if they were really in my corner would we even be in this position in the first place?  While I can rationalize that things change for a reason, people leave for a reason it doesn’t make it any easier on your feelings to know these things.

So my brain has been over analyzing the choices I have made and wondering about the choices they made and how we went from being friends to not being friends.  How did we get here, what did we say or do that got us here.  It is the merry-go-round type situation in my head.  Now I know that there are two sides to everything and I am not innocent in the situation.  I can own up to the fact that I made choices as well.  I chose to only reach out the way I have and only so many times.  Eventually it got to the point where I had to decide am I getting anything back?  Should I keep trying or is it time to see if they reciprocate in some way.  So eventually I stopped reaching out in whatever way I had been.  Because I just couldn’t anymore and unfortunately nothing ever came from their end and here we are 5 months later.  And it is funny how out of nowhere you think you are fine with the choices you have made you realize that even though you are ok with them the fact that things have changed you can’t help but feel hurt by the change.  It wasn’t an easy choice for me to make but I know and knew it was the right one for me.  I am sure this is just a moment of sadness because I see how different things are now and time will only heal the scars.

What Day Is It?

Things have just been insane at work lately, I know I shouldn’t be surprised I run a CPA office and it is tax time. This is nothing new I have been doing this for over seven years, but really I told someone today on the phone that it was Friday. I guess that was wishful thinking that the week is over because that means there is only one more day of the craziness.

The downside to my work life being so crazy is I slack off on all the other things in my world. I am just so tired and lazy by time I walk through my door at night that the last thing on my mind is taking care of myself. Because of this lack of motivation my diet has slacked a bit over the last few weeks and I have hovered in this gain a pound loose a pound roller coaster for about 3 to 4 weeks already. While at work I am making good choices; luckily for me our office is part of a fruit of the month club so there is fresh fruits around and I have a drawer of yummy health bars to snack on.  I even make a few bad choices like indulging in a fun size candy bar here and there but nothing that is a diet killer.  It is the after work decisions that I am not doing so well on I know I am not making smart choices.  I own up to the fact that I would rather hit the drive thru than go home and cook something.  It is almost like I do not have an appetite for anything but junk food.  I do wish my days had been a couple hours shorter so I could have used my crock pot more, but that thing cooks on the high end to begin with so a 12 hr day my food is going to be a rock by time I get there.  So I am really looking forward for this tax season being over so that I can get back on track.  I am even too lazy to work out after work; first off because I don’t have any energy and the other is after a work out I get a burst of energy which makes it hard to get to bed.  So when you are coming in your door at 8:30 pm you only have so many hours before you need to get in bed to start the cycle over.  Which means if I work out all that new energy makes me stay up late which makes my next day at work horrible because I am tired.  It is a viscous circle, especially since I can’t bring myself to get out of bed earlier in the morning to work out before work because I like my sleep.  Maybe one day I will get that motivation but it just hasn’t hit me yet I really prefer to sleep.  I just haven’t broken up the love affair with my bed.

I have set some personal goals that have had to be altered due to my laziness over the last few months but I do want to be 30 lbs down by the middle of the July, which will hopefully keep me on my goal to start 2014 by being down a total of 90 – 100 lbs, that is one full year of weight watchers.  So I really hope that after the 15th I can make some changes and form a routine so that when the next deadline in September rolls around I don’t let the laziness hit me and I slack off again!

The one positive thing I have been doing to combat the laziness is doing at least one house upgrade or change a weekend, I do it on the weekend so I am not trying to accomplish things after a long work day.  It seems to be helping a bit, like this past weekend I managed to clean my patio furniture and get it ready to be transported to my parent’s house this coming weekend hopefully.  Doesn’t seem like much, but really, if you live in a desert you know how dusty life is.  There was a nice layer of dirt on everything so it was nice to finally clean things up.  By doing these things to my house it is helping me feel less lazy and like I am doing more than just taxes.  It also leads me into doing other things as well because I start to get in a groove, I then managed to sweep up the patio get it all cleaned up, then I gathered up all my clothing donations that have been sitting in a huge pile in the corner of my room making my room feel disorganized and got them dropped off a the donation center and last but not least finally took all the empty shoe boxes out of my closet and put in the recycle bin.  So it was one big project followed by three little ones and it really helped put me in a better mood.  I finally felt like my world wasn’t all about taxes.  Hopefully I can keep this up through out the rest of the year, because I notice focusing on my house helps me focus on me just a little bit more.  Now if I could just not love cheeseburgers so much I would be in a better place I am sure!

Moving Forward…

While the title was easy to type it certainly isn’t that easy to accomplish.  I hear from so many people that they are always trying to move forward in one way or the other.  If it is moving on from an old love, a job, old friendships or just day to day life we are always moving forward.  We spend so much time dwelling on moving forward that it becomes an affliction, something that just becomes part of our daily lives and when we haven’t moved forward fast enough we dwell even harder on it.

For me I have been struggling with friendships for years now.  And it is weird to think how many years I have been dealing with the same issue over and over again.  I don’t talk about it much with anyone because it seems to raw to admit. But I have been trying to make changes in my life recently and the only way to do that is to take a leap off the cliff.  Jump feet first into what ever lies ahead but the only way to do that is to let go of the ropes holding me back.  And for me one of those ropes tethering me to the past are friendships lost.  It is never easy to loose friends no matter the circumstances. While we grow and evolve so do the people around us, we have to be willing to understand that just because we want to hold on the other person may not.

I have always assumed I was a good person and a great friend. I look back on my friendships and I see me being there for each and everyone of them in their time of need through amazing life changes to the challenging ones no matter what and without question.  I have always felt that I go above and beyond with my friendships but honestly never feel I get the same back.  I tend to feel easily replaced that I was good for the moment but now that I filled my part they are done. Even as friendships change no matter the circumstances we have to learn to take a look from the outside and realize that the person pushing you away is doing it because it is what they need not what you need. This isn’t easy to hear or comprehend because if that person matters to you why don’t you matter to them.

Which leads me to my affliction, I take it too personally when I get pushed to the side or replaced.  This happens more than I like to admit and leads me to a lot of self doubt about the type of friend or person I am.  Because looking around I realize I am no ones person.  (For those Grey’s Anatomy lovers you’ll get that reference) All my friends have their person.  I am always second or third in line, this is the best way I know how to describe it.  It is kind of like being on the team roster but not cool enough to play.  So if I am having a bad day I don’t have a person to vent to or even if I am having a fabulous day there is no one on my team.  Sometimes we just want to know that no matter what is going on there is someone on our side.  I have never had anyone stick around through the hard stuff.  It is weird to think like that but every time I think I have found a great friend something happens and they disappear on me.  Sometimes I know exactly what is happening and others it blind sides me and I feel so confused.

Recently I have been dealing with giving a friend space because it is what they wanted, they eventually admitted this was what they wanted and why they had been distant to begin with, but at some point when does space become no longer friends?  At what point does it make that turn even when reaching out in casual ways doesn’t lead to anything and it feels like I am bothering them.  You start doing your thing they start doing theirs and the next thing you know it’s been months without any real conversations.  Now I know that this is only my side of the situation and there is another side out there so I can only understand my reactions & motives.  We always have to make sure that we are aware of that, this is how I am feeling not the other person.  So what I am going to say next is going to sound childish; I know this but I can’t help the way I feel, but why am I the only one that has to try.  At some point it would be nice to know that someone cared for me the way I do for them.  To try to realize that how they were or are treating me during their time of need is their responsibility and that their actions and words effect me and that I matter. Emotions are not one sided you aren’t the only one in the friendship with feelings so why is that your feelings matter more?  This becomes the question I am sure we have all asked ourselves at one point or another when dealing with any type of relationship, and it goes right back to what I said earlier “we have to realize that the person pushing us away is doing it because it is what they need not what you need”. This isn’t an easy concept to grasp and even though we know this it still doesn’t change our feelings.  It also doesn’t make our feelings any easier to handle.

I think this is the part that gets me the most, knowing that this is a choice they are making and I have no control over that but feeling like I don’t matter to people is a hard rope to cut.  Now a lot of people do not want to talk about the fact that they feel alone in the world because people around you always say “you’re not alone, so many people care about you” without fail as adults if we try to talk about this subject this is what we hear. So why talk about how we feel when we know what they are going to say, I think this is why so many adults hide the fact that they really feel the same.  Why is there such a stigma about the way we feel? I have tried to talk about this with so many people and because of that response is why I never go to deep into the conversation, I never get down to the nitty gritty because the response is you matter to someone.  Well if that is true then why am I having these feelings?  It isn’t easy to admit to yourself or to anyone that you feel like you are easily passed over for someone else. While I don’t expect to miraculously feel better it does help to be raw to how I feel.  I am normally the one that holds everything in because I tend to not have anyone to really share the hard stuff with and I think this is something that needs to change.  How can I move forward and make changes if I am never willing to be outright vulnerable?  Maybe that is the key; learning that sometimes in order to move past the hurdle you have to be willing to get hurt.  Moving forward has never been easy.

The Odd Side of Weight Loss

I have been dieting for just around 6 months now, and have lost a respectable 24 and half pounds.  Who would have ever that that half a pound or even a tenth of a pound would matter but wow does it.  Especially on weeks where you only lose two tenths of a pound, but hey at least you didn’t gain.  This becomes your mantra and any decrease is good, even though in reality you are cursing yourself that you didn’t loose more.  Which leads me to why I call this post the odd side of weight loss; it is because even though I have lost over 20 pounds to me I look exactly the same.  So I see on the scale the change but physically I am still all there, except in my wrists and feet.  This to me just seems so random, I have dieted before even on this exact same diet which by they way is Weight Watchers but the weight is coming off in very different ways than the first time I did it.

Now I don’t have some obscurely tiny wrist or anything but all of a sudden the bracelet I have worn for almost three years can easily be slipped off which it never did before, it use to fit just a little loose around the wrist and I would have to unclasp it to get it on and off.  It was made to fit my wrist specifically and is made out of white gold, so it isn’t like over two years it stretched.  I had the bracelet made for me because I could never find anything in the store that fit.  So it just baffles me that I need to have it made smaller by just over an inch.  It seems so odd that this is where my body decided to loose weight.

I am sure this is totally normal and it is a good change especially for the feet side, I am not a size smaller or anything but I do notice that things fit either looser or just better overall.  This too me is a really good thing, because shoes are my enemy, I hate shopping for them because they never come in my size.  I wear a size 11 normally but I can wear 10s or 12s depending all on the shoe and designer.  So I try not to let it define me but it drastically limits what I can comfortably put on my feet because most stores only care up to a 10 in anything that is fashionable.  Once you hit the 11 – 12 mark you start wearing orthopedic looking shoes that are thick and have velcro.  Just typing that description makes by brow furrow.  So I am looking forward to just maybe getting into a size 10 at some point as my starting size instead of an 11.  I should also note that if I have my foot measured it always comes up at a 10, but 10s rarely fit right.  So this has more to do with the industry than my body personally.

Because this process has been going on for 6 months and I would say I have at least 10 more months before I reach my ultimate goal but I can’t help but wish I showed a greater physical change than I do, while having smaller wrists and feet is nice it doesn’t really alter me visually.  Which ultimately is a nice side effect of loosing weight.  While most of us choose to loose weight mainly for health benefits no one can deny that really it is to look better in clothing.  We are just programmed that way.  Or if you are me it is just to get out of the plus size boxy section and into misses sized clothing where they define curves.  I don’t want to even get started on the drastic difference in clothing between misses and plus size because I can talk for days about how designers think plus size needs to be square that is a whole other post.  As well as the fact that women’s section in department stores is actually plus size clothing, they just don’t call it plus size.

I just decided that I was not focusing on me and it was starting to show physically and then I reached back to my highest weight ever in 2012 and knew that it was time to make a change.  I hope to post more about my journey I am on a goal of loosing 100 lbs and when I look at it that way being almost a quarter of the way there it doesn’t seem that big of a goal.