Diet, food, and stuff...

Lately, I've been  posting stuff about what I'm eating on Facebook. I'm thinking here is a little more appropriate. More room to type and such. So, I'm going to try blogging again. We'll see if it lasts a bit longer this time. My plan is to post what I'm having for dinner each week, and also to include any food 'finds' I run across, or just cool little odds and ends that help me stay on track. I'm sure I'll end up throwing in some personal stuff from time to time, as well...


I've been revamping my diet again. I've left Weight Watchers behind and moved on to just counting calories. I credit WW with teaching me about how to eat, and how to make the most of the calories I have. However, since their switch to the Points Plus system, they've just gotten a bit too Big Brother-y for me. I can eat healthy on my own, thank you very much. I don't need you dictating my diet. I don't think spending another point for something that has the exact same nutrients (like plain yogurt vs. fruit flavored) makes sense. I like fruit-flavored yogurt. And if it's the exact same calories, fat, protein, etc. as the plain one, why should I be forced to eat the plain one? And you want me to give up an entire point for 10 calories of sugar-free jelly? Forget it. Buh-bye.

Tonight for dinner, I'm having Grilled Tilapia w/Greek Seasoning, Herbed Millet, and a Wilted Kale & Swiss Chard Salad. Yum! Super flavorful and healthy. And at just under 350 calories, you won't believe the amount of food it comes up to. No going hungry for this girl, and no bland diet of grilled chicken breast and brown rice, either. My food has got to have flavor!

She's baaack!

Yes, I've been a bad, bad blogger. Now I'm feeling the need to blog again. I've got major life-things going on right now, so the desire to write is there again. .

So, I've rejoined Weight Watchers. This is a very positive thing. I most desperately need to lose weight. I look in the mirror (as little as possible) and am disgusted. What the heck happened to me? I've had more than a year off, and I've spent most of it as a total slug, laying around eating crap. I have a treadmill in my bloody living room. Have I used it? Quite obviously not. I recorded some fitness shows on my DVR that are actually half-way fun. They've been sitting there almost a year. Pathetic. So, eating better and exercising starts today. Gentle exercising at first, but still, movement. If I don't get moving now, when I finally start working again, I'm going to be in a world of pain.


Ok. Obsessing about Weight Watchers. Not obsessing about my need for employment. Sure.

Apparently, I AM a drama queen ...

I was in a car accident last week. I was on my way to my book group and this guy didn't stop quickly enough and slammed into me. The damage wasn't horrific, but I did get banged around a bit, and was very shaken up. Too shaken up to make sure that the info the guy gave me was real. That's right, he faked me out. He was being so nice, writing everything down for me, that I didn't think to take pictures with my phone. I just took his info and drove off. No police, nothing. Days later, my insurance company calls me back and lets me know that every piece of info he gave me was either fake, or incomplete and fake. Nice.

Anyway, I tell you this for a reason. I called a friend to tell her the bad news and commiserate, and in an attempt to make me laugh, she started listing all the things she'd learned not to do, based on all the stupid things I've either caused or had happen to me over the last five and a half years. Fortunately, I have a pretty decent sense of humor, and I did laugh. Some of it is actually pretty funny, when you take a step back and look at it. Things like taking out a balcony with a moving truck when I moved last time, or accidentally destroying my toilet, leaving me standing two inches deep in blue toilet water on the bathroom floor at two in the morning.

In the past, I have been accused of being a Drama Queen. I have denied said accusations vehemently. Drama Queens are horrible, selfish people whose entire lives revolve around them, to the exclusion of all else. Or so I thought. I've decided I have to embrace the fact that I am a Drama Queen. My life is too ridiculous to do anything else. Whether I acknowledge it or not, I am surrounded by drama on a fairly regular basis. Drama. I don't even generally create it, it just finds me. Sometimes it's my own, or sometimes it's a friend's that I have been sucked into. Or sometimes, it's a friend's that I have waded into, thinking I could help. Yeah, me, the Drama Queen, thinking I could help. Evidently I don't have enough drama on my own. I need to appropriate other people's drama.

Anyway, with all this drama that seems to follow me wherever I go, I've finally come to the realization that I'm just one of 'those people'. You know the ones. You all have at least one special person somewhere amongst your group of friends that always seems to have something happening to her or him. For my group of friends, I am that person. I'm not even going to try to be one of the normal friends anymore. Bring on the Drama. At this point, if it went away, I wouldn't know what to do anyway.

Let me close with this thought: Be kind to your drama-prone friend. And be glad it isn't you.

So I guess I'm still something of a cynic ...

Its been about a month since I blogged. Nothing had really moved me to write, and then I had an experience last week. I won't write about the experience itself, but rather something interesting that came out of it.

Part of the experience involved dealing with a man who was rather rude, and he really shouldn't have been. He actually had a good friend of mine in tears, and this bothered me a lot more than I would have thought. I ignored his behavior towards me (he was rude to both of us), but got upset at his behavior towards her. She is young and sweet and a bit naive, but it's a charming naivete (not the kind that makes you want to smack sense into her). A friend of mine expressed it as 'kicking a puppy'. Her response to the man's rudeness made me feel very cynical. She was having a hard time accepting that this man would treat people this way, while I had no problem believing that someone in a 'position of responsibility' would act in such a fashion.
At first, I gave serious consideration to disabusing her of the notion that men in these 'positions of responsibility' wouldn't normally behave like he did, and that must have been an isolated incident. My friend was already making excuses for him as we were pulling out of the driveway, and was seriously worried that people were about to get in trouble due to our accidental disclosure of upcoming events. As I opened my mouth to speak however, something stopped me from sharing some of my many experiences with her. I found myself loath to further shatter the illusions she was still cherishing.

I have noticed since I moved out here that there are some people that I 'pull my punches' with, so to speak. When I am around these gentle souls, instead of saying it like it is no matter how bad it is, I tend to sugar-coat or even omit entirely things I would normally say. I have a strong protective instinct towards those I have accepted as 'friends', and apparently this even extends to protecting them from me. Although I still know 'the truth', I no longer feel that I'm helping them by forcing them to trade their warm and fuzzy view for my colder, more cynical one. I may expect the worst from people, but that doesn't mean they have to.

I recently got back in touch with an old friend from Illinois that I hadn't talked to in about ten years. In the course of our discussion, I told her that I had mellowed. I was still the same person, but a somewhat kinder and more gentle version. I realized as I said it that it really was the truth. Although I know some people in my life right now might contest the 'kind and gentle' label, compared to how I was back in Illinois I'm much changed. Sometimes I wish I could take people from here back there to show them the difference. When I look at things now, I know I'm still somewhat cynical, but at least I've learned over the years to temper the cynicism...

The should-loop ...

I have a friend dealing with writer's block. He's an excellent writer (at least in my opinion), but he's having issues getting himself going. He also struggles with adult ADD, so that doesn't help either. His latest blog is, in fact, about how he's struggling with writer's block and the vicious circle that creates, with the inability to write feeding into the lack of self-confidence, and the lack of self-confidence feeding into the inability to write. I sympathize with his feelings, as I get mired in the same track myself. 'I should be able to do this by now, but I can't. I must be stupid/lazy/inept/worthless. Now I feel like crap about myself. Why even try to do anything, since I'm not able to do what I should be doing?' When I read his blog, I was compelled to share with him the same thing I've told another friend struggling to learn a foreign language: 'Baby steps.' I told him to stop focusing on what he should be doing, and focus on what he can do. This would help keep him from getting stuck in the self-confidence-sucking should-loop.

After I sent the comment in I started to wonder: Why can I say this to my friends, but when it comes to myself, it doesn't apply? Why are we our own worst critics? I jokingly refer to myself as my friend's French cheerleader. When she gets discouraged and starts talking about how she's 'not getting it' and wants to quit, I am quick to point out how much progress she has actually made. I make her admit all the things she can do now that she couldn't when she started learning the language. I hold up examples of people who haven't made half the progress she has, and are still slogging along, doggedly memorizing things by rote, unable to have even a rudimentary conversation. She generally at least stops threatening to quit, which usually leads to her wanting to start working on the language again. Why can't I do that for myself? Why do I let myself get stuck in the should-loop?

My conclusion is that anyone who has self-esteem issues just isn't equipped to deal with the should-loop. You're too busy beating yourself up to stop and think about what you're doing right. This requires an outside source to say 'Hey, knock it off! You're not stupid/lazy/inept/worthless, you're just having a hard time right now. Look at all this good stuff you've done. You'll get through this, just take it a little bit at a time.' The trick is finding this outside source. Anyone wanna volunteer to be mine? ... Yeah, I didn't think so. I'll keep looking ...

L.A.'s fine, but it ain't home ...

Ok, L.A. isn't really fine, but I couldn't resist the song-lyric quote. Five points if you can tell me what song it's from ...

I actually had a pretty good trip, considering. I ended up being able to attend the French Assembly through the generosity and thoughtfulness of a couple of friends of mine. I have to admit I was a little unsure of how the trip would go. It's always different when you travel with people, and when it's people you haven't traveled with before, you never quite know what's going to happen. I think overall, the trip went pretty well. I managed to keep my foot out of my mouth for the most part, and had a couple of really fun evenings as well.

The Assembly was very good. I was ready on time both days, and I'm betting that surprised my car-group. I know most people assume that I will be the one that makes the group late because of my tendancy toward high-maintenence, but by now I know about how long it will take me and get up early enough to get it all done. I managed to understand quite a bit of most of the talks, and came away with multiple things I need to work on, as usual. Now to see if I can break the pattern of deciding I need to begin doing something and pretty much immediately forgetting about it when I get home. I always sit there with the best of intentions, saying "Ok, I'm going to start _____" and then I get home, get caught back up in my life, and don't do whatever it is. I guess we all know where the road goes that's paved with the best of intentions, don't we ...

I really enjoyed both the gathering for us travelling Frenchies, and the night out at the Tapas restaurant. I shouldn't have spent what I did on dinner Saturday, but I really wanted to go out with our little group and have just a bit of fun without counting every single cent. I figured since I hadn't really spent any money on dinner the night before, I'd just spend what it would have cost me for both nights all at once. I even let myself have some Starbucks on the way home Sunday since I hadn't exceeded the budget I'd set for myself. It's really the little things that make such a difference. It was so nice to be out with people, having a great time and not stressing about all my junk going on here in Sac-town.

Now, back to all my junk going on here in Sac-town. Yuck.

Queen of the wafflers ...

Sometimes, I have a hard time making decisions. Or I guess I should say making decisions and sticking to them. I will make a decision and then fret and pick at it, sometimes completely reversing myself. I had an excellent example this last week.

I've known for a couple months that our new C.O. & his wife are people I knew many years ago when I was a child. I was very excited about seeing them again, and so was my friend Brad. We had even cooked up a little plan to extract the maximum amount of fun out of reintroducing ourselves to them. However, a week before we're due to see them, I started thinking. What do you do when you see someone again after years and years? You catch up on their life, what's happened, what they're doing now. Well let's face it, my life right now sucks. I'm seventy-five pounds overweight, still single, and have been unemployed for six months. I don't want to talk about my life with people. So, I decided I wasn't going to go up and reintroduce myself to them after all. Maybe by the time they visit my congregation, I'd have a job and have lost at least a little weight.

The day arrives, and I'm still convinced that I don't want to go say hello. However, by now half the congregation knows that I know our new C.O., and are surprised that I'm not seeking them out. All day I have people asking me if I've said hello yet, and shaking their heads when I say 'No, I'm not going to here.' Wes & Donna are interviewed after lunch, providing some nostalgia and I start to waffle. Yes, I'll go say hello after all. No, I won't. Yes, I will. No, I won't. I'll see them when they come to our Hall. But they'll wonder why I didn't come say hello at the Assembly. On and on. Finally, during the very last talk, I make the decision 'Yes, I'm going to go say hi'. Roz even makes it easier by wanting to go say hello to the visiting couple from Brooklyn, leaving me time to say hello to Wes & Donna without feeling like she's just standing there waiting on me.

I'm so glad I said hello. It was fun and wonderful. Neither of them recognized me, but when I told them who I was they remembered me instantly. They were so excited and happy to see me again, all grown up. Donna even said I was beautiful. I didn't even have to talk about my life except to tell them I lived out here now and am in the French. All that mental spazzing for nothing. I may even put aside my C.O. phobia and ask to work with them or feed them when they're here. Hopefully by then things will have improved enough that I won't go through the same round of mental aerobics I did this first time. However, I can't guarantee that. I still talk myself out of giving answers at the French meetings, and that's less pressure. That's a subject for another ramble, though.