It was the best of blogs, it was the blurst of blogs...

To answer the question of the only person who ever reads my page (Gosh darn it, I love you, Amanda!)

Why do you blog?
Give five answers for why I blog?

1. I love to write. When I was in third grade, I wrote what was probably the worst thing to ever see a printed page, but it was 27 pages long and included a whiz kid computer and four pages naming everyone in my class and where they sat in relation to each other. When I was in seventh grade, I wrote a 97 page and unfinished science fiction epic, detailing the misadventures of a scientist, Dr. Boxooker and his faithful assistant, Edward (to be played by Keanu Reeves when made into a movie.) I was the first female in my middle school to make the newspaper staff in 6th-8th grade, ending my career as an editor and did an encore performance in high school where my school paper won several prestigious and state-level awards while I was Editor-In-Chief. Half way to a degree in journalism, I realized I would never be happy detailing the drunken adventures of Paris Hilton or the local 4H's risky idea for fundraising involving barn animals.... I was left without an outlet.
2. I write as a way to laugh at the things that would otherwise upset me or make me angry. A lot of people think that I'm complaining, but I love to find the humor in it and hope that others can enjoy things from this perspective as well.
3. I sat down to sketch a design the other day and realized my finely tuned drawing hand was leaning the way of stick figures and scribbles again-- rusty from misuse... or unuse. I feel my grammar and language may be slipping in the same direction. I was smartest when I made the time to read for fun. Use it or lose it.
4. I love to make people laugh. You may never know this about me if you don't get to know me as I tend to be quiet, but writing is my secret confidence. I have received, and am thankful for, much support for what I write. It makes me happy to think that I made someone smile at some point in the day.
5. As of late, I am writing more about my flaws and faults. Its not as interesting as writing about the man dressed as a cow running down the road that I happened to see today, but its important. I have a hard time letting go of my pride to put in black and white the reasons why I struggle where I do in life, so this blog is more private. Few people were invited to read it and fewer do-- therefore the people who read it, I either trust enough to be myself or are strangers. Its theraputic to be so thankful for the gifts and blessings I have been given in life that it makes me want to try harder to be a better person. Seeing where I fail in my goals and dreams written down will hopefully bring me close to succeeding the next time around.

Thanks for reading!

Aortic Massacre

Have you ever seen the movie Kill Bill? Imagine the most gory, gruesome, brutal scene and that's how any part of my body striving for health and well-being was brought to an untimely death. Capillaries carrying anti-oxidants, vitamins, and minerals had their heads violently lobbed off by three cheese pasta given free reign while I slept and held the endorphins at bay. Why would anyone release such an attack on their body? Why would anyone want to make themselves a victim and treat the very vessels that carry us from place to place, day to day, making life worth living, as if it was a flesh colored hefty bag of crap?
I haven't figured out the answer to that question. Maybe that's why Lindsay Lohan is a cutter and Johny Knoxville plays with poisonous snakes.
I had a pretty good week of walking a mile during my lunches, swimming laps or walking on the treadmill and eating fairly decent food. By the time the weekend rolled around, I was actually feeling pretty good. The slip up started slowly and I'm not sure which is sitting heavier on my heart right now, the guilt, or the glut.
I had known Friday was going to be a "free day" of sorts for me as that is the day that we officially ran out of all edible food in our apartment so it would become dinner and a movie night.
I could have left it at that.

It started when I didn't eat the cereal I had measured and packed for my lunch. Instead, I went out to Chik-Fil-A to celebrate the end of a photo shoot in which I walked back and forth with a clothing rack. The shoot was a blast and lunch was fun. It wasn't completely horrible that I did that. I could have done better elsewhere, but when dinner rolled around, I was "gnaw off my own arm" starving. We arrived at Roadhouse and my recent love of peanuts was satiated, but then we also got an appetizer... loaded with cheese. My meal of choice? The Rattlesnake Pasta, a certain creamy death with a dash of jalapeno spice. It was excellent, of course, but we still got a large soda and popcorn at the movie theater. In my defense, we didn't really eat any popcorn. Still.The plan was that the next day, we would replenish our fridge and I would cook a meal that didn't land quite as close to an early grave. After taking the dogs to the dog park, making a lunch of soup and grilled cheese sandwiches (are we seeing a trend here?) we ended up doing a whole lot of shopping that had nothing to do with groceries. SO. Pizza for dinner. In a vane attempt to not be a glutton, I got a thin crust mushroom pizza- small. But I polished that off with a few buffalo wings.

My only saving grace for Saturday was my dedication to going to the gym. I spent 35 minutes swimming laps and an hour on the treadmill- burning over 500 calories and obliterating my fried cheese lunch sandwich and soup. I ended up feeling that Saturday had actually been fairly successful...

Sunday, bloody Sunday. If I could just go back to that morning and redo the mess that I made, I would be so happy. First of all, I didn't work out at all. We didn't even take the dogs to the park. We got up and both polished off the remaining pizza, which we didn't even enjoy to begin with, and headed out for more shopping. We finally had food and supplies and all the other things we had been needing for way too long now and after a late night Saturday, we got in fairly late Sunday. We swung by the Wendy's that's practically an extension of our apartment on the way home. That alone was all I really needed to eat for the rest of the night.... but we ended up going out to "dinner" (squared?) at Applebees around 10:15 at night. I haven' t been to an Applebees in a long time and I wasn't sure what I wanted, but the waitress was ready to take our order so I spit out the first thing that I would have chosen if I didn't need to worry about my food slowly killing me and sucking out my will to live--
Wait--would have chosen? That's what I did choose.
Sigh.
Then I went to bed.

I started my week this week no better. I actually thought that I wasn't doing too bad. I got up earlier than usual. Not early enough to work out, but early enough not to go to work looking completely haggard. I walked a mile at lunch-- but I didn't eat my cereal. I waited too long to eat and was too hungry so I went to Subway.
I entered all of my dinner information into the computer to calculate how much I needed to eat to save myself from that mistake. But I just ate whatever I wanted from our tostada platter, anyway. I polished off almost two small bags of cookies while answering emails and writing to friends and ate way too much of the bad stuff (aka sour cream) during dinner. I topped the night off by skipping the gym and watching "Hell's Kitchen" on the Food Network. Seems fitting somehow, doesn't it? I told myself that at least I would do better tomorrow. I would go to bed earlier, get up earlier-- tomorrow is fresh with no mistakes in it...
Except now its 10:53 and I won't be making it into bed until 11:30.

Oh heart and arteries, I am so sorry. Veins and bones and organs, forgive me! I need to stop the madness. I'm not in school anymore, I'm not working two jobs-- and even those were shabby excuses for not allowing myself to live healthy and enjoy the fruits of what I worked so hard to achieve.

I suppose all we can do is try harder tomorrow and thank God if its not too late.
Sombering thought.

Don't Quit Now, I Still Need You!

My feet have put in their two weeks notice. How sad is it that your feet decide that they will no longer support your body weight? I have noticed for the past two days that when I get up, my feet have hurt like crazy-- and it wasn't from walking the earthy terrain with one shoe. I don't know what it is. Then, when I got up from my desk today, the stiffness was back. It was like my feet simply couldn't bear the thought of hauling my fat ass into the breakroom for some water. They probably thought I was going for some pie or something. Anyway, I figure that once again, its time to reaffirm my commitment to a healthier lifestyle. Hooray for small steps. I haven't had any fast food in a pretty long time. That is my biggest down fall. I have made myself cook each night, no matter how tired I was or how my feet protested. Infact, even tonight, after arriving home at 7pm (it was raining so that triples my commute time.) I managed to whip up something I like to call Sloppy Joes. Sure, its garbage in a can, but its actually not too bad for you. I had wheat hamburger buns and since they don't taste good- one is plenty satisfying!
I returned to the gym today for my half hour swimming, concentrating more on my legs than usual, and a few minutes in the sauna always makes me happy. The gym sauna is so much different than the sweat sauna I get from my 20 minute walks at lunch.
This sounds all fine and good, but the reason my feet have decided to retire early would probably be the brownie I shoved in my mouth this morning for breakfast. I have to eat something to take the rest of my kidney meds, but I'm not sure brownies are it. I also did an encore presentation of the brownie gorging while the sloppy crap was cooking since I was damn starving. I was picking at them, but if I had to guess, I would say I polished off about two and a half of those suckers. So I've won no victories. I wonder if its too late to convince my feet that it will be worth it to stick around. I really don't want to be a motorized cart troll.

At What Point do you Say, "Hey... Somethin's Missin'"

Does anyone else notice that there seems to be an abundance of mateless shoes discarded along the road? I find them all the time. I first noticed this when I was going to Michigan State and thought to myself, "I can probably haul my bike up three floors of stairs on my own." During one of my many breaks, I noticed that someone had lost a shoe, right there in the stairwell on the second floor. I didn't really think much of it because, well, it was MSU and we had the riots just around the corner at Cedar Village anyway. Seeing weird shit was pretty normal. Now that I live in Florida, I still continue to see soulmateless shoes pretty often. Today there was actually a pair of white strappy sandals on I-4. I find sneakers, boots, etc. I wonder if this is some kind of sign from God and I should start trying to analyze its deeper meaning or whether people are retarded and just lose freaking shoes.

I think I would notice if my shoe came off.

Just wow. "AH DANG! My footsa hurtin' somethin' fierce. Now whare in Tarnation is my right kicks?"

OH THAT'S RIGHT. I LEFT IT ON THE CORNER OF MAIN AND SUMMIT.

What the hell, people. There are shoeless people in Africa who would kill to pay better attention to their orthapedic belongings.

In other news. I didn't swim today. As far as food goes, so far I have eaten pretty good, but I was bored so I made brownies and I know I'll eat one. If I wasn't so damn tired today, I would like to believe that I would have worked out. I did walk for 20 minutes at work and since it was about 90 degrees out and I was wearing jeans and two shirts, I consider that to be a workout in its own right. I felt pretty bad about the probability that I didn't smell very good after lunch, but there's always tomorrow to make more friends.