So working 2 jobs and staying fairly busy I have done the online dating thing. I've done both Eharmony and Match and met guys both ways. Eharmony is more intense and more expensive and I used match for when I just needed a distraction. The only serious relationship I had off match was in 2002 and it ended badly. My brother met his fiance on match so for some it works and for others not so much.
I work part time at a restaurant and right now there are 3 single ladies of varying ages who are currently on Match. The stories that they have are super entertaining. Online dating in Charlotte is a very small world and you can actually compare notes on the guys because, for example, crazy Matt contacted one of my coworkers. I happened to see his name in her match email and I was like "insert name here that is crazy Matt that I've told you about. Stay away stay far far away. She laughed, she's had her share of crazy since signing on in the fall. She had one guy who was bipolar and unbelievably clingy threaten suicide b/c she broke up with him. When he called her to tell her she told him that he needed to go to the hospital and not contact her anymore. She knew he wouldn't and that it was just an idle threat.
Then there's another coworker who was talking to this guy and he totally fed her the line of falling head over heels and marriage only to 180 on her and cut off all communication, shortly after he contacted my other coworker who simply deleted the email b/c he was way too cocky for her taste.
The coworker who deleted the guys email had a date on Valentines weekend to a really nice steakhouse in the city. She got all dolled up, whole 9, nice black pants, cute top, fabulous shoes, etc etc etc only to have him not come to her door to pick her up but sit in the car, he had on dirty sneakers, jeans and a wrinkled polo shirt, I mean REALLY you're taking this girl to a fancy dinner and you can't iron a shirt and put on clean shoes??? She said she tried really hard to be nice to him through dinner and when he called asking for the second date she was nice to him but told him that she wasn't "ready" to date yet.
Then there are the success stories. I have another coworker who was on and met her guy and now they are very happy. So it's not all bad and in the interim it provides endless entertainment for the rest of us to hear the stories.
Friday, February 26, 2010
conversation
This post is super long but it’s something I need to write. It's not an easy topic to deal with but I know that when I bring it out in the open and force it into the light it then forces me to own up to my behavior and deal with it head on once more.
I've been pretty upset over the past few weeks at my rapid weight gain. I've been taking stock of my exercise habits and calories and I know that part of it is the fact I've been eating too late and too much sugar. There is another part that is much uglier.
In order to keep my calories within range I've fallen back into old habits. For me this is something that started in college the summer before my senior year. I love food, all kinds of food and growing up we always had so much food. Any family gathering was an overwhelming array of snacks and food and more food. My grandparents would rent a house at the beach for a week in the summer. For more years than I can count we would have huge breakfast, huge lunches and huge dinners. Finally just a few years ago they started just doing the big breakfasts and big lunches but it was still always a lot. I'll miss the beach house this year but I digress.
So growing up and having so much food I was chunky, heavy, obese. In high school I was a, “binge eater”, meaning I would control what I ate all day long and then I would get home and eat everything in sight. My senior year of high school I was babysitting my cousin after school so I could eat a ton of junk food and then tell my mom at dinner that I had already eaten. When I travelled that summer after senior year of high school I was able to really control how much I ate and I could eat as little as possible. Without my mom there to watch it was a taste of the freedom that was coming with college.
Freshman year of college I gained weight, I don’t know how much I didn’t have a scale back then. I would try to not eat but then I would get so hungry and at App you could use your mean card in the vending machines so I drank A LOT of sodas and ate a lot of junk food. Not the bad for you kind of junk food but I’ve already mentioned I’ve a thing for sugar. Instead of eating a meal I would eat candy.
Sophomore year the diet and caffeine pills started. I had a roommate who would go through my drawers and throw it out but I would find this out years later. Still I was drinking soda and eating sugar so I didn’t gain but I didn’t lose either. I just didn’t have a grasp of what soda and sugar does to your body.
Junior year second semester I had the unique opportunity of being a model in a bridal show. Donna needed models of all sizes and my friend PMG told Donna she had a friend who would be perfect. I loved it, I had SO MUCH FUN! I’ve always loved fancy dresses and wedding gowns and dressing up. After the show I went back to Donna and asked if she was hiring. She let me come work for her and it was the best job I’ve ever had. If I could afford it I would go back and work for free just to be in Boone working with Donna. Again I digress. Because of this job I stayed in Boone over spring break and then I needed to find a way to stay up there over the summer so I could keep my job at the store. I found out about a conference assistance position that provided a free dorm room. I landed the job and I was SO HAPPY!!! I was able to work at the store during the day and then I did hours at night as a conference assistant. The memories I have of that summer are still some of my favorite it was just incredible. Donna had another opening at the store and I got my roommate a job there as well. She was subletting an apartment over that summer so she and I would hang out some. My friend PMG was taking summer classes so she and I were hitting the gym together. Then I got mono. My little brother had to drive to Boone to pick me up and take me back to Charlotte (I still didn’t have a drivers license or car at this point and yes I was almost 20). Because of the mono I lost weight but then my mom force fed me and I gained it all back and probably then some. It was after I returned from being sick that the bingeing behavior changed. I had heard about purging. What girl who was in high school hadn’t heard of this? Instead of starving yourself you would eat whatever you wanted and then you would either throw up or take laxatives or exercise or some would probably do all 3. For me I had tried once or twice in high school to throw up but I couldn’t, I just didn’t have a gag reflex. The idea of laxatives was not something I considered b/c to me I didn’t want the issues that I’d heard came with that (yes I know this is not rational but it’s being honest). I would already exercise a lot. When we would take the afore mentioned beach trips I would spend hours and hours walking on the beach to try and walk off the ridiculous amount of calories being consumed. So this particular afternoon I didn’t give up and I was successful in purging the Chinese food meal I had eaten. I loved Chinese food but I always felt guilty for eating it b/c it’s so bad for you. I now had my answer I didn’t have to starve myself anymore I could now eat whatever I wanted and there would be no consequences…
Except this isn’t exactly the case there are some foods that are easier than others. I had a case of heartburn so bad one day during my senior year that I thought I was having a heart attack. They did an EKG at the infirmary and told me I needed to avoid spicy foods. I had used spices or Texas Pete or Tabasco sauce on everything under the misconception that this burned more calories. Now I only use it when I want to and because I like the flavor but again I digress.
I will not share all the details because it’s humiliating and gross. Bulimics don’t want to talk about it because the realities of it are so unbelievably disgusting. In the early stages I thought I had my get out of jail free card. I could eat and eat and then throw up and then eat some more. I had a meal card which gave me access to lots of food and my roommate was leaving every weekend which meant that I would have whole weekends where I had the room to myself. The thing about community bathrooms was you didn’t want to use those. This was all taking place in the privacy of my dorm room. I figured out what did and didn’t work and I was still taking diet and caffeine pills and drinking, oh I was SO healthy…
My mom figured it out when I was home senior year over the holidays. We’d eaten pizza and I was dumb and ate too much and then immediately went to the bathroom and she came back banging on the door and made me promise to stop and I did and that was the end of it. Except it wasn’t and I think my Mom, like most parents, just didn’t know what to do so she decided to believe me.
I moved back to Charlotte and in with my parents. I was living with them from August 01 until September 02 and then I moved into a cute little house where my friend Amy let me pay her $300 a month for rent. This was when I went on the soup diet mentioned in a previous post. In addition to the soup diet when I would get really hungry I would eat and then throw up.
I had to move back in with my parents in June 03 and I lived there until May 05. During this time I continued my restrictive eating, bingeing/purging and also discovered prescription diet pills. Adding exercise into the mix I was thin, but September of 06 I started dating the guy with the little girl.
From our 2nd date we pretty much became inseparable. I lived down there and we did everything together. We had the little girl every weekend and initially I wasn’t binging and purging but the stress levels started to rise and with that I reverted back to what I knew best. He told me up front that he didn’t want to get married again, looking back I vividly remember the conversation that we have. The reason I didn’t just walk away, because he said something that made me believe he might just change his mind and I was already head over heels for the little girl. He went thru shoulder surgery and I was there. He was going through the custody battle and I was there. I was helping to heal hurts between he and his family that his first wife had caused. He gave me a card on valentines saying he wanted to spend his future with me. I took it to mean a proposal was soon to come but I was wrong. He wasn’t even divorced yet. Valentines Day I had an appointment with a therapist to discuss what was going on with him and his wife and me and his daughter and all of it. I was so scared she would look at me and call me out on my eating disorder but she didn’t. What she did tell me is that she couldn’t really help me because she knew that I knew that our living situation was wrong and that he wasn’t even divorced and that meant he was still married and I needed to move out of his house. It would take another month before I would move back into my own house. Our relationship wasn’t strong to begin with and there were all kinds of things that looking back I see that I didn’t see while it was happening. Bottom line he was not the guy I needed to spend the rest of my life with. I’m not going to go into all the reasons why I’ve probably already covered them in previous post. He always said that I wasn’t “open” enough with him. Which ironically I actually heard this from another guy that I dated last spring. I wasn’t “open” enough and I didn’t “share” or whatever. I’ve come to realize that this is just them not understanding how I communicate. Neither one of them accepted me for who I was anyways, or if they did I never felt that way. The biggest skeleton in the closet between this guy with the little girl and I was the fact that I was throwing up all the time. He was critical of how I worked out, he was critical of the fact that I didn’t eat correctly, he was in general critical of everything and there at the end I felt I couldn’t do anything right.
When he and I broke up it made me evaluate who I was and where I stood and I finally sought treatment for the eating disorder. I went to a lady who works for a church’s counseling center here in Charlotte. It might have just been me but I felt like we weren’t really getting anywhere. She asked me in one session why I didn’t like myself. I’ve since come to realize that the reality is I literally hate myself some days and I can’t explain why. When my Granddaddy passed away in April 2008 I quit going. I was running out of money and I just wasn’t really getting anything out of it so I cancelled my appointment and said I would reschedule and I never did it was a lot of money to pay for something I didn’t feel was helping.
Last year I took Bible classes because a friend had gone through the same classes and had an amazing story of being delivered from her eating disorder entirely. I took the classes, thought they were awesome, but old habits don’t disappear. I was stressed; I no longer just used this behavior as a weight control method but also to help when I was feeling overwhelmed or upset. I don’t know when the change happened, I can’t pinpoint the exact moment it went from being something I did just so I could eat whatever I wanted to something that had a grip on me and the best of intentions to stop I would still find myself back in the same place again and again.
When I started running last year I loved the fact that the weight was coming off. It was wonderful to feel good about myself and what I was accomplishing. When the relationship ended between the guy I dated last spring it was actually a good thing, he had body issues of his own and made me feel worse about myself. Then I started dating RS and he wanted me to gain weight. There was no way I was going to voluntarily gain weight when I liked how I looked. Once that relationship ended my 10K was right around the corner. I ran that race and started training for my 15K. I would have expected to lose more weight but that didn’t happen. Instead I started gaining weight. The bright spot in all of this is the fact that I met S. At the end of my 15K he introduces himself to me. So part of the reason I started gaining is because we were eating late and I was eating and I thought that as long as we were running 3 miles before dinner I could still eat and it would be ok. Then when I noticed I was gaining I reverted back to the habit of throwing up. I would be starving so I would eat and then I would excuse myself and throw up. If you don’t know then it’s really easy for me to get away with this behavior. When I’m with my parents I have to be way more careful b/c my mom has suspicions and keeps asking me if I’m “staying healthy”. With S because it’s all new he had no reason to suspect anything and I could get away with what I was doing.
The thing about this behavior is that it takes control. You start to plan how you will binge and what you will have and then it makes controlling the food during the day that much easier because you know you will eat enough to feel better and then throw it all up again and then go exercise. Having a roommate who is usually gone helps me to get away with this behavior. But when I really got honest with myself part of the reason why I’ve gained the weight is because of this behavior. Bulimics are not always super skinny in fact sometimes it even causes you to gain weight. For the past few weeks it’s really been spiraling out of control and I have been aware I need to confront this again. It’s so scary when I have to admit what’s going on because I hate having to acknowledge that I’m failing. I can’t control my weight and what I’m doing to control my weight is causing me to gain weight and I need to be honest and really face what it happening. I can’t afford to go see a therapist and I don’t feel like that’s effective anyways. But being honest and admitting what is going on means I’m again accountable. That was the first thing the therapist made me do 2 years ago is appoint an accountability person that I was supposed to call when I felt overwhelmed or felt like I needed to engage in the behavior.
Yesterday I was flipping through various articles and I came across an article on momlogic.com where I lady wrote about being in a target bathroom and hearing the unmistakable sound of a girl throwing up and thinking about how she’s been there and stopping and considering saying something to the girl or saying something to the mom waiting outside and then not saying anything because the girl would just think she was weird and the mom would just be defensive and she was right. She talked about how she finally sought treatment because she finally acknowledged that her behavior was going to kill her. I don’t know why yesterday that light bulb finally went off in my own head but I finally acknowledged that what has been going on will kill me. It will also rot my teeth, and may cause esophagus problems and acid reflux and jaw problems. The list goes on and on. I did a little research yesterday on self treatment and I plan to do more research. The biggest thing I had to do was confess to my sweet S the reason why I’ve really gained the weight. I had to risk my relationship with the greatest guy I’ve ever dated and really be honest. I’ve told previous boyfriends but to me it’s not really mattered if they knew or not. I didn’t really care what they thought as usually I had either already broken up with them or I knew they didn’t really care that much about me etc… But with S it’s different. He’s different. I know that despite the fact that we haven’t said it to each other I love him. I want and need to get healthy first for myself but also because he deserves to have someone who loves herself enough that she’s willing to be honest and face up to the fact that she needs to deal with this pattern. Because he and I spend so much time together he needs to be aware of what my triggers are and know that when I’m going to the bathroom I’m accountable and if I come back out and I look funny or I have tooth marks in my hand I need to be called out for it. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in a vicious circle. I don’t want to have my teeth fall out. I don’t want to have permanent scars on my hands. I want to be healthy and happy. I write out of honesty. I know I have friends who read this blog who will hold me accountable and call me out and follow up with me on what is going on.
It’s time for me to start fighting again and take back the control but I don’t do this on my own. One of my favorite songs was playing last night as I was driving into S’s neighborhood about to confess everything. It’s the song “At the cross” and it has a line at the cross I lay everything, draw me gently to my knees, sweetly broken, sweetly surrendered,” I may not have the words exactly correct but I start this journey all over again I know that God has made each of us in His image. I know that He loves and accepts us just as we are. I know that He has a purpose and a plan. I know that I have to face this and be honest.
I know that God brought S into my life for a reason. He’s the first guy I’ve dated to accept me completely for me. When I told him and then told him it was ok if he wanted to break up with me he just pulled me into his arms and told me he just wants me to be healthy and happy and that I’m beautiful. Even if things don’t work out with S I’m thankful that he’s a part of my life now. He’s awesome and I can completely be myself and be honest and I know that he doesn’t think any less of me even knowing this disgusting secret that is no longer a secret.
I've been pretty upset over the past few weeks at my rapid weight gain. I've been taking stock of my exercise habits and calories and I know that part of it is the fact I've been eating too late and too much sugar. There is another part that is much uglier.
In order to keep my calories within range I've fallen back into old habits. For me this is something that started in college the summer before my senior year. I love food, all kinds of food and growing up we always had so much food. Any family gathering was an overwhelming array of snacks and food and more food. My grandparents would rent a house at the beach for a week in the summer. For more years than I can count we would have huge breakfast, huge lunches and huge dinners. Finally just a few years ago they started just doing the big breakfasts and big lunches but it was still always a lot. I'll miss the beach house this year but I digress.
So growing up and having so much food I was chunky, heavy, obese. In high school I was a, “binge eater”, meaning I would control what I ate all day long and then I would get home and eat everything in sight. My senior year of high school I was babysitting my cousin after school so I could eat a ton of junk food and then tell my mom at dinner that I had already eaten. When I travelled that summer after senior year of high school I was able to really control how much I ate and I could eat as little as possible. Without my mom there to watch it was a taste of the freedom that was coming with college.
Freshman year of college I gained weight, I don’t know how much I didn’t have a scale back then. I would try to not eat but then I would get so hungry and at App you could use your mean card in the vending machines so I drank A LOT of sodas and ate a lot of junk food. Not the bad for you kind of junk food but I’ve already mentioned I’ve a thing for sugar. Instead of eating a meal I would eat candy.
Sophomore year the diet and caffeine pills started. I had a roommate who would go through my drawers and throw it out but I would find this out years later. Still I was drinking soda and eating sugar so I didn’t gain but I didn’t lose either. I just didn’t have a grasp of what soda and sugar does to your body.
Junior year second semester I had the unique opportunity of being a model in a bridal show. Donna needed models of all sizes and my friend PMG told Donna she had a friend who would be perfect. I loved it, I had SO MUCH FUN! I’ve always loved fancy dresses and wedding gowns and dressing up. After the show I went back to Donna and asked if she was hiring. She let me come work for her and it was the best job I’ve ever had. If I could afford it I would go back and work for free just to be in Boone working with Donna. Again I digress. Because of this job I stayed in Boone over spring break and then I needed to find a way to stay up there over the summer so I could keep my job at the store. I found out about a conference assistance position that provided a free dorm room. I landed the job and I was SO HAPPY!!! I was able to work at the store during the day and then I did hours at night as a conference assistant. The memories I have of that summer are still some of my favorite it was just incredible. Donna had another opening at the store and I got my roommate a job there as well. She was subletting an apartment over that summer so she and I would hang out some. My friend PMG was taking summer classes so she and I were hitting the gym together. Then I got mono. My little brother had to drive to Boone to pick me up and take me back to Charlotte (I still didn’t have a drivers license or car at this point and yes I was almost 20). Because of the mono I lost weight but then my mom force fed me and I gained it all back and probably then some. It was after I returned from being sick that the bingeing behavior changed. I had heard about purging. What girl who was in high school hadn’t heard of this? Instead of starving yourself you would eat whatever you wanted and then you would either throw up or take laxatives or exercise or some would probably do all 3. For me I had tried once or twice in high school to throw up but I couldn’t, I just didn’t have a gag reflex. The idea of laxatives was not something I considered b/c to me I didn’t want the issues that I’d heard came with that (yes I know this is not rational but it’s being honest). I would already exercise a lot. When we would take the afore mentioned beach trips I would spend hours and hours walking on the beach to try and walk off the ridiculous amount of calories being consumed. So this particular afternoon I didn’t give up and I was successful in purging the Chinese food meal I had eaten. I loved Chinese food but I always felt guilty for eating it b/c it’s so bad for you. I now had my answer I didn’t have to starve myself anymore I could now eat whatever I wanted and there would be no consequences…
Except this isn’t exactly the case there are some foods that are easier than others. I had a case of heartburn so bad one day during my senior year that I thought I was having a heart attack. They did an EKG at the infirmary and told me I needed to avoid spicy foods. I had used spices or Texas Pete or Tabasco sauce on everything under the misconception that this burned more calories. Now I only use it when I want to and because I like the flavor but again I digress.
I will not share all the details because it’s humiliating and gross. Bulimics don’t want to talk about it because the realities of it are so unbelievably disgusting. In the early stages I thought I had my get out of jail free card. I could eat and eat and then throw up and then eat some more. I had a meal card which gave me access to lots of food and my roommate was leaving every weekend which meant that I would have whole weekends where I had the room to myself. The thing about community bathrooms was you didn’t want to use those. This was all taking place in the privacy of my dorm room. I figured out what did and didn’t work and I was still taking diet and caffeine pills and drinking, oh I was SO healthy…
My mom figured it out when I was home senior year over the holidays. We’d eaten pizza and I was dumb and ate too much and then immediately went to the bathroom and she came back banging on the door and made me promise to stop and I did and that was the end of it. Except it wasn’t and I think my Mom, like most parents, just didn’t know what to do so she decided to believe me.
I moved back to Charlotte and in with my parents. I was living with them from August 01 until September 02 and then I moved into a cute little house where my friend Amy let me pay her $300 a month for rent. This was when I went on the soup diet mentioned in a previous post. In addition to the soup diet when I would get really hungry I would eat and then throw up.
I had to move back in with my parents in June 03 and I lived there until May 05. During this time I continued my restrictive eating, bingeing/purging and also discovered prescription diet pills. Adding exercise into the mix I was thin, but September of 06 I started dating the guy with the little girl.
From our 2nd date we pretty much became inseparable. I lived down there and we did everything together. We had the little girl every weekend and initially I wasn’t binging and purging but the stress levels started to rise and with that I reverted back to what I knew best. He told me up front that he didn’t want to get married again, looking back I vividly remember the conversation that we have. The reason I didn’t just walk away, because he said something that made me believe he might just change his mind and I was already head over heels for the little girl. He went thru shoulder surgery and I was there. He was going through the custody battle and I was there. I was helping to heal hurts between he and his family that his first wife had caused. He gave me a card on valentines saying he wanted to spend his future with me. I took it to mean a proposal was soon to come but I was wrong. He wasn’t even divorced yet. Valentines Day I had an appointment with a therapist to discuss what was going on with him and his wife and me and his daughter and all of it. I was so scared she would look at me and call me out on my eating disorder but she didn’t. What she did tell me is that she couldn’t really help me because she knew that I knew that our living situation was wrong and that he wasn’t even divorced and that meant he was still married and I needed to move out of his house. It would take another month before I would move back into my own house. Our relationship wasn’t strong to begin with and there were all kinds of things that looking back I see that I didn’t see while it was happening. Bottom line he was not the guy I needed to spend the rest of my life with. I’m not going to go into all the reasons why I’ve probably already covered them in previous post. He always said that I wasn’t “open” enough with him. Which ironically I actually heard this from another guy that I dated last spring. I wasn’t “open” enough and I didn’t “share” or whatever. I’ve come to realize that this is just them not understanding how I communicate. Neither one of them accepted me for who I was anyways, or if they did I never felt that way. The biggest skeleton in the closet between this guy with the little girl and I was the fact that I was throwing up all the time. He was critical of how I worked out, he was critical of the fact that I didn’t eat correctly, he was in general critical of everything and there at the end I felt I couldn’t do anything right.
When he and I broke up it made me evaluate who I was and where I stood and I finally sought treatment for the eating disorder. I went to a lady who works for a church’s counseling center here in Charlotte. It might have just been me but I felt like we weren’t really getting anywhere. She asked me in one session why I didn’t like myself. I’ve since come to realize that the reality is I literally hate myself some days and I can’t explain why. When my Granddaddy passed away in April 2008 I quit going. I was running out of money and I just wasn’t really getting anything out of it so I cancelled my appointment and said I would reschedule and I never did it was a lot of money to pay for something I didn’t feel was helping.
Last year I took Bible classes because a friend had gone through the same classes and had an amazing story of being delivered from her eating disorder entirely. I took the classes, thought they were awesome, but old habits don’t disappear. I was stressed; I no longer just used this behavior as a weight control method but also to help when I was feeling overwhelmed or upset. I don’t know when the change happened, I can’t pinpoint the exact moment it went from being something I did just so I could eat whatever I wanted to something that had a grip on me and the best of intentions to stop I would still find myself back in the same place again and again.
When I started running last year I loved the fact that the weight was coming off. It was wonderful to feel good about myself and what I was accomplishing. When the relationship ended between the guy I dated last spring it was actually a good thing, he had body issues of his own and made me feel worse about myself. Then I started dating RS and he wanted me to gain weight. There was no way I was going to voluntarily gain weight when I liked how I looked. Once that relationship ended my 10K was right around the corner. I ran that race and started training for my 15K. I would have expected to lose more weight but that didn’t happen. Instead I started gaining weight. The bright spot in all of this is the fact that I met S. At the end of my 15K he introduces himself to me. So part of the reason I started gaining is because we were eating late and I was eating and I thought that as long as we were running 3 miles before dinner I could still eat and it would be ok. Then when I noticed I was gaining I reverted back to the habit of throwing up. I would be starving so I would eat and then I would excuse myself and throw up. If you don’t know then it’s really easy for me to get away with this behavior. When I’m with my parents I have to be way more careful b/c my mom has suspicions and keeps asking me if I’m “staying healthy”. With S because it’s all new he had no reason to suspect anything and I could get away with what I was doing.
The thing about this behavior is that it takes control. You start to plan how you will binge and what you will have and then it makes controlling the food during the day that much easier because you know you will eat enough to feel better and then throw it all up again and then go exercise. Having a roommate who is usually gone helps me to get away with this behavior. But when I really got honest with myself part of the reason why I’ve gained the weight is because of this behavior. Bulimics are not always super skinny in fact sometimes it even causes you to gain weight. For the past few weeks it’s really been spiraling out of control and I have been aware I need to confront this again. It’s so scary when I have to admit what’s going on because I hate having to acknowledge that I’m failing. I can’t control my weight and what I’m doing to control my weight is causing me to gain weight and I need to be honest and really face what it happening. I can’t afford to go see a therapist and I don’t feel like that’s effective anyways. But being honest and admitting what is going on means I’m again accountable. That was the first thing the therapist made me do 2 years ago is appoint an accountability person that I was supposed to call when I felt overwhelmed or felt like I needed to engage in the behavior.
Yesterday I was flipping through various articles and I came across an article on momlogic.com where I lady wrote about being in a target bathroom and hearing the unmistakable sound of a girl throwing up and thinking about how she’s been there and stopping and considering saying something to the girl or saying something to the mom waiting outside and then not saying anything because the girl would just think she was weird and the mom would just be defensive and she was right. She talked about how she finally sought treatment because she finally acknowledged that her behavior was going to kill her. I don’t know why yesterday that light bulb finally went off in my own head but I finally acknowledged that what has been going on will kill me. It will also rot my teeth, and may cause esophagus problems and acid reflux and jaw problems. The list goes on and on. I did a little research yesterday on self treatment and I plan to do more research. The biggest thing I had to do was confess to my sweet S the reason why I’ve really gained the weight. I had to risk my relationship with the greatest guy I’ve ever dated and really be honest. I’ve told previous boyfriends but to me it’s not really mattered if they knew or not. I didn’t really care what they thought as usually I had either already broken up with them or I knew they didn’t really care that much about me etc… But with S it’s different. He’s different. I know that despite the fact that we haven’t said it to each other I love him. I want and need to get healthy first for myself but also because he deserves to have someone who loves herself enough that she’s willing to be honest and face up to the fact that she needs to deal with this pattern. Because he and I spend so much time together he needs to be aware of what my triggers are and know that when I’m going to the bathroom I’m accountable and if I come back out and I look funny or I have tooth marks in my hand I need to be called out for it. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in a vicious circle. I don’t want to have my teeth fall out. I don’t want to have permanent scars on my hands. I want to be healthy and happy. I write out of honesty. I know I have friends who read this blog who will hold me accountable and call me out and follow up with me on what is going on.
It’s time for me to start fighting again and take back the control but I don’t do this on my own. One of my favorite songs was playing last night as I was driving into S’s neighborhood about to confess everything. It’s the song “At the cross” and it has a line at the cross I lay everything, draw me gently to my knees, sweetly broken, sweetly surrendered,” I may not have the words exactly correct but I start this journey all over again I know that God has made each of us in His image. I know that He loves and accepts us just as we are. I know that He has a purpose and a plan. I know that I have to face this and be honest.
I know that God brought S into my life for a reason. He’s the first guy I’ve dated to accept me completely for me. When I told him and then told him it was ok if he wanted to break up with me he just pulled me into his arms and told me he just wants me to be healthy and happy and that I’m beautiful. Even if things don’t work out with S I’m thankful that he’s a part of my life now. He’s awesome and I can completely be myself and be honest and I know that he doesn’t think any less of me even knowing this disgusting secret that is no longer a secret.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
CNN Article January 2009 http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/dailydose/12/02/fat.cells/index.html
Based off a conversation I had with a friend regarding fat cells I started doing a little research. Currently I'm supposed to be watching the town hall meeting at work but I'm all about multi tasking, it's going on in another screen...
Do fat cells last forever?
• Swedish researchers did study of how adult humans regulate fat mass
• Overweight people generate and replace more fat cells than do lean people
• The total number of fat cells stays equal after a diet program, study showed
Bottom Line: Fat cells can shrink, but they don't go away. Next Daily Dose »
Experts say your very best bet for not "fattening" up your fat cells is exercise
Overview
What if your doctor told you that even after the weight comes off, your number of fat cells stays the same, and it will be an uphill battle to keep the pounds off? Research published in May 2008 in the journal Nature finds fat cells can shrink -- but they don't go away.
Questions and answers
Is it true that fat cells swell up or shrink down depending on what we eat?
Dr. Sanjay Gupta, chief medical correspondent: That's true. It's a really simple equation: When energy input is equal to energy output, your fat cells don't expand to accommodate excess. It's only when more calories are taken in than used that the extra fat is stored and the person begins to accumulate fat. Your very best bet for not "fattening" up your fat cells is exercise, particularly weight-bearing exercise. Exercise builds muscles -- and it's true, muscles use more calories than fat throughout the day, even while you are resting.
Does liposuction suck out fat cells and remove them permanently?
Gupta: According to recent evidence, that is false. This study found obese people who had weight loss surgery had as many fat cells two years after the surgery as before it, even though they were much thinner. Other studies have shown new fat cells are made in response to liposuction. And anyone who's had fat removed from their belly can tell you that if you gain weight after lipo, it may be in a different place, which can cause some odd proportions.
Is cellulite different from other fat? And does lipsosuction get rid of cellulite for good?
Gupta: It is true cellulite is different from other fat -- it has a layer of connective tissue thru it that pulls down parts of the fat while other parts bulge out. But this notion lipo can get rid of cellulite for good is false. Liposuction removes deep-down fat, but cellulite is closer to skin's surface. It can even make cellulite worse in older people.
BackgroundCNN spoke with Dr. Judith S. Stern, Sc.D., a distinguished professor of nutrition at the University of California-Davis. And Dr. Peter Arner, a professor at Carolinska Institute in Sweden. Here's some of what they said:
CNN: Does this mean fat children are doomed to a lifetime of being fat because of a "set" number of fat cells?
Stern: Many fat children become fat adolescents and then become fat adults. However, the number of fat cells is not fixed in childhood and adolescence. We now know that if people gain a lot of weight as an adult, fat cell number increases. If very obese adults then lose weight, the fat cells get smaller [but] the number stays the same. Given all of that, I do not believe that fat children are doomed to become fat adults because of the number of fat cells.
Arner: The total number of fat cells in the body is stable over time, because the making of new fat cells is counterbalanced by an equally rapid breakdown of the already existing fat cells due to cell death.
The results may, at least in part, explain why it is so difficult to maintain the weight after slimming....The new fat cells generated during and after weight reduction need to fill up their lipids rapidly.
Do fat cells last forever?
• Swedish researchers did study of how adult humans regulate fat mass
• Overweight people generate and replace more fat cells than do lean people
• The total number of fat cells stays equal after a diet program, study showed
Bottom Line: Fat cells can shrink, but they don't go away. Next Daily Dose »
Experts say your very best bet for not "fattening" up your fat cells is exercise
Overview
What if your doctor told you that even after the weight comes off, your number of fat cells stays the same, and it will be an uphill battle to keep the pounds off? Research published in May 2008 in the journal Nature finds fat cells can shrink -- but they don't go away.
Questions and answers
Is it true that fat cells swell up or shrink down depending on what we eat?
Dr. Sanjay Gupta, chief medical correspondent: That's true. It's a really simple equation: When energy input is equal to energy output, your fat cells don't expand to accommodate excess. It's only when more calories are taken in than used that the extra fat is stored and the person begins to accumulate fat. Your very best bet for not "fattening" up your fat cells is exercise, particularly weight-bearing exercise. Exercise builds muscles -- and it's true, muscles use more calories than fat throughout the day, even while you are resting.
Does liposuction suck out fat cells and remove them permanently?
Gupta: According to recent evidence, that is false. This study found obese people who had weight loss surgery had as many fat cells two years after the surgery as before it, even though they were much thinner. Other studies have shown new fat cells are made in response to liposuction. And anyone who's had fat removed from their belly can tell you that if you gain weight after lipo, it may be in a different place, which can cause some odd proportions.
Is cellulite different from other fat? And does lipsosuction get rid of cellulite for good?
Gupta: It is true cellulite is different from other fat -- it has a layer of connective tissue thru it that pulls down parts of the fat while other parts bulge out. But this notion lipo can get rid of cellulite for good is false. Liposuction removes deep-down fat, but cellulite is closer to skin's surface. It can even make cellulite worse in older people.
BackgroundCNN spoke with Dr. Judith S. Stern, Sc.D., a distinguished professor of nutrition at the University of California-Davis. And Dr. Peter Arner, a professor at Carolinska Institute in Sweden. Here's some of what they said:
CNN: Does this mean fat children are doomed to a lifetime of being fat because of a "set" number of fat cells?
Stern: Many fat children become fat adolescents and then become fat adults. However, the number of fat cells is not fixed in childhood and adolescence. We now know that if people gain a lot of weight as an adult, fat cell number increases. If very obese adults then lose weight, the fat cells get smaller [but] the number stays the same. Given all of that, I do not believe that fat children are doomed to become fat adults because of the number of fat cells.
Arner: The total number of fat cells in the body is stable over time, because the making of new fat cells is counterbalanced by an equally rapid breakdown of the already existing fat cells due to cell death.
The results may, at least in part, explain why it is so difficult to maintain the weight after slimming....The new fat cells generated during and after weight reduction need to fill up their lipids rapidly.
What's my color: Purple (for real)
Spontaneity is the key to your existence. Quick-witted with a flair for originality, you enjoy situations that allow you to explore your creativity. Comparatively conservative, you appreciate beautiful surroundings, especially if they’re found in nature. Your relaxed and self-assured personality allows you to work well with others. Surprisingly enough, your unique and unusual tastes don’t prevent you from being comfortable among your more conservative peers.
http://www.truevaluepaint.com/content/Color/ColorQuiz.aspx
http://www.truevaluepaint.com/content/Color/ColorQuiz.aspx
Honest
My friend Hailey gave me this, and apparently, it comes with a few rules. I have to write 10 things about myself that you don't already know and also give it to a few of my friends. We'll see how this goes...
1. I'm a hopeless romantic usually when I'm in a group of people and they are couples I will ask them for the story of how they met and what their story is.
2. I work for an insurance company in small commercial accounts and I love my job but I'm probably not challenging myself enough because I spend way too much time reading about other people's lives on their blogs.
3. I'm addicted to sugar, in a major way, this is not a good thing. I was able to cut extra sugar out 2 years ago but the addiction is back with a vengeance and I'm working to cut it out again.
4. I love to bake. I used to bake cookies in high school and take them in. I had lots of recipes that I played around with. I've yet to find the sugar cookie recipe that makes big soft sugar cookies like what you can buy at Harris Teeter.
5. My favorite person ever to go out with is my friend M who I met in college. She and I never liked the same type of guy so when we were out there was never a situation where one of us was talking to a guy and the other was upset and I've never gone out with her when I haven't had fun.
6. I used to write stories all the time and I loved to read. My 4th grade teacher made the comment on Saturday (she was at the shower for my brother and J that I used to read thru her classes, even when I wasn't supposed to be, oops :) She still loves me though.
7. When I was 13 I wore a size 18-20 and topped the scale at around 210-215
8. I went to private Christian school from 3 year old preschool thru 12th grade and fully intended to party my way thru college, which I did and thru the first couple years back in Charlotte. I found out that lifestyle leaves you empty and miserable.
9. I have been way too generous with gifts to other people especially ex-boyfriends to name 2(and I kick myself now) a plane ticket to Sweden and 2 tickets to the Coca Cola 600 race the first one was out of guilt b/c I broke up with him and the 2nd one you can't buy someone's affection...
10. Despite the way it ended and the amount of money that I spent on both him and his little girl I now can say I would not trade that experience from September 06-August 07 for anything. It's made me stronger and a little smarter (I hope).
And now I shall give this award to.....
Sarah
Paula
Traci
Kim
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Weight
I read an article on People about a model who had a crippling eating disorder in order to be a 0 so she could model. She now is a size 12 and a plus size model. She's speaking out about the need for change and how so much focus is put on numbers. Numbers on a scale, the number inside your clothes, percentages, and the number of calories you consume. I think it's important to be healthy. I know that today more than ever we are bombarded by bad choices. Growing up I was the chubby/fat/and then obese kid. I never wore the cute clothes in high school. In college I was always just a little too big but I was slowly starting to develop my own sense of style. I'm by no means an example of the cutting edge of fashion but I do love clothes.
From kindergarten thru 8th grade I wore a uniform. Then in high school I had 3 pairs of jeans thru most of the 4 years. I would wear skirts some days and some days a dress. I NEVER fit in but if you talk to a lot of people they will tell you they never felt they fit in either. This must just be a part of that whole awkward phase of life.
In college I had a next door neighbor who had a gorgeous sense of fashion. She loved high fashion and at 5'10 I think she was the one who taught me to embrace my height. She loved to wear super high heels and she was so much larger than life. She also hated App and transferred out after our freshman year. I used to borrow clothes from her closet when she would go away on the weekends; I got my first pair of black pants from her. In college black pants were the thing. They were what you wore when you went out, paired with the right top it was always a winning combo. Poor Brandy I stretched out the fabulous pair that she had and she gave them to me. My selfishness and self centeredness in college was pretty bad. But I did have this pair of black pants that I would wear until I literally wore them out. I think she looked at it as a reason for another pair of pants.
Once I graduated from college I had to create a more professional wardrobe. Thank goodness for stores like Dress Barn which make things easy and are more affordable then Ann Taylor. I would find pieces at a store called Eli’s where they had racks and racks of clothes that I had to dig through but I could get pants and skirts and tops from places like Limited, Ann Taylor and Express for a fraction of what I would have paid in the store. It was also during these years when I racked up quite a bit of card debt. I would shop at Limited and Express for my “going out” clothes. I had cards to Limited, Express, Victoria Secret and the list goes on and on and on…
It was also during this time (2001-03) that I would be uber thin and then not. Of course the way I was so thin was a result of literal starvation. I called it my soup diet. One can of soup and a box of hot tameles would be my meal, for the day. Oh I was so healthy… When I started dating the old guy in December 02 the weight came back pretty quickly. I hated it then too. I got myself back into the gym and started working the second job and in January 04 I started dating the guy in Atlanta. Because it was long distance I had plenty of time to go to the gym and do my thing. I worked 5 minutes from a mall here in Charlotte and I loved to take my lunch and go look for bargains.
I broke up with the guy in Atlanta in September 04. The craziness of my life was truly about to begin. I thought it had already happened b/c of all the stuff that went on with the guy who resurfaced last summer but actually I found all new crazy. I had also found that I could order diet pills online and they gave me lots of energy to be able to work the jobs and do all that I needed to do. They also made me never hungry. I dropped to a size 6 and then a 4 and it was fabulous!! I loved it! I bought my house in Spring of 05 and I bottomed out to my lowest adult weight ever. The catch, again, wasn’t eating. When you don’t eat and you take prescription diet pills it means that you will be very very thin. When you start to eat again, you will gain weight. I actually maintained at a size 8 for most of 2006. It wasn’t until I started dating the guy with the little girl in September 06 that I started to really gain again. Because she was with us every weekend I cooked foods that were kid friendly, aka lots of cheese and noodles and appealing stuff. I wasn’t going to the gym and very quickly my clothes quit fitting.
When he and I broke up in August 07 I was back in a gym and working out. I started running in February 09 and finally went back to the weight I was (and size 8) before September 06.
I was 4 pounds away from my goal weight in October 09. 4 pounds away… I ran a 15K I started training for a ½ marathon. I started dating my boyfriend. Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, late night dinners… I ran the ½ marathon at the end of January. I’ve gained 16 pounds. I’m currently being honest with myself about they why… I eat too late, I eat too much sugar, I am not taking any diet pills, I still drink alcohol which is technically wasted calories. I don’t eat enough fruits and veggies and my diet is carb heavy because most weeks I can’t afford groceries (see above for card debt that has accumulated and now I have to pay for past mistakes) so I buy the box of cereal that is less than $3 and I buy the box of Mac & Cheese that is .50 cents and I consume a healthy calorie range but b/c of what I’m eating I’m still gaining.
I understand that I shouldn’t let my self worth be based on the numbers on the scale of the tag inside of my clothes. Rationally I know that I’m crazy. I understand that there are people in Haiti with nothing. One of my best friends is going thru her own hell this week while taking the NC Bar. I know that in perspective of everything else going on my fears and feelings of failure are minimal.
I have the best boyfriend in the world. I’m so freaked out and I’m trying really hard not to complain too much to him b/c I don’t want to be “that” girl. Last night I told him I’m frustrated and discouraged and he just tells me that I’m beautiful and he thinks I’m awesome. Of ALL the guys I’ve dated NONE have ever accepted me just as I am. He is such a keeper! He just listens and encourages and tells me that I’m beautiful. He is AMAZING and I feel like the luckiest girl in the world! Not just for this but for a lot of reasons but the fact that he’s so sweet and understanding just make me want to be in shape and healthy that much more.
From kindergarten thru 8th grade I wore a uniform. Then in high school I had 3 pairs of jeans thru most of the 4 years. I would wear skirts some days and some days a dress. I NEVER fit in but if you talk to a lot of people they will tell you they never felt they fit in either. This must just be a part of that whole awkward phase of life.
In college I had a next door neighbor who had a gorgeous sense of fashion. She loved high fashion and at 5'10 I think she was the one who taught me to embrace my height. She loved to wear super high heels and she was so much larger than life. She also hated App and transferred out after our freshman year. I used to borrow clothes from her closet when she would go away on the weekends; I got my first pair of black pants from her. In college black pants were the thing. They were what you wore when you went out, paired with the right top it was always a winning combo. Poor Brandy I stretched out the fabulous pair that she had and she gave them to me. My selfishness and self centeredness in college was pretty bad. But I did have this pair of black pants that I would wear until I literally wore them out. I think she looked at it as a reason for another pair of pants.
Once I graduated from college I had to create a more professional wardrobe. Thank goodness for stores like Dress Barn which make things easy and are more affordable then Ann Taylor. I would find pieces at a store called Eli’s where they had racks and racks of clothes that I had to dig through but I could get pants and skirts and tops from places like Limited, Ann Taylor and Express for a fraction of what I would have paid in the store. It was also during these years when I racked up quite a bit of card debt. I would shop at Limited and Express for my “going out” clothes. I had cards to Limited, Express, Victoria Secret and the list goes on and on and on…
It was also during this time (2001-03) that I would be uber thin and then not. Of course the way I was so thin was a result of literal starvation. I called it my soup diet. One can of soup and a box of hot tameles would be my meal, for the day. Oh I was so healthy… When I started dating the old guy in December 02 the weight came back pretty quickly. I hated it then too. I got myself back into the gym and started working the second job and in January 04 I started dating the guy in Atlanta. Because it was long distance I had plenty of time to go to the gym and do my thing. I worked 5 minutes from a mall here in Charlotte and I loved to take my lunch and go look for bargains.
I broke up with the guy in Atlanta in September 04. The craziness of my life was truly about to begin. I thought it had already happened b/c of all the stuff that went on with the guy who resurfaced last summer but actually I found all new crazy. I had also found that I could order diet pills online and they gave me lots of energy to be able to work the jobs and do all that I needed to do. They also made me never hungry. I dropped to a size 6 and then a 4 and it was fabulous!! I loved it! I bought my house in Spring of 05 and I bottomed out to my lowest adult weight ever. The catch, again, wasn’t eating. When you don’t eat and you take prescription diet pills it means that you will be very very thin. When you start to eat again, you will gain weight. I actually maintained at a size 8 for most of 2006. It wasn’t until I started dating the guy with the little girl in September 06 that I started to really gain again. Because she was with us every weekend I cooked foods that were kid friendly, aka lots of cheese and noodles and appealing stuff. I wasn’t going to the gym and very quickly my clothes quit fitting.
When he and I broke up in August 07 I was back in a gym and working out. I started running in February 09 and finally went back to the weight I was (and size 8) before September 06.
I was 4 pounds away from my goal weight in October 09. 4 pounds away… I ran a 15K I started training for a ½ marathon. I started dating my boyfriend. Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, late night dinners… I ran the ½ marathon at the end of January. I’ve gained 16 pounds. I’m currently being honest with myself about they why… I eat too late, I eat too much sugar, I am not taking any diet pills, I still drink alcohol which is technically wasted calories. I don’t eat enough fruits and veggies and my diet is carb heavy because most weeks I can’t afford groceries (see above for card debt that has accumulated and now I have to pay for past mistakes) so I buy the box of cereal that is less than $3 and I buy the box of Mac & Cheese that is .50 cents and I consume a healthy calorie range but b/c of what I’m eating I’m still gaining.
I understand that I shouldn’t let my self worth be based on the numbers on the scale of the tag inside of my clothes. Rationally I know that I’m crazy. I understand that there are people in Haiti with nothing. One of my best friends is going thru her own hell this week while taking the NC Bar. I know that in perspective of everything else going on my fears and feelings of failure are minimal.
I have the best boyfriend in the world. I’m so freaked out and I’m trying really hard not to complain too much to him b/c I don’t want to be “that” girl. Last night I told him I’m frustrated and discouraged and he just tells me that I’m beautiful and he thinks I’m awesome. Of ALL the guys I’ve dated NONE have ever accepted me just as I am. He is such a keeper! He just listens and encourages and tells me that I’m beautiful. He is AMAZING and I feel like the luckiest girl in the world! Not just for this but for a lot of reasons but the fact that he’s so sweet and understanding just make me want to be in shape and healthy that much more.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Birthday
For the most part I've moved on from my relationship which has now been 3 years ago. He's married which is great I'm happy for him. His wife is the 2nd version of the 1st which I find interesting. But this moving on has never been that much about him.
Before him I believed that I could date someone who had children. All the warning I received I believed didn't apply to me because we were going to work out and all be together...
His little girl was 3 when I met her. She was still very much a baby and didn't talk all that much. She stole my heart from the moment we picked her up from her mom's that first weekend.
I haven't seen her other than in pictures in 3 years and probably I never will.
She crosses my mind less frequently now. I still think of her when I see something that is yellow, that was her favorite color. She also has been in my thoughts this week because her birthday is coming up on Saturday and she will be 7. Which is hard to believe that the little girl I remember is now a 7 year old who loves Hannah Montana and High School Musical (or whatever that one is). Occasionally I hear a bit of information but it's not frequent and I try not to ask.
She was never mine. I always knew that. I hope that someday I might have children of my own. I don't regret walking away from her Dad. I believe that had I stayed it would not have been successful. I'd probably be contemplating divorce this year. Instead I walked away and while I'm still me in the last 3 years I've grown and I've learned and I know that I've made the right choices.
Before him I believed that I could date someone who had children. All the warning I received I believed didn't apply to me because we were going to work out and all be together...
His little girl was 3 when I met her. She was still very much a baby and didn't talk all that much. She stole my heart from the moment we picked her up from her mom's that first weekend.
I haven't seen her other than in pictures in 3 years and probably I never will.
She crosses my mind less frequently now. I still think of her when I see something that is yellow, that was her favorite color. She also has been in my thoughts this week because her birthday is coming up on Saturday and she will be 7. Which is hard to believe that the little girl I remember is now a 7 year old who loves Hannah Montana and High School Musical (or whatever that one is). Occasionally I hear a bit of information but it's not frequent and I try not to ask.
She was never mine. I always knew that. I hope that someday I might have children of my own. I don't regret walking away from her Dad. I believe that had I stayed it would not have been successful. I'd probably be contemplating divorce this year. Instead I walked away and while I'm still me in the last 3 years I've grown and I've learned and I know that I've made the right choices.
I dislike awkward situations and since I had the conversation with my former running buddy I've had to really strive for nonchalance at work.
I was working on something and the thought hit me regarding the last email that I had received from her. It's my perception that she doesn't feel I was sorry.
I was certainly sorry that I hurt her feelings. I had tried to go out of my way and over and above to keep our weekly running meet. But something that struck me is that she feels I wasn't really sorry and I didn't act apologetic.
Reality I can't be sorry for something that I didn't do.
So now I get to deal with the akwardness of it at work, oh joy.
This was spurred by events of this week. She passed a tough test I emailed a congratulations email to which I got, thanks. I ran into her this morning and we said good morning and it was strained as always.
If I'm really wrong I will be the first to apologize. But when all my transgressions are the perception of the injured party then there is just not much I can do about it.
I was working on something and the thought hit me regarding the last email that I had received from her. It's my perception that she doesn't feel I was sorry.
I was certainly sorry that I hurt her feelings. I had tried to go out of my way and over and above to keep our weekly running meet. But something that struck me is that she feels I wasn't really sorry and I didn't act apologetic.
Reality I can't be sorry for something that I didn't do.
So now I get to deal with the akwardness of it at work, oh joy.
This was spurred by events of this week. She passed a tough test I emailed a congratulations email to which I got, thanks. I ran into her this morning and we said good morning and it was strained as always.
If I'm really wrong I will be the first to apologize. But when all my transgressions are the perception of the injured party then there is just not much I can do about it.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Weekend in Review
As I get older the thing I'm discovering about weekends is that they are inevitably just as busy if not busier then the work week. I enjoyed a quiet night in on Friday night we made jumbayala and I got to watch What Not to Wear it was fabulous!
Saturday morning we were up early (although not as early as when we ran in Miami) we participated in the UNCC homecoming 5K with my brother and his fiance. My mom was so excited to have all of us there. The thing about a 5K at UNCC it's mostly uphill. I ran a 5K there in October and it was ALL UPHILL and it was miserable!! The race Saturday started uphill but finished downhill so I appreciated that change! We went back to Mom and Dad's after the race to shower and have lunch. J (my brother's fiance) parents and sister were coming into town for the shower that was happening Saturday afternoon.
Her parents and sister arrived and we all sat down to lunch. It was quite the spread. Mom had ham, turkey, roast beef, pimento cheese (homemade), different breads, lettuce, tomatos, pickles, potato chips and homemade ranch dip. For dessert she made chocolate gooey cake which is just sinful. Especially since we went to the shower afterwards and of course there was cake and sweets and punch...
The shower was so well done! My mom's friends wanted to do this for her as well as for Brian and J. B has been pretty adamant about keeping things low key and not going overboard. But my mom has done so much for others that the idea of not having a shower for B and J was not acceptable to her friends. J was so nervous on the way. She's not one to relish being the center of attention (unlike her future sister in law, not all the time but for the big stuff it's your moment to shine take it!!) but anyways she was so nervous! She arrived and the good thing is she had her mom and her sister. My Aunt MA sat with them and then for the rest of the guests my mom was really careful to only invite those who really had been a part of B's life growing up. So for me it was really neat to see those mom's and teachers or even mom/teachers who were a part of both of our lives. J and B received so many nice gifts and they did appreciate all that was given to them.
I'm delighted that my brother is marrying J. She is so amazing, beautifuly, classy, fun, smart, wonderful. I just think she is an angel and whenever anyone asks me I always say that if we could have handpicked someone for my brother we would not have been able to ever find anyone more perfect for him than Jenny. At the shower I was so happy to participate and be there!
Having said that the one thing I was very aware of at the shower is that even though it was all about J people were watching me as well. I know that people who have watched me grow up are very curious as to when I will get married. I am very well aware that I am 30 and have yet to walk down that aisle. I am also very well aware that I'm dating an amazing guy. That guy is not one to jump into anything and I'm trying very hard to take my time and enjoy getting to know him. I'm not trying to push because I have a feeling if I did that I would push him away from me. So if I answered the question once I answered it all 30 times (that was about the number of guests there). Question "So how are things going with this guy we keep hearing about, what do you think about him" or some variation of this type of question. Really the unasked question was so are you finally going to marry this one. To which I explained that all of Shawn's friends will tell you there is the easy way, the hard way and then there is S's way. I'm very happy and I'm not sure what will happen but he's a great guy. I know that everyone asks because they are curious and of course they want me to be happy. I don't get upset or feel irritated at these questions. I actually expect them and I'm fine with answering as many times as I need to. It just made me very aware on Saturday that I had to make sure that I was gracious and smiling and a day that was all about Jenny does not need to be remembered as the day that everyone felt sorry for the poor older sister who's not married yet and I feel I did an awesome job at turning the conversation back to how excited we all are for B and J!
The shower ended and we said our good byes and thank you's. My mom in a moment that was just the two of us made the statement "and yours will be much bigger than this". The thing is I understand why I've pushed so hard before in other relationships, because EVERYONE seems to think that I need to be married. I am thankful that to this point I'm not married. I don't think it's a huge tragedy that I'm not married. Even if things don't work out with Shawn I will be just fine. I've redone my 5 year arm to a fixed mortgage. I need to find another roommate. I have Jack Banner. I have my family. I'm going to be ok no matter what happens. I have 2fantastic jobs. Life might not turn out the way that I once believed it would but life is all about learning that I'm not the one who is in control.
Back to the rest of the weekend. We left the shower and went home where my Mom fixed a fabulous dinner! Then Sunday S and I were going to go for a bike ride but because I don't have a bike and the one I was going to borrow didn't work out he went for the bike ride and I went to the gym so it worked out ok. Last night at dinner I was talking about the summer and I did make the comment asking if he was planning on keeping me around for the summer. To which he responded yes but was I planning on keeping him around. To which I responded oh honey your are so stuck with me. So I don't know what our future holds but I do know that no matter what happen I will be just fine.
Saturday morning we were up early (although not as early as when we ran in Miami) we participated in the UNCC homecoming 5K with my brother and his fiance. My mom was so excited to have all of us there. The thing about a 5K at UNCC it's mostly uphill. I ran a 5K there in October and it was ALL UPHILL and it was miserable!! The race Saturday started uphill but finished downhill so I appreciated that change! We went back to Mom and Dad's after the race to shower and have lunch. J (my brother's fiance) parents and sister were coming into town for the shower that was happening Saturday afternoon.
Her parents and sister arrived and we all sat down to lunch. It was quite the spread. Mom had ham, turkey, roast beef, pimento cheese (homemade), different breads, lettuce, tomatos, pickles, potato chips and homemade ranch dip. For dessert she made chocolate gooey cake which is just sinful. Especially since we went to the shower afterwards and of course there was cake and sweets and punch...
The shower was so well done! My mom's friends wanted to do this for her as well as for Brian and J. B has been pretty adamant about keeping things low key and not going overboard. But my mom has done so much for others that the idea of not having a shower for B and J was not acceptable to her friends. J was so nervous on the way. She's not one to relish being the center of attention (unlike her future sister in law, not all the time but for the big stuff it's your moment to shine take it!!) but anyways she was so nervous! She arrived and the good thing is she had her mom and her sister. My Aunt MA sat with them and then for the rest of the guests my mom was really careful to only invite those who really had been a part of B's life growing up. So for me it was really neat to see those mom's and teachers or even mom/teachers who were a part of both of our lives. J and B received so many nice gifts and they did appreciate all that was given to them.
I'm delighted that my brother is marrying J. She is so amazing, beautifuly, classy, fun, smart, wonderful. I just think she is an angel and whenever anyone asks me I always say that if we could have handpicked someone for my brother we would not have been able to ever find anyone more perfect for him than Jenny. At the shower I was so happy to participate and be there!
Having said that the one thing I was very aware of at the shower is that even though it was all about J people were watching me as well. I know that people who have watched me grow up are very curious as to when I will get married. I am very well aware that I am 30 and have yet to walk down that aisle. I am also very well aware that I'm dating an amazing guy. That guy is not one to jump into anything and I'm trying very hard to take my time and enjoy getting to know him. I'm not trying to push because I have a feeling if I did that I would push him away from me. So if I answered the question once I answered it all 30 times (that was about the number of guests there). Question "So how are things going with this guy we keep hearing about, what do you think about him" or some variation of this type of question. Really the unasked question was so are you finally going to marry this one. To which I explained that all of Shawn's friends will tell you there is the easy way, the hard way and then there is S's way. I'm very happy and I'm not sure what will happen but he's a great guy. I know that everyone asks because they are curious and of course they want me to be happy. I don't get upset or feel irritated at these questions. I actually expect them and I'm fine with answering as many times as I need to. It just made me very aware on Saturday that I had to make sure that I was gracious and smiling and a day that was all about Jenny does not need to be remembered as the day that everyone felt sorry for the poor older sister who's not married yet and I feel I did an awesome job at turning the conversation back to how excited we all are for B and J!
The shower ended and we said our good byes and thank you's. My mom in a moment that was just the two of us made the statement "and yours will be much bigger than this". The thing is I understand why I've pushed so hard before in other relationships, because EVERYONE seems to think that I need to be married. I am thankful that to this point I'm not married. I don't think it's a huge tragedy that I'm not married. Even if things don't work out with Shawn I will be just fine. I've redone my 5 year arm to a fixed mortgage. I need to find another roommate. I have Jack Banner. I have my family. I'm going to be ok no matter what happens. I have 2fantastic jobs. Life might not turn out the way that I once believed it would but life is all about learning that I'm not the one who is in control.
Back to the rest of the weekend. We left the shower and went home where my Mom fixed a fabulous dinner! Then Sunday S and I were going to go for a bike ride but because I don't have a bike and the one I was going to borrow didn't work out he went for the bike ride and I went to the gym so it worked out ok. Last night at dinner I was talking about the summer and I did make the comment asking if he was planning on keeping me around for the summer. To which he responded yes but was I planning on keeping him around. To which I responded oh honey your are so stuck with me. So I don't know what our future holds but I do know that no matter what happen I will be just fine.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Perhaps saying that I was going to quit worrying about what I ate was the first mistake. By the time the 1/2 marathon rolled around I was so tired of training and thinking about what I was eating that I just said eehhh I'll do whatever.
Apparently even tracking calories and staying within a correct calorie range is not enough when all you are really eating is sugar. Perhaps the fact that I have now tried every way possible to side step a healthy diet in favor of my sugar addiction has contributed to the fact that I gained another pound to top it out at a weight I haven't been in 3 years.
I have to admit that I get a little lazy when it comes to watching what I eat because I want to eat whatever and I just have to quit thinking that I can. Running is not the free card that allows me to do this.
I'm tired of thinking about it but because I'm so freaked out I have to get the thoughts out of my head. My mom said that she started to struggle with maintaining her weight after she was 30. Both my parents are big. My Dad lost a lot of weight several years ago but then gained it all back. Both sides of my family have a tendency to gain weight. I come by this honestly. I see the numbers on that scale going up and I'm frightened because of where I've been. I can't just snap my fingers or make a phone call or do anything other than re-evaluate my current habits. There is no quick fix and what if it just keeps going up no matter what...
The idea of being back where I was 17 years ago makes me feel ill, and with the scale continuing to climb it doesn't seem such a remote possibility...
I ran 4 miles yesterday and the scale went up another pound.
Apparently even tracking calories and staying within a correct calorie range is not enough when all you are really eating is sugar. Perhaps the fact that I have now tried every way possible to side step a healthy diet in favor of my sugar addiction has contributed to the fact that I gained another pound to top it out at a weight I haven't been in 3 years.
I have to admit that I get a little lazy when it comes to watching what I eat because I want to eat whatever and I just have to quit thinking that I can. Running is not the free card that allows me to do this.
I'm tired of thinking about it but because I'm so freaked out I have to get the thoughts out of my head. My mom said that she started to struggle with maintaining her weight after she was 30. Both my parents are big. My Dad lost a lot of weight several years ago but then gained it all back. Both sides of my family have a tendency to gain weight. I come by this honestly. I see the numbers on that scale going up and I'm frightened because of where I've been. I can't just snap my fingers or make a phone call or do anything other than re-evaluate my current habits. There is no quick fix and what if it just keeps going up no matter what...
The idea of being back where I was 17 years ago makes me feel ill, and with the scale continuing to climb it doesn't seem such a remote possibility...
I ran 4 miles yesterday and the scale went up another pound.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Oh yes another one
I've been using sparkpeople.com since August of 2008. It tracks your food and excercise and I do feel it's a useful tool. I have felt that with my running it has not been as accurate as I need it to be. I stepped on the scale this morning to find another pound has found it's way onto my body. So much for last years easy loss of 10 just because I started running. So trying not to let the numbers on a scale dictate the rest of my day I put a post on spark people asking for others to weight in with their thoughts as to how I might actully figure out an accurate measure for the calories needed every day. I was given this link and it actually is useful and I think it's going to help me have a better guide as far as how much I need to eat in order to get the numbers to quit going in the wrong direction. http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/
I have to make sure I start drinking a lot more water, I think this is part of it. I was so excited because as recently as October all of my clothes fit and for me that's huge I don't want to buy a whole new wardrobe I want my clothes that I have to fit.
I have to make sure I start drinking a lot more water, I think this is part of it. I was so excited because as recently as October all of my clothes fit and for me that's huge I don't want to buy a whole new wardrobe I want my clothes that I have to fit.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Mom
My mom is very excited that my brother is marrying J! I'm very excited too, don't get me wrong. There is going to be a shower for B and J on Saturday and I'm looking forward to it. I've also agreed to participate in the homecoming 5K at UNCC that my mom is helping with (part of her job). So B and J and S and I will all be running which I know will be fun.
My mom is so excited and wants to have lunch after the run. She asked me numerous times for my thoughts on this. I asked her yesterday WHY if she has to work on Saturday morning is she going to add to her stress level to fix not only lunch but then we have the shower and then she wants to fix dinner. I told her I did not understand her need to stress herself out more and she informed me that she's going to be stressed anyways so she would rather have something positive to focus her energy on. MY POOR DAD... He's going to be the one who catches the brunt of all of this.
I get that she's excited and she doesn't want to push but she wants to participate and I know that her heart is in the right place.
I just honestly don't care about eating after the run it's only a 5K it's just not that big of a deal. Then I have heard the question about a million times of whether or not Shawn will be joining us. I get that she wants him to join us and I think she feels that they have not had a chance to really get to know him although he's been with us for a couple different events. Bottom line Shawn is quiet and a little shy and I have a feeling my mom overwhelms him.
I caught a huge guilt trip last Saturday when I had already told my mom that I needed to just get my stuff and go. I got "but you didn't even stay when you dropped Jack off and you can't sit down for 5 minutes and talk to me and we never get to see you". OK last weekend was not a good weekend I had to be at the restuarant I was not in a good mood I did not want to sit and chat. I find my schedule constantly crammed and I email my mom every day several times a day and I also call. I do understand that she wants to see me but they just got an entire weekend with me when we went to Pittsburgh. I had specifically said I needed to get my stuff and go. I am thankful she wants to see me and spend time with me but I think sometimes she doesn't realize how little down time I truly get.
My mom is so excited and wants to have lunch after the run. She asked me numerous times for my thoughts on this. I asked her yesterday WHY if she has to work on Saturday morning is she going to add to her stress level to fix not only lunch but then we have the shower and then she wants to fix dinner. I told her I did not understand her need to stress herself out more and she informed me that she's going to be stressed anyways so she would rather have something positive to focus her energy on. MY POOR DAD... He's going to be the one who catches the brunt of all of this.
I get that she's excited and she doesn't want to push but she wants to participate and I know that her heart is in the right place.
I just honestly don't care about eating after the run it's only a 5K it's just not that big of a deal. Then I have heard the question about a million times of whether or not Shawn will be joining us. I get that she wants him to join us and I think she feels that they have not had a chance to really get to know him although he's been with us for a couple different events. Bottom line Shawn is quiet and a little shy and I have a feeling my mom overwhelms him.
I caught a huge guilt trip last Saturday when I had already told my mom that I needed to just get my stuff and go. I got "but you didn't even stay when you dropped Jack off and you can't sit down for 5 minutes and talk to me and we never get to see you". OK last weekend was not a good weekend I had to be at the restuarant I was not in a good mood I did not want to sit and chat. I find my schedule constantly crammed and I email my mom every day several times a day and I also call. I do understand that she wants to see me but they just got an entire weekend with me when we went to Pittsburgh. I had specifically said I needed to get my stuff and go. I am thankful she wants to see me and spend time with me but I think sometimes she doesn't realize how little down time I truly get.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
The wheel
I said I wasn’t going to go back into the whole weight thing but really I’m so frustrated and I have thoughts swirling round and round in my head.
I’m thinking about this time last year and how I didn’t really alter my eating habits but because I had just started running I dropped 10lbs so quickly. I know that at various times I’ve cut out excess sugar and I know this works and I’m willing to admit this may be part of the problem right now.
I’m feeling huge, I hate feeling huge. It seems unfair to me that I ran 13 miles and I’m not losing weight the way that I want to. I know life isn’t fair but it seems to me that if I’m exercising regularly then this weight should be lower then what it currently is.
I’m not taking any diet pills at all. I think this is a contributing factor. I’m eating, like for real eating and this probably has something to do with it too. However I still hate this. I’m trying to figure out what I need to do. Eliminating the sugar, continuing to exercise, exercising some more. I already track all of my food and I have been and yet I’m still not seeing the desired results.
I feel like a hamster in a wheel and it’s just continuous. I said I was going to quit caring and just forget about it but that’s just not possible. I want to be thin, the kind of thin where my family is complaining that I’m too thin. If I could afford it I would totally pay for surgery. Is this perspective healthy, probably not. Do I care? No. I’m sick of the battle and just lazy enough to wish for the easy way out.
What am I going to do instead of complaining incessantly… I guess I’m going to commit to cutting out the sugar. I’m going to be even more anal about my food intake. I’m going to drink more water. I’m going to step up the exercise even more. Ugh!
I’m thinking about this time last year and how I didn’t really alter my eating habits but because I had just started running I dropped 10lbs so quickly. I know that at various times I’ve cut out excess sugar and I know this works and I’m willing to admit this may be part of the problem right now.
I’m feeling huge, I hate feeling huge. It seems unfair to me that I ran 13 miles and I’m not losing weight the way that I want to. I know life isn’t fair but it seems to me that if I’m exercising regularly then this weight should be lower then what it currently is.
I’m not taking any diet pills at all. I think this is a contributing factor. I’m eating, like for real eating and this probably has something to do with it too. However I still hate this. I’m trying to figure out what I need to do. Eliminating the sugar, continuing to exercise, exercising some more. I already track all of my food and I have been and yet I’m still not seeing the desired results.
I feel like a hamster in a wheel and it’s just continuous. I said I was going to quit caring and just forget about it but that’s just not possible. I want to be thin, the kind of thin where my family is complaining that I’m too thin. If I could afford it I would totally pay for surgery. Is this perspective healthy, probably not. Do I care? No. I’m sick of the battle and just lazy enough to wish for the easy way out.
What am I going to do instead of complaining incessantly… I guess I’m going to commit to cutting out the sugar. I’m going to be even more anal about my food intake. I’m going to drink more water. I’m going to step up the exercise even more. Ugh!
Valentine's
What a whirlwind weekend. Friday night I drove home to pick up Jack and then drove up to Davidson. My usual 45 minute drive took just over an hour due to the fact that there was snow falling. Nothing was on the road but for some reason, I guess maybe other drivers were admiring the snow, everyone was driving well under the speed limit. I arrived in Davidson and had to wait on S who was coming from the other direction and hit slow traffic as well. Finally he got home and let the girls out and I started getting ready and we were out the door in a short amount of time and on our way to dinner. My friend’s request for her 30th b’day was that her group of girls all join her and her husband with their husbands or significant others for dinner. The group ended up being S and myself, another couple and then my friend and her husband. We had the best time!! Dinner started off with a toast for the b’day girl then S and I split the scallop appetizer, and oyster salad. He had the tenderloin and I had the halibut and it was all so tasty!!! To finish the meal we had the most amazing turtle cheesecake that everyone just raved over!!!
Saturday morning S didn’t have to go into the office because of the snow so we ended up with quality time together. This was awesome. I originally planned to return to Charlotte and get a workout in and get Jack settled and I changed my plans so I could spend some time with my guy. I did have to stop at my parents house to pick up my MK order and then I ran by my house for clothes. This meant that I didn’t have time to get a workout in and I regretted that when I stepped on the scale. I really HATE the fact that I have gained weight and I really HATE the fact that despite my best efforts to quit worrying about it I still know that I need to crack down and get serious about my eating and exercise. I saw the pics of me taken during the ½ marathon and I just look fat and I HATE IT!!!!!! I could go on and on but I'm going to stop b/c it just makes me more irritable.
So Saturday night at the restaurant was just craziness and I got back to Davidson and S fixed me a huge gin and tonic that was fabulous!!! Sunday morning I had roses and york peppermint patties and chocolate covered cherries. Now I really appreciate the fact that he got me 2 of my favorite candies and didn’t go for a sampler box. I like york peppermint patties and chocolate covered cherries b/c they are way less fattening then other chocolates!
Sunday was a low key day, I ran 6 miles. I was hoping for 8 but my knees are still tender from 2 weeks ago. This also is a source of frustration for me. I need new shoes and my sweet boyfriend is going to again purchase them for me but until that happens I have to be really careful not to blow out my knees or ankles. I stopped by Brueggers and picked up the yummy smoked salmon bagels. Mine I switch out the sundried tomato spread for cream cheese which saves me a lot of fat grams and it’s just yummy!! Then I had to get ready for another crazy night at the restaurant. I got Jack home and settled and then went in for the big Valentine’s night. Unlike the night before for every 3 tables we seated 2 of those tables wanted a different table. Fortunately we never went on a wait. Last year we were overbooked and did go on a wait and it was awful b/c I couldn’t get us off the wait. This year with it being on a Sunday a lot of people were cancelling or going other places. I really dislike Valentines for the simple fact that I’ve worked both restaurants and in a Hallmark store and it’s such a ridiculous hype. Not to say that I don’t love the fact that I had a beautiful bouquet of a dozen roses. I love to give presents and it’s a great excuse to give something nice and buy fun cards. If I didn’t work in a restaurant I would totally have been home enjoying dinner in! I just dislike the people that valentine’s brings out it’s like they don’t go out any other time of the year but this one night.
Fortunately it wasn’t a long night and I was able to leave around 9:30. Unfortunately upon arriving home a stomach bug made itself known. I missed work yesterday due to the stomach bug. I did watch Bride Wars which I needed and appreciated! It made me laugh and cry, it was great!
Saturday morning S didn’t have to go into the office because of the snow so we ended up with quality time together. This was awesome. I originally planned to return to Charlotte and get a workout in and get Jack settled and I changed my plans so I could spend some time with my guy. I did have to stop at my parents house to pick up my MK order and then I ran by my house for clothes. This meant that I didn’t have time to get a workout in and I regretted that when I stepped on the scale. I really HATE the fact that I have gained weight and I really HATE the fact that despite my best efforts to quit worrying about it I still know that I need to crack down and get serious about my eating and exercise. I saw the pics of me taken during the ½ marathon and I just look fat and I HATE IT!!!!!! I could go on and on but I'm going to stop b/c it just makes me more irritable.
So Saturday night at the restaurant was just craziness and I got back to Davidson and S fixed me a huge gin and tonic that was fabulous!!! Sunday morning I had roses and york peppermint patties and chocolate covered cherries. Now I really appreciate the fact that he got me 2 of my favorite candies and didn’t go for a sampler box. I like york peppermint patties and chocolate covered cherries b/c they are way less fattening then other chocolates!
Sunday was a low key day, I ran 6 miles. I was hoping for 8 but my knees are still tender from 2 weeks ago. This also is a source of frustration for me. I need new shoes and my sweet boyfriend is going to again purchase them for me but until that happens I have to be really careful not to blow out my knees or ankles. I stopped by Brueggers and picked up the yummy smoked salmon bagels. Mine I switch out the sundried tomato spread for cream cheese which saves me a lot of fat grams and it’s just yummy!! Then I had to get ready for another crazy night at the restaurant. I got Jack home and settled and then went in for the big Valentine’s night. Unlike the night before for every 3 tables we seated 2 of those tables wanted a different table. Fortunately we never went on a wait. Last year we were overbooked and did go on a wait and it was awful b/c I couldn’t get us off the wait. This year with it being on a Sunday a lot of people were cancelling or going other places. I really dislike Valentines for the simple fact that I’ve worked both restaurants and in a Hallmark store and it’s such a ridiculous hype. Not to say that I don’t love the fact that I had a beautiful bouquet of a dozen roses. I love to give presents and it’s a great excuse to give something nice and buy fun cards. If I didn’t work in a restaurant I would totally have been home enjoying dinner in! I just dislike the people that valentine’s brings out it’s like they don’t go out any other time of the year but this one night.
Fortunately it wasn’t a long night and I was able to leave around 9:30. Unfortunately upon arriving home a stomach bug made itself known. I missed work yesterday due to the stomach bug. I did watch Bride Wars which I needed and appreciated! It made me laugh and cry, it was great!
Friday, February 12, 2010
Barking
So Jack has taken to barking excessively whenever I leave. I'm not sure if he's doing this during the day while I'm at work. I was hoping that he was sleeping during the day. I came home from dinner last night and he was barking. I know my neighbors are going to be annoyed because he's very loud when he barks and our places are certainly not soundproof.
My neighbor who lives above me came in the door as I was taking Jack out and of course he barked ferociously at her and she made the comment "he's a barker all right". Which if he's really barking all the time she has every right to be irritated. My friend gave me a bark collar but it's died and new batteries don't work so I'm going to have to make a pet smart run today for another bark collar.
My neighbor who lives above me came in the door as I was taking Jack out and of course he barked ferociously at her and she made the comment "he's a barker all right". Which if he's really barking all the time she has every right to be irritated. My friend gave me a bark collar but it's died and new batteries don't work so I'm going to have to make a pet smart run today for another bark collar.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Jack Banner
So I let Jack sleep with me last night and the past 2 times he wouldn’t stay put so he went in his crate ½ way thru the night. Last night he did stay but…. He started off underneath the cover in between my calves. Then he decides he’s too hot so he moves on top of the covers in between my calves. This is not conducive to me really stretching out which I can’t really do very well anyways b/c I haven’t taken the time to get the stuff on my bed put away… So about 3 he decides that he wants back under the covers and wants to lay on top of my one calve, effectively positioning himself so my other leg can’t rest down. I told him that wasn’t going to work and then he stretched out on his back sharing my pillow, my dog believes he’s human sometimes…
It's really hard for me to believe I've had him a year on Saturday.
It's really hard for me to believe I've had him a year on Saturday.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Keeping it in perspective
We have been dating a few months now. There are times when it's hard for me to not ask questions but then I have to remember...
There is the easy way, the hard way, and Shawn's way. This is the guy who literally looked at 99 houses before making an offer on the current house. When I asked what made that house the one he made the offer on he said that it was under contract and his realtor told him if he was really interested he needed to make a move. He low balled it but because he could move in immediately and the other 2 offers were contingent on sales he was the winning bidder.
When he bought his bike I have no idea the hours and hours of research that he put into it.
When he bought his white car he got an amazing deal because they hadn't moved a car of the lot in 2 months and they were desperate to sell something... So he got his first dream car and now he's working towards the purchase of the next one.
One of the assistants at his office started dating a girl and they've only been dating a few weeks and word is there just might be a valentine's proposal. Which in some cases may be ok if the situation was a little different. The assistant is 24 and been married twice and the girlfriend is 21 or somewhere thereabouts. So over dinner we discussed this and why it would be a mistake. I also had to throw in that my brother met his fiance in February and proposed in October and he knew very soon into their relationship that she was the woman for him. So while I threw that in there I did keep the conversation neutral, no small feat for me!
From what I've learned I think it's best to let him bring these kinds of topics up and it's also best for me not to push or ask questions. When he's ready he's going to talk to me about topics related to the future, hopefully....
There is the easy way, the hard way, and Shawn's way. This is the guy who literally looked at 99 houses before making an offer on the current house. When I asked what made that house the one he made the offer on he said that it was under contract and his realtor told him if he was really interested he needed to make a move. He low balled it but because he could move in immediately and the other 2 offers were contingent on sales he was the winning bidder.
When he bought his bike I have no idea the hours and hours of research that he put into it.
When he bought his white car he got an amazing deal because they hadn't moved a car of the lot in 2 months and they were desperate to sell something... So he got his first dream car and now he's working towards the purchase of the next one.
One of the assistants at his office started dating a girl and they've only been dating a few weeks and word is there just might be a valentine's proposal. Which in some cases may be ok if the situation was a little different. The assistant is 24 and been married twice and the girlfriend is 21 or somewhere thereabouts. So over dinner we discussed this and why it would be a mistake. I also had to throw in that my brother met his fiance in February and proposed in October and he knew very soon into their relationship that she was the woman for him. So while I threw that in there I did keep the conversation neutral, no small feat for me!
From what I've learned I think it's best to let him bring these kinds of topics up and it's also best for me not to push or ask questions. When he's ready he's going to talk to me about topics related to the future, hopefully....
Friday, February 5, 2010
I've mentioned that I had a friend who was my running buddy who got me into running and then also got me in the door for the interview for the current job.
We went to dinner for her birthday and after I paid she then proceeded to tell me that I was a terrible friend and I had replaced her with Shawn.
I had tried to make sure that I was still making time for our once weekly run and after that conversation since what I had tried to prevent from happening happened I simply quit trying. I also gave her a lot of space, not exactly easy since we work in the same office.
Over the past weeks I've mentioned some of the things that have happened. I don't say anything in the office because that would make an already uncomfortable situation worse.
While in Miami on Sunday I received an email. She expressed that she's tried to put herself in my shoes and figure out where I'm coming from. She said that she feels like I thought I had to make a choice between her and Shawn. She said that she tried to tell me how she felt and I didn't say I'm sorry or you're wrong but that I just asked her what she wanted me to do about it.
She requested that I respond to her email that she thought we had been good friends and that if we need to go our separate ways so be it.
So essentially it was like a break up email. Complete with the well wishes for a happy future, except it's not that easy because WE WORK TOGETHER...
I had to think carefully about how to respond. I wanted to say that you're FLIPPING CRAZY AND YOU NEED TO GET A GRIP!!!!!!!!!!!!! Instead I explained that I was appreciative that she had expressed what was bothering her. I told her that Shawn and I had only been dating 6 or 7 weeks when she and I had our conversation and that for the most part I only see Shawn on the weekends. I explained (AGAIN FOR THE MILLIONTH TIME or maybe just the 10th) that the 10K on Thanksgiving I ran with MY BROTHER and Shawn only signed up a week before. I told her that I had tried my best to keep up our once weekly running and that we had never done long runs together b/c she naturally runs a faster pace then I do and when I run distance I run even slower. I also told her that she and I had a conversation about the Charlotte 1/2 marathon and how it was not going to be happening this year. I also told her that by the time I was able to register for the Miami 1/2 marathon the Charlotte 1/2 was that Saturday. I told her I like (which not so much but I'm trying to make peace) and respect her and she is very talented and smart, blah blah blah. So I sent, after having Shawn proof it to make sure it didn't have any underlying venom to it, and went about the rest of my day.
I get back to work Tuesday and of all people I end up following her to the restroom. So she asks if I got her email and I said that yes I responded Sunday didn't she get it. To which she says no. So Tuesday afternoon I forwarded her my response again. I have no idea if she got it this time but I'm not going to ask.
I wanted to tell her that had the situation been reversed and she had met a guy and everything that has happened for me had happened for her I would have been happy. I could have cared less that she could no longer keep up the running once a week. It's not that I don't care what's going on it's that I knew I would see her at work and maybe occassionally be able to grab lunch and that with life as crazy busy as it is that it's just not that big of a deal. Email, phone calls, seeing each other at work... All those would mean that we would still be catching up with each other and I would know what's going on. She keeps saying I'm treating her like she's crazy WELL MAYBE THAT'S BECAUSE SHE IS SO FLIPPING CRAZY THAT IT MAKES ME WANT TO SCREAM!!!!!
We went to dinner for her birthday and after I paid she then proceeded to tell me that I was a terrible friend and I had replaced her with Shawn.
I had tried to make sure that I was still making time for our once weekly run and after that conversation since what I had tried to prevent from happening happened I simply quit trying. I also gave her a lot of space, not exactly easy since we work in the same office.
Over the past weeks I've mentioned some of the things that have happened. I don't say anything in the office because that would make an already uncomfortable situation worse.
While in Miami on Sunday I received an email. She expressed that she's tried to put herself in my shoes and figure out where I'm coming from. She said that she feels like I thought I had to make a choice between her and Shawn. She said that she tried to tell me how she felt and I didn't say I'm sorry or you're wrong but that I just asked her what she wanted me to do about it.
She requested that I respond to her email that she thought we had been good friends and that if we need to go our separate ways so be it.
So essentially it was like a break up email. Complete with the well wishes for a happy future, except it's not that easy because WE WORK TOGETHER...
I had to think carefully about how to respond. I wanted to say that you're FLIPPING CRAZY AND YOU NEED TO GET A GRIP!!!!!!!!!!!!! Instead I explained that I was appreciative that she had expressed what was bothering her. I told her that Shawn and I had only been dating 6 or 7 weeks when she and I had our conversation and that for the most part I only see Shawn on the weekends. I explained (AGAIN FOR THE MILLIONTH TIME or maybe just the 10th) that the 10K on Thanksgiving I ran with MY BROTHER and Shawn only signed up a week before. I told her that I had tried my best to keep up our once weekly running and that we had never done long runs together b/c she naturally runs a faster pace then I do and when I run distance I run even slower. I also told her that she and I had a conversation about the Charlotte 1/2 marathon and how it was not going to be happening this year. I also told her that by the time I was able to register for the Miami 1/2 marathon the Charlotte 1/2 was that Saturday. I told her I like (which not so much but I'm trying to make peace) and respect her and she is very talented and smart, blah blah blah. So I sent, after having Shawn proof it to make sure it didn't have any underlying venom to it, and went about the rest of my day.
I get back to work Tuesday and of all people I end up following her to the restroom. So she asks if I got her email and I said that yes I responded Sunday didn't she get it. To which she says no. So Tuesday afternoon I forwarded her my response again. I have no idea if she got it this time but I'm not going to ask.
I wanted to tell her that had the situation been reversed and she had met a guy and everything that has happened for me had happened for her I would have been happy. I could have cared less that she could no longer keep up the running once a week. It's not that I don't care what's going on it's that I knew I would see her at work and maybe occassionally be able to grab lunch and that with life as crazy busy as it is that it's just not that big of a deal. Email, phone calls, seeing each other at work... All those would mean that we would still be catching up with each other and I would know what's going on. She keeps saying I'm treating her like she's crazy WELL MAYBE THAT'S BECAUSE SHE IS SO FLIPPING CRAZY THAT IT MAKES ME WANT TO SCREAM!!!!!
Thursday, February 4, 2010
If I ever
I'm not sure that I've mentioned this but my little brother is getting married. He met the most amazing girl last February and in October he proposed to her. The wedding planning began and he really wanted to keep it small in order to have a day that he and J could enjoy.
The wedding is taking place several hours away from Charlotte in Edenton. It's a good thing B and J live in Greensboro. Mom wants to be involved and is very excited about this big day. The truth is they are doing pretty much everything on their own and really they just want the family to show up.
This hurts my Mom's feelings. She's trying very hard to not overstep while still participating. I overheard a conversation recently at a gas station. A woman was on her cell phone apparently talking to her son and she was saying this is why she wished they had just eloped. Apparently wedding planning is stressful for everyone. No matter what someone is upset or feels left out or they don't agree with what you're doing.
My friend M is the only friend I know who did what I plan to do. She stepped back and told her mom have fun and she didn't worry about it. She didn't want a big wedding but her parents had a lot of friends and she had a lot of people who wanted to be there for her special day and because she let her mom do everything all those people were able to be there. When her sister got married a few years later she wanted a small wedding well that meant that people she would have liked to have included were not included and she wished she had done more like what M did.
I've worked in several bridal stores. I'm familiar with wedding invitations, wedding gowns, tuxedo's... I've followed friends as they have planned and I can send them to the various websites that help with the planning.
If I ever get married it will entirely depend on who I marry and what ideas they might have and what kind of budget I have to work with as to how the day goes. My mom has for years said cake nuts punch and mints and if the budget is small then I'm fine with it. Really and truly I could care less. For me it's more about the fact that I will finally be marrying whoever it is rather than the event itself.
The wedding is taking place several hours away from Charlotte in Edenton. It's a good thing B and J live in Greensboro. Mom wants to be involved and is very excited about this big day. The truth is they are doing pretty much everything on their own and really they just want the family to show up.
This hurts my Mom's feelings. She's trying very hard to not overstep while still participating. I overheard a conversation recently at a gas station. A woman was on her cell phone apparently talking to her son and she was saying this is why she wished they had just eloped. Apparently wedding planning is stressful for everyone. No matter what someone is upset or feels left out or they don't agree with what you're doing.
My friend M is the only friend I know who did what I plan to do. She stepped back and told her mom have fun and she didn't worry about it. She didn't want a big wedding but her parents had a lot of friends and she had a lot of people who wanted to be there for her special day and because she let her mom do everything all those people were able to be there. When her sister got married a few years later she wanted a small wedding well that meant that people she would have liked to have included were not included and she wished she had done more like what M did.
I've worked in several bridal stores. I'm familiar with wedding invitations, wedding gowns, tuxedo's... I've followed friends as they have planned and I can send them to the various websites that help with the planning.
If I ever get married it will entirely depend on who I marry and what ideas they might have and what kind of budget I have to work with as to how the day goes. My mom has for years said cake nuts punch and mints and if the budget is small then I'm fine with it. Really and truly I could care less. For me it's more about the fact that I will finally be marrying whoever it is rather than the event itself.
The time spent in Miami was fantastic! We had trained and worked so hard and then we arrived and had a wonderful time! The day of the race was such a thrill! Then when Monday came I felt sad. I mean all the anticipation and working towards the goal and successfully accomplishing our goal and then suddenly it's finished and I'm feeling sad... I know there will be other races, I know there will be other goals set and accomplished. This was my first 1/2 marathon. Perhaps (and this is a big perhaps) I will actually try for a full marathon. Sitting here typing I think I might be crazy but I did tell S I would see how much I could increase my mileage base and if it's a possibility after all.
Tuesday night I went to the gym ready to run just a few easy miles. It wasn't happening. I lasted 5 minutes on the treadmill and then I had to stop. Granted I did weights before hand and normally I don't try and do weights followed by a run anyways so I'm not sure if fatigue or the weights were the culprit.
I went to my most amazing chiropractor last night who adjusted my hips and legs so that I should be good again for another several weeks.
I had planned after the Miami trip to have a sit down talk with S. We've been dating 3 months and I am more impressed by him every day! I wanted to have a conversation about if we had children will he be accepting of going to church and perhaps even private school. I have decided that perhaps it's better to just let it go for now. While it freaks me out to be dating someone and have no idea what he's thinking as far as the future goes I also understand that the way S thinks 3 months is just not that long of a time. For me it's a significant period but for him not so much.
I realized yesterday that I just have to let go of it. I want to get married I want to have a family but if I obsess over this I'm going to drive him crazy. S's friends will tell you that there is the easy way, the hard way and then there is S's way. He does nothing fast, he researches everything and a lot of times while he's researching he will upsale him self by a lot. Case in point he bought a bike for himself around Christmas. I have not a clue how much the total of that was but I guarantee it was a whole lot of money. He researched, planned, saved and knew exactly what he wanted and how he wanted it.
I take this to mean that eventually when he's ready if he ever reaches that point with me then we will have the conversation that I have decided to table for now. While yes I loudly and clearly hear a ticking clock I can't force, push, or nag him. In looking back at how well my previous relationships didn't work out I've decided that I need to just relax.
I'm 30 and still single for a variety of reasons. When I look back at who I have dated it makes a lot of sense to me that I'm not married. I have decided though, that I can only be relaxed for about 3 more months. If at the end of 6 months I'm still not clear on where this is headed I'm going to have to say something. I think 6 months is 1/2 a year and more than fair for me to start asking for information. I have no patience at all and I've decided to look at this as a personal growth project.
Tuesday night I went to the gym ready to run just a few easy miles. It wasn't happening. I lasted 5 minutes on the treadmill and then I had to stop. Granted I did weights before hand and normally I don't try and do weights followed by a run anyways so I'm not sure if fatigue or the weights were the culprit.
I went to my most amazing chiropractor last night who adjusted my hips and legs so that I should be good again for another several weeks.
I had planned after the Miami trip to have a sit down talk with S. We've been dating 3 months and I am more impressed by him every day! I wanted to have a conversation about if we had children will he be accepting of going to church and perhaps even private school. I have decided that perhaps it's better to just let it go for now. While it freaks me out to be dating someone and have no idea what he's thinking as far as the future goes I also understand that the way S thinks 3 months is just not that long of a time. For me it's a significant period but for him not so much.
I realized yesterday that I just have to let go of it. I want to get married I want to have a family but if I obsess over this I'm going to drive him crazy. S's friends will tell you that there is the easy way, the hard way and then there is S's way. He does nothing fast, he researches everything and a lot of times while he's researching he will upsale him self by a lot. Case in point he bought a bike for himself around Christmas. I have not a clue how much the total of that was but I guarantee it was a whole lot of money. He researched, planned, saved and knew exactly what he wanted and how he wanted it.
I take this to mean that eventually when he's ready if he ever reaches that point with me then we will have the conversation that I have decided to table for now. While yes I loudly and clearly hear a ticking clock I can't force, push, or nag him. In looking back at how well my previous relationships didn't work out I've decided that I need to just relax.
I'm 30 and still single for a variety of reasons. When I look back at who I have dated it makes a lot of sense to me that I'm not married. I have decided though, that I can only be relaxed for about 3 more months. If at the end of 6 months I'm still not clear on where this is headed I'm going to have to say something. I think 6 months is 1/2 a year and more than fair for me to start asking for information. I have no patience at all and I've decided to look at this as a personal growth project.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Back to Reality
We looked up our time on Sunday afternoon. S ran the 1/2 at a 10:35 minute pace. I ran the 1/2 at a 10:46 minute pace. I could have run faster if my stomach hadn't started to protest somewhere around mile 11. It's ok there is always the next one!
Amazingly (and this just means I didn't push myself hard enough) I am not at all sore. Usually after a good run your leg muscles scream at you in protest when you stand up or sit down or go down stairs. Mine have really been just fine. I know my feet are a bit swollen but that's the only sign I have that I really ran 13.1 miles on Sunday.
Yesterday was an adventure! We woke up and packed up and headed out for breakfast. To be honest I was less than impressed with my over priced breakfast it was the worst meal of the entire time in Miami. The fruit place was the best I've ever had though. After breakfast we drove to the Aventura mall which was a cross between Southpark and Northlake in Charlotte. We left in plenty of time and made it to the rental car place where we took our car back. Then we took the shuttle to the airport and walked down to check our bags. Then we made it through security, grabbed a bite to eat... Then we sat and we sat and we sat. our flight was to have left at 3:20 I don't think we even boarded until 5:30. The flight touched down in Charlotte and we picked up our luggage, hopped another shuttle, picked up the car, picked up my dog, and arrived back in Davidson around 9pm.
Through the waiting and the aggravation S stayed very calm. I found out in the car on the way to pick up Jack that he was actually in an extremely bad mood and he really hates to wait like that. If that's his extremely bad mood then I can totally deal with it as basically his bad mood we just sat quietly and read.
I'm so happy to have had the experience and I realized just how much more special it was because I would not have had the opportunity if he hadn't come into my life.
Amazingly (and this just means I didn't push myself hard enough) I am not at all sore. Usually after a good run your leg muscles scream at you in protest when you stand up or sit down or go down stairs. Mine have really been just fine. I know my feet are a bit swollen but that's the only sign I have that I really ran 13.1 miles on Sunday.
Yesterday was an adventure! We woke up and packed up and headed out for breakfast. To be honest I was less than impressed with my over priced breakfast it was the worst meal of the entire time in Miami. The fruit place was the best I've ever had though. After breakfast we drove to the Aventura mall which was a cross between Southpark and Northlake in Charlotte. We left in plenty of time and made it to the rental car place where we took our car back. Then we took the shuttle to the airport and walked down to check our bags. Then we made it through security, grabbed a bite to eat... Then we sat and we sat and we sat. our flight was to have left at 3:20 I don't think we even boarded until 5:30. The flight touched down in Charlotte and we picked up our luggage, hopped another shuttle, picked up the car, picked up my dog, and arrived back in Davidson around 9pm.
Through the waiting and the aggravation S stayed very calm. I found out in the car on the way to pick up Jack that he was actually in an extremely bad mood and he really hates to wait like that. If that's his extremely bad mood then I can totally deal with it as basically his bad mood we just sat quietly and read.
I'm so happy to have had the experience and I realized just how much more special it was because I would not have had the opportunity if he hadn't come into my life.
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