10/8/11

Saturday

I woke up late Friday, and just kind of hung out around the house all day. I didn’t eat very good, either, but it didn’t seem to affect my weight (We’ll see today). I ended up doing my walking/running intervals this evening, and did a total of 6 minutes altogether on my running. The whole thing took about 37 minutes. I’m still feeling pretty stiff. My lower back, hips, and legs are pretty uncomfortable, but that’s how it is if you want to lose weight, I guess.

Oh! I went on the website that my story was published on and realized that it has an audio track of a woman with a very pretty British accent reading it. She even acts out the dialog a bit, and gives the perfect, sultry voice for my main character. LOVED it. Probably the best thing to happen all day … besides writing 1000 words on my story and finishing the chapter.

Other than that, yesterday was pretty uneventful. I’m going to get off here and try to go to bed. I’ll probably end up doing my walk at the end of the day like I did today, since I’m getting to bed so late.

10/7/11

Friday

Yesterday my mom surprised us by going to town, so I got my walking/running intervals in and a bunch of walking in town. My weight has went down a bit more, but I’m unsure whether or not I should accept the change right now (in case the scale is lying to me, or something). I’m afraid if I accept the 211 as my real weight, it will pop back up to 215. I guess I’m just not used to losing so much. I’m starting to feel a bit optimistic, though. Once I hit 210 … 200 is right around the corner … and then ONEderland! Yippee!

I’ll be seeing a weight I haven’t seen since high school. It’s pretty exciting.

I’m slowly getting through the next chapter in my dark fantasy novel. It’s been a VERY slow process, but I think I might start a snowball affect (effect?) soon. I’m getting to a scene I’ve been envisioning for a while, so that’s always a good sign.

As for the groceries…. Yes, we got some junk food … BUT I also have a chest freezer full of frozen veggies, and a pantry (not a REAL pantry … we use the fridge, but you get the picture) full of dry beans, brown rice, wheat tortillas, crackers, and bread. I also bought two huge jars of minced garlic, Greek yogurt, salsa, cheese, eggs, pumpkin pie filling, canned pineapple (for pizza), cereal and milks, frozen blueberries, and frozen mixed fruit. In the freezer I also have frozen apples and peaches. In our pantry we still have canned tomatoes, tomato sauces, and canned fish, so we’ve got a pretty good bit of food, and yes, I agree I should really be cutting back on the junk … but, hello. I WANT to be happy, and if said junk is portioned and falls under my allotment of calories … I think I should be able to splurge a bit if I’m still doing my exercise.

Okay. I should probably be heading to bed soon. It’s almost 2 am and I want to do my workout at 7 … or 8 am the latest.

Sunday

9/25/11

I can’t believe it’s already fall. I love the cool weather, but it always makes me sad saying goodbye to a season, especially since … in just a couple more months it will be Christmas … then Christmas will be over and it’ll be the New Year, and then my birthday … and still, what have I done this year?

Not much, and that makes me more than a little depressed. I want to start my novel. I want to finish, polish, and publish it. It doesn’t even have to be a bestseller, either, but I want some accolades, some feeling of accomplishment, and a little money wouldn’t be so bad, either. But I can’t even start the darn thing. This is becoming so frustrating. I’ve had this story in my head since middle school. I’ve seen the characters in my mind, written many notes, and received scenes like I was a psychic getting a glimpse at a previous life, but if I can’t write it … well, then it feels like it’s all for nothing.

People tell me to just leave it on the back-burner, and write something else, but what if it always sits on the back-burner? What if I can never get the complete story onto paper … or worse yet, what if I do, but I just can’t execute it properly?

And even with those other stories…. Rarely have I finished anything, and the stories I have finished are either really short, or old, badly-written first drafts that I can’t glean anything out of. Sometimes I wonder if I’m only fooling myself. Maybe I’m not a writer. Maybe I’m just one of those under-average people that never do anything with their lives … like my parents.

I just don’t know where I’m at … or where I’m heading. Right now I feel as if I’m lost in the middle of the ocean, and no matter which way I turn, there’s no sign of land … no sign of life. I used to like this. I used to only want to be to myself … or at least only with a selective few, but those few have dwindled, and I’m left feeling pretty lonely and sad.

Then I only wanted love. Now that I have that love … I want friendships … life experiences … you know, things that make you want to wake up in the morning, things that make you excited with anticipation, because something fun is going to happen in your future.

Writing gives me that for a little while, but when I’m constantly blocked … I have nothing to look forward to. I never get to go anywhere, and it doesn’t look like that’s going to change, because Dad is still busy with Katherine’s car … and on his own projects which are apparently more important than me. He didn’t even look at the leaks in my house like he said he would yesterday.

Sometimes I wonder who he wanted me to be, because he has never really shown any pride or excitement for any of the things I do. Even when I sang a solo in my high school choir, I just got a blank-faced expression and a simple “You did a good job.”

Okay, once he showed some excitement, but it wasn’t for anything I wanted to do. In my high school you had to major in either health or business. I chose health, because I’ve always been interested in health-related things, and I would have chosen it anyway, because business bores the crap out of me. Anyway, he got the impression from my classes that I wanted to be a nurse. I may have mentioned I was thinking about it … of course I failed to mention that it was a fleeting thought, and I heard him exclaim to someone how his daughter was going to be a nurse. The excitement in his voice crushed my heart, because right then … I knew he’d never be proud of anything I wanted to do.

Unfortunately, the class was too hard for me, and I failed it, but I no longer cared about school much then, anyway. It was pretty close to when I dropped out, and got my GED.

Wow, I had no idea this was going to turn into a vent. Hope it wasn’t boring. lol.

I will wrap this up by saying that I ate a huge amount of food yesterday. I ate a very, very late dinner Friday when I should have just skipped it (it was nearly 12 am), and that dinner triggered me into eating way more. All that food was healthy, though, but the calorie count went pretty high. Then I went to my parents’ and ate even more food … which wasn’t healthy at all. We’ll just leave it to that.

So far, this morning, I’ve only had one bite of pasta that my husband was eating, and then I exercised. Here’s what I did:

38 minute walk (4 minutes or so was of running intervals). + 10 minutes or so of stretching. The HRM says I burned over 600, but I know that’s not accurate, even if I put forth a lot of effort.

Husband has a headache, but hopefully he will feel well enough to attend church. I haven’t been in a couple weeks… yikes.

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9/22/11

Thursday

Today wasn’t a good day at all. What made it even worse was that it seemed like it would be a good day at first, but slowly slipped into “bad day” territory the longer I stayed awake. I’ve been having this weird, tight feeling in my throat, like I’m being choked. I’ve had it all day, along with little bursts of anxiety. I think I had a bit too much Pepsi max. I’m just trying to ignore it. I can’t let something like this bug me right now, because I have no money to the doctor anyway, so I might as well avoid thinking about it.

Anyway … I didn’t go to bed last night, so I played a video game for a while, and then got on that social network site to talk to my mom. My brother is doing horribly in school. He’s refusing to do any work at all, and has gotten Saturday school now. My mom has to go in Monday for a conference with his teachers.

I could only imagine my dad’s reaction had this been me at his age in this scenario. I would have gotten spankings with his belt, plus yelled at, plus grounded.

What do you think he got?

He got yelled at for about 2 minutes, had his bedtime reduced from 10 pm to 9 pm, and has to sleep in his own bed instead of on the couch in front of the nice, big HD TV.

Yep. That’s it.

Crazy punishment, huh?

Yeah, I thought so too.

By the way, my brother is in 6^th grade.

So, I was going to clean some today, but I didn’t feel like it. I also didn’t feel like exercising since my throat felt tight and weird. Around 12 pm I went over to my parents’, took a shower, and had a bowl of chili, because I felt hungry. I watched some TV with mom, dozed a couple of minutes in the chair, and talked to my cousin when he stopped by. Then I went back to my house around 5:30 pm to get my husband, since my mom had invited us down for dinner.

We had a couple slices of pizza. I didn’t enjoy it at all. It hurt my stomach almost immediately. I’ve noticed I really only enjoy eating at our house now. The setting isn’t enjoyable at my parents’ anymore for me. I want to have something enjoyable to watch … not the stinking news. I want to eat slowly, and savor my food, but because there’s more people around, I feel rushed to scarf my food down, so I’ll get enough to get full.

My dad still hasn’t moved my car (even though I already bought gas and even bought them a brand new gas can). He’s preoccupied with working on my cousin’s car. We’ll call her Katherine. Katherine recently separated from her husband … who she’s only been married to for a little less than 2 years. He cheated on her … maybe more than once. Not so sure on the details, but I know he did it at least once. Anyway, that’s not important. What’s important is my dad spending so much time fixing her stupid car, and not even moving mine. Ugh!

I also found some leaks in my house, and I know he probably wouldn’t even come to check them out if I asked, because he’s so busy with Katherine’s car.

Sometimes I really don’t feel like I matter, or that anyone really likes/loves me.

Also, Katherine isn’t really the exercise type. She’s not obese. She’s never been obese, but for now, she’s been looking overweight. Now, she suddenly writes on her status on the social network site that she’s going for a run. I should be happy that she’s wanting to better herself, but it completely ticked me off. I’m not sure why, but, hey, I’m a bitter person, anyway, right? It was sure to annoy me.

I wish I could get rid of all this bitterness and anger, but I don’t know how. I know a psychiatrist would surely help, but … money issues, so it’s not going to happen. I’m really at a lost. I hate the person I am. I want to be happy, but I just never feel happy. And if I do, it’s rarely, and in spontaneous spurts.

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9/13/11

Tuesday

Noodle cup: 290 calories

I’ll be eating dinner at my mom’s tonight: chili and pig and a blanket: ? Calories (hopefully under 1400)

I finally received my contributor’s copy of untied shoelaces of the mind’s anthology, and was really excited to find my story in print … in a book! It looks amazing. Then, my husband tells me there’s bad news while I’m enjoying the “bait”. He says that they’re cutting our check, so I ask how much we’ll be getting. I roughly guess $500 jokingly, of course, but he says close. So I ask, “lower or higher”, and he says lower, and my stomach starts to knot up. He says because we’re getting foodstamps they’re cutting our check down dramatically.

So it’s either keep the $224 in food stamps, and have a $494 for our bills and expenses, or we can forgo the food stamps, and get $674. Roughly, it comes out close, and I know we’d probably skip buying food in favor of bills or expenses if we did that. I believe we will keep the food stamps, but it’s going to be tight.

Now we’re in the process of figuring out how to cut our expenses. I’m just floored. How the hell can anyone live on $494 a month … for our monthly expenses, and bills? I have no idea how I’m going to afford to see my dentist anymore, no idea how I’m going to get any of the 6 fillings I need or my $700-something crown. This beyond sucks. I don’t know what to do … This is worse than that overdraft fee we had. I feel so sick with anxiety. We still want internet, but we’re going to have to settle for a smaller “package”. We’re deciding between keeping direct tv on its lowest package or netflix. We can’t have both, because we also have electricity, water, and monthly expenses like toilet paper, soap, and litter and food for two cats. We’re going to have to have an early bedtime curfew so our electricity bill won’t be so high, and I can use my laptop off the battery if I want to be on the internet or write at night. I just can’t believe this is happening. I feel so sick to my stomach.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to live on a super tight budget?

9/12/11

Monday

I’ve been eating like a pig. Seriously. Today I accidentally slept all day. Oh well. Better than eating all day. This is what I hope to eat the rest of the day:

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Apple Cinnamon Nutra grain bar: 120 calories

Cereal + Almond Milk: 400 calories

2 wheat tortillas, 2 spicy chicken strips, 1 serving cheese + mixed veggies: 930 calories

Moser Roth Cherry Chili Chocolate Bar OR 2 Moser Roth regular chocolate bars : 220 calories

Altogether: 1670 calories.

I’ve been watching a person’s videos on a popular video sharing site (hint hint), and I think they have tourette’s syndrome. It startled me at first, because I was listening to the person sing a song I really liked, and they were pretty good, and then they just started twisting and clenching their face and thrusting their hooked finger at the screen. There was a lot of anger in the person’s eyes, and I had to stop the video immediately. My heart was beating so fast, and my husband said he got goosebumps from just seeing my expression (and he hadn’t even watched the video). Anyway, I went back to watching the person’s videos, and they make the facial tics a lot. They’re still a bit scary, but now I find myself a bit fascinated. I also hate how there’s mean comments all over the person’s videos and channel, so I decided to send the person lots of nice comments and we’ve been chatting casually for a day or so through the site’s messenger. They seem pretty nice. I can’t believe people would be so rude. I also hope I haven’t come off sounding rude.

To be honest, I think I have a mild form of tourette’s syndrome, though I’ve never been diagnosed, or even evaluated. When I was a child I had a “tic” that looked like I was yawning, but it wasn’t a yawn, it was just opening my mouth really wide. I also “Snorted”. My parents teased me about it, and my dad would tell me to just stop doing it, but I couldn’t, because it felt like I HAD to do it, because my jaws felt tense, and it would relieve that tension for a bit, but then I’d have to do it soon again. My dad even bribed me to stop with $10. I can’t remember how long if took me to stop, but it was so hard to stop, because the impulse was hard to ignore. I’ve also always “Fiddled” with my hands, fingers, and wrists, snapping and twisting them around. I HAVE to do this, or I feel like I can’t think deep. I do this when I brainstorm story ideas, sometimes when I read to picture it good, or when I daydream. I constantly got scolded in elementary school for doing this. I would also use my hair and pencils to cover it up. I still do this, but I try to only do it in privacy. I also pick at scabs, my fingernails, cuticles, and the skin around my fingers and on my feet, face when it’s broken out, and my bottom lip. I also chewed my inner cheeks. I’m not sure if those are considered tics or not. I’ve completely stopped doing the yawn mouth and snorting, but I do everything else still.

Anyway, this is seriously off topic. lol.

I had a lot I needed to do today. I need to sweep the bathroom floor since both cat’s litter-pans on in there now. I need to frontline the cats for their fleas. I want to hurry up and get this done. I also need to clean the kitchen. My husband said he’d help, so that’s good.

Anyway, I sincerely hope nothing in this offended anyone. I’m just fascinated by mental illnesses and I’m a HUGE hypochondriac.

Well, until then.

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9/9/11

I’m sorry that I haven’t posted on here in a while. I changed laptops, and forgot the password to my blog, and was too lazy to get it from my email. Now, I’ve stored it safely on a document, so you should be seeing more of me.

In case any of you were concerned (since my last blog sounded so frustrated and hopeless) we had a pretty big overdraft fee, but were able to make it by easily, so I guess I blew it out of proportion. Still … I could have used that $130 we lost for a filling, but oh well. What can you do? What’s done is done.

I was able to make $51 something using Amazon Mechanical Turk, but, honestly, it’s a lot of work for very little money. Still, I might as well do some surveys or write some articles for chunk change instead of waiting around on facebook to see if anybody cares enough to message me all day. Oh, and I finally got paid my $30 for a short story I wrote for an ezine called Untied Shoelaces of the Mind. I realize it’s not much of a payment, but it’s my first paid story. I feel like it’s a pretty big stepping stone. It feels nice having someone pay me for something I created myself.

I haven’t been counting calories here lately, but I’ve kept up with exercising a few times a week (3-5 usually). I’ve also added 30-40 minutes of stretching after my walking/running intervals, since I want to increase my flexibility and strength. I haven’t lost anything more since I hit 215, but I’ve been eating pretty bad, and have stayed bloated to around 217-219 for the past few days (since I bought groceries). I need to get back to eating more healthily and portioning better, because I really don’t want to gain it all back. Also, I’ve decided to set a small goal for myself. My wedding anniversary is November 7^th. I’d really like to be at 210 by then. It’s not a huge goal, so maybe I’ll be able to make it. We’ll see.

Well, that’s it for now. I’ll try to post my food for the day later.

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7/26/11

Tuesday:

So, what do I get for lending my parents’ $100 in their time of need?

Any guesses?

I get $100 overdrawn, with a $7 a day fee, with no way to pay it, because the bank account is in CA, and we’re in TN. Yippee. Now, my husband is searching online for something to sell on ebay, so he can transfer any money made through paypal to our account.

I asked my parents’ if they’d be able to pay us back by placing the money in our paypal before we took anything out, because we needed money back in there for 1 last bill. Mom told me they would, but later Dad said, “I can’t use my paypal anymore”. Then Mom quickly remembers (but not quickly enough, because we’ve already taken money out) “Oh, yeah, he has a fee on paypal he hasn’t paid yet, so he can’t use it anymore unless he pays the fee first.”

Grrrr!

Thanks-a-freakin’-lot!

Oh, and can anybody guess how this gets worse?

Because of some government debt shit, we might not get our check on time or at all this month (my husband gets ssi ).

It just gets better and better, huh?

I tried so hard to enjoy church tonight, with vacation Bible school, and all, but my stress just wouldn’t turn off, and more than anything, I wanted to grab that huge plate of cookies, and go off somewhere and shovel them into my face.

I had a huge plate of cookies anyway, but I really wanted to eat them all. I know that sounds bad, but it’s the way I felt. I completely turned into an anti-social creature when I ate tonight. I know my melancholic demeanor was probably like a radiating aura around me.

I even felt bad before I found out we were overdrawn.

I slept until like 2 in the afternoon!

This has not been a good day at all.

If any Christians are reading this, please pray for us that we’ll find a way to sell something, and cover the overdraft fee.

Dinner: About 1 cup of spaghetti & about 1 cup of corn salad: 600 calories?

Snack: 1 piece of a pimento cheese sandwich, 2-3 servings of chips, 8-9 cookies, 1 cupcake: 1200 calories?

I will probably eat something again later. I’ll post if I do.

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7/25/11

Monday:

2 burritos with Greek Yogurt + salsa: 687 calories?

1 serving size of potato chips:160 calories.

Fudge Round: 300 calories.

I went to bed a little after eating that meal, and woke up 4-5 hours later with a burning throat and vomited, then had stomach cramps and had to stay in the bathroom for a while. I got what I deserved. I have no business eating such a huge meal so late at night. What was I thinking?

Around 11 am I did a 42 minute walk/run intervals. The HRM says I burned 529 calories, but I seriously doubt that, though it was insanely humid.

Lunch: half a ham/cheese sandwich with mustard and a serving of BBQ potato chips:340 calories?

Chocolate cake: 300 calories?

I watched the food network at my mom’s and drank diet mountain dew. I replied to an email from my beautiful, skinny cousin, and she told me that she only eats one meal a day when by herself, and two if her husband is home. That sounds like a good idea.

I took a shower and then ate dinner: 4 small slices of chicken-fried steak + a biscuit + macaroni and cheese + instant mashed potatoes: 400-500 calories?

VBS again tonight. We watched a seminar on dinosaurs and evolution that was very interesting. After the service we ate an assortment of cookies and I had a piece of a tuna-fish sandwich and a cupcake: 1000 calories?

I’m awful, I know.

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Sunday:

7/24/11

I’m sorry that I missed a day of posting here. I’ve been feeling depressed, but I’m doing better now. Also, I had to switch laptops, and Open Office wasn’t working on this one, so I had to redownload it.

I had the blues pretty bad today. Thankfully, like I mentioned earlier, it seems to have left me now. Last night I ate at my parents’ house. I had, roughly, close to 15-1600 calories, so not bad. I had a bit more today, because we’re having vacation Bible school at church, and there were cookies and juice as refreshments.

But I’ll back up to yesterday. We stayed at my parents’ house most of the day. I ate a ham/cheese sandwich: roughly 280 calories, dinner: chicken-fried-steaks pieces, macaroni and cheese, instant mashed potatoes, and a biscuit: 900-1000 calories? Little Debbie Fudge Round: 300 calories.

Yesterday wasn’t a good day at all. I felt depressed, bickered with my brother about the television (we both wanted to watch something different), and my husband and I had a fight last night before going to bed because we were both feeling depressed because of the same stuff I already complain about on here all the time. I also skipped exercising, because I woke up late, and my back still hurt.

This morning, believe it or not, my mom came down to pick us up for church. My husband refused to go, still holding onto his grudge from last night, and it made me feel sad, because he could say “no” to me so easily. I felt like if I was prettier, skinnier, more charming, more fun to be around, he wouldn’t ever be able to say “no” to me, or if he did, it would be harder.

So, I went with my mom, anyway. She never picks us up, and I didn’t want to make her “journey” next door a wasted effort. I enjoyed going this morning. The sermon was good, the people friendly. It was a pleasant experience as it always is since we’ve replaced preachers. I came straight home after church, and my husband and I fought more, resulting in me yelling, sobbing, and pinching my skin until I made marks on myself.

Then my husband did the unthinkable.

He became the romantic, affectionate, apologizing man I know he can be. He wrapped his arms around me, kissed me, consoled me, and we made up.

We also ended up doing more than that if you catch my drift.

After that, we got ready, went to my parents’, had some lunch, then went to church. We laughed together, held hands, gave each other “eyes”, and everything feels right in the world right now.

Oh, and the scale said 217.4 earlier, but since I’ve eaten it’s popped back up to 219. Still, I’m happy to see something under 220.

So, here’s what I ate today.

Bologna/ cheese sandwich with miracle whip: 300 calories

roughly 1 serving of BBQ chips: 250 calories?

An assortment of cookies: 700-800 calories?

Altogether: 1350