The Big 3-0

No, I'm not turning thirty.


No, the big 3-0 age-wise came two years ago.  This is a 3-0 of a different color.


Weight Watchers has been going really well.  I really don't know what all the fuss was about before--somehow this time everything has just fallen into place.  I've been really good at abiding by my points, and for the most part, I've been eating a good balance of protein, carbs, and fruits & veg.  I've been having snacks, I've been able to divide bags of pretzels or sweets into portions and eat only the portion. I've not excluded anything.  I eat cake, candy, chips, pizza...all in moderation.  I even find space for the occasional glass of wine or beer.

As of two weeks ago, fifteen weeks after starting Weight Watchers, I had lost 30 pounds!  I had to order some new pants, two sizes smaller, I might add, because the pants I had been wearing were just too baggy and wouldn't stay up.  At the same time I am completely amazed at myself, and utterly thrilled, I feel like things in my life are starting to fall into place.  I know it sounds a little funny for a nearly 32 year old woman to say this, but I feel like I am finally growing up, finally becoming my own woman...and I love it!

Anyone who knows me very well knows that I am far from being a patient person, and I tend to spaz out about things, but for the first time in my life and can look and see that lots of the things I've been waiting for are happening!  I have a couple really awesome friends, without whom I would be completely lost, I am stable and mostly satisfied in my job, I have plans to better myself (education wise), and I am actually doing some of the things which I want to do.  And for the first time I feel that not only do I have a best friend, but that I am someone else's best friend.  I cannot even start to tell you how awesome that feels.

Add to my awesome besties a few really supportive and super awesome family members, and I feel, to be cliché, like I could fly.  My friends and family, and also my awesome counselor, are helping me to not only  figure out who I am, but to feel free, more like give myself permission, to be whoever it is I decide to be.

I am thinking about me!  I am deciding not what is best for others, but what is best for me!

I also decided that I spent too long blindly following and that I need to look at things such as education, religion, politics, morals and to analyze them and decide for myself how to think and what to believe.  My art teacher, whom I adore and has been like a mentor to me, used to say that he didn't want cookie cutter art--well I am no longer a cookie cutter person!  I am an original and I want to be an original.

So, on this fairly beautiful, if slightly chilly, day I am sitting on the porch with my laptop and a glass of wine, working on my novel and feeling pretty darn satisfied.

Aaaah....

                                            

The Saga of Double Gnome Seven: Road Trip Part 6

Need refreshment. Hmmm...reach...re-e-a-ch...

                                       

Jerk Face

I'm feeling like a real jerk today.

My mom has been wanting to move to Wisconsin near where my Uncle lives for the past couple years.  This affects me because I live with her.  I have not been able to afford living on my own and I've enjoyed living with her, but I have longed for some independence the last year or so.  After a period of not really hearing much about Wisconsin, she brought it up again last week, so finally I told her (on Mother's Day), straight out, that I don't want to move right now.

When she first talked about it a couple years ago, I was indifferent.  I like the Madison area, I love going up to visit, and at that point I didn't have much to keep me in Iowa.  At one point, early on, she got me so excited about moving that I applied for several jobs, but never got any responses.  My interest cooled off when I could not get a job after a year of trying, and then, last year, as my job swirled around the crapper for several months, I would have taken a job scrubbing toilets to get out of here!

While last year was one of the worst years of my life, being thrown under the bus by my employer, but being accused of throwing my employer under the bus, doing the job of three people by myself, for months, for no extra pay or even a thank you (but instead being told I was being negative), there were also some good things to come out of the year, such as my new boss.

Yes, I couldn't ask for a better boss.  He is extremely sarcastic and we kinda bicker back and forth, but we get a long really well and understand where one another are coming from.  It is so awesome to have someone who not only trusts me to do my job, but who supports me, stands up for me, and wants to help me better myself.  I actually like my job again.  Now, that doesn't mean that I want to stay there forever.  My position is pretty much a dead end position, but for the time being I am comfortable.  I have a stable job, good insurance, lots of stored up vacation time, and colleagues whom I adore.

Which brings me to another reason: Meghan.  I have become good friends with Meghan, whose office is down the hall, and who teaches music at the college.  We get along really really well, and we both have some issues, so half the time we end up giving one another the exact same advice.  We get together frequently for movie nights, lunch, etc. (something many times involving wine and girl talk) and I really think we need each other.  She has been a great support for me in losing weight, and I hope I've been a support for her, and for her daughter.  I love them both!

One last, and pretty big reason to stay is that I am applying to a dual MA program in Library and Information Science and Translation at the University of Wisconsin--Milwaukee and the college will give me money towards my classes.

So, I think mom and I have gotten over the initial shock of things, although yesterday I felt like a right jerk, but last night we planted cucumbers together and things seem to be ok.

For once I feel somewhat confident in my plans and like my life is actually going somewhere.

P.S. I am sitting outside on the porch with my new laptop writing this in 93º weather.  Just a little over a week ago we had a snowstorm with some of the worst road conditions all winter.

Dear Mike

This is wonderful!!!

This wonderful young woman, Amy Taylor, writes a letter to Abercrombie + Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries.  Please, please, please read!

Link to the original page.

Pre Mid-Life Mini Crisis??

Ok, I apologize for that last post.  I was a little...cuckoo.

After brooding for a day, I feel much better.  Something just snapped in me and I was suddenly unsure of all the big decisions I've been making and felt like my life was going nowhere.

Today has been much better, and to top it all off, my dad and brother gave me money towards a laptop which I just purchased!

S.W.E.E.T.

I'm... *

*Just think of me singing about a computer...**
**Ok, one video leads to another and I am totally listening to 80's women...  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBwS66EBUcY

Crushed

I feel as though my world, my hopes and dreams have all been shattered.

I've been working on a book which is a fictionalized version of my life.  I don't know about the rest of you, but I need a plan, a dream--something to hope for, or else I don't hope for anything.  So, my plan was to write this book, it would be turned into a movie and not only would I fulfill my dream of acting, but I would meet Jeremy Renner and fall madly in love.  Tonight, I was doing well writing, getting into it and I stopped to look up something on the interent when I see that  JR and his ex have just had a baby.

My.world.is.crushed.

Yes, I know that my plan was never going to become a reality, but it was the hope that kept me going, kept me striving for something.  Now, I am sitting here looking at these words I've written and I want to toss it all away.

How stupid is that?

It's very stupid, but that's what I feel like.

I was texting with a good friend last night who has found someone she really likes and I'm very happy for her.  I was saying that I hope by the time they might ever get hitched, if they decided to, I would hopefully have someone to be my date.  She told me I just needed to keep believing and to have faith, he's out there somewhere and I need to trust God.

Well, I don't have hope.  I don't have faith.  I don't trust God, because he, just like everyone else, has let me down.  I want, desperately want there to be someone in my life someday, but I cannot convince myself that there will be.  I know that there have been good things in my life and I am grateful for them, not that my mother would think I was, but what about the one thing I truly want?

When I went to hang out with my friend last weekend, I found her outback with her neighbors, two wonderful people who I knew from church.  They asked where I was going to church and I said nowhere.  They said "you need to go somewhere."  Thing is, I don't want to.  I've kinda had it with organized religion.  People are imperfect (look at me) and they screw things up--hurt other people and turn them off of the church.

What it boils down to is that I am mad.  I had a church home for fifteen plus years, but suddenly no one wanted me to be involved, the church leaders wouldn't even return phone calls, and I felt that the years I had spent pouring my all into that church were wasted and no one cared about me.  Heck, no one even called to say we miss you, or noticed that I was gone.

I'm mad at God, because he got to create everything and he gets to have everything his way.  I feel like we are in a cosmic video game and we really don't have choices because God will do whatever he wants anyway.  And I'm still mad at what he made me.  People say God doesn't make mistakes, but if I'm not a mistake, then I'm a pretty cruel joke.  I didn't ask to be here, I didn't ask to spend my whole life being lonely and being bullied because I was chubby.  I'm mad that I'm almost thirty-two and I have still never had a relationship, and because I am disgusted by myself because of others' hurtful words.

I feel that I have no purpose.  If I don't have someone to do things for or some sort of dream to long for then I feel worthless.

I believe in God, don't get me wrong.  I just don't think it's fair.  Why does he know what's best?  Why can't I have some say in my life?

Well, I've been on a high for about three months, so I guess this was bound to happen.  Wouldn't it be nice if we could reboot ourselves--just start fresh.  Wouldn't it be nice if I could purge all those hurtful words and deeds from my mind?  Wouldn't it be nice if someone could love me, if I could love me, in spite of myself?

Maybe I'll just sit on the porch and drink some wine.

Thank goodness I have a couple great ladies to keep me going.  Without them, I'd be completely lost.

And yes...I would like a big frickin' piece of cheese with my whine!

What the What?!?! Again!

And May 3 was even worse!

My poor little cucumber starts seem to be saying "What the heck?!?"