November Goals - Review

- go to the gym 15 times.
WIN!  Today was #16.  I would have been there at least four more days, but the gym closed down for a location move two weeks ago, and I was sick the last two Mondays.

- lose 5 lbs. 
WIN!  Stepping on the scale tonight, I'm down 7.

- cook at least TWO new meals, and document.
WIN!  Made Hawaiian Chicken with Pineapple and Pepper Rice.

Also made Low-Fat Chicken and Pesto Shells with Homemade (courtesy of my mom) Pasta Sauce. 

- do the 30 day shred, or any other Jillian the Devil video twice a week.
Did it five times this month, so that's a little over once a week.  Tried doing it one morning when I couldn't sleep and that was the beginning of my stomach flu and I threw up half way through... Have had an aversion to it since.

- start the process of letting go of the things in my life that are bringing me down.
This is always a learning process.  I'm working on it.

- tell myself ONE good thing about myself every day.
WIN!  I went even farther than that and posted to facebook every day.  It wasn't always easy, and I have chronicled them together in a word document that I am going to print out.

- love unconditionally and endlessly from the tips of my fingers all the way to my heart. 
This one remains to be worked on.  I met someone, but his feelings were a lot stronger than mine were and he wasn't willing to stick around and wait for me to be ready.  He obviously wasn't the one.  I'm okay with it.

- "accept what people have to offer, drink their milkshakes, take their love."
See above.

- read two books from start to finish.
FAIL!  Read one.  I don't remember the name of it right now, but the same author as The Pilot's Wife.  It was good.  I am about half way through with Devil in the White City.  It's interesting but a bit of a slow read.

- finish one piece of art that has been started and set aside for an indeterminate amount of time.
WIN!  have my paint set out, and I'm sitting down to finish my first canvas tonight.

- drink more red wine.
WIN! This was the easiest one on my list!  Last night I even got to taste a friend's homemade dry red wine (made with grapes, watermelon, and cherries!).  Divine.

- take myself to a movie, any movie.  eat a bag of popcorn with butter, drink a soda, and enjoy my own company for a few hours.
Went to see Breaking Dawn twice.  First time with Tancy, second time with my mom and sister.  Not alone, but totally worth it.

- start to forgive.  everything.  everyone. especially myself.
I would say that this month was one giant step forward.  I'm not angry anymore.  I'm not so much hurt any more.  I am okay with things.  I am more okay with me than I have been in a long time, maybe ever.  Please feel free to remind me of this when I'm complaining again about something I have little to no control over. :)

Bring it on DECEMBER! 

"We feel it's unacceptable to be fat, when it has nothing to do with who the person actually is." -Gwyneth Paltrow

 For a very long time I have thought being fat meant being unattractive.  (This is only in regards to myself.  I have always found voluptuous women more attractive and easier to talk to than the skinny ones.  This is my own image of myself I'm talking in regards to.)  And being unattractive meant being ugly.  So this in turn meant that if I was fat, I was ugly.  I have been fat for a while now.  Fat people are invisible, and it's only now after I've lost close to 60 pounds, fit into sizes I haven't fit into since high school, and am actually able to look at my body and not completely hate it, that I'm just starting to realize this.

What I haven't yet learned is if we as fat people are invisible because society makes us that way.  It's not polite to stare at the fat girl, so instead we're just going to pretend she doesn't exist?  Or is it to do with my self esteem growing as my weight is shrinking?  Are people more apt to talk to me in the halls at work, in the grocery store, on dating sites, because I'm more likely to talk to them rather than avert my eyes and continue to be invisible?

In this month of reinvention, I have been reading blogs of people who at least appear to have their shit together.  They love themselves for who they are and nothing more, but certainly nothing less.  Things I have a problem with?  The majority of these bloggers are skinny girls who have always been skinny girls (not that there's anything WRONG with that) but I just can't relate to them.  In my own mind I'm thinking "Of course you're happy!  You've never been called fat!  You've never gone into a clothing store and not been able to find something you could fit into!  You have no idea what unhappiness is!"  All of this I know is completely false and everyone knows what it's like to be unhappy about one thing or another, but it's nearly impossible for me to follow the advice of a stranger telling me "love yourself!" when they've never REALLY been in my shoes.

Now onto the question of do I love myself?  More so now than probably ever.  I get very disappointed in my lack of progress over the last few months, but then I put on my clothes and they're all baggy.  I shave my legs and I don't get winded.  I can see and feel the definition of muscles in my legs and arms and back and shoulders and waist that I have never been able to feel before.  I can walk at an 8 degree inclined treadmill, and yes, I get winded, and yes, I get sweaty, but I can do it.  I sleep better at night (most of the time) and it's so much easier for me to get up in the morning.  There are still days when I absolutely hate myself and who I am and what I look like, but those days are fewer and farther between.

Now, onto the dating.  I have a really hard time believing someone when they tell me I am beautiful.  I have never taken compliments well, and when we get back to the whole fat = ugly issue, and there is a huge mess.  I chalk it up to taking good photos, and of course I wouldn't post the ones that are bad.  I take probably five bad photos to every one good one.  I am squishy and short and kind of have an attitude problem on even the best of days.  Beautiful?  Pft.  Stop lying.  It's also one thing to have someone tell you you're beautiful online. (which, sadly, is where I do most of my dating...) But to have them tell you in person, to your face, and your first response is "Shut UP!"

There's something wrong with me.

So, for any fellow fatties out there, what do you think?  Invisibility because that's what society is taught to do, or do we seclude ourselves from people unintentionally to try to hide our size?  Or a combination of both?  And what can we do to end it?

I guess that I don't need that, though, now you're just somebody that I used to know

Happiness is a fickle thing.  It ebbs and it flows just like every other aspect of life, so why am I just starting to figure this out now? 

This last month has been a month of attempting to rediscover myself.  I have met some new people, read some really fantastic books, and watched more movies than I had planned to.  I have been able to spend more time at the gym than not, and my gym actually closed down for four days while they moved to a new location (which I am still getting used to.)

A close friend said something to me a few weeks ago that really hit home.  She said, "Being angry with someone is like you drinking poison, and expecting him to die from it."  Hello open eyeballs.  I have been trying to incorporate this into more aspects of my life than my personal.  Work especially.  I don't necessarily walk around all day pissed off, but I know I do spend a good portion of it completely frustrated.

My mind has cleared in ways that are more evident in my home life.  I've started cooking again.  I've managed to keep my living spaces picked up and mostly clean for close to a month (and for those of you who know me in any capacity, you know this is a feat in and of itself.)  I have folded the laundry within 24 hours of it being dry.  I have done the dishes every night.  My mind is cleared, therefore my life is a lot more put together.

I want to write about some of the personal changes I've gone through in the last two years since I started actively trying to lose weight, but I don't feel like I'm quite ready at this time.

I have been dealing with some health related issues, mostly hormone imbalances which I am starting to believe are linked to my birth control, but I'm starting to believe that the weight loss has played a part in this as well.  I've started to seriously look into getting an IUD after the beginning of the year.  I'm tired of irregular cycles and excruciatingly tender breasts, and mood swings.  I know you might not want to hear about all of that, but you know what?  It's my life, and this is something I'm dealing with right now.

I want to leave you with a song that was shared with me this last week.  Very rarely do songs come along that will change you mind and soul.  This is one of them.  Another completely eye opening moment. 
Gotye : Somebody that I used to know

Friends on Fridays - Boy #2

Josh and I have been friends for a LONG time.  We're talking 12+ years long time.  His family was my family my last two years of high school.  If I wasn't at home or at work, you could bet money on me being at Josh's house.  We would cuddle under his blue sleeping bag and take naps.  I would lay on his living room floor while he banged continuously on his drums.  This is the boy who nearly broke my nose on his trampoline.

Josh and I fell out of touch in the months before I got pregnant with Aiden.  For a long time I thought I was in love with him, and I was certain that he would never be able to feel the same things back, or that he wanted to, but would never allow himself to.  It's amazing how things like love get jumbled up in our hearts and our heads when we're young.

It took me close to a decade to realize that my love for this boy was not the love you felt for a lover, but rather the love you felt for a friend, or a brother. 

In the last year, more than ever, Josh has served as my sounding board.  He is always there when I need him, only a text message away.  He has assured me, on too many occasions to count, that I am not a terrible mother, that I am not a terrible friend, that people LOVE me.  He makes his point known in a way that is loving but firm.  There is a no nonsense stance to him, and it has only ever gotten stronger as we've gotten older.  This man probably knows more about me than most people, only because he's known me long enough to be able to call me on my bullshit.  When he tells me things, I know they are true.  There is no questioning with Josh.

He took care of me when I was too drunk to walk.  He was my textual shoulder to cry on in the several occasions when it felt like my world was crumbling in on itself for various reasons.  He is the constant reassurance that I have a friend, who wants to be my friend, simply for the sake of being my friend.

I spent a lot of my high school years being mad at him.  Not for what he did, but what he failed to do, and that was fall head over heels in love with me.  Only now am I realizing that perhaps he did, but it was just a different kind of love.

Cheers, Josh.  Here's to another decade of pissing each other off and being there all at the same time.  I love you!

Friends on Fridays - Heterosexual Lifemates

Tancy and I met back in early May of 2004.  Aiden was just over five months old, and Tancy was around 6 months pregnant, and as round as a beach ball.  She was loud and crude, and frankly, scared the poop out of me.  We worked together for around 4 years before she changed departments.  We stayed in contact through random run-ins at work, our children's birthday parties, and going to friend's places and drinking.  I can honestly say that there wasn't ever a time I DIDN'T like her.

It was because of her that I was finally able to get out of the Nutrition department at the hospital.  She vied for me for Materials Management, talked me up, and finally walked into my boss's office one day and just said "Are you going to hire Sadie now?"  He did.

Over the last two years, she has become sort of like a lifeline for me.  She is the person who is (usually) always there, via text or phone when I need her.  She is a realist who will not sugar coat things.  She tells me things like they are, whether or not I want to hear them.  She plays a very good devils advocate, but at the same time is excellent at listening without giving opinions.  She is my wife.  There is no other way to describe her.  No one on this planet can read me better than she can.  We fight like we're married, we party like we're siblings, and she has brought out a part of me that I didn't know was buried in there for a very long time.

She has been there through two of the toughest breakups of my life.  She has listened to me cry, and let me be the crazy drunk.  She hasn't judged when I tell her that I want to sit at home and eat a pound of chocolate and not talk to anyone all weekend long, and she proudly wears her "team edward" shirt next to me in the theater while I'm wearing my "team jacob" shirt.  We have seen the last two (soon to be three) twilight saga movies at the theater around noon on opening day.  It took me seven years, but I finally talked her into reading the Harry Potter series.

She shares my love of books, sexy male celebrities, and noisy body functions.  This woman can burp like no man I have EVER heard burp before.  We both have seven year old boys, so stories about wieners and them walking around naked, are endless.  She, literally, lives next door to me.  Our bedroom windows face each other, and though we don't make a habit of looking into each other's bedroom windows (though we have had a conversation or two through them in the afternoons and early evenings,) it's sometimes just nice to know, as a single person, that one of my favorite people is only 15 seconds away.

Do I always like the decisions she makes, or the things she chooses to do?  Hell no.  But I think she knows that I will support HER no matter what her decisions are, even if I don't agree with them. 

This next Tuesday is her last day in my department at the hospital.  She's moving on to bigger and better things.  "You're going to be so mad at me!" was the phone call I got when she told me about being offered a new position elsewhere.  And I'm not mad.  I am so beyond happy for her.  Neither of us is destined to remain a Supply Tech for the rest of our lives.  We're both too smart and driven for that.  She just happened to be the first to make it out of the trappings of the catholic health system.  I am so happy, and boundlessly proud of her for that.  It's really going to SUCK not having my best friend there day in and day out.  I'm going to have to find other people to converse with, seek advice from, and waste my time with.  I have no doubt that I'm going to get by just fine without her there, it's just not going to be as enjoyable.

So this is to my heterosexual lifemate.  My wife that we don't touch wet spots.  I love you!