My tax return came last Friday (I did my return ridiculously early this year), and I’ve been enjoying the opportunity to use some of that tax return money in productive ways.
For instance:
- I purchase sound treatments for the "booth" in the new recording studio (a.k.a., the walk-in closet in the 2nd bedroom of the new apartment)
- I bought a few cables and accessories for said recording booth
- I put a large chunk in savings
- I made a large dent in one of my credit cards
- I am able to schedule the 30K mile service on my car now
- I have started buying necessities for my upcoming backpacking trip
- And best of all, I bought a new bed!
It’s sleek and modern, but still has a nice warm dark brown color, which perfectly matches all the other furniture in my bedroom. Plus, I just got a fantastic 4" memory foam mattress topper on my bed which is so amazing, it prevented me from having to buy another mattress (and thus allowed for the purchase of the bed–it was going to have to be one or the other.) Unfortunately, the addition 4" on the mattress doesn’t seem like much, but it was getting a little difficult for Luke to get up on the bed with me at night time, so a slightly lower bed frame will be much appreciated I believe.
I got this beauty on a very good sale ($500 off). For the first time since I was a little kid, I will actually have a bed with a headboard instead of just a mattress and box springs on a bed frame. I can get rid of that butt ugly bed skirt that I’ve been using to hide the wheeled frame under my bed.
I know it’s so cliche, but I love buying real adult furniture…you know: the kind you don’t have to put together out of a box. That’s the best!
I will wait until the bed comes in a couple of weeks before I post pictures of the new place.
Welcome to February! January simply flew by, didn't it? Well, it did for me anyway. There's something just so time consuming about packing up all of your belongings and moving them to a new location 150 feet away, only unpack them all over again. January was an interesting month for the resolutions. Some I did well with by choice. Others, by necessity. Others still I completely bombed. Let the unveiling commence:
1) Self Control – Money
Despite the fact that I emptied out both my savings account and my investment account (not my retirement account, just my normal "play money" investment account, I think I did fairly well this month. I had to pay double-rent for about three weeks, which necessitated careful expenditure with money for about six weeks in order to save. The only thing I would consider an impulse buy was the new futon I purchased for the guest bedroom/studio, which I did for my friend Mukluk who is staying with me for the weekend. It wasn't particularly expensive, and it's something that I needed anyway, so I consider it a fairly carefully considered whim, if you will. Starting in Feb., however, things are going to get down to business. I'm getting a HUGE tax return this year, thanks to tax write-offs from my business, so I will be saving a large chunk, paying off a credit card, buying the necessities for my backpacking trip this summer, and maybe spending a little bit on myself as well. But most of it will go toward responsible things.
2) Experience New Things
January, I'm going to say that I did fairly well on this one. I went to the zoo, which I haven't done for years and years. I went out with other people a did social things, which is "new" for me. I learned how to program queries in SQL at work, and am currently learning how to write XML schemas, which isn't particularly hard, but it's a new thing.
3) Lose 20 Pounds
I started January 1st at 198.6 pounds. As of February 3rd, I weigh 187.6 pounds. 11 Pounds in a month, basically. I'm at a bit of a plateau, exacerbated by the fact that for the last two weeks, I've eaten out a LOT (it's hard to cook when you have no kitchen) and I haven't been to the gym in about three weeks.
4) Be More Social
This month, I went "out" a couple of times. And while the experience was nice, I came to realize a couple of things: First, I am a homebody. I like being at home. Second, I've grown to be exceptionally comfortable around myself for the first time in my life. I like who I am, and I like being my own company. Third, my years of getting my own way have turned me into a person who doesn't like to compromise my free time by spending it doing something other than what I absolutely want to do. If I am in the mood to sit and home and play video games, then I get almost resentful if I "have" to go out and be social instead.
What does all of this mean for #4? I honestly don't know. I'm going to continue trying to be more social, but if I continue to find that I'm not enjoying it as much as I should be, then I'm not sure if I'm going to really continue working on this particular goal. Stay tuned for updates.
5) Write Music
I have turned on the piano and have tinkered around with a few things. I've written 2/3rd of a song that I really don't like that much, and I'm hoping to salvage a few of the parts I do like in another iteration. The new apartment also has enough space that I am able to hang my guitars up on the wall, which I find helps me remember to pick up the instruments more often and tinker around. So, I haven't done great with this one, but it's a start.
6) Get in Shape
I've not done so well on this one. I started off the month by running and going to the gym every so often. But it didn't last. (It never does, does it?) I have been trying to walk more, and losing the 11 pounds really helps. Once the rain stops a little, I plan on spending some weekends up in the mountains going on some day hikes with Luke. I just don't have any desire to hike in the rain on purpose.
7) Be More Giving
I've not done well on this one. I have tried to be more giving of myself by spending time on the phone with friends who have been going through some rough times, which is sometimes difficult for me to do. I didn't, however, participate in the Haiti disaster giving. I'm not really sure why, but with everyone focused on giving their limited charity money to Haiti, I really wanted to focus on doing something at home. One thing I've actually started doing is very generous tipping to a lot of the people who serve me as part of their jobs–especially people who I get the sense could really use the extra money. It makes me feel good think that maybe my tip is helping someone that I actually interacted with in the course of my life, not some nameless mass of people thousands of miles away. I don't begrudge anyone who has donated like that, by any means. I just wanted something a little more immediate.
8) Get to Bed Earlier
I've been doing pretty well with this one. During the week, I really try to be in bed by midnight. Sometimes lately, I'm even getting to bed as early as 11PM, which is unheard of from me. It helps that I'm actively avoiding taking a nap when I get home from work, that I am on an earlier schedule, and that I try not to start a project at 11:00 PM that I don't think I can finish by 11:30. Seems to be helping. I'm waking up far more easily than I had been, and I am finding that I'm far less crabby when I get up and realize that I have to go to work. Turns out that getting only 5 hours of sleep at night actually isn't that great for you. Who knew?
9) Take LOTS of pictures
I've used my camera a fair bit, but not anywhere near as much as I should be. My day-long trip to the zoo was a blast, and I got some fun pictures from the process, and I've managed to capture a couple of beautiful sunrises over the lake in the morning before work, but I'm just not really taking advantage of the camera. Of course, spending three weekends either packing, unpacking, or moving didn't help. I need to do better on this one.
10) El Learno La Espanol
Epic fail. I haven't even booted up the software, let alone worked on any lessons. Need to do better here.
So, overall, I think the resolutions are going fairly well. I could certainly kick things up a notch, and need to do so, but I don't want to discount the progress I have made. Let's hope the streak keeps up, eh?
Well, at last, the move into the new apartment has come and gone. It was quite the weekend, I have to say.
Friday afternoon, I left work at about 2:30, went to grab some "food" (to quote Marge Simpson: "People do crazy things in commercials…like eat at Arbys!"), and then came back to my old apartment which was so full of boxes that Luke could barely find a place to lay down. I have a lot of stuff. I signed my new lease, paid my pro-rated rent for January ($129!) and got the keys. I did a quick walkthrough of the new apartment. I wasn’t sure which of the two rooms I wanted to be the master, and which I wanted to be the guest room/studio, so I made that determination, and then with the aid of a hand truck from the apartment complex shop, I moved nearly my entire apartment. By myself. In two and a half hours.
In case you were wondering, I pretty much rock at moving.
By 6:30 that night, with only one small interruption to throw up everything I had eaten for lunch a few hours earlier, I had moved everything out of my old apartment except my bed, my dresser, two sofas, and two tables. I spent the rest of the evening until about 10:00 beginning to unpack. At that point, I was exhausted and famished. (Throwing up is draining). I ran to Wendy’s to get "dinner", took a nice hot bath, and went to bed by 11:00, where I slept the sleep of the damned righteous.
Saturday morning dawned at 6:30, where I grabbed the dog and slipped back into the new apartment to continue unpacking. The first order of business was to get the entertainment center set up, because the Verizon guy was coming "sometime between 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM." (Which reminds me of another Simpsons quote: "Can you be home sometime between Tuesday and next June?") So once I got all the boxes shifted around, unpacked the TV and Tivo, and got one of my computers set up to test the internet, I went to breakfast. This time, I really treated myself: McDonalds!
Verizon came and went, lunch was provided by Quizno’s, and shopping was made possible thanks to a generous grant from Home Depot and Target. Now that I have two bedrooms instead of just one, I needed to get additional towels, curtain rods, rugs, etc. I also needed picture hangers, replacement screws for those I had stripped during the uninstallation process, and plastic conduit to run speaker wires along the ceiling since I decided it would be a good idea to mount my surround sound speakers on the ceiling. (A side note, if you ever decide to do that, get a really good stud detector, use toggle bolts, or prepare to patch about 48 exploratory drill holes in your ceiling at a later date…I’m just sayin’.) Dinner was provided by Pizza Hut. And unpacking. Lots and LOTS of unpacking. Finished the kitchen. Mostly finished the bedroom and master bathroom.
Sunday was the day that the (ridiculously overpaid) movers came to move the last few pieces of furniture. It took them 38 minutes, and they walked away with a check for $155. What a racket. More unpacking. Lunch by Panda Express. More Unpacking. Then the futon (also known as the guest bed) that I had purchased on Thursday night was delivered. It’s more comfortable than I expected a futon to be. (As a side note, if you come to visit me, you’ll even get your own bathroom. That’s how much swankier my new Barbie Dream Apartment is. More unpacking. By the end of the day Sunday, the Living Room was finished, as was the dining room, and all of the boxes had been cleared out. And Diary Queen was consumed for dinner.
Monday, after the longest day of work in the history of ever, I spent several hours finishing up the rewiring job on the recording studio, cleaning up the guest bedroom, and packing away my two giant rubbermaid totes of extra cables. And tonight, I finally started cleanup work on the old apartment. The majority of the time was spent patching holes. It took two hours. That’s a lot of holes. If I ever move into another apartment, I have every intention of buying those 3M picture hanging strips that just come right off…even if it bankrupts me. Man I hate spackling.
So, as of this very moment, all I have left to do to be COMPLETELY moved in is:
- Finish setting up the guest bathroom
- Finish setting up the master bathroom
- Hang a few pictures
- Spend three weeks cleaning the old apartment.
Actually, the old apartment is in pretty good shape, especially considering that I’ve been paying a professional to come in and clean it for me once a week. There’s a lot of dog hair to vacuum up, and some dusty areas. And there may be an oven whose self-cleaning cycle didn’t clean so much as emit noxious fumes for five hours.
As this is my 25th move, I have learned several things which will be of use to you if you ever decide to move in the future.
- It is imperative that you box up everything you own.
- Even if it’s awkwardly shaped and you only get one giant paella pan in the box
- All of the boxes should be basically the same size (or one of only a few sizes)
- ALL boxes should be closed fully and taped
- Please, for the love of all things holy, label your boxes
- It’s SO not worth it to go box scavaging at the grocery store. Just buy your boxes.
- Home Depot has the best prices on boxes I’ve ever seen. Even the big ones are less than $1.00 apiece. $20 for 20 boxes of uniform size is worth the expenditure.
- If you are going to move by yourself, rent/borrow/steal and hand truck (aka dolly).
- Dogs often and regularly freak out when they see their environment start to change radically. Sedation may be necessary if you don’t want to kill yourself tripping over a dog who is so freaked out he’s glued himself to your leg everywhere you go.
- Audiobooks are the perfect distraction while moving and unpacking. Makes the time go so quickly.
- If you listen to an audiobook while moving, make sure it’s not a heart-felt and then gut wrenching true-life tale about a man and his dog that will leave you literally sobbing on the floor, surrounded by boxes, and hugging your thoroughly bewildered dog whispering pleas that he never die because you just don’t think you could take that.
- Packing is terrible, but unpacking is fun. It’s like getting tons of Christmas packages in the mail all at once. Also, you’ll discover stuff you’ve forgotten about.
- Remember, you can deduct your donations to Goodwill. If you’re moving and you haven’t made at least three carloads to the Goodwill to get rid of stuff, you’ve not dejunked properly.
- Hot baths and/or hot tubs are mandatory after a move
- Wear clothes that you can get away with wearing three days straight when you can’t find your deodorant. Layers work well.
- Vomiting while moving is not fun. Avoid where possible.
- Fast food.
There are countless other lessons learned by moving. But it’s 11:41, and I’m still exhausted. Plus I have to be completely done by tomorrow night because my friend Mukluk is coming up to Seattle on Thursday and is going to be the first to Christen the futon of ultimate relaxation. (You know, inasmuch as a futon can be anything other than pinched nerve time bomb.) I will try to post pictures of videos of the new Barbie Dream Apartment this weekend or possibly earlier next week. I still have that fancy camera I bought for Christmas I need to get some more use out of.
Apparently I was mistaken. The TP at work is actually 2-ply. However, they're really thin plies, and they are apparently made of ground up glass and broken dreams.
That is all.
In November 2003, Shawn, Emily, and I had Thanksgiving dinner at my apartment in Sevierville, Tennessee. Shawn and I had gone shopping a couple of nights before, I had done most of the cooking, and we ate ourselves sick. We had to have our dinner before Thanksgiving, since we had to perform shows all day on Thanksgiving day proper. In mid-meal, there was a knock on the door, and I got to learn, first hand, what Brown could do for me. It was the UPS man with a box for me. (I’m really fighting the urge to put a tasteless joke about a big package from the UPS man…and I’m failing.) Anyway, inside this large package (ahem) was a little invention that changed my life forever. The ever-blessed TiVo Series 2.
Since that day, I have never been without a TiVo in my life…except for that truly painful four months after I left hell Tennessee where I lived at home with my mom in Michigan. It wasn’t the living with my mom that was painful, it’s that a) my parents to this day still don’t have a DVR, and b) my mother is incapable of correctly channel surfing when commercials are on. She’s like a little kid who sees a bright shiny–she just flips to another channel and gets engrossed until a commercial comes on on that channel, then she’ll flip to a third channel, etc. The woman has never watched an entire television show from beginning to end in her whole adult life. It’s enough to drive me up the wall. (HI MOM!)
Anyway, since that wonderful day 6 1/2 (!) years ago when I waltzed from the world of the commercial watchers into the much more sophisticated and urbane world of the television time shifters, I nearly never watch commercials. If I can’t generate that satisfying little "bloop, bloop, bloop" sound and fast forward though 5 minutes of mind-meltingly stupid television advertising, then as far as I’m concerned, I’d rather not watch TV at all.
Every great once in a while, though, I run out of things to watch on my TiVo. It doesn’t happen that often, but with the truly abysmal quality of most of the primetime television on this season, I will often find myself flipping the channel to Food Network or HGTV and just letting it play in the background while I cook, eat, or pack up my life for the 5,000th time into boxes and prepare to move once again not that I’m bitter.
It was during one of these times of television background noise that a certain commercial was brought to my attention. And, my fellow Americans, It. Was. NOT. Okay.
Perhaps you have seen this commercial. It contains a couple of little animated bears hocking Charmin toilet paper. They’ve, apparently, been in a whole series of commercials, and they look like this:
Cute, right? Except in this particular commercial, a mother bear catches her young cub looking through a telescope at the ass of another bear who is sitting up in a tree and who, apparently , has toilet paper remnants stuck to said ass. There are many, many things wrong with this commercial. First, a voyeuristic child is using a telescope to spy on an adult going to the bathroom. And apparently, is getting so up close and personal that he can notice mini TP dingleberries in the adult’s butt hair. Secondly, the kid’s mother is RIGHT THERE. Wake up, mama bear! I don’t know about you, but if I had a kid who was so fascinated with watching the bathroom habits of the neighbors with a telescope, I’d have that kid in front of either a psychotherapist or priest so fast it would make his head spin. But no, you just sit there and think it’s cute. "Ah look honey. Little cubby’s got a sick fascination with the neighbor’s toilet time. Better call Dr. Freud!"
Apparently, this is not the only commercial where Charmin thinks it’s okay to go probing (ahem) through the annals (AHEM) of toilet paper posterior problems. Thanks to YouTube, I have since seen a mother chasing her cub (who, by the way, has the most annoying giggle ever recorded) around the forest with a dustpan and broom to remove "leftover pieces of toilet paper." Call me kooky, but somehow, I think that a hand broom and a dustpan aren’t really the best tools to take care of the problem of left over toilet paper.
And then there’s the commercial that spawned this screen capture, which I found by typing in the words "Charmin Bears":
![[charmin+bears.png]](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_p1OBNr1Hz14/SfkkD1tbRLI/AAAAAAAAAPA/g70TSljeK6A/s1600/charmin%2Bbears.png)
Yikes. I don’t exactly know what’s going on in this picture, I’m pretty sure this is probably how most gay porn films start. "Hey coach, do I look like I have any extra toilet paper on my butt?"
Here’s my question, though: Is this really a problem? I mean, let’s be honest here. I’ve got a very screwed up digestive system. I visit the bathroom more times a day than anyone I know. I can manage to go through a truly heroic amount of toilet paper in a week. I’ve never had problems with leftover toilet paper sticking where it doesn’t belong. And I don’t use Charmin. I use Cottonelle. Exclusively. And I have for a long time. And I got to thinking: who, exactly, are these commercials trying to reach. What’s the intended audience? I’m set in my toilet paper ways. And I’m certainly not being swayed into switching by watching animated ursine fetishists.
Then there’s this:
Seriously, Charmin? SERIOUSLY? I’m sorry, but I’ve been using dry toilet paper for nearly 30 years now. I’m not going to start buying what are, in essence, baby wipes, even if the moron you’ve got doing your product demo is so mentally challenged he can’t get toothpaste off his hand with toilet tissue. For experimentation’s sake, I was able to get it off my hand in a single swipe, and my skin didn’t even taste like toothpaste afterwards. What’s your problem, dimwit?
All of this contemplation about toilet paper got my mind going. First, I needed to gather some information. Then, I needed to parse and mull on said information. Then I needed to take a good long look at why the subject of toilet paper preferences fascinates me so deeply and investigate the myriad of other things I could have spent my mental currency on that would have made a positive difference to the world or my personal life. But instead, I wrote a quick post in the middle last week to get some information about toilet paper. And I learned some interesting things:
- When it comes to toilet paper, there are generally two kinds of people: Those who have a single brand that they stand behind with a religious furvor, and those who buy whatever happens to be cheapest.
- Those people who buy specific toilet papers only because they’re cheap are horrible, horrible people, and we can no longer be friends.
- Surprisingly, Angel Soft seems to be the most popular brand. I don’t get it. Compared to Cottonelle or the TP of the creepy bears, Angel soft just doesn’t compare.
- One ply toilet paper is universally loathed, and the only people who think it is appropriate to buy, even despite it’s very low cost, are the people responsible for purchasing supplies for companies who obviously don’t give a rat’s ass (no pun intended) about the physical well-being of their employees. In fact, my employer, whose name rhymes with Nicroloft, buys toilet paper that is simultaneously so thin that you can see your own fingerprints through it and so roughly processed that it will give you splinters. I’m sorry, but if I wanted to rub wood pulp across my sphincter, I’d go outside, pull down my pants, and rub my butt up against a pine tree. For someone who has to go to the restroom as often as I do, (warning: overshare ahead) I have actually had the toilet paper at work make me bleed. Now, when someone says, "that really chaps my ass," I know first hand what they means.
- Toilet paper should always be hung with the leading squares coming up over the top of the roll. ALWAYS. If you do it any other way you’re wrong. If you ever come into my house and turn the toilet paper over so it’s coming out of the bottom of the roll, you’re forever uninvited from my house. Overhand only.
And finally, for the service of those readers who mentioned this in their comments, I would like to provide you a few rules about toilet paper etiquette which you must follow, at the risk of having your toilet paper privileges taken away forever.
- If you finish a roll of toilet paper, it is your responsibility to replace the roll of toilet paper. Failure to do so means that there will be no place in heaven for you in the next life. Fail to replace the roll and go to Hell. It’s that simple.
- Replacing the roll means taking off the old paper tube, and replacing the roll completely on the dispenser. It does not mean setting it on the counter. It does not mean placing it on the floor. It, under no circumstance, means simply placing it on top of the empty tube which your lazy rear end left in the dispenser. Failure to fully replace the empty roll will result in severe beatings.
- Please, for the love of all things good an holy, PLEASE leave at least one extra roll in the bathroom at all times. Do NOT keep all your extra toilet paper out in the hallway closet. Because if I run out TP in your house, and there’s not an extra roll in the bathroom, I will walk out of your bathroom with my pants around my ankles doing that bent-knee wide stance waddle so as not to cause any smearing. Then I will waddle into your living room, sit down, and start dragging my butt across the carpet like a dog with worms. You have been warned.
Now you know.
So, what did my mental foray into the world of toilet tissue teach me? First, that toilet tissue is very personal, and that the way I do it is right, and the way everyone else does it is wrong unless they do it just like me. That being cheap when it comes to toilet paper will only end in heartache. That it’s really hard to find a decent way to refer to your own anus as a "Brown-Eyed Susan" without making it sound forced. That the Charmin bears are freaky, and more than a little creepy, and most of all…
I need to start TiVo’ing more television shows.
Dear Martin + Osa
I love your store. I really, really do. I shop there almost exclusively. I have brought my friends to meet you. I talk about you all the time. I’ve even introduced you to my mom. You’re the only store that manages to make stylish clothing for people who are too old to shop at American Eagle, but not old enough to shop at Mervyn’s, who aren’t interested in spending the equivalent of three month’s mortgage payments on a single jacket, and who don’t want to look as though they’re old enough to need black Velcro orthopedic shoes. You are reasonably priced, but your clothes are of very high quality, and of a design that real people would generally want to wear.
But I have to tell you. This season’s collection is a complete and total fail for me. I looks like a bad cross between hipster punk and snotty New England WASP. If I wanted to look like a stuck up, rich retiree in Nantucket, I would buy my clothes from Nautica. But a cable-knit navigator sweater with White Skinny Jeans (which should be outlawed entirely) is not a good look for anyone. There is so much wrong with this collection it’s hard to know where to begin.
It pains me to see you stumble so, especially after such an awesome holiday season. (I bought two shirts and four sweaters, so you know I’m devoted.) But I honestly can’t get behind these rejects from a Yale college bookstore circa 1936. I’m just glad that I was introduced to you before I saw these clothes, or I would probably never have bothered stopping by again.
Here’s to hoping that the Summer collection is little less embarrassing.
Love, Matt.
P.S., Please, for the love of all things good and holy, PLEASE make the skinny jean die a slow and painful death. Only 0.02% of the population has the body type capable of pulling off the skinny jean, and not a single one of those 0.02% is male.
Late last week, I stepped out my apartment door with the dog for our morning walk and saw this:
Sunrise over Lake Sammamish
1/14/2010
Redmond, WA
Canon 7d, ISO 400, 18mm, F6.3
Now, ask me if I miss Utah…
I’m looking to get some information from my erudite and insightful reader about a particular subject. There is a blog post simmering in my mind on a particular subject, but before I begin writing, I need some data. Please answer these questions in the comments below:
- What brand of toilet paper do you use in your home
- Why did you choose that particular brand
- What is your #1 consideration when selecting toilet paper
- Are there any brands you refuse to use?
- Why?
- Which do you believe to be the right way to hang toilet paper: with the paper hanging over the top of the roll, or with the paper coming from underneath the roll?
- Are you (no pun intended) anal about the method of hanging toilet paper?
- Any other toilet paper-related stories, comments, or questions.
Thank you for your participation. Hopefully your efforts will yield fruit in a future blog post.
Hello, blog readers and blog lurkers. Sorry I haven’t been writing much lately. I feel as though I’m having a difficult time coming up with pithy, insightful commentary about my life or the lives of those around me. And I don’t have any cute children to photograph and show off on my website. I’ve got a dog, but I already talk about him enough. I have toyed around with the idea of becoming a crazy cat lady, but my apartment isn’t big enough to have a litterbox laying around…especially since my dog has shown a marked interest in cat leavings, so that’s off the table for the short term, I believe.
My life has been relatively uneventful lately. I’m starting to decend into the annual Seattle Winter Doldrums, exacerbated by the fairly omni-present rain. This year it’s not bothering me as much as it has the last couple of years…probably because I’m on an earlier schedule at work, so I get to leave work while it’s still light outside. That, and I have a wall of windows in my cubicle, so I am able to see the sun for the 45 seconds a day it actually shines. The weather has been wet, but quite mild, and we’ve already got daffodils up at the apartment complex. They’re up about 2-3 inches already and we’re not even all the way through January yet.
I’m also getting ready for the big move. I’m excited for my new apartment, which I think will be extremely nice. I am ready to get over there. But I don’t like the moving process. I’m just moving 150 feet away, but I’ve already had to start packing up my stuff. I’ve done this enough that I’ve gotten pretty good at it, but it’s still a big time sink, my apartment is in a constant state of disarray, and I hate not knowing where all my stuff is when I need it. I sincerely hope that I can get the apartment complex to stop screwing me over when it comes to jacking up my rent every time my lease expires, because I’d like to stay in this new apartment for a good long while. Preferably until I get my bankruptcy off my credit history in a few years and have saved up enough money for a sizeable down payment. (Like that optimism? I’m working on it.)
Personally, things have been a little rocky. There are some family stresses right now which don’t affect (effect? I can never tell) me personally, but that have occupied my thoughts and worries quite a bit lately. I’ve been a little worried about money what with the double rent that I’ll be paying for two weeks next month. I should be fine, but I don’t like not having any cushion. I’ve gotten to the point of my diet exercise phase where I’m having a hard time sticking to my goals. And I’ve been pretty contemplative lately. I’ve been evaluating my status, adjusting my expectations, and in generally, trying to determine where I want the course of my personal life to lead me over the next few years of my life. All in all, it’s led me to feel relatively unsettled, and in some cases, a little discouraged.
At least I am able to look at the pattern, realize that this happens every year about this time, and recognize it for what it is. And I’m still able to be productive and work to be proactive.
I’m making some good progress on some of my resolutions, not so good progress (and in one case, regress) on others.
And the result of all of this is that I set in my apartment at 11:30, ripping audiobooks from CDs to listen to on my runs, and writing wishy-washing blog posts about how my life is a great big pile of "meh." Exciting reading, isn’t it? But, to quote the inestimable Stephen Sondheim, "I’m still here." Still keeping myself busy and working on plugging through the winter rain. Still working on audiobooks (which I just LOVE doing), and playing video games, and doing taxes, and packing, and all that fun stuff.
And hopefully, this fit of the "meh’s" will be a short one, and I’ll be back to my usual glowing, ebullient (and mildly sarcastic) self.
OH HAI! Remember me? I used to blog here.
Well, when the holidays concluded, I weighed a hefty 198.6 pounds. DANGEROUSLY close to breaking my vow to myself that I would never cross over the 200 pound mark, ever in my life. So, starting on December 28th, I began Operation Fatty McFat-Fat Killer (working title.) The goal, as mentioned previously, is to lose approximately 20 pounds, getting down to a much more manageable 175, and to get more in shape in preparation for my big hike this summer. So far, so good. This morning, I weighed in at 189.0 pounds. That’s nearly 10 pounds in two weeks. I can’t complain too much.
I’ve also been exercising…some. I started by taking Luke running on the streets a few times, but then I got shin splints, and stopped doing that. I’ve been doing some treadmill running at my apartment complex, and I’m beating myself up on the stair-steppers at the gym. I’m also doing some very minor weight lifting…mostly core strength stuff. I’m far more focused on losing fat than I am on gaining a lot a muscle right now, so I’m doing a little lifting just to help improve my metabolism, but not enough to bulk up at all.
I really, really hate exercising. REALLY. HATE. IT. With a fiery passion. You know how most people say they feel great after working out, or they get that endorphin rush? I don’t. I never have. Not even when I had been doing 2-hour workouts five days a week for six months. I always feel like garbage after working out. I can’t possible exercise before work because after I’m done, I absolutely have to take a nap or I can’t function. So, working out is a major struggle for me, and will continue to be.
The eating thing, however, that’s become a whole lot easier. Back when I still had friends roommates, I would often do the cooking for the whole house. Because, with the possible exception of Nate and Brett, I don’t know that I’ve ever had roommates that were anywhere near as proficient in the kitchen as I was. Maybe I did, but I never found out, because I was always doing the cooking. Anyway, when you cook, it’s all about combining ingredients and flavors to make a fantastic meal. Eating for weight loss, for me, anyway, is a lot different. It’s extremely difficult to accurately track your calories when you’re cooking meals with tons of ingredients.
However, since living on my own, I’ve discovered that I don’t enjoy cooking as much for myself as I do for other people. So naturally, my eating had gotten a lot simpler. Previously, it was largely fast food. No cooking, no clean-up, no problem. But obviously, fast food isn’t so great for the whole weight loss thing, so that’s off the table. However, when you cook and serve ingredients separately, it’s much easier to track your caloric intake. For instance, if I wanted to make salmon before, I might have marinated the salmon in lime juice, honey, and green chile, then grill it, and serve it with a mango peach salsa and a large side of rich, cheesy risotto. That simple recipe is actually very difficult to calculate the actual nutritional value without having to find out the values of each individual ingredient, which could take 30 minutes to look up online. And if it takes longer to figure out the nutritional value of a recipe than it does to cook the meal, you’re not going to track your calories.
Instead, eating for weight loss is more about preparation methods than it is recipes. It’s about eating just the food without all the extras. For instance. I now have a salmon fillet grilled or baked, some plain brown rice with 1/2 a teaspoon of butter, and steamed cauliflower. Sure, it’s majorly lacking in the flavor department, but at least it’s easy to track exactly what I’m eating. And tracking what you eat really is the only way to really lose weight. There is a scientific principle (I can’t remember the name and Google failed me) which states that it is impossible to observer or measure something without changing it somewhat. That’s especially true when it comes to food intake. You begin change what you eat because you see your calorie allowance been raped and pillaged by excruciatingly small amounts of food, so you start eating lower calorie foods naturally. And by measuring, you actually limit your portions in a way that you wouldn’t if you weren’t tracking.
So my eating has become much more healthy in the last two weeks…even if it’s been somewhat lacking in variety.
Breakfast: Oatmeal with 1/2 a banana almost every day. Occasionally a "healthier" cold cereal with skim milk or peanut butter toast. Usually runs about 200-300 calories.
Lunch: Perhaps the greatest boon to my eating change is the presence of Chandry’s, a natural foods cafe in the food court in the commons at work. We just moved into a new building complex in May of last year, and it has a huge commons area with a bank, post office, salon, gift shop, outdoor shop, and about 20 different restaurants. Chandry’s has been my lifesaver. All of their food is all natural, prepared very simply. It’s a walk in the park to pick food to eat that is easy to measure. Most days, I’ll have either roasted turkey, grilled chicken, or grilled fish, usually Tilapia or Salmon. I’ll usually get some brown rice, a little fresh fruit, and some grilled veggies (carrots, zucchini, green beans). Lunch usually runs about 400 calories, and leaves me extremely full.
Dinner: This is where things get a little tricky for me. I’m on a strict no fast food diet except for my cheat days (more on that later.) So I’m cooking every single night. Or, at the very least, re-heating in the microwave. Occasionally I’ll have some baked salmon and rice for dinner, but usually, by the time I get home at the end of the day, I want something a little more "together." So, I’ve been trying to find some recipes that are healthy, and already have the nutritional information figured out. This week I had a stir-fry of steak strips with steamed veggies and soba noodles. Tonight I made Vermicelli with roasted veggies and parmesan. Next week I’m planning on making a pot of my amazing Turkey Meatball and Orzo soup which I will serve with steamed veggies on the side. It’s a little harder to track recipes like this, but I try to make an effort for dinner, at least, because having something that’s more like a meal than like a bunch of individual elements make me long for my Panda Express Orange Chicken just a little less. I usually try to keep my dinners to around 600 calories.
Snack: With the new year, work has axed the practice of allowing us lowly contractors to get overtime, which is totally fine for me, because I hate getting overtime. I’d rather have more time off than get more money, thanks. I also started on an earlier schedule (8-4) which means that I get home earlier in the day, and usually eat my dinner by 5:00 or 5:30. I absolutely must have something else to eat before I go to bed otherwise I’ll wake up hungry in the middle of the night, and end up eating something that a) probably isn’t all that healthy and b) I will forget to track in my calorie count. And usually, I try to satisfy my insatiable sweet tooth a little. This is my biggest hurdle. Most nights I have to talk myself down from the ledge of whipping up a quick Molten Chocolate Cake. I did try making a grilled Peanut Butter and Banana sandwich after watching a segment on the Food Network, and I’m completely hooked. I didn’t think I would like it, but it’s REALLY good. Plus, it’s less than 200 calories if you do it right. Either that, or I’ll have one of those 100 calorie bags of popcorn and an orange or apple.
For tracking my calorie spend, I’m using a really cool website called FitDay.com. It allows you to track your food, your activity, and your weight. And it’s free. And since it’s accessible when I am at work as well as at home, I seem to do a better job of entering my food that I eat during the day. In fact, since I eat my lunch at my desk, I usually take a few minutes to enter breakfast, lunch, and what I expect to have for dinner and my snack that night during my actual lunchtime. It works well for me.
So, it’s the 13th of January, and I’m already down 9.6 pounds. Just 14 more to go!
