Nothing tastes as good as skinny will feel

    As much as I love food, I hate grocery shopping. Mostly because I am trapped in a building filled with other people, who like me, are on their own missions to collect their own choices of sustenance and entirely oblivious to everyone else around them. Namely, me. Then, there is also the facts that despite my shopping at Winco, I still find I spend at least $40 a week on groceries and every week, I find that I have to go back. Again.

    Mike seems to think because I enjoy clothes shopping and book shopping and craft store shopping, I must enjoy grocery shopping too. Such a man.

    My grandmother, in fact, loves grocery shopping. We can drop her off and swing back by three hours later and she is only then finishing up, having just enjoyed the last 180 minutes of her life as much as I would enjoy an extended version of any movie with Ryan Reynolds and his shirtless abs. If I had the money to, I would pay her to do my grocery shopping for me.

    So yesterday (Thursday) was my day off and naturally, my day to do the dirty deed. I was rounding the last corner of the store on my typical route to the checkout stand and then freedom when I passed the dreaded Little Debbie endcap. With her holiday cakes shaped like Christmas trees and chocolate Christmas trees. Only $1.48 a box! Tasty! Yummy! Disaster waiting to happen!

    See, I know how this all works. I have been faithfully going to the gym for the past month, been working out, doing both weights and cardio and stretching as my personal trainer/husband tells me to and yet, I have not seen the scale move much. I've been maintaining this weight because despite my best efforts at the gym, I have been eating whatever I wanted outside of it. And like anyone who is trying to lose weight, 70% of weight loss is diet.

    Slowly cruising past that end cap, trying my best not to imagine what those Little Debbie cakes tasted like, I remembered Kate Moss's infamous admission that her life motto is "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels". Granted, I don't want to look like Kate Moss. I like my curves. But I hate the ridiculous things I go through now in an attempt to feel okay with how I look whenever I am going out. I hate how I look in most of my clothes and I especially am miserable with the fact that I have a number of items in my closet that still have tags on them, because I have sworn to myself that I will not wear them, not even once, until I am 10 (20, 30, 40) pounds ligther than I currently am.  So I repeated that to myself as I continued towards check out.

     I continued to repeat that mantra as I drove home, made myself lunch and did my best to be satisfied with the salad I had, sans a dessert of Little Debbie.

    Think those treats would be as tempting if they were by a company called "Big Debbie"?

    It is comforting to go to work and know that I am not the only one who is trying to slim their figure and look better for the coming year. Three of my co-workers are currently on week one of the HCG diet (which involves consuming only 500 calories a day and injecting yourself daily with HCG, which comes from pregnant women's urine) and while watching them shed pounds is envy-invoking, I know that I would be a raging bitch if I only ate 500 calories a day. I'll stick to my WW and my points. But there are fewer snacks laying around the back room and more healthy choices to be had.

   We all want to feel skinny. Its time to take the right steps towards being so.

Working hard to get my fill

If you had told me a month ago what a rollercoaster May was going to be, I wouldn't have believed you. The ups, the downs, the foreshadowing and the full out surprises that have occured. It will be a month to remember, for sure. 

Big changes have started to roller in a forward motion, both in my personal and professional life. All are scary and exciting at the same time. I have an idea of what the end of June will look like, but who knows. I never would have pictured May shaping up as it has.

Things I have learned in May: 

-the importance of balance.

-people can take steps in the right direction, but are just as capable of backtracking too.

-going for what you want is what is most important. Opinions be damned.

-there is no such thing as bad publicity.

-my wishes are magical.

-All you need in life are some great friends and supportive family. Great family and supportive friends are awesome too.

-People will surprise you. Both in positive and negative ways.

-Playing neutral occasionally really is the way to go.

-Never announce you have a secret if you are woman. Everyone assumes you are pregnant. Even when you aren't.

-I have the greatest parents EVER. Hands down. 

Now I just need to get over this cold and stop sounding like a 60 year old chain smoker. 

Still his little girl

My first real job in high school, aside from babysitting and running a neighborhood paper route, was a part time position at the Paradise Bakery at the Vancouver Mall. I worked there for seven months before moving on, which is strange to think about now, because those seven months feel like they were far longer than that. Like in any job, the first few weeks were hard, getting acclimated to the structure of the job, the expectations of management, the ever-so-fun world of customer service.

Since it was my first job, my father wanted to make sure that I was doing all right, that I was happy, to see where I worked so when he pictured me, he could see me there. Somewhere in that first week or two of working, Dad slipped over to the mall and entirely undetected by me, saw me at work. I never saw him that day, only heard about it from him later on, but I knew then that a pattern would emerge. And every local job I have ever had since, within the first few weeks of starting, my father has cruised by to see.

Yesterday, while shampooing a client, for some unknown reason, I looked up to the front windows of the salon to see my father walking past, waving. Closer to thirty than twenty years old, it still made me smile. I know I am a lucky girl to have a father who loves me that much.

I Couldn't Get Much Higher

Three days into my new job career, I can honestly tell you that I LOVE it. I love how quickly time goes by, how varied the tasks can be and how fun the atmosphere is. I work with a great group of girls who are all very easy to talk to and I am so eager to get to know. The age group I am working with seems to be around my own, but that couldn't be more perfect.

I am kicking myself for not doing this sooner, but I suppose that everything happens for a reason and I am thankful to have figured this out now. It's funny, but I already feel like my life is on a better track because I am finally doing something that is worth my time and energry and focus. Yet, instead of draining me and my creativity, I feel that it is recharged and ever pulsating with new ideas.

It is so cool to be able to sit someone down in my chair and know that I am going to be able to do what they want me to do. I have my schedule for the next six weeks and am ready to start building up my clientele.