Fat-Calved Broads for Boots!

I've been putting off writing a new blog post for awhile - sometimes real life gets in the way of my internet life, you know? At first, it was just that I was horribly disappointed in myself for a sudden halt in my weight loss.  I felt that if I was going to blog - I just knew what it would be about. It was going to be the written equivolent of a pity-party.  It was going to be about how much I love Cheetos and I hardly ever eat them, and yet I'm still not thin.  It would have been a wreck.  And then I'd have a sad blog about my fatness...Yeah, so I just avoided it.  Then, it just got very busy in my life - I don't really know exactly why - I think maybe I finally decided to tackle the sink full of all my dishes or the TWO laundry baskets full of clothes.  And then, then I had some health issues.  (No, no, I'm much better now, thank you.)  I didn't have the flu, or some common place cold - oh, no - much too simple for me.


I had hives.


Really. Red, patchy, puffy, super intensely itchy HIVES.  And you know what? I STILL DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M ALLERGIC TO!  After four days, tons of Benadryl, half a bottle of calamine, and about a tube and a half of hydrocortisone cream - I am all better! Well...not itchy, at least. Rest assured, dear readers, there will be a separate post for that experience.  In short:  it felt like I was the subject of  some Biblical plague.  I'd rather not re-live it at the moment, so that statement will just have to tide you over until I post about it. The post will be sans-pictures, I'm sure.


Today I am ranting.  And I'm ranting about something I don't often consider, but when I do - man, it gets me going!  Today I'm ranting about...Boots.  Yeah. Boots.  They're awesome? Why, yes! They're lovely, and quite fashionable, and usually pretty useful!  But what does a voluptuous half-filipino (who constantly goes to the gym and yet never really loses any weight?!?! Gaaaaah) who has very muscular man-calves do when it comes to wearing boots?!?!  Well - I will tell you...

I usually don't.

Because I have gi-normous calves.  And it makes me sad. And maybe my legs could use the extra warmth, seeing as it seems like I live in the tundra sometimes. I've never even owned wellies, because they just don't look right on my super thick legs - but what if my pants get splashed on?  WHAT THEN?


Then I just have wet pants.




It's sad....well, it's not that tragic.  But it is kinda lame.

All good things.

Hey.


Hey.


You there.


Yes, you.


...guess what?




I'm 25!


Yesterday was my birfday.  And somehow I managed to do all the things I really love doing, all in one day:  going to work, going to church, talking to my mommy, getting in a great workout at the gym, eating tasty vegetarian food, and seeing awesome people.  WIN.


And now I'm 25 and feelin' alive!  I'm really excited about being 25.  I feel like this is the part in my life where I can be less crazy.  And poor.  (Sorry, but my early twenties were just a mess, and I was horribly broke because of college!)  Vance promised that this is the year when I'll finally tackle my goal of riding a horse.  It snowed yesterday, so I suppose it's not quite good weather for a first horseback ride.  (Do horses like snow? I have no idea.)  But this summer...it. is. goin'. down.  I promise I will post a picture of it. 




While I was sitting in sacrament yesterday, something very strange dawned on me.  I was thinking about what I should really get myself - to celebrate the start of my 25th year - and I really didn't know.  I have been thinking for weeks!  It almost bothered me, that I didn't know what would be a really good present to myself - something worthy of being able to make it out alright for 25 years...That's when I realized it - it's because I don't want anything.  Really.  There is nothing in the world right now that I terribly want.  I'm not in terrible need for anything, either. (I mean, well, except health insurance. But that's something for another time.)

Life is....just really good. 


I felt very thankful.


And I still feel thankful. 

The health TARDIS - how do I get one of those?

Today I was able to breathe a sigh of relief - my mommy is out of the hospital!  Friends, thank you very much for your good thoughts.  Jesus, thank you very much for blessing me with such an awesome mommy. I'm very relieved she is doing better, and I hope she just takes it easy for a little bit.

 Although she seems better, this whole ordeal has really got me thinking about health. My mom isn't really unhealthy because of anything in particular, but it still really made me think.  Being healthy is no joke, man.  When you're young - you almost feel invincible.  Maybe there are a few things that scare you - car accidents, drug overdoses, meeting Dexter in a dark alley (that was for Kristann, haha!)... yeah, all those things can kill you or seriously injure you - but that's not what I'm referring to here:  Health.  How healthy is your body? How healthy is your mind?  How healthy are your daily activities and thoughts together, over a long time?  A lot of people in my life know not to risk their lives doing something dangerous that results in an immediate adverse consequence, but people don't consider the consequences of smaller, less dangerous actions that can greatly build up over a period of time.  

Not being active plus bad habits (smoking, excessive drinking, etc.) plus not eating well most likely equals very poor health down the road. It is pretty much a real-life recipe for disaster. If you were trying to make a "I  Want To Have Five Heart Attacks and A Stroke" cocktail, that's pretty much the recipe you'll follow. Yes - genetics do definitely play a role in your health, but that's not something you can control or change at this point.  You're already born, you can't go back and change that. Unless you have a TARDIS. And if you do have a TARDIS, you are a Time Lord and you need not concern yourself with our puny mortal fears.

For all of us humans, at least, there are a few factors we can still control. There is a healthy and  balanced diet. There is overeating or eating poorly. There is exercise. There is being sedentary. There is love and self-appreciation. And sadly, there is self-loathing and self-destruction. I feel like living an unhealthy lifestyle is like waiting in a plane with an open door.  And all of your unsound choices are behind you, pushing you out of it.  But the best part about this is it can literally take years, even decades before any past decisions finally push hard enough.  This is where exercise, eating right, keeping your weight under control, not smoking, not drinking heavily, dropping bad relationships - can really save you.  And these things take time, too. But for the most part, they work. 

 I guess what I'm really getting at is this:  if you're in a plane, and you know you're going to fall - why wouldn't you take the parachute?

I don't know about anyone else, but with all this  time I'm spending in the gym I feel like I have a parachute - and a back-up one, just in case.  If only I could trade a lifetime of Cheetos and donuts and being lazy for a TARDIS.  Now that would be cool, right?

Check yo' self. But for serious.

Yes, I am well aware of how long it's been since I've last posted on my blog.  So if anyone was worried about my well-being, I'm totes fine.  (And to those people worrying - seriously, it's been like months, man.  Really? You'd just not call or text and just leave me like that? Daaaaang.)  There have been many days where I've logged in, positioned myself at the keyboard, waited for the right moment, and -



that right moment never came.


Sometimes I feel like I don't do anything exciting at all, certainly nothing worth recording.  Nothing worth anyone else's time. I felt like I really owed my dear readers (all nine of you, thanks, guys!) an update with substance, not just random one sentence blogs.  That is so not a blog.  That's barely a Tweet.  So I decided to not write until I felt like I really had something to say.  And you know what?  In between the last post and this post, I actually have done a lot of things worth remembering.  I don't think living a boring life is actually my problem.  I think my problem is just plain laziness.  And unlike being stuck in a routine or having an uneventful life - you can't just "wait out" laziness.  "Waiting out" laziness is just another lazier form of laziness.  I have to combat my slothiness with its natural enemy - ACTION.  Boom. Pow. Zap.  Here I am writing again.

(It's a sloth, bein' slothy.)

Although I've taken a more relaxed approach to writing my blog, I'm actually quite the opposite when it comes to reading them.  Seriously.  If I know you, even sort of know you, and you have a blog - I have read it.  People are fascinating to me.  Even the normal everyday stuff  - going to the gym, work meetings, class...I find it pretty interesting. One of my favorite blogs right now is written by my boyfriend's sister.  She calls herself a "fat girl running", and a good portion of her posts are centered around the gym and weight struggles.  As a girl who loves the gym yet also equally loves Hot Cheetos, I can't get enough of it!  I don't know if my new posts will be anything comparable to her blog, but I'll try.


I digress. Back to something that's actually been troubling me today. At work I decided to have someone measure my height, I haven't had that done in awhile.  I found out exactly how tall I am.  I am 5 foot, 4 inches.  Can you believe that?  I'M SHORT! I always thought I was 5'5"!  How did I always think that?!?! WHO LIED TO ME?  If you can imagine the feeling you would have if someone told you that the sky was always purple and grass was always orange and donuts fell out of the sky instead of rain - how would you feel?!?!  It probably sounds crazy, but I just never thought of myself as actually on the short side.  Really?  Like....but for serious?  I just feel like my whole life is upside down.


...but that does explain why I always have to jump if I need to reach something on top of the fridge.

How could I have not known this sooner?  I feel like such a fool with delusions of height.  What I've gleaned today about my stature completely throws off my weight loss goals - I don't even want to talk about what it does to my dreams of being a runway model.  (*eye roll*)  I don't know if I have it in me to accept these findings.  In fact, I'm going to have someone re-measure me again tomorrow.


In the meantime, if you see me wearing platform heels and pinstripe pants with a top hat, you'll know why (and it's not because I want to look like a sassy Abe Lincoln). 

  Hey, is that Lydia? Nah man, that's just Honest Abe.

Attention bibliophiles!

WANTED:  A new book to read.  Preferably a classic.  Favorite author: Hemingway. I also highly enjoy David Sedaris. Favorite book: Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.   I'm on the last few pages of A Moveable Feast and I won't finish it until I know there's something there to replace it.

Please leave any suggestions for me!  Also, I will never read Faulkner again, so if anyone was thinking that (which...no one probably was) - just don't write that down.

You're on a rollercoaster...don't stop and think, just scream!

"It's like I'm in a room with a thousand doors, and some of them are locked. And I also have a huge set of keys. And there are windows. And you're blindfolded."

-- Janice and I, on the topic of personal revelation from Heavenly Father...and how sometimes us converts have a hard time with it.  Also, this about baptism:  "It's like there was a door, and you knew exactly what was on the other side of it. And all you had to do was open it."

This message is for all of you!

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”


Maryanne Williamson










And that, my friends, is one reason sacrament is so awesome. :)