welcome to my mind: July 2007

weight loss

here's how i think weight loss should happen...

you should work out, REALLY HARD, for a few hours, maybe a whole day until you get to your desired weight. RIGHT THEN. and to maintain it, you should workout regular a few times a week.

i have realized over the years that i am someone who has to have instant gratification. if i don't see the benefits of whatever i'm doing AT THE TIME I'M DOING IT (or about to do it or thinking about doing it), then i can't be motivated to do it. and it's just gotten worse as the years have gone by.

this is why weight loss is so hard for me. i thought weight watchers would help me by giving me a plan to do every day and having to weigh myself once a week, but that got old really quick. and plus, i like to cheat whenever possible. so after a few weeks of bouncing around, an ounce here, a pound there, i got tired of it. since then, i've had "great ideas" to lose weight, which have included riding my bike (which i've actually done) and eating some vegetables now and again (which i've actually done). but losing weight is like saving money... i can never seem to get ahead. if i work out, my motivation was something terrible i've already ingested. and short of becoming bulemic (which won't happen because i have a phobia of puking), there's really nothing to do about the extra calories except expend them. like i'll never get ahead in that savings account if i keep buying crap i don't need. like lunch every day.

the point of this blog is that i ran today, for the first time in a looooooong time. i went to chase park and trudged around their little padded track. i made it around two times before needing to walk, for fear my lungs would explode. then i mananged a few more weak laps and then carried my tired bulk home. of course i was not spared the super-skinny chick who looked like she could run marathons around me, but i had to keep telling myself, "at least i'm out here. i could be sitting on the couch, consuming more calories." which i did when i got home. eh. one of these days i'll be able to expend energy without the need to replace it (and then some). that might actually result in weight loss. and i don't know what i would do if that really happened.

family camping 2007

so, scott and i just got back from the family reunion camping tour 2007. it was hell.

the trip wasn't bad. it didn't seem longer than it was, which is usually how it is everytime we have to travel up into the bowels of wisconson. but the problem with my family planning these things is that they usually pick private campgrounds that have a ton of recreational stuff to do, like mini golf and volleyball and a huge playground. these private campgrounds also usually have seasonal campers, who have a permenent camper that they decorate with packers or bears garb, complete with christmas lights of some sort and the obligatory gnome or goose dressed accordingly. this place was no different. it was overcrowded, packed with white trash hooligans who had too many kids and too many dogs and too many cans of beer at their disposal. but there were a few things in particular that should have made us turn around immediately:

1. there was a bar off of the main office.and you could also purchase beer from their little general store's coolers.

2. our campsite was on a sandy part of the park that used to be their beach. but now the "pond" was about half empty, with reeds and swamp grass sticking up all through it.

3. the guys on the site across the dirt path from us were "the band" for saturday night. they were playing very loud hair band music all night friday and all day saturday. and most of their friends decided to join their group around midnight on friday night/saturday morning, shining their headlights directly into our tent and yelling and carousing like it was 1pm instead of 1am.

4. when we arrived to the campground, we noticed an ambulance parked outside the main office. scott said, "i hope that's not a relative of yours." so did i. when we drove past and parked, i looked at the person straped to the backboard with a c-collar on and didn't recognize her. we asked about it in the office and they said that a branch had fallen on her head. man, that will ruin your camping experience. when driving to our site, we passed by my dad's cousin and we said hi. she said, "did you see mary being loaded into the ambulance?" mary? mary mathewson? yeah, my dad's other cousin's wife evidently got attacked by a dead tree by their campsite while trying to save her 90-year-old mother in law from the offending branch. she wasn't hurt too badly, but just to be safe, the campground called an ambulance. she was back at the site by 9pm.

5. despite the ground being sand, it was incredibly hard and no amount of padding could remedy that. oh, and it was colder than a witch's teet through the night. shivering, bruised hips, sleepless, we decided that we wouldn't spend another night there.

we went out to breakfast with my dad and linda the next morning. then we bummed around a few antique shops in the small town of wild rose. after that, we hung around the campsite, listening to cinderella and bon jovi and faith no more from the nearby sites. at one point, one of my relatives went over to their site and said, "do you really think everyone in this campground wants to hear your music?" they turned it down. but after the group potluck and the passing on of the duties for the 2008 reunion (which i took), the offending campers were set up, amps, guitars and all, and playing heartily. we packed up and went to complain to the office. we said, "the band is playing at their site." the security guard said, "at their site?" we explained the amp and guitar situation. he said that they were supposed to be playing at the pavillion, not at their site. so he left to take care of that, but we still left.

did i mention the christmas decorations? i should have taken a picture, but i didn't want the white trash family to think that i approved. huge, inflatable xmas decor, including, but not limited to, a snowman, a bear wearing a xmas hat, penguins, and a santa. and let me not forget to mention the xmas lights that caused our tent to glow in the night. if i wanted to sleep in the middle of clark street after a nighttime wrigley game, we could have just stayed in chicago.

linda and my dad

the "pond"

the moon

downtown wild rose, wi

the group. aaron ftont and center

scott's birthday and cake making

scott's birthday was saturday, the 21st, the same day as the release of the last harry potter book. i had be wracking my brains to come up with something fun to do for his 30th, but because of the HP hoopla, all scott wanted to do was wait for his book to come from amazon. i had left the apartment around 11ish to go shopping at target when he called on my cell phone:

"there's no need for you to come home. i got my book."

oh, i see how it is. so i stayed out shopping until about 3ish. but the one thing i did for his birthday was bake him a cake. and not just any cake, Birthday Cake from his mom's age-old recipe. i had emailed her a few weeks back to get the details. this cake has nutritional information that would make a diabetic cry, including, but not limited to, marshmallow fluff and confectioners sugar. but i made this heavenly cake and we ate some of with friends after an indian dinner on friday night. it was like crack. here are some pictures of this caloric bomb:

it was awesome

beaver dam

a few weekend ago, Kristin and I went on one of our "get the hell outta Dodge" drives. our main goal: madison, WI. she'd never been to the capitol city and i knew how to get there. i hadn't been there since august of 2005, so off we went. well, madison was too concrete-y for kristin's liking and there was an art fair going on, so there was no parking, which usually on a sunday was pretty easy in madison. so we drove around the capitol building and back toward the highway. i saw a glimse of lake mendota (or the other one, whose name escapes me at the moment). we decided to head northwest to beaver dam, the city of my mother's upraising. a town of 15,000 (i think it might have been smaller when my mom was a kid). here are the pictures from that trip:

beaver dam lake

abandoned hospital

abandoned house

old library turned historical museum

i love blogs

What Mythical Creature are you? Your Result: Nymph Nymphs are known for being extraordinarily beautiful. Unlike other mythical creatures, Nymphs are completely unselfish and do not always realize their beauty. Because of this naivette, they are easily taken advantage of. Nymphs are quite innocent and devoted. They have one main passion in life, and devote themselves to it. As a Nymph, you are pure of heart, playful, and very free spirited.
Elf
Vampire
Siren
Werewolf
What Mythical Creature are you? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Thanks, Samantha!

kwik-e-mart

a few weekends ago, we went to the new kwik-e-mart down on the south side. it was totally hilarious. here are a few pics from that trip.

simpsons avatar

liz just asked me why i haven't done this yet. but i found a better site for that.

the simpsons movie

click on "create your avatar"

it's not as detailed as the "create your avatar" on yahoo, but it's not too bad. here i am!

funniest saying this weekend

"i don't need to watch a shake and some fries have a conversation with each other. i just don't see what's funny about that."

-kristin, about aqua teen hunger force

kvetch

here's my issue of the day, which is really the same issue every day...

i am hungry all the time.

i get up at 6. i eat a bowl of cereal (usually raisin bran or some high-fiber cereal). i go to work. i work (sometimes). come 8:30 or 9am, i'm hungry again. i ususally try to hold myself off until 10, which is when i have some kashi oatmeal. but today, my hunger attacked me at 8:15. what's up with this? i'm trying to lose weight, people! this is why those "just cut back on what you eat and exercise more" reports don't work: if i cut back on what i eat, i don't have energy to work out. i am capable of eating nothing but veggies all day, but i'll be as limp as warm celery with no energy to work out. that's what they don't tell you when you join Weight Watchers... you will be so f*cking tired the first couple of weeks, you won't be able to work out. of course, they don't introduce working out into the program until your 4th week. but still! when i work out, i want to EAT LIKE A PIG! and i'm not talking having two salads instead of one. i'm talking about eating two pizzas instead of one. but instead, i have to confine myself to "healthy" foods, which might curb my growling stomach, but makes me crabby as hell.

here's what the medical world needs to make: a pill that makes you NOT crabby when you're giving up your pizza and fast food. fuck those diet pills that "curb your hunger." i need to curb my bitchiness. and my husband won't let me take those diet pills. "yeah, you need speed like a hole in the head." good point. but i tempted to try them, if they just weren't $20 a box. 'cause if it speeds up my heart, then i'll probably only take one and then the whole box would be wasted. meh.

so i ride my bike. and then i TRY not to eat myself out of house and home. if i'm busy, i don't notice my cravings. but if i'm bored (and i'm bored A LOT), i want to eat. so here i am on my blog when i should be resizing images for a catalog. but that's boring. sorry, guys, i have the attention span of gnat. i just need something to take up 25 more minutes of my time before i go to whole foods to buy some more lip balm.

tick tock.