Harumph.

Mutant hairs suck.

It's bad enough when they first make their appearance. You know what I'm talking about, ladies -- those ridiculous, invariably black ones that like to sprout out of your neck or chin, and even when they're ripped from your flesh they grow back in within three freaking days?

Yeah, those hairs.

Well I'm here to tell you it gets worse. Because those little bastards? Eventually go grey. Which, for a single hair, equals white... pretty much rendering them invisible.

And for the record, in my experience, this event tends to coincide with the emergence of one's need to wear bifocals.

Sigh.

I'd write more, but I have a blind date with my tweezers.

Yay and Bleah

We're nearly to June and I've not had a cigarette since March 21st. This is HUGE. Not since my pregnancies have I gone this long without smoking.

Yay!

In other news, and also coinciding with the "huge"-ness of it all, would be the ever-increasing breadth of my beam; i.e., the weight? She is piling on, folks.

Bleah.

This is frustrating the hell out of me. I know how to lose weight. I've done it before. But right now? HAH.

I'm so freaking tired of counting every calorie, of watching every bite that goes into my mouth. I'm tired of asking myself, "Are you eating this because you're hungry? Or are you bored/ sad/ tired?"

"Wouldn't you rather knit??"

ARRRRGGGHHH!!!

Choreboy keeps making noises about exercise, running, etc.; and in theory we're supposed to be doing these things together. So far it's just noise, though.

And lest anyone think I'm bitching about this, I freely admit that getting off my duff and getting moving is not on my list of way-favorite stuff to do. I'm allergic to sweat. And to movement outside that which is necessary for my survival and that of my children, for that matter.

But I have a size 6 dress to get into in August. I fit into it when I bought it, which was like two weeks before I quit smoking. Shoot, I was actually torn whether to get the size 6 or size 4 (vanity sized though I'm sure those were).

Now I'm afraid to try it on.

How bad would it be to get married in my pink chenille bathrobe? I know that fits...

Sign of the Times

I'd gone in to Dr. Awesome for some standard bloodwork along with a FSH and thyroid panel because my body is acting strange.

Turns out I'm perimenopausal, which I knew, but damn it's good to have an actual doctor confirm that... no thanks to my asshat of a former GYN.

My mom was wanting me to call her with the test results, so I dropped the printout at her house, thinking I'd go over it with her when I came by later to pick up Teddy from Doggie Daycare.

What I'd forgotten is that she and Dad have spent years now dealing with not only their own test results, but also those of their parents. So they're really proficient in translating them, and ran through mine eagerly.

You'd have sworn I brought home a straight-A report card from their reaction. I'm going to make them a copy so they can hang it on their fridge.

Ponderings

When I die I doubt I'll be thinking, "Gosh, I wish I had spent more time at my computer."

Just mulling a few things over. And no, this is not some giant "This blog is closing!" revelation or anything. I keep a journal, either paper or computer, and it might as well be here. As I said... just mulling. And pondering.

Stuff like that.

Hmm...

And kitteh no. 3 (because 2 obviously isn't enough) is joining us this weekend. My days are numbered...

Death Glare

If ONE MORE child tells me "It's not mine!" "I didn't do it!" or "It wasn't me!" again...

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't care who did it, Offspring. I care about Someone. Picking. It. Up.

NOW.

Note: This rant brought to you courtesy of Amanda's children, specifically the ten-year-old variant.

Random, Another of a Number

Phone call this morning, from one of the bosses who totally isn't related to me or anything:

Boss: Uhm, you know how when I get near the end of a project I think I can just sort of "will" things to get done and it'll happen?

Me, thinking of the sheet notes I typed last weekend, among other recent time-sensitive assignments: Yes.

Boss: Well, I just picked up the phone and as I was listening to the dial tone I was wondering why it wasn't calling the office for me.

Me: Okay, Kreskin...

Hee. All right, you probably had to be there. But it was worth a giggle.

Plague House

Well, after the kids got sick back in April, I got sick. My doctor (aka Dr. Awesome, from Angel's blog) said it was a cold. After it taking more than a week to even feel a bit of improvement in general health, I'm saying it was either the cold from hell or a mild case of the flu.

Now having said that, right after my cold/ flu started to ease its grip is when this whole Swine Flu thing came up. So of course, hypochondriac that I am, I was going down all my symptoms to see if I was Central Florida's Patient Zero in the Swine Flu outbreak. However, you'll all be happy to know that I lacked the high fever of the Swine Flu, and instead had a low/midgrade fever, so someone else has that honor.

In dishcloth/ knitting news, I've completed four of those bastards and am currently working on my fifth.

Smoking-wise, I've stayed off the nicotine and am also off the Chantix. Sure I still want a cigarette at times, but overall it's worth it.

Besides, at the rate I'm going I'm never going to have to buy carpet again. I'll just redo the flooring in my house with knitted dishcloths.

Monday, Monday

Made some steel cut oats this morning. Good stuff. The Elder Offspring (home sick, which would explain my extra time this morning) thinks they're gross. Heh.

We have to get the garden in this next weekend. I'm feeling too cheap to keep buying fresh at the store when I can grow them and just run out back and grab some green beans. Plus I suspect I'll waste less that way since if I let things go too long on the plant, at least they can go to seed rather than rotting in my fridge as some of my produce purchases tend to.

I've knitted two dishcloths, and would have finished the third except I decided to go all fancy-schmancy with it and use the seed stitch rather than the garter stitch, so I'm actually having to remember if I knitted or purled last.

[Note: Yes, I realize this further cements my descent into middle age, and yeah Tycho, I know I should be saving for the Old Folks' Home... but a girl, even an aging one, needs to have her little amusements :P]

The boys are asking when I'll be done, because they think I should be making them new blankets for their beds. Knitted, of course.

I have a feeling this dishcloth could take a painfully long time.

The Aging of Amanda

Me at the grocery store during my lunch hour today:

"Gosh, those steel cut oats that they're wanting $7.00 a can for? I can GET those now, because I don't have to pay for cigarettes! Spiffy!!"

In related news, I've also developed an unholy addiction to Tazo brand teas, specifically the Passion blend. It doesn't contain actual tea -- it's an herbal infusion, to be precise -- so it isn't even the caffeine I'm stuck on.

Will wonders never cease. First, I'm not smoking. Second, I'm not using my new-found wealth (hah!) to buy even more Diet Coke.

Instead I'm spending my savings on porridge and tea.

Oh, and yarn. Because once again, I'm knitting. Now granted, I'm knitting square dishcloths because the point to this knitting isn't craft or creativity; it's primarily to keep my hands busy because I'm not smoking, and eating to replace the smoking just is not an option.

But still... knitting.

I've also come to the conclusion that for my next pair of glasses, I'm going to go ahead and bite the bullet and get bifocals because switching between regular and reading glasses flat-out sucks.

Oish.

Call the old folks' home, kids. I'm incoming.

My First Thirty-Ninth Birthday

*humming "Happy Birthday to Me"...*

Yep folks, I've made it yet another year. If I'm calculating correctly, this is my third birthday I've celebrated while blogging.

On the one hand, Wow! I've managed to blog through three actual birthdays!

On the other hand, well, after nearly forty years? Three birthdays passing, i.e., a mere two years and a day?

Meh.

Conflicted much, me? Nah.

Heh.

Anyway, I've celebrated my birthday in my usual style, taking the day off and doing stuff that I enjoy. It's been a bit more active birthday than usual as The Male Factor was also off work today, so we went to the store, then went to lunch, then to the bookstore, then looked at furniture, then Starbucks, then more furniture, then restaurant stopping again, then getting the cake, then getting the kids, THEN home...

So... erm, yeah, slightly busier than usual ;)

Still not smoking here. Although it seems my brave "Bring. It. On." really meant "Bring on the fried goods" since that's been most of my evening meal intake this week.

Oh well. I'll straighten it out. I have to. I just bought new jeans last weekend, and the heck with outgrowing those suckers right after they've been purchased.

So, thirty-nine years old, and still cheap.

That works.

Smoke-Free

It's been over a week with no cigarettes. Whew :)

I could have gone until March 23rd with smoking, as that was the last day of the first week of Chantix, but I ran out of cigarettes that Saturday and, well, I know this will come as a shock to some of you, but...

I'm lazy.

Leave the house to go buy cigarettes when I'm already quitting in two days? On a SATURDAY? Oh hell to the no.

So the afternoon of Saturday, March 21st, I smoked my last cigarette.

The rest of that weekend was insane as far as wanting one was concerned. The physical cravings were curbed quite a bit by the medication, but habits are a pain to break.

I do still have cravings, especially if I mess up my Chantix dose timing (I'm asking for it today because I started eating breakfast early and taking my meds then -- ouch), but it could be much MUCH worse.

I miss smoking, in the sense that I miss the activity of it. I miss walking up the alley on a break, thinking to myself between puffs. I miss waking up to that first cigarette and coffee. I miss having that to fall back on when I'm stressed, because it's a great filler activity.

I don't miss the stench. I don't miss the cost. I don't miss the cough. I don't miss my children asking over and over, "Mommy, when are you going to quit smoking???"

I've been asked by some friends how I know it's going to stick this time. Do I know that? As much as I can. I have several good indicators. One, the male factor in my life is as dedicated to quitting as I am and has likewise been smoke-free for over a week. Two, the federal tobacco tax is increasing hugely, and I am CHEAP. And three, my boys would be crushed if I started again.

That's all outside of the "it's bad for me and will kill me" logic.

----------------------

Now food intake while not smoking? Erm... well, it's coming along. The weekend I quit smoking I ate an entire box of Girl Scout Samoas. Didn't regret a bite of 'em. And I've been eating at the higher end of my 1200 - 1550 calorie range this past week, mostly hitting the calories in the evenings.

I've gone over some days. Oh well.

Ultimately, if I gain weight I've proven to myself I can lose it. Quitting smoking takes priority over hitting 130 lbs by mid-August. But I'd rather not regain what I've lost thus far, so I'm working on paying more attention to what I put in my mouth this week. I was trying to do that last week and didn't manage as well as I wish. I like to think, though, that if I hadn't tracked what I did last week that I'd have gone even more overboard. So basically, tracking was still helpful even thought it wasn't as detailed as it should have been.

I've got my food ready for this week, including snack options.

Bring. It. On.

Hmmm...

Now I'm remembering why Chantix is good at helping people quit smoking. I just took my second day's dose a bit ago and I already feel like I need another cigarette. It seems that, for me at least, the nicotine-receptor blocking mechanism of Chantix makes it so my body says, "Hey! You know that nicotine stuff you've been feeding us the last fifteen years or so? Well we're not getting it, and we're pretty annoyed right now, so we're going to torment you. Just sayin'."

Bleah.

And then when I actually have a cigarette, the relief is minimal. Oh well, on the plus side this will help me drop them faster since it seems to affect me pretty swiftly. I'm thinking I won't have an issue dropping them by next Monday... or even by Friday of this week.

It'll be nice not to see that icky nicotine staining on my fingers. I think I'll also go get some new whitening strips for my teeth since I won't be sucking smoke through them daily and the whitening has a better chance of sticking.

Of course, the Diet Coke and coffee will likely mitigate the whitening somewhat, but they're gonna have to pry my caffeine out of my cold, dead, stain-free fingers.

Chantix Again

You know, I'm really good at quitting smoking. Gosh, in the past two years I've quit what... four times? At least?

It's the STAYING quit that's more the issue.

So here we go with the Chantix again. I just took my first day's dose.

What makes me nuts about this is that there is so much I don't like about smoking. I don't like the cost, I don't like how it looks, I don't like the taste, I don't like the stench (I swear, yesterday after coming in from my morning smoke break I checked my shoes to see if I'd stepped in a dog pile because it was That. Bad.)... but I keep doing it.

It's icky. The heck with deadly, it's just icky.

Okay, deadly is also a factor. And I'll admit it's the one thing that overrides my fear of gaining weight due to quitting. The bad part about this timing is that in January I started my push to get the last 30 pounds off. I'd gone down to 147 back in late 2007, regained 13 during 2008, and just now got back to 147 again, giving me 17 more pounds to go.

But as one of my friends' doctors told her: You can lose the weight. It's a bit harder to recover from death.

All that said, I've managed to go into total anxiety mode over quitting. The second I took that Chantix I had the biggest "I want a cigarette NOW!!" feeling. Those of you who smoke or have smoked know what I mean, when your head is feeling slightly numb, when it would be wise for those surrounding you to tread lightly lest they incur your wrath and/ or tears, and you just know IF YOU COULD HAVE THAT CIGARETTE YOU'D BE FINE, DAMMIT!! Now why in the hell is that phone ringing when I am TRYING TO GO SMOKE???

And actually, I can have that cigarette. I can keep smoking through this first week and to be honest, I'll go ahead and have my usual "run outside, stink up my clothes, run back inside" break in about 17 minutes. But I don't have the full week to quit since I made an agreement with someone and I'm going to have to cut this stuff out a bit more quickly.

Bleah. Oh well. I maintained 40 lbs. of a weight loss over a year. I lost 13 lbs in 8 weeks (don't freak folks -- it's just slightly over 1.5 lbs a week and that's going to slow WAY down due to the standard plateaus as well as the quitting smoking thing). Time to amp it up and get rid of the damned nicotine.

I'll keep ya'll posted.

P.S. The good news? More crazy, wacky Chantix dreams!! Wheeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!

Pet Peeve

Note: this is cross-posted from my blog at SparkPeople.com. I usually spare y'all my dietary rantings, but this is a pet peeve of mine... as you may have guessed from the post title. I'm AmandaJCD over there, if anyone is interested.

When you've been playing around in the diet and fitness game as long as I have (about seven years all told), there is one saying you'll inevitably run into:

"Nothing tastes as good as thin feels!"

Bah. My happy asterisk.

Food is good. I looooove food. And let's cut to the chase here: if nothing tasted as good as thin feels, then how in the world did so many of us get into this fix in the first place?

The implication that being thin is better than actually sitting down and enjoying a meal is counterproductive. I mean, I get the point of the adage. It's meant to help people pass up that brownie, to look at a menu critically in terms of fat and calorie content, just to THINK about what they're putting in their mouths.

But sometimes, you know what? That brownie is *exactly* what you need. And if you don't go ahead and HAVE the stupid brownie, it's all you're going to think of until you end up eating an entire pan of the danged things.

Ahem. Not that I've ever done this myself.

Choke.

The key to this thing we're all doing is moderation. That is absolutely, full stop, the ONLY way this is a viable lifestyle change rather than a "diet". All diets are doomed to failure. It's a simple fact. The only people who lose pounds and then sustain that weight loss are those who learn how to incorporate healthier eating habits and exercise into their lives beyond that timeframe when they're in weightloss mode.

And by "healthier" I don't mean rice cakes and wheat germ. Shoot, just thinking about that makes me want to go dig into the ice cream I've got tucked away in the freezer.

It's all about balance, folks. If you want that brownie, hey, go for it! Just make sure you account for those calories. The problem comes in when it's EVERY day, EVERY meal... and that's also where the solution comes in.

There are so many delicious foods out there that are healthier, and lower in calories and saturated fats. If you're wanting pasta one night and your general standby sauce is an alfredo, try tossing some whole wheat pasta in a bit of olive oil and sprinkling on some parmesean instead. It may have been the carbs bellowing your name rather than the alfredo sauce.

And even if the evil alfredo sauce was the true culprit, then schedule it in on one of the following days. At least you gave curbing the craving with something more healthy a shot.

Absolutely count those calories. I entered today's lunch into my nutrition calculator, even though I knew I'd bombed out. And boy, did I EVER bomb out! I managed to suck down an entire day's worth of calories in one meal. Yep, I hosed it. And I'm good with that.

But I'm not doing it again tomorrow. Do my occasional indulgences affect the speed of my weight loss? I'm sure they have an impact. But I'd rather take the pounds off more slowly with a lifestyle I can sustain past the time when I hit my goal weight than power them off in a burst of speed that cannot be maintained.

This is a marathon, not a sprint. And I'm pacing myself, because this is a race that will last for the rest of my life.

Depression Dinner

The video below is one I found from a link on my local "mommies" forum. It features this amazing 91-year-old woman cooking what she calls Poorman's Meal, and she has several other cooking videos there as well.



She's just too cool. And actually, she inspired me for dinner last night.

Tracy Stardust from Second Life, file this one in your "Stuff About Ajay" folder, because I used spam.

Somebody toss a bucket of water on Tracy if you're near her, because I'm fairly sure she just fainted.

Anyway, the way I cooked this one is that I took 5 medium potatoes, diced in 1/2" squares, two medium onions, similarly diced, and a can of (God help me) SPAM. I let He Who Brought This Substance Into My Formerly Spam-free House handle dicing that one, because spam totally skeeves me out in its "natural" state, if there is any such thing for that food-like product.

Potatoes go into the skillet first (heat set on the high end of medium), until they've shown some signs of cooking. Then I tossed in the onions and shortly thereafter, that pork product which purports to be food.

Pepper to taste, season with favorite herbs (I went with garlic and rosemary), and salt with caution if you don't want to retain so much water you mistakenly think you've aged 10 years overnight, which happened to me after eating spam once. Eewww.

Ahem. Well, moving right along, we also grated an 8 oz. bar of cheddar and sprinkled that over the top when everything was cooked through. It was seriously not bad. And the male factor and sons really REALLY liked it.

We're already plotting variations, like using pepper jack cheese next time, a small green bell pepper, maybe diced tomato or even sundried tomatoes for color, additional flavor, and texture... and actual ham.

Note to Tracy: No, we will not be adding PEAS to this, regardless of any color or texture they might add. Or perhaps precisely because of that. :P

Of course, we're taking it out of depression mode, but it's sure fun to find a new base meal to play with. Even with the additions it's still cheap, and considering this economy, cheap is good.

Pffft...

Okay boys, I'm warning you -- now is the time to bail. We're going to discuss the many and varied delights of bra fittings .

Flee now, before it's too late. The truth, it BURNS!!!

Ahem.

Okay. If anyone is still with me, yes, it's all about the boobage today. Specifically mine. Once upon a time I was a very clear 34D, but as anyone who's had even a glancing acquaintance with gravity can tell you, with age comes comes a bit of... well, there's no easy way to say it. Sag.

And when you throw two pregnancies (which put me up to a DD within about three minutes of conception), a combined total of 2.5+ years of breastfeeding (H-cup, anyone?), as well as a rather unfortunate weight gain and subsequent loss of same on top of all that, it can make the term "funbags" a bit more about the "bags" than the "fun".

The girls, they are not perky. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Only through the grace of underwire and superior engineering do I not resemble an Irish washerwoman.

Anyway, this past Saturday it was time to invest in some new support devices for my poor beleaguered darlings, so I dragged myself to the nearest department store, which blessedly was having a 40% off sale in the "intimates" department. I was approached by the ubiquitous little old lady who worked in the area, and when she saw me grabbing bras with "D" on the label, she gently said, "Dear, I don't think you're getting the right size..."

Now God love all l.o.l's, but I've heard this before. Last year, in fact, which was the last time I put myself through this hell.

"I'm really small through the ribcage, so I don't look like a D cup, but really the C's are too small."

"Well honey, you know we all get older. Here, let me measure you."

34D. Shock and awe.

Still, she put some C's onto the rack of bras I was dragging back to the fitting room because, "You just don't look that big, dear."

Twenty bras. Out of those, two fit. Sizes? 34D. Hah.

Now granted, they're coiled up like cinnamon rolls inside the cups (I'm more realistically described as a 34-long), and I'm sure redundant skin now counts for a large portion of the bulk, but still, it's pretty much predictable that the l.o.l. employee in the lingerie department is going to try to tell me there's no way in hell I'm a D, and it's only when she sees me coming out the bottom, over the top, and through the sides of her precious C-cups that she ever concedes that I might, perhaps, possibly have a clue what my damned bra size is.

There's also this little catch: a 34D is nothing like a 40D. The cup is smaller, because cup size is proportional to bandwidth. Furthermore when you're really small through the shoulders and ribs like I am, it camouflages things -- even moreso when you're rocking the hips of the afore-mentioned Gaelic ancestress.

Now all that said, it's always a good idea to have a proper bra fitting every year or so which is why I don't cringe outwardly when I see them hauling out the measuring tape. Back in college I was wearing C-cup bras, and convinced they were the right size even though for some reason the bottom of my bras never would consistently touch my ribcage. Then one day I was bra shopping and the omni-present l.o.l. measured me and said, "My dear, you're a 34-D. Put those C's back -- they'll never look proper."

Whaddaya know... bras CAN touch my ribcage! They just have to be the right size. Which now, still, is not a C.

Second Life - Hogwarts Music Video

Okay, I usually don't post You Tube videos (because I'm a slug and I'm too easily amused -- this blog would be *only* videos if I gave in all the time), but this one just kicks all kinds of serious ass.

I happened upon it at a Second Life friend's blog (original post here). He says it better, but basically the video was shot at the World of Hogwarts role-playing sim in Second Life. Yes, you too can go into SL and enroll in Hogwarts! I haven't myself, even though I'm a total Harry Potter nut, as my role in SL tends to be more on the management/ admin end, but I know many people from the WoH sim and they're just an amazingly awesome, creative group of people. Now of course, when you enroll in Hogwarts you're going to need some sort of backstory, right? So this particular avatar's backstory is that she's a teenaged rockstar. And what do teenaged rockstars do when they're going to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry? They shoot a video, of course! Yes, the song's really by Miley Cyrus, but... well, just have a look:



It's totally a blast :)

Brrrrrr!!!!

Oh. My. GOD. It is freaking COLD here.

Remember, y'all, I'm down in Florida. You know, land of sunshine, beaches, palmetto bugs. Well, the sunshine's here and the beaches remain. I'm also fairly sure the palmetto bugs are still around as well but you couldn't prove it by me because even those suckers are smart enough to hide from this weather.

It hasn't gotten as cold as they've forecast -- they were predicting mid-twenties to upper teens last night and it just hit freezing -- but cold is cold is cold.

What's worse is that since we're not used to these temperatures on an annual basis, let alone an EXTENDED basis (we had a similar snap a couple of weeks ago), many of us down here lack proper cold weather gear. Now as an adult, I remedy that by layering myself until I'm easily mistaken for the Michelin Man, but trying to convince my kids (specifically the elder) that yes, Mommy is SERIOUS when she says she wants you to wear three shirts and two coats?

Hmm... yeah, you can probably figure out about how well that's going. On the plus side, I'm older than he is and much more stubborn, so guess who wins? Hint: it ain't the nearly-ten-year-old.

Adding another bummer to the cold is the dryness of the air. Now I actually like cooler weather as opposed to the searing heat of August, but it turns out I'm definitely a hothouse flower. My hair hates humidity -- in its natural, summery state it looks like I've had inappropriate relations with a light socket (and what was I THINKING when I cut it off a couple of weeks ago? oh yeah, summer it's gonna be insane now that I've broken our mutual non-aggression pact by applying scissors and daring to try to have, say, an actual hair style), but it turns out humidity is really popular with my skin. I always tend to dryer skin anyway, and am prone to eczema unless I lube myself up daily with heavy-duty moisturizers. But with the humidity gone I'm decidedly scaly, and my hands have been particularly hard hit. I ended up breaking out the coconut oil tonight and have already rubbed several layers into them and on up to and including my elbows.

It's supposed to warm up for the weekend. I sure hope so, otherwise at the rate I'm going I'll run out of coconut oil and someone will find me crumbled into a dry, flaky pile on the kitchen floor. That's gonna be a mess to clean up.

DJing Tonight - ACK!

In case anyone is interested in hearing my not-so-dulcet tones, I'll be DJing a Celtic-ish/ rock-ish in Second Life tonight at the Blarney Stone in Dublin. You can hear me out here in the real world by tuning your online media player thingies* to http://66.34.54.162:8000.

If you hear the DJ refer to herself as Ajay, that'd be me. Ajay = A.J. = Amanda Justice... etc. They're all just me.

*Yes, I'm aware it's a miracle I can function with all the technological know-how I exhibit. It's a gift.