My dreams are betraying me. I woke myself up early this morning yelling. Yelling at someone I care about deeply about something that upset me more than I originally realized. I know that my problem isn't actually with this person but with the actions of someone else that just so happen to involve this person. In my dream, I blew up. I lost my temper and I yelled and screamed and cried. I woke myself up to the harsh words and tears in my eyes. I'm a mess.

I don't want to have this conversation. I don't want to get into this because there is no way for me to express my feelings without looking like a complete jerk. That is why I've been avoiding it. It's why I haven't said anything and why I smash the hurt down like a meat tenderizor hoping that if I crush it small enough, I won't notice it is there. I'm still considering keeping it quiet but I know things are just going to double and triple until something does break loose in me and not in the dream world but in reality where the consequences of the discussion will be much more difficult to handle.

* On another note*

I'm heavily considering a large facebook cut or deactivating my account. I love keeping in contact with everyone but I'm starting to wonder if it is worth it to have to explain every status and to defend my word choices to people all the time. I know that people get concerned but sometimes a status is just a status and it's a snap shot of that exact moment. My exhaustion from this pregnancy and taking note of it in that moment isn't a cry for help. It doesn't have to be brought up to my husband. I get questions from him on a weekly basis because people ask him about things in my status. It's just a status and 95% of the time he doesn't know what I've written because he doesn't get on facebook. It doesn't matter. It's not life or death. It's just random thoughts. I'm tired of explaining myself and trying to justify. I might just start using filters and filtering what people can see what. I can't seem to decide.

I'm afraid I've started censoring myself here too. I know only a few select people read this blog but I don't ever want to start any drama and I tend not to think before I write. That's the entire purpose of a blog/journal though isn't it. To write how you feel without worrying about hurting feelings or things coming back at you. Hopefully if I ever write about anything that causes questions people feel free to ask me about things rather than drawing their own conclusions. I'm pretty much an open book if you ask. I just don't tend to volunteer my feelings.

It Happened

5 months of trying. The doctor gave us 6 months before we would start going the testing route. The 6 month my peroid is late. I'm NEVER late. I take 5 HPT's over the course of 7 days after my missed peroid.

NOT PREGNANT

The sticks laugh at me and I wonder what the heck is going on with my body. After speaking with a friend she suggests calling the doctor and scheduling a blood test. What the hell? I think to myself and make the call. I go in and they take my blood and basically make me feel ridiculous for wanting a blood test. I get a call a few hours later.

I am in fact expecting a child.

Did I mention that I am NEVER late? I knew something was going on but no one but Angie believed me.

So I'm having a baby. June 29th, 2011 is my estimated due date.
I am excited and nervous and happy and sad and all over the place 100% of the time. For a control freak, the hormonal mood swings are NOT easy to deal with. I feel like I should be locked up for my own safety.

I'm 12 weeks and 2 days today. My first trimester is almost over and I am very happy about that. Everyone tells me the second trimester is the easiest. We shall see.

None of this is happening how I 'planned'. In our family there is a saying

We plan, God Laughs.

It's very true. I feel like this is going to be very similar to the wedding. Beautiful outcome but stressing me out to the highest extent because it's just not me. I've become more vocal so far this time but people still arn't listening to me. That is an entirely different post all together. I hope that people respect my wishes and help when we need and back off when we don't. I don't want to have any reason for this time not to be special between Derrick and myself and sometimes too many cooks in the kitchen get really really overwhelming.

That girl

I've never been that girl. You know the one. The girl who gets asked to the prom by so many people she has to decline invitations. The girl that spends an hour every morning getting ready for work so that her makeup is perfect and her hair lays just right. I've never been the girl that gets a drink purchased for her at the club. My sisters are good examples of this girl. They are beautiful and boys pratically trip over themselves to get a closer look or to talk to them. I've never been that girl.

This week something weird happened to me. I was approached by someone I considered a friend and told that he was developing feelings for me. I was flabbergasted. Then he asked me if I felt the same. Shock turned into feeling flattered and that quickly turned into a queasiness. This friend is married. I am married. This is inappropriate.

I quickly nipped anything negative in the bud. I love my husband. I vent about things that happen because I occasionally need to get things off my chest. I've learned to shut my mouth. Perhaps I vented a bit too much. I don't know really know what exactly I did to give my friend the wrong impression. I wish I could take it back because now things are weird. I don't want them to be weird. He's a really nice guy.

I also realized something that day. I'm married and not dead. Sometimes people are going to notice me, regardless of if I think they will or not. People are going to notice D also. This isn't necessarly a bad thing. If anything I think sharing what happened reminded D that I am a woman and that he's lucky to have me. That part was nice. It was nice to feel wanted. Even for just a moment in highly inappopriate circumstances. Maybe it will lead D to remember to want me in our appopriate marriage. It wasn't bad for the ego either.

Double Standards

DH has really got me thinking lately and it hasn’t been all good thinking. A lot of it has been crazy-person-don’t-share-these-thoughts-with-anyone thinking. Most of it has been that way actually. I don’t know if he MEANS to send me into those tailspins or if he does it out of sheer ignorance. I’m hoping that it’s the latter.


Let me preface this post by saying this. I’m a pretty laid back chick. It takes a lot to get me riled up and once I am, it takes a long time for me to stop being riled up. I try my damndest not to let myself get there. It’s not my idea of fun and I fight dirty. However, for the most part, I just go with the flow. Change plans at the last minute? Ok, Sure. Plan my entire summer without asking my opinion? Ok, I’m annoyed but I don’t want to make waves. I don’t enjoy arguing about little things and I don’t get worked up over things out of my control if I can AT ALL! help it.


That being said, DH made a comment to me yesterday. He said I looked like a housewife. HOLD THE PHONE! Not a housewife IE: Desperate or New Jersey. But a housewife as in: A woman who stays at home and cleans and looks totally frumpy. *Facepalm* Yep. Basically without, or while? Hoping for without, meaning to my husband called me a frumpy hag who doesn’t take care of herself. I took a quick inventory of myself. Tank top, shorts, bare feet and legs, toenails painted, hair washed and brushed and drying so it would curl for tomorrows work day. My nails weren’t done but are pretty long and look more than decent without polish. I had just gotten home from working 8 hours with a 50 minute commute each way. I had made dinner, cleared up dinner and cleaned the kitchen. I changed out of my business attire into some comfortable around the house clothes. And he called me a housewife.


Maybe I shouldn’t be so offended. In other circumstances I probably wouldn’t have been. But this particular day, I got offended. Especially since I had done all of those things already and was ready to FINALLY!!! enjoy the hour and a half a night that I actually get to sit down and relax. Especially since he was sitting on the couch shirtless and in athletic shorts, which is his normal around the house outfit. I realize that he probably didn’t mean it the way that I took it. It was probably an innocuous comment that came out of his mouth without regard to how it would make me feel. He’s a man. This happens. Whatever, but it got me thinking.


Women are the nurturers, the caretakers, the shoppers, the maids, and the secretaries. To top that all off we’re expected to raise the children and still have a job outside of the house and bring home income to help support our families. Apparently, we’re expected to look damn good while juggling all these responsibilities. Make sure we look nice at all times. Take care of us while also attempting to make sure everything and everyone else is taken care of. It’s not surprising that sometimes the things that fall through the cracks involve our well-being and ourselves.


I’ve never been much of a girly girl to begin with. I don’t wear makeup on a regular basis because I enjoy my sleep much more than spending an hour getting ready in the morning to stare at a computer all day. No one sees me and if they do, it’s for mere minutes and they couldn’t care less if I’m fully made up or if I’m dressed like a clown, just as long as there problem gets resolved. When I do try to look nice and get ready for a night out, DH complains that I’m getting dressed up for the people we’re hanging out with and I never get dressed up for him. Truth be told, when I do get dressed up it has less to do with the guys we are hanging out with and more to do with their wives. I’ve never been good with females and feel very inadequate when hanging out with people when I’m not at least wearing mascara. The thing that kills me is, I have ALWAYS been like this. I’m a jeans and t-shirt kinda call. With good shoes (bit of a shoe addict here! I do enjoy dressing up JUST to wear my latest coveted purchase!). DH and I have been together for almost 5 years. Next month we will have been married a year. Nothing about my way of dressing has changed. I lost 20lbs. I feel pretty damn good about how I’m looking. Would I like to lose more? Yes. I would LOVE to. But again, there is the time issue. Working out would mean I don’t make dinner. And when I don’t make dinner, people get VERY crabby VERY quickly.


DH often will point to a girl that is nicely dressed and say, “why don’t you dress cute like her?” or “That’s a cute outfit, is it something you would wear?” Yes dear. I would love to wear something like that but I’m not 5’2 and less than a hundred pounds and my ass wouldn’t fit in that piece of material she calls a dress. I’m 5’10 and a LOT of woman. I can’t dress like the little bimbo’s at the bar. Nor do I have any desire to if we’re being honest. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to look like those girls but it’s just not me. In other cases, I would LOVE to wear what he points out but our budget just doesn’t allow it. We don’t have the extra cash flow to shop at those places. Our bills come first and foremost and I spend all my extra funds paying extra bills.


My money for cute clothes is spent on doctors bills for the ear infection that had me in their offices twice last month. The few extra funds I have go to make a small payment on the new flat screen TV we financed. I just can’t afford to look like those girls. I don’t have time to go to the salon and get my nails done or color my hair every 4-6 weeks. I don’t know what it means to see a stylist more than once. I’m too busy paying bills, feeding our animals, doing a million loads of laundry, washing beard trimmings down the sink and putting the scale back where it goes rather than tripping over it.


So maybe I look like a housewife. Maybe I look frumpy and not attractive. I don’t ask him to dress up. I don’t ask him to trade in his trademark polo’s and athletic shorts for a different kind of outfit. I don’t holler when his hair gets long enough he can wear a headband in it. I just let it be. Because I love him. No matter how he looks. And I know he loves me too. The double standard just kills me. I can’t be wonder woman and I don’t have the desire. He’ll just have to accept me. Unpainted fingernails and all.

It's Baby Time!

He gave us the green light. After months of discussion, an engagement, a wedding and a house later, we’re going to have a baby. Not any time soon, mind you. He’s decided that he feels comfortable enough to go forward in the process. I’m excited. What better excuse to lock yourself away with your husband and have massive amounts of sex? I guess most people don’t really need an excuse, but we have very busy lives. In just the next month we have plans every single weekend including two weddings, a family reunion and I’m going zip lining with some girlfriends. I’m excited about all of the plans but my real excitement comes from the impending conception.

I don’t think we will have any issues but DH isn’t so sure. He has had some health issues in the past that he is concerned could affect our fertility. The doctors assured him that he should have no problem and I will happily listen to the words of that wise doctor. I don’t want it to be a process. I don’t want to have to chart and temp and use ovulation sticks. I just want it to happen naturally and when it is supposed to happen.

We talked last night cuddled in bed in the dark. We’re going to be parents one way or another. If we have to adopt, we’ll hop a plane and head to China and get our baby. God has a plan for us. We were meant to be parents. DH has very little experience with children but I’ve seen him around the kids of our friends and he is adorable with them. I’ll never forget the time I first saw him interact with our friend’s daughter, Addy. She was playing in her little kitchen and she and DH had a tea party and later ate mustard sandwiches. I can’t wait for him to eat mustard sandwiches with our daughter or to throw around the football with our son. I can’t wait to see my baby open their eyes for the first time and see their daddy’s eyes looking back at me.

My DH is a man’s man. He does the whole burp, fart, scratch and chest bump thing associated with a man. He handles our finances in a way that I can’t even explain and makes sure we are taken care of. He is an excellent provider, lover and friend. He is my rock and my strength and whenever I need him, I can count on him. ALWAYS. Yet when I see him with a baby or a little one, he softens. His exterior isn’t so harsh and he can melt my heart with the little half smile thing that he does. So while he’s stinking up our house or stocking our savings, I know there is so much more that I am going to learn and discover about him when we embark on this journey together. We’re going to be parents. Someday. Maybe not right this minute, but it’s coming. Someday soon. I can’t wait!

Family

Everyone has a different definition of family. Webster gives the ‘normal’ definition of family to us: a basic social unit consisting of parents and their children, considered as a group, whether dwelling together or not. Parents and children. I guess this is a basic way to define a family but we all know that things get more complicated than that due to marriages, divorce, remarriage, adoption, children out of wedlock and a variety of other situations. Family is what you make of it.

My family was far from typical growing up. I had my mother and my father and a stepfather and a stepmother and a bunch of half and step siblings. My parents created only me together and I have no memory of them ever being together. Yet growing up, I was pulled in several directions and I spent time with a father that I had very little memory of and a stepmother who seemed to hate me. I had a sister and two brothers that I learned about over summer breaks and didn’t talk to during the school years. It was enough to mess with anyone’s head. You get close to people and then you don’t see them for extended periods of time and this causes confusion. I was no different.

While I never felt unloved as a child, I never really had the same kind of family life as most of my peers. I never thought that it bothered me until recently looking back over my teenage years and seeing a pattern. When I was younger, I spent much of my time at the homes of my friends. I would go there for weeks at a time and come home only for a few days before I would head to another friends house. This suited me just fine as most of the time the parents of my friends were far more lenient with the house rules than my own parents. I credit my best friend's mother with giving me the freedom to become my own person in a way that didn’t lead me to rebel. However, I credit my own mother with giving me the real life tools to make smart decisions later in life. Without these two different child rearing styles coming to play in my upbringing, I believe I would have turned out to be a very different person.


As I got older, I made my own family. My family consisted of 3 people. E, J and myself. We were the best of friends. We finished each other’s sentences and could predict each others actions. In school we earned the nickname of ‘The Trouble Trio’ and we were inseparable. It was rare to see the three of us apart and even stranger to see one of us alone. We shared clothes, laughter, tears and anything else imaginable. We were together for that first big heart break, first jobs, family drama and everything in between. We were together for E’s mother’s kidney transplant and J’s mom’s brain surgery. We were together when my relationship with my father self-destructed and when my ill-advised much-to-young engagement failed miserably. These were the ladies I leaned on for support and my shoulders were wet with their tears as well.

In college our circle expanded. We began spending more time with B and in turn met his friend BK. Our circle had expanded before to include boyfriends and new friends but for some reason they had never quite stuck. Those people never made it in to the family. B was instantaneous and fit right in. BK was the surprise. He and I clicked immediately. We are the same person. BK is the male version of me in so many ways its unreal. He was a welcome addition to our family. The circle expanded and shrunk over my college years but it always came back to the five of us. Those people were my family.

Well college is over and my life is very different. The people that I use to call family have grown up as well and we are all growing apart. Gone are the days of snow days and board games. Gone are the late night parties and getting chased by Australians while barhopping. Gone are the 2am phone calls just because we knew the others were awake and probably as bored as we were. Gone are the weekly Grey’s Anatomy dates and coffee at the Waffle House. We are now faced with growing pains that only a family as close as ours can feel. The ladies have grown and two of us have married and started making our homes with our husbands. J has a two year old and another baby on the way. B is moving to New York to chase a life long dream of seeing his name in lights and BK has settled down with his partner and is learning and growing in love every day. I have purchased a house with my husband an hour away from the rest and while I was the first to set out on my own, B’s move will be the one that splits us apart.


Now there are fights and drama and hurtful words. It is easier to be angry with someone than it is to admit to yourself and to them that you miss them. It is easier to pick fights and make up excuses as to why you don’t see them and spend time with them. You’re mad and they have done something to provoke your anger. This is why the friendship is suffering. This is why things have fallen apart. It is easier to believe this than to believe your once impenetrable unbreakable family has grown apart. Not your family. Not the people that you knew. They would never let this happen. And yet the sad reality is that I haven’t seen J since E’s wedding two months ago. I haven’t seen E since her wedding two months ago but we talk almost every day. I had dinner with B last night and we talk at least once a week and I see BK every day as we have the pleasure of working together but we also had dinner Friday night and he’ll be joining me at the pool this afternoon.

Maybe friendship is just what you make of it. J and I were closer than anyone else for a very long time but our paths in life are different and our beliefs have always conflicted. No one can say who is right and who is wrong but there is undeniable evidence that shows how differently we chose to lead our lives. Lately I’ve been faced with the fact that our friendship is no longer what I’d like it to be and that this has happened due to our lives taking turns. I will always think of J as my sister. We have been through more in the last twenty years than some people deal with in a lifetime and we were together through it all. It’s hard but I’m learning to let go. My knuckles ache from grasping at what use to be and what we used to have. Things aren’t the same and they never will be again. It’s time to work on my new family, with my husband and eventual children. All the rest will just be icing on the cake. I’ve never been much for Webster’s definition but I appreciate the time I had with the family of my younger years. No matter how badly it hurts to let go.

Baby Bucketlist

Now that I've decided that hildren are in my future, I've been doing some serious thinking. Dh is slowly coming around and I know it won't be long before he's ready to start ttc. Discussions about planning and timing used to involve a lot of sentences starting with the words 'I want to *instert here* before we have a baby'. The first thing we wanted to do was get married. We'd lived together for 2 years, been dating for 3. So cross that one off the baby bucket list.
After we got married we turned our attention, and be we I mean I mostly, to finding the perfect home. I scoured real estate sites, I memorized the MLS and I had conversations with multiple relators. I saw the inside of almost every house that came on the market in our price range and our locational preferences. I was a women on a mission. We did eventually find our dream home in a perfect location. It was a steal and I had nothing to do with finding it. It just sort of fell into our laps. We renovated it and moved in right away and while it still needs work, and what house doesn't? it's home. Cross that off the baby bucket list.
Dh is now in the phase in which he wants to have a sizeable savings account before we start trying. God has blessed us and this is quickly becoming a reality.We are almost to our goal amount. We both understand that there will never be enough to cover all possible senarios. Afterall, we arn't Angelina and Brad. This doesn't stop us from trying like hell to make sure we're ready. It's coming along nicely.
I was reading a post from another blogger who introduced me to the term 'baby bucket list' and I thought it was a great idea. After I thought about it some more I realized that we had already been crossing things off the list. She's due any day now with her first spawnie and she didn't complete her list but she sure got close.
I don't think we'll every accomplish all of our goals but I think that we can sure put a dent into them before our spawnie's arrive. So I've decided to write my personal baby bucket list. I'll cross them off as I accomplish them.

Leave the country and go on vacation Done. We went to Jamaica on our honeymoon. LOVE LOVE JAMAICA
Visit NYC for Macy's Day Parade
Finish our basement
Go to Niagra Falls and ride on Maid of the Mist
Get my DH better aquainted with babies (Our friends are quite fertile so there is no shortage of babies for this project)
Lose weight Done but would like to lose more...we'll work on it
Enjoy late nights out drinking with my DH (we never did this together and most of our friends have kids so it's very difficult)

What's on your baby bucket list?

Learning to be me, again.

When you get married, everything changes. I was always the person saying that a piece of paper wasn't going to have that big of an impact. I argued with my elders that making it legal wouldn't change D or myself. It wouldn't be any different than it was before and in a lot of ways I was right. But in more ways than I care to admit, I was wrong.

When I was in college, I knew myself. I knew who I was and what I wanted and where I was going in life. I was headstrong party girl who was always up for anything. I was going to be a teacher and spend my summers by the pool with cocktail in hand with my girlfriends. I was going to touch students lives with my words and with hard work and dedication. I needed no one but myself and my friends and I could get through anything. I was fiercely independent and loyal to a fault. I would tell you to go fuck yourself if you disagreed with me and wouldn't think twice about it. I was wild and I did stupid things without thoughts to the consequences. That was my outward exterior.

My inward self was different. Quiet and curious. Studious and responsible. I was the type of student every teacher loved to have in class. I thirsted for knowledge and gobbled up all of the information given to me about my chosen major. I wanted nothing more than to be the best of the best and I would have settled for nothing less. I was a shoulder to lean on and an ear to listen to those who mattered to me and people often came to me for advice.

I like to think I was a good person. Flawed but good. I still think I'm a fairly good person. More flawed than before but working every day to lessen the impact of my flaws on others.

Something has changed within me, something is not the same. I'm through with playing by the rules of someone else's game.

Sorry. I often think in song and if you're going to read this blog, it's just something you will have to deal with.

Something HAS changed within me. I'm not sure when exactly it happened. Perhaps it was during my engagement to DH. Or maybe shortly after our marriage. A lot of people will tell you that I changed for DH. This is not the case. I am not the type of person who will ever change for a man. It's just not in me to mold myself for someone else. DH would like nothing more than for me to be more flexible in my stances but I'm still that head strong girl. That hasn't changed. I still can't pinpoint why.

Actually, that's not the case. I do know why. I've evolved. I've grown up. I'm not that 18 year old girl anymore. I'm a grown ass woman with thoughts and opinions and needs and desires. I'm starting to realize that a lot of my change has come BECAUSE OF my marriage. Not FOR it. I now have the freedom to have those thoughts without a group mentality leading them. I'm allowed to have desires and I'm able to voice them more freely as I now have the life experience to back them up. I'm not a part of that close knit pack anymore like I was in college. The pack has broken apart and created seperate tribes and don't get me wrong, while I love them all dearly, we've all changed. None of us are the same anymore.

I still know myself. I'm still that same girl in a lot of aspects. Loyal, independent, studious, curious, responsible. Now I face the toughest challange of all. I get to learn how to be me with a partner. I get to learn how to attend to the needs of someone else. Someone that is fully capable of attending to their own needs and sometimes, I just don't feel like it. Relationships are full of give and take. He tries a new recipe of mine and I sit through one of his many reality TV shows on DVR. We take turns picking the movie on NETFLIX. You sacrifice and compromise and change and grown and learn.

I'm learning who I am now with my husband. Sometimes its difficult to leave who I was behind but I'm eager to meet who I will be. As a wife. As a partner. As a mother someday. I'm excited to meet me.

Howling at the moon

The full moon makes people act a fool. I could have told you today, without a shadow of a doubt, that the moon was full. Dealing with the crazies at work is such a draining process normally and on the days that the moon is full its ten thousand percent worse. There is something about this specific day makes people more likely to be rude, more likely to yell and scream and more likely to drive you crazy.

Despite my best efforts, today they won. Today I almost lost my cool. There is a certain level of respect that should be extended to all humans. The golden rule Do unto others as you would have done to you . I'm a firm believer in treating each person as kindly as possible no matter what the circumstances. There is no reason to treat people like trash underneath your feet. Its just not necessary.

Competition

It’s something we all deal with on a regular basis. The competition for the best job, the best raise and even in our home lives when we, consciously or subconsciously, try to keep up with the Jones’. Everyone wants to be the best. We crave the recognition and rewards that come from our hard work. For the most part this is a healthy way of motivation but there is one problem. Where do you draw the line at healthy competition and competition that is harmful to you and those around you?
We as a society compete in various sports as we go through life and if, you’re somewhat of a couch potato like me, you enjoy watching sports on the boob tube. My personal favorite is football. Those muscular men in those tight pants, grunting and groaning and slamming into each other really gets my gears going. I yell and scream at them just as loud as my DH does and I root my team to victory time and time again. I root for them but the Bengals don’t always listen to me. The competition on the football field is fierce. Who can throw longest and catch the best? Who will have the best play of the game and win the most points for those playing fantasy? Most importantly, competition over who will win those much coveted Super Bowl Rings and be named MVP. They fight for their place in the Pro Bowl and take their hits and bruises along the way. They expect to get hurt. This is inevitable.

For those of us non-pro football players competition isn’t supposed to hurt. You don’t go into a competition expecting to come out with a physical ailment. You study hard to get the best grades and to beat your study partner. You work with a vocal coach with dreams of becoming the best of the best and even winning American Idol. If you have trouble with your weight you enlist the help of a friend to keep you motivated and over time the motivation turns into a contest. Who can lose the most weight the quickest? Here we find the problem with competition. It can be taken too far.

Recently my place of employment offered a corporate sponsored contest. It was modeled after the popular television show The Biggest Loser. The contest lasted for 15 weeks and you could enter in a variety of different ways. You could enter as an individual, as a team or as both. I chose to enter the contest in both categories. When it came to the individual contest, I knew that my lack of motivation wasn’t doing to lead me to finish first. I was still interest in monitoring my total weight loss percentage so I signed up. I joined a team with two of my friends at work, Alice and Sarah. Sarah and I had worked together previously and had become good friends and Alice was someone I knew through the grapevine before she moved to our department. After working with them both for over a year, I thought that I knew them reasonably well. I did not, however, know just how competitive they really are.

I consider myself fairly competitive. I like to be the best in my career and in my personal life I set goals for myself that I make it a point to reach. I knew that joining with other people would help to push me to reach my weight loss goal and when we found out that the coveted prize was a paid activity of our choice promoting physical activity we got really excited. I started the contest strong, vowing to myself that I would cut out all sweets and other tempting goodies. I lost a steady two to three pounds a week and was thrilled with my progress. Alice and Sarah also came out swinging dropping twice my totals each week. I’d like to tell you that with hard work and determination, I caught up with them but that’s not the case. They kicked my ass. I was very glad that they were on my team and not competing with me.

The contest ended today. Our team won the team division and Sarah and Alice were both in the top ten in the individual contest. They both dropped over ten percent of their total body weight and are looking slimmer and happier. Most importantly we are all healthier now than before we started the contest. Winning is great and something we all worked long and hard to accomplish but it isn’t everything.

The woman who won the individual contest lost of 21% of her total body weight. She is my height (5’10) and absolutely skeletal. It sickened me to watch her accept an award for weight loss, when from the looks of her, she had no weight to lose. The point of the contest was to get into a healthy BMI and to feel better physically. I know what a healthy BMI for my height is. I’m constantly aware of it and that is why I was so eager to join the contest. The winner of the contest was not a healthy BMI. She was underweight and it made me so sad to think about. She won the contest but at what cost. Being underweight is almost as dangerous as being overweight. In both situations your body is unable to function and eventually you will develop serious physical ailments. The competition that helped over two hundred of my co-workers take the first step towards a healthier lifestyle could have very well been the excuse for this woman to dive into something more dangerous.

I wonder if the creators of our workplace contest thought about adverse affects of the weight loss goals or if they were too focused on the goal to see potential flaws. If they did see the potential flaws, are they going to step up and take responsibility or should it even be something of note? I’m glad that our team won. The competition helped and motivated us into taking healthy steps towards our goals but for the girl’s sake, I really hope someone recognizes the problem before it gets too far out of hand. Competition isn’t always a good thing.

The New Adventures of Old/New Me

Have you ever seen the show The New Adventures of Old Christine? My life is very much like that show right now. I’ve been catching up on reruns and I’m just starting season one and it is great! I don’t kid myself into thinking that anyone can do some of the things that television characters get away with and still be as well liked as they seem to be but that does not stop me from seeing the parallels of the lives of those characters and my own. We share many similarities. Christine has to deal with the ‘meanie-moms’ at the school her son attends. I’ve had my own run-ins with women I not-so-affectionately call the ‘stepford wives’ .

I have been with my husband for four years total. Before we were married he introduced me to all of his friends. Most of these friends are wonderful people and have accepted me into their inner circle with open arms. Now I am good friends with both the males and the females in the group. We often go out with other couples and while the men talk sports and statistics, the ladies and I catch up on the goings on of our day to day lives and enjoy gossiping about movies, music and other similar interests.

Not all has been peaches and cream in the friends department though. My DH also introduced me to another group of friends most of whom have known each other since high school. These couples all had children or were expecting their first child when we were introduced the first time. All was well and the men in the group were all very friendly with me and joked around and had a great time. The women? Not so much. I swear the temperature drops at least ten degrees when I walk into the room.
When the cold chill first started, I mentioned it to my, then, fiancé. He scoffed a bit and assured me that it was all in my head. A few instances later and he came to realize that the frostbite inducing encounters were not in fact a product of my imagination. I’ve never claimed to be perfect but for the most part, I’m pretty likable. At least I’d like to think so. I’ve never met anyone who showed with such gusto out right hatred of me. The eye rolling, the prolonged sighs, the deliberate ignoring me when I would greet them or ask a question in an attempt to be friendly got to be just too much. I began to find excuses to skip functions that I knew they were going to attend. This upsets me because I enjoy the company and friendship of the men in the group immensely and my husband does also. He is fiercely protective of me and won’t be around people who treat me poorly. His friendships with the men have suffered as a result.


Perhaps I did something to offend them. Maybe they just do not care for me. I’m not their prototype of what makes friendship materials, which is fine with me. I have no desire to have people in my life with such toxic attitudes. It’s very possible that I deserve their hatred. I sometimes speak out of turn, (who am I kidding, this happens a lot..) and sometimes I say things that are better left unsaid. I like to say I’m brutally honest but those close to me have mentioned the word tactless a few times. However, in this particular situation, I honestly don’t think the problem is me. Sometimes women are just bitches.


Maybe I’m more like Christine than I realize. My life has changed and while I marvel in how far I have come, I still have a long way to go. My journey is far from over and I don’t need the ‘stepford wives’ on my new adventures anyway.

I didn't know until I knew

Some things you just know. For instance, when you're born if everything develops correctly, you know how to breathe. No one has you sit down so that they can teach you how to breathe. It just happens and you continue to breathe every day for your entire life. If your body doesn't get enough air it will struggle and fight until it gets the oxygen that it needs. It's instinct. Some things you just know.

I've known many different things for a long time but I'm just learning even more now. I'm learning how to be a wife. I'm learning how to balance my old life, that I loved very much, with my new life that is better than anything I could have dreamt for myself. That's not instinct. That is learned behavior. I got married a few months ago. I met my husband in college and one day I just knew. I knew he was the one for me. During our four years of courtship, dating and now marriage things have not been easy and I haven't always known what was going to happen next but some things you just know.

It happened to me this weekend at my sister-in-laws college graduation party. I was holding my godson in my arms. Now let me preface this by saying, I adore that little boy. My DH and I were asked to be the godparents to my DH's baby cousin and it was the most honored we have ever been in our lives. To be entrusted with the responsibility was breathtaking. Now I had stolen the baby from another family member and before I took him from her I had been enjoying a few adult beverages and talking with some friends of ours. I was no means drunk (before you start in on the holding-a-baby-while-drinking-is-irresponsible bit) but I had been enjoying myself. I took the baby and went and picked up my drink. I had a baby in one hand and a beer in the other and suddenly I felt like I had been smacked in the face.

On one hand, my old life. Pre DH, pre house, pre fur baby, pre career. My old life with my family-like-friends and in my hometown. The life in which I was known as a crazy girl who would do insane things with very little coaxing necessary.

On the other hand, my new life. My life with my husband and my career. My life in a new town with new friends and an extended family. My new life involving my godson and plans and dreams and a life where I am much more respectable in my actions and decision making.

So I was faced with a choice. The baby or the beer. (because no one wants to be seen with a baby on one hip and a beer in the other hand. It just screams "I"M A HOT MESS JUDGE ME!" lets be honest here.) So I put down the beer and walked away.

I never wanted to be a mom. Until I did. Even then I always wondered if I would be any good at it or if I would ever be ready. I made a decision. A simple decision that for some would mean nothing but to me it meant everything. I will be a good mom and I am ready.

Some things you just know.