I just got a bag and I am devouring it. It’s bad enough the intern brought a candy dish to work but now I have to bring some home, too?
I am going to be jiggling in all of the wrong places when burlesque class starts.
Speaking of jiggling, I posted my picture in the yearbook of a forum I like. Then I forgot about the page for about a month. I recently check it and I have a bunch of comments from random other users. Most of the comments are calling me fat. I know I shouldn’t care because it’s not like people from this forum know me in real life or matter and their kind of known for being mean. But I think I look good in the picture! I am sticking my hip out at an odd angle but that’s just me trying to make excuses. So I let the internet upset me.

All of my clients bailed on me this week. One called a few days ahead of time with a valid excuse to reschedule, one no called/no showed and I still haven’t heard from her, one canceled right before her appointment but then later rescheduled. One of my rescheduled clients said I’m too young! I pouted about it in supervision today. He was reassuring that I’m not horrible and helped me figure out what to do with my obviously resistant clients. He kept asking questions that I had no answer to but then when he told me what he thought the answer was, it was something so basic. I forgot how easy this counseling thing is.

One thing I’m a huge nerd about is Halloween. My coworkers have already started asking when I am going to decorate my office. I hate early decorating (go away Xmas decs!) so I usually wait until October has arrived to decorate for Halloween. This year I am decorating a day early because I am working with an intern that is possibly as geeky as I am about Halloween and she is only in on Tuesdays. So I went shopping for decorations today and I’m going to pull out old decs tonight. I keep my work decs non-ghouly and leave the skulls and monsters for home.

I’ve been thinking about the fall things I like (birthday, Apple Fest, Halloween) and trying not to think about the scary darkness of winter. Winter has things I like too (Germanfest, glugg, oddly colored gingerbread houses, drinking myself to death on New Years Eve) but always has some extra sadness that isn’t there with other times of the year.

I think I found a boxing gym that I can afford. It’s a lot cheaper than the other boxing gyms, maybe because it sucks or maybe because it’s small and newer.

I didn’t see clients this weekend, I’m going in this week to get an overview of the whole client intake/scheduling process. So I will call my clients and see if they want to meet with me this weekend or next. I’m happy to be seeing clients because work has been terribly boring lately but so nervous!

The bacon chocolate chip cookies were a success!
The texture was kind of off when they were still warm but the next day when the cookie hardened a little it was better. Tiny pieces of bacon work best, bits not pieces. I had to experiment with the thickness of the maple glaze. It looked thick enough until I put it on the cookies and it spilled all over.

I took some cookies to a potluck last night and warned everyone of the cookie contents so I wouldn’t have any angry vegetarians. This led to everyone asking me about the cookies, where I found the recipe (roommate/Internets) and why the hell I would want to make such a cookie (why not?) so much of my evening was dominated by cookie talk. I’m building quite a reputation in this group. I brought Krispy Kreme bread pudding to the last potluck. There is a block party coming up and I think it’s time to make meatloaf cupcakes.

I finally showed my parents my newest tattoo. My mom kept asking why it has to be so big and took a picture of it to send to my grandma. She tried to pull the “but what about work?” question but I pointed out I can’t wear tank tops to work so no one will see it!
My family gobbled up the cookies, too. Later she poked my abdomen and suggested I get a girdle. When I came home, control top panties were in my laundry bag. Thanks mom!

I went to Buddhism class tonight and there was no teacher. Was this a lesson in self sufficiency? My classmate and I snooped through the temple office and found our teacher’s number. We were concerned since he is in his 80’s and drives from the suburbs to teach. His wife answered and cheerily handed the phone off to our teacher. It was his birthday yesterday and he had forgot..or was running late..or was celebrating. My theory is that he was drunk. I like my theory because I like the idea of an 80+ guy rockin out for his birthday and I like the idea that I can drink and still follow Buddha.

So that wasted about an hour but gave me a little more time to make cookies. I keep forgetting to photograph my cookie making but this one would have really done better with scratch n sniff than pictures. I’m making bacon chocolate chip cookies with maple glaze I had to run to the store to get more bacon because I underestimated the amount of bacon this recipe calls for. After I dumped in my mounds of bacon bits, it looked like too much. But who knows, the dough tastes pretty good even though its hard to get the bacon and chocolate flavor with uncooked dough.

The dough is chilling in the fridge right now and then will get cooked tonight and the glaze will have to wait until tomorrow probably. I’m not sure how all of this will work since my kitchen is super hot and the glaze probably won’t harden.
I will let you know how it turns out.

How can I not like boxing? Look how cool I look with my hands wrapped.

I started boxing boot camp today. So I’m not actually boxing, I’m learning techniques necessary to punch people in the face. My class is small and all women and our instructor is very supportive. My drill partner cheered me on as I tried to put my whole body into uppercuts and hooks. I’m sure I looked ridiculous. I don’t care. This is the most fun I’ve ever had in a gym

And I’m exhausted.

So I said I would check my weight regularly now and change my diet/exercise if I wasn’t losing weight. 10 days ago, I had weighed myself at work and only lost 2 lbs. I weighed myself today and I’ve lost 9 lbs (total)! So I am doing something right.

I’m having trouble finding a scale that doesn’t suck. Just for the record, Newline Well Balance scale sucks. It worked once then died. But Amazon appears to have a friendly return policy. I bought a 2nd scale, a Conair Weight Watchers scale and it hasn’t died yet. It told me the same weight that the Newline scale said before it died so I’m hoping it’s somewhere near accurate. The psychiatrist at work said don’t trust the Bally’s scale because it uses weight (it’s like a doctor’s office scale) and needs to be calibrated to be accurate and usually gyms don’t keep up with that sort of thing.

So the things I have been doing differently: actually eating more to keep my calories above 1200/day. Eating more protein. I started using FitDay to keep track of my food again and I like when the pie chart shows that my calories are equally coming from fat, carbs and protein. Using the elliptical just to warm up, not as my main form of exercise. I’ve been doing more time with weight machines lately. I work out my upper body harder than my lower body because my knees suck and if I do a lot of exercise involving them, I’m too sore to workout the next day. So my back has been getting stronger which will improve my meditation attempts. Oh, it’s lovely when things fit together.

I brought my mini cupcakes and cherries in snow to the parents’ for Easter and some of it was actually eaten! The cupcakes were a bit misshaped because I couldn’t find mini cupcake baking cups so the cupcakes stuck to the bottom of the pan and I had to pry them out with a knife. Everyone made fun of their appearance and likeness to poop but everyone ate them.

Cherries in snow was a bit harder sell. A few of my family members ate it. I thought it had a good contrast between the sweet cherries and milk gelatin. I took the leftovers to the boy’s place and since he doesn’t actually have food in his fridge, he is probably reading this, thinking about how he forgot about the dessert in his fridge. Yes, it’s probably still good.

I’ve been trying to eat healthy so I’ve been making more food rather than buying prepackaged. I like to take recipes down to a basic level, something I can make anytime. Tonight I made guacamole and chips. Guacamole consisted of some leftover avocado, tomato and onion powder. Chips were flour tortillas baked in the oven. Tadas! Chips and guac.

I have been making an effort to lose weight for a month now and I recently weighed in on a good scale and found out I have only lost a couple pounds. I’m eating better and more active so there is obviously a need to rework the plan. I’m also tired a lot. I started using FitDay again to keep track of my foods and activity. I talked to a few people that have lost weight in the past, consulted the internets and to my surprise I need to be eating more. My calorie intake was too low (which is why I feel OK about just eating a snack).
The elliptical was betraying me, too. So I started doing a short, hard workout on the elliptical then moving to weights. I’ve just started doing these things this week. I’m sore already. I need to weigh in more and it’s a pain to hunt down my coworker that owns the “official” scale so I’m going to buy a scale. I should have been weighing myself weekly all month but my previous superstitions about motivation and weight loss kept me away. This time I am giving myself a week and if there is no change, reworking the plan again.

This weekend was my first meditation class. We(boy, coworker and I) ended up going to a different temple than originally planned. The first temple we looked into increased the price for the meditation class the day of the first class. Spending an extra $30 to meditate does not help my zen. So we went to the temple/dojo that my roommate practices aikido at. Their classes are free! They accept donations, of course.

There was a lot of talking and not a lot of meditating which was actually good for a first class. Meditation hurts. My knees and back were not happy. It reminded me how poor my posture is. The leader recommended concentrating on only one thing at a time when you start, either posture or breathing. When you concentrate on breathing, you try to breathe from your stomach and have each breath fill your body. You count your breaths and try to focus on only your breathing, without letting any distractions in. The leader has been practicing for 18 years and cannot always do this. I couldn’t get to 2. I think that says a lot about Western society. We are so rushed and overstimulated, we cannot concentrate for 10 seconds but this is probably something a Buddhist 12 year old in Asia can do.

After meditation we went to Southport Grocer for brunch. That place is soo good. I tried to be a little good and got granola pancakes instead of the incredibly delicious cupcake pancakes (my pancakes were still good, too). I’ve been having a really hard time finding healthy things at restaurants. Some restaurants even fuck up salads and turn them into dressing and cheese covered fat bowls with some lettuce in them. I hate ordering things at restaurants that I could have easily made at home so I’m not down with ordering a wilting fruit plate or a bowl of plain oatmeal. I should just cook more and go out to eat less. But the whole idea that restaurants cannot make at least a few items that are yummy and not dripping with grease pisses me off!

I started my 10 week challenge on Monday. I weighed in, bought some vegetables and have been to the gym 3 times this week!

The hardest part will be avoiding sugar. My boss was out last week when we had the Challenge rally and wasn’t aware of the contest. She came back this week with a box of donuts to surprise everyone. Another coworker is asking people to buy cookie dough for her daughter’s fund raiser. Look at my ass! What are you people trying to do to me?

I’m starting to like the Basement Bally’s over the Big Gay Bally’s. Basement Bally’s TV’s are much closer to the machines since it’s in a basement and not a pretty loft. Basement Bally’s knows better than to show CNN.  And nothing is better than distracting me from boring elliptical than Howie Mandel giving people money. TV is so much nicer when you don’t watch it all of the time. It’s almost as amusing as it’s supposed to be.

It takes a strong ego to clothes shop with a big ass.

I tried to find a New Years Eve dress tonight. Something a little dressy but not sparkly like I did last year.

Why dress shopping sucks this year:

Trapeze dresses
The model doesn’t even look good in this dress. I tried on one, thought I looked like I belong in a 70’s sci-fi movie, made some raygun noises in the mirror and changed.

Jewel dresses
I’m excited about wearing real jewelry with my dress, I don’t need you to bedazzle it for me. A lot of the extra large “jewels” are placed around necklines which are not good for making the dress cover boobies. Unlike girl in picture, I like to have some parts clothed.
That covers most of the dresses so now all that’s left is

ugly prints and weird ruffled dresses

I would rather not look like I belong on a shelf in a 7 year old’s room.