More (Potential) Roses

I've had another lovely rose pop up recently, in the form of a Samsung Acclaim smartphone. It took me a while to figure out how to run the basic functions, but once I kind of figured out what I was doing, I starting looking into various applications. My most recent and so far, most favorite, is one called Calorie Counter. I put the food and the serving size into the program and it calculates the calories and nutritional info. It's AWESOME and I'm back to being conscious of the food I put in my body again.

Everything's Coming Up Roses...

...and it's about damn time! Seriously, though? So many things I've wanted for so very long have finally started to happen this year! Some things also totally sucked, but so far, it's all led to something even more awesome than I could've imagined. I guess it kind of started when I got laid off last fall from a job I didn't like at all, and couldn't have stayed at too long by choice anyway. I drew unemployment and lazed about for a while, and it was nice. Then I started to feel like a pile of worthless, non-contributing crap and my benefits were nearing their end, and found some hilarious and sometimes awesome census work. Then it was back to the old test scoring place that has temp. jobs year round for a few months. Somewhere in there, I applied for a wedding coordinator/dj job. Considering the fact that they just offered me a branch of their business in the city I'm moving to in less than a month, rather than lose me all together, I'd say that's worked out incredibly well. And why am I moving in less than a month? Oh, only because I got accepted to graduate school. So now, I have a job that encompasses everything I've ever wanted one to have, I get to learn a bunch of new stuff, and be in an intellectual environment again. I seriously couldn't ask for more right now. Well, except for ourselves, our crap, and especially our cats to be magically transported the thousand plus miles that it's going to take to get there, for free. Alas, it'll never be. A girl can dream, can't she?

Basketcase is the New Black

When I stroll around online, looking for regular people who write well and post the writing online, I'm beginning to notice a pattern. The ones I like the most, that is, the ones that end up sending me back into the archives and reading from the beginning, are the ones that are totally open about being a little bit, or sometimes a lot, batshit crazy. They're funny, but heart-wrenching and serious sometimes, too. Mostly, though, they're literary representations of mental instability, and I love it. It makes me feel more normal. I guess that's the obvious point. Ultimately, it encourages me to be a little more honest, or sometimes a lot, about what happens in my own head when shit gets a little weird.

Finally!

After coming up with another, elaborate back-up plan, and getting genuinely excited about it, I received an acceptance letter from NMSU. For about 25 minutes, I considered whether or not I should do it, and was pretty much decided from then on. Every, possible scenario that rolled through my head, ended with knowing that I'll regret it hugely someday if I don't do it. So I'm doing it! I plan to be in Las Cruces by August 1st, and starting school the 19th. This is going to be a huge change for me, and I can't wait! I haven't really exercised my adaptability in a long time, and it's way overdue. I need to break and make some neuron connections!

The change in my mood since finding out is quantifiable. I didn't realize how often I was thinking about my future, until the thoughts weren't negative anymore. At least daily, if not several times a day, I think about the future. Before I was accepted, I would think about the summertime, and how I already know how it's all going to go, because I've done it here many, many times before. There's nothing exciting about that. It simply meant that the fall would be next, and that I'll be 30 in the fall, and nothing out of the ordinary is going to happen. Regardless of whatever turning 30 means, and keep in mind that it's meaning is entirely subjective, it is a milestone birthday in our culture, and I want to recognize said milestone with something new and exciting. Because really, what's a milestone at all if it's not the beginning of a new chapter of life?

Now when I think about the summertime, I think about how it'll be my last one here, and I better pay attention to the details. There will likely be more summers in my future in the midwest, but never here again. I love it here, but I'm through with it. I've been through with it for a long time. Now when I think about the fall, I think about turning 30 in a brand, spanking new environment, and the fact that I'll have been there long enough by then to have an idea of how to really take advantage of my surroundings. I also think about the old friends that will be slightly more accessible to me, and I get to believe that seeing them more often in general, and maybe even for my birthday specifically, is a tangible thing. When I mentioned to one of my best, old pals, who happens to have a 30th birthday four days after mine, that perhaps we could find a way to celebrate together this year, she agreed honestly and wholeheartedly.

This is so wonderful. I feel almost like a weight that I didn't even know was there, has been lifted from my shoulders. It stung a little when another friend said, "Better late than never," (though coming from this woman, who's on her way to Quantico, VA to become an FBI agent--seriously--it's an entirely valid statement), but even that was a negligible point. The bottom line here is that I'm going to do what I've said I've wanted to do for years and years. I've sought an opportunity, followed through with requesting for it to happen, and now that's it's finally been handed to me, I'm taking it and running until my lungs explode. This is IT. It's my "dream" future, and it's happening. In five years (or so; not entirely sure about that yet), I'll be teaching in a post-high school environment, making money that doesn't suck, and getting a couple months every year to do whatever I want, work-free. I'm a little in awe of myself and my life right now, especially after typing it all out here, and reading it over and over. I can't wait to see what my future brings, now that's it's become unpredictable!

Not Enough Hours in the Day

Though it's only through temporary jobs, I'm back to working full time. I'm actually working more than full time with the direct sales and dj gig I've started doing, so there's just no free time for blogging these days. I'm not complaining, though. I'm actually really glad to be back amongst the wage-earning members of society.

No word from grad school yet, and honestly, the closer I get to hearing back from them, the less I want to go. That's fucked, I know. Can't help it, though. Just in the last couple of months, I've really felt like I've found my niche around here. I have a great group of friends who, now that the weather is nicer, I see more and more often. We have so much fun together, and I finally don't feel like an outsider amongst them anymore. When I think about having to leave them behind, I get a little sad, honestly. So if grad school doesn't work out, I think I need to work on finding a need in this, relative area, that isn't being fulfilled, and fill it. I want to be In Charge, I want to be the Center of Attention, and I want to tell people what to do. How hard can it be to find something that corresponds to all of that?

Ha! We'll see!

Once again...

I'm writing because I'm depressed. I don't feel the need to write and express myself when I'm happy, the way that I do when I'm not. When I'm sad, it's like this insistent need to get my thoughts out of my head, maybe because I feel like someone will hear them and help me. Help or no help, I do feel better after it's out, so here we go again.

Today I'm feeling like shit because a) it's cold and gray outside so I won't leave the house and that makes me feel like a shut-in loser; b) so many people I know and care about are getting into fitness and health and I want to do the same, but I'm absurdly lazy; c) I have no fucking idea what's going on with my grad recommendation letter writers, but I haven't received anything from any of them and it's starting to piss me off; and d) Dude still has no job and the resulting depression is leaking into my head. I think that's it. There are other, more superficial things that annoy me every day, but they don't cause me to not want to get out of bed.

Another One Rides the Bus

Another One Bites the Dust by Queen was at the top of the charts when I was born. I was partial to Weird Al, though (whom I share a birthday with, thanks), hence the title, which is completely unrelated to what I want to write about.

The actual topic of this post is that I may have finally found the thing that works for me, as far as trying to lose some weight. (Side note: Yes, I want to lose weight. In that respect, I'm absolutely the stereotypical, white, American woman. I'm obsessed with stereotypes, both understanding why they exist and disproving them, and I try to think about them in my own, personal, day to day life. I generally want to break them down in the hopes that it will inspire someone who doesn't realize he or she has the choice to do what he or she wants, instead of only what's expected. But when it comes to this one, I really do embody it, and as much as its stereotypical, it's also pure fact, because I'm actually overweight, right now more so than I've ever been...hello Age 30!)

Back to what I trying to say before I interrupted myself, I think I know how to lose weight, finally! Its taken over a year and several different tries (none of which were weird or unhealthy diets, by the way), but I'm finally starting to notice some changes. They're tiny, for sure, but I think they're there. I put on a brand new shirt the other day, one that I bought about three weeks ago, and it didn't fit quite right. I remember when I bought it that I thought about going down a size, but decided to stick with what fit me best at that moment. The issue was that its damn near impossible to find a button-front shirt that fits my waist and my boobs at the same time. If it fits my waist, I can barely button it over the boobs. If it fits the boobs, it looks like a maternity tent on the rest of me. So, I bought the one that fit the boobs because it has a tie around the waist to cinch it and make it fit well there. It fit wonderfully at the store three weeks ago. Then I got it home and put it in the closet, to be worn for the next dress-up opportunity that came my way.

Threeish weeks later (in other words, the other night), I put the shirt on, tied up the waist, and stood in front of the mirror. Lo and behold, it didn't look right anymore. It was baggy and a little tenty everywhere. So I adjusted the straps on my bra, thinking that maybe the giganto boobs needed to be lifted a bit. It helped, but it was still too big. It took me a second to realize that the only logical conclusion is that I'VE LOST WEIGHT! I don't own a scale and I hadn't noticed any other changes yet, so this was a revelation. I'm still a little on the disbelieving side because it was too easy. I've barely done anything different in the last couple months than I've been doing for my entire life. I'm simply keeping track of the calories that go in, in relation to the ones that are burned up. Its so fucking simple, and yet, its taken me so long to just try it.

I'm still not doing much in the muscle-building area, but I'll continue to tell myself that its because the weather is shitty and I hate winter and it just needs it to be nicer outside. I won't worry about that for a while yet. Even so, at this rate, I'll be able to go bathing suit shopping in the spring and it might actually be fun instead of depressing and torturous!