Spanked

This morning, I discovered that the interest rate on our American Express Blue card was raised by 3.25 points. I immediately called to find out wtf happened between last month and this month. We have been exceptional customers and I thought that there must have been some sort of clerical error.

I was told by the very polite lady on the phone that we received notice in our November bill telling us about the increase. Okay, great but why the increase? The answer I got was that all AE Blue cards got the rate increase and there was just nothing that we could do about it. Period. No offer to opt out. Then she went on to say that we could be secure in the knowledge that we are receiving the lowest rate that they offer.

Oh, and that is such a huge consolation considering most of our wedding expenses went on this card. PISS ME OFF.

So this is how it is. The responsible people are going to pay for all of the others who have left American Express holding the bag. Lovely.

You know, this financial crisis is not going to last forever. Eventually, we will recover and when we do, I hope that all of us who were penalized just because we could be remember what companies valued us and what companies bent us over.

Fuck you American Express.

Deep Freeze

This is a picture of one of the lights that frames my garage. The past two days have been a weather nightmare. The children were dismissed from school early on Monday because of the pending ice storm and there is no telling when they will return. We won't have temperatures above freezing until tomorrow and who knows how long it will take to melt?

I hate snow/ice days.

The thing that drives me sort of bonkers is the fact that so many businesses are shut down. I went to work yesterday and although the roads were bad, if one went slowly enough, they could be navigated. Last night, it snowed a few inches on top of the ice and this actually helped the driving situation this morning because it allowed for traction. Still, the dry cleaners, bank and most government offices were closed today and it's all just a bit much.

Here in the pseudo south, a dusting of snow is a major calamity so you can just imagine what a blanket of ice does for this community. What has me shaking my head is that we face these conditions EVERY YEAR and our elected leaders still don't purchase the proper equipment to handle these events. Every single year when this kind of storm rolls in, the officials stagger around like they've been punched in the head. Every single year they claim never to have seen anything like it. Whatever.

Of course, I really ought to count my blessings. There are tons of people in my town without electricity. Worse, some have heat but are without internet. I am one of the charmed few. I have both. So as my kids pummel the shit out of each other, I'll be in a steaming hot bath, behind a locked door, watching a movie on my laptop.

Diet Update

Dallas and I elected to do the short version of the HCG diet. I lost 13. He dropped 17, which makes me want to hurt him just a little considering his portion sizes were bigger and he's a closet cheater. Actually, this time he was pretty dedicated and stalled for a few days only when he used one of those water enhancement powders from Lipton. We're now on three weeks of no carbs, which might sound restrictive to some but for us, it's a small slice of nirvana.

On Sunday, we ventured back to our neighbourhood gym. I was eager to go because my head was on fire it had been months since either of us had worked out. My excitement lasted to about the six minute mark on the elliptical at which point I was gasping for breath. Dallas was on a treadmill right beside me and I could tell from the set of his mouth that he was labouring through his cardio piece, as well.

After spending thirty five minutes reliving every cigarette that I have ever smoked, I stepped off the elliptical and staggered over to the weight machines for a little weight bearing hell. Dallas joined me a few minutes later and the two of us managed to complete a decent upper body routine. Words were scarce on the way home. i think I said, "Advil" and he grunted.

Actually, it wasn't that bad. I am a bit sore through the chest this morning but nothing debilitating. Unfortunately, we were hit with a terrible ice storm and the gym is closed today which means that I will be forced to do my yoga DVD at home tonight.

That is never pretty.

But I'm not worried. Dallas has a ring on his finger now so when he comes home to see the expanse of my ass in the plow pose, I'm sure he'll just close his eyes and go to his happy place. Marriage is good like that.

Wicked Stepmother

I am not sure that I am going to survive the step-parent thing. My patience has probably reached the limit and even though there are small victories, as Dallas reminds me, I am tired of repeating myself to two young adults. They are not stupid and believe me, we aren't asking that much of them.

Manchild really isn't much of a problem except for the fact that he treats our home like a hotel with Dallas and I as the resident chambermaids. He works nearly full time hours and manages to get most of his school work completed. He is thinking about his future and trying to make good decisions about what his next steps will be when he graduates this spring. He is easily influenced, though, which makes him vulnerable to suggestions that may not be in his best interest. We are encouraging him to enlist in the Navy. If he signs that document, he will be forced to follow through with his commitments; he will get post secondary education; he will have the opportunity to expand his horizons and he will get paid through the whole thing. To us, the Navy represents his brightest chance at making a smooth transition into adulthood.

Teenage daughter is a whole different ballgame. With her, we take two steps forward and one step back. Her mother has been in town since Thanksgiving and predictably, there has been a shift in attitude. The few chores she has are not well done. She blatantly disregards simple household rules and "the truth" has become an interpretive concept. I have avoided yet another conversation about food in the bedrooms or dishes in the sink or nearly 26,000 text messages in a single month because I just can't bear to hear the excuses. Even worse, is to be met with an "I don't know" shrug, a subtle smirk and silence as if there was nothing between the ears except a heap of pink cotton candy. It's exhausting.

I really struggle with the whole situation because basically, she is an uncomplicated kid with a passive aggressive bent. I am often reminded that things could be so much worse. She could be a drinker or a junkie or climbing our the window in the middle of the night. But is that really what parenting is about? In dealing with the "I deserve" generation, are we to ignore minor, yet undesirable behaviour because they aren't sticking a needle in their veins? Has the bar really tumbled that low? As parents, I don't understand why our approach moved from one of constructive expectation to one of apology.

The world is not going to fall off its axis because teenage daughter hides half consumed sodas in her dresser drawers or fails to turn in math homework but as I watch her squander her future opportunities and turn a deaf ear to authority, I can't help but wonder if she'll get the message before it's too late.

Trip to Boise

This week, I got the opportunity to visit Boise, Idaho on business. When I first learned that this was a trip I had to make, I was not thrilled. I don't particularly care for travel anymore since a significant amount of time over the last four years has been spent outside of the US. For me, getting on a plane has become a bit like a fork in the eye.

I'm not sure what I was expecting, potato farms perhaps, but Boise blew my mind.

It is a beautiful place, nestled into the foothills of the Rocky mountains. Being the capital of Idaho, Boise has all of the amenities that come with the government crowd. There are great restaurants, theatre, decent shopping and a good school system. The city has been planned well and traffic was a dream except for stop lights that seemed interminable. I didn't get to see much this time around so I look forward to a return visit. It's an easy place to like. Two or three people told me that they had first landed in Boise to attend a wedding or to go to school and they just never left. I completely understood why.

I went there to see Nutrivet, a client that I've had for a couple of years now. They are way ahead of the times with their approach to animal health. They firmly believe in preventative versus reactionary care, which is somewhat revolutionary in respect to pets. A lot of people feed and water their furry friends and take them to the vet when they are sick. They get the recommended vaccines and call it a day. As pet owners, we can be doing more, though. Just like we pop our vitamin C and take our flax oil, Nutrivet tries to prevent illness by offering a line of nutritional and problem-specific supplements designed to optimize pet health. Got a dog that eats his poop? They've got something you might try. Skittish cat? No problem. There's an aromatherapy diffuser for that.

I think that as medical costs for pets escalate like everything else, it will increasingly make sense for us to try to take care of our animals through more holistic means. Consider big breed dogs and their chronic issues with osteoarthritis. Instead of filling them full of nsaids, which is really hard on the lining of their stomachs, wouldn't it be better to start them on bone and joint supplements as puppies to try to prevent these issues? Our animals are subjected to the same environmental pollutants as we are. Their food is as heavily processed as ours. It's no wonder that cancers, auto immune disorders and allergies are on the rise in our animals. Why would they be any different than us?

Anyway, I like this company. The owners are dynamic, generous and passionate about their business. They want to make a difference. I respect that.

And if they really have found a way to lessen the odour of the litter box in my house, I will be eternally grateful. I'll keep you posted on how that product works out.

Which brings me to the PS of this post. On Mondays, I will begin posting a product review over at my sister site, "Wack-In-Review". I'm not sure of the exact format yet but check it out on Monday and tell me what you think.

Inauguration Day

Inauguration Day.

For the last several weeks as the nation has been building up to this event, I found myself wondering why we were making such a fuss. I couldn't understand the national FERVOR.

But then, I'm a Canadian white woman living in the US who has had every privilege available to me from the time that I was very young. To me, President Obama was the best man for the job. The fact that he was black was irrelevant. Skin colour doesn't matter to me because frankly, I am never forced to think about it. Being white, I realize that I have that luxury. My life experiences concerning race must vastly differ from a forty two year old African American woman's and I suppose that is why this day is so significant. It breathes the promise of real social change in this country.

I am thrilled that Barack Obama was elected. I believe he will restore dignity to the White House. For me, his inauguration firmly closes the regretful, head-shaking, debilitating chapter in American history that was the Bush presidency. And I will sleep better tonight knowing President Obama is at the helm.

Happy Birthday Brother

Today is my brother's birthday. At thirty six, he is the baby of our family.

My relationship with my brother was not especially close when we were children. With the difference in our ages, we didn't have much in common except our parents and a sister that we wanted to maim. We were never in the same school together and by the time he was a teenager, I was long gone from the family home.

A week after he was born, I distinctly remember my mother bringing him down the stairs of our Moncton home wrapped in a blue blanket trimmed in satin. He was the prettiest thing I had ever seen with unblemished ivory skin, rosy cheeks and refined features. He was placed on a love seat for a diaper change. I was fascinated with the stump of the umbilical cord protruding from his belly button. My mum enlightened me as to what it was and apparently, there were holes in my understanding because for days, I inexplicably worried that he would die when the rest of it fell off. His plumbing however, didn't phase me which surprised both of my parents who expected some sort of curiosity. What they didn't know was that Frankie, the lad next door, and I had already established that boys and girls were different during a mutual show and tell in the forest that bordered our property. The fact that my new baby brother had a branch and berries was old news.

For the next twenty years or so, nothing much changed for me since that day that we were first introduced. My brother remained this slightly exotic creature who lived a charmed life that I witnessed from a distance. Besides being the baby AND the only son, he had me as a sister to pave the way with the parental units. After surviving my teenage years, my parents were mere shells of their former selves. There wasn't much that fazed them. Drugs? Underage drinking? Smashing up the family car? Sneaking out in the middle of the night? Please. By the time my brother was old enough to drive, he was tossed the keys to a new car, his insurance paid, and told to sleep it off at the party if he'd had too much to drink.

Then, my brother permanently left home and over the next several years, as he settled into his mid twenties, the nature of our relationship shifted. We spoke more often and got to know each other on an adult level. I realized that just about every opinion that I had of him was distorted by the dysfunction that existed between my father and me. I was surprised at how much I really liked my brother. He was intelligent, well-read, fun and completely unselfconscious. He was the kind of guy that I would choose to hang out with regardless of the fact that we shared DNA.

Now, my brother and his wife hold top spots in the hierarchy of my life. This past summer, he was the one who walked me down the aisle. My children worship him. We talk regularly and when I need a sounding board, he is there. The truth is, he's always been there, patiently waiting for me to stop spinning long enough to have a conversation. I am one very lucky girl.

Happy Birthday, Ted. And many, many more.

Love, Beth

Hey There Stranger

Several months ago, my brother sent me a link to a website where one of my far flung relatives had taken the time to amass information about my father’s side of the family. It was just the slightest bit creepy because although the stuff about me was dated, it was mostly accurate. I suspect that one of my uncles was responsible. In any case, as I read about some of my cousins, I wondered what they were doing with their lives. It had been well over a decade since I had heard of or seen any of them.

How is it exactly that we lose touch with those people that matter the most to us? Just about every great memory that I have of my childhood involves one or more of my cousins on both sides of the family. They uniquely understood the quirks my parents embodied because they were sired by one from the same litter. They were the keepers of the inside jokes and the closet skeletons. Summers, most holidays and several weekends were spent with my cousins. They were my best friends and the people with whom I laughed until soda ran out my nose.

But then we grew up, moved out of our parents’ homes and onto our separate lives. As adults, our social circles expanded, our interests matured and the camaraderie of our youth was quietly relegated to the faded pictures in dusty, family albums.

Last week, while cleaning out a drawer, I ran across a printout of the information from that website and again, my thoughts turned to my cousins. Modern technology and social networking sites make it much easier to find people these days. I spent several hours in my search and gave up. In my mind's eye, the pictures I had of my cousins were decades old. I had no idea what they looked like as middle aged people. Finally, as a shot in the dark, I did a search on the white pages and happened upon three promising numbers. I called the first one and got a machine. The voice was instantly recognizable. I could barely contain my excitement as I left her a message.

Rosie called back and we eventually got an opportunity to talk. Through her, I was able to connect with three other cousins and I cannot wait to find out what they've been doing the last twenty years or so.

The Mini Interview

My friend, Maggie over at Maggie's Mind, had a nifty meme on her blog last week. You can read her post here. She got the idea from Maria. Basically, it works like an interview. Maggie asks me 5 questions and I provide the answers.

A.What's the last thing you bought online? Whew! Let me tell you how relieved I was to get this question before purchasing Leisa's birthday gift. Let's just say THAT would have been enormously awkward. Anyway, the last thing I bought online was flavoured Stevia. Tired of being gouged by the health food store but still needing water that tastes like chocolate milk, I found more reasonable prices online.

B. What's your favorite thing about New Zealand? Besides the fact that it is home to several people that I fiercely love, New Zealand is unparalleled in it's natural beauty. I haven't yet been to the South Island but I'm told that it's breathtaking. The two pics below are of places on the North Island.

(Gisborne, care of New Zealand Travel)

(Rotorua and Mt. Tarawera, courtesy of the University of Waikato)

C. How would you describe an ideal day? The perfect day would start with Dallas and I sleeping until we woke up naturally. No alarm. We'd then have coffee in bed while reading with the knowledge that we didn't have any obligations. Later, we'd get up, shower, have a little breakfast and then head out on our Harleys. The day would be warm and sunny with no humidity. We'd ride to the beach and spend the day there. The kids would arrive separately and they wouldn't fight. That night, we'd have a big lobster boil. Our extended families would have flown in for the event. My brother and two of my cousins would play music, while the young kids made s'mores over the fire pit. We'd sip drinks, talk and laugh ourselves stupid long into the night.

D. What sports do you like to play? I love golf. I am a crappy golfer but occasionally, when my club meets the ball in just the right way and I make a beautiful shot, life in that moment, is flawless.

E. If you could get one straight answer from a psychic, what would you ask? My first thoughts in answer to this question were of my children and if they would be healthy and happy as adults. Then, I wondered if it would be better to learn when and how I might die and if it would hurt. But shamefully, I decided to be pragmatic. If a psychic could give me an accurate, straight answer, I'm no fool. I'd ask to know the winning numbers of tomorrow's Powerball lottery, currently estimated at $146 million. Hello tropical island, tanned young cabana boys and drinks with umbrellas.

Well, that's it for me. If you would like to be interviewed, drop a comment letting me know. There are a few rules:
1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions - I'll need your email address! I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Delurking Day 2009

Chris over at Rude Cactus invited me to participate in the annual "Delurking Day 2009". ( Thanks to Aimee for the button) This is where we shamelessly pander to the internet and ask our readers to reveal themselves by leaving us a comment. I use this day to relive an embarrassing moment since I have a BUCKET LOAD of those stories.

If you are comfortable, leave a comment. And thanks for continuing to read.

During my first year of university, I worked at a busy restaurant called Kelsey's. One Friday night, during the hours that we were slammed, I was sat a table full of women. This was not a good thing. Women were difficult. I guess I should probably explain that statement.

You see, in the restaurant business, all servers dread three things:

1. PROM NIGHT: Scads of pimply faced high school seniors would make their grand entrance in tuxes and dresses that cost more than my rent at the time. They would sit down, try to order booze and feign shock when I asked them for i.d. that they couldn't produce. Then, they would spend every bit of the fifty bucks that Dad had slipped them with the packet of condoms and the keys to the family car, leaving absolutely nothing for a tip. They were loud, demanding and generally ill behaved. We hated them.

2. FRAZZLED PARENTS: These were the ones that came in asking for a highchair or a booster seat and who looked like they hadn't slept in two years. They had diaper bags the size of Texas out of which they were able to pull crackers, squeaky toys and a McDonald's Happy Meal. Their offspring were demon spawn. They either screamed at the top of their lungs or methodically took every item within their reach and threw it on the floor. Crackers, french fries, crayons, spoons, napkins, sugar packets and salt littered the floor. These people often meant to tip properly but when you picked up their credit card statement after they had left, they had invariably added incorrectly, leaving less than 10%. We felt sorry for these people but wish they had had the good sense to order themselves a Big Mac with that Happy Meal and call it a night.

3. WOMEN IN SENSIBLE SHOES: These were the professional women that felt it necessary to behave like their perception of men in the workplace. They wore their attitude like their business suits: big, boxy and no nonsense. Somewhere in their journey up the corporate ladder, they had shed everything feminine and morphed into uber bitches. They dined in packs and insisted on separate cheques. Clearly, they resented having to sit down to pee and they treated the waitstaff poorly. This was the group that I got on that Friday night.

There were eight of them and my usual approach to women like this was to behave like a competent administrative assistant. I used formal language, was all business and tried to blend into the woodwork when they weren't speaking directly to me. After they settled into their seats, I began the task of taking drink orders. The first seven ordered wine, wine coolers and mixed drinks, which pleased me because the usual behaviour of this group was to order water with lemon which did nothing for my average ticket sales. Woman number eight was slow to make up her mind. I noted her swollen belly and figured that she was trying to decide which non alcoholic drink would be most suitable. I thought I'd try to help her along.

"May I suggest one of our smoothies? We do the real deal here with fresh fruit and milk. They are delicious."

"No," she said, "I'm thinking of something else."

"Well, we can do a virgin version of any one of our blended drinks, if you'd like that."

"No," she said, "I just can't seem to figure out what I'm craving."

"Well," I said, "Caffeine is bad for the baby and alcohol is out of the question so that leaves our cold or hot herbal teas, Seven Up or water."

All of the sudden the entire table was silent and eight pairs of were staring at me, some with obvious mirth. The woman in question was flushed bright red from her neck to her forehead and immediately, I knew my mistake.

"Get me a small draught," she hissed through clenched teeth and then promptly got up and excused herself to the bathroom. I watched her waddle away, my mouth open and my own face hot. I wished for the floor to open up and swallow me whole. The woman was not pregnant. She was merely tubby.

Reluctantly, I dragged my eyes back to the table. Some of the women were giggling. Some were clearly upset at their friend's distress. One of them grabbed my hand and when I leaned down, she whispered, "truth hurts," into my ear. For the better part of the next hour, I served the table, dying a little each time I had to interact with my non pregnant customer. To my great relief the table finally left after lingering over coffee and dessert. I was surprised to find a generous tip from the lady that I had offended.

Several months later, my general manager came up to me with an envelope in her hand.

"A woman left this at the bar for you"

I opened it to find a thank you card from my non pregnant customer. Apparently, shamed by the experience of being mistaken for a pregnant person in front of all of her colleagues led her to do something about her weight and her health in general. She included two Polaroids of her new thinner self and thanked me for my inadvertent honesty.

While happy that this story had a happy ending, I NEVER again made the mistake of assuming ANYTHING.

Back To School

My pounds lost: 7.6
Dallas pounds lost: 9.6

I've been giving serious thought to taking a few classes. I'm not sure why. I don't need any more education for my job. In fact, I probably could start a consulting business teaching entrepreneurs about the pitfalls of sourcing product from China. God knows, I've been baptized by fire in that arena. But the desire isn't about my job. I love learning. Anything.

When I was in university, my goal was to SURVIVE the experience. I certainly enjoyed the social scene but I never appreciated the education itself. I worked nearly 40 hours a week and maintained a full course load so life at the time was busy and monstrously stressful. I had always been one of the smartest kids in the class. I definitely studied but school was easy for me and didn't require much effort. University was completely different animal, though.

During my third year, I took a postmodern fiction class. After reading Thomas Pynchon's, The Crying of Lot 49 and comprehending perhaps 30% of it, I sat in class and listened while a group of students discussed it in great, enthusiastic detail.

I could not follow their conversation.

I was used to being confused by calculus or struggling to get my brain around quantum physics but this was a literature class! English was my thing or so I thought. For the first time academically, I felt like a complete poser. I realize now, from the perspective of a middle aged woman, that the world is teeming with people who are much smarter than me and that this is a good thing but at the time, I was defeated. My confidence was shattered. My professor wrote, "Did you even read the book?" on my dissertation. I never went back to the class. I regret that.

For me, university was all about career choice. I thought I might like to teach. Sure, having summers off was a pleasant perk but the reality of dealing with other people's children ten months of the year made my hair stand on end. I briefly flirted with the idea of law school and scored in the top 3% when I wrote my LSATs but did not pursue it after learning the kind of hours that new lawyers were expected to work. Medical school? I nixed that once I understood that it would mean eight years of post graduate study and lots and lots of math. My God, I was lazy. The only thing that truly rang my bell was getting out of school and earning some of the green stuff.

Today, my interest have changed. If I had it to do all over again, I would have gone to medical school or applied to the Culinary Institute of America or studied photography. I guess this is why I'd like to go back to school. It would be interesting to enroll in a biology course just to see if I would enjoy it now that I don't need to take it.

I was told once that the key to happiness was to be gainfully employed doing something that you love and I agree that job satisfaction is enormously impactful considering we spend so much time at work. However, I also believe that joy comes from being passionate about something, anything, and devoting part of one's day to its pursuit.

It's not likely that I'll pick up Thomas Pynchon's book anytime soon but I can see myself learning to make demi-glace. If you had to do it all over again, would you do anything differently?

A Tail of Woe

We got an early Christmas gift when Nate, our male tabby, decided to come home. He was painfully thin, scraggly looking and slept for several days in a row but he was in pretty good shape, otherwise. We did notice that his tail seemed ginger to the touch but figured he had bruised it or something minor like that.

Last week, we began to find significant gobs of hair all over the house and one look at Nate's tail told us that there was a problem. The last four inches of it had bald spots and skin was peeling off in white, cheesy chunks. Not good.

I often tell my children that if I had it to do all over again, I would have gone to medical school. Believe me, if I could have a chat with my twenty something self, I'd tell her to put down the doobie and pull her head out of her arse. Anyway, since I am a wanna be doctor, I got on to the internet to do a little research in an effort to diagnose the problem with the cat's tail. Unfortunately, there were a million things that could have caused the issue and some of them were fairly serious. Dallas suggested a vet visit and reluctantly, because I LOVE this animal, I agreed.

The vet took one look, felt the tip and said that Nate had somehow damaged the last inch or so of his tail by getting it caught in something. She surmised that it was probably a door. The tip had died and there was an infection at the wound site which went from being painful to itchy. This caused Nate to lick with a frenzy and chew other parts of his tail, trying to rid himself of the itch. They amputated the dead part, removed all of the infected hair, put him on antibiotics and sent him on his way. Tail licking was out while it healed so the poor bugger was outfitted with one of those space dishes.

As you can see, he was thoroughly unimpressed.

Another Year, Another Diet

My weight loss: 5 pounds
Dallas: 7 pounds

Every female in my office is on some sort of diet. The holidays do that to us. We eat with abandon from Thanksgiving until New Year's Eve and on January 2nd, we open our closet doors to find that our wardrobe has become the enemy. Ask Oprah. She knows EXACTLY what I'm talking about.

As you turn into my subdivision, there is a nice new gym on the corner and lately, the parking lot is full, all of the time. I received a text from a friend of mine the other night asking me to join her for a "Body pump" class. I had to decline, of course, because I am existing on 500 calories a day and I was afraid that anything strenuous beyond say...breathing, might send me straight for my secret stash of chocolate. So far, the truffles and I have been able to coexist peacefully and I haven't been the slightest bit tempted but the situation is tenuous at best. I am fully cognizant of the limitations of my willpower.

Another good friend of ours has been at the gym the last two nights, as well. He smokes, drinks Crown and eats these:

And he is as skinny as a rail. Apparently, he is concerned about a few extra pounds that he accumulated over the holidays so the last couple of nights have found him on the treadmill running for nearly 25 minutes. I'm impressed, actually. When I was a smoker, I was content to do weight bearing exercise but anything in the cardiovascular arena had me coughing, wheezing, red-faced and generally behaving like a future emphysema patient.

The big business of a "New Year, New You" theme has bled over into television, too. NBC kicked off their 7th season of "The Biggest Loser" last night. Dallas is not a big fan of the show but I find it strangely compelling in spite of Jillian, one of the trainers, who sets my teeth on edge. Near the end of the show, all of the contestants have to weigh in. Sometimes the formula strays but basically, the people who lose the least get sent home. One man dropped 32 pounds - in a single week. Of course, he's got a couple of hundred pounds to lose but the guy has got to feel better and that is why I like the show. In spite of the melodrama (or maybe secretly because of it), I find myself cheering them on.

So, January is here and like a lot of people, I am motivated to find my inner fit self. I was going to say that I didn't necessarily want to be thin as much as I wanted to be healthy but I wouldn't want to start off the New Year with a BIG FAT LIE.

Resolutions for 2009

Happy New Year and all that jazz.

I spent twelve days largely prone on my couch dressed in sweats and slippers. It was heaven. Yesterday was a particularly sucky Monday because besides the obvious reasons, I started back on the Hcg diet thing. I've resorted to chewing my nails to try to stop the persistent growling of my stomach.

The first few days are always the hardest.

Over the holidays, I read three books, saw two movies in the theatre, watched numerous movies on DVD, rode my Harley, took down the Christmas decorations with an admittedly abnormal zest, kept a dental appointment, tried to assess and re-register two of our vehicles (which necessitated conversation with a government clerk who'd clearly needed a few days off to go purchase a personality), and ate myself into a carbohydrate-laden coma.

I think I might just be a little sick of chocolate truffles. Maybe.

Of course, I feel compelled to make a list of resolutions for this coming year. There is no sane reason why. Just because.

1. Lose weight. Yep. I'm a walking cliché.

2. Read more books. Last year, I got lost in 12 novels but three of those were digested in the month of December alone, so I wasn't feeding the brain much the rest of the year as evidenced by the plethora of really looney decisions that I made.

3. Blog regularly. I've made every excuse as to why I can't seem to churn out five, reasonably decent posts a week and the truth is that I'm lazy. Ranting Writing is one of the few things that I love to do so I promise to make time for my catharsis blog.

4. Be more organized. This year, I am going to actually use my filing cabinet to FILE and not as a place to hide stuff. I vow to pay our taxes on time, use a grocery list, plan weekend getaways with my husband, put my car keys in the same place every day and finish my Christmas shopping by Halloween. I will send birthday, anniversary and Christmas cards this year. On time.

5. Buy a decent camera and learn how to take a picture. I don't know why this is so hard for me. It has been suggested that perhaps it might be useful to actually read the user manual so as to understand what all of those annoying little icons on the camera will do.

6. Put a dent in our DIY list. When you buy a home, the one thing people forget to tell you is that it is a freaking money pit. My contractor, El Cheapo, cut a bunch of corners when he built our house and now, at four years old, we have recaulking, nail pops, peeling paint, ceiling cracks, crappy finishing on the cabinetry and carpet that needs replacing. I don't know where to start but this year, I am going to cross a few of those off the list.

You know, I could have addressed so many more of my character flaws but I'm on a diet and it's challenging enough just to drag my dimpled ass onto the scale in the morning. I figured it might be better to take baby steps and save the really big personal transformations for the time when I win the lottery and/or fit into a size six jean. Maybe next year.