Something Big

Two posts in one day? Wow!

So here's the deal...a friend of mine is following a dream of hers. It requires a lot of faith because she's going to give up her job and move to Africa to volunteer for a few months. That's HUGE! I'm soooooo in awe of her. How amazing to give of yourself like that! I'm sure this is going to be an awesome adventure for her and I totally wish her the best.

I also thank her for making me revisit something in my head. I want to do something like that. Not necessarily give up my job and moving to Africa...(but I wouldn't mind giving up my job). I've thought about this on and off for a while. I'm never quite sure WHAT or HOW or IF or SHOULD I. But it's always there. I'm supposed to do more.

And then it happens. I start making the excuses of WHY I CAN'T. The list changes. It grows and shrinks and fades and glows. It's always there.

I'm sure I'm not the only one. But what I'm wondering...how do people DO their dreams. How do they put the list aside? So if anybody reading this knows or knows somebody who knows, send them my link, you know?

Seriously. I want to know. Maybe we can start a list to help people like me overcome

Chatty Kathy

I just wasted 20 minutes I'll never get back. I stopped by my cubicle neighbor's office to tell her that a meeting had been canceled. Here's where I should mention, that I know she talks a LOT. I hear her on the phone and talking to the people who report to her, her other cube wall neighbor and others. The woman likes to talk. But, I've never really been her target...until today.

I walked over (rather than yell over the wall like she does to her other cube neighbor) and told her about the meeting. I started to turn back when she went on a 20 minute babble about the weather, the snowy streets, her paper route at 3 a.m., how she used to live on a hill that made parking difficult in winter, how she went in the ditch today, etc. I believe I nodded and made polite comments here and there (which was dumb), but she HAD to see the complete disinterest in my eyes! Finally I escaped as she was winding down one of the topics...but just barely as she was probably about to launch into another topic. Whew!

And in case you were wondering, her name is Katherin...so she truly is Chatty Kathy.

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In other news. Enough snow already!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tag!

I've been tagged by Debbielou at One Day Closer Until.... So I guess I need to do this thang.

Basically I need to list one fact about myself for each letter of my middle name. Each fact must begin with that letter. So here goes...

L - Lazy (I wouldn't be this weight if I wasn't)
I - Intelligent (I'm trying to be more positive about myself)
N - Nifty (this word isn't used very much anymore and it just came to me to use it)
N - Nice (too much so, I think)

I don't really have anyone to tag on here, so I'll just leave it to any of my readers who want to participate. Have fun!

That's My Bag, Baby!

Tonight I was watching TV when I heard a rustling sound. So, of course I looked for my cats.

What did I see? Cady coming at me with her latest conquest: a plastic baggie filled with Cheerios. A bag I'd filled for tomorrow at work. She'd nabbed it from my purse. Is nothing sacred with this kitten?

It was so cute I couldn't take it from her. Well, I took it and inspected it, then realized it was already full of teeth holes, so I gave it back. I'm not going to eat it now.

:)

I Deserve It?

I've been doing a fair amount of reading and learning about weight-loss. Not just the regular old reading in magazines and Weight Watchers materials about what foods to eat and not to eat, but information about the psychology AND physiology of how the body works with food and food issues. (And most people who are overweight have food issues)

Amid a lot of this knowledge is a common psychological thread. People who are fat don't think they deserve better. And not just deserve a better weight. It goes way beyond that. Weight can serve as a kind of safety blanket (and I can see that it does for me). As long as I'm fat, I can blame EVERYTHING that goes wrong on that. I readily see this in my own life. For example, I can't find love...."because I'm fat". I didn't get that job...."because I'm fat". My skills are overlooked at my job..."because I'm fat". I could go on and on. These are just self-imposed ideas. Nobody has ever told me that...or if they did, it wasn't that blatant. And because I think these things...I want to lose weight. But then when I start to attempt it, my subconscious starts doubting me. I hear, "You can't do that, it'll take forever, you've failed so many times before, you're lazy, etc." And I'm back to the old painful, yet familiar mantra..."because I'm fat."

So it all comes down to needing to believe I deserve to take care of my body and be healthier.

Now, some of you are saying..."yeah, that makes sense!" And it does (at least to me). But what these books and programs and everything I've been soaking in lately hasn't told me is how do I learn to feel I deserve something?

Long ago, it appears that I learned to feel I don't deserve anything. Seriously. In a conversation with someone I may say I deserve this at a job or that wonderful loving relationship...but I don't really think so at my core. I truly think I don't deserve it. So how do I change that mentality? Positive self talk? Maybe that helps some...but I tend to out-think myself on that. I'm too sarcastic I guess.

Maybe eventually in my knowledge search I'll come across the answer. However, I'm guessing that it's something I have to develop from within. After all, I taught myself I don't deserve it...there has to be a key inside me that reverses that.

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OK. I'm getting rambly now. I really just wanted to write some of this out to get it out of just my head. If I made no sense, I'm sorry.

Stupid, Loud, Drunken Neighbor Show

So last night I was all cuddled into my nice warm bed watching TV. Around 10:45 p.m. I shut the TV off to go to sleep. It's then I heard the first yelling.

I heard "Get up" and "#$%@ You" over and over and over. Then there'd be more yelling I couldn't discern (other than to know it was yelling). It would get quieter then louder as the gal moved from one area to another. Finally I decided to get up and look out the window to see what all the ruckus was. And, to be honest, I'd had enough and was going to yell out there to shut up. So, I opened the window a slight bit and waited for a lull in the yelling, and yelled out, "Shut UP!" However, it was like yelling with the window closed into my pillow: no effect.

It was around this time that I started to figure out something more was up. The yeller wasn't my neighbor at all. It was her friend. And she was screaming that she'd "had enough of this $%@&" and other expletives. Finally a car pulls into the driveway and another friend gets out to help. Still not sure what that "help" might have been, I'm still watching the action. (Hey...if they wanted it to be private, they could have gone inside.) This second friend draws the attention of my neighbor and she stumbles drunkenly toward the car.

Here's my first "aha" moment. So the friend is mad at something my drunk neighbor did. But what?

The first friend continues to berate and scream at the drunk, while the drunk just stands around trying to get something from the second friend. (I assumed it was keys.) Then the angry friend goes and grabs the drunk and tries to force her into the back of the second friend's car. This is getting serious. They were actually wrestling (and still screaming).

Finally the drunk breaks free and starts her drunken stumbled across the "street" to a neighboring townhome unit and proceeded to start ringing the bell. Angry friend went charging after her, screaming more and then...tackled her and started telling her she's going to beat her up. Then she said something even more interesting (and by said, I mean screamed, because that's the only level of conversation going on). She said, "I SAVED YOU FROM GETTING ARRESTED TONIGHT!"

Huh.

So here these two gals are wrestling on the lawn of another person's townhouse when the second friend goes over to get them apart. She only succeeds in getting the angry friend up and into her car. Drunky fumbles around and eventually gets up and heads back toward the door, but after waiting a bit, she decides instead to walk over to the street and lay down (well fall, actually) behind the second friend's car. So there she is laying there in the street, not moving. I'm part hoping she'd passed out and part wanting this "show" to go on.

After quite a few minutes of her staying completely still, she eventually got up (no easy task) and went over to the door of the second friend's car and triee to get the door open. But, angry friend was in there and wouldn't let her in. Finally she opened the door and got out and ANOTHER fight started. This time drunky fell down, HARD, quite a few times as she's on pure ice. But this ded not deter her. Finally, angry friend started telling drunky how she'd only do this for HER and that she loves her. Drunky started crying and I'm sensing an end to this whole show as they load her into the back seat of the second friend's car.

I walk back to bed and lay down. Ah...quiet again.

But wait. Five minutes later I hear a car door open and then drunky is babbling. So...I'm back in the window, 'cuz this is like watching an episode of "Intervention" at this point. I'm hooked. I also looked around the other townhomes and could see at least one other person watching as I was.

As I look down to see what's happening, I see my drunken neighbor is now back lying on the street, but this time she's talking into her cell phone. Talking isn't really the right word as she's pretty out of it. I hear something along the lines of, "Wakey wakey mom...huh huh huh....wakey....huh...mom...." Then she gets up and goes to try get back into the second friend's car again all the while making this sound that could be either crying or laughing.

Right about this time I'm seeing another car come into the driveway. Well, actually she just angles in like a police car would. Out comes mom. Drunky and angry friend start telling their story. However, it's at a normal decibel, so I don't really hear much more than bits and pieces with the interspersed loud expletive. Turns out...drunky was somewhere and got the police called on her and her angry friend had to deal with the cops and take her home. I'm not sure what happened, but based on her driveway behavior it couldn't have been good. Then I hear angry yell, "You couldn't even figure out how to call your mom! She's only here because I called her!" With this she turns toward second friend's car and then yells one last thing, "I'm sick of all this Holly! You need to get your act together!" Then they both left.

Drunky's mom pulled her car into the driveway and the both (finally) went inside the house. I know, because I could hear the door shut as we share a common wall.

I finally go back to bed for good, but heard a few car doors shut a couple of times over the night and when I left in the morning a car that wasn't there when I went to bed last night was there.

I hope this neighbor gets some help. It didn't appear to be one of those typical drunk nights out. Especially since it was Tuesday and only 11 p.m. and the friend was clearly used to dealing with this.

BlurtBlogging

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year! Sorry for my lapse in blogging. No real excuse. I just haven't done it.

So today I have lots of varying things on my mind and this will be a meandering post about random things. Bear with me.

First off....it's the New Year. 2008. Wow.

Also, since it's the New Year...everybody starts thinking about weight loss. Well, I've been "recommitted" to it since early December, so I had a head start. I finally got the diet down in a rhythm, so now it's time to get the exercise going too. I know I can do this.

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Next up...a book I read. I recently read "Eat Pray Love". This book is wonderful. I really, really took a lot from it. I keep thinking about things from it. I honestly think that if I didn't have my cats, I'd probably take off on some sort of long-term travel like she did. I think it's time I really figured out my path in life. I'm not happy where I am. I think most people know that.

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I helped my sister with her kids this weekend. Nephew is now three and he's so smart and funny. He's got so much energy and wants to know so much that just merely being around him makes me get tired. :) In a rare quiet moment, he and I were sitting on the couch reading a book. It was one of my favorites when I was his age, so I really enjoyed looking through this book with him (Richard Scarry). As we were going through he asked me to stop "reading" and wait while he got up. He jumped off the couch and proceeded to pull down his pants as he said, "I need to fix my penis." Then he dropped his underwear. Then he pulled his underwear back up, making sure he was properly adjusted. It took all of my energy at that point to not laugh. It was the funniest/cutest thing because he thought nothing of dropping his pants to adjust things. And then he just jumped back up beside me and ordered me to "Read!".

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Well, that's all for now. Hopefully my blurtblog was worth reading.