Fighting the Fat

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I was starting my weight loss resolution. I am glad to say that so far, I have kept up with myself and done the work I need to get me this far. I’m not going to stay it hasn’t been tough, but it has been a little easier than I imagined. I think the most difficult was convincing myself that I really wanted to do this, and to stay on top of it. From there, avoiding sweets and salts, going to the gym, and trying to feel positive about myself was the easier part.
Today is day, oh hell, I don’t know, but I’ve made progress.
My accomplishments:
-I’ve lost 4.5 lbs in 2.5 weeks!
-I didn’t have to struggle into my jeans. They’re still a little tight fresh out of the dryer, but it’s getting easier!
-I have started eating Chex and blueberries every morning instead of bagels or nothing.
-I haven’t eaten out for lunch in a week (to be broken today, but I’ve already decided on a salad)

Tips that I’ve learned over the past 3 weeks: Eat breakfast, lunch and dinner. Don’t use salad dressing. Definitely calorie count, but if you don’t want to, at least look and be conscious of what you’re eating. If it feels like the gym is too easy, that’s because it probably is, step it up a notch!

I have just under 90 days until my 25th birthday, and 15.5lbs to lose!

Step aside Jenny Craig, I’m making my confessional now.

Like every other American who makes a New Year Resolution, I’ve put weight loss at the very top of my list this year. In fact, it quite possibly will be the only resolution this year, and I plan to complete it by the second quarter. Oh, and to floss. But that’s always on my new years resolution list. Maybe it’s my only one because I’m so darn scared that I won’t succeed that I don’t need the pressure of other resolutions pulling me down. I’m haunted by the fact that my best friend always says, “It only takes 21 times before you form a habit.” Remember that. Tired of leaving your clothes on the floor? Forgetting to wash your face at night? Anything! Practice a good routine or banish a bad habit 21 times in a row, and you’ve formed a habit, or kicked a bad habit. It works, I’ve tried it for other things.

So, starting on Monday, I embarked on a new resolution. To lose 20lbs by my 25th birthday. Which is 3.5 months away. I know my friends think I’m crazy, that I don’t need to lose weight. But they flatter me. Plus, I counted today. I have 14 pairs of pants, 5 dresses, 3 skirts and 3 swim suits in my closet that I can’t wear. It’s probably not the healthiest way to get motivated, but, damn it, I’m finally determined. And New Year’s isn’t the only reason I’m doing this now. It really all revolves around the fact that, pathetically, I’m turning 25 in a quarter of a year, and I don’t want to. I know, get the laughing fit out of your systems, 25 is nothing. But to me it is, and I figure if I can get over turning 25 maybe 30, 40 even 50 won’t be so bad. You can call me a freak if you want to. I don’t mind.  I’m still going to pull the covers over my head on my Thursday birthday for an extra 15 minutes because I’m a quarter of a century old. I can see it now-I’m really not going to age well. I don’t do well with the aging thing. Crap.  At least I have the memory of a German waiter telling me I look 13.5, and that was only a year ago. Awesome.

I do understand that I’m going to turn 25, 26 and maybe even 27 if I’m lucky, so I better suck it up now and get on with losing the 20 lbs already. I will be my birthday gift to myself. Plus all of the clothes that are hanging in my closet, practically new because they haven’t been worn in, oh, 3 years at the least. However, I am hoping that by making this confessional, you all will hold me accountable for every single ounce that jiggles off my tush and into oblivion. Then I’ll take you out for drinks and we can sing some ridiculous campfire song because I will have made it through the torture.  If you’re lucky, I might be losing 10 lbs by February, because another co-worker is finally going to give smoking the boot, which I’m going to hold her accountable for. Because of that, I will be back with pictures, and accounts of my progress.

There will be no before picture. I’m keeping that to myself and definitely not posting in on the internet.

Sometimes I try hard not to think about the 80’s or 90’s

And then an e-mail like this comes along. Seriously?? How do people know me so well? I keep thinking that maybe these iconic stereotypes will just melt away. But they are forever immortalized in the spam e-mail effect. Read on to learn what MY childhood was like:

I know I grew up in the 80s/90s because:

1. You’ve ever ended a sentence with the word sike. No, I’ve never done that….sike.

2. You can sing the rap to Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and do the Carlton. Yes, I can totally rap to theme song to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Not only that, but I know why the show is called “Fresh Prince.” Don’t know, do ya?

3. You know that ‘WOAH’ comes from Joey on Blossom. HOT!

4.If you ever watched Fraggle Rock.  Jim Henson is a God.

5. It was actually worth getting up early on a Saturday to watch cartoons. Yeah it was! I had a whole schedule of cartoons…Garfield was awesome.

6. You wore a ponytail on the side of your head. Actually, I’m not sure my mom kept my hair long enough to wear like that…also why I didn’t have a Femullet.

7. You got super-excited when it was Oregon Trail day in computer class at school. ALWAYS caulk the wagon and float across

8. You made your mom buy one of those clips that would hold your shirt in a knot on the side. Man, did this come back to haunt me. 6 straight years of handmade shirt ties from Grandma.

9. You played the game ‘MASH'(Mansion, Apartment, Shelter, House) Yes, Steve and I are getting married on May 12th, I’m wearing a purple dress and we’re going to live in Tahiti.

10. You wore stonewashed Jordache jean jackets and were proud of it.  Really, the HYUGE pockets on the ass were enough to keep me away.

11. You know the profo un d meaning of ‘ WAX ON , WAX OFF’ As well as “Whip It, Whip It good.”

12. You wanted to be a Goonie. I still want to be a goony. Movie was filmed where HubbyBee’s grandparents used to live.

13. You ever wore fluorescent clothing. (some of us…head-to-toe) We were special.

14. You can remember what Michael Jackson looked like before his nose fell off and his cheeks shifted.  Who can forget THRILLER? Who would want to?

15. You have ever pondered why Smurfette was the only female smurf. Apparently I wasn’t worried about women’s lib, because that never really bothered me. It was just SWEET! I want to be a Smurf!

16. You took lunch boxes to school…and traded Garbage Pailkids in the schoolyard. Yes, I did take a lunch box to school, with my thermos of milk.I won “Brings Healthiest Lunches” once. I was more of a POG geek, myself.

17. You remember the CRAZE, then the BANNING of slap bracelets. Now, why would these go out of style? They came in so many colors!

18. You still get the urge to say ‘NOT’ after every sentence. NOT.

19. You thought your childhood friends would never leave because you exchanged handmade friendship bracelets.  Maybe I lingered too much on that fact…

21. You ever owned a pair of Jelly-Shoes. Mine were high heels, and I pretended they were appropriate to wear to dances and stuff.

22. After you saw Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure you kept saying ‘I know you are, but what am I?’ Every Saturday morning I watched PeeWee’s Play house and called a family friend to discuss. As if there were a lot of things to discuss…”Did you see how blue Chairy looked today?” “Well yes, but he is a blue chair, you know”

23. You remember ‘I’ve fallen and I can’t get up’ Heh.

24. You remember going to the skating rink before there were inline skates. Aw, holding hands and going around the ring underneath the disco ball.

25. You have ever played with a Skip-It. I had a very rare Jump-It jumprope that I totally dominated.

26. You remember boom boxes and walking around with one on your shoulder like you were all that. Yeah…not really my type.

27. You remember watching both Gremlins movies.  I wasn’t allowed, but I remember the stories and the movie phrases.

28. You thought Doogie Howser/Samantha Micelli was hot. So does Mommypie. WORD to my Doogs.

29. You remember Alf, the lil furry brown alien from Melmac. I’m pretty sure I had an Alf doll. And my brother had an Alf shirt.

30. You remember New Kids on the Block when they were cool…and don’t even flinch when people refer to them as ‘NKOTB’ WTF is NKOTB? Just say it out loud. You’ll feel better about yourself.

31. You knew all the characters names and their life stories on ‘Saved By The Bell,’ The ORIGINAL class. Is there another class? MARIO!

32. You know all the words to Bon Jovi – SHOT THROUGH THE HEART.

33. You just sang those words to yourself.

34. You still sing ‘We are the World’ 1996 Bill Clinton Inauguration…still can’t get it out of my head.

35. You tight rolled your jeans. H.O.T. HOT

36. You owned a bannana clip. Again, my mother saved me from another horrible hair blunder.

37. You’re still singing shot through the heart in your head, aren’t you! Actually, We are the World.

Life, ala Queen Bee.

Because according to John Tesh, the average person will gain 9 pounds in the next month

Seriously, I swear that sometimes his “tips” are not so helpful. Now I just fell like a gigantic lump of lard. Who needs to hear that? How about…”Just a reminder, that one serving of turkey you just had, yeah…that was 500 calories. I sure hope you didn’t have breakfast this morning.” Thank you, John Tesh.
But, on a more serious note, this is the time we all list things for which we are thankful. (Trying not to end my sentences with a preposition…should be something you’re thankful for). Aaannnddd, since I haven’t written about my mother lately, I thought I’d write some homemade traditions that come with the time of year. Everyone has great family traditions. Whether it’s systematically throwing out Aunt Alda’s crack-your-teeth fruitcake or singing Kum-by-ah next to a warm fire, they’re all special.

My personal favorite tradition is watching the Macy’s parade. No, this isn’t getting the family up all nice a quite and sitting around the TV, cheering with the balloon of Big Bird calmly floats by. This is me, by myself, maybe with HubbyBee, curled up in my own personal blanket, screaming at the TV for a solid 2 hours. My family used to watch with me, but they’ve started giving up. BigBrotherBee got tired of arguing with me, and getting cat scratches with I stole the remote from him when he refuses to change the channel to one that’s NOT on a commercial. Seriously. I get a list of all 3 channels the parade is on, and move between them during commercials. The screaming part starts about 10 minutes in, when the magic has worn off, and I can’t seem to get Meredith Vieira to SHUT THE HELL UP. Seriously. Between her and Matt, I just want to fly to New York, take their microphones and beat them over the head with them. Have you ever watched the whole thing? You get to see maybe a third of the parade, because they’re always interviewing some C-grade TV actor during the whole thing. If I had money, or was related to Ted T., I seriously would PAY the network to show the parade, uninterrupted and maybe with little banners across the bottom saying, “This program brought to you by Ovaltine…how about a nice glass of chocolaty Ovaltine, today! Or try, Ovaltine HOT.” Then my family could come back to watching the parade, and not try slipping me drugs in my morning coffee.

This year I’m hoping they still have the Turkey float that has the big, ginormous eyelashes that wave. I think that thing is over 80 years old, and I love it. Then we’ll see Santa, signaling the beginning of the holiday season. I am seriously like a kid, just waiting to see the parade up close and in person. One of my personal goals in life. After that, I’ll proceed to have a lovely dinner with my family and stuff myself. My personal goal this year is something like 15,000 calories. I should have that cleared up by the time we make it over to InlawBee’s for dinner #2.

Brother Bee’s Birthday Flames

And I thought I’d have nothing to post this morning to recap the weekend. MomBee and DadBee were here on Sunday to celebrate Brother Bee’s birthday. It’s actually on Oct. 1, which he liked to remind us over and over and over. But seeing as how my parents are travelling next weekend, they came down a bit early.

I made pies. Yes, pies, with an S. Complete with made from scratch crust. This is sort of an important family point to make because besides the secret rolls, pies are what we bake. So I started at o’early thirty making pies. Brother Bee loves pumpkin pie for birthday cake, so he got a ginormous pie. But Hubby Bee doesn’t like pumpkin, and his fav is key lime. So I made a key lime pie. BUT, what if our other guests didn’t like either? So, I made an apple pie too. Complete with lattice work on the top. I should have taken pictures. Damn. But not that i’m bragging. Just showing you how I spend my Sunday mornings. Making pies.

So we invited a few friends over to enjoy Birthday Pie and give my brother his gifts (mine, of course, came from Busted Tees). It was all good. Watched a little football, ate some pie, yum.

As everyone started to leave, Brother Bee also got ready to head back to the dorms in his most awesome 1985 Volvo station wagon. This car has been in the family since right after I was born. It is the one and only car that my parents have driven off a car lot, brand new. But that was 23 years ago. Now the car is missing it’s identity from the back, the tail lights don’t work, one is busted out. The A/C hasn’t worked for years and I think the brakes have been replaces 2 or 3 times. Not to mention the trouble there has been with the catylitc converter. The leather seats are totally worn down…it’s a piece of crap. Seriously. Adam Sandler wrote his “Piece of Shit car” song about this volvo. There’s been lots of love aimed at this car…it’s been well used. So, when the following events occured outside my neighbor’s house I wasn’t that surprised:

Brother Bee left my house to get in the car. My friends and parents were milling about in the front yard. We heard my brother start his car, and then a yell

“Um, MOOOM!!! Is my car supposed to be doing that?!?”

There was smoke engolfing the hood of his car. All around it. Smoke pouring out from under the hood.

“NNOOOOO!! Turn your car off!! And pop the hood”

As my mom so bravely lifted his hood, we saw flames. FLAMES. My brother’s car was on FIRE!!! Holy shit. So I ran inside to grab our kitchen fire extinguisher. Which, by the way, never buy. It lasted all of 30 seconds and didn’t put the fire out at all. I’m not sure how it would have put out a kitchen fire at all. A little scary, but I didn’t really have time to think about it as my brother’s car was still on fire. This was about the point where my neighbors started wondering why the block smelled like burnt plastic and fireworks. I ran back inside, upstairs to grab our big household fire extinguisher. Not that I needed it as, thankfully, all my neighbors were running out with theirs. How embarrasing.

Finally, we got the fire under control without having to call the fire department, which, yeah we probably should have done in the first place, but too late. The fire was out, I have no fire extiguishers, and there’s a POS car outside my house surrounded in white powder. Excellent. It looks a little like we live in an LA slum. Or at least are the kind of people that drive cars that just start up in flames, but with a little fire extinguisher you can just put it out and keep driving it. Nevermind the ’67 chevy we have on cinder blocks in my back yard.

Unfortunately, my brother is out a car…which to a college freshman is devistating. Plus, he really loved that car. It’s like when I blew out the engine of my ’75 VW Bug. I was sad. My brother might have cried a bit. I don’t know. He caught a ride with my friend who also lives on campus. The fate of the family car has yet to be decided. Luckily, the neighborhood is still in tact. Second event of the day that needed a picture. Shoot. Literally.

Good thing to come out of all of this? My neighbor learned that his son is a brave soul. As she explained to me: “He came right in and got me and told me that we needed a fire extinguisher.” I’m so proud of him. I think he’s about 7 years old, and he is so brave! I only hope that everyone elses’ children in my neighborhood are so calm and collected when I almost set their fence on fire.

Brother Bee Goes to College

Honestly, a lot like Ernest Goes to College, if they ever made one. Or Animal House…dorm room version. With crazy mothers.

I took a break from my work day (which was really lazy busy) to help my parents move my baby, I mean wickedly* awesome, brother into his first year of college. It’s going to be a doozy. Especially if the hour I spent there is any indication. I know he’ll do swell in the dorms with JGBee, his roommate, and it will be frickin’ awesome having him here, that is if he survives the next 5 hours.

I got there just in time for all of his stuff to be moved up to the 4th floor. Trust me, this is nothing. I lived on the 11th floor in the same dorm. NIGHTMARE. However, there are many times that I feel like there are too many chefs in the kitchen. This was one of them. 2 anxious, nervous college students, 2 “let’s get this the hell over with” dads and 2 great, but controlling, nervous, soon-to-be empty nester moms taking control of everything. And I mean everything. From where to put the stuff outside of the room until it’s ready to how to cut the carpet to make it fit in the room.

Now, I must digress here. I know you’re saying either 1) “Wait, CARPET? That’s AWESOME! All we had were gross linoleum floors;” or 2) “Wait, you had to put the carpet in yourselves???” The truth is both, yes, they HAD the great linoleum flooring and yes, we did have to put the carpet in ourselves. That’s because wicked* cool QB sister bought them carpet to pimp out their rooms. Other kids might have small rugs to cover the floor, but this kid has wall-to-wall carpet! In the stylin’ puke gold color that was all too popular in the 70’s. Matches the Banana chair.

So yes, as the mothers had a huddle to decide how to lay the carpet, Brother Bee and I had to get out of the room to go buy his books. This is quite a complicated process that one MUST have an older sister, or classmate to help with or else you’re lost. After I had figured out the system my first year, I helped at least a dozen people on my floor buy their books. Take your class schedule, find the department, find the course number, find the section number, find the books, find USED books, rinse and repeat. Or you get lice. Book lice. $456 later, we were back in the dorm room. I had seriously forgotten how small they actually were.

But, Brother Bee will make it. As long as he doesn’t have a key to my house. Then I might be in trouble. Big trouble. For instance this is the conversation that followed after my mother showed Brother Bee his new laundry detergent:

Brother Bee: Why do I need laundry detergent?

MB: Um, to wash your clothes with.

BB: But, Queen Bee has laundry detergent. She’ll just use hers to do my laundry.

See? Apparently I’m his mother now. Not to mention that JGBee thinks that my gift to humanity is the ability to buy them beer. Cheap beer. We’ve got a long 2 years ahead of us. Maybe he won’t survive the next year. At least he didn’t insist on bringing the pingpong table down for “ping pong,” wink, wink.

On Mother’s Day, watch out for Dads

Who’da thunk, right?

Turns out my dad is a HUGE idea stealer. I obviously can’t say WHAT idea he stole, seeing as how it’s before Mother’s Day, but seriously, he steals. ideas.

My mother had hinted to me that she wanted a specific…we’ll call it….steve. She wanted a steve to match her other steve. So, I talked with the brothers and they consented. I think for a lump sum of $x each, we should be able buy her a very nice steve. So, just to make sure my dad was on board, I called him to let him know our plan.

He agreed it would be a great gift, and mumbled something about how we could get it at the steve store in their town. Which doesn’t work as the steve store is not open on Sunday, the only day I am going to be in town for the Mother’s Day holiday. So, I waited until the weekend, and went to the local steve store in town to pick out the gift. Meanwhile, I’m calling my dad to make sure I get the right type of steve to match her other one. And as I’m about to tell the steve store clerk which one I want, he informs me that he already BOUGHT a steve for her, and NO, it doesn’t match the steve she already has!!

See? PRESENT IDEA STEALER!!! so much for being brilliant around my too brilliant father. Well, that matter has been solved. My steve won out, his steve is becoming another gift. But, my mistake for sharing with my dad. I mean, she’s MY mother, right?