Three Songs about Tea

My favorite beverage is so cool people write songs about it!

"Drink Tea"
by SuperEd86

"Cup of the Brown Stuff"
by Elemental  (This one is steampunk themed)

And a classic,
"Have a Cuppa Tea"
by The Kinks

You're welcome.

The Bookshelf.

By Stewart Butterfield, via Wikimedia Commons

In the 5th grade the very last thing I wanted to do was math. We had those desks with the open fronts you kept your stuff in, so during math class I would simply slide a book into my lap and read.  My teacher caught on to this and took away my books fairly often. She made one fatal mistake though...my desk was about 2 feet away from the classroom book shelf. As soon as her back was turned I was slipping another book into the desk.  At no point during the year did it occur to her that my seat needed to be moved.

Pavlov's Bell

When I was a kid my mom had little concept of housekeeping, so it was the jobs of my siblings and I to keep up the place. You can't expect 3 kids to clean of their own accord, so about once a week the house would get so filthy my father couldn't stand it anymore and he would start screaming at us to clean it up.

We were good kids. A raised voice was all it took to get us to do things, but when my father yelled it was scary as fuck. All of us would jump to attention and have the place spotless in an hour.

I'm 31 now and I haven't lived with my dad for twelve years.  But when I'm around an angry person, even if the anger isn't directed at me, I start to clean. At home, at work, doesn't matter. As soon as I feel the tension rising I'm sweeping the floor or washing dishes as quickly as possible.

Weight Loss Journey #3

Wow. It's been a long time since I posted.  Other Things were happening.

My weight loss continues to happen too.  I'm currently 141 pounds. (My original weight was 166.)  I'm down from a size 14 pants to a size 10.  I'm buying medium shirts!  I've gone from a 38DDD bra to a 36DD.  I've got a bit more sag in my boobs than I used to, but I actually think it looks more attractive and natural than the fat boobs I used to have.  I suspect I will lose a little bit more volume but not much.

I know I'm tinier all over.  My arms feel unnaturally thin when I touch them.  My clothes have been dropping like flies and I'm just getting rid of things as they get too big because even if I love something--I don't want to fit in it again.  I only have one pair of jeans left and they are baggy all over and I have to wear a belt with them. I'm waiting until fall to replace my pants so I'm wearing a lot of skirts, which have many safety pins in the waist bands to make them fit.

Here is a progress picture:

The faceless child is my niece--my mom never takes pictures of me unless there is a child or dog in the frame.  In the first picture my head is cut off not for privacy, but because my mom had to make sure my brother's dogs were in the frame further down (they're cute and all but I cropped them out).

I can't believe how big I actually was, because I didn't feel that big, bit compared to now, nearly 25 pounds down, I know I must have been huge because I still have a ton of stomach fat.

Exercise-wise I am walking 6+ miles a week.  I lift light weights erratically, and that's about it. I am building some muscle in my arms and calves though.  I think I might have some lose skin developing in my thighs and upper arms, but really I feel...softer...all over. Which I think might be my near-middle-age skin not being as elastic as it used to be.

My original weight loss goal was 135, but I've lowered it to 130 and I might want to go as low as 125.  I still have a lot of stomach fat I want to eliminate.  I know I need to ramp up my exercise routine too at this point.  I don't really aspire to be any lower than that.  I have a big frame and wide shoulders--I don't think I'm built to be a twig.  Mostly I'm just really happy that a healthy weight is in my near future.

No Poo #1

"No Poo" is the really awful name for the practice of not using shampoo to clean your hair.  A lot of my hippie friends do it and last year I tried without much success.  A lot of people end up with really beautiful hair, but every 'no poo' method is as different as the scalps of the people who do it.  When I tried I was a greasy mess for about two months before I gave in and shampooed, but I was lazy and tried a water-only method, which works for very few people, mostly with short hair. My hair is down to my waist.

This past year I've eliminated a few different chemical-laden products from my life: store-bought lotion and deodorant (you can see what I replaced them with by checking out last month's posts). The year before I started making my own bar soap and lip balm, and I switched from laundry detergent to soap nuts (yet to be discussed, but I will). I'm about 90% chemical free in all of my household cleaning supplies.  I hope to be rid of everything in the next year.

Weening myself off shampoo and conditioner is part of that process.  I ran out of shampoo last week and never got around to buying more.  I only wash my hair once a week as it is (on Thursday usually), so going no poo shouldnt be a huge deal.

This time, instead of just water, I dissolved a teaspoon of baking soda in a cup of hot water.  Baking soda helps strip oils out of your hair and eliminates odors. I applied it to just my scalp, let it sit for a few minutes, and rinsed with a "hair tea" of rosemary, lavender, calendula, rose petals, and rose hips.

As of right now my hair is less greasy than it was before I washed it, but greasier than it would be if I used shampoo.

So, lets see how this goes.

My Tea Corner

This is my tea corner.  Someone on Reddit asked to see it so I figured I would write about it on here too.  As you can see it is very messy, though I did straighten things up a little bit.  And for the record, this is not all the tea.  This is the "everyday" tea.  There are dozens of bags of tea and herbs on a shelf on the other side of the kitchen too.  They are a combination of tea, cooking, and herbal remedy supplies.  I keep the dehydrator and my soap making supplies over there too. You do not need to see it. Very messy.

I'm not a fancy sort of person. I have an $8 electric kettle and a cheap tea pot.  The pot is the fuzzy knitted thing on the right. Yes, I use a tea cozy, and I love it.  My tea stays hot for hours in it's little sweater, knitted by my sister-in-law.

I have a combination of bags and loose-leaf, but I prefer the loose leaf on most occasions. My favorite is black tea, especially chai.  I like black tea with sugar, and I'm pretty fond of milk in my tea.  I like green tea with floral notes--especially jasmine and rose.  You can see a 1lb tin of jasmine green tea that I got at a local Asian grocery store for only $6. (Asian markets are awesome for cheap and interesting tea.)  I like fruit-flavored teas. I confess one of my favorites is in teabag form: Salada's White Tea with Plum. I'm also drinking a blueberry black tea in bag form lately that is lovely. (I've been craving blueberries for weeks now...)  Herbal stuff is good too, and I like rooibos with vanilla or hazelnut flavoring. Teavana had an awesome fruit and macadamia nut rooibos, but I think it's been discontinued. :(

Other top favorites for me:
Davidson's Chai
Sencha Kyoto Cherry Rose Festival Green Tea (This smells AMAZING)

I make a lot of my own tea blends, sometimes going as far as dehydrating my own fruit to put in them.  (There's a tub of dehydrated orange slices in there somewhere.)  I start with a plain tea base and add herbs, spices, fruit, and flavorings to them.  It's a fun hobby.

I'm a big fan of thrifting and I like to pick up tea-related kitchen stuff.  Right now I'm very into 1950's restaurant ware--really heavy-duty tea cups and saucers.  And that nut dish with the squirrel (it's full of tea bags) is one of my most prized possessions.

This corner makes me really happy, even when it's gross. (Pretend you can't see the ring stains on the counter.)  And while I have tons of pretty cups, I almost always drink out of my Worf mug, because he reminds me of my mother. (My mom doesn't look like Worf, she just really likes Star Trek...)

Frugal Grocery Shopping

I'm not a couponer, nor do I buy in bulk very often. My household consists of two people and two cats. This month my significant other lost his job.  While we are nowhere near destitute (we have several months' worth of savings) I am definitely paying attention to what I'm spending money on.

This month I decided to keep track of our groceries.  I had a feeling I kept our food purchases at around $150 a month, but I wanted to be sure, and I was right! I am currently 4 dollars under $150 and I don't expect to need a shopping trip in the next week.

So we eat on about $2.50 a day each.  Pretty awesome.  I do eat about 3 meals a week at work (free!), and this doesnt factor in the once or twice a week my guy likes to eat out with friends. We consider eating out and junk food "entertainment."

So here's a basic breakdown of what we eat every month.  Mostly guesstimates.  We shop almost 100% at Kroger and Marcs because we live literally next door to them.

Produce:
1 bag organic onions
2 lbs of organic carrots
2-4 lbs of roma tomatoes
1 bunch of celery
4-5 bunches of broccoli
4-6 green peppers
1-4 lbs of berries
4-6 lbs of bananas

Carbs:
1-2 loaves wheat bread
3 lbs of white rice
2 boxes whole grain pasta
5-10 packs of ramen

Protein:
3-4 lbs chicken or turkey sausage
5-7 lbs chicken breasts
1 dozen eggs
LOTS of beans.  I have no clue how much we eat. Will have to keep track some time.

Frozen:
1 bag of tator tots
1 box peirogies
1 box fish sticks
4 cheap frozen pizzas
1 expensive frozen pizza
4 lbs of frozen veggies

Dairy:
1 small box dry milk (equivalent 1.5 gal)
4-6 lbs of cheese (my guy really likes cheese)
1 lb butter

Other:
1 jar pasta sauce
1 jar peanut butter
1 box mashed potato flakes
2 jars salsa
2-3 taco seasonings
1 or 2 random condiments
1 or 2 bottles of V8

Of course we buy other random things too, and I include things like toilet paper in with the tally.  But I'd say this is our basic monthly diet right here.  The reason we can do it?  Well, take a look. Aside from a few frozen thing I cook everything from scratch or near-scratch.  It's more time consuming, but it's a lot cheaper and healthier for you than pre-packaged foods.  Our favorite foods are stir-fry, chili, or a piece of chicken with potatoes and a veggie.

Eating out and junk is kept to a minimum.  We drink lots of tea and water instead of soda. We buy organic where we can afford it.  If something is about to go bad we either eat it, freeze it or dehydrate it, keeping waste to a minimum.

I could get better deals in a few areas of our diet, but I'm pretty happy with how we're eating, and the amount of money we spend on it.

Not So Dirty Hippie #2: Lotion in 4 Ingredients

Not So Dirty Hippie #2: Lotion in 4 Easy Ingredients

Last time I did one of these I wrote about my new favorite thing—natural deodorant!  Let me tell you, it’s still working great, but I need to tweak the recipe to make it non-melting.  I let it sit under a lamp and it turned to goo (oops).  Remembering my deodorant is in the fridge this summer might be an issue.  An emulsifier should do the trick.

Anyway, on with the lotion tutorial!

Look on the back of the bottle of lotion you probably have in your house. The ingredient list is long and you probably can’t pronounce half of the chemicals in the bottle, let alone know what they’re actually doing to your skin. Companies sell you these products claiming that they are “good for you.”  This might not be the case, especially in the United States, where we use many chemicals in health and food products that other countries have deemed unsafe.

The truth of the matter is, simple is better, and there is nothing more simple than making your own lotions free of dubious chemicals. Hand and face lotion can be as easy as four ingredients. Some of the ingredients can be bought in your grocery store, though you will likely have to go online for a few of them. 

Lotion can be made easily in any sized batch using the following measurements. Small batches are suggested as this recipe does not include any preservatives and has a limited shelf-life. I like to make a 10 oz batch (easier to work out measurements) and share it with my friends and family. (My mother in law loves this stuff!)

There are dozens and dozens of recipes for lotions online, but this is my favorite.

Ingredients:

• 75% water/liquids (you can use water, green tea, rosewater, or aloe vera gel)
• 15% oils (suggestions include olive, coconut, almond, jojoba, cocoa butter or shea butter. Cheap oils like canola are not as good for your skin and can be pretty stinky.)
• 5% stearic acid (derived from plants and all-natural)
• 5% emulsifying wax (also plant-based)

Optional: Your choice of essential oil for scent—a few drops go a long way

Equipment:

Measuring cup

*Scale (optional)

Glass bowl and pot

Mixing bowl

Stick blender

Containers for your finished lotion

The first thing you must do is make sure all of your equipment is as clean as possible. You are going to be mixing water and oil—a prime breeding ground for bacteria—don’t give them a head start.

Once your equipment is clean you can measure out your stearic acid and wax. Measuring by weight is better than measuring by volume, so if you have a scale use it, but don’t worry if your measurements are a bit off. It won’t hurt in this recipe.

Melt your emulsifying wax and stearic acid together in a bowl over a pot of water on the stove. Stearic acid takes a while to melt so it might be a few minutes.

Warm your other ingredients as well, including melting any hard oils like coconut or shea butter. (You don't need fancy oils and butters to make this lotion effective. See what your local grocery store has available.) They don’t have to be hot, but keeping things warm to the touch will make mixing your waxes with your oils and liquids a lot easier.

Once everything is melted combine liquids, oils, and waxes in a mixing bowl and use your stick blender to blend everything together. After a minute or two the mixture will thicken, though it might not reach “normal” lotion consistency until it has cooled to room temperature. 

At this point your lotion is “done.” You can use it unscented, or you can mix a few drops of your favorite essential oil in to make it smell nice. You want to use “therapy grade” essential oils as opposed to “fragrances.”  Essential oils are pure, while fragrance oils often use chemicals and artificial means to create a scent.

Suggestions for containers include old lotion bottles (reuse!), mason jars, or old baby food jars.

Because this recipe does not contain any preservatives it will only be “good” for a few days at room temperature. By storing it in the fridge you can keep it for about three weeks (hence the ‘small batch’ suggestion at the top of this article).

If you’d like to make lotion that lasts longer and can be kept at room temperature you might want to consider a preservative called “Optiphen Plus.”  It is formaldehyde and paraben free and is considered “safe” globally.  It can be bought from many suppliers. Add 1% of your total mixture (example, for 10 ounces of lotion use .1 ounce of Optiphen Plus) to increase the shelf-life of your product.

Have fun and enjoy!

Need Ingredients? 

Stearic Acid

Emulsifying Wax

Shea Butter (this is the brand I use because I like the yellow color, but you can get lighter types as well. Warning: shea butter has an...interesting scent.)

Cocoa Butter

Almond Oil

Optiphen Plus

Weight Loss Update #3

It's been a little over 2 months since I started actively dieting for the first time since high school.  It's going well. So far I've lost 10 lbs and 2 inches I'm 1/3 of the way to my goal weight.  My acid reflux is doing much better, I don't seem to be getting as many zits (TMI? oh well), and I can do things like bend over or crouch for more than a minute without my fat restricting my breathing.

I can see the loss in my arms and my waist.  Last year at this time I nearly passed out when I tried to wear a 32" corset only laced 2/3 of the way.  Now I can wear the same thing completely laced up in the back.  I have a 28" that was sent to me by accident and my goal is to be able to cinch that baby up all the way too.

I've been doing aerobics and light weight lifting inconsistently. I walk to work (2 miles) a few times a week.  I do want to increase my activity level. I put the weights next to my computer so that whenever it freezes (often) I can lift until it fixes itself.

I'm not seeing a difference in my face, and my thighs don't seem to be getting any thinner. I'll be really sad if I end up bottom-heavy, because my thighs are my least favorite body part.

Calorie counting has been the best thing I ever could have done.  Another thing I've found to be helpful is to pick up what I call a Hobbit eating cycle:

Breakfast
2nd Breakfast
Lunch
Afternoon tea
Dinner
Supper

I keep these six meals at around 200 calories each. I get to eat all day, eliminating the urge to snack.

I've been really excited and I can't wait for summer. I might even buy my first bikini since the age of 7.  I bought a shirt that was too small yesterday, but I know it should fit by about May.

Here's to 10 pounds down and 20 pounds to go!

Personal Goals for the Year

Ya'll can ignore this if you want.  This is just to help me remember how important this stuff is. I know I'm 2 months late for new years resolutions, but bettering one's self is a progressing thing.

1. Lose 30 pounds (-10 and counting)
2. Write 3,000 words a day.
3. Edit for 1 hour minimum a day.
4. Increase sales by 10 monthly
5. 20,000 followers on main twitter account
6. Fill loose change jar
7. Go to a concert
8. Go camping
9. Mutter Museum
10. Go to a Con
11. Gallery Hop
12. Comfest
13. Learn 3 Devil Stick tricks
14. Volunteer at cat shelter
15. Sell motorcycle
16. Sew something once a week
17. Set up Etsy
18. Weekly blog posts
19. Get work up on All Romance

My Top 3 Robin McKinley Books

Today I'm going to write about one of my long-time favorite writers, Robin McKinley. Robin (I call my favorite writers by their first names--makes us feel like friends) published her first book in 1978 and has been publishing ever since in various fantasy genres.  My favorites are her fairy tale re-tellings.  Almost all of her books have female protagonists and are very 'Girl Power' centric.  Buy them for your teenage daughters. Read them yourself.

Beauty
I read this for the first time in the 7th grade.  My best friend and I passed the book back and forth until it fell apart, and had fantasies of beautiful dresses and magic castles.  This was Robin's first book.  It is remarkably simple, but every page enjoyable.  To be honest I've read it so many times I could probably recite passages of it to you.

Reading this book you know exactly where Disney got Belle's character for their version of Beauty & the Beast.  Beauty is a plain girl with 'an unfortunate nickname' who reads books, loves giant horses, and is a tom boy. She doesn't fit in with her pretty, feminine sisters.  Her character is strong, brave, and honorable ('Honor' is in fact her given name).

I like this version of Beauty and the Beast over all others because it doesn't over-embellish the tale, and it lets some of the more muddled bits remain muddled.  Simplistic, but all the more beautiful for it. I'm always finding bits of this story slipping accidentally into my own writing simply because it's become such a big part of my identity.

Spindle's End
Another retelling, this time Sleeping Beauty.  According to my purchase history on Amazon I bought this in 2003.  I've probably read it six or eight times by now.

In this story the princess saves the day, has short hair, and falls in love with a blacksmith twice her age. It's in this great other-world where magic is an everyday occurrence and fish are thought not to exist.  Part of the charm of this book is the luscious world-building.  You just wanna step into it and explore.

It has talking animals, and fairies, and a house that is alive.  (That's my favorite part.) I wouldn't call it the most epic of stories, or the deepest, but its so much fun it doesn't really matter.

Deerskin
I think this is probably Robin's most controversial book, and that's part of the appeal. It deals with the  healing process after an incestuous rape.  It's based on a fairy tale called "Catskin" or "Tattercoat" and is about a princess whose mother dies. Her father vows to marry his daughter instead. The princess runs away and disguises herself as a servant in another kingdom, where she falls in love with and marries a prince.

This is an emotionally harrowing book, and is told with the same rich detail as Robin's other works.  Deerskin has to rebuild her psyche after her terrible ordeal, and she finds a group of healing friends and even, eventually, love.  This prince in this story is awesome because he's so very not your average fairy tale prince.

It's a tough read because of the subject matter, but it's also a very fulfilling story too, and well-told.  It has the same rich world as Spindle's End, and down to earth, like-able characters (except the evil father of course).

Weight Loss Journey #2:

After five weeks of carefully counting calories I am officially FIVE pounds lighter.  It's been a long time since I've lost any weight--high school was the last time I dieted successfully.  I'm losing at a healthy one pound a week so far.

There have been a lot of adjustments in my eating--little adjustments really.  I now measure out my food to the exact serving.  I have a scale I use for making soap and it has been converted into a daily kitchen tool.  I write down everything I eat, no matter how small.  One of my favorite foods--peanuts--is out the door completely.  There are too many calories for a small amount of food, and despite the protein in them, I was still feeling hungry.  I've switched to a healthier source, Bell Plantation PB2 Powdered Peanut Butter. It's not quite the same flavor as peanut butter, but it's pretty good, and you can use it super easy in cooking and smoothies/shakes.

The other problem I had was chocolate.  I didn't know I was a binge eater until I started writing down calories, but I binge chocolate big time.  I know depriving yourself will make you fail, so I still let myself have a bit of chocolate every day.  I've had a few 'relapse' days, but the next day I go right back to healthy eating.

So far the biggest problem I've been having is getting enough protein.  I'm a pasta/veggies/cheese kind of girl. Meat is so not my thing, but I've been forcing myself to eat it.  At work I was eating a veggie sandwich and ending up starving at the end of the night.  Now I add a few slices of cold-cut meat to it and the hunger isn't there any more.  I still don't like doing it, and I try to eat ethically sourced protein whenever I can, but it's really not in the budget, as I am also so very poor.

I havent seen any difference in my body yet, but i hope I will in time.  I'd like to be down two pants sizes at least by the end of this--from a 14 to at least a 10.  Size 8 would be amazing, but I haven't been a size 8 since middle school, so I really don't see that happening.

There's a full-body picture of me from middle school graduation.  I'm wearing a knee-length tan dress and my legs are absolutely gazelle-like.  I was already a size 8 at that point. (I'd grown out of my mother's size 4 clothing in the 6th grade.)  I wish that little girl had known how beautiful she looked, because she didn't have a clue.  All she knew was that boys made fun of her chest and it made her so very uncomfortable.

I guess I never really agonized over my body.  I just put on XL t-shirts and pretended it wasn't there.  (I was a size medium by the way.)  Everyone thought I was huge because that was the impression I have them.  Later, when I started learning how to dress people asked me if I'd lost weight.  I would answer with, "No, I'm just wearing clothes that fit."

There are so many things I wish I had done differently.  One of them was dressing to show off my body instead of hiding it.  I know now that it was a good one. A great one even.  I wish someone had told me that.

Five pounds gone. 26 to go.

Not So Dirty Hippie: Deodorant

About two years ago I decided to cut as many chemicals as possible from my lifestyle.  I didn't do it all at once, but little by little I've been whittling away at my bath and body and cleaning chemicals, and eliminating the worst of the food I eat.  I don't ever plan to be 100% natural and some organic things are completely out of my price range, but every little bit helps, as far as I'm concerned.  I've decided to start doing a series of posts on the things I do to improve my green living.

I'm calling the series "Not So Dirty Hippie" because I definitely identify as a hippie and try my best to live the lifestyle in the confines of the suburbs (my fiance's fault, not mine--I wanna live on a farm), but I'm certainly showering daily.  (My brother, on the other hand, is a dirty hippie.  His concepts of personal hygiene are...special.)  It will cover bath and body, green housekeeping, basic herbalism, and anything else I can come up with that might be pertinent to the subject of green living.

This week I finally gave in and tried home made deodorant. I don't know why I kept putting it off as it's easily the most simple thing to make out of all of my experimentation (except my laundry alternatives).

First of all, there's no good natural anti-antiperspirant. You're just gonna have to get over it and sweat. Sweating is good for you anyway--there's a reason we do it. It helps cool down your system and regulate body temperature.  But you don't have to stink while you do it. Yay!

Store-bought deodorant is made up of dozens of chemicals including the Big Bads aluminum and parabens. Aluminum has been linked to Alzheimer's and cancer.  Parabens are an antimicrobial ingredient in most deodorants that studies show disrupts hormone production and can produce excess estrogen. Since you spend all day with it on your skin, you're absorbing it into your body.

There are dozens of expensive all natural deodorant sticks, but I found a recipe for deodorant that works really well (I've been real-world testing it) and you probably have all of the ingredients you need in your kitchen right now.  It costs literally pennies to make.

The main ingredients for deodorant, the bare minimum, are baking soda and corn starch.  Equal amounts, mixed up and applied by powder puff is an acceptable deodorant.  To make it properly stick to your pits just adding a few tablespoons of coconut oil will create a proper bar of deodorant that will last a few weeks. I've been wearing it for a while now with good results, even on hectic days where I sweat quite a bit.

Here's the recipe for you to play with:

1/4 c. baking soda

1/4 c. cornstarch

5 T    coconut oil

optional: a few drops of essential oils to make it smell pretty

We're using coconut oil because it is a solid at under 76 degrees Fahrenheit. This will probably have to be kept in the fridge during the summer.  I might play around with butters or waxes to try to come up with a firmer bar, but for now coconut oil it is.

Melt your oil either in a bowl over a pan of hot water or in the microwave, checking every 30 seconds or so to avoid over-heating and catching it on fire.  Once it's liquid add your essential oils if you're using them (I like lavender, which also has some antimicrobial effects) and then your dry ingredients.  Mixed up it should be the consistency of warmed icing.  (It'll look like it too.)  Pour into muffin/cupcake papers and put them in the fridge to help solidify them faster. This recipe should make about two muffins worth, and it's a perfect size for applying under your arms.  You can also pour it into an old plastic deodorant container and re-use it.  Some stores like brambleberry.com or bulkapothecary.com carry empty containers, but they're a little pricey and over-all unnecessary. 

I should warn you that some people find the baking soda irritating, but give it a couple days before giving up entirely, or try using a little less baking soda and a little more corn starch. 

Weight Loss Journey #1

I was a skinny kid up until age 12. Once puberty hit it was all over and I started piling on the pounds.  I was never fat though--I was only a size 10 all through high school.  I thought I was a cow, mainly because my little sister was (and continues to be) a size zero, while my mother was a svelte size 4. Bra shopping was the worst thing in the world. While they didn't even really need one, my boobs were growing out of bras too fast to keep up.  (Currently a 36DD.)

Looking at me in my prom dress my senior year, I was lovely (even if I had terrible hair).  Since then, though I have steadily gained. I am 5' 2" and 166 at my last weigh-in (I step on a scale once a month when I visit my grandma).  Size 14.  Still not obese, but definitely on my way.

My knees hurt. I can't run.  Standing for a 4 hour shift at work exhausts me. Combined with my bust, normal clothes don't fit me.  Both of my parents have heart disease. My mother's brother died of it at the age of 38.  My father's brother had a double bypass just last year. Multiple members of my family are diabetic.  My genes are stacked against me, and I can't go making it worse.

I've decided that calorie counting is a good way to start with my weight loss.  Today was the first day I tried it and holy cow, I eat a lot of calories in the form of chocolate. I never thought I ate that much, but damn.  I am incredibly hungry today, and went exactly even on the projected amount of calories I can eat and maintain a weight loss of 1 pound a week.  (Using an app called "Lose It" to keep track of diet and exercise.)

Almost a third of my calories were made up of junk food--I had no clue I was eating that much. The sugar in my tea (a modest one teaspoon) came to 58 calories alone after 4 cups.  Knowing this is great--tomorrow I will adjust to eat more real food.  All of my 'meals' came to only 300 calories each, which is pretty good. I'm going to try to eat more dairy tomorrow, and less sugar.  I think a big serving of beans is in order too, because there wasn't a lot of protein in my diet today.

When I mentioned I was doing this on one of my twitter accounts I automatically had people tell me that it wasn't a good idea. That I was going to get paranoid, that I would feel bad about what I ate.  Well, that's kind of the point. I should feel ashamed of myself for eating half a batch of cookie dough without baking even one. After day one I'm hungry and a little depressed, but I will make better food choices tomorrow and I know that in a few months it will all be worth it.

You Know You're Poor When

You know you're poor when:

1. There are sheets over your windows instead of curtains.
2. You do your christmas shopping at the thrift store.
3. Everything in your house has been repaired with duct tape.
4. Milk crates are your seating, tables, and shelving.
5. The concept of matching bras and panties are beyond you.
6. You don't care that Aldi sells horse meat and shop there anyway.
7. You must shop to accommodate your ability to get it home without a car.
8. You go to the fancy grocery store on free sample day...and don't buy anything.
9. The library is your favorite place in the word, not just for the books, but for the movies, music, and free wifi.
10. Any clothing other than your work uniform is high fashion.

Being Happy

I've felt very odd the last five months. It's a strange, unfamiliar feeling. I'm pretty sure it's happiness.

In 30 years I think I've failed at being happy more than I have at anything else (though I think I've had more failures than successes). I think my depression set in sometime in the 5th grade.  Hormones are terrible things after all. I've always been a very introverted person, and at that point the stress of being around people every day, whether I liked it or not, started to get to me. School was a nightmare. When I became an adult work was even worse.

When you're depressed its hard to see a way out of it. My entire adult life has been spent in food service, even though half of the job disgusts me (working with meat) and the other half hurts my back and bores the hell out of me.  (I'm educated with a degree in English Literature, but my mental status and lack of experience in any field other than food makes it hard to get a better job that wont make me just as miserable.) Interacting with customers is even worse than touching meat. I can't feign happy.  When I'm stressed or tired, its in my face and my voice.  My impatience and annoyance with a difficult customer cannot be hidden.  I've gotten into a lot of trouble over the years because of this. The only reason I have a job at the place I'm at right now is because the boss is spineless and won't fire anyone. 

Needless to say, the stress of being stressed at doing my job badly made me do my job even worse.  Crying fits at work were not uncommon for me. (On more than one occasion I was crying as I was making the food right in front of the customers.)  It all just got to be too much. The noise and the stupidity and the frustration, paired with an aching back and tired feet, and the fact that I was bored out of my mind just left me drained, miserable and unable to function.

At one point during my adulthood I was successful enough to buy a house.  I was not prepared to take care of the house (which wasn't in great condition).  My depression also lead to a bad habit of cat collecting.  I lost everything after getting laid off, one of my best friends went away to grad school and the other ran off to Florida for a girl. My boyfriend dumped me. Feeling like a failure, I got worse.  While I was unemployed (for two years) anxiety grew on top of the depression.  I can't drive a car. I have a hard time walking into stores I'm not familiar with. I can't even answer the phone or the door if I don't know exactly who's on the other side.  Nightmares over losing my cats (they were taken to a very nice no-kill shelter who re-homed them all almost immediately) and nightmares about work plagued me for two years, every night, non-stop.

I was slowly going crazy. Even the good things--getting engaged, settling into a comfortable middle-class home, and beginning to develop my writing career--were not preventing the crazy from completely taking over my mind.  I should have been happy, but there was no way to do it.  I was constantly tired, constantly crying, sleeping ten hours a day and staring at the TV the rest of the time.  

Five months ago my boss scheduled me to work for 8 days in a row (they were in two different pay periods so he could get away with it).  Three of those days were 11 hour shifts.  In the middle of the second double shift the crazy finally got the better of me. I went on a rampage in front of the health department, giving them a list of every dirty and unsafe practice that went on unchecked in our store. At the end of the rant I informed the inspector that I was quitting. I put my two weeks notice on my boss's desk and went and cried in the bathroom for an hour.

Three days later I came to my senses and agreed to stay on two days a week, which would at least cover my rent. I decided to take a few months and concentrate on my writing.  For the first few months I was still pretty stressed.  My brain had been running on over-drive for so long it was hard to feel any different.  But my writing began to pick up, and I went on a trip to NYC completely alone without a single major incident of crazy, not even when I got lost. 

I think I got happy in November. I was writing a lot for Nanowrimo.  At that point I had decided I was capable of paying my bills on what I was making between working 10 hours a week and my royalties.  Now it's January and I know I'm happy.  Between the socializing I get at work, my fiance, and visiting my family once a month I get just enough human interaction to feel normal without feeling stressed.  I've started exercising and lifting weights.  As soon as the weather gets nicer and I can take my bike out I'm going to start volunteering at a cat shelter.

What I've learned is that being happy means finding your limits and accepting the changes you have to make to live within those limits.  Forcing yourself to be someone you're not is never going to make you happy.  It might buy a nice car, but I can't drive anyway, so what do I care? I don't have any extra money right now.  I'm not making enough with my writing to have any extra after paying my bills. I'm lucky that I have a fiance who will help me if I need it, but I don't want his help unless it's absolutely necessary. In the spring I might try to get a job at a garden center down the road. I like green growing things. Maybe if I'm doing something I like the people wont be as stressful to me. I know I can't handle full-time work, and that's okay. I've accepted that I will just always be poor. I'd rather be poor and happy than have extra cash I'm too depressed to do anything with.  I'd rather be poor than take a bunch of drugs just so I can handle a 40 hour week.

I wish it hadn't taken me so long to find the right lifestyle for myself. It's not perfect, but it's getting closer.  More money would be nice, if only because eventually I'm going to have to buy new underwear or see a dentist, but I'm not going to stress about it right now. Right now I'm pretty damn content. 

Weird.