I sort of want to skip the holidays this year. This is odd for me because I usually get really into Christmas. Well, Christmas spirit that is. I don’t go crazy decorating or listening to that much music. I’m lucky to get a tree up each year. This year though, I kind of just want to go to sleep and wake up and have it be Dec 26th. I don’t want to skip the last week of the year because I always get that week off work so it’s very important for my sanity.

As the years go by, the holidays get harder and harder. I’m reminded once more that I still don’t have kids. All the cousins around me are having kids or had kids years ago. And while I love these kids so much, they are not mine. I’m still left with a feeling that I’m missing out.

Then there’s the matter of gifts. It’s been a rough year for us financially and I know we are not alone in this boat. Several other family members are struggling as well. We already draw names so that we don’t have to buy for everyone, but then you’re faced with another problem. What if you spent time and money and put a lot of thought into your gift, but then the person buying your gift didn’t do the same for you. I’m not singling any one family member out because I saw several examples of it just last year. And while I know Christmas isn’t about gifts, shouldn’t be about gifts, gifts still play a major role. I think it’s less about the gift itself and more about the feeling that goes along with it. It’s as if we try to put our value and self worth into that gift. Aunt Julie loves Sarah a lot because she bought her an ipod, but Uncle Jeff must not give a shit about Robby because he gave him a broken knife that clearly came from the dollar store. Some family and friends have opted to have us do homemade Christmas this year. I think this was devised as an effort to help combat both of those problems, but I fear it will go very wrong. Not everyone is handy or crafty. And if you have to go buy all the supplies to make your gift, you could end up spending more money. I may appear to be crafty, but it’s all smoke and mirrors.

Then there’s the guilt that goes along with making sure you find time in your schedule to see everyone. Do you know that I’ve lived in Oklahoma for 23 years now and I’ve never once spent a Christmas here? Every single year of my life I have gotten in the car and driven the 4+ hours to Dallas to spend it with family. I’ve spent many Christmases without my husband (or then boyfriend) because I wouldn’t budge on Christmas. I’d forfeit Thanksgiving with my family in order to have Christmas. And now that my husband doesn’t have any family left to spend Christmas with, you’d think that would make things easier, but it doesn’t. Between divorces and family dramas, even my family is getting split up more than I like. And I just don’t feel like I can accommodate everyone. And just once, maybe I’d like to wake up in my own bed on Christmas morning.

Since I’m not able to jet off to Vegas like I did last year, I’ve decided that Thom and I are spending Thanksgiving at a friend’s parent’s house. So not only do I not have to cook a huge meal, I don’t have to drive 4+ hours to have the meal. I can make one thing to show up with and just have a good time. I’ll figure out a way later to cope with not getting any leftover turkey sandwiches.

I know it’s just now November and I really shouldn’t even be stressing out about the holidays yet. I should be eating leftover Halloween candy. Except that I didn’t buy any. I shut off my porch light and smiled happily at the fact that my doorbell doesn’t work. Bah humbug!

1. Watch/read inspirational weight loss journey show on tv/blog, become inspired and decide to do something about it.
2. Purchase fitness groupon type thing and/or join gym. (again)
3. Fish out weather appropriate exercise clothing.
4. Buy more of that type of clothing because you never have enough.
5. Sit down to write out grocery list full of healthy food you will buy.
6. Surf the internet for recipes and ideas of things to buy.
7. Get frustrated at the fact that you are a picky eater and don’t like any of the food in these healthy recipes.
8. Narrow search down to healthy recipes for picky eaters.
9. Discover that the internet is full of lying mcliarpants because picky eaters do not eat gorgonzola pear and walnut pizza on whole wheat crust. (WTF?)
10. Get frustrated and show up at grocery store with incomplete list and no idea what to get.
11. Purchase healthier foods and spend lots more money at the store than usual.
12. Start diet and obsess over the food you can and cannot eat for 16 hours a day.
13. Blog about new journey and hope for the future.
14. Exchange emails and tweets with people who have your best interest at heart.
15. Get frustrated at everything and everyone.
16. Cave and eat things containing sugar and butter and salt.
17. Throw away healthy food that has spoiled because no one wanted to eat it.
18. Cancel gym membership or trash groupon because it’s not getting used.
19. Suddenly stop posting about said diet and try to distract everyone with shiny things.
20. Wait X amount of time and repeat step one.

At the moment I’m on step 9. Only this time I’ll probably skip step 13. Maybe even delete my blog completely. What’s the point of it all anyways?

A year and a half ago the company I work for moved locations. We used to take up three floors in a decent building, but it was more space than we needed and the building was expensive to maintain. So now we just rent space in a newer building and only take up one floor. My commute is better and my office is bigger. There are only two things I miss about the old building.

Thing One: The Kitchen Aid ice maker. That machine produced the most perfect ice in the world. I used to not even like ice, but the older I get the more I appreciate what it brings to the table. In the new building we have a nice big newer fridge with ice in the door. Except that I work with some serious ice lovers and so the fridge tends to run out of ice very quickly. There are a couple of people who buy bags of ice so we always have extra on hand. Still, I miss the ice maker. I think I need to install one in my house.

Thing Two: Bathroom privacy. The old building had bathrooms on each floor. Each bathroom was spacious and had one large stall. So if you walked into the bathroom and someone was in the stall you either went to another floor or you waited in the hall until they were done. This meant everyone could do their business in private, just like it was meant to be done. Now, the bathroom we (ladies) have to use contains three stalls. And since there are thirteen women on this floor, it’s rare to walk in there and find it empty. I don’t know about you guys, but I like to do my business in private. I avoid public restrooms as much as possible. And I especially avoid doing that which shall not be named in public. (even typing that makes me shudder) However, when you spend nine hours in a building, some things are just unavoidable. And since I know the bathrooms are cleaned daily, I’ve just learned to accept it. There are some things though that I just can’t accept. And that is having an audience during said time.

If I walk into the bathroom to do that which shall not be named, and there is someone already in there, I leave and wait in the hall until they come out. If someone comes into the bathroom while I am doing that which shall not be named, I freeze and go silent and pretend that if I make no sudden noise or movement I won’t be noticed. Kind of like how you’re supposed to do if you’re ever near a Tyrannosaurus Rex and you don’t want him to eat you alive. And then once that person leaves, I can go back to doing that which shall not be named. This had been working just fine for me until recently. Suddenly, out of nowhere, my coworkers have decided that they want to be all chatty and shit whilst doing their business. And I just cannot do it. I don’t mind conversing while washing my hands, but I just can’t carry on a conversation while I’m sitting on the toilet. And it’s equally unnerving to me when I can hear that person doing that which shall not be named (sometimes loudly) and trying to talk about how she can’t believe C@sey Anth0ny was found not guilty or how she can’t believe we can’t wear flip flops to work anymore. Just stop it. Do what you came in here to do and save your conversations for the break room.

I really miss the old bathrooms.

I miss cake. And cookies. And butter.

I’ve never eaten so many bananas in my life.

If I win I’m booking a trip to Seattle.

So Twitter is all abuzz today over this article written by Maura Kelly on the Marie Claire site.

It’s pretty harsh ya’ll. And insensitive. And Yvonne said it best when she said: “replace “obese” with any other group of people and ask yourself if that article would have ever made it to print”.

Here’s an excerpt from the article:

So anyway, yes, I think I’d be grossed out if I had to watch two characters with rolls and rolls of fat kissing each other … because I’d be grossed out if I had to watch them doing anything. To be brutally honest, even in real life, I find it aesthetically displeasing to watch a very, very fat person simply walk across a room — just like I’d find it distressing if I saw a very drunk person stumbling across a bar or a heroine addict slumping in a chair.

I’d like to say that I’m a person with rolls and I like to kiss my husband. And if that disgusts anyone, I don’t care. I find the Mike & Molly show to be entertaining. Do I wish that we could have a show where the main characters are overweight and/or obese and have it not be the focal point of the entire show? Of course. But as we all know, that’s not going to happen any time soon.

Another thing that really bothered me was this:

No one who is as fat as Mike and Molly can be healthy. And obesity is costing our country far more in terms of all the related health problems we are paying for, by way of our insurance, than any other health problem, even cancer.

Just because you’re obese doesn’t mean you have a string of health problems. Sure, I’m not ignorant to the fact that there are many health problems related to being overweight. I get that being really overweight is not healthy.

I will tell you this though, I’d be willing to bet my right arm that of all the employees at the company I work for, I am probably the cheapest to maintain on the health plan. I haven’t been admitted to the hospital since I had my tonsils taken out at age 5. I’ve never broken a single bone. I’ve never had pneumonia or mono. I’ve never had reason to visit the Urgent Care or the ER as a patient. As I sit here, I can’t remember the last time I was truly sick. I think my last trip to the doctor was about a year ago for a kidney stone. It was a $20 copay and a $5 prescription.

When I take a look at those around me, more often than not it’s my “thin” friends who are constantly in a state of unwell. I’m not gonna call anyone out, but I take notice in how often someone updates twitter or facebook with their status of being sick again. If I had a week long cold or illness every other month I’m pretty sure I would lose my mind. I can’t remember the last time I took a sick day at work.

So yes, I’m very overweight and I struggle daily with this. But for Ms. Kelly to say that we should just eat better foods and exercise to lose weight… well that’s pretty much equivalent to telling an anorexic person to go have a milkshake and some nachos. It’s just not that simple. And as someone who battled anorexia, she of all people should know this.

I really hope Marie Claire can see the err of their ways with this article and do what they can to prevent something like this from being published again. This is NOT how you want to become a trending topic on Twitter.

This post is going to be a vent/rant. Please do not read any further if you are not in the mood for something like that.

Facebook.

I stayed away from it for a long time. Even after I joined it I didn’t really see the need for it. It was great for reuniting me with people I’d gone to school with or had lost touch with, but I was not interested in updating my status daily. Or hourly. Or sharing a lot of personal information with those people. I still don’t link my blog to it.

Over time and through mass quantities of boredom I’ve spent more time on the site. I love looking at pictures of my cousin’s fast growing baby. It’s also how I find out things about family members I wouldn’t otherwise know. So while I don’t totally hate Facebook anymore, I’m still not about to be on it all day.

I recently discovered Lamebook.com. Oh the joy this site has brought me. It’s a potpourri pot of all the worst things out there on Facebook. And by worst I mean funny, ridiculous, stupid, and well… more stupid.

So I find myself looking at my own Facebook, searching for a little gem I could forward on to the site. So far nothing has really popped up that would be worthy. What does pop up? Let’s just say if your English teacher was reading your Facebook you would get a big fat F on your spelling test.

Facebook is not a text message.* It’s also not Twitter. You are not limited to 140 characters to say what you want to say. Also, since when did punctuation become a thing of the past? I understand that we get in a hurry or we make mistakes. Or like me, I throw grammar out the window often because I choose to blog the way I talk and not the way my English professor would have wanted me to turn in a paper. No one expects you to be perfect. But is it too much to expect a period now and then? Or maybe a comma so that things like this don’t sound so, um, inappropriate?

image from lamebook.com

And don’t even get me started on the run on sentences.

im gunna go see my bf this weeknd bcuz hes been outta town an i miss hm and were gunna go 2 the movies and eat popcorn and then maybe go see his mom and dad and then who nows luv u bebe!!!!!1

That was a mild example. (also, it seems the exclamation point is the only punctuation that actually gets MORE action on facebook.)

I also can’t decide if it bothers me more when it’s adults or kids/teeens/tweens.
On the one hand, when it’s an adult I want to tell them that they should know better.
However, when it’s a kid… specifically one who is in junior high or high school I want to shake them and ask them if they do know better. You know, to make sure the public (or private) school system isn’t failing them.

I know this doesn’t bother most people the way it bothers me. And maybe this means I need to relax and not let it bother me so much. Or maybe it just means that I should go back to not being on Facebook.

*I realize that a lot of you do send updates to Facebook via texting. This should still not be an excuse to cheat on proper spelling.

Of course the magical menstruation pony* would show up the day before BlogHer. You couldn’t come during your regularly scheduled programming time of oh say, last week. No you had to pick today. As if I have all this extra room in my suitcase for things like tampons.

I suppose if not today it would have happened the moment I stepped foot in the Hilton hotel with the other 2000+ women who will be at BlogHer.

BlogHer: syncing women’s periods since 2005.

Maybe instead of Go Girl, I can get Diva Cup to throw me some swag.

*the magical menstruation pony is in no way affiliated with sparklecorn, the also magical but less offensive unicorn.

I’ve been selling a bunch of stuff on ebay this past week. To both clear away the clutter and to help fund my upcoming trip to NYC. And as I usually do with my auctions, I just sort of guesstimate the shipping cost. And then I try to add on another buck or two to cover ebay and paypal fees. (unless I’m purposely doing a free shipping auction)

So I had this small Fossil crossbody purse that I bought at their outlet store last year. It was a fairly inexpensive purchase, and it’s ended up being something I just don’t use. So I listed it on ebay with a starting price of $8.99 and shipping price of $6.

Of course I had hopes that it would sell for more, but let’s just say it wasn’t one of my big ticket items.

Annoyance #1: Someone actually had the audacity to email me and ask me if I would give them free shipping on the item. Are you kidding me? I would like to actually make money on this transaction lady. I replied that I could not offer that since I didn’t know what the final sales price would end up being.

The person who ended up winning the auction actually got it for $8.99. I guess no one else was interested in it. Ok fine.

So I take the purse to the UPS store to ship it USPS Priority. I like to send my ebay stuff Priority because I know it will get there in 2 days. And as a person who frequently buys from ebay, I know how nice it is to get stuff fast. In the past I’ve always taken my stuff to this little gift shop in Jenks that has a post office set up in the back. There’s never a wait like at the actual post office and they are so nice. Well now that my company moved out of Jenks and into Tulsa the closest place to mail is a UPS store right across the street.

Annoyance #2: The UPS store charged me over $12 to ship that little purse priority. I could have shipped it UPS ground for just over $11. But for a dollar difference I would rather send it priority and know when it will get there. If you’re doing the math you have just realized that I made no money on that sale. After paypal and ebay fees I made nothing. It may have even cost me money. I mailed two other similar items and walked out having spent $30. I was quite annoyed.

Lesson learned: The UPS store will no longer have me as a customer.

I sent Thom to the post office today to mail two other items I’ve sold. One was going to Tennessee and one was going to Canada. Canada! He also had to purchase bubble envelopes to send them in. The grand total? Less than $7. On the one hand I’m a bit remorseful that I charged that lady in Canada $10 shipping. I really had no idea how much it would cost so I was protecting myself. On the other hand I’m all… well at least I made some money back from those other auctions.

I’m sure everyone is shaking their heads at me and telling me I should have known how expensive the UPS store is. I really didn’t. I honestly didn’t think they would upcharge me. The Bleu Door gift shop never upcharged me! I’m actually considering driving all the way back to Jenks from now on to mail my ebay stuff. I’ll gladly use up my entire lunch hour to avoid being ripped off.

and these are the things that grind my gears (line stolen from Family Guy)