SB + WW = effective weight loss?

Well, I picked up the book South Beach Diet: Supercharged by Arthur Agatston, MD. It has a lot of great principles, and I'm starting out fresh with new, healthier food and SB's guidelines. To go along with their guidelines, I'm also going to stay on the points system as well.

If you've been living under a rock for the past 5 years, the whole premise of SB is a three phase plan. In the first phase, you stop eating any and all carbs, and refined sugar is a huge no-no. In the second phase, you re-introduce healthy carbs (yes, they exist) into your diet, and in phase three... Well, I'm not sure about phase three yet. I'll let you know when I get there. Anyway, if you're trying to lose 10 lbs or less, you skip the first phase. It's for people who are overweight, with a considerable amount to lose. Since I'm not really overweight (my bmi puts me in the healthy zone), I'm moving straight to phase 2. I've already hiccuped a few times, I had too many carbs this morning in the form of fiber and I didn't think to look at the sugar content in my vanilla soymilk. But, alas, it was nothing that will throw me off the bandwagon yet and I'm hopeful. I'm just going to adjust my diet for the rest of the day. The diet called for 1 good starch (my F1 cereal counts as a good starch), and 1 peice of fruit every day. So, I'm just going to stay away from starches and eat fresh for the rest of the day to make up for it.

Here's the WW breakdown (reminder: I have 21 points per day)
Breakfast
original F1 cereal, double serving (oops, not on purpose. I'm going to eat half of what I had today in the morning)- 2 pts
Lowfat Vanilla Soy milk (didn't check the sugar...)- 2pts

Mid morning snack
Dannon Activia Lowfat Blueberry (not a bad midmorning snack! A little high in sugar, but I'll switch to a sugar free brand next time)- 1 pt

Total: 5 pts
15 points left

Lunch
South Beach Living Caprese Style Chicken (score 1 for me! I had this in the freezer for a long time ago. It was good!)- 4 pts
1/2 Granny Smith Apple- 1 pt
Water- 0 pts!

Total: 5 pts
10 points left! Go me! I have 11 points for the rest of the afternoon!

Weight Watchers...?

Well, I'm still trying to lose weight! I've gotten down from 149 in February to 142 as of right now, so I'm very happy that I've lost 7 lbs! Does it sound like a lot? Well, no, but those 7 lbs were very hard to get off my body.



In celebration, I ordered my honeymoon bikini:

Let me just say that I look nothing like her. Absolutely nothing... As a matter of fact, my left thigh weighs as much as she does. But, I'm comfortable with how I look in it, and that's all that matters to me.

But, I did discover something very cool. I found that they have a weight watchers calculator here, and I remember that my magic number with WW for the points system is 21, so I think I'm going to start doing the points system again... I might even start journalling here!

Let's see how it goes...

Starting out: 21

Breakfast:

Reg. coffee with sugar and non-dairy creamer: 2 points

Glazed doughnut: 5 points *dies inside*

Total left after breakfast: 14

Dude. I'm never eating doughnuts again. What was I thinking?!?! I only have 14 points to get me to the end of the day. I'm going to die.

Lunch:

Amy's Kitchen Non-Dairy Rice and Bean Burrito: 6 points

A handful of fresh salad w/ Wish Bone Salad Spritzer in Aisan Silk: 1 point

Diet Coke: Big fat 0!

Total left after lunch: 7

Not bad! I'm taking a piyo (pilates + yoga) or spinning class tonight so hopefully I will burn off that doughnut and it will be as if it never happened :) Plus, may I say that that 7 point lunch was DELICIOUS! It was so yummy, AND it was filling. I went to publix on my lunch break and I was happy to find that they had their bags of salad mix on sale 2 for 1. So I'll be eating meals like that a heck of a lot more often! I also bought enough of those burritos to last me until the end of the week.

happy me :)

I'm trying really hard to be good and eat right. I also realized that this is something I'm going to have to put my faith in God about, even if I think it is too shallow and silly to worry Him about. I prayed on Thursday that God would help me curb my appetite, turn to him for comfort instead of food, and make the right choices. Since then, my appetite has been noticably smaller and for the most part I've been eating healthier. Lunch wasn't that bad, but I didn't eat a lot. Now I just need to start exercising.





Waist: 30"


Hips: 40"


Weight: 144 (lost 1 lb!)





1 lb in 2 days isn't bad!

Motivational picture:

On vacation, August 2004. Look at how narrow and

delicate my face was, that's what I want again.

blargh

Oy. vey. I tried on my wedding dress on Tuesday night, and my beautiful silk, embroidered confection of a gown doesn't ZIP UP! Sadface... Just when I got on a role with cooking and have gained some confidence in the kitchen, now most of the stuff I make is a no-go and my waistline is suffering the consequences of cooking good food. So, on top of an outlet for therapy and an online cookbook, blogger is now going to be a food diary and support system for that as well. I have to find lighter recipes and learn to cook with more respect for my body. The trick will be doing that, all while making things that Jason won't turn his nose up at.





Once a week I'm going to do a check in with my weight and measurements so I can chart my progress.





I'm so sad :( This means I'm also going to be breaking a sweat on a regular basis... Something I absolutely abhorr doing. One thing I'm going to make a point to do is lots of abs. I want to build up my core for more than one reason. 1) to look hott in a bikini, and 2) to improve my posture before the wedding





The good thing is, I'll have a sexy little body to show off some cute clothes with this summer. It appears that we're going to Miami for our honeymoon, and I don't want to look like a tourist in boxy, bulky clothes that hide my figure. Since I've gained this weight, I've lost all self esteem and feeling beautiful, compared to 4 years ago when I thought I was skinny, tan, and goregous. I felt irresistable, now I feel like a boring housewife in boring clothes. I think I need to make a point to post a motivational picture on a regular basis, so I can motivate myself to achieve big things. For me, I think the biggest motivation will be pictures of myself before I gained all this weight, so I'll remind myself that I haven't always been this way and I can do it again.

First motivational picture:

One of my senior pictures. I weighed 120lbs. PS: I am totally growing my hair out again.

I'm so dissapointed in myself

Next month, Jason and I will have been engaged for a year... Something I waited two whole years for after meeting Jason, and my whole lifetime before that. I've gotten so caught up in planning the wedding, family drama, and the frustration of life as it happens that I've lost sight of the fact that I should be blissfully happy right now. I've waited for Jason and the moment he gives me the first kiss as my husband. I want to take a moment to stop everything and reflect on my life leading up to the (what should be) the happiest year I've experienced and the first year of the rest of my life.
I don't remember the moment I became acutely aware that somewhere, there was someone out there that God had created with me in mind. I think I first started thinking about it with the introduction of the writer Victoria Holt into my life. All of her books are about a protagonist in a 19th century setting who isn't neccessarily the most beautiful or popular girl in her town, but she is smart and clever, and I always likened myself to her characters. Her books generally started when the main character was a child, when the first action happened in order to begin a chain of events that lead the reader throughout the rest of the book. Almost always you saw her characters meet a man and get married. If it happened early in the book, the relationship was doomed. If it happened later on in the book, the protagonist had to go through a lot of pain and hardships to find the man she was meant for. I started reading these books when I was around 12 or 13, and I remember falling haplessly into the storylines, especially into the relationships between the protagonist and the usually antagonist-turned-love interest. I would finish the book in 2-3 days, and then I remember sitting in my room or outside on the porchswing placing myself into those storylines and that maybe one day the perfect man for me would appear in my life.
That was also around the time I began to develop into a woman, and my body and mind began to change and mature. At my church we did a whole weekend about purity and I went to several Christian camps where we talked about sex and abstaining. With the girls, the main thing that they talked to us about is having that knight in shining armor out there waiting for us, and our honor and innocence was the greatest gift we could give them. To all of the other girls (who were cynical and in public school), they scoffed at this and probably lost their virginity by age 16. But to me, this cemented into my mind an idea that there is someone out there very special, and I had a very strong feeling that they were thinking about me as well, even if they didn't know who I was. When I was 13, my youth pastor's wife encouraged us 7th grade girls to make a list of all of the things we desired in a husband. We were encouraged to write everything from the very serious like religious and denomination affiliations to the silly like what his shaving habits were. I did this, and prayed for that person on that peice of paper. My prayer was two-fold. One was that God would give me someone that fit all of those things on my peice of paper, and the other was that God would protect that person's heart and mind and give them comfort, because I didn't want them to be lonely for me like I was for them. I don't really remember what all was on that list, except that I found it when Jason and I first started dating and I wept openly because it fit him to a T. Nothing on that list was left out. But Jason doesn't come in til later.
As life moved on and people came in and out of my life, the boy factor eventually played into the picture. When I was about 14 or 15, I met Elizabeth. She was everything I was not. She was friends with all of the boys, she was popular with all of the girls. She wasn't neccesarily beautiful, actually she tended to be on the gross side, but everyone seemed to love her. She was the girl that was friends with all of my friends, and they all liked her better than me, so I spent my teenage years in their entirety having my friends choose someone over me, and pointedly kicking me out of their social circle because she told them to. The reason she is the first frienemy I had is this: I had no reason to call boys at 14. I didn't want to have a series of stupid high school relationships that would make me bitter and angry and in the back of my mind, I thought about the person I would be spending my life with one day, and I would be dissapointed if they had dated every girl he could. I could have had boyfriends, and lots of them. I didn't grow up in my town, so even to this day people regard me and my sister like we have this shroud of mystery around us. I just chose not to. Now I look back at the guys I could have dated then and laugh. They have all dated every girl in the town atleast once, they all have gained TONS of weight and have dead end jobs and a lot of them have been on and off of drugs (even though they were squeaky clean and innocent in middle/high school), and I would be embarrassed to say I shared my first kiss, first anything with them. When Elizabeth discovered I wasn't interested in joining the great boy race, she couldn't handle it. Did it mean the boys weren't good enough for me? That I was too good for them? What was wrong with me? It also seemed to put me on a different level of competition with her that has lasted up until today. How dare I suggest that I might be "too cool" for something she loved so desperately? In her mind, it was her responsibility to deem things "uncool"... And even until now, we've had a rocky back and forth relationship where we'll be friends for 5 minutes, long enough for her to attempt to make me feel beneath her and inadequate. I respond by getting up and leaving, no response, and it puts her in her place. She comes back around several months later like it never happened, and it begins again. Anyway, this isn't about Elizabeth. Moving on.
When I was a few months off of 16, I met my first high school boyfriend. His name was Austin. He was a few years older than me but in maturity a few years younger. He came from a family trying to make their way up the social ladder in the upper-middle crust of Birmingham. His family was(is) deeply religious, and I met him at a church function. To be completely honest, I was still hung up on the idea that somewhere my husband was waiting for me, and I wasn't interested in dating this big, bulky, awkward, red-headed, pimple-faced thing in a baseball cap that wanted to date. He was 2 years my senior at 17 and a year ahead of me in school. At the (constant) pushing of my mom, I gave him a chance. It was my first experience with a guy, and it wasn't easy. Our relationship went immediately from fun and frothy to heavy and hard to bear because he struggled with depression and had narcissistic tendencies. I spent 2 years pretty much crying and in pain the whole time because he would lash out at me because of his angst and anger towards his parents. I also lost about 20 lbs because I was so anxious I could barely ever keep anything down. I wasn't bulemic, I just literally couldn't swallow anything down when my nerves were so bad. Pair that with the fact that I had a borderline eating disorder (body dysmorphic disorder) thanks to him threatening our relationship if I ever gain weight, and to say I was miserable would be an understatement. Throughout our entire relationship I thought forward to my wedding and wondered if this is how I would spend the rest of my life. Naturally, since I was with him for so long and he was the first, I didn't know how bad I was being treated and had deluded myself into believing that I was happy. I always thought about my list I made, and while I had convinced myself that things like that were silly and childish, I always had a sense of unrest about being with Austin forever. Finally, I escaped from the relationship burned very badly with a lot of baggage right before I graduated high school. For the record, he has grown into a great person and I'm proud to say he was my first boyfriend. He protected my innocence and all I lost was a little time while I was with him.
The months that followed leaving Austin were hard. It was my last semester of high school and I wasn't sure who I was without Austin. I didn't mourn for our relationship at all.. 3 days, max. To be honest, my heart had checked out several months before everything else did. Even still, I had been the girlfriend of a football player and baseball player at a notable school in Birmingham for so long that I didn't know who I was when I wasn't decked out in their school colors or making care packages to send with him for away games. My mom got me into a psychology class at the local junior college to sop up some of my spare time, and I started meeting guys and making new friends. Unlike a lot of my contemporaries who were getting out of long term high school relationships, I didn't go crazy after we broke up from all of the newfound time, freedom, and attention. My thought process now was, "well, if it wasn't him... who is it?" I never felt like I would be a girl that would wait until my late 20's-early 30's to meet the person I'm meant for. I always thought I would be young, as did my mom. One major deal was that I chose to save myself for marriage, and how long can relationships really last with out sex? Either you get married or you break up. I knew that either I was going to be in a long string of not very serious relationships, or I would meet the man of my dreams soon and settle down quickly. My mom really did know it too. She sensed it coming when I didn't even have anyone in my life.
After a few not very serious relationships, I met Jason. Looking back, if you had told me in those early days that Jason, the young college boy with spikey hair, a rice rocket, and a bad attitude was going to be my husband one day I would have 1) laughed, and 2) run like you-know-what. He was the friend of one of the guys I dated post-Austin, and that guy had done me very dirty. We started out as friends because he befriended me during that time and it was entirely platonic because he had promised himself to another girl who wasn't allowed to date him because of his age. Sure, he had a bad attitude, hated school, and was immature and a little on the wild side. But he respected my innocence and found it attractive. Instead of considering my innocence attractive and wanting to take it away, he wanted to wrap it up and protect it from all of the evils in this world. He was protective, which was one of the many superlatives on that list and one of the first things I noticed about him. With Austin, he wasn't neccesarily as protective as he was controlling. His way of protecting me was limiting my experiences and keeping me on a shelf somewhere, only to be seen by him. Jason encouraged me to go out and experience, but with any issue or problem he was there waiting in the wings to support me. When we finally began dating, we knew immediately that we wanted to be together forever. Most of Jason's friends expected us to be married the following summer because we became serious immediately. Everyone else expected us to either get married really soon, or break up because of how fast things fell into place. But things just clicked with us. It just worked. I remember wishing I could look into the future and see us where we are today. I always wondered what my wedding dress would look like, what Jason would looking standing at the end of a church aisle in a tux, who my bridesmaids would be, everything. I longed for the future so much, but time flew so quickly that it would seem like I would blink, and another 6 months would pass. Because of Jason's sort-of-rebellious ways and bad attitude thanks to his friends early on, he would go between talking about our wedding to these periods of time where he refused to say I was even a possibility for marriage. I would always sneak to the Walmart on my side of town for fear of being caught by his friends and look at wedding magazines wistfully, thinking about the day that I could buy as many of them as I want. Years passed from that, and our relationship has had it's ups and downs, hills and valleys, but as we've gotten closer, the "if" we get married became a "when" we get married, and we began to plan a little here and a little there. We would plan for our future a little bit, then he would freak out and we couldn't talk about it for months. Then we would start talking about it again. Nothing I longed for more was to get engaged, and I would get so overwhelmed with sadness and jealousy when I found out that my friends were getting married. Now of course, looking back, I'm glad we waited until we did because the people I knew that were getting married then have either gotten divorced, are inundated with children, or live very strange lives where they go out and party like single people with no responsiblity, but they're married. When we moved home from JSU the semester after Jason moved there to be with me, that was the summer that everything really came together. We made it through a point where we almost didn't make it, and after that happened we just seemed to pull through with flying colors and ended up happier than ever. The most important thing was that Jason and I had grown up and said "goodbye" to some of our childish, college-kid ways and habits we had picked up from our friends, and that breaking point where we were either going to make it or we weren't happened when we became 2 real human beings with real needs that had to be addressed and we stopped trying to keep an image with the other person. The biggest change with this was Jason because he stopped trying to be Joe Cool, Mr. Hardbutt, Mr. Insensitive and began to actually bear his soul every now and then. Not very often, but better than never. The following autumn Jason decided it was time to move out, and that was the huge kicker. Living at home with his parents up until this point had kept Jason in college kid land, the land of no commitments and bad attitudes. His mom has a tendency of spoiling and cottling him relentlessly, so he remained in some sort of timewarp where he never took responsibility for himself and everything was done for him. When he moved out on his own and he was doing his own dishes, his own laundry, and his own cooking, something in him changed almost in a snap. He literally went to bed one night a boy, and woke up the next morning as a man. When this happened, it went from hem-hawwing and refusing to take responsibility for the continuation of our relationship to BAM! it's time to move things along and get married. We almost immediately began to look for engagement rings, and the following April we got engaged. during that whole time, I wanted a wedding magazine so bad Jason had to practically drag me away from the magazine aisle wherever we went. I will never forget the first time I bought a wedding magazine. I almost wept tears of joy, I was so excited. I bought a Modern Bride magazine and a Martha Stewart special that focused on how to choose your wedding colors. Fast forward almost a year of battling over colors, wedding size, reception size, location, vendors, guest list, and everything in between, and here we are. I have my beautiful wedding dress and soft, simply sweet veil. I have 4 bridesmaids who I know will be in my life forever (whether I like it or not), and I am marrying the most beautiful, perfect, handsome man that God has ever created with another person in mind. He is everything to me, and as we learn more and more about each other and I find a new complexity to his nature, I find one more thing that fits me as a person beautifully. A fit-throwing, back-stabbing, drama-inducing, silly, spoiled college boy has evolved into a strong, quietly-confident, ever-loving, ever-sincere, ever-sensitive man who would do anything to pull the two of us through. I think manual labor has knocked the silly spoiledness out of him. What was once a pimply, bulb-tanned face with eyes wide with opportunity is now a face tanned from the sun, covered in stubble, and eyes softened with wisdom and sincerity.

Second Wind

At the Confirmation Retreat I attended on January 5-7 of this year as a volunteer, I wound up learning as much of the kids. I had harbored a resentment against God for losing my dad up until that point, and I didn't trust his plan for my life. My rationale was, "what were you thinking?!!? if You completely turned my life completely inside out, taken away almost everything I hold dear. Why on earth would I trust You with anything else?" The resentment I harbored wasn't based in anger... It was even worse. It was based in disappointment and sadness. But at the Confirmation Retreat, we had a very special ceremony for our 6th graders who are going to be confirmed here on April 6th. Each of the children's parents hand wrote them letters about how much they love them and how they've prayed for them since the moment of conception to come to find Christ. Before we gave them the letters, the exec. pastor of our church sat down with our kids and explained the death and ressurection of Christ in vivid detail. Then we went and sat around a campfire and the kids were encouraged to think about what we talked about because we were all (including the staff) very emotional. At any rate, the kids were in a melancholy mood and weren't very social or talkative anyway. After that, we walked back to the cabin (we were staying at a camp retreat here in Birmingham). I remember walking in before the kids, and it was like as soon as the door open and I stepped inside, I felt the Holy Spirit there. I've never felt anything like it before, but later I found that other people felt the same way. I feel that to each person, it felt different. To me, it was this overwhelming sense of love and comfort that immediately drove me to tears. I've never felt anything like it before. I felt all of those walls that had built up towards God crumble in one fell swoop, and what was once an angry, dull ache that simmered under the surface burst into this feeling that I had been stabbed in the chest. As I prayed for the kids who were recieving the letters from their parents at this point, The Comforter began to work through the pain I felt. I won't say I began to make sense of things or that I was healed, but I looked my monsters in the face and acknowledged them. I was being looked in the face by God, who is Kindness, Mercy, and Compassion, and He told me it was time to come home. Not in the sense of dying and going to Heaven, but in the sense that I've been a prodigal long enough and that it was time to give it up. When my argument was that I was sick of hearing the cliche that He had a plan for all of this and I just couldn't see it, I was gently reminded that sometimes those cliches are what they are because they're the truth. All I had to do was close my eyes and fall into his plan unabashedly, and the peices would fall into place.

Ever since that night, I have developed this hunger and thirst for anything the Lord can show me. I started doing a Beth Moore study in February with other girls my age, and it has opened a lot of doors and shown me a lot of scripture that I didn't even know was there. Every time I read it, it had a profound affect on me and little by little, has changed my life.

So, introducing the purpose of this blog, these are my favorite Bible verses I've discovered recently:

Exodus 34:9
"The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thosands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin."
(God said this about himself to Moses)

Daniel 2:20-23
"Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever; wisdom and power are his. He changes times and seasons; he sets up kings and deposes them. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning. He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with him. I thank and praise you, O God of my fathers: You have given me wisdom and power, you have made known to me what we asked of you, you have made known to us the dream of the king."
(Daniel praising God)

1 Corinthians 4:1-4,6-18
"Therefore, since through God's mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. It is written: "I believed; therefore I have spoken." With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence. All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."

Mark 10:42-45
"Jesus called them together and said, "You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

1 Peter 5:6
"Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you."

My mom is such an attention whore...

I c&p'd this from a thread I started on the nest, but it's about the bachelorette party/gno/lingere shower I threw for my mom.

My mom had a huge mental block up about it being a girl's night. I told her from the very beginning that no men were invited and we were going out stag. With the exception of her, her sister, and one other woman, the other women that were coming are all single and miserable, so I just felt like it would be the best way to celebrate my mom's upcoming marriage without making most of her friends sad. The women that are still single have been single since before my dad died, so it's really bittersweet for them to see my mom being the first to get remarried even though she's been single the shortest amount of time. They're really happy for her, no doubt, I just wanted to be sensitive to everyone's sensabilities so everyone would have a great time.Anyway, my mom pushed the guy card and pushed it and pushed it and pushed it because she's a stage 3 clinger and didn't want her fi out of her sight over the couple weeks leading up to her party. I finally compromised and had a little mini-boys night at my house at the same time as the party so the husbands-of would have something to do (even though they really could have just taken care of themselves), then when the evening was over they would meet us back at the restaurant so everyone could go their seperate ways.

So I told all the women to be at Superior Grill at 6 and not a minute later to set up and all be there for the shock factor, and mom and I would arrive around 6:30. We get there at 6:30 and 2 women had flaked out and the rest were late. Only my mom's best friend and her sister were there. We had reserved tables out on the patio so we could hear the band, and the band hadn't even gotten there yet. It was kind of an anti-climax. The evening went great after that. She opened her gifts, we ate, we laughed... Then at 7:30 on the dot. one hour into the festivities. my mom started in on calling the guys. 7:45, 8:00. She was like, obsessing! She also got drunk off of the margaritas and called out one of her friends for talking about herself too much at her bachelorette party. At first she was having me call my fiance, who was with the guys, but when she realized that when she wasn't getting her way, she just started calling her fi herself. Every thirty minutes. Finally at 9:00 they left my house and got there at 9:30. As soon as my mom's fi, my aunt's husband, and jason showed up, my mom went and sat off in a corner with her fi and forgot about her friends, so they bolted asap. They seemed just a little bit hurt by my mom's over the top behavior. By that point I had had it with my mom's AWness and bitchy attitude so since everyone was getting ready to leave, Jason and I got in the car and went and sat somewhere to wait for them to be ready, and they were supposed to call when they left. 30 minutes passes, 1 hour passes, no call. So I call my mom and come to find out they had left superior grill and were getting breakfast at ihop. Not the whole group, just her and her fi. They ended up spending an hour and a half there, and it was late and Jason and I couldn't afford to go out, so we ended up keeping his parents up at his house waiting for my mom to come get me (I still don't have a car).

That's the last time I do something like that for her for a while.

My poopy doopy

I can't believe I've had this blog since before christmas and I've never talked about my pride and joy...

My sweet baby...

The light of my life...

My little furry bundle of joy...

Registered as Great Brittain's Humphrey Bogart...

Weighing in at 13lbs...

Otherwise known as my little hunky dunk, Bogie!

He turned 1 year old on December 13th, and our 1 year anniversary was January 27th. He's incredibly smart. He knows how to sit, stay, say please (beg), drop it, and is house broken even though we haven't had one training session. We paper trained him when he lived with Jason in his apartment, but when he moved back into Jason's parent's house with Jason, he house broke himself. His favorite activity is chasing his tail and playing fetch with his stuffed armadillo. He responds to 3-word sentances. People may say that dog's don't understand words, but I swear he has the vocabulary of a 3 year old. My favorite thing he does is when he hops up and down like a bunny because he's really excited about something instead of jumping with his front legs, or when he tries to use his front paws like hands because that's what he sees us doing. He has a very strong pack mentality and is the peace keeper with me and Jason. He knows Jason's the pack leader, I'm the second in command, and he's the squirt at the bottom of the totem pole, so he tries to keep us together and is happiest when we're all snuggled up together on the couch. It freaks him out when Jason and I are upset with each other and he seems to get worried when Jason and I are in seperate rooms. I'm not sure if it's a behavioral problem or an anxiety problem or not, but it's really endearing.

Jason and I decided we wanted to expand our family in January of last year. We really wanted to take our commitment to the next level, but we couldn't afford to get engaged yet. We knew it would be a huge undertaking, so we researched different breeds for months to find the right one for our personalities and our situation. Jason grew up with a shih-tzu and ever since she went to puppy heaven he has wanted another one. By the time she passed his parents were a little older and didn't want the undertaking of raising a puppy. He was in high school and wouldn't have had the time to do it himself. Now that we were out of college (later, Jason would go back but do online classes only) and had regular jobs, we felt like we were ready time-wise and fiscally, but we also felt like we were emotionally ready to invest love and time into something (or someone) else jointly. We felt like we were ready to love something else warts and all. Before we had Bogart, we felt like there was a little hole in our lives. It wasn't that we wanted something to love jointly, we needed it. We weren't financially ready to get engaged, so we certainly weren't ready for a family. But we had already been together for (at that point) 2 1/2 years and the need was there.

We researched and researched and literally pined for a puppy of our own for about 3 months, when we finally found a breeder close by. We had initially wanted to use a shih-tzu rescue, but we really wanted to start young and they didn't have any available that were any younger than 2 years old. The breeder was reputable, trustworthy, and had a long line of happy families with happy dogs. They also just happened to have a mommy dog that was due in the middle of December, which would mean that they would be ready to go home the last week of January. Jason wanted to give me a puppy for my birthday, so this was perfect. After a lot of communication back and forth and a rather lengthy interview, we were finally approved to pick out a puppy of our own. We went to meet the puppies the day of my birthday, and even though they were so young they already had very different personalities. We finally picked our puppy out, a docile tri-color that seemed to just want to snuggle rather than be hyper and play a lot. After that, we had 2 1/2 weeks to puppy-proof our home, and make sure we had everything we needed.

We finally picked Bogie up at 10:30 at night on January 27th. It was cold and wet, and we were so tired! We had to drive about an hour to get out to the farm the puppies were born on, but the ride back wasn't that bad. We went straight to Jason's mom and dad's house to show them our little bundle of joy. He was restless the whole car ride back to Birmingham, but as soon as Jason's mom held Bogie in her arms, he quieted down and went to sleep. We found during the night that followed that he was a very good sleeper, and didn't cry for his mom and siblings. He has been one of the best things to happen to mine and Jason's relationship, and has changed our lives forever.

More pictures of Bogie:

This is Bogie at 5 weeks when we picked him out. He looked more like a gerbil than a puppy!

This is Bogie at 8 weeks when we brought him home. He grew so much in that short amount of time! He is so handsome!

This is Bogie at around 3 months old. He was so cute! (He still is :))

my goodness.

These past 7 days have been awful. Last Tuesday was the anniversary of my father's death, Wednesday night I had my accident, and Monday I found out that not only did I total my car, but I also found out that the people that hit me filed a claim and since I have liability, no one is paying for my car.

Then today is my mom's bride's lunch that her office is throwing her, and I stuck my foot in my mouth really bad at work yesterday. I can't even bare to talk about it but it was really bad not-pc infront of someone older and I just keep kicking myself and hoping I didn't offend them.

Last night I didn't get enough sleep because I swear it was the apocalypse outside. It was like 3:45am and it sounded like the whole world was crashing down. By the time I was drug out of bed by my mom and made a little blanket cocoon for myself on the couch, it was downgraded from a tornado watch to a severe thunder storm. I was grateful then and went straight back to bed, but today I realize that it being so quick means that the winds were really blowing strong in order for it to move by so fast.

uuurgghhh....

This is kind of after the fact, but I'm going to share anyway. It's my blog and I can do what I want. On wednesday night, I was in a wreck and I totaled my car. The damage to my car actually more than doubles my car's worth. What's worse, the insurance agency refused to ensure the ol' bucket of rust any more than liability insurance. So, since I only have liability I won't be filing a claim with my insurance agency, so my family and I have made the unanimous decision to shoot it like ol' yeller, sell it to a scrap yard, and get something more reliable. I have ZERO money to spare with the exception of my tax refund coming at some point, so we'll see what happens. It has to be soon though because I need something to get back and forth to work in.

I was thinking about it though. These are all the reasons why this situation might actually be in my favor:
1) My car was a 98 model, had over 200k miles put on the engine, and had cracks in the oil gasket that couldn't be fixed because those parts aren't manufactured anymore. It had one foot in the grave when we bought it, and the engine was going to die at any minute. The fact that my wreck happened when it did, how it did, was a blessing in disguise because if my car died in 280 traffic, I could have died from the wreck that would have happened. That thought scares me.
2) Jason and I have talked in the past and we have realized that my car would need to be replaced very soon. We also realized that if anyone was going to get a new (to us) car, it would have to be in these first couple of years pre-kids. The car we get now will probably be what I'm driving when we start our family.
3) This is probably the only way I would be getting a new (to me) car. I'm never the type to buy a new car just because, and I only see my car as a means of transportation.
4) I essentially pay a car payment in my gas bill every month driving 45 miles a day, plus the cost of having to have my car filled up with oil every two weeks thanks to the leaking gaskets. I'm not going to miss the money, I'm already spending it.

Food for thought... Warning- lots of Christian Theology. Read at your own risk.

I started the Daniel bible study by Beth Moore yesterday, and some things Beth talked about last night are weighing heavy on my brain. The gist of the study so far is that we will be taking Daniel's story which happened around 600bc and applying it to our lives as young women in the 21st century. It sounds like a long shot (I mean, can you imagine Pres. Bush throwing someone in a pit of starving lions over disobedience to the law? ...Ok, don't answer that) but in our first chapter I've already taken a lot from it. What she said has colored my world differently. If you've never done a Beth Moore study before, basically you watch a 1 hour video of her speaking at some sort of retreat or event or something, and you have your notes in your student book with spots to fill in words and things like that. A lot of small groups will spend another hour after the video discussing it and applying it to their lives, but we didn't. We chose to leave soon after the video was over so our minds would be on it and it would be fresh to us through the whole week. Another thing the study has is about a page of book work for 5 days out of the week.

The biggest thing she talked about last night was over indulgence, and this is the theme of my blog for today. She talked about how Babylon was a physical place then, but while it has lost all of it's beauty, charm, and power as a physical place (I mean it's literally the pit of Hell right now, Babylon is modern day Bagdhad), it has become an attitude and a state of mind. In terms of Babylon's "attitude", the first thing we looked at was the description of Babylon's people in Isaiah, where he said their attitude said "I am, and there is none besides me". Basically, Babylonia was a selfish, over-indulgent, id-centric people. They worshipped their patron god by having sex on his altar, and their priestesses doubled as prostitutes (I believe I read that they considered sex with a priestess purifying). They ate only the most decadent of foods, and held money, fame, intellegence, and beauty before all else.

Before I continue, I need to throw in a conversation I had with a good friend (and the minister who is officiating the wedding) so you will understand the vein I am following with this. It's fairly deep Christian theology, so my feelings won't be hurt if you dip out, but consider yourself warned. Basically, in the Old Testament, God's relationship with people was of a physical nature. Not sexual-physical, but literally had to do with people, places, and things. God had a chosen people, like, literally a whole nationality or a country. He promised them land, as long as they observed His laws and worshipped Him alone. He resided in the holiest of holies in His temple in Israel, and you had to come to the tabernacle in order to purge your sins (by sacrifice), and worship Him. His commandments were of a physical nature- basically don't steal someone else's stuff, don't kill someone, honor your parents, etc. In order to maintain a relationship with him, and you had to continually burn sacrifices to levy the weight of your sins. Then Jesus came. According to prophecy, He came, He lived, and He died. When He rose on the 3rd day, the curtain that seperated the holiest of holies from the rest of the temple was rent top to bottom, and that entered humanity into a new covenant with God. When Christ talked about the 10 commandments in the New Testament, he added to "love your neighbor as yourself". It sounds simple, but that literally means think of those around you as often or more as you think about yourself. Put that person before you- if they're hungry, feed them as you would feed yourself. If they're cold, clothe them as you would clothe yourself. It sounds elementary, but it is actually very deep. What was once an entirely physical relationship with our God, where we had to buy our salvation by the dropping of blood on the altar is now an entirely spiritual relationship with God. Our salvation is forever bought and paid for by the shedding of His Son's blood, and we no longer have to make these physical sacrifices in order to come into God's presence. Where we once had to travel 100's, sometimes 1000's of miles to worship at the Tabernacle and make sacrifices, now we can simply bow our heads and pray or sing a song from wherever we are because of the Holy Spirit, and that is described in scripture as a fine incense in the eyes of our Lord. Before God's chosen people were literally a nationality, now we are all God's chosen ones because of Christ. Where the promised land was literally a city on a hill in the middle east, now our promised land is Heaven.

So, my question is this: If Babylon was a physical place in the Old Testament, is the Babylon of today a spiritual/mental place? I believe it is. The thing is though, I don't believe it's an American train of thought. I feel like our culture as a global free-thinking society (whether it's America, England, France, Italy, Sweden or anywhere else that's out from under the thumb of a dictator) is a modern Babylonia. It says in the first chapter of Daniel that the book's namesake was chosen because he was a blue blood, handsome, intellegent, young, and trainable. Those things made him the most qualified for the job and were the best superlatives to have. In our society today, what makes us the most qualified? Who we know, being beautiful, being young, and being trainable. People lose sight of the fact that God created us all differently and gave us all gifts to be used. The most "usable" people are the ones with the most face-value.

My next question is what is over indulgence in today's society? In the old testament, it was literally food and sex. Daniel, Shadrack, Meschack, and Abednego went so far as to refuse the highest luxury of the land- food from the king's table, and chose to live a vegetarian lifestyle in order to buffer the culture that lived off of over abundance and to set themselves apart. I think this is a question that could easily be answered with a sunday school cliche, but I'm not here for that. I really want to know what the things are in the 21st century that encourage us to lead the lifestyle because I think it's a whole lot deeper than food. If our relationship with God is entirely spiritual as upposed to only physical through Christ, I feel that self-indulgence runs deeper than anything tangible. I feel that it is at the very root of our beings.

How will I apply this to my life? How am I over indulgent? I know I am over indulgent to the point of being obsessed with food. But is the type of food I'm eating the problem, or is my attitude towards food the problem? I think my problem with food isn't the food itself, I think it's the feeling it gives me. I allow it to comfort my pain instead of turning to God to comfort my pain. That sounds kind of like the proverbial golden calf to me. I'm looking to something tangible and physical that looks good, feels good, smells good, and tastes good to cure a very emotional, mental, spiritual pain. As I'm typing this, I'm realizing that not only is this breaking one of the commandments, it's also very stupid. How is something physical and tangible going to heal a wound that is deep down in the core of who I am- deeper than skin, muscle, tissue, or bone? If you use antiseptic and bandaids to cure a physical boo boo, what do you use to cure a mental/spiritual/emotional boo boo? I feel like this particular issue has the potential to become a stronghold in my life if I don't ax it now. A prime example is this morning, and I'm still shaking in my boots a little over it. It freaks me out just a bit. I got out of bed and my mind was still running a mile a minute over the study from last night. I was considering the meaning of self indulgence when all of the sudden, it hit me to the point of slapping me across the face -literally, it jolted me to the core. I was wondering what I would eat for breakfast. I know that's not a huge deal and is an everyday question for many people, but here was my red flag: I wasn't hungry, and I was relishing the idea of putting something delicious in my mouth waaay too much for it to be healthy. My thought went immediately to this new doughnut chain that openned up about 5 minutes from the office, and once it was there in my mind, it never left. I was all about it for about 5 minutes when I remembered the commitment I had made to myself and my small group to be less over indulgent. That's when the crap hit the fan. Every couple of minutes the thought would run across my mind, and every time I felt it in my bones. By the time I got in the car, my insides were shaking. At that moment I resolved that I would fast until the feeling went away, however many meals I would end up missing. Not only did I resolve to, I felt like I was being called to. So, I decided to do a liquid fast. The whole entire way to work, it plagued me. It almost paralyzed me. An excuse I could make for myself would run across my mind, and I thought of several loopholes I could jump through to feed my need. Every time I passed somewhere that I could turn at to take me to a bakery, I felt some of the pressure come off. I got inside, passed up on chik-fil-a biscuits, and finally took one of my co-workers up on her offer of a jar of chicken bullion cubes over the microwave she keeps here to make chicken soup in the microwave. I prayerfully drank my breakfast, and after I did my Bible study for the day the feeling was gone. I ate a normal lunch (albiet a little more healthy than usual), and I feel incredibly pure and relieved. I feel like I've been washed clean. I think that's what I'm going to do. When I feel the temptation like I did this morning, I think I'm going to fast for that meal whether it's a hard, no food fast, or simply a liquid fast.

How else could I be over indulgent?

And just when I thought it couldn't be any harder...

...to be happier for my mom.

My aunt (dad's sister), my sister, and my tag-along mom helped me put together save the dates last week, and my aunt (dad's sister) pretty much hog-tied me into having a shower for her. I ran with it and decided to throw her a "Lucky in Love" shower since she's going to Vegas for their honeymoon, and have vegas-style shower games and stuff like that. Well my mom runs her fat mouth to my OTHER aunt (mom's sister), and she decides that she likes the idea better, but she doesn't want it to be a shower. She wants it to just be a party. So she hijacks my shower idea, but isn't even throwing her the $%^&^ shower, so I have to come up with ANOTHER clever idea. This is like the 10th time something crappy has happened to me over their damn nuptials!

PS- why the hell is she even getting a shower? She has a whole house full of house-making stuff.

Vent over.

The rudeness of it all!

It's been a while, but I haven't had much to complain about. I've had a pretty good January so far... Until what I call EmilyPostGate.

So maybe wedding planning has made me into a wedding etiquette nazi. Maybe wedding planning has turned me into a great big paper geek who has learned to appreciate the delicacies in life- such as a nice thank you note in the mail on pretty stationary, or a properly worded invitation that tells me what to wear, not to bring my (non existant) kids, and what kind of reception to expect, all without saying nothing of that nature at all. I don't see myself as going overboard, suddenly being one of those Junior League ladies-in-training with my hair in a chignon, attending recipe book fundraiser luncheons or the like. I've just learned that in the south, tradition is still very important and if you dot your i's and cross your t's, you can spare someone's hurt feelings, confusion, or even anxiety. I think it can be summed up as this: etiquette is the art of telling others everything they need to know without saying anything at all.

On the other hand, there is the other bridezilla in my house. My engaged mother. She is the tazmanian devil of all that is wedding planning, chewing up and spitting out anything and everything that you could consider a southern wedding institution. Second wedding? She wants to wear white. She has two grown children. Invitations? She has done a formal invitation ("so and so and so and so request the honour of your presence...")... On Microsoft Paint. She's not printing it. She's inserting it into e-mail. A formal e-invitation.
...
...
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I just wanted to give you a second to soak that in, because it took me a minute to shake off the shock myself. Okay, so we have a white outfit for my obviously non-virgin mother and formal invitations (e-mailed, no less). You think full blown wedding, right? Nope. They're simply exchanging vows after church on a sunday morning... But they're asking (read: making) all who plan to attend to come to church first. They're not even putting the time of the wedding on the invitation, just the time that church starts so people will have to come to church first. Reception? sort of. They're having a pot-luck lunch with close family and friends in the fellowship hall afterwards. I actually don't think this is a horrible idea. It is, after all, the second marriage of two people in their 50's. They don't need a caterer, cake, or a band. The interesting thing is, though, is how are people going to know to bring a dish? Where will they put it during church? How will it stay warm?

So, I said to myself "maybe she doesn't know that she is spitting on all that is holy"? I thought that maybe if I offered to help I could help her make some better decisions and save her a little bit of embarrassment. I suggested that instead of doing formal invitation wording on a file made on microsoft paint, to do a wedding webpage on http://www.mywedding.com/. She said that she thought it was a great idea, but asked me to do it for her because she didn't know how. I password protected it so only people who were given the password could access the webpage. Instead of doing all of the formal wording, I did something very laid back and more like a note to friends, but with the same form as invitation wording. I also set up a page so people could RSVP, a guestbook so people could respond on if they were going to bring something to the lunch, and a page for directions. It's not exactly something that Martha would approve of, but I thought that would be a happy medium between those who actually give a damn about convention, and those who run right over it. Plus, the webpage itself was beautiful. Mywedding.com has a lot of new layouts, a few of them where you can actually buy the stationary to match.

You would think that would be a happy medium, right?

WRONG. She hated it. She sent me like three emails asking me to put her wording in, and actually got a little freaked out about it. I finally just sent her the login info and suggested that she tweaked the webpage to her liking. That was yesterday around lunch, and I haven't heard from her about it since. I'm scared to look.

The thing is, the grevity of the struggle I've had with my mom has snowballed over the past few months. Her and her fiance were broken up for a while, and during that period we were fine. She was loving, we ate lunch together, it was great. The day they got back together, it all went downhill. So, I went to a Christian counselor a few days ago at the request of my pastor to deal with the pain of that and mourning my dad. We talked about a lot of things that I'll save for another day, but the big point was that my mom works on reciprocation, so I've developed this sense that if I'm given anything (emotionally or otherwise), I have to give back with interest, or if she doesn't give me anything (again, emotionally or otherwise), it means that I'm not loved or cared about by her. He suggested some immediate ways to deal with her directly while I try to heal myself, and one of those was to deal with her above all of those rules. Give when I can, only what I can, and expect nothing back. On the other hand, don't play into her reciprocation games. Accept what she gives me graciously, say thank you, but don't let her use it as a form of power over me. Basically, treat it as a business transaction.

So, I reached out and did that for her, despite the feelings I've been nursing over the past several weeks of not being loved or cared for by her, and she threw it in my face. One thing my counselor said that really helped me through that and guarded my heart from being hurt more was this: "people are responsible for your reactions. Every time your mom acts out, yells, or holds something against you or over your head, those are emotions that she allowed and that she is responsible for. Likewise, every time you are hurt and develop feelings of being alone and lost because of her behavior, you allowed those as well. Look around you, you have one person who loves and supports you for every time your mother has ever let you down or hurt you. You are not alone, and you have Christ. Therefore, you are not lost either."

Two-fer...friday?

I'm back in the same day! Holy cow!

I came on because I wanted to talk about what's going on in the media that has me laughing my butt off, etc.

The first thing is I want to talk about my new CD that I got for Christmas and how aaawwweeeesome it is. It's the new Alicia Keys CD called "As I Am" and it is crazy awesome. I can't get over it. The intro to the CD is FIERCE. It's a classical piece and it's just the piano, then about a minute or two into it a whole rock band kicks in, so it's like a symphony but cooler. It's some well-known classical song, but that's not my field of expertise. My favorite songs on there so far are "Lies, Lies, Lies" (the first track), "No One" (numero tres), and Lessons Learned featuring John Mayer (numero... cinco? I don't remember).

Secondly, I know this has been harped on and harped on for the past like, week, but I have to weigh in as well (even though nobody's even reading this, I'm sure)... Jamie Lynn Spears is such a hooker, and everybody's kind of acting like it's perfectly normal. Maybe it's because of the fact that there's such a celebrity baby boom going on right now that the general public is used to pregnancy rumors, announcements, bump-sightings, etc. The bottom line is this: a girl being pregnant at 16 is not a good thing. It doesn't matter if she's a star, or if she's never left her hometown of Smalltown, USA. The most disturbing part of the whole situation is the fact that there are rumors circulating now that the baby isn't Casey Aldridge's, that he's being paid off to take the blame even though he and JL have allegedly been broken up for several months. Who are they saying is really the babydaddy? A Nickolodeon Executive directly responsible for JL's show. I don't think I have to point out the problem here. What I think we're seeing here is the result to an underlying problem that JL's family needs to address now in order to prevent her from becoming Britney, Jr. There has been hinting that JL dated Casey when she went through her "wild period". No doubt, there are kids out there that go through a rebellious stage. But at 16, still presumably under her mother's roof, this really shouldn't be happening. I don't think this situation is rehab-worthy, but it will progress to that in a short amount of time if they don't watch her close and guide her in making better decisions.

No more whining... Okay, maybe I lied.

Yaaaay! Christmas is overrr! I've decided. I don't hate Christmas. Actually, I *love* Christmas Eve AND Christmas Day! I just hate the month of December leading up to it.

Christmas Eve was great. I got up early, went and got breakfast, and chillaxed at the house until Jason got off of work at 12. He came over and he and my family exchanged gifts, and we just hung out aalllllll day and didn't do a dad-gum thing (with the exception of making the perfunctory Christmas stop at the liquor store) until it was time for stuff with his family that evening. We even got to take a nice long nap and would wake up in intervals to watch the Christmas claymation movie marathon on TV.

That night we met Jason's family and close friends for dinner at TGI Friday's, like we do every year. It was really nice! Afterwards we went to one of the family's houses for coffee and cordials until it was time for church. The service was beautiful! One of the associate pastors spoke, and it really rung true in my heart. It was about the meaning of the Christmas story and it was meant for people who had begun hating Christmas for various reasons. We also had communion, which was nice because I haven't taken communion in months. There was only one thing that might have been the fly in my proverbial glass of pink chardonay.

The girl that Jason wasn't allowed to date and was in love with anyway for about a year was there, causing a scene as usual. The thing was, her parents wouldn't let her date him because of their age difference (even though it was the same as ours) and because they didn't think he was "good enough" for her because he aspired to be a teacher rather than a business man. So they did the whole Hatfield-McCoy thing. Finally, almost a year later, he met me. Not only could I date him freely, but I wanted him to be whoever he wanted to be because I wanted the freedom to be whoever I was going to be. You can't put those expectations on people and expect them to let you be what you want in return. So it took about a week for him to leave her pompous, pretentious butt for me. (Seriously, it's like that Misery Business song. To prove my point, you can find the lyrics at the end of this entry.) Ever since then, she's had a hit out on me and done everything in her power to wiggle her way back in because she thinks that she can steal him back from me just as easily as I took him from her. She has instant messaged him regularly asking when he would be "through with me", when we broke up for a short period of time a few years ago she jumped in the very next day after we called it quits, she's stalked him on Facebook for well over 2 years. On Christmas Eve, she wasn't really in our faces because I was there, but she made sure to be in Jason's line of vision the WHOLE time. She would glare at him and walk back and forth in front of us as if she were on a very important mission. VERY important. Jason didn't even notice, but I couldn't help but laugh. How desperate and childish can you be? It was cute and caused serious drama when she was 18 and it was our first Christmas together, but almost 4 years into it and he hasn't even looked her way and it's just kind of desperate. I almost wonder if now it's not so much about Jason but about putting me in my place, that she was here first... Trying to show the world that Jason chose the wrong girl because she's better than me. But if that's the case, why would he have chosen a hot dog if he could have filet mignon? All I have to say about it is that the proof is in the pudding, and if I'm supposedly the "hot dog", I sure have lasted a long time... I must be one hell of a weiner.

Anyway, on to better and brighter things, Christmas Day was FABULOUS...ish. I got up with mom and sister on Christmas day and opened gifts, and spent the rest of the morning in a house with tension as thick as a knife. Mom was miserable, therefore we were ALL miserable. Her spoiled brat fiance was out of town with his kids, and he called her several times throughout the morning to complain about their bad attitudes, their good-for-nothing husbands, and his under-achieving siblings with alcohol dependencies. Of course, my larger-than-life mother with a messiah complex wanted him to come home so she could fix it (also because she was having a fit because he chose to go spend time with his children instead of staying in town for her). My sister was developing a stomach bug and missed my dad, so she spent most of the day holed up in her room watching the Project Runway marathon. My mom and I had static going between us the ENTIRE day. She did everything in her power to make me feel like crap after the initial gift swapping tradition (in retrospect I wonder... was she acting like that because I was actually enjoying my Christmas?). She sulked over lunch, was angry because I made sugar cookies, sulked because she wanted to watch the Lifetime channel and I didn't (it goes without saying that we watched the Lifetime channel. She acts like I'm the bad guy, but I don't even fight her on what she wants anymore). The only time she seemed happy and relieved was when I was heading off to Jason's for Christmas. Her behavior would make sense if I was pouting, sulking, and throwing fits (sound familiar?) but I literally just sat around with vaseline on my teeth and hot chocolate with a double shot of amaretto in my hand and internalized EVERYTHING. I can't even begin to believe how spoiled, tempermental, and childish she behaves. But analyzing her strange behavior is for another day, I just avoid her like the plague and go on with my life because I've spent the last 21 years of my life with a guilt complex because my mother has always acted like I was a horrible person and I could never figure out why (it has come down to this in my opinion: between my sister and I, I am the least like her and I don't let her manipulate me).

Jason's family Christmas was wonderful. It was all glowy and warm with my favorite people, and to me it is the epitome of what Christmas should be. Lots of people, lots of laughing, lots of food, lots of presents. I felt the love more this year than any other at their house, and I feel like I am finally a part of their family.

uuuugh.

I was talking to the ladies at the office today, and I came to realize something. I have never gone to a church and easily made friends and enjoyed my stay there. I've never had a problem at work, I'm not antisocial and I don't really have a hard time making friends, so I'm not totally sure why this is the case. But at every single church I've gone to since elementary school, I've had trouble with my peers, especially the girls.

When I was in elementary school, the problem was that my family was poor so my clothes were outdated and while they were well-maintained, they weren't pretty and delicate and trendy like the other girl's clothes. I was also really awkward and didn't take singing lessons or dance lessons like the other girls did so they didn't relate to me. As I got older and we left that church because of the damage our stay did to our whole family (it happened to my sister and my parents, too), we found a church in the town we moved to subsequently and began attending there.

By this time I was in middle school and was old enough to go into the Youth services. At first it wasn't so bad... At first it was the whole "new kid" thing where they were all attracted to the novelty of someone that's not from the area. But after the honeymoon wore off, once again I had the girl problem. I got on great with the adults because I loved learning about the scriptures and had a knack for theology, and even in middle school I had a very strong sense of right and wrong. But with the kids my age, the girls came to blatantly dislike me to the point of telling me so, and I'm still not completely sure why. I never tried to be the center of attention, I never chased boys and wouldn't have dreamed of chasing someone else's boyfriend, and I wasn't like the other goody-goody's in the youth group that tried to shove their beliefs down everyone's throat. My attitude has always been to lay under the radar. Still, I have very strong memories of the preacher's kid telling me that my dress was ugly infront of the whole youth group (which if she said that to me today, I would have told her where she could kiss off and walk away), my cousin telling me to go away forever and leave her alone infront of the whole sunday school class (again, as an adult I weigh these things much differently... But at the tender age of 14 it hurt deeply), and a girl who would later try to become my friend and then stab me in the back turn the whole youth group against me because the boy she liked was interested in me. My mom always told me it was because I was a really good girl, and once they figured out that I wouldn't try to start doing the "wrong" things, they got bored with me... And later became threatened by me, and began to feel that I looked down at them from my ivory tower because of their own guilt complexes.

But the thing was, I never really made the conscious choice to be different or be good. I think they saw it that I thought I was above boys and makeup and clothes and friends because I was so pious that no one could keep up with me. But in reality, I was incredibly scared and awkward, and my mom had built this innate fear of girls into me that if I became good friends with them, they would pervert my mind and I would end up doing drugs in a van by the river. She never really put the thought in my mind that I could make my own decisions, she just kind of gave me this feeling that I would become evil by default just by hanging out with other girls. I don't think she did it intentionally. Her control issues are a well-understood problem now, but in retrospect I didn't know that mothers shouldn't be such micromanagers. I didn't really have much of a childhood because I spent much of it having very adult opinions crammed into my head, picketing news stations and gay rallies with my mom. To her, it was a vantage point and a pride issue to have her 8 year old lobby about the benefits of a child welfare bill being passed through senate. There were no cheerleading clinics and dance classes for me, there were books and videos about the American Government and my mom's best friend whom I called "aunt" that came to my house and affected me in a very positive way- she just oozed of feminism and equal rights. I had a difficult time going from being a little girl to a teenager, so I didn't wear makeup because I wanted to hold onto my youth a little longer. We couldn't afford fashionable clothes, so I just didn't wear them. I didn't know I was supposed to care. Plus, when other girls were reading nothing but Baby Sitter's Club and American Girls, I was reading books on Lottie Moon and Anne Frank and Eleanor Roosevelt... So I had nothing in common to talk to them about.

Then I finally got fed up enough and left that church and began attending the super-mega-church down the road and made the worst decision ever. I met my first boyfriend within the first month of attending there. Not only that, but he wasn't the atypical boy the girls on this end of town approve of as boyfriend material. Super-mega-churches usually need a wealthy end of town. That's how they become super. So, naturally, the kids in the youth group there are perfect and beautiful and the girls start out being groomed as young as five years old to recieve the following things before they graduate high school:
1) A superlative in the year book atleast once, if not all four years. Preferrably a superlative that has to do with their apperance/personality. IE: Best Personality, Most Attractive Couple (see next point), Most School Spirit.
2) Exclusively date atleast one football player, preferrably the captain. If not, a member of the starting offensive line. Snag "most attractive couple" superlative atleast once, if not go for prom/homecoming/whatever king and queen. Bonus points if the relationship with said football player becomes long term.
3) A snap bid to sister's, mother's, aunt's, and grandmother's sorority at Alabama, Auburn, or Tennesee upon graduation. Bonus points: if said sorority is Phi Mu, Alpha Gamma Delta, or Zeta Tau Alpha.

Now, while my first boyfriend was technically a football player, he was by all means not in the cookie cutter mold of what the other girls approved of. He wasn't very physically attractive, he was shy, not very funny, and didn't have that flirtatious knack with women of all ages (be they 5 or 95). All the way around, he wasn't exactly known for his social skills... As a matter of fact, he was better known for his lack thereof. He hated social situations, so we just didn't go to them. I ended up kind of being lumped with him in their minds because they didn't know me that well, and they had been around him enough to get an idea of how un-cookie cutter he was. By the time he and I had broken up two years later, I had a very difficult time keeping friends at the church. We broke up six months before I graduated into the college ministry, and I found that it was ten times more presumptuous and clique-ish than the youth group was. By then, people were marginalized into where they went to school, and they were all of the most prestigious schools in Birmingham. I was literally the only person in the entire room that attended the HUGE community college down the road, and that read as "poor" so nobody wanted to have anything to do with me. I came to learn that the college ministry there was all about networking, and people made friends with you depending on how prosperous they considered you to be. The girls kind of stuck together and would only accept other girls if they were equally as beautiful and empty-headed; and the guys were playing executive even though they're still in college by getting together for golfing trips and calling in favors from wealthy uncles, etc for their friends. Looking back, Super-Mega-Church reminds me of an Apple that has been eaten from the inside out by worms- on the outside it is shiny and delicious looking, but on the inside it's nothing but filth and rotting flesh.

2007 and JLH

I started this blog because I was blogging on myspace and it has become it's own social monster for teenagers and 50-somethings alike, so I just didn't feel like it was the place for me to be thinking introspectively. It almost felt like sitting in the middle of the front aisle at Walmart trying to read a book or something. So I packed up and moved over here to blogger where I've had a few blogs in the past but I had a hard time sticking with them because I felt like I had to write in them every day and it got depressing because there was never anything exciting to write about.
I guess the first thing I can do is rehash what has happened over the last 352 days.

January- I turned 21, got Bogart for my birthday from Jason. It was the first time Jason and I had ever directly opposed anything my mother tried to tell us to do. We're still alive, the dog survived, and a hell of a lot happier and better connected with Jason's parents because of it.
February- Jason got his new job. It didn't happen to me directly, but it did directly affect us because it was his first real job and he was able to save up money for our next big landmark...
April- Jason proposed! He proposed on his family's really good friends (almost like his aunt and uncle)'s 25th wedding anniversary and my aunt's birthday, so we were able to go announce it to both of our extended families and it turned into a day of celebrations. I also quit Janie & Jack, where I had been working for like a year. Seemingly not a big deal, but I was really good friends with the store's general manager and she had become an alcoholic/popper and started a lot of fights and was talking behind my back. I didn't see how toxic as a friend she was at the time and asked her to be a bridesmaid. But once I left, I saw how much I had changed and worked on chiseling away those bad habits. She fought a heeelllll of a lot with her husband and I didn't realize it, but even her habits with her husband had began rubbing of on me and that had affected mine and Jason's relationship as well. I got a job at a local bakery that only lasted 2 weeks, and left without a backup plan.
June- It took me this long, but I finally got my job that I have now and it has completely changed my life. Before I came to work at the church and I was working at Janie & Jack, I had become extremely jaded by Christians and church in general, even though I am one myself. I was attending a local mega-church and was completely lost in the crowd, while at the church I grew up in that is in my hometown people had begun circulating gossip about me thanks to my sister and her big-mouthed bitch friend Jennifer. It had already begun to a certain extent the year before simply because to them I had fallen off the face of the earth and started doing things closer to the city. Even though I was active in my new church, they just assumed I wasn't in church at all and ran me out of Leeds with their new, young sociopath youth minister who was but an intern when I was coming through the youth program. Well even though Jason and I were engaged, never went out, never did anything, and spent all our time sitting in front of the tv and playing video games, they had decided I was living a life of promiscuity. Granted, I did stay with Jason for a little while over the summer because of problems with my mom, but that was none of their business and they didn't care to check on me and make sure I'm okay... They just spent a lot of time and energy discussing it behind my back. But anyway, when I got my job at the church it seemed to right a lot of the wrongs in my heart and helped me recover from the hurt. I'm still extremely angry and sort of bitter towards the hometown crowd, but I know it's not Christians in general but that group of people that look at me that way. I also learned a lot about God's forgiveness and loving me for who I am.
August-We finally set our wedding date: July, 12 2008. We changed our date about 4 times! Jason and I also started volunteering with the youth program at our home church. It did a lot of good for our relationship and ourselves and our relationship really changed for the positive. I began having a really hard time this month missing my dad. We also started struggling with Jason's family over wedding plans and what Jason and I plan to do once we're married. The money issue, along with the family struggles and missing my dad eventually lead to a huge depression on and off that lasted through the rest of the fall. It also resulted in a bit of a riff between me and Jason's mother because he had to stand up to her about her issues with micromanaging our wedding. Jason and I started having big problems getting along over familial issues and my mom had began starting fights between us by putting evil little thoughts in my head and in her way manipulated me into running to her for comfort when she was pitting me against my fiance. I don't think she was doing it intentionally, but that she was miserable in her relationship with her fiance and would rather not see Jason and me happy.
September- Jason's rent expired and I had to move home. It was a horrible, awful experience. Fortunately, there was a bit of a honeymoon period when I moved home that my mom and sister were sort of glad to see me. I sunk into a full-fledged depression. Wedding plans halted for a while and people figured out that they needed to leave me alone. I had to cut back on where I had over-committed over the past few months and really focus on myself.
October- We got our engagement photos taken. Jason and I finally got into the groove of our new-old surroundings and developed a routine. The change in scenery really helped our relationship in some ways, but put a strain on it in others. Mom and her fiance broke up, and she became a nice, pleasant human being again after over a year of bitchy tirades and temper tantrums. It's amazing how relationships can alter your very being. Of course she still acted like a 3 year old most of the time because that's her nature, but it took the edge off.
November- Things lightened up for a while between Jason and I, and between me and Jason and his parents. My mom offered to pay for the wedding, which took the strain off of everybody. This was our first Thanksgiving where we were officially expected to be at family gatherings together, which was more of a strain than a joy. The day of was a disaster because the only thing we could think to do to make everyone happy was to be at ALL of the Thanksgiving dinners. Of course, to the people who we were already sacrificing our whole day off catering to, we were obviously catering to the other family more and being selfish, and how DARE we not be at dinner at 2:00 instead of 2:30 for the Turkey carving?! My mom was pissed because in order for us to be able to be there we had to break bread at 11:30 (we normally eat at 12 on t-day) and her new male friend (who wouldn't even make it to Christmas) wouldn't be able to eat with us. Boo hoo. Then Jason gets a call from HIS mother on his way to my house, where she throws a fit about the whole aforementioned 2:00-2:30 thing. Now, let me add here that my mom had NEVER hosted Thanksgiving before and Jason's family has eaten dinner around 2 since Jason was a kid. So, Jason's mom was a little righteous in her anger, and my mom was having another one of her temper tantrums. But, we were trying to appease everyone. Lesson learned: never gonna happen.
December- December has been weird. Horrible, awful, wonderful. December itself has felt like a year. Around the first week of December I really began to ache for my dad. I rediscovered my love for the arts and with that fresh raw feeling that comes from it only feeling half-full because the person you used to enjoy it with isn't there anymore. This is a feeling Jason is having a hard time interpreting from me, because he wants to fill that void. The problem is that I aquired my sense of wonder from the world and all things artistic and created and organic from my dad, and it was something we shared and excelled in. Jason is fascinated by some things and would like to be artistic, but with my dad and I it just flowed. I think we'll eventually be able to share it together, but I'm just now learning how to enjoy it without my dad around to bounce my thoughts off of and stuff. Of course, don't let this fool you. I spent most of my time wishing I could bounce my thoughts off my dad and sharing it with him, but he was so swallowed up in depression and had sort of turned to the sauce to take the edge off that in his last years he really just wasn't there. Mom reneged on her offer for the money. Not officially, but she dangled the dollar signs in front of my nose in the middle of an arguement just like she's done with me living with her and anything else she's ever had to do involving paying for something for me. So I called Jason crying my eyeballs out and we told her not to worry about it and we'll take care of it ourselves. This situation is to be continued. Wow, it feels really good to look back over the last 12 months and see how far I've come. It's really interesting, because you see patterns in your life that you wouldn't notice otherwise. I didn't realize until now that I've spent the last six months in and out of depression (inadvertently also struggling with my weight because I'm a comfort eater), arguing with my family, arguing with Jason's family, arguing with Jason. The thing I've also noticed is that I've been sort of provoked, that despite all of the conflict I really didn't have much to do with it, which sucks. Maybe in 2008 I won't be the target of everyone's anger. I don't know why I look like such a good target for people's frustrations, but it always happens. Maybe it's because I'm such a safe person? I'm even-keeled, I love unconditionally, I'm fiercely loyal. I'm not trying to brag, but I guess that's why people think they can unleash their rage on me and think a quick "sorry, dude" later will fix it... They think that when the dust settles that I'll still be standing there with my arms open. Whatev.

Moving on to other news... JLH. Yes, I mean Jennifer Love Hewitt.
This Jennifer Love Hewitt (duh):

Okay, I happen to think she is GOREGOUS. I think she is freakin beautiful, and I've never met her but her beauty seems to come from a terribly sweet and tender spirit. Her smile makes her glow and to me she is the closest thing to perfect a girl can be... Which is probably a hard thing to do if you're in the Hollywood industry. There are pics out circulating around the tabloid mills that show her as being "fat" and every fashion/hollywood/celebrity gossip blog have jumped on it and completely torn her to shreds. They call her fat, ugly, unattractive. TMZ cracked on her butt (no pun intended) and the presence of cellulite... The saddest part of this story is that she was in Hawaii with her new fiance, celebrating their engagement. I know you've seen the pictures, so I don't have to show you again. But I think she looks pretty! She doesn't look all hollywood-skeletal, but she's definately not fat. Plus, she has a great flat tummy! No six pack, but more than I can say and I don't consider myself fat! I think she's beautiful. Yes, there is some cellulitage, but who doesn't have that and has atleast 5% bodyfat. Puhlease. I think she's goregous and fabulous and I don't think she needs to lose weight. That's not the issue. If she wants to get back on hollywood (and TMZ's) good graces, she needs to hire herself a stylist and start dressing to accentuate her figure. Bandeau tops are not attractive on anyone over a size-B cup, and boy shorts much better for girls with a little more junk in the trunk. I don't think this would even be an issue if she was supporting her breasts better and all around dressing to flaunt her assets.

As for the people who have been attacking her left and right, especially the bitches at TMZ: they must either be size 20w women who have nothing better to do than to sit there and whine over all of the skinny bitches in hollywood and are miserable in their own personal lives, or homosexual guys who love nothing more than to sit around and pick apart every woman who ever graced the planet - because if they could get away with all of the fabulous clothes, shoes, and makeup available they would SO do it better. I'm not hating on ANYONE, I don't have a problem with homosexuality, and I'm not picking on big girls. I'm just saying it like it is... People tend to gossip and pick on other people when they either a) look down on them from their ivory tower, or b) are so miserable in their own lives they need to screw up everyone else's.

Leave that poor baby alone and jump back on the Britney bandwagon, for crying out loud!