Hot Mess Minimalist

So last two days I haven't been recording everything... so now I gotta get back on the books Weight the last two days: just shy of 160lbs Today's foods: Homemade granola with soy milk Noodles with chicken Yogurt Jelly Beans about 30 Handful of potato chips Lemonade Shortbread cookie Thin mint candies More than a handful of chips Gum Prediction for the evening: Cherry Coke Pizza

Weight at around 9:45 ish: 158lbs Blueberry bagel with cheddar cheese Tangerine shortbread cookie costco muffin 2 tomatoes Large handful of sugar snap peas 25 Jelly beans (I felt great till I ate these... darn it) Beef Jerky Chicken Noodle Salad Cranberry Juice Thin Mint Candies Icecream Popcorn! Tuesday: Pasta salad 2 Doughnuts Yogurt potato chips tomato 15 jelly beans Way too much starbucks ice cream Jack in a Box- Turkey Sandwich, Curly Fries Tomato

Weekend! Saturday V8 Fusion Chicken bagel (yay chick fila!) Jelly Beans (around 30) Pizza Choco toffee mac nuts BLT Limeaid Icecream mix from sonic Sunday No... I skipped tracking today, will begin again tomorrow. Taking my weight first thing in the morning.

Yogurt with maple syrup Trio bar Cheerwine sherbert Cheese and tomato sandwich 2 Mac-nut shortbread cookies blackberries Large piece of trout Tomato gum Animal Cookies yogurt Pasta with tomato sauce and chicken Coffee Ice cream I forgot to check my weight today, and I'm skipping calorie counts. I'll check my weight again tomorrow... probably early as during the weekend I'm usually doing stuff at 5pm.

1 Yogurt- 170 Calories Some Cheddar Cheese The end of the Potato Chips- 160 Calories Thin Mint Candy- 80 Calories 40 Jelly Beans- 160 Calories Sandwich of French bread, chicken breast, tomato, and cucumber Applesauce 2 Shortbread Macadamia cookies Piece of gum (sugarless) Handful of blackberries Apple with peanut butter about 20 sugar snap peas Tomato Hard candy Flavored Almonds- 150 Calories Chicken Breast, and collards with bacon Lemonade- 150 Calories Weight at 5:15 pm : 158.7lbs ack... I'll attribute this to changing the time I'm weighing in, more water, and more clothes (though the wii accounts for clothes) I actually did some of the activities today too. Wii yoga seems like a good plan in addition to walks.

So I mentioned that I was considering keeping track of what I eat, because I'm (normally) thin (though not skinny) but I don't necessarily keep track of what I eat, nor do I exercise like I should. So because I'd like to change my habits, and I think that tracking my eating helps, I'm going to change the direction of the blog. Well... I'm going to give this blog a direction, which it didn't really have before. Today I have eaten: 1 Trio Bar - 230 Calories 1 Yogurt - 170 Calories 1 V8 Fusion (since pregnancy I don't like normal V8 as much) - 150 Calories 4 Graham crackers (the whole rectangle) A handful of blackberries Medium piece of trout 1/2 cup cauliflower soup 1 tangerine 2 servings Sour Cream and Onion Chips - 320 Calories 3 Thin Mint Candies -80 Calories 1/3 pack of animal cookies -240 Calories 10 ish Hello Kitty Mango Marsh-mellows - 100 Calories (those little things are addictive, I was just going to try one, oops) Some Meatballs from Ikea (most of a...

So last about a week ago Harry got out of the house. It was a nice day, and I had multiple chores I had to work on outside, so I let him stay out. I left the door open for Zinc to come outside too if she was interested. Harry wandered behind a shed on our property and I went out to stop him from straying too far. He was very angry, the hairs on his back and tail were standing up and he was growling and hissing at me. We have a lot of "stray" cats in our new neighborhood. I met one of them last week who was a very nice un-neutered male. I suspect like him many of these cats have, or had owners. This really frustrates me, to know that people own animals and don't get them fixed, then let them go. I just don't understand where the attitude comes from that it's an acceptable practice. These cats have found their way to our house, and seem to really enjoy it. They'll cross the front yard, and run around in the back, sometimes hiding under the shed. So Ha...

So I've been terrible about updating this. Funny thing is I have several drafts of things I started writing, and never completed to publish. Well, now that the cat is pretty much out of the bag, I figure there is something that I have a lot to say about and would like to do it on the blog, as there are plenty of women going through the same thing and having interesting discussions and insights on it online. I'm pregnant. 17 weeks ago... so by funny pregnancy math he is 19 weeks along. That's right, he. Saw that at the fist sonogram a little after 13 weeks. It's been quite the experience, and I'm not even halfway there... and then there are the next 18 plus years. Sigh. So I wanted to start this off well now, because ever since Christmas my digestive system has been playing games with me. First trimester I was lucky. I'm unemployed, which I normally hate but it's worked out well for not needing sick days. During the first few weeks I felt nothing......

A few weeks ago while on spring break I believe I was watching the Today Show, and they were doing an interview about health that was a response to the whole movement toward "fat acceptance." The were talking to a woman who was not the "ideal" size, but ate healthy food, went to the gym regularly, and felt really good about herself. There was also a health expert (I think she was one of their normal consultants on the show), toward the end of the interview I think it was the consultant that said it is better to be healthy and chunky than a skinny couch potato. I'm pretty sure as soon as I heard those words I though "awwww... I'm the skinny couch potato." Really my weight fluctuates quite a bit. I have been at my "fittest" at two different times in my life. The first was after all the training when I entered the reserves. The second was after I came back from China the second time (when people asked my favorite foods I would say vegg...

So a piece of the reason I have not posted much is because I am getting married in March, and have been planning. Mainly though my lack of writing is because am earning my title of being a procrastinator. I just wrote a blog on the whole wedding planning experience to share with... well anyone, it was originally directed at readers of the Offbeat Bride group or "Tribe". Enjoy. Dear Offbeaters, I've been meaning to write something about this topic for a while, and Ariel's recent post finally triggered me sitting down and writing about all the things that have been going through my head for the past... two months, maybe three. So when Ariel titled her last set of Reader questions "losing interest in weddings". I was really hoping that the question would address bridal apathy. I know, I know. Crazy, right? A bride who acts indifferent towards her own wedding, how would that happen? I suppose it may be something many offbeats have dealt with in the world of T...

I am back in the United States. While hiding from most of the world till I become re-acclimated to this fusion of cultures on demand, before I get back to all the blogs I need to write because I was blocked from blogger in China, I want to write something about the issue on the top of every paper and political magazine around here... Healthcare. So currently I have no health insurance, or dental. I am looking forward to getting both of those things, because I want to get a checkup on both. I had an individual health care plan from around July to February of this past year. It wasn't too bad I payed $85.34 a month and had more coverage than I did previously with my employer. I think I was paying about the same amount out of my own pocket too, just after taxes in this case. Now I have to go through the fun process of looking for health insurance on these overwhelming websites again. It got me thinking that every member of congress who is considering these bills should go throu...

So I haven't posted for quite a while because currently I am blocked from blogspot in China. My fiance offered to post my blog for me, which is great as I have an awful lot to write about. This blog is sort of serving as my personal forum for my ethnographic field notes this trip, because I have no paper to write this time. Either my parents did a really good job, or a really bad job with me, because I have a very strong sense that I need to do everything I can to not inconvenience other people. Maybe it was Girl Scouts and believing that you should always leave a place better than when you found it. In college I realized that a lot of people really lack this sense of personal responsibility for the welfare of yourself and others, and environmental conditions. I was the person who when our communal kitchen sink was stacked with dishes, before our RA would throw them out I would spend Saturday morning cleaning them all. I remember thinking... if I wash them, so they don't ...

Nature is rather controlled in China. I can somewhat understand why. It seems that people are rather afraid of anything they don't know much about. They may allow the stray dogs to exist, but most people are afraid to touch a pet dog. I have been told not to go onto the small hill next to my school because there are snakes (never seen a snake, only a few run over, but I have heard plenty of birds in there.) Parks seem to be very strategic and planned down to the last shrub. Sure they get a little overgrown sometimes, but really, that's a rarity here. Hiking in the woods doesn't happen. A hike is always on a paved road or stairs. I may have mentioned to some people how it is that this city has changed so much in the past 10 years. How mountains were bigger, there were more woods, and their was more natural environment and areas for people to plant crops. Here are some photos, showing what I mean. The first is my students in front of the school, maybe a month and a...

The class that I teach here in China is a speaking English class. I often have my students interact to practice dialogues with each other, or come up with role plays. I think in large part for cultural reasons quite a few of my students will sit and read out loud to themselves. In one of my first classes where I did this type of exercise there were only a few students who were reading to themselves. I can recall thinking that I should tell them that they are not an island, and needed to interact with other students. Then I though... I should give myself this same advice. I think being brought up in America makes a person very independent. I think that in part the fact that we as a culture also value self reliance makes many people unlikely to ask for help. By this I don't mean asking questions or for directions. What I mean really is, when you can do something yourself as an American usually you will do it, you don't want someone else to help you, and take it on as bein...

So I've been in China for about a month and a half. I've had a rather interesting experience, that is somewhat out of the norm. So I ended up contracted through one of those agencies that they warn you about, because I was stupid and trusted the non-profit organization that I went with. So the way that I got here is I went though a non-profit organization in the states, who contracted with a company in Jinan, Shandong China. The people who work at this company are kind, but clueless. The visas everyone came in on were student visas, with 90 days on them. The state department specifically advises against teaching with any type of visa, other than a work visa. So we spent about a week in a hotel in Jinan and were slowly sent out to schools through out the country. So long story (filled with headaches, and most of the other teachers leaving the country) short, I was taken the other day to get my health certificate in order to get the proper visa. This was a trial to begin ...

So a lot of things have changed with me lately. Part of the reason I have stopped posting about veterinary care (other than being lazy) is because I quit that job in November. I have been just substitute teaching since then. However I am going to be teaching in China in February for a year. I am looking forward to it, but don't have a contract yet. So we will see. In addition to all of the career stuff that has been going on I got engaged. Twice! I am a non-traditional person and so is my fiance. At some point back in 2007 we had a conversation about what happens if I have a proposal plan, would that be a problem? He said no, and we talked about it more, and both agreed that we should both continue our own plans regardless of who asked first. So back in 2004 on election night we had an informal party to watch the results come in. The entire night my fiance sat on the arm of the chair I was in. He had been flirtatious before (he got the nickname fraternizer in college, and...

It's amazing that someone can come from my neighborhood and get the support of millions of people across the nation (which I would not expect coming from a "freak state") and around the world. That even today with all the information we - the American people - constantly have coming at us, with all the different opinions about what needs to be done to make things better; if you can get the message through to people, that you will fight for them because you know who they are and what they are going through, they will work with you to achieve your goals. They will help you to push through you're obstacles, in hopes that in the end you will improve everyone's situation, and make everyone's lives a little bit easier. Before this election I thought this type of grassroots idealism was next to impossible to accomplish in national politics. This inauguration proves that it isn't; it has been proven by a politician who played fair, who has fought to have his i...

Dear Pitbull with lipstick, hockey mom, Governor Sarah Palin, I admire you quite a bit as a person, it is very impressive that you have made your way into the political arena from the PTA, to become Mayor of Wasilla, then to become governor of the unique state of Alaska. All while having five children, and supporting your husband. You seem like a very interesting woman, and have a very different perspective. However, your speech tonight frustrated the heck out of me on a number of levels. Admitted I am not exactly your intended audience, being from the other freak state, and having voted for Linda Lingle because of her greater emphasis on eduction, realizing that because of the nature of our government she wouldn't have complete control on our state. I think it is absurd of you and your running mate to continue this argument on "experience". Admitted John McCain is one of the senators who has held his seat in congress for a very long time, and Obama and Biden have som...

I recently finished an excellent book by Barbara Kingsolver called Animal Vegetable Miracle . I really enjoyed this book, and found it to be a great motivation to attempt to change my lifestyle. The biggest step I am going to try to take is cutting beef (of unknown origin) out of my diet. This is going to take a while, as I'm accustomed to going to Burger King when I don't feel like cooking, and really enjoying beef jerky. It was a very fun book for me to read though, especially being a city dweller, and really made me appreciate farms even more than I already did. I am impressed by her family's dedication, but then again to me canning your own food is a foreign and even dangerous concept. One of the chapters in this book was on "harvest time" which was when the family harvested their roosters and turkeys for the year. In other words it was when they took the animals they planned to eat out of the flock, killed and cleaned them. I don't have any problem...

I dislike bugs. I like some of them and I understand that they are necessary, and very useful, but I dislike it when one gets into my house. My cats on the other had love them. Flies are the best. I just had two get into the house somehow, and they think they are the best to chase to play with and finally to eat. Zinc is the kitty in the photo. I actually cheated to get this photo. Harry had already eaten the fly, so I used one of their other toys to get Zinc's attention.