Lucky.....yeah, if you say so

Today as I was talking with a co-worker, she was telling me about how her teenage son is having growth spurts and said she hoped he'd end up as tall as I am. What?

I am always confused by people who tell me how lucky I am to be tall. I don't feel particularly lucky...I just happened to get good genes when it comes to height. It just happened that my tall dad (6'1) and short mom (5'6) mom made me and I grew to be 5'11. I don't feel unusually special because I'm taller than a lot of people, as a matter of fact growing up, and my height was a real pain in the butt. I was the tallest person in the 5th grade (even taller than my teacher) and there's always the stereotype that because you're tall, you're good at basketball. Well I tried playing basketball and I sucked at it. I did however get a trophy but I think it was more for being on the team than any outstanding playing ability.

Another downside of being tall comes when you're starting to date. Although some girls dream about finding a guy who's tall, dark, and handsome, how many guy look for a girl whose tall, lighter, and beautiful? Not saying they aren't out there, I'm just saying that when I did go out with a guy, I was mostly drawn to guys slightly shorter than me. Why? I have no idea. Even my husband is slightly shorter than me and he likes to joke that he got with me "to knock out the short gene in his family). I guess I can see where he's coming from considering that his mom is 4'9 and his dad is 5'9.

I guess we’ve all say this sort of thing one time or another; see something in someone else we wish we had or were able to obtain and expressed how lucky they are. Then again I suppose I'm guilty of doing the same thing too; I often tell my best friend how lucky she is to be able to eat whatever she wants and not gain weight. The main lesson in doing this: the very thing you envy about someone else may be something that they view as a burden, a problem, or something that needs to be fixed.

California Screamin (thank God the nightmare is over)

Den and I are finally back from California and I'm so glad to be back. Although these trips are supposed to be vacation, they never are and we end up doing stuff for his mom or having to divide our time between his family members. This trip, we ended up installing doorknobs, overseeing facets being installed by plumbers, doing data entry for her church's website, and replacing light bulbs at his mom's house. I've already been told that when we come out in the spring or summer, we're going to be pulling up the shag carpet throughout the house and putting in a new bedroom suite. As you can see, I have a lot to look forward to. While this may seem like a lot of work, at this point, I'd much rather be doing this that the other option which is hanging out with Den's sister, D. the Disneyfreak.

D. (I don't know if I mentioned this or not) is Den's big sis and she has an unhealthy relationship with Disneyland. The reason I say her relationship is unhealthy is because every conversation has Disneyland in it, her and her husband have gone to Disneyland without their 11 year old son to punish him for bad behavior, she has used work and sick days to go to Disneyland, and she goes on vmk (virtual magic kingdom) religiously. I realize that she may view Disneyland as a coping mechanism because her life is crappy right now, however that is now reason to suck everyone else into your Disneyland obsession. We spent New Years at Disneyland although no one wanted to go but D. and had to listen while they (her and her hubby) complained about being there ( we were there from 7:00am-11:00pm New Year's Day). Another thing that irritated me was how many times D. had to check vmk. She constantly checked the site to play with her character then logged on with Den's character and played with that one too. When in a room full of people, she chooses to immerse herself in her virtual world and not engage in real life interaction. Even when we finally got to Disneyland, her favorite place in the world and the whole reason why she's on vmk in the first place what does she do? She logs on to vmk to let her online friends know shMe and Den are finally back from California and I'm so glad to be back.Although these trips are supposed to be vacation, they never are and we end up doing stuff for his mom or having to divide our time between his family members. This trip, we ended up installing door knobs, overseeing facets being installed by plumbers, doing data entry for her church's website, and replacing light bulbs at his mom's house. I've already been told that when we come out in the spring or summer, we're going to be pulling up the shag carpet throughout the house and putting in a new bedroom suite. As you can see, I have a lot to look forward to. While this may seem like a lot of work, at this point, I'd much rather be doing this that the other option which is hanging out with Den's sister, D. the Disneyfreak.

D. (I don't know if I mentioned this or not) is Den's big sis and she has an unhealthy relationship with Dinseyland. The reason I say her realtionship is unhealthy is because every conversation has Disneyland in it, her and her husband have gone to Dinseyland without their 11 year old son to punish him for bad behavior,she has used work and sick days to go to Disneyland, and she goes on vmk (virtual magic kingdom) religiously. I realize that she may view Dineyland as a coping mechanism because her life is crappy right now, however that is now reason to suck everyone else into your Disneyland obsession. We spent New Years at Disneyland although no one wanted to go but D. and had to listen while they (her and her hubby) complained about being there ( we were there from 7:00am-11:00pm New Year's Day). Another thing that irritated me was how many times D. had to check vmk. She constantly checked the site to play with her character then logged on with Den's character and played with that one too. When in a room full of people, she chooses to immerse herself in her virtual world and not engage in real life interaction. Even when we finally got to Dinseyland, her favorite place in the world and the whole reason why she's on vmk in the first place what does she do? She logs on to vmk to let her online friends know she's there. She even celebrated New Years online at a vmk party with her virtual friends.

I understand that people like things....there's nothing wrong with that but there is a point when you cross the line from enjoyment to obsession and I feel she definitely crossed that line there.

Bring on the Christmas cheer!

I don't know if I mentioned it or not, but I got the second grade from the second class I was taking this semester, pbulic libraries. I am happy to say that I got an A in that class. This means I've gotten two A's for my first semester in grad school. YAY ME!!! I am so happy that this semester is over. Although the classes were interesting, I'm glad that I can now focus my attention on other things like packing for our California trip and my spring classes.

In other news, this weekend me and Den as well as co-workers are supposed to be meeting somewhere for a Christmas dinner. Unfortunately, my cousin sent me an e-mail yesterday reminding me of our family Christmas dinner which will be happening on (guess when?) Saturday as well. Well although the family Christmas dinner is well....a family Christmas dinner, I called mom and told her me and Den wouldn't be able to go. I further explained to mom that we had a prior commitment and apologized.

Mom of course seemed very nonchalant about me not being able to come and said that she figured we wouldn't since the same conflict happened last year.I'm at the point though that if you know you're planning a family gathering for Christmas, it would be in the best interest of everyone if you'd give a lot earlier warning than four days before the event will take place. By planning in advance, people can have you event marked down somewhere and feelings won't get hurt.

All I want is a little consideration for Christmas-is that too much to ask for?

New Do or did I ?

It's always funny to me how people react to a new hairstyle. Mainly, people react to a new hairstyle in one of three ways: (1.) They acknowledge the new hairstyle and make positive comments, (2.)They completely ignore the fact you've done anything at all, or (3.)They ignore the hairstyle until someone else comments on it and the add their positive comments. At any rate, I've experience all three of these reactions today which is always surprising to me because I don't think that people really pay that much attention to me.

Over the weekend, I had my hair braided and prior to that, I had my hair permed. I'm not really a fan of perming my hair, it's too much upkeep to worry about. Also, whenever I've gotten my hair permed, it's limited the amount of things I can do like exercising, messing around with my husband and just doing anything that leads to sweating. Do you know what it smells like to have had a perm done and then sweat it out? It smells like rotten eggs. Yep, you read right, rotten eggs. That being said, can you blame me for wanting to use any method possible to avoid having to do that? The process I've been do for a couple of years now if braiding, letting my hair rest (perming) then rebraiding. I am at the point though where I will be wanting to go natural and be completely chemical free.

I guess that other thing that trips me out is how intrigued some people are with the concept of braids. It always makes me laugh when someone asks to touch my hair. It's like they've never seen hair like that before. Then comes the question of is it all my real hair and I have no problem sharing the information. After all, I believe that the only way people can become educated about things is if someone teaches them and so if it has to be me, why not?

Counting down the days till California

I am so ready to leave for California. It's not even about California itself,I just need to get away from all the crazy patrons and frustrating work environment and the cold weather. I'm sure as usual, me and Den will get bombarded by his family while we're there but I won't mind it so much because I'll be on vacation. I mean a week away is better than no time at all right? His sister has already given us her vote for where to ring in New Years (Disneyland) although everyone else would much rather go to Vegas. Well, guess we'll see how that pans out.

In other completely unrelated news, I went to my best friend's lingerie party lasy night. We all had a great time but the whole situation still seems surreal to me.Initally, she was supposed to get married in June 2008 and instead, the moved the date up to January 2008. She says he didn't want to wait anymore which is understandable considering he's in the military and could possibly get called up again. I couldn't imagine being in a relationship with a man in the military and having to deal with deployment and worrying about whether or not he's safe. Anyone who can do that gets my eternal gratitude.

At any rate, the shower was fun and nostaligic for me as I was seeing her open the gifts. It seems like forever although it was last year that I got married. Man how time flies.

My husband, his sister, and VMK

Although I love my husband very and much and I like my sister-in-law, lately, they have found a new way to drive me up the wall and its name is VMk. VMK (aka virtual magic kingdom) is an online disneyland website. On this site, people from all the world can meet, creat avtars and do stuff like create rides, play games, and trade items as well as build their own room. I have no problem with this, as a matter of fact, I think it's kinda cool. I do however have a problem with the fact that him and his sister spend hours at a time on the webiste and that he has her on speakerphone so they can talk back and forth the whole time.When they're on VMK, the rest of the world doesn't exist and they are completely focused on VMk and nothing else. I've had to force my husband to take a break to eat because he's been so wrapped up in VMK, he lost all track of time.

I guess I should be too surprised;my husband and his sister have always been close. I guess I just have a problem with it because I feel excluded from the experience. After all, since my husband was born and raised in California and has been to Dineyland millions of times and has not been able to go as much since we live in Alabama, VMk has a bigger significance than it does for me. In a way, I really should be counting my blessings, at least I'm not married to his sister. She lives, breaths, and sleeps Disneyland. As punishment for her son sometimes, her and her husband have went to Dinseyland and left him behind. She had memeberships to tons on Disneyland groups and has an annual pass as well as pins collection. Disneyland was nice-I'll give you that, but it's nothing to get crazy over.I don't get it....I just don't get it.

Weight loss and its unforseen cost

There's something funny and equally sad when you're overweight. You're always constantly ingored by people and the clothes that are available for you to wear are unflattering to say the least. You get used to people not noticing you and while you do your best to look good, more often than not, nobody cares. At least that's been my experience in the past.

Growing up, I've always had problems with low self- esteem and my weight. As you can imagine, teasing in school only made matters worse. I've always been the type of woman known for not being able to take a compliment. It's not that I don't appreciate the compliment, I just don't know how. Whenever someone says soemthing nice to me, I automatically overanalyze what they said and why they said it. The most I've ever weighed was 298 and as of today, I weight 234.Although I am proud of what I've accomplished, I don't broadcast it to everyone I meet-that's what other people are for.

Since I have lost weight, the compliments pour in on a daily basis. While I appreciate the positive compliments, I can't help but wonder if people are being serious or if they are hating me for what I've done. Relationships have become strained because I don't view food the way I used to to and for some, this is that only way I could bond with certain people. Even now, while two co-workers were talking, co-worker one mentioned my weight loss and asked me to stand up so that the co-worker two could look at me and how thin I've gotten. It was amazing to me in that after co-worker two looked at me, she said "Are you sure she's not pregnant? You know with her being so young and looking weight, it wouldn't suprise me."

Even this Thanksgiving at a gathering with family, even though my family gave me tons of compliments about my weight loss, I was still uncomfortable. Partially it was because my aunt pointed out that while I'm getting thin and have always been fat, my sister and cousin who have always been skinny are picking up weight. The nerve of her!Both of them are 25 years old and if they weighed the same now that they did when they were 12 or 13, I'd be worried about their health. My aunt has her own issues with weight and she's also diabetic so she's definitely not one to judged anyone.

I also get irritated because people ask me what I did to loose the weight and I tell them eat less and exercise more. My husband has gotten pissed with me "lying" as he calls it because he saw the hard work it took for me to lose the weight and it took a whole lot more that eating less and exercising more. I had to cut my calories to around 1,800 a day in addition to exercising three to four times a week. I've started telling people what I've really done to lose the weight and if nothing else, I feel better for being truthful.

Why is it that when someone looses weight, you can't just be happy for them and instead look for flaws and reasons to tear them down?