Called out. Thanks.

So over the last few days, a few people mentioned (Fatinah and Wafelenbak) that my Nike girl was a bit bratty and sad that I had neglected her. I had indeed. I had sort of decided last night, that today, rain or shine, humidity and heat be damned, I was going to strap on that bitch and take her for a run so she would quit telling the blogworld that the new found resolution I had to my healthy journey was already waning.

I am playing a bizarre game of diet roulette. I am making BETTER choices, but really, it doesn't take a whole lot of discipline to merely NOT eat fast food for every.meal. Throw in a salad here and there, maybe a piece of fruit, and ta da. BETTER choices. Not good. Better. I am journaling maybe one meal a week....I don't even know.

However, I still had kind of made up my mind that I had to get my ass in gear. Kind of.

Then, late last night I watched a few episodes of Ruby. If you don't know her story, she is a lady from Savannah that has assembled a team of a trainer, nutritionist and shrink to help her lose the 300lbs that she needs to lose. The episode I watched was Ruby on vacation...she didn't take any of her meals, and she kept saying, "I think I know best" when she didn't eat her pre-planned meals or when she didn't want to exercise.

I thought to myself, "If she really knew best she wouldn't have gotten to this position."

DING DING DING DING

I am still one hundred pounds overweight. I am still in the super obese category. I DO need WeightWatchers. I do need my Nike girl. I do need to drink water and take my vitamins. Merely fitting into XL shirts from OldNavy does not mean my journey is over.

So people, please feel free to comment on my girl if she is sad...BUT check her out today! I got 2.25 miles in the 200 degree humid filled day...I am cooled down, and am heading to buy groceries!

Keepin' it real

Well, maybe not REAL, real, but reality television real.

I love reality television, most all of it. But I really dig the shows where there are challenges and voting. I LOVE challenges and voting. We even have challenges and vote during our family vacations and holidays.

But this time of the year brings my most favorite...it is an awful, horrendous guilty pleasure...Big Brother. I watch the show (3 nights a week), and have bought the live feeds, I even participate in chat rooms, I am a HUGE BB dork.

ahh. Confession is good for the soul....

So what about you? What is your television secret????

Am I externally valid???

I guess we shall see.

As part of the tenure process, I have to send a sample of my research along with my vita (academic resume) to well-known researchers across the country. They have to evaluate my work, and render an opinion to my university regarding the quality of my endevours.

My hands were shaking when I was putting the binder clips on the papers. Don't get me wrong, I think I have done some really good work, so I am not actually worried the letters will be bad, but I have now officially kicked off the tenure process and it is just so huge to me.

If I don't get tenure, I don't get stay here. Most of my best memories have been made here. My kids both go to school here. My sister is uprooting her family to move here. I love my life here.

What if my here has to change before I am ready?

blackberry grits

On our way home from the beach yesterday we stopped at a little breakfast place called, "Another Broken Egg". It is JUST my kind of restaurant...all kinds of spinachey, avocadoey, mushroomey dishes. I am typically a savory breakfast kind of girl, but something caught my eye:

I love grits. I love blackberries. Would I love blackberry grits? My initial thought was no, because I typically do salt and pepper on grits...but what.the.hell. I am on vacation. I ordered.

I didn't take a picture, and for that I am deeply sorry. They looked, well, kind of gross. A bowl of grits, with some blackberries and blackberry juice sort of pooled on top. I tentatively tried a tiny taste, and oh.my.god. SO delicious. I just googled the restaurant so I could see where I could go get another sample, so I could do a better job of trying to pick it apart so I could make it myself. I was FULL ALL DAY after eating those grits (well, and half a spinach, mushroom and tomato omelet and potatoes, but still!). But alas, they seem to only be around the beach...

Today I am back at worky work, and it sucky sucks. Vacation > work. Even with my 'sister-wife' (GROSS) and drinky dad.

OH, I tried to Facebook stalk my Dad's girlfriend and while she is on FB, and UGH, we have friends in common, she does not have an 'open profile' so I would have to friend her. uh. NO.

Whirlwind

Every 4th of July we head to the beach where my dad parks his RV (yeah, that is a whole other post), and this year was no exception...the big difference was his new girlfriend. She is THREE years older than me. If you weren't really getting that...my Dad is 62, and she is 43, and I will be 40 in a few weeks.

If the 3 years wasn't awkward enough, she is embroiled in a bunch of drama in my home town with people my age that I went to highschool with...now to be fair, not really people I hang out with anymore, or even ever really, but people that know who I am, and that is just oh.so.disturbing. Dudes, we don't have just ONE year class reunions anymore...we have like 5 years worth of classes at reunions. My Dad would be there as a DATE at my reunion. It is just so white trash.

She left after one day, so then we just hung out with my Dad, and that was pretty okay. We have to work very hard to keep him busy so that we can stay out of the bars until sunset...he likes hims drinky. We did lots of touristy stuff, like putt-putt, bowling, go-carts, arcades, movies, and window shopping. Sadly we didn't get a ton of beach time because the weather sucked. This morning we got up to gray skies and decided just to come home.

We get home, and there are two dudes on our back porch having torn out our back steps and most of the fence...um. HELLO? What are you doing? It is a rental, but we had no idea that this was going to be going on. I was mad. Mr. P? He lost his shit. Didn't help that he had not smoked all day and was already kinda pissy. It was a bad hour of phone calls to the contractor, realty company, realty company, realty company. I think Mr. P's blood pressure just now is normalizing...we had a good salad for dinner, and I think bed is in short order for me...I like vacationing, but to be completely honest, I am only ever truly comfortable at home. I have become such an old lady.

I missed my normal weigh-in on Monday, so will weigh in tomorrow morning, and get to back to work. Worky work, work on the 15 Week Challenge and work on healthy, healthy, healthy.

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July!

Revolutionary Road

I watched Revolutionary Road tonight. It was not cheerful Friday night fodder, I pretty much wish I would have just watched re-runs of Big Bang Theory because now I feel all angsty and restless and weird.

The movie got me thinking about my parents. For as long as I can remember, I don't think my parents were ever really happy in the life they built for themselves and I wonder if they felt like the couple in the movie. Endless days of putting on a facade and forcing themselves into some sort of mold of what they thought happiness should be when really everything was falling apart within them. At such extremes that they made horrible decisions that hurt so many people in an attempt to rescue themselves from their own misery.

It makes me sad to think about that, and at the same time so very glad that Mr. P and I paved our own road to get to our own happiness that I almost feel guilty.

Told you I was feeling angsty and weird. Seriously, I need to go find my Big Bang Theory DVD.

ETA: So last night I was all cocky in my love for my life and my husband. But now that Mr. P has BITCHED about my lack of accountability for iPod wires for an hour, I am seriously rethinking my position.

upper thigh maintenance

While this is completely embarrassing and as soon as I hit publish I am closing my laptop and leaving the house due to shame, I am in desperate shape, so here goes:

Now that it is boating season, and next week we will be at the beach, there are moments when my upper thighs are granted a viewing with the rest of the world. Normally they are covered. Not because they are fat (which they are), but because they are kind of, well, um. disgusting. In my quest to make them un-disgusting, I have made them worse.

Back story: about a month ago, I was sitting on the back of the boat in just my bathing suit (I forgot my coverall), and I looked down and I had horrendous BLACK and longish inner thigh hairs, which considering I have GREY face hairs is a lovely punch in the ass. (OH, and I am not talking about nether region hairs...not quite that upper, truly mid to upper thigh hair). So, as soon as we get home, I shave them off, and use some Apricot scrub to help soften the skin.

yeah, the long hair and scaly skin was better. NOW, I have what I can only describe as a horrible case of thigh acne. Razor bumps for WEEKS and since I have already overshared, some got scabby. For the love of Christmas, WHAT DO I DO?

ETA: I think many of you know, but the anonymous poster, "Tracy" is my sister. I almost didn't publish this post because I KNEW what her response was going to be. Just knew it. I don't remember when, but once we had this HUGE discussion about leg shaving and her thoughts are from toes to hip...nothing left out, and me, I am more of an ankle to knee kind of girl.

After I read her comment I texted her:

Me: I KNEW you were going to say that.
Her: Because I am so right!
Me: So if I always had I would have built up a resistance?
Her: Yes! Obviously
Me: I should have listened.
Her: Thank you.

Gotta love sisters. I hate to say it, but that might have just cost her 1 babysitting hour.