Why the heck is your name Beauty?

Ok, so here's the post that I got stuck writing and stopped blogging for a month.  Here's the funny thing, when I opened up the draft to work on it, I hadn't even gotten one sentence in, not even one word had been written.  I remembered having written a couple paragraphs, but I think I erased them because it was going off on a tangent I didn't intend.

Oops, there, I did it again.  It's been a few more days since I wrote that first paragraph.  I am generally known as the queen sized queen of the overshare, but beauty is something I don't know how to write about.

Ok, well here's the easy part:  My blogger name is Beauty because a guy, a friend, named me that.  I met him on a neat Callahan's Cross-time Saloon forum, in which the people tried to recreate the atmosphere of the bar in Spider Robinson's books.  It's still around.  You could find it if you looked.  Anyway, that was seven years or so ago.

I registered for this blogger (or whatever it was called then) account around that time.  The name Beauty makes me cringe.  It's not "me" in the least.  Most of the time I don't dwell on it.  I might be able to change it.  I've honestly never tried.  For complicated reasons, I wouldn't dream of changing the name my friend gave me.

Just a wee bit later, I rolled the name into an anonymous sex blog with protagonists Beauty and The Beast.  It wasn't as corny as it sounds.  I made that private when I decided to use the account for this blog though.

Ever since I started the blog I've felt the need to explain why my blogger name is Beauty when it's so unlike "me."  I know, I've said that twice.  I'm not quite sure what I mean either.  So in order to research this I asked Ken (my friend) why he named me Beauty way back then.  He told me that he named me that on purpose because he thought I was beautiful and he knew I didn't think so, and perhaps if I saw it enough times I'd believe it.  I think that was nice of him, but I still don't believe it.  :-)

Hello Blog!

Hi!  This is why I don't make blogs.  I abandon them after a few posts.  Between work and home and Sheldon's work and Evy, I pretty much end up letting noncritical things fall off my plate pretty much constantly.

I also have a post about beauty that I'm stuck on.  I never was able to finish it (tough subject!), and ended up losing all my bloggy momentum.  I'll finish it someday.

So I've been doing ok.  I've lost a total of 21 lbs, most of them two or three times.  It's really hard for me to not fall off the wagon.  I haven't counted points since Thursday.  I'm starting again tomorrow, and hope I will at least not have gained any this week.  I'm vowing to walk 5 times and work out three times this week as well.  Now that I said it I have to do it right?  Right?  I need to stay serious if I'm going to lose the other 20-40 I need to to be happy, healthy, and comfortable at Burning Man.

One thing I want to do is get my bike in working order.  I think there's a long bike trail in the area that would be fun to ride on.  All I need to fix it is some of that vinyl tubing that goes over the brake cable, and then I'd have to monkey with it to get the gears in proper working order.  I've never done a bike tune up myself, but I'm pretty sure that between me and google I can do it.  I think I'll make that a goal for hmm, I'll aim high and say by the end of this month.  I don't want all this pretty weather to go to waste!

I'm Straight!

I'm not proclaiming my sexual orientation, that's a bit more complicated.  I'm proclaiming my posture.  Before I started exercising I was noticing and lamenting that I was getting a slight hunchback.  My neck has almost always stuck out forward from reading too much as a kid, but I was getting a hump, like a camel or something.  If I stood with my back against a wall I almost couldn't make my head touch the wall.

Now after a few weeks of exercising that hump is almost completely gone.  My back is straight and I can easily put my back to a wall and touch my head to it.  I think my core was so weak that my front was pulling my spine forward or something.

Also, my boobs precede me when I walk instead of my tummy, probably as a result of the straightening.  Unfortunately, my boobs aren't filling my bra now either.  I'm afraid I'm going to be the only gigantic girl with a B cup in existence.  Lane Bryant barely even carries 42B.  By the time I lose all the weight I think I'll have to roll them up, such will be the status of my udders. 

Tickets!

Wow, that was easy, or I was lucky, or I did my research and did it right, or something.  I got tickets to Burning Man within 20 minutes of queuing.  Seven hundred something dollars for the pair, but I tried not to look.

So we're (me and my husband) are going!  Now All I have to do is...everything!  Now I have to start sourcing camping stuff appropriate to the nasty harsh environment there.  I'd love to build a little swamp cooler.  I'm really not fond of extreme heat, and I'm guessing that sleeping will happen in the hottest bits.  I also need clothes, and lots of plastic bins, and a car capable of holding all of it and getting there! Our car should be fixed soon even if we don't have a new one, but I'm concerned about getting everything in it for a week's worth of survival.  It's just a Honda Civic, and when we camp for just 4 days at a place with running water and showers it's stuffed full!  I'll have to do some downsizing and arranging.

I got tickets though!  This is going to happen.

Tickets?

11:57...nervous, how many hours will I have to sit here clicking?  Perhaps I should have eaten breakfast.  Trying to get tickets in three minutes.

Down Wit Da Sickness

Meh, everyone's been getting sick around here, but I just got fairly mild cold.  I felt it coming on Friday afternoon and resolved to sleep a lot, take vitamin C, and stay in the warm house all weekend.  I did that, plus worked from home Monday to make sure I was past the contagious stage, and today I feel a lot better!  I still have something that may be an ear infection plus some lingering bronchial and sinus issue, but I think the worst is over.

My diet went totally out the window for the last 4 days though!  I ate all sorts of stuff and I'm not sure why.  I may have been looking for something to make me feel better, or maybe I was using it as an excuse to eat badly?  I had a lot of won ton soup which wasn't too bad, but I also had an In N Out burger, and some junk food from 7-11, including a favorite sore throat sick drink, Slurpees.

I didn't track my food at all the last 4 days either.  I got an "OMG what happened?" automatic email from weight watchers for it too, encouraging me to not be discouraged and start tracking again.

I'm back on the wagon today though!  It's nice and warm enough that I think I'll do my walking today too.  I see a chicken sandwich for 9 points at the cafeteria, I'll probably have that for lunch. 

I'm REALLY glad I'm going to miss my weigh-in tomorrow.  It's Burning Man ticket day, and I have the day off to try and get a couple!  Hopefully by next week I can erase whatever this little mishap did to the scale.

Happy Post (except for that kitten)

Wow, way to be all bummed and leave you hanging.  Sorry about that.  Right after I wrote that I went off to exercise, and there was someone in the gym I knew.  We chatted while we worked out and afterwards I felt much happier.  Then I thought about it and realized I've been feeling happy and content after working out in general.  I think that's a good bonus, and something to look forward to when I get the "I don't wanna"s.

I sure hope this time I can get my new exercise habit to stick.  This is the second time that I've started to like exercising a little.  The first time I was doing really well and then we had to move, then I changed jobs to one with a two hour commute each way, then we got married, and then we moved again, all in six months.  I tried to keep going to the gym but it was just too hard to keep a decent schedule so I went less and less and quit the gym membership with the last move a year ago.

I've lost 3.6 pounds since last week.  I feel so much better after a bigger loss.  It feels like all my work and deprivation did something.  When I lose a pound in a week it's like, I've lost a newborn kitten's worth of flesh, big deal.  If I lose 3.6 pounds in a week, that's like...um, what's 3.6 pounds....uh, three point six kittens worth of flesh!  Aw, now I feel sorry for that 6/10 of a kitten.

Also, to prove that this is not just a diet blog:  We registered to get Burning Man tickets today!  I have next Wednesday off.  Yeah, I might have just tried to get tickets from work, but I might get too busy to keep hitting refresh or whatever you have to do.  Plus, I haven't taken a vacation day off since early September, so I think it's OK.