I didn’t learn how until I hit my mid twenties, but I am now an expert at gaining weight.

Fortunately I’m also good at maintaining it, so once I hit my target weight it doesn’t take too much effort on my part to stay put. Unfortunately, and this is embarrassing but I may as well admit it — if I spill it publicly then perhaps I’ll be more motivated to work — I’ve been drifting back and forth between 133 and 140 since I had the kiddo. Now, before I get romped on I’d like to state that I realize that I’m within a healthy weight zone for a 29 year old, 5′4″ woman. The embarrassment comes from knowing how out of shape I am. I have flashbacks in the form of some Drill Instructor’s voice telling me I’m a lazy turd. I’m also a victim of the times and like most women, the phrase I could stand to lose 15 or so pounds is permanently etched into the inside surface of my skull. It’s abrasive on my brains and no matter what anyone tells me, I’m not going to be content until I’m back down to 125.

And I do mean a healthy 125. I got back from Parris Island weighing 117 and I remember being horrified at how scrawny I was. Hell, I couldn’t even fill out an A cup bra and I remember going in with a B cup fitting me just fine. ((On a side note, that commercial for the diet supplement where the cartoon woman and her husband go on diets, the husband gets skinny and all that happens for her is her boobs shrink to nothing cracks me up every single time for that reason)) …

Great, typing the side note derailed my thought choo-choo. *scrunches up face and concentrates* I think I can, I think I can, I think I can remember what my point was…

Oh yeah! I’m working out again. Took me long enough, but I’m making the time to get away to bust my butt. Only problem is, our little workout hut here at the apartment complex only consists of a treadmill, a stationary bike, and an elliptical machine. I spend anywhere from 40 to 60 minutes in there at a time and I’m starting to get bored. It doesn’t help that I absolutely hate Hate HATE running. Seriously (and this is also kind of embarrassing and I’m not sure why) the only thing that can get me out of a bored funk while I’m running is listening to the Captain Jack remix from Dance Dance Revolution on my Discman. I’ve even downloaded several other cadences just for gits n shiggles.

Damn it, I’ve gone off track again. Think think think… Yes! Back to what I was going to say: I found some good workouts on about.com and I thought I would share them with anyone who wanted to “join me” in a bit of a weight loss challenge. Hell, I’ll even let you pick your own workouts from the list there. I’ll also (try to) post weekly updates (if I don’t weenie out). The goal is to lose about 15 pounds. Are you with me? (C’mon, I need some motivation here…)

Want….

I wonder how many hours days months I would have to spend on the treadmill to burn that one off.

When it comes to the housing market, Husband and I have been biding our time.  When we first moved back here a little over a year ago, we had planned on purchasing a house right away.  That didn’t happen as things just didn’t seem right; it wasn’t the time.  I’ve been keeping a close eye on the real estate in our area in the mean time, and now I’m really freaking glad we waited.

Interest rates are at an all time low in addition to lowering property values.  Hell, in the past month alone I’ve seen a HUGE drop in prices for homes in the area we’re looking at moving to.  *rubs hands together with glee*

Currently, we’re planning on looking a bit more seriously for a new place to live in September.

Humph.  Now, watch while I get spammed by a bunch of Gretna Realtors.

Carpal Tunnel

*scowls and wiggles fingers*

I don’t think I need to say anything more about that.

Today we begin with:

The People Upstairs — I love these apartments. I really do. The trees, the gentle breeze, the clean air, the peace and quiet. Or… well it would be quiet most of the time if it weren’t for the losers living upstairs. It would be a hell of a lot cleaner too. No, if it weren’t for them, we’d be living in paradise.

But I suppose we can’t all and some of us don’t.*

I’ll start with just one (of the MANY, believe me) complaints I have about these people. I’m thinking of compiling a list. Really. It’s not a coincidence that I’ve started this series with this particular grievance.

We begin with ‘dropping things’. All sorts of things. On our decks. We have two, and so do they. Directly above ours. Pencils, silly string, miscellaneous trash, broken glass, boxes (Yes, like moving boxes. I can only assume they’re trying to toss them over the edge so they don’t have to carry them down 1.5 flights of stairs and out to the dumpster?). The latest bit of Neighbor Rain was two enormous blops of what I can only guess is ketchup and mayonnaise. It’s not the first time they’ve christened our deck with condiments. It seems that every time these assholes grill something, they have to spill at least two cups of each aforementioned burger-topping. And it’s always in the same place, so I’m thinking that they must have made a trip to Costco for huge tubs with pump-spouts full of that shit and that they just leave them out there.

Oh, and sawdust! I forgot to mention the sawdust. For some reason the man of the apartment keeps an assortment of power tools on his deck. And he likes to build things. I cannot fathom what; perhaps he’s preparing for the next global flood and I’ve missed where he’s hiding his ark. Anyway, I was sitting out on my deck with my daughter, enjoying the warm spring sunshine, glass of freshly brewed iced tea in hand when I’m suddenly caught in a hail of wood chips. The noise is bad enough, but I didn’t need to be involved in the cleanup. I don’t think Little Girl appreciated it much, either. Fucker, ruined my iced tea. The guy is an officer in the Airforce so you’d think that he’s being paid enough to rent himself one of the fucking GARAGES so that he can play with his toys in a more appropriate environment. Hell, we rent a garage and Husband’s only a Staff Sargent. If we can afford it then, by Golly, so can this dude.

My friends, today’s lesson is this: Try to be a bit more considerate of the little people who may be living beneath you.

Or.

I don’t want your shit. Please keep it.

*2,000,000 pointless points for the person who gets that quote without Googling it.

While driving to and from…wherever, I tend to lean heavily on Mr. Autopilot while my mind wanders. I probably shouldn’t state that so casually — nobody in their right mind will ever want to drive anywhere near me, let alone with me, but hey, as long as I’m divulging scary habits of mine, I may as well admit that I don’t ever wear my glasses while driving, even though I should. (WOW! All your first prize for longest run on sentence EVaR belongs to Barmy!) I highly doubt I’m the only person on the planet that does this, though that’s not exactly a good thing either.

Anyhoo, during my habitual ponderdrive I’ll think of things that range from the everyday-mundane to the borderline ridiculous.

For the past few days the subject has been a member of the latter category: universal translators. Yes, the ones used in the fictional Star Trek Universe. Now I’m about as geeky as the next fan, but I’m not so hardcore that I’ve looked this subject up to research the piss out of it. It’s highly possible that a debate about universal translators was brought up and thoroughly picked apart years ago and it’s only now that I’ve begun to think about it.

As I drove down Cornhusker the other day, dodging traffic, slowing down, stopping, and turning where appropriate, I mulled this one over. I’m assuming that all the alien races in the various shows are speaking their own language while the translators do their little thing so that everyone can understand eachother. I’m assuming this because of an episode of DS9 where Quark, Rom, and Nog go back in time and end up in Roswell, NM. Their translators aren’t working and they are unable to understand English. Transversely, none of the Humans could understand… whatever language Ferengi speak (I haven’t looked that one up either) until the trio get their translators fixed.

Here’s the problem: Why is it that occasionally words slip past the translators when a character wishes to convey something in his/her own language? Do the translators read minds (“Okay, I don’t want this translated,”)? And more puzzling, if everyone is speaking their own language, then how come in every episode we don’t see every Klingon’s/Cardassian’s/Betazoid’s/Andorian’s/etc. lips flapping like some low-budget, dubbed kung fu movie?

Now that I’ve typed that all out, I will leave you with a little scene between Husband and Myself. We were watching television when the Dairy Queen commercial advertising their Blizzards came on. This is the one situated at an elementary school on Career Day. The commercial opens with some guy at the front of the class wrapping up his presentation on how cool it is to be a spy.

Myself: *frown* Why would a spy go to his kid’s class and say, “HEY! I’m a SPY!”? Wouldn’t that blow his cover? This is a stupid commercial.

Husband: And then there are some people who take television way too seriously.