The Power Within....right?

So - like 1000's of human beings everywhere, I'm trying to lose some weight. I've been pretty steadily working out, lifting weights and trying to eat better for the last month or so. Unfortunately, I haven't seen a lot of loss weight wise. But i'm holding out as i know in the end - working out and eating well will win out.

It's the weekends that kill me though. Especially this last weekend - you can entitle it "Vacation with the Fatty McFatterson's" because i felt like all we did was eat poorly the whole time. And it was only 2 days. But i can feel my insides aching from eating mcdonald's, heavy mexican, donuts and fast food chinese. My body is basically rebelling against me now. So i had to go lift weights during lunch today and i'm doing turbo tonite after work which will be a good cardio blast.

I'm currently eating my lunch - a salad that i made at home with light/low fat organic dressing. I passed up the opportunity for chicken pasta bake, brownies, etc during orientation. The only thing i got from there was a roll to eat with my salad so i'd have some carbs for later.

My friend brought me a fun surprise today. It's a supplement drink mix so i can try the other flavor of this shakeology stuff i'm going to start next week. I bought the chocolate mix because the other was called "greenberry" and i'm not sure i'll dig it. But she brought me enough to make a drink and then this other supplement powder that will make it taste like a creamsiscle. So if i'm feeling really powerful today and in control - i will stop on the way home from my workout and purchase some soy milk and a banana and i will blend this for my dinner tonite.

I was planning on doing this drink in the mornings for breakfast - but i'm considering doing it for dinner most nites - because that would be quick and easy, and it would keep the calories in control. but i dunno! I will have to see how filling it is first.

So i'm working on unleashing that power within - i just have to find it first.

The Cycle of This

The silence in this room echoed when the walls hung bare
Months later - slowly frames went up, schedules were taped
pictures arranged
And noise was muffled and silence is not quite so loud

And with a new term, we strip the walls again
Waiting for more things to come
To be taped, pinned, framed to keep the walls warm
and our hands busy

The endless cycle the repeats itself
varying in subtle ways
just different enough to be difficult, stressful, or frustrating to us
and yet entertaining to outsiders

The same smile, that same joke
The same story about black pants and white socks
gets a laugh everytime

You run out of good fresh ideas
Start banking on the ones that work
depend on the repeater participants to nod
in the right places
and laugh on queue

New to all the fresh faces
old hat for old-timers

Schools out, schools in
hard to tell where the year ends and the other begins

Strange how there is no "I" or "Me" in Change

Change is hard. That's a pretty basic statement, I think. But when you get down to the knitty gritty of it - its not that ALL change is hard. Sometimes, change is easy - like when the summer schedule at work is over and I get to sleep in an extra 45 minutes.

THAT kind of change is easy.

Some changes are so gradual that you barely notice them. You just wake up one day and realize somewhere along the line you started drinking 1% milk instead of 2%.

Other changes are annoying. Like trying to change your habits of not going to the gym and wanting to literally be on the couch watching all your favorite reality tv shows eating chips and salsa into going to the gym and catching your shows when you can and NOT eating chips and salsa hardly ever.

The change i'm experiencing now is a bit different from those. As i'm continously working to benchmark other programs for the work i do - i find myself drifting back to past employers and evaluating the situation there. Because it was easy there in a lot of ways, and while what i did was important and probably looked really good to most outsiders, i see now that compared to what i'm facing now in my role makes my last job seem like a county fair compared to disney world.

But as i go back to what i know, to review it and analyze it with a different perspective - with the question of "did how i do it back then have any relevance for how i could create it now?" And it seems like everytime i look to find the answer to that question, another piece if what i built has changed. I'm not saying its changed in a bad way or a good way. I don't know - I'm not there and I don't know how it works better or worse, etc.

It seems weird, but no matter how much we struggle to follow the idea of "working to live" - I often think its quite the opposite in my career area. It seems that you have to pour so much of yourself into your work that now when i go back and look at what used to be reflective of my work and my thoughts and my ideas - its no longer mine. And i have this non-sensical moment of wanting to proclaim (loudly and yet to no one in particular) "Wait!!! Stop un-doing the good i did!"

And then i realize that things change and I don't have any right to pass judgement on things i'm not involved in anymore. And i feel badly for even allowing myself for a moment to feel like someone out there wasn't capable of having a better idea than i had.

You know -programs change. Forms change, processes change - and ultimately it's often the people change that creates the other ripples of change. And honestly, I chose to change roles and the ripples of change that are causing me a little sadness today are basically ripples from a rock I threw.

So yes, change is hard. Change is frustrating. Change can make you feel erased and forgotten. But I keep reminding myself that with every change comes a chance. And that's the ledge i have to find.

Vegas, Baby

So in the past week:

I've turned 28,
Had a giant ice cream sandwich made just for me,
Received a book called "Is Your Straight Man Gay Enough?" (this answer is still TBD upon further review)
Flew to Nevada for the first time,
Saw Elvis,
(and) Way too many boobs,
Dancing bunnies (that was scary),
Had a waiter with 40 years of waiting experience that still had no idea how to separate checks
Spent over 30 dollars on crab cakes and 18 on a margarita (hey i got my very own souvenir cup)
Talked about internship programs at different colleges all over the USA over Italian food and no one was bored
Didn't finish my fav dish at the local mexican restaurant (go me!)
....
and just found out i'll be teaching a class next semester.

It's been a busy week. I'll try and post pics from Vegas soon!

The Big 2-8

So my birthday is right around the corner. I'll be 28. And if i were myself and someone else were turning 28 i would tell them "actually you'll be STARTING your 29th year of life because your birthday just indicates that your 28th year is finished" and it would make me feel older. You know the whole Americans start the count from birth at 0. I think its interesting that other cultures call a baby 1 year old at birth. Makes you think twice when you ask someone how old they are.

I just might start saying "Well it depends on what day you count from."

I'm not too excited yet about my birthday. I have friends that keep asking if i'm getting excited. My bf reminded me that not being excited about a birthday just means that i'm getting old. But in reality - 28 doesn't seem that old to me.

When i was a kid, i guess i had all sorts of expectations about what I would be like and what my life would be like when i was in my 20's. As a kid, i was really under the impression that everyone got married in their early 20's because that's how things happened for my parents, my aunt and uncle and my older brother as well.

But when i was 20 - i couldn't imagine being married yet. Even though i was seriously dating someone and we had talked about the idea of marriage - it was still something that was like a far off idea. Then when i turned 24 - i was still with the same guy and realized that i still wasn't ready to get married and had the feeling he was and I ended things because of that and many other reasons.

I'll refer to the time between 24 and my current present time as something reserved and documented in "a different blog" as i don't care to address it all over again. But even with 28 around the corner - i don't feel like i've missed the mark in terms of my childhood expectations.

Instead i feel like i really challenged expectations held for me by my family by continuing to do my own thing and make my own path - even if it did seem like going around my elbow to get to my ass sometimes. In the end, it has been a decent journey to the "now." And looking back, i guess you always think that maybe you would have changed things - but in real life, I'm just glad to be here. Right where i am. Could i have not gained 20 pounds along the way? Sure. But in terms of big ticket items - 28 has been decent to me.

It beat me up a little bit along the way, i'm sure it left a fair amount of scars. But nothing that has made me scared of 29 or 30. I think i can handle it. And in the end - my expectations as a kid were just that - childish. And i like the real version - here and now - so much more.

As the Days Fly By

So my blog title is sort of like a soap opera title. But one thing i've been thinking about a bit lately is the feeling of less drama in my life. I'm sure its is comparable to how mothers must feel after raising a child and sending them off to college - having more time for themselves and not utterly consumed by all the things raising a kid entails. The early morning school drop off, the soccer practices and sleep overs. How tired parents probably are all the time and i bet they get so used to it they don't even notice until a few weeks after their child goes off to college and they aren't involved in the day-to-day buzz.

And all of a sudden you realize something is different. The air feels a bit less heavy, the rain sounds different when it pings against the window pane. Making dinner plans is less complicated and life all around has changed.

I went through a childhood and my teenage years without a whole lot of drama. I stayed out of dramas way and it stayed out of mine, too. Even college wasn't too dramatic. Then after college, it seemed like drama had a warrent out for me and when it found me - it nearly knocked me down. For about 3 years - life was very much like a soap opera. Crazy, dramatic, movie-like situations kept happening in my life. Some of them were scenes from a comedy, others were more on the tragic side.

And then - finally drama got tired of me and moved along its' way to ambush some other unsuspecting soul. Then the sun felt different - it seemed more kind. The wind seemed to blow more gently - a caress instead of a whip. The rain sounded soothing and its after scent a perfume. Walking up hill still took effort - but it didn't feel like the elements were against my voyage to the top.

I passed down an old yet famliar street this week, and for a moment my heart felt that old fear. The lack of control, the capacity to make bad decisions and believe they were the right ones. The inability to see clearly despite magnification.

At first, I didn't understand. Finally, I could put my finger on it - that old fear didn't belong anymore - and even though i finally realized what was missing..I didn't miss it at all.