Happy Halloween!

To everyone out there who is young enough to really enjoy it, have a safe and happy Halloween! I loved Halloween as a kid. I grew up in a small community, too small to have streetlights or sidewalks in our neighborhood. This made trick-or-treating that much more fun. We never went out when it was still light…only when darkness had fallen. Our house was one of the scariest, because it sits at the end of a long, dark, winding driveway, with dark woods at either side. When my younger brother and I would be out with our friends, we could see nothing except other flashlights bobbing along. Since we’re in the Seattle area, it was almost always cloudy, which obscured any moonlight that might be out. Often, it would be a “dark and stormy night.” At school, kids would come in their costumes and wear them all day, and a lot of the teachers and the bus drivers would give out candy. Ours was not a community that shrank away from Halloween. Everyone embraced it.

As an adult, I think more about the origins of this holiday, and what it meant to my Celtic ancestors. The original name for Halloween was Samhain, and it was the day before the Celtic New year. It marked the end of the fruitful summer season, and the beginning of the long, dark, and cold winter, which they associated with death. On the night of Samhain, the Celts believed that the dead could rise and walk the earth again, often causing trouble. The presence of the spirits on Earth made the Druids, the Celtic priests, able to make predictions about the New Year. They would build a huge bonfire and make animal and crop sacrifices, and they would wear animal costumes and try to make their predictions. After the celebrations, they would use fire from the sacred bonfire to light their own hearth fires, to protect them in the coming winter.

When you’re celebrating on Wednesday, remember that you’re participating in a 2,000 year-old tradition. I know that when I’m giving out candy to little kids dressed up as Spongebob or Dracula that I’m keeping the tradition of my ancestors alive. Happy Halloween!

To my neighbors

Oh my god. Why the hell are your kids running around and stomping their feet at 11:00 at night? Stop chasing them! You live in an apartment, and unfortunately, we are forced to share a wall with you. And are they actually propelling themselves against the walls? Because that’s what it sounds like. Please, I’m begging you, put those horrible little creatures to bed…it’s way past their bed time.

I could use stronger language, but I’m obviously more civilized than you.

General Update – Diet, School, and Life

I’m back again with my weekly update. I haven’t been good about working out, mainly because I’ve just managed to get my sleep under control, and I’m exhausted. But then, that’s an excuse. But I have been maintaining my diet this week, except for one day when I had to order pizza! But it seems that it didn’t hurt me at all, because I’ve lost another pound! I currently weigh 142.6 pounds, so that makes a total of 3.4 pounds lost in two weeks. Not too bad, but it feels like such a slow start. So, now that I’ve made some more progress, here are my week’s goals:

• Work out! This is very important. I want to focus on the cardio workouts, because I think they will burn the most fat.
• Continue with restricted diet. I do allow myself treats, but I’ve increased my other, healthy food portions to make up. I’m also eating a lot fewer calories every day than before.
• No pizza this week. Since I had my pizza treat this last week, I cannot allow myself to indulge again.

That’s it for my diet update. Now to update you all on my scholastic progress. We’re entering week 10 of the fall semester, I think, and I’m still behind in some of my classes. But, I made tremendous progress nevertheless over the past week. I finished three novels, did three discussion postings, and wrote a paper for my American Literature class. I also finished a book and did about four discussion posts for my Gender and Politics class. I’m also (finally) making progress in my English Literature class. But still, I’m afraid that I won’t be able to catch up enough in at least one of my classes, and I won’t be able to finish by the end of the semester. Even though three of my classes are flexible enrollment, which in theory means that not finishing is no problem, since I’m on financial aid, I would lose my funding, making it impossible to attend spring semester. Part of me wants to cut my losses now and get a job. I have good earning potential even without school, and I know I could get a good job.

My boyfriend is in the same situation with some of his classes, making me doubly stressed. I have a tendency to take his stresses as my own, and adding them to mine. I’m a deeply empathetic person, meaning I can really feel someone else’s distress as my own, but in this case, I think it’s actually harming my body. My back is completely twisted, and I think a lot of the progress I’ve made with my diet comes from the fact that the stress is causing me to lose my appetite. When my whole life feels out of control, I often stop eating, which is what happened to me all those years ago. Food has always been an issue, and also something I’ve desired control over. I can just feel bad habits starting to sneak in. I know that if my boyfriend notices, though, he’ll immediately put a stop to it. I can always depend on his help.

That’s all for now. It’s time for breakfast and I need to find my fuzzy slippers – my feet are cold!

It came! It finally came!

I finally received my issue of the brand new Victoria magazine today. They stopped publishing the magazine about 3 years ago, and I was really, really disappointed. I received a postcard a few months ago, though, announcing their return. There are a few major changes, though. First and foremost, instead of being a monthly magazine, they will not be releasing a bimonthly issue 6 times a year. So, the one I got today is the November/December issue. Also, the styling seemed to return to the very old Victoria of about 10 years ago. Nevertheless, I was so excited to see it in our mailbox, that I literally ran back to our apartment…and I hate running. I wanted to set the mood, so I brewed a cup of tea, fluffed up the pillows on the couch, and took my socks off since my feet were roasting after that run. First off, I noticed that the magazine seemed smaller. I also noticed that there was a new editor-in-chief, but I suppose that was to be expected. But then, after reading a few of the articles, I also noticed that the writing seemed…well, amateurish. Like, I could write better than some of those people. They also changed the fashion section of the magazine. Before, they would include these lavish, 6-10 page spreads depicting any sort of luxurious, high-class fashion trend. One issue, it was Eastern European-inspired coats. Another, it was equestrian-style outfits. This time, it was four mannequins, lined up in a row, across two pages, with outfits that are readily available at the local mall. It was a huge letdown. There was no romance, no drama. It was completely sterile and boring.

The rest of the magazine was all right. They had a section on beauty that featured perfume, and a books section that reviewed three books, one of which is already on my Amazon.com wish list. They had features on special homes across the country, a winter garden, a Connecticut town known for its cider mill, and more that reminded me of what I loved about Victoria. But there was still something lacking. I think they were trying to hard to write as romantically as possible, that it felt fake, like it was overdone. I’m hoping that the writers calm down after this first issue, and can find their way back to what Victoria used to be like. I’m still going to send in the subscription fee. After all, how often does your favorite out-of-print magazine come back to life?

Oh, and as a side note, it is howling like a bitch outside! I’ve forgotten what these windstorms are like. I can hear limbs cracking in the woods outside, and branches flying around, whipping the side of the building and hitting the windows. Tomorrow morning, it’s going to look like a bomb went off outside, and the trees are going to have absolutely no leaves left. All I hope is that a tree doesn’t decide to come down on the roof, or on one of our cars.

Blog Action Day – The Environment

Today is Blog Action Day, and the focus is the environment. I want to share a short list of simple things ordinary people can do every single day to make a difference for the earth. Our planet is facing a crisis, and it is each person’s responsibility to do what they can to reduce their impact.

1. When out shopping, try to buy things that have little or no packaging. Excess packaging only creates excess waste. One easy way to do this is to donate your CD’s and switch to an mp3 player. Downloaded songs create no waste at all!

2. Take the bus or train to work. Not only will you be cutting down on fossil fuel emissions, but you’ll be able to enjoy a more relaxing ride and save on gas. Plus, you’ll get to cruise along in the HOV lanes!

3. When using the dishwasher, turn it off before it goes into drying mode. Instead, pull out the racks and allow your dishes to dry in the open air. The same goes for clothes. When at all possible, dry you clothes on a clothes line or an indoor drying rack, to eliminate the need for the dryer. You’ll save tons of energy!

4. Recycle, recycle, recycle! Recycle all your plastics, newspapers, glass, junk mail, and aluminum cans. Encourage recycling in your workplace and school. Also, try to buy products that use the highest content of recycled materials.

5. Recycle your electronics. Most areas have a recycling center nearby that accepts most TV’s, VCR’s, and computers. Or, donate these items, if they still work, to someplace like Goodwill.

You Know You’re From Western Washington When…

1. You know how to pronounce Sequim, Puyallup, Enumclaw and Issaquah.
2. You consider swimming an indoor sport.
3. You keep snow chains in your trunk but they’ve never been used.
4. You see a person carrying an umbrella and know they must be a tourist.
5. Eating seafood isn’t anything special.
6. Your lawn is mostly moss and you don’t really care.
7. Your daily commute to work involves riding a ferry.
8. You know the difference between “showers followed by rain” and “rain followed by showers”.
9. When it’s a nice day, you say “the mountain is out”.
10. You’re extremely picky about your coffee.
11. You yell at the TV if they pronounce the name of a city wrong or make an inaccurate Seattle reference on “Frasier”.
12. You rarely wash your car because it’s just going to get muddy again tomorrow.
13. You wouldn’t dream of putting an air conditioner in your house.
14. You go to Eastern Washington to get some sun.
15. You can drive from your home to a lake, a river or the Puget Sound in 20 minutes or less.
16. You’ve seen or know someone who has seen Bigfoot.
17. You remember where you were on May 18th, 1980.
18. You get a terrible sunburn on the first really nice day of summer.
19. You look forward to SeaFair and all its related activities.
20. You take a heavy coat and a hat with you for a day at the beach.
21. You have learned to assume Christmas will be rainy, not white.
22. You’ve owned the same bathing suit for years because you never have a chance to wear it out.
23. You still can’t believe the new Seahawks stadium is open air.
24. Your phone book contains a tide table.
25. You only visit the Space Needle if you need someplace to take out of town guests.
26. You or someone you know works at Boeing or Microsoft.
27. You “Do The Puyallup” every year.
28. You feel guilty throwing something away that could be recycled.
29. You use the word “sunbreak” and know what it means.
30. You know more than 10 ways to order coffee.
31. You know more people who own boats than air conditioners.
32. You know the difference between Chinook, Coho and Sockeye salmon.
33. You have no concept of humidity without precipitation.
34. You can point to at least 2 volcanoes even if you can’t actually see them through the cloud cover.
35. You wear shorts when the temperature gets above 50 but still wear your hiking boots and parka.
36. You switch to your sandals at about 60 degrees but keep your socks on.
37. You have actually used your mountain bike on a mountain.
38. You buy new sunglasses every year because you’ve lost last year’s pair after such a long time not needing them.
39. You measure distance in hours.
40. You often switch from heat to a/c in your car in the same day.
41. You use a down comforter in the summer.
42. You carry jumper cables in your car and your wife knows how to use them.
43. When you think ‘big hair’, you think of Kent.
44. You can’t make it two blocks without seeing a Starbucks.
45. You know how to pronounce geoduck and know that it doesn’t quack or have feathers.
46. You expect snow for Valentine’s Day, not Christmas.
47. You can tell the difference between Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean and Thai food.
48. You can taste the difference between Starbucks, Seattle’s Best and Tully’s.
49. It’s not a real mountain unless it has snow and has erupted within the last 200 years.
50. You go to work in the dark and come home in the dark even though you only have an 8 hour workday.
51. You can tell it’s summer because the rain is warmer.
52. You know what a Frango is.
53. You have an earthquake story, and so does everyone else you know.
54. You can identify five different cities by smell alone.
55. You give directions using the Puget Sound and Cascade mountains as points of reference.
56. You lose your sense of direction if you go east of the Cascade mountains.
57. You know what a Dick’s Deluxe is.
58. You or your family member live “in the woods”.
59. You can endure 100 days of rain and wind but an inch of snow means school cancellations.
60. You prefer one mountain range to the other.

Weighing in…

I’m keeping my promise and posting my weekly diet update. I haven’t done a lot of working out, but I’ve been taking more pains with my diet and have cut my caloric intake every day. I even went out to dinner tonight with my family to a nice Italian restaurant. While my everyone else had several helpings of bread, huge salads, and gigantic main courses, while I had part of a toasted ravioli appetizer (tomato sauce instead of cream sauce for dipping), and one piece of cheese pizza. Because I’ve been eating less, it was all I could eat. For dessert, I had about a half a cup of ice cream, and a small piece of cake, which I didn’t finish. I think my 18 month-old nephew ate more than I did! I’m glad I was able to restrain myself at dinner, especially since Italian food is my favorite food ever, especially pizza.

So…here’s the moment of truth. My weight this week is…..143.8. That means I’ve lost 2.2 pounds. I know that most of that is water, but it’s a good start! It’s given me hope that I can really lose weight. Here are my specific goals for this week:

• I will take control of my sleep schedule to make sure I sleep at least 7-8 hours a night, and wake up in the mornings (I’m on my way to reverse sleep right now).
• I will do my yoga every other night, plus cardio workouts on the stepper.
• I will continue to watch what I eat, and try to cut all sources of refined sugar and fats.

I will check in next weekend, and let you know how I’m progressing!

An encounter of the jackass kind

All I wanted to do was buy a DVD for my brother’s birthday! I went down to the mall, and pulled in to the garage across from Nordstrom, where I always park. Almost right away, I saw a car pulling out of a spot near the entrance, and a HUGE, black, 4-door pickup, with 4 guys in their 20’s inside, was backing up to take the spot. I waited as they tried to negotiate their behemoth into the small spot, but it soon became obvious that they weren’t going to fit. I was amazed to see, however, that they were still stubbornly back up and pulling forward, trying to inch their way in. At one point, they backed up so quickly, I had to get out of their way as fast as I could, otherwise they would have hit me. That was the first time I honked my horn. All this time, they were blocking me, and soon about 5 other cars. At first it was funny, then it became irritating. Pretty soon, there was a line of cars waiting to get by, but these guys pretty much pretended not to notice. This is when things got nasty.

I finally rolled down my window, when I saw that the driver had rolled his down, and shouted at him that he wasn’t going to fit, and he should move on to the 50 other spaces available in the garage. They acted as if they hadn’t heard, and simply asked me over and over, “can we fit?” It was ridiculous. A lot of people were waiting and angry, but they took no notice at all. At this point, about 15 minutes had gone by. They were still trying to get me to “help” them (I don’t know what their motive was), and I finally gave up shouting at them and rolled up my window. I called one of the stores I used to work at in order to get the phone number for mall security (I had warned them I would do this), and they started honking at me repeatedly, trying to get my attention. No one at my store could help me, so I waited until they had moved enough to get by. Right away, I hit the gas and got around them, and pulled into a spot. I was shaking really hard from anger, and decided to call my boyfriend, who was at home working on a midterm. I got him to look up the number for security online, and he could tell that I was really, really upset. When I got ahold of the security office, the guys in the truck had actually left the spot they had so coveted, and had pulled their car behind me, blocking me in. They didn’t stay long, thank goodness. Instead, they ended up leaving the garage altogether. But I still reported what happened, and the guy on the phone said he would alert the officer in the area. I finally was able to get out of my car to actually go in, but I could hear the obnoxious assholes honking their horn at some other people in the parking lot just outside the garage…they were actually coming back! I sort of hid, and saw that they were pulling back into the garage, this time going up to the second level. They were honking their horn like crazy, trying to scare some poor teenage girls who were walking in front of them. I called security back and told the same guy where the truck was, and he told me that he would relay the information. I went inside Nordstrom, which seemed like an oasis of peace to me, and was finally able to do my shopping.

This whole encounter reminded me of why I try to avoid malls in the first place. These guys were arrogant, and completely unconcerned with the horrendous amount of trouble they were causing. I don’t know what eventually happened to those guys. I hope that they were just as arrogant with the security officers, and I hope the police were called. I hope they learned a lesson, that indulging in this kind of behavior only shows people how little class they have. But, the evil part of me hopes that someone bigger than them kicks their asses!

Timbaland – Apologize

Thoughts on becoming an adult

When I was growing up, I was not only sheltered by my geography (I lived on an island), but I was also a pretty unhappy kid. I didn’t have a lot of friends, and the friends I did have, I kept at a distance. My depression and my attitude tended to keep people away. But it wasn’t just my fault. Some of the people I felt were my friends betrayed me in various ways, so that by the time I was about 17, I was almost completely isolated from other people, even my long-time best friend whom I had met in pre-school. My family, and especially my mom, were the people who were the closest to me. I spent most nights at home with them, watching movies with my younger brother, having late-night talks with my older brother, or going out to dinner with them (we liked to eat out a lot). There was only one rebellious stage I went through, when I was about 15, which ended with my getting arrested for shoplifting cigarettes, a habit I had picked up from some friends. I started fighting with my dad, and then I again withdrew from people. But at the same time, I had accepted my life and the plans I had made, like going away to college, which was expected of me.

But, by my senior year in high school, I made a conscious decision to turn my life around, and I had a pretty good year. I reconnected with one of my old friends, and after graduation, she introduced me to the guy who would become the boyfriend that I am still with today, almost 10 years later. When I met him, my life completely changed. I was suddenly going out at night, staying out late, going to parties, actually living a normal teenage life. I was going to college that fall in a different town, about 90 miles to the north. My boyfriend and I decided to stay together, but it wasn’t easy. Suddenly, I was out of my comfort zone. I missed him like crazy, and I missed the rest of my family. I ended up getting into some unhealthy habits, like smoking pot and starving myself. My boyfriend broke up with me, and I got even worse. I dropped down to 95 pounds, dropped out of school, and came home. My parents sent me to see my doctor, who diagnosed me with depression and put me on some medication. I very slowly started to gain weight, and after being on the medication, and getting back together with my boyfriend, I started to feel a lot better. But it was a bad summer at home. My dad and I were fighting all the time, and I was also fighting with my boyfriend. It was obvious that living at home was not a good situation, because my parents still wanted to treat me like a child, when I was a 19 year-old girl who had experienced life on her own.

After about 9 months at home, my boyfriend had moved to Seattle, and I got a job there. I was commuting back and forth on the ferry everyday (I don’t understand how my dad can stand it), and I was finally able to move into my own apartment. I think that I can trace my transformation back to that point. My parents have always been generous, and to this day are still giving me a monthly allowance…well, at least while I’m in school. But back then (this was about 7 years ago), I was making my own money, living in the city, hanging out with my boyfriend, and enjoying my freedom. A lot of my opinions and attitudes began to shift away from what I had been taught by my parents. I think that I adopted a lot of my boyfriend’s opinions as my own, which I’m sure is common. He grew up in an entirely different situation than I did, and seeing life from his point of view changed me. I was no longer certain of my long-held beliefs about the world, but it was an exhilarating feeling.

Since then, we have gone through a lot together. We have struggled through times of extreme poverty (begging for food from his brother, who was on welfare), having him go through a serious illness, of which he is still not completely recovered, until finally I was able to get a good enough job to get us out of a bad situation. My parents helped us out tremendously, paying our rent at times, helping me to fix my car, driving me to job interviews. We are still so grateful; more so because they never mention it. My parents are not the “you owe us” type. They see their children as deserving everything they can give them. That includes education. Last year, when I decided to quit my job and go back to school to finish my degree, they offered to pay my share of rent until I graduate, something most 27 year-old women would never receive from their parents. but my parents see it as their duty.

But since then, a distance has grown between my family and me. When I talk to them, I find that we disagree about a lot of things. And since my nephew was born 18 months ago, I have found that their attention is almost wholly taken with him. My mom used to come over to visit, and we would have great mother-daughter shopping trips. Those don’t happen anymore. The strange thing is, though, I’m not feeling neglected. My parents still love me like crazy, and they are always so happy when we visit. But something has changed. Before, the thought of being away from them led me to become so sick, I had to leave school. But now, I can think seriously about moving far away, even to someplace as far as New York or Paris. I’m loving my independence, and I think my parents are loving it, too. My life hasn’t gone the way they, or even I, planned. But I think that I’ve taught them that they can trust that I’m the one who knows what’s best for me now. They’ve done their job. I left the nest a long time ago…I think I’m only now realizing it.