Tag Archives: friends

A Head Like Elvis

In the here & now, , ,

I imagine more than a few of you will be familiar with the self destruct button, right? You know that thing you press which immediately snatches defeat from the jaws of victory? Mine’s seen a bit of welly over the years, in fact the letters have worn off and it feels as smooth as a pebble washed a million times by the sea. It’s under my thumb right now, and it’s like I’ve got some weird kind of fat-girl twitch making me press it, over and over.

Why do I do it? Yesterday was bleurgh. I dodged a few things I shouldn’t have, ate salad for lunch but wobbled a bit in the afternoon (fucking refresher lollies ambushed me again at work, although I did count them) and then I went and ate a monster portion of chilli for tea which pushed me right over my calories. It’s all officially gone tits up, in fact my head is like Elvis…it’s left the building.

What I’m eating isn’t the only fuckery going on here. I’m sleep-dodging too. I sat up last night until eleven thirty or so before heading up to bed knowing I needed to write this post. No careful drafting it out and marinading it for a while before refining and making it just right…no no no. Not this girl, in this mood.

What I actually did was sit in the chair and binge watch ninety day fiancé all evening, even though it’s a pile of shite and I couldn’t give a damn about the stupid people in it and their badly scripted trials and tribulations. Maybe it’s because I imported my own car-crash fiancé years ago from over the pond and I’m fascinated watching other people’s disasters unfold in slow motion just like mine did.

That particular life disaster is buried in the archives somewhere for those of you fancy a good laugh, but whatever…I sat and watched five episodes back to back till I could hardly stay awake from sheer fucking boredom, when I should have been busy tipping the contents of my head onto the page and rearranging it all in the medium of words to help move me on a notch.

In the end it wasn’t far shy of 1am by the time I’d tipped up my word-count, and my alarm goes off at six. Five hours’ sleep plus change, to prepare me for a one hundred mile round trip commute and a job that’s wringing me out on a daily basis at the moment. Way to go to nourish my mind and body, right? I’m such a dickhead sometimes.

Mimi was so astute on Monday when she called me out on lining up an excuse ready to wheel out at the weekend as I try and justify three days of over-indulgence with my friends. She was absolutely bang on. I was doing that. I still am. I’m looking at the pictures and GIFs and Memes that we’re all sharing on WhatsApp as we get giddy about seeing each other and making cocktails and eating chocolate in the hot tub, and staying in pyjamas to watch movies.

I want to immerse myself in the full experience including drinking buckets of prosecco and eating my own bodyweight in inappropriate snacks. Same as everyone else. The trouble is, for them it’s a one-off, but me, well…I don’t know when to quit.

So, yeah. I can feel this fucking button under my thumb, but I’m wandering around in fat-girl fog and I’m not sure I can resist the urge to push it. Again.

I’m heading out Thursday afternoon and there’s no internet signal at Foxy Lodge so I won’t be able to post on Friday, although I’ll be back in time for the Shitbird Chronicles on Sunday.

I can’t wait for that one, I mean seriously just bloody shoot me now…

 

 

 

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A Fair Trade-Off

In the here & now, ,

I’m buzzing this morning…it’s a little after 6am and I’m heading off to the Kingdom of pain shortly to attack my muffin top and bingo wings – the name of this morning’s class – and then I’ll be coming home to shower, change and pack for my weekend away. I’m bubbling over with excitement at the prospect of seeing my best girls.

I had to laugh last night as I was getting the stuff together that I’ve bought to take with me…prosecco and gin, obviously but instead of chocolate and cheese balls there are four melons and at least a ton of grapes. How times change, huh? Last time we were away I managed to wrestle the Asshole voice into submission and keep my treats to the bare minimum, but this time I’m going to have to keep away from naughty stuff altogether due to this whole clean eating malarkey. And you know what, I’m cool with that.

My gold seven disc will be coming with me, in fact it’s already in my bag and I’m determined to trade it up to the gold fourteen after the weekend. Today marks 67 days of being food sober, and I’m all over it to the point that it’s sickening, although I’m saying that with a smile on my face. It’s funny, my head is slowly catching on to the fact that the high I get from having a ball without self-sabotaging is totally worth the effort of expending a little willpower here and there. It’s a fair trade-off, you know? I do this and I get this.  And the Asshole voice remains strangely quiet…the balance of power has definitely shifted since I pissed on his chips with this abstinence from refined sugar.

I thought I’d killed the Shitbird Scale yesterday…I was feeling skinny, so I thought I’d have a cheeky little mid-week step-on just to see whether I’d dropped ten pounds since our last encounter. Unlikely, you say? Yes, but hey you never know, right? I felt thin so it was worth a try.  Anyway, I was met with a blank screen, even after I’d nudged it with my toe several times. Nothing. I was about to have a hissy fit on the basis that it’s barely out of the box, until I realised it just needed a new battery. Clearly it finds my ‘best of fifteen’ approach to weigh-day quite draining. Shitbird thing.

So anyway, once I’d had every cupboard and drawer in the house upside down looking for the right sized battery, and then tracked down a munchkin-sized screwdriver to unscrew the ridiculous battery cover, to the untrained eye it looked like the house had been ransacked, and I’d worked up a proper sweat. It would have been totally worth it if I’d lost the ten pounds I’d fancied, but as it transpired it’d only budged by one. Still, since it was only three days since weigh-day, I’ll take a pound. I’ll happily take a pound.

Right, best get a wriggle on…my hour of torture awaits. I hope you all have an awesome weekend, and I’ll catch up with you next week 🙂

 

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A Bucket Of Social Wellness

Freeform thoughts, In the here & now, , ,

social

So yesterday we chatted about meditation, which was one of Kerry Petsinger’s suggestions in the ‘spiritual wellness’ bucket of ways in which you can love yourself. Or rather my lack of skill in the meditation department. Your perspectives on that brought me round to thinking perhaps I shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater and give up quite so easily, so I won’t. I’ll keep dipping in, in the hope that I’ll get the hang of it.

One of the other groupings she talked about was social wellness. Now that’s an area where I have a little bit more potential I think…I might not always choose to be sociable, but when I do, I can do sociable very well. Maybe not quite so well as I used to, I’m less inclined to surround myself with people these days – I value my solitude a lot of the time. But people still fascinate me, albeit more often than not these days on my terms!

Her first suggestion was to connect with someone who’s positive inspiring & encouraging – well would you look at that. That’s what we all do, every day. Our posse…we connect, we chat…some of you comment, some of the more shy voices amongst you choose instead to email me with your thoughts, and we have a bunch of folk in the posse who love to read and just take it all in, and join in the debate on a cerebral level only…but there’s such a groundswell of positivity, encouragement and sharing going on from which we collectively draw inspiration, you’re all amazing. So gang, we’ve totally got that one down!

Her next suggestion was to visit with your neighbour. I’m a bit less keen on that one, for a couple of reasons. Maybe it should come with a caveat, in terms of it depends who your neighbour is? For example, my nearest neighbours own a Chinese Takeaway. And they are lovely people but damn, it smells so good in there. I don’t use it very often to be fair, but it’s near impossible to leave without a bag full of food and that can’t be good for my diet, right?

During the day when they’re not open, they seem to shout at each other a lot, in very excitable voices, and the one time I knocked at the door during the day to collect a parcel they’d taken in for me, it was answered by a very small man holding a very large chopper, which did alarm me a bit. Maybe I’ll settle for waving when I pull onto my drive, does that count do you think?

I did love her next suggestion, which was to send a note in the post to a family member of friend. I’m an old fashioned girl at heart, and I love the idea of getting a letter, or a card. Cue all my friends falling over and yelling at the computer that I’ve never remembered a birthday in my life, and yeah ok, you got me…I’m crap at that. I’m a bit better now Facebook reminds me 🙂 but there’s still room for improvement. But a card to say thank you, or you mean the world to me, or just a note to say I thought about you today…that’s right up my alley.

Do any of you use the app ‘By Post’? That’s something I use all the time with my mum, especially when I’m away working, or on holiday. You take a picture on your phone, and the app turns it into a postcard and delivers it pretty much the next day – mum loves it, and you know what, I’m going to use it more…just thinking about the possibilities is making me smile.

Her last two suggestions in the social bucket were to plan a fun night out with friends – happening tomorrow evening, yey – and to snuggle with your love. I’ve got that one down too. I guess technically she didn’t have a four legged fur baby in mind when she penned the list but hey, despite his propensity for damaging the ozone layer, he’s the chosen one that I curl up with every night, and he gives the best hugs in the world.

My social wellness bucket feels quite full…how lucky am I 🙂

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