Adjusted Reality

“Reality can be beaten with enough imagination.” – Mark Twain

Tag: gratitude

What I’m Thankful For – Pt 2

So a few glasses of wine and some writing did the trick.  Also – crab salad sandwiches.  Seriously, this is my new find.  One whole can of lump white crab is only 60 calories (and is a buck twenty five at big lots).  I mixed it up with some light mayo, celery, and onions, and ate one melt (with light cheese and some pickles with the mixture) on an arnold’s sandwich thin and then put the rest of the mixture on another half of a thin.  All being told, probably about 300 calories and it was like a feast, especially mowing down a half a bag of snow peas and some hummus too.  I got some good quality writing done, and I went to bed happy.

I woke up today and had a wonderful morning yoga, and braced myself for the crazy.  So far, no crazy.  My butt has escaped the teeth marks that I expected it to have this morning.  It may only be a deference until Monday, but after 4 days off, I’ll be ready to deal with it.  I’m going to put my head down, enjoy the quiet, and get the last thing on my to do list done before I slide off into long weekend mode.

But not without a show of gratitude.  This year, I am thankful for (in no particular order or importance):

-Being able to continue to pay mortgage and live comfortably with minor modifications even through a one income + one unemployment check period.

-That my Zliten got a job, back in the industry, making enough that we can start pumping up that savings account again.

-For a full time job in a stable company that is seeing success even through this crappy economy.  It may not be the favoritest job I’ve ever had, but it sure beats the hell out of just about any alternative right now.

-That I’m leaving another year fitter and healthier than I went into it.

-For things that happen just at the right time to keep me sane/engaged/awake/hungry for more.

-For amazing technology that is part of my life.  My phone can internet.  For 15 bucks per month, I can listen to just about any song I ever want.  With the push of a few buttons, my car can tell me turn by turn how to get home from ANYWHERE.  A web page that I can put my turn by turn run and how much time it took, and it will tell me my distance and pace.  I’m not talking astrophysics here, just those little conveniences that make life a little more…ahhh.

-Luxuries like pest control service and the alarm company.  These were things that we considered giving up during the lean times, but then relented when 1) we had a mouse in the house, and instead of dealing with it ourselves, we just called the dudes and within a day, the mouse was gone and the entry point was patched up and 2) we had a break in where the dude opened the door, the alarm went off, and he didn’t even take anything.  Even the easy pickins.

-The fact that my parents now live a short drive away, and we can see them more often.  And in not-week-long doses that drive us both a little batty.

-My wonderful friends.  Another fun year of outings, parties, potlucks, fun, and games. 😉

-Maintaining a healthy weight.  It may not be my ideal or my happy weight, but I can’t look in the mirror and hate myself.  Besides those nagging little imperfections, I don’t mind my nekkid.

-My headspace shift in the last year from exercising and eating for weight loss to eating to fuel my exercise, and exercising for accomplishment and sport.  It may make losing harder, but it feels like a more sustainable and healthy place to be.

-I am finally at a place in my life, where I can decide what I want to do, set some concrete goals and put a plan in place, and more often than not get there, and if not the moon that I’m shooting for, I usually end up among the stars (to paraphrase that quote badly).  I wanted to lose weight, and while I’m not at my final goal, I’m beyond my wildest expectations back then.  I wanted to run a half marathon in 2 hours – I ran it 16 mins slower – but seriously, who cares?  I went through a 3 month training program where the only person I was truly accountable to was myself, and finished.  Now with NaNoWriMo – I might not finish in a month but I’ve got a solid plan to keep at it and the realization that I CAN DO IT.

-To be married to the most wonderful Zliten in the world, and that we had an awesomely fun friend and family filled destination wedding that was totally worth all the stress.

-The awesome fit/health/food blogging community who stop by here to read my rambles.  Seriously, you deserve a freaking medal sometimes.  You all understand what I go through like no one else does sometimes.

-Amazing advances in media.  Instead of having to cope with just what’s on TV when it’s on and synchronizing our watches (remember having to be home at 8 for your favorite show every week and watching all the commercials? ha!), we can be amused anywhere, any time, by anyone with the internet.
Case in point:

I’m sure there’s much more I’m forgetting, but I’ll wrap this up for now. Happy Thanksgiving out there, bloggie folks. Hope you have a wonderful weekend, and remember – if you gobble gobble, you should also waddle waddle! ::grin::

Happy Tweetsgiving – Part 1

So, here it is.  I find myself in a LOUSY ASS mood today.  I even blargharlargalarghed in the comments at poor Mizfit, who being the mayor of blogsville, spread the word that today was the day to post what we were thankful for, and link back to HERE, who started the idea of tweetsgiving, and everyone in the twitter and blogosphere should share what they were thankful for.  And apparently leave our participles dangling.  Oh yeah, dangle that participle baby.

Anyhoo, I find myself in a LOUSY ASS mood.  I don’t think that adequately describes it.  Given any sort of outcome, today is the day I wouldn’t have found any of them favorable.  Given the winning lottery ticket, I would have been bitching about paying the taxes on it, and not being able to decide WHICH Rolls Royce I was going to buy.  That kind of mood.  Where you know you’re being ridiculous, but just can’t find a way to pull yourself out of it, and really just don’t care.  I’m so rarely in a bad mood I almost want to indulge myself sometimes.  Like, I’m still pretty grumpy but I’m almost laughing at myself because I know how silly I am when I’m pouty like this.

So yes.  For the 3rd time, LOUSY ASS mood.  Some crap at work that I loathe to go into on my blog, some frustration at poor planning on my part in my social calendar, and some wanting people to bend to my will without luck, and nothing was goddamn going my way.  I was also ridici-busy so I was also grumpy that I wasn’t able to put up my fuckity fucking post about being fucking grateful for a bunch of awesome fucking crap in my life.

LOUSY ASS MOOD.  Did I mention?

I had thoughts like – “If only everyone in my life can leave me goddamn alone and let me do what I want, maybe I could actually be a novelist/marathoner/90 lb waif/whatever flavor of the month Quix dream is.”  But that happened once.  I worked and worked and worked and worked to try to be something until it encompassed everything else in my life.  Once I took the blinders off I was so shocked at how much the rest of my life was in ruin, I changed.

So thank you, to my family and friends, for saving me from myself.  I want to dedicate this post to you, even if very few of you read this.  Besides all the normal stuff – being there for me, good times, hugs, support, etc (which I will surely go into next post when I feel a bit more sane), I want to talk about all the completely selfish and weird reasons I am lucky to have all the people in my life.

If it were just up to me, and I was just alone in my own vaccuum, it would be all work and no play.  I would spend every waking moment trying to be something or do something or better myself.  I would stock my fridge full of rabbit food and lean meat.  I would probably workout hours per day, and then write until I fell asleep.  Or I would go back to school and start at one end of the catalog and work my way through.  I might learn how to program my own games.  I might be able to finally lose all the weight without all those temptations around me and finally wear those super skinny jeans without the tummy pudge pokin’ out.  Hell, I might be able to run something more than this rinky dinky little blog.

I forget to have fun.  I forget to make those awesome memories like margaritas at sunset on the lake.  Or lounging around in PJs all day finishing a game.  Or the fun of cooking a huge feast for people who either like my cooking and bartending skills or were at least nice enough to pretend.  Or my bachelorette party where I rolled 10+ girls deep with a penis crown all night.  Or staying up late on a stolen weekday and talking about life.  Or laying in the grass in my yard and looking up at the clouds and trying to figure out what they all look like.  Or the cruise where we played at least 6 rounds of mexican train (dominos) and all took turns winning.  Or, the pinnacle of awesome – our wedding where we had so many awesome and loving and supportive people around us celebrating our special day where I felt like a pretty pretty princess.

Besides being awesome human beings, you keep me from being too much…me.  Without someone to help balance me, and remind me that there is life outside megamaniac mode, I get way too focused and then just frizzle-fry-burn out.  I might curse your name when I’m running a little hungover or behind on my writing, but seriously, I would be one boring evil genious without ya’all.  That occasional piece of cheesecake make all the salad days worthwhile.  The promise of drunken hookey days make those ass-dragging technical meetings where I don’t understand anything but have to take notes bearable.  The fun times might not contribute to any goals I have in life, but the memory and the promise of more makes the responsible things just that much more ok.

Most of all – I am thankful for my Zliten.  He’s the one that has to deal with the day-to-day, and he’s gotten very good at knowing when I need to be left alone in my little mad-scientist world, and when I need to be pulled the heck out.  I am thankful for him in many, many, many other ways that are way too plentiful to go into here.  But today, I am most thankful for him and his ability to monitor my crazy and pull me out of it before I lose it completely.

Now, a little more wine and back to NaNoWriMo-ing.  I might not make my 50k words but I’m going to try.  A more coherent and all inclusive thankfulness list in the very near future, I promise.

Sorry, Monday, I’m Just Not That Into You…

Attitude is everything.  I’ve taken some really rough days and put a positive spin on them and come out alright.  I’ve gotten through some tough times in my life just with optimistic thinking.  So why, when everything is going great, and I feeling so…bleh?

I’m thankful for having a job at a stable company that has a successful product where I’m making a living wage at a title that is not beneath me.  However, I’ve been at that title for 4 years now and it’s time to move up (I’ve never gone so long without a promotion).  Plus, I miss the creativity I used to have earlier this year.  That one post I made a few months ago all excited about job stuff?  That’s on hold and I’m onto something else not quite as exciting.

I’m thankful for have been able to able to lose 110 lbs, and go from someone who grumbled about having to park 100 feet away from her apartment to a half marathon runner.  However, it’s been the greater part of a year since I really took off any more weight.  Why the hell can’t I get it together and finish this up?  Also, a trend I’m not liking is I feel like I’m becoming less enthusiastic about my workouts.

I’m just feeling all around burnt out lately.  This year has been crazy (crazy cool, but still crazy) – it started in March with the birthdays and then April with half training, and then in July, it was wedding, wedding, wedding until October.  I figured things would calm down but now it’s been taking care of all the stuff I’ve put off since the wedding.  Plus I decided to take on NaNoWriMo.  And next week begins half marathon training.

I feel like the guy in Office Space who just wants to do nothing.  The silly thing is, I know it’s crazy because I go NUTS doing nothing.  I think the combination of stressing over my sticky scale numbers, having a period of work where I’m just not quite as into what I’m doing as I could be, not having had a good, lengthy, and relaxing vacation in a while, and feeling obligated to do something at every moment of the day this month is just about making me crack.

But don’t cry for me. Seriously.  I saw you taking that tissue out and just go ahead and put it back.

The Write Stuff:

Even though I’m stressing about it, NaNoWriMo has been a great experience that I will be immensely proud of, even if I don’t get to 50k words (but I’m not giving up!!).  Just sitting down to write a story and getting through it has been huge for me.  Though it’s been hell some days to find time to write, and yesterday I just couldn’t get inspired, I’m pleased with my consistency of being able to sit down and flow.  While this week was too crazy to write most days (hence, why I got so behind), I pulled over 7000 words out this weekend.

Words needed to be on track: 25000

Words written: 20500

Words per day needed this week to catch up: 2400

One thing I’m also realizing – it doesn’t need to be THE BOOK for me to start writing it.  You know, the masterpiece.  The one that’s going to somehow become a best seller and I’ll be able to retire and go move to Vermont like all writers do or whatever.  If I can speedwrite a short book in one month, I can chip away at a novel a year.  Slow, sure.  But it’s better than not writing and complaining about it.  I think it is going to be a goal from now on to write at least one novel per year.

Food, Glorious Food:

I’d say I lost it here this week, but honestly, I don’t know for sure.  I stopped tracking mid-week and just couldn’t bring myself to start it up again.  The key days were Wednesday, Friday, and the weekend.

Wednesday – work event, which I sailed through.  I ordered a DELICIOUS asian chicken salad and only used half the dressing.  Then later, for dinner, I ate a bunch of fried appetizers after some drinking.  This is sort of a wash.  Sure, I ate crap.  But at least I had the sense to split the crap with other people and then realize I was done eating for the night even though it was an appetizer.

Friday, I had a buffalo burger, wheat bun, no butter and split some fries for lunch.  I was hoping to love it since it’s a fairly healthy option for Fuddruckers, but I just didn’t.  The meat tasted weird.  We had grilled chicken, tiny baked potatoes, and my famous veggie pasta salad for dinner.  However, there were two margaritas on a beautiful patio and some drinks later, so again, kind of a wash.

Saturday, I knew I needed major fortification, so I had a footlong subway turkey with no cheese and lots of veggies and an apple.  That got me through the day until the party, where I cooked a feast (more on the tomorrow) and pushed tropical drinks on my guests!  There was some healthy (veggie tray, veggie curry, etc), and some not so healthy (fried lumpia, fried chicken katsu, etc), and I ate some of both.  Come on, a good cook ALWAYS tastes the creations.

Sunday, minus the pizza that found it’s way into the house during lunch time (Zliten’s fault!  He didn’t even give me the chance to veto, he just left and came back with it), I noshed on the leftover veggies, salad, soup, fruit, and for dinner we made tiny filets.

All in all, I think what happened is I slipped back into “balanced lifestyle” mode instead of “weight loss” mode.  I didn’t go off the deep end.  I balanced out the alcohol and junk with a lot of fruits and veggies.  And this was even left to my own devices.  I’d venture that I averaged maybe 1700 calories per day this week total, which is not what I’m aiming for, but not up to my maintenance calories either.  I’d call it a victory, but I haven’t had the courage to step on a scale yet.  Tomorrow morning, I’ll let you know. 🙂  Last week, I bounced between 154.2 and 155.4.  Disheartening as I was hoping to continue the downward trend, but encouraging as I was not up and down like normal.  I’ll take what I can get.

This week, my goal is to stay under 1500 calories per day (closer to 1300 if I can), minus a planned event Wednesday which I’ll allow up to 2000.

Body Movin’:

I talked about this a lot this week with my abrupt end to shredding, unplanned day off minus some yoga Wednesday, and my subsequent discovery of DDR circuits that I refined on Friday, so I’ll spare you any more details.  I took the entire weekend off to give myself a rest and am back at it this week.  This is essentially my week 0 for half training, and I’m getting myself prepared to run more by bumping it up to 3 days this week.  I am a week and a half from my 5 mile race, and I just haven’t trained much for it specifically, so I’m just hoping for the best.  Here is the plan:

Monday: 10 mins warmup, 6×400 sprints, 10 minute cooldown

Tuesday: 5 mile run at attempted race pace (45 minutes)

Wednesday: off

Thursday:DDR circuit

Friday: 3.1 mile tempo run (yeah, I’m going to chase my sub 25 5k ONE LAST TIME before half training starts and I need to be a reasonable human and stop running so fast and work on running far)

Weekend: DDR circuit and a bike adventure

Wednesday is off because I have to be into work early anyway to go to said event at 5:30, and I don’t do early early morning workouts so I’ll adjust the rest of my week accordingly.  I may reconsider and do a regular strength session tonight at the gym after my sprints instead of so much on the weekend, but we will see.  Without schedule conflicts, I would have run M/W/F (sprints/tempo/long) and did DDR circuits Tu/Th.

I still owe before and after shred pictures.  I’ll get on that.

So bloggy people, how was your weekend?  Anything supah cool?  Anyone else kinda feeling the blahs and just CANNOT WAIT for some damn time off over the holidays?   Wanna tell me what an arsehole I am for feeling whiny?  Your opportunity awaits…

And yes, it was another Natalie Dee day.  It just felt right.

Once Upon a Time in Reno…

(yes, I’m going to give the neuroticism a break today – enjoy!  Please also ignore any funky formatting and pretend it’s just *artsy*.   Yeah, that’s it…)

…there was a boy named Zliten and a girl named Quix.  They both worked at the “other mall” in town for after school jobs their junior years in high school.  Quix worked at Hot

High School Senior Quix

High School Senior Quix

Topic.  Zliten worked at Sweet Factory.  These stores were right across from each other.  Zliten liked the crazy clothes and rebellious items in Hot Topic, so he was often in the store browsing and purchasing the wares.  Quix had to get her candy fix occasionally, so she could be found in Sweet Factory getting a few sour ropes or some sour balls (I guess that shows what a sour girl she was).

After running into each other, Zliten found another reason to go into Hot Topic – to blush at the silly girl with the dark hair in the leather pants and try to make awkward conversation.  Being that this silly boy, beyond being a little socially awkward, also was sporting a bit of a mullet, she would try to avoid him (and send other coworkers over if she needed a candy fix).  He was relentless, but she was probably the most stubborn person you would ever know.  One night at a party,

High School Zliten

High School Zliten

she fixed him up with one of her best friends and they started dating.  Then, a few months later, she started dating the dreamy looking guy at the Orange Julius stand.

None of her friends or family liked this guy, but being the stubborn girl Quix was, she stayed with him, on and off, for about 3 dysfunctional years.  Zliten and said friend went away to college together across the country, broke up a year later, and scattered.  Zliten came back to visit a few times to see his mom, but was living a few states away and liked it that way.  Quix dreamed of a guy who was awesome and romantic and wouldn’t treat her like poop and would sit out on her balcony and ask the stars if they would please please send to her someone like that.

Then one day, Quix was hanging out with said boy, then ex, trying to do the friends thing – by the way – which only seems to work with responsible, patient people. It happened to also be the day that Zliten called

College Zliten: or Heath Ledger, you decide.

College Zliten: or Heath Ledger, you decide.

my cell (gotta love the brick I had in 1999) letting me know he was in town for a few days and wanted to escape his dwelling for a bit if anything was going on.  Being not patient, nor responsible people, Quix and Jerky McLiarPants started screaming at each other not too long after, and she left all upset.  She just needed to talk to someone, and his number was the first on the list having called just a bit ago, and she invited him to coffee.

It just so happened that Quix’s play was closing that night, and she was hosting the wrap party at her next door neighbor’s house (don’t ask).  She got him two tickets.  He

Sadly, the ONLY college Quix pic I have thats online.

Sadly, the ONLY college Quix pic I have that's online. That would be me with the whip.

brought a date, she was trying to catch the attention of the male lead that she had been crushing on ever since the play was cast – but the two ended up together.

Fast forward through all the college awkwardness, and we both picked up and moved to San Diego two weeks after I graduated.  Because it sounded like a neat place to live and it was anywhere but Reno.  Not because we had any prospective jobs or ways to make money.  But we found a little box, and got temp jobs testing video games after the credit cards ran out, and found out we were living in a great place to make a run of having that be our career, so we

Now we race together...

Now we race together...

figured that would be awesome.  Who wants to go back to graduate school and deal with academia politics when you can legally dream up ways to kill people (‘s avatars)?

Through that time, I was proposed to with onion rings and ring pops and the like.  There was never a question that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with Zliten – but I always imagined *things* about getting married.  For some reason, I had the age “30” in my head.  And getting my own life together first – including having a job title I was proud of and – probably more importantly – I was not getting married fat.  Totally vain, I know.  I could be immortalized in time skinny and

...play together...

...play together...

poor and think “gee, glad I got that awesome job promotion the next year” and proudly hang the pictures up on the mantle.  If I was rich and fat, they’d just stay in a box somewhere.

I finally agreed to a promise ring, which slowly got too small as I got bigger.  Then, after things snapped into place in my head and I started project: deporkify and we had enough cash saved up to do the ring right, we finally got engaged.  We bought the ring on a cruise to Mexico in March 2007,  and then we surprised my mom by Zliten proposing at dinner that night.

I worked dilligently on losing weight and then last year, we finally set a date.  May 9th,

...travel together...

...travel together...

2009.  And then we kept changing our minds on what sort of wedding we wanted and didn’t set anything up in time, so then, we finally set another date last December.  October 4th, 2009.  And you’ve gotten to experience the frantic whirlwind since then.

So tomorrow, my dear Zliten and I, love of my life, king prince of silliness, hop on a jetplane with FOUR bags in tow (but hey – it all fits – YAY!) and a few days after that, we become Mr. and Mrs. Zliten.  After 10 years (almost exactly to the date of the play closing), 3 states, 7 apartments/houses, and a whole lot of fun times, we’re finally making it official.  Sure, I may not be at my “goal weight” and I

...wear hats together...

...wear hats together...

struggle with the fact that I could do more/be more and I’m stagnating at work, but the truth is, I’m not doing too badly.  And it’s not as if this is the best I’m ever going to be in my life, oh no – just try and stop me.   There are promotions to go after and races to run and get PRs and muscles to tone and all sorts of wonderful adventures yet to be discovered.  Just with another ring on my finger and my wonderful husband at my side.

Have a wonderful week, blogland.  I will be back with many pictures and stories to share.  Though I have been told that it is absolutely inappropriate to tweet at my wedding (lolz, getting married now bbiab, kthx?), feel free to follow me on twitter or friend me on facebook if you think it might be interesting to hear how Vegas is going, I tend to update those a lot on vacation.  Anyone want to share wedding day memories?  How did you meet your significant other?  Inquiring minds want to know…

...and will be getting married here together in just a few days.

...and will be getting married here together in just a few days.

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