Being More Awesome: Finances and Friendships

I haven’t really talked about Being More Awesome for awhile here, mostly because things have been going pretty great. I’ve been traveling and trying new things and learning to live with a partner and share equally and be completely transparent with him about many things for which transparency is really difficult for me, like money stuff.

Money stuff talk ALWAYS stresses me out and having to rely on Feller for money stuff REALLY REALLY REALLY stresses me out, but I’m learning to deal with that and react calmly when it comes. I’m learning to share all of my finances with him, and I’m not hiding NOTHING. If I’m gonna spend more than $5 on something, I let him know about it because I want him to know that it’s important to me to be completely 100% transparent with how I spend my money. Since most of what I make (all of what I make, if we’re being TOTALLY honest) should go to bills and other necessities, I like to make sure he knows I’m not spending money frivolously, so that “I spent too much money” will never be an argument we have (much like the “PUT AWAY YOUR FUCKING LAUNDRY” argument we never have).

ANYWAYS, one of the habits I’ve noticed myself getting into is saying frequently “I have no friends”, which might be true, but certainly isn’t the kind of attitude that helps me make new friends. I have lots of friends in Tucson, whom I love and who I could never ever replace, but that’s no reason not to make NEW friends here.

As I was doing my daily writing exercise (it involves a lot of babbling and things I would NEVER let another human being read) a few days ago, it hit me like a thunderbolt that continually living with the mentality of “I have no friends (because I’m a lonely sad loser)” is ACTUALLY NOT the way to make new friends! And I realized that I need to STOP putting that negative shit out in the universe are start espousing a more positive outlook. SURE, I don’t have many close friends here, location wise or level of trust wise, but that’s only because I haven’t MADE them yet!

And SERIOUSLY, since I realized that and changed my thinking, I’ve gone out with some girls from a store at which I’ve been covering shifts, and I made a Girl Date with one of the girls from my store. I’ve put myself out there to people I don’t really know that well, but who I might like to get to know better. And as lame as this sounds, I’ve made my intentions clear. I’ve ACTUALLY TOLD PEOPLE “I wanna be your friend” because really? I’ve spent enough time NOT having friends, thankyouverymuch.

In conclusion, I’m Being More Awesome.

Just the Kick in the Butt I Needed

SO. I am planning on writing about the move and how smoothly it went and how much we LOVE our house, and I want to take pictures, but that’s going to have to wait until the weekend because it’s always dark when I get home, so outdoors pictures would be pretty pointless.

I might also write about MAH BIRTHDAY and how great that was and how mah feller really rose to the occasion and went above and so far beyond what I ever would have hoped for (though he has set the bar QUITE high for future birthdays).

But right now I have a much more pressing issue. My company holiday party is in a week and a half, and in an effort to save money, I asked my mom to send me some of my formal dresses from high school because they’re purty, and I would like to get more wear out of them. And OBVIOUSLY I realized that I’m not exactly the same size I was in high school, the later years of which were some of the skinniest of my life, but my body is still similarly sized, so it should be fine, and I’d have a couple of weeks to drop a couple of pounds to get the fit right. And this happened to coincide with Weight Watchers unveiling their ALL! NEW! AND IMPROVED! PROGRAM! so I figured now was a good time to join on up (especially since they now have a $40 monthly pass for meetings (which are usually $13 each, plus a registration fee) and e-tools).

And the dresses arrived, and my mom warned me that my sister could barely zip them up, and she, damn her, is just SLIGHTLY smaller than me. She does NOT have the Phipps childbearing Hips that I have. So I was prepared but hopeful. And you know? One of the dresses I definitely could not zip up, but the other? The one I really wanted to wear? The slinky hot one? It fit! Nevermind that I couldn’t ACTUALLY breath in it and could BARELY get the thing turned around properly after I had to zip it on backwards since I was home alone at the time. It fit! And after (at the time) two weeks of eating really healthily and exercising and shit, I’m SURE to have dropped just enough weight to make that shit work.

And so off to my first Weight Watchers meeting in three years I went! AND THEN. They weighed me. And I saw that number on the scale, and I just about DIED. It was the highest it’s ever been in my LIFE. (Though technically perhaps not EVER ever; before I lost all my baby fat in high school, I was SERIOUSLY chubby, and while I don’t know how much I weighed then, I was DEFINITELY wearing larger sized clothing than I am now.) And all of a sudden the 30 or so pounds I was hoping to be able to shed turned into 40 or 50 and OH MY GOD. I’M NEVER EATING ICE CREAM AGAIN.

And all that talk about loving my body and being happy at the weight I am just went RIGHT OUT the window because the weight I ACTUALLY am is AT LEAST 12 pounds more than the weight at which I THOUGHT I was, and I am NOT happy with being 12 pounds more than I thought I was. And SERIOUSLY, it’s like I turned 26 and ALL OF A SUDDEN (though possibly I just haven’t been paying attention) my body isn’t keeping itself at the weight it’s always defaulted to, and I started noticing that my body looks differently. My boobs are straining against the bras I’m wearing, and HOLY CRAP that picture of me standing up over the weekend? WOW. BAD NEWS BEARS.

So I’m all motivated and shit to get this weight off. Weight Watchers has changed their program so ALL fruits (even bananas!! they keep telling me) are free, which is why I was always previously against their points program, and I’ve been tracking all my foods, even the night of the party we had when I had TWO slices of AMAZING birthday cake (what?! It was MAH BIRTHDAY!) and LOTS OF BOOZE, and you know, I’m kind of surprised at how EASY the tracking is and how it really does help to keep me aware of what I’m eating and how much, and I’m glad I don’t totally hate it. Tomorrow night is my first weigh in, and I’m looking forward to seeing the result of my effort this week.

Angst & Woe

So I am going through a bit of the usual periodic work angst, which was brought on by an amazing two week break from work and stress and pms and dreading getting back to the regular grind of everything. And last night was better than today because, naturally, it wasn’t as bad as I had convinced myself it was. But that didn’t stop me from staying up all night reading wanted ads on Craigslist because this … just isn’t what I want to do.

And I KNOW everyone hates their jobs, and that I can’t expect to be satisfied all the time with what I do, but I’d like to be satisfied SOME of the time. And I don’t know if anything is going to pan out or if I want anything to pan out or if anything’s SUPPOSED to pan out, but I want to sort of stay more on top of keeping an eye on job postings that might be Relevant to my Interests. Because maybe, just maybe, if I’m doing something Relevant to my Interests, school will be a little easier, more … real maybe? More better. We’ll see. I’ve got almost a year before classes would start, if I even get in, and they just opened applications for next Fall, and I need to get on that.

And I’ve got Hawaii posts and pictures coming, but I need to snag my feller’s memory card because I didn’t pull my camera out once during our trip. My sad, lonely camera lived in the safe the entire time, so I have no pictures to share that haven’t already been posted to Twitter. So, you know, eventually.

I don’t think I like being a Grown Up

I love my life, or at least the parts don’t involve work or school, which unfortunately, take up most of my time and all of my worries/stress. I have a friend who said that she’s simultaneously bored by her 20’s and worried that she’s missing out on doing awesome stuff, which is pretty much EXACTLY how I feel. I wish I could spend this time when I’m single and childless doing the kinds of things that I’m not going to be able to do when kids and a husband are in the picture. I want to travel. I want to go to Greece SO BAD it hurts.

And lately I’ve been thinking about school a lot. How worthwhile is something that makes me so miserable? And as I worry about failing out, part of me would be TOTALLY RELIEVED to not deal with it anymore, at least not for awhile. But then the practical part of me kicks the other part of me in the butt, and we remind ourselves that one more year of school ISN’T that bad, my last semester will be an easy one, I’m almost done with my prereqs so fun classes are coming, it will get me out of the current job (because I can’t survive in the manner to which I have become accustomed waiting tables), and, oh yeah, I already owe BUTT LOADS of money in school loans. It would be ridiculous NOT to just finish it up. Not to bust my butt and do better. SIGH.

And I hate that I have to choose between school and everything else. When I get home from work, it ALWAYS comes down to “Okay, well, I can do homework right now or I can do anything else.” Running, hanging out with friends, going to church, cleaning, SLEEPING, anything. It ALL conflicts with school. I DO. NOT. know how people who have full times jobs and KIDS do this.

I just feel so STUCK at a time in my life when I really shouldn’t.

Time’s slipping away

“This too shall pass.” I say that a lot, or actually I say “Make it through this crappy thing, and the next thing will be less crappy.” Which is great for when you’ve got crappy stuff to get through, but certainly leaves a lot to be desired as a motto. I certainly don’t want to go through my life just getting through the crappy stuff, only to realize that there’s never a magical time when it all just WORKS, when everything is GOOD, and I’ve spent all of my time just getting through.

Where is the balance between getting through it and enjoying it? I’m not sure, but I want to make more of an effort to enjoy life, even the crappy parts, even the parts I can’t wait to get through.

I’ve got some things to think about, but I don’t know what to think.