I Ate This Summer

Today's Weight: 196

Goal Weight: 175

Ok, so I'm the worst dieter. 10 pounds in 9 months is nothing to blow up balloons and celebrate for. It's more of something I'd rather not talk about. I'd rather throw a double-cheezy Mcdouble in my mouth and tell everyone I've stopped trying than tell anyone I Really want to lose weight but have managed only 10 pounds in 9 months. But then here I am blogging about it.

Let me tell you about my summer:

I work at a group home that goes camping three times a summer. I only get to go on one of the trips, so the rest of the time I just have off. Sounds awesome (and it is), but what can you do with 37 days off in a summer when you aren't getting paid and don't really have a lot of money saved just so you can blow it on 37 days off? I actually did a lot. This has been the best summer since those summers that lasted a lifetime while I was still a scrawny 8- 13 year-old.

I went on 4 different road trips (if you include work), all of which included numerous stops at all kids of shops and gas stations which seemed to be void of anything healthy. Though I probably spent next to no time looking for apples or rice cakes while I was desperately trying to find a flavor of chips I wasn't tired of yet or picking out the undoubtedly homemade brownies gas stations are always finding and slapping price tags on.

Twice we had friends visit from Alberta. So of course we're not going to feed them all of our organic spices and lettuce. We're going to take them out to fatty restaurants so they can eat that horrible food rather than hog all of our healthy stuff that we eat (whether you believe it or not).

3 of the road trips were to go camping. Everyone knows camping is hot-dogs and marshmallows and burgers and sunflower-seeds and Cheezies and bacon and trips into town for McDonald's or Starbucks or Coke. So you walk around thinking about what you're going to cook for lunch, then you eat lunch, then you start wondering what you're going to grill for supper, then you eat supper, then you eat bedtime snacks, then you sleep and wake up to make breakfast, then you eat breakfast. Plus you can't go without stopping at all those stupid ice cream stores to test their wares or the chocolate factories or the 711's.

In other words: I ate this summer.

I think a couple blogs ago I wrote of how I was losing weight just by eating when I'm hungry and stopping when I'm full. Well... Evidently, it doesn't work that well (10 in 9). But back then I had it wrong, and I'm just beginning to figure it out. I really don't like to get all religious in my blog, but as this is (supposed to be) a blog about losing weight AND this is how I'm learning to lose weight, I'm gonna go ahead and be religious.

Yes, I eat when I'm hungry and stop when I'm full. BUT I have to fill that desire I have to eat - which, if anyone has read any of my blog, is quite something - with something else. Normal diets suggest working-out or starving or sipping herbal tea or getting a calculator and counting all the calories you've eaten, but the 'diet' my wife and I have started suggests replacing it with God.

Ridiculous, right? I thought so. Why would God really care about what we're eating. He says everything is clean so we should go eat whatever we want. Thousands of fat people have good relationships with God, I'm sure of it. Even preachers have a pound here or there they could get rid of. Why do I have to share my Twinkies with God?

Well it's simple. So far, it's been far from easy, but it's simple. God desires us more than anything. We should desire him more than anything. When we actually put him first and find satisfaction through him, we don't need Cheeseburger Doritoes while we're watching Star Wars.

As a home-grown, run-of-the-mill Christian, I've always heard we need to put God first in our lives. I think the lesson I'm learning right now, though, is stuffing the truth of it down my throat, and it's filling me up and helping me to throw the last quarter of my Double Baconator in garbage and thinking 'I probably will survive without it.' No, I think more than that. I think, 'I'm a lot better off without it.'

Of course, I'm not perfect. I expect later this week I'll sneak off to Sparky's pizza and eat an extra large on my own in the corner while the rest of the place sneaks little peeks out of the corner of their eyes. But I'll feel really rotten after, and I won't enjoy it. Because I know now that food is not the Holy Grail I seem to think it is. I need food to keep living. I don't need food in order to love the life I'm living.

It's such a freeing thing. Perhaps not everyone has this attachment to food, but I certainly do. Those dates with my wife where I think it's going to be SO fun cause we're going to The Keg and I'm going to get a 10 oz. steak and those heavenly mashed potatoes, or the trips to see my friends where I say 'we should go to McDonald's at midnight! Remember when we used to do that in High-school?' or when I can't wait for the next stop on our 4 hour drive so I can get out to stretch my stomach with another chocolate bar, these can all be enjoyed WAY more if the focus isn't on food.

I can just love being with my wife because we don't get to do things on our own very often anymore. We can laugh and talk and love each other without that brick sitting in the bottom of our bellies. I can just enjoy reminiscing with my friends without worrying if I'm going to puke up my McChickens. I can make it in 3 hours instead of 4 because I don't NEED those stops. And I can look at that way because I've found the satisfaction I need through God.

For a long time, Food = Fun for me. That may sound gross to some people. You may not believe some could be that way, but that's how I was. Thinking about it, I feel like I should be about 12 hundred pounds, like they should have video cameras in my room so they can watch me try to get all my friends to bring me some donuts. But I'm not that fat, and really I only have about 20 pounds to lose. So I feel lucky.

I can't wait til I'm at my goal weight and Mark Wahlberg is asking me to hang out, til my son wants to play catch for 7 hours and I can say, "Why not 8?" I can't wait til I'm 94 and could canoe across Wascana Lake if I wanted (as if I'd want to), til my kids are getting married and they have me there to celebrate with them, til my kids have kids and I can run around the house making just as much noise as they are so that no-one else can hear the TV.

What I mean to say is: I'm glad I'm starting to Love Life instead of Double-Cheezies. I hope you are too...

Thanks for reading

Personality Flaw

Tonight, I had one of those moments during which, for a split-second, you can step outside yourself and take a look at what the people around you are staring at. I was playing a board-game at a birthday party. And I was getting way too into it. All of a sudden my wife looks at me from across the room and says something like 'take it easy.' This only annoyed me at the time, but after -right after- I looked around and saw the expressions on most people's faces saying similar things: 'Please don't hit me,' I'm pretty sure one's said. 'You're such a retard,' Maxx's said. 'Isn't this supposed to be fun? I'm getting scared. You're a psycho. I'm going outside. Take It Easy.'

I'm competitive. I remember my sisters being terrified of me when I was playing nintendo and I ran that little red plumber off the edge into the bottomless pit, or that stupid little puppy dog stuck his head out from the bushes to giggle when I missed the ducks. I just wanted to chuck my controller through the TV. Sometimes I tried. I remember breaking my hockey stick across my best friend's back, because he had been slashing my shins... during a recess hockey game. I'm pretty sure my wrist is still swollen from when I punched the stage during a basketball game at Luther High School. Thinking about it now, I'm embarrassed. Every time I do think of these things, I shake my head and say to myself, "I'm so glad you're not like that now."

I am like that now. At the party, we watched the hockey game. My favorite team, the Chicago Blackhawks, were playing. They're the heavy favorites and should win the final. But they were playing lousy. They let in three crap goals and looked like they were nowhere near as good as the Flyers. Anyway... others were cheering against them, nothing was going there way, they were going to lose the second game in a row, And I was having a hard time not standing up and ripping my Blackhawks T-shirt off and screaming all kinds of crazy things. I don't even know what I would have said, so I'm glad there were people there I felt I couldn't exactly show that side of myself to. Anyway, the game ended. There's always next game, so I calmed down pretty quick.

They bust the board-games out. My memory is so short, I don't even think about how riled up I had been ten minutes earlier and I think to myself, "This is going to be a friggen blast." And it was a blast. No matter how worked up I get or seem during boardgames, I'm always having fun. Of course I want to win, but it's fun for me even if I'm not. Even if I glare a hole through the wall.

The only thing is... Everyone else is afraid of me. My wife reminds me of this after every game session. And I try to explain that I'm having fun even when I'm being competitive, but she said tonight, "You might feel like you're having fun. But nobody else would believe it. When you're yelling or trying to make a point, you seem scary."

She's right and that sucks. I can see it on people's faces and I want ever so badly to be that guy sitting on the side, sipping some tea and saying 'oh, great job' to everyone on the other teams, but it takes every ounce of self-control I have to sit back in my chair and force myself to relax. If I lose focus for a second, my face turns green and I think a horn starts growing out of my forehead. It doesn't take long for me to lose focus.

I'm not sure what the point of this blog is really. I'm afraid it's not as funny or as clever as some, but I knew I had to write something down, or I'd think about it all night.

I like boardgames. I like watching hockey. I love winning. I hate losing. But if you've ever beat me at something -cards, nintendo, a Provincial Championship Basketball game, anything- and I've seemed angry and you thought maybe I was going to hit you, you should know that I've never done anything like that. I don't even think about that stuff. It's impossible to describe, but I'm not mad at any single person. I'm just frustrated. But I have forgotten about all of it within 10 minutes of finishing.

So don't worry. Don't feel like you have to let me win or you shouldn't play games with me. I'm gonna try my best to 'take it easy' while I play. But if you see a vein popping or if I pick up the coffee table and slam it over my head, don't take it personally. It's just a major personality flaw I'm working on.

Thanks for reading.

Sorry Megan for ruining the game.

Blahg Blahg Blahg

Today's Weight: 198 lbs

Goal Weight: 175 lbs

I watched Julie and Julia. You've probably seen it or, at least, heard of it. It's about two women. One wrote a cookbook. One wrote a blog and then got published and wrote a book or two. That's the very gist of it.

In the movie, it makes it seem so easy for Julie or Julia -whichever one writes the blog- to write a blog. She sits at the computer, flips her hair or scratches her head, then wriggles her fingers around and an elegant, perfectly organized blog comes spewing forth. When she's excited, she speaks extra fast, with a smile in her voice, and you end up getting excited. When she's angry, she tells a story of why she's angry without giving too much detail so if you weren't watching the movie but were just reading her blog you wouldn't know she was angry because of a fight with her husband, but you would totally believe she had a very valid reason for being angry. She made it look so easy! I know it was a movie and she practiced lines and had someone write it all for her, but it still looked easy.

It made me think I could start a blog, promise myself and whoever read it that I'd write something every day and then actually sit down to write something every day. Well, if you have been reading my blog, you would see that I have not written every day.

One thing I have learnt about blogging: It's Hard.

You can't -I can't- just sit down and wriggle my fingers. It takes me for bloody ever to think of a topic, then I gotta think of something to say about it, then I gotta think of a clever way of saying it. Plus there's titles and all of that. Plus you have to have time to sit and write. There's this and that, there's blahg blahg blahg...I could go on and on. It's hard. This is only my second installment this year, for Pete's sake.

Insert: At least a five minute montage with some kind of slow, slightly depressing song. Think of everything worth doing. Think of everything you've ever been proud of. An A+, a song you wrote, a website you built, some weight you've lost, some muscles you've built, a mustache you've grown.

One thing I've learnt about Everything worth doing: It's Hard.

As you can see by today's weight. I have lost a whopping 8 pounds since I started blahging almost seven months ago. (Which reminds me...Whoppers are on sale today... Oh, no, yesterday. Just kidding. But seriously) 8 pounds. It makes me wanna throw something thinking of how hard it is to lose weight.

I think my problem is simple. I like to eat. I like to eat good food all day long. I can try these diets or try to stop eating good food or try to run for hours, but when it comes down to it, I like to eat. Too much. I even have friends telling me they know it's time to eat cause 'Tim is getting grumpy.' I know, I know; I'm making myself sound like a crazed little piggy, but I'm working on it.

I'm trying a new thing. I actually think it's kind of revolutionary. It's not my idea, I got it from a book. But I tried cardio. Watching what I eat. Skipping meals. Organic turkey bites. Dressingless salad. Dressing less tightly. But nothing worked, until I started this. It's still going slow, cause, again, it's not easy. It's Hard.

The trick is this: Eat When You are Hungry; Stop Eating When You are Full.

Queue: Beatles, 'Revolution'

It sounds ridiculous, as if I'm a crazy person for thinking this might work, but if you actually follow the signals of your body, it tells you when to eat and when to stop. Like Derby, when he wants to eat, he cries until we make him something to eat. (Same as Tim getting grumpy) Then he eats until his little tummy is full, and he tells us -usually by crying again- that he's done. I have bad days, days where I pretend I'm hungry and keep eating just cause it's what I love doing or cause Chelsee made a something awesome and I just don't want to stop eating. But I also have good days, days where I totally pay attention to the signals, stop as soon as I'm satisfied, only start when I'm 100% hungry. And I've lost 8 pounds. But I still eat whoppers and cheese and chips, and I drink 2% milk, chocolate milk even. I have pizza and ice cream and all kinds of candy. Haven't worked out for months. And I've lost 8 pounds. It's revolutionary.

8 pounds is nothing to shake a stick at. Times it by 5, and maybe we can do a little dance or something, but it's a start.

Anyway, I started blahgging today to basically make excuses for why I'm not doing it every day. Because it's hard. But I've kind of realized, in the past half-hour, that everything we do that's worth being proud of is hard. What's to be proud of if it's not hard? If it was easy to lose weight, nobody would care to do it. If it was easy to write songs or books or poems or blahgs, who would care? If was easy to make a child, have a child, rear a child, who would stand up in front of strangers to say 'that's my boy! This is my daughter, so and so. She just got a new job. My son's going to college on scholarship. He's writing a book. My daughter plays the piano." No body would care about anything if everyone could do it without breaking a sweat.

So I'm glad it's hard. I'm glad I've been fluctuating between 198 and 202 for the past 3 weeks. I'm glad Derby throws tantrums whenever grandpa leaves the room. I'm glad Chelsee and I still sometimes argue about who's turn it is for dishes. I'm glad Maxx says and does things that make me think he's a big idiot sometimes. I'm glad it's taken me almost a year to write a novel and it's not even half done. I'm glad my beard is all patchy even though I'm 25 and I've been growing it out since the start of playoffs (Go Blackhawks). If these things weren't true, losing weight, being a dad, a husband, a friend, a future-award-winning author, growing a killer beard would be easy.

And I would have nothing in my life to be proud about.

As it is, though, I think I'm doing all right.

Thanks for reading.

New Year's Suggestions

New Year's Resolutions:

1 January 2005: None - I got married. I felt like my life had been resolved.

1 January 2006: Work out. Get Skinny. - Fail.

1 January 2007: Work out. Get Skinny. - Fail.

Read 52 books in a year. - Success.

1 January 2008: Finish writing my book. - Fail. Never wrote a word.

Read 20 books. Success.

Read the New Testament. - Fail. Maybe halfway.

Quit drinking pop. - Utter Failure.

Lose 25 pounds. - Fail. Lost 20 before gaining 30.

Make and keep a budget. - Fail.

1 January 2009: Don't make New Year's resolutions. - Fail.

Work out. Get Skinny. - Fail.

As is evident from my list, I have a very low success rate when it comes to New Year's resolution. Indeed, the only ones that have been successful were things that I most likely would have done anyway. Something about making them automatically sets me up for failure. It's kind of like dieting... As soon as I diet, it's the last thing I want to do. As soon as I make a resolution, I feel like someone is bossing me, like there's now some kind of immovable bondage holding me down.

It used to be that I didn't even bother with them. When you're young you don't need to resolve anything. You can just be an idiot teenager and it has minimal affect on anything. New Year's comes, and all you think about is how you've kept your streak alive: 16 years without a New Year's kiss.

But you start getting older. You lose your patented six-pack that comes with your 13th birthday, and you get to thinking. Your letting yourself go. You are going to be 400 pounds by next year. You just cannot get enough donuts. It shouldn't be like that. You should be free. Free to eat whatever you want, free to climb a hill if you want to, free to sit at the bottom and not have to feel guilty that you're not climbing it. if you want to. So you resolve in your heart to Work out. Get Skinny. At least I do.

Yes, I've joined the millions of people who tell themselves they're going to change. They're going to eat healthy, jog, do pushups, join a soccer team. I pay for a membership. Two year contract? Sure. This is lifestyle change. I'm going to be going to this gym for the rest of my life. Sign me up for ten! I can't wait for January 1 to finish, so I can get to the gym. January 2 I wait in line for the treadmill. I nod to the others, wordlessly acknowledging their noble efforts. I believe in you, I tell them with the way I move my head up and then down. They reply with a smile, or a nod, or a blank stare. Anything they can think of to say, I believe in you too. Their glares inspire me even more. I throw another pie on the barbell.

By the end of the week, I stop nodding at people. Nobody is nodding back anyway. By the end of the next, I'm too sore to go. I miss one or two work outs before forcing myself to get back into the groove. February 1, I weigh myself. I'm 3 pounds lighter. I go eat a Big Mac. Three pounds is definitely not enough for a month of work. My resolution is failed.

So last year, I decided not to make any resolutions. But I was still fat. So I tried one. - Fail.

This year, we went out for supper with Chelsee's parents on December 31. Chelsee asked her mom what her resolutions were. Julie said, "I can't make any promises, so I'm not going to say."

"New Year's Resolutions are not promises," I said without thinking, "They are more like suggestions to yourself."

The table laughed. Maxx said I should blog about that. Chelsee made fun of how mine are suggestions because I never actually do them. I did one, I told her. Yeah, reading books, she said. You read books anyway. I continued eating my cheeseburger.

The thing is...I think New Year's suggestions are WAY better than New Year's resolutions. With suggestions, there's no pressure. You don't feel like you're failing the world if you don't follow your suggestions. It's like those orange signs when you're exiting from the highway. "Suggested speed limit 40 kms while exiting." Nobody goes from 110 kms to 40 just cause the orange sign suggests it. AND no one feels guilty about it. If you do slow down, a little part of you feels pretty good about yourself. You didn't need to heed the suggestion, but you did. You are a good person. If the city resolved that it was absolutely necessary to slow down to 40 kms, nobody would ever do it, and when they got pulled over for not doing so, they'd let that cop have it. "Who in their right bloody mind would slow down 70 kms just to get to 40?! It's not even a dangerous exit," you'd say to the cop.

Yeah, New Year's suggestions are going to change the world. No more pressure. No more failures. You can't fail to do something if it's only suggested you do them. And you'll feel especially good about yourself if you actually do them.

New Year's Suggestions:

1 January 2010: Work out. Get Skinny. If you want to.

Finish your book. If you want to.

Read your Bible more. If you want to.

Watch less TV. If you want to.

Date your wife more. If you want to.

Make and Follow a budget. If you want to.

2010 is going to be great year.

Sorry I've been gone so long. Thanks for reading.

A Day on My Own

My wife and Child went to Calgary for the week. I was working nights and sleeping for half the week, but now I'm done, and they're still gone.
One word to describe being alone: Lonely.
One word to describe my house with no one it: Depressing.
One word to describe life without Chelsee and Derby: The Worst!

Yesterday was my first day completely alone without the need for sleep or the obligation of work. At first, I was excited. I sometimes daydream about having no responsibilities or expectations; I could just be me doing whatever I want. Well, today was that day.

So what should I do?

I decided to go to Starbuck's to do some writing. On the way there, I imagine myself getting lost in my story. I picture all three of my notebooks, full to brim with pretty blue ink forming beautiful, perfectly constructed sentences that ooze with emotion. The barista mopping the floor beside my table sneeks a peek at my writing and starts weeping as she sits down to tell me how perfect my writing is. She calls everyone around and they all ask me for my autograph, except for one man who is smoking a pipe and wearing a bow-tie. "I'm going to publish this book," he tells me, and I start dancing in circles and buying 26 dollar notebooks from Chapter's.
When I got there, I ordered a Grande Caramel Steamer, sat down, put on Kelly Clarkson's new song on my ipod and started to write. An hour and half later, I had 2 and a half pages finished and felt like every creative drop in me had been dried up, a wrinkly old raisin on the floor.
I went to go look at books. I couldn't even smell the potential today, so I left.

The next part of my day...is nerdy. But for me it was fun. Did you ever watch "Stranger than Fiction" with Will Ferrel? He gave me the idea.
I drove home, went inside to grab the biggest book I had, "The Children's Book," a huge hardcover that Chelsee gave me for my birthday, and I walked to the nearest bus stop. I sat on the bench reading my book and when the bus came, I sat on the bus reading my book. For three hours, I rode the bus all across town. It stopped for a break downtown and then all the way to the northwest, before going all the way to the southe east.
I heard one old lady tell the same story to the girl beside her three times. "I looked for my bank card this morning," she said, "I used it yesterday, so I know I have it, but I couldn't find it today. I don't know what happened, I had it yesterday....and so on and so on." Litteraly three times. Later, a young punk sat in one of the elderly spots, and an old man got mad at him, even though there were five other elderly spots.
I watched the bus driver staring at me in the rear view mirror. "Who is this freak?" his eyes were saying. "Why don't you just get lost? Are you going to try to hijack the bus? Are you going to try to stab me? What is your problem?" He was very good at asking questions with his eyes. At one point it was just me and him in the bus, and I almost got off at the other end of the city; I couldn't handle the holes he was burning. I just stuck my nose in my book to ignore him, and eventually he relaxed. These are the adventures anyone could have if they only rode the bus more often.
I got off at the University and went to write some more in the big cafeteria. I ended up getting in quite a groove and got almost 2 hours of straight writing in.

I went to visit my mom and dad at their house.
I went to visit my sister and her daughters at her house.
I went to visit Maxx, my brother-in-law, at his house.
I did everything I could think of to stay away from my dark and lifeless house. If home is where your heart is, my home has been in Calgary for the past week, and it sucks when your home is so far away from where you are.

In the evening, I went with Maxx to go play Basketball at the church. I was excited. I played in highschool. The reason I was 145 lbs in highschool was because we ran up and down that basketball court like a billion times every practise. We could fly across the court. We were always the shortest team in our league with maybe one guy reaching the 6 foot mark, but we worked hard and ran around like crazy people, and we could compete.
I may have been running like a crazy person yesterday, but it wasn't fast and sure wasn't for long. Before the first mini game was over, I was weezing like a whoopie cushion. Ya know when you run outside when it's cold and when you breath in after a while your chest starts burning? That's how I felt after 15 minutes of running. I just wanted to find a small hole to crawl into and cry myself to sleep. The problem was, whenever I took a break and sat on the side, I could feel every muscle in me tightening and locking, holding me down on the bench like a lock and chain. We played for more than 2 hours and by the end, I was practically walking up and down the court. I couldn't even laugh without starting to cough all over the place.
I had fun. I made a few shots here and there. I missed a lotta shots here, there and Everywhere. I got to see a few old friends, and I got some excercise. Afterward, Maxx and Nolan, my other brother-in-law, and I went to Boston Pizza and ended up talking until after Midnight.

All I can say is I'm glad Chelsee and Derby are coming home tonight. While I made the best of the time I had to myself, nothing is the same without them. They are the love of my life.

Thanks for reading.

Faturday

Today's Weight: 207
Goal Weight: 175

For those of you who know me, you know I have a beautiful wife. My wife is the type of woman that you just have to look at; when she's walking through the mall or waiting in line for coffee, there is no end to the amount of men who check her out. She's beautiful. I had one girlfriend before I went out with her. That girlfriend dumped me because she thought I was in love with Chelsee. These are the types of things her beauty is capable of.
I, on the other hand, am not quite as desirable. Where she is a near perfect specimen, I am simply a specimen. I won't go too hard on myself; I'd say I'm somewhere in the middle...maybe the 52nd percentile. Throughout my married life, I have been a complete yo-yo dieter. While I've never hit the obese mark, I have come quite close to rounding that corner once or twice. I have been very round, indeed.
The year before we got married, I lived in the states where I couldn't work, couldn't get paid, couldn't eat much more than eggs and cheese. I walked Everywhere, miles a day, so when I arrived back home, I was a neat little 165. I bought a shirt from LeChateau for my wedding, Size small. However, by the time the wedding came, those size small buttons were awfully close to popping, and, after the wedding, I only increased in circumference.
Before I knew what was happening, I woke up one morning to some blinking blue lights screaming in my face, 218, 218. Ick. Round. From there I went hardcore on this working out, eating healthy kick, and I got down to 186. It's easy to get lazy at 186, so I sat down on the couch until I was once again over two hundy at 209. I went back to the gym, drank some water and made it to 189. Today, I am 207. One pound heavier than when I started the blog...
The problem with going on a diet, for me, is that now I am on a diet. The world is not the same when I am on a diet. Before the diet, Pizza is just something you eat every now and then when you're hanging with the boys and watching football. The moment I start a diet, pizza becomes an incredibly beautiful thing. I dream all day of the cheese oozing down, of the pepperoni sitting so perfect, of the bacon...oh, the bacon. Each slice of Diet pizza is like a little slice of heaven. With every bite, I feel a little closer to the Savior, like each one causes my wings to grow a little bigger. Until I'm done, then I look at my tummy and think there is no amount of wing power or pixie dust, or faery flowers that could even pick me up off the couch.
On a diet, the drive down Albert is torture. The Golden Arches start blinking in high velocity neon. If I can make it past one of them, the next one only laughs at me. "Come and get it," it says with it's hysterical little smile, and I can hardly help it. If it's possible to drive away from the second, the third one stops laughing, he only smiles. His stupid little sign comes to life, saying not "over a billion served." No, that takes away the grandeur. The third one tells me I'm the first, "Come, try something new. Try the Big Mac, it's delicious. Be the first to try a McChicken, Quarter Pounder, McNugget. The options are Endless!" it says to me, and I quickly pull into the drive-through.
The moment I start a diet, donuts are no longer just yummy little circles of cake and icing; they are now a life saving tool, a life preserver thrown out to me in a sea of rice cakes and fruit-to-gos. I bite down with my bicuspids and incisors, and for a second, I can breath easy.
A bottle of coke, becomes the Holy Grail; If I can just get away from this Coke Zero and it's aspartame and Zero calorie boringness. If I can just have one sip of the Real Deal, my life will be complete.
I say all of that to say, I screwed up on my diet already. I'm sure you guessed it.
I'm in the middle of a set of nights at the group home I work at. Sunday morning, one of the kids woke up with the McDonald's theme song in their head. The moment that stupid little jingle, "BaDa Ba Ba Ba" came out of his mouth, that was it; the tempter of my soul, Ronald McDonald, came dancing into my brain, and he was juggling an egg McMuffin, a bacon and egg McMuffin and a medium Coke. Every time the kid hummed the tune, it only solidified my decision: I was eating McDonald's after work.
By the time i got there, breakfast was over, but I was determined.
"Uh...can I get a McChicken meal, supersized, with a coke, no ice...uh...and ten McNuggets." I know, I'm disgusting, but at least we know something in my life is changing: I didn't immediately order a Big Mac Meal.
I took it all home. Chelsee just laughed at me, but I assured her it was just this once.
By lunch time I desperately wanted pizza. I convinced Chels to have it with me. And then for the grand finale, I got some Timbits to wash it all down.
Sunday was no longer Sunday, it was Faturday. One day, full of whatever fatty foods I wanted. I went to work that night with a bellyache of the worst kind. The next day I had only an orange, but today, I'm 207.
It's ok. I'm not discouraged. I'm having fun. Faturday was fun, but I know, I've gotta do better. Nobody wants to read a diet blog about how the blogger gets fatter each day.
I just hope tomorrow I'll be at least back at the starting line.
Thanks for reading.

The New Book

I love Chapter's. Or any bookstore, for that matter. Even driving past it on the way out of town brings a smile to my face. Something about walking through those doors makes me feel like I'm walking into a whole new world. A world where anything can happen; Turtles can talk, people can fly, kids can save the world. It's a world where truth is told, truth about emotions, feelings, hopes, dreams, failures. It's a world where whispers are never just whispers, and secrets are never kept from everyone. A world where a thousand words can paint a better picture than any brush could, a world where actions speak only as loud as the words that describe them. Loves are lost, found, made, forgotten. It's magic.

I may have gotten carried away, but all that I mean is I'm definitely a regular at Chapter's. I go as often as I can; if ever I have a spare moment, I waste it at Chapter's. I love looking at books, reading the covers (but never the back. It ruins the story; always judge a book by it's cover). I even smell the pages. There's nothing like the smell of the potential for adventure.

I don't know the staff by name, but I do know what they look like:

1. The Children's Section Old Lady: She looks like the every day grandmother, and when I take Derby to the section she gushes all over him in the typical grandmother style. She knows exactly where to find a book if it's in her section, hardly even needs the computer to know if it's in stock.
2. The Fiction and Literature Old Man: He loves his job, at least he looks like he does as he stacks and re-stacks the books on the tables, lost in their titles and author names. When that is done, he wanders through the book shelves, picking up books and staring at the front, then flipping them open to read something on the first page. He's probably working, but I like to think he's smelling the potential.
3. The Clerks: There's the tall guy that looks slightly nerdy, like he's probably read every book in the store. The girl with the huge smile who always seems so excited to be selling me a book; she knows Chels and is always up to date with my life, sometimes before I am. (Facebook creeper) The one girl knows I never get a bag for my books.
4. There's more, but I won't bore you.

So it was weird when I bought the New Book. Chelsee and I went to read magazines on the window ledge at the front of the store. She picked out her regular: the latest edition of Nylon Magazine, a magazine that doesn't offer subscriptions to Canada. (lame) and I told her,

"I'll be right back." She read my first post, so she must have known where I was going, but, truthfully, I was a little embarrassed to say it out loud. I snuck to the computer at the back of the store, the one I felt was least likely to be seen by little kids in the middle of their wild rumpuses. I looked around nervously, and then I typed, as fast as possible, "Sexual Positions." All these pictures of books came up that were not quite 18A but definitely 14A. I could feel this old man with a sweater vest judging me as he walked past the computer, but I made my self stop caring; I was doing this for the good of my marriage, for the fun of my marriage.

I looked at the first book where it said, "Find it in: Self-help." Good grief. Of all the sections in Chapter's this is the one I enjoy the least. I always wonder what would bring people to read a self-help book. Just watch Dr. Phil; there's no way his books could relate to normal people. Sexual positions books should be in their own section. Something like the Super-Cool-Studly-Man section or something.

Anyway, I sauntered over to the self-help section and found the books. I picked one with stick people instead of the read deal; it's way less awkward. But it's still awkward, especially when the clerk is a new girl who looked way to excited to be working on a Saturday night.

"Hey, how are you?" she sang out to me as I walked to the counter.

"I'm fine," I said, just wanting things wrap up swiftly and stay as far away from small talk as possible. I passed her the book and her face went from that excited new Chapter's clerk to a bright red, frowning tomato.

"Did you find everything you were looking for?" she asked her computer screen as she flipped the book over the little de-magnetizer like five times.

"Uh, yup," I grumbled. If ever there was time I wished there was a self check-out...

"Do you need a bag?" she asked, and this time I said yes. I never use bags there, saving the world and everything, but I definitely didn't want to be toting that little butte around under my arm for all to see.

I showed Chelsee, and she got embarrassed even though she knew I was buying it, but she laughed and looked excited. Upon looking at the book, it's obvious that half of the positions, more than half, way more than half are not for fat old bags, but we are definitely in for some fun in the coming days. : D

Thanks for reading...sorry if it's uncomfortable today. But hey, we're being real. Thanks again.