issues... just issues. will be mia for a bit.

i'm reading the most fantastic book EVER. it's called 'connect: 12 vital ties that open your heart, lengthen you life, and deepen your soul' by edward m. hallowell, m.d. it's fanfreakingtastic!! it's talking about something that a lot of people talk about and never do anything about... the increasing disconnect we all seem to feel with our fellow human beings. he talks about the importance of 'human moments' in our lives... tending our garden of connections, as it were, to each other on a purely human level. it's really fascinating... i know that at least two of you who are here frequently would benefit greatly from reading it, but i'm not going to tell you which two so you can all think that i think you are crazy and need help from this book. muahahaha!

i really think that putting into practice some of the things that he talks about is going to help me in my healing process... i have a whole bunch of stuff i'm going to write about it in the next few days from quotes in it that have sparked thoughts in me that need to come out and get marked down somewhere.

in other news... i miss school. i miss it so terribly, and i didn't really realise it until i was helping a friend with a paper in her juvenile delinquency class (she is a social worker working on her degree) and i read through the paper and we worked through her ideas and i cleaned up some grammatical things and it just struck me... i LOVE this. i love thinking things through and writing them cohesively and stringing ideas together and theorising and finding backing for those theories and arguing them to other people and debating policy and ideology and... and... and...

i just miss it. i haven't made opportunities for myself to do this kind of thing since i left school; maybe that was to distance myself from the pain i felt at the time of having to leave? the rejection i felt when the world didn't support me to pursue my scholarly ambitions? i don't know. but i really need to make that connection again... it's essential to my mental health.

i've arranged for dad to lend me the cash to start into my program at athabasca university, partly so i can show the good sam (the agency i just interviewed with) the piece of paper they need to prove my worth and partly because of all of that ^.

i'm actually really excited. even though i have to take stats (yuck! math!) i'm really excited to get back into this world... i didn't realise how much i missed it. i've never understood how so many people can hate school. i mean, sure there are crappy teachers and nasty students and a system that tries its best to stamp out all inklings of individual thought, but... you get to learn.

to me that made it all worthwhile.

since i've gone raw, i've been finding i have had some terrible cravings for cooked things... not like junk food, even but for things like baked potatoes and stuff like that. but i have given in a few times (damn that moussaka at my partner's restaurant for being so delicious!) and i've felt like absolute crap afterwards. so, i decided today that instead of giving in, i will journal. what i'm feeling, what time of day, what time of week, what i'm doing and any impressions that i have. for example, when i got the moussaka, i really wanted warmth and comfort. that is what i associate a lot of cooked foods with... warmth. living in canada, that's no small thing. so i started heating my magic bags (cloth sacs full of some sort of grain that you can reheat in the microwave for a heating pad) and using them on my feet and tummy. *poof* goes the craving as i warm up. fantastic!!

so yeah... i will be journalling my cravings instead of giving in to them, and hopefully i will be able to learn about myself and what i've been using food to comfort myself about all my life. and then i can work on the self-care and self-love and be all happy and not crazy anymore!! woot!

lol.

today has been very good. i'm down to 225.4lbs, and i'm still raw. :D

yesterday was TERRIBLE. cooked food and no exercise (except a bit of walking). and i should have known better. today is my interview and i feel like cooked-crap. i know i'm going to do well, though. interviews are the easy part :P

yesterday i ate:

a banana

an apple

a mandarin orange

some mixed greens with the last of my avocado dressing

a little more than half of a bell pepper

mousska with greek potatoes and greek salad.


you know, i really wanted something warm... some warm comfort food. it's been rainy and cool here for a few days and i went to the restaurant my partner works in and ate there (their food is fabulous, for cooked food). the funny thing is, once it got to the table, i took a couple of bites of the moussaka and didn't really want it any more. i spent far more time on the greek salad and potatoes.

so i guess that is a good sign. i don't think i'll be doing this again anytime soon. i felt so good on the raw days, and i think this backslide will only serve to strengthen my resolve. so that is good.

and i didn't exercise. i got home, and i was just exhausted. so i cleaned a little bit and sat my butt down and read. it was good.

eek my interview is in two hours!!

yesterday was pretty good. i didn't eat a whole lot, but i wasn't hungry and i didn't want to push it.

i ate:

a banana/pear/spinach smoothie

a spinach salad with my avocado dressing

strawberry and kiwi fruit salad

an apple

a pear

cucumber and tomato salad with a bit of herbamare

a small slushee from the convenience store (my partner bought it for me on his way home)

and that was it. i just wasn't hungry yesterday. oh well. i did all my exercises (yesterday was ab day) and did the calf raises i was supposed to do on tuesday, too. so that was good. i also planned out the rest of my workout program so i have a weekly routine set up now. :D

in other news, i'm really excited for my interview tomorrow. i hope it goes well!!

today was not as good as yesterday, but still was very good.

i ate:

a banana

a turkey sandwich

a cup or so of restaurant 'salad'- iceburg lettuce with some strings of carrot and a couple chunks of tomato

an apple

a mandarin orange

a banana

some cucumber

a big mixing bowl full of mixed greens with my avocado dressing

two kiwi

and a big bunch of fresh pineapple



the sandwich and the 'salad' were due to dining out for lunch with a friend today.


i've applied for two new jobs and i got a call back from both places. i freely admitted in my cover letter that i don't have the education that they are looking for, but i make up for that in several ways and i'm working on the education through distance university courses. i guess honesty really is the best policy, because both agencies are interested despite that lack. my first interview is friday, and i'm playing phone tag with the other agency's hr guy. i'm so excited i can barely sit here to type :P

in other news... well, there really isn't much. i did my workout today, plus we did lots of active stuff at work today. i took the wrong keys to work, so when my client arrived home we went for a walk that included going down, and then back up, five flights of stairs. we got to have a look at the river valley view, though, so it was really enjoyable. then after we got into the house (her mom got home from work and let us in) and she had eaten, she rode her adapted bike and i walked about five blocks, then five blocks to the park where she played while i read, and then four blocks back to her house. then i did my workout when i got home. today i worked the back of my body, so i had a couple tricep exercises, a couple butt exercises, a couple hamstring exercises and a couple of back exercises. i still have to do my calf raises, though. i should get on that. all in all, a VERY active day.

today was awesome!!!

i ate completely raw! and i worked out!!

even in a very tempting social situation (a client's graduation 'tea' where there was no tea but plenty of baked sugar) i had a cup of the punch and nothing else. eep i'm so proud of myself. it's so silly. :P

anyways... today i had:

banana/pear/spinach smoothie

a bell pepper, cut in strips

carrot sticks

a banana

two mandarin oranges

tomato 'soup' - i blended some roma tomatoes with half an avacado and then added some onion, garlic, herbamare. then i added a couple tablespoons of HOT tap water (i was craving warm soup really badly) and voila... smooth, creamy, room temperature tomato 'soup' with loads of flavour. woot!

big bowl of mixed salad greens

avocado dressing- the juice i strained from the tomatoes above, mixed with one and a half avodcado and about a quarter of a cup of olive oil. i added the juice of a lime and some sea salt. then a little water to thin it out. it's enough for a week, i swear!! but so good!!

3 small apricots

5 rambutan

and that's it!! i've also drank a little under a litre of water today.

i worked out when i got home from work, too. i tested my new skipping rope (that is going to whip me into shape, i tell you!) for a couple of minutes, then i used the routine i set up last night. i worked on the front of my body today, so i did pectoral flys, three types of bicep curls, three kinds of squats, a wrist exercise and a shoulder press type of move.

tomorrow i do the back of my body, then wednesday is the abs. then i switch it up by doing the top of my body on thursday, the bottom on friday, and abs again on saturday. sunday is my rest day. i'm also trying to work in a half an hour of walking and five minutes with the skipping rope, too. but one step at a time... workouts feel GOOD. :D

this was supposed to be yesterday... oh well.

my weight yesterday morning was 232.8.

this is near to my highest weight ever.

but that's ok, because i'm starting fresh today. i cut out workout routines from all the old magazines i had kicking around, and i'm setting up my routines for a week. i think that now i am finally serious about this. i'm tired of being fat. i'm tired of feeling like crap all the time and trying to hide in the background because i'm embarrassed about my weight. i'm tired of nothing ever fitting me, and having to go into specialty stores to find things that come close. short girls aren't supposed to get fat, you know. it's just a law of nature. and marketing.

at any rate, i'm feeling really good today, and i'm hoping this feeling continues forever :P fat chance, but we can hope, can't we?