The Weight of Weight

Whelp, I finally decided to face reality on Thursday and did the unthinkable…I weighed myself. I am pissed at myself and I knew I would be. I have gained 35 pounds since I became jobless on March 23, 2011. Well, to be more precise probably since June because I did weigh myself when I first moved to VA in May and I actually had lost 5 pounds since March but that was probably because I was stressed out so much and sick all the time. I am comfortable at or below a certain weight and this isn’t it. I actually thought it was going to be more of a weight gain but 35 pounds was bad enough.

This is what happens when you have a job where you are always on the move from like 7:00am until 11:00pm or more sometimes. Then you factor in the 3 mile a day trail hike but now don’t do anything it becomes a recipe for disaster.  Also I was always stressed, nervous, and nauseous. I’d eat lunch and would promptly puke it back up. Not exactly healthy either but alas now I don’t do anything but read. Throw in some TV and you have 35 pounds. Let’s not forget the crappy self-esteem that was made so much worse by not having a job anymore.

When it comes to the food part of this puzzle it isn’t that I eat badly but I probably don’t eat enough. Sometimes I’ll go days and only eat one meal or than eat three meals a day and overdo it on those days. I would say my biggest downfalls are the soda and then the lovely beer. I had all ready started to correct the drinking issue. I have had only one beer in the last month and a half. On Wednesday I did crack out on a bottle of red wine and got blitzed knowing that I was going to weigh myself on Thursday. Then there is the soda which I love. I love its fizzy wonderfulness. To help with this ball and chain I started drinking diet cranberry juice. To sparkle that up a bit I started adding Sprite Zero…a half and half mix. Seems to be satisfying the soda monkey on my back, however, I have splurged when out at the movie. I get a small soda there but that is it. Also, back to chugging water since I realized I hadn’t been doing that as much I had while I lived on camp. I would carry around my nalgene everywhere and would drink at least two whole nalgenes full of water every day.  

I am sick of wearing “camp clothes” because they are the only ones that fit. Baggie cargo pants, t-shirts, and sweatshirts have been my uniform and I am so over it. I have lots of lovely clothes but they just don’t fit. I am not buying anything new!!! That’s for damn sure. I will get back into my favorite pair boot cut jeans and be able to wear my awesome pea coat before winter is over.

I’m going hard core…like Biggest Loser hard core (or close to it). I’m going to do what I can without a gym or a trainer since I cannot afford either of those. So, I am building up to that for one week then it is going to be balls out. On Thursday I ate 3 extremely healthy meals and worked out for 1 hour. On Friday I again ate 3 healthy meals, worked out for an hour in the morning, and an hour in the afternoon. Today is Saturday and I worked out for one hour and then walked a mile.

So this coming Thursday after keeping up this mild routine I will weigh myself in the morning and then increase the work out. I am going to try and maintain 2 - 1 hour workouts and 2-3 mile walk every day. That is the plan anyways. I will try to blog once every week about it…hopefully on Thursday s. I’m excited that I have my friend Gail to text about it. We are going to be sending each other positive text back and forth.

My hope is that I lose 40 pounds by the beginning of March. The first “goal” is 20lbs in 30 days. I hope that isn’t unrealistic. I’ll see where I land on the first weigh in I guess and then go from there.

The issue of weight is a weighty thing. I don't want it to become who I am. It is heavy on the body and twice as heavy on the soul.

2011 in Review

Another year comes to a close and I can’t say that I’ll be sorry to see this one go. I know for many people it was one they would love to turn from and never look back on. Kind of like Lots wife looking back on Sodom and Gomorrah then turning into a pillar of salt but for me I’m thinking about it more in terms of Medusa. Maybe if I don’t look it straight in the eye I won’t turn to stone.  It had its ups and downs much like any other year but this one apparently had a lesson for me to learn. I got the message but I think it is in Greek and I am still unsure of the lesson. I may never know what the lesson was and I think I might be ok with that or at the very least come to terms with it.

This is the year that joblessness came for me. It didn’t just come for me it bitched slapped me upside of the head. Bastard. This has been a first for me. My first job was as a babysitter at the age of 11. My brother and I were also entrepreneurs growing up. We used to go crickin’ and catch crawfish so sell to our neighbor to give to his coon dogs during training. We also had a couple of rabbits and would sell their poop to people for their gardens. Oh yeah, we were slick. I baby sat all through high school then went to work at a camp during the summers. Once I got to college I worked two jobs while in school and worked at the camp in the summers. Then I became a nanny…well, you get the idea. I have always worked. Always.

I have now been out of work for 9 months. Which I have to tell you is totally sucktastic. It isn’t for the lack of trying to find another job. I have now sent out 33 resumes (give or take one or two). The continued lack of response from prospective employers is totally disheartening. This hard to explain but it is really hard on your self esteem. I have tried to explain it a couple of times and haven’t really done a good job. Losing your job (having it taken from you) and not being able to find another job right away just does something to you. I mean, do I smell? Did I offend? Do I have a booger hanging out of my nose? I have also tried to explain how I feel like I am just on vacation from my job. It is like I will be going back to work at anytime and I have been just playing. I know this feeling will go away once I have another job. I just kind of feel like I am in my own never ending Groundhog’s Day and am waiting to wake up to a different day.

My family also lost my cousin Eddie John this past month. It has been super hard on my Mom who is the youngest of 9 children and because of this has had to see a lot of her family go before her. My cousin, Nettie, (one of Eddie John’s girls) is getting “married” in a couple of weeks but when Eddie John was in the hospital and they knew it wouldn’t be much longer Nettie and her fiancée brought their priest to the hospital and got married in front of her dad. The doctors cut back a bit on his morphine so that he would be aware of the ceremony. He passed away a couple of days later.

Good parts of 2011 have been Virginia and this house. Being in a different place while I recover from the last 5 years (well, 3 really) has been unbelievably great. Getting to reconnect with old friends has been amazing. Angus and Ophelia have been pretty happy having me around all the time. Sitting on a porch swing reading a book and drinking lemonade is my kind of happy.

Maybe I should have gone to the store and gotten some good luck foods. Black Eyed Peas, Lentils, Cabbage, Doughnuts…I could use all the help I can get.

So, 2011, I wish you farewell. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

Congress Can Kiss My...

Dear Congress,

I hope that as you sit in your warm house that is paid for off the backs of hard working Americans that you are enjoying the company of your camera ready family, your ostentatiously decorated home, and your snifter of 80 year old brandy that you, at the very LEAST, suffer some sort of twinge of conscience at the mess you left for Americans during this holiday season. American’s who can barely afford to put food on their tables let alone buy gifts for their families.

Just to remind you, that as you play out an old spaghetti western by staging a standoff in the middle of America’s dusty streets while staring each other in the eye at high noon, myself and millions of Americans  are out of work. Americans who are quite eager to work, actually, we WANT to work. Americans, who would be more than happy to be blessed with a simple cup of hot chocolate, a Charlie Brown tree, and give their children at least one present a piece, but please don’t worry about us…we are ONLY the people that voted you into office. I guess we are of no consequence to you.

What really does my head in is the fact that we as Americans voted you into office. We voted you in on promises that you made and that we so naively believed. You like to describe yourselves as “civil servants” or at least that is what you say during an election year, however, the only people I see you serving are yourselves. I actually have wanted to believe in our system but apparently I am gullible enough to have fallen for something that has been nothing but an elaborate game of smoke and mirrors. Does anyone have a bridge in Brooklyn that they want to sell me?

No wonder Americans are disenfranchised with their government. You all sit in your posh offices with your errand runners and your “perks” that you get from big companies trying to look like they aren’t buying your backing. Come on, really?!?!?! Golf trips on private jets?!?!?!?! And you wonder why people took to the streets in protest. What a slap in the face!! It is the modern day “let them eat cake.”

My wish and hope for you this holiday season is that the over abundance of food that you are going to consume offers you not only no feeling of fullness but also gives you indigestion. After that, I hope you can’t find any Tums or Pepto-Bismol.  I hope the sleep that you get is hard won, offers you no real feeling of restfulness, and is plagued by nightmares. My wish for you is that you are blessed with whiny children who suffer from a grand sense of entitlement.  

So as Christmas rapidly approaches and I have to borrow money from my family for gas just so I can spend Christmas with them you will excuse me my anger and disgust that you have left Americans hanging with a dark cloud over their holiday. And you will understand that  I cannot say that I wish you a Merry Christmas, a blessed Hanukkah, and/or the Happiest of Holidays because I would be lying, however, I do wish it for my fellow Americans who are left to wonder what awaits us on January 1.

Kathi Seymour

“To Affirm is to Make Firm”

This particular fortune cookie fortune makes me chuckle (chortle if you will), especially when I add the social game phrase “in bed.” Admit it, you giggled too…or at the very least, smiled. I will try not to let my mind slip into the gutter, where it spends much of its time…and it is never alone (I won’t name name’s but you know who you are). After thinking about what this fortune was actually saying and also putting it into a search engine I realized what it was telling me…and it didn’t have anything to do with staying in bed.

The definition of “affirm” is “to declare to be true; assert positively.” It is said that repeating affirmations can be a pretty powerful brain training technique. I’m guessing this could or would be considered a mantra. To affirm something is to make it firm. This means you are making your desired ambition or goal real. You are making positive statements or affirmations about your end goal. These mantras are repeated over and over again which in turn can train the subconscious mind into finding ways to make your goals become real.

One website I visited had 7 rules to affirming your life: use present tense, be positive, be specific, short & easy, include feelings and strong desire, repeat anytime, anywhere, rinse and repeat. Ok, so it really didn’t say anything about rinsing but my mind sidetracked itself. The last one actually said “You may repeat affirmations aloud, mentally, or by writing them down.” That particular rule reminded me of my impressionable preteen and teen age years. Do you remember when you would have a crush on someone and you would write their name with yours? It could have been “Kathi & Todd”, “Kathi loves Todd”, “Todd loves Kathi”, or “Kathi & Todd 4ever”. Or you would write your name like you were married to that other person (boys may or may not have done this). Example: “Katherine Black”. You would copy this endlessly on your notebook. Every chance you got you would write it over and over and over and over again. I’m so glad this particular exercise in affirming to make firm didn’t work. One…I could have been branded a stalker if my subconscious mind worked to make it come true and Two…it could have worked and I would have ended up with a moniker like “Katherine Butts” (names have been changed to protect the innocence).

I think I will keep this fortune focused on my current state of joblessness. My desire to have a job is strong and my will is most willing, just ask it. It isn’t as if I am not trying…because I am. I have sent out 30 resumes/applications give or take one or two. I have to keep track of them so that the unemployment agency can verify. So, here it goes…”I will find a job in the very near future. It will be a job that compliments my abilities and allows me to still have a life. My employers will be kind and not shady. They will value me as an employee and never take me for granted. They will not ask me to lie or withhold information from customers.” CRAP! That is too long isn’t it? Ok, ok, how about this…”JOB NOW”.

While writing this blog entry I realized that the name of my blog is actually an exercise in affirming to make firm. I am attempting to write myself to the right side of happy. So every time I submit a new entry it is like affirming my firmness in being firm about my intent to be happy. Well, something like that anyway.

Happy side of write…thanks Yoda!

“Promote literacy. Buy a box of fortune cookies today.” …in bed

I am one of “those” people. By “those” I mean when I go out to a Chinese restaurant or order out for Chinese I look forward to the end of the meal so I can snatch up my fortune cookie. I like the crinkle of the cellophane wrapper when you try to open it without breaking the cookie. I like snapping the cookie and eating it even if it is slightly stale. But most of all, by “those” I mean that I heart the fortune itself.

I look forward to smoothing it out and reading it. While partaking of Chinese food in a social setting with a group of friends, I and many others, like to add “in bed” to the end of fortune when reading the fortune out loud. This is actually a form of one-upmanship in its purest forms. Come on peeps, you know it is. You all sit through the whole meal hoping that the fortune you pick is the best one. You start to contemplate if you should invoke the “cookie closest to you”, “cookie farthest from you”, or the ever popular “mayhem cookie grab” strategy. Which one will reap the winner? OMG the pressure!!! Wait, what did I eat for dinner? A good example of this is a fortune I got a while back “To affirm is to make firm.”…in bed. Bwhahaha! I love that one. This ritual has forevermore earned its place in Pop Culture by making an appearance in an episode of “Beverly Hills, 90210” NOT “90210” but the original and still the best. Those precocious yet completely relatable teens partook of the fortune cookie “in bed” ritual.  

Then there is the often neglected “B-side” of the fortune. I have yet to play those lucky numbers. Maybe I should. It couldn’t hurt in my current state of joblessness but on the flip side that would mean parting with a dollar. Has anyone actually played those numbers? If they have, I wonder if they were really lucky. Now a days there is also the “Learn Chinese” section of the “B-side”. I dig this and have tried. I wonder if Rosetta Stone has a fortune cookie section.  

As we all know, 90 percent (I made up that percentage) of the time fortune cookies actually do NOT dispense fortunes. Probably one of my top ten pearls of fortune cookie wisdom is “Promote literacy. Buy a box of fortune cookies today”. True story. This fortune sealed the deal for me. I thought to myself “Self, you like to keep your fortunes, right? Maybe you should help promote literacy by writing a blog about fortune cookies.” Then myself answered “Self that is genius idea.” So here I am writing a blog. There will be posts about other stuff too but I really like the idea of expounding on a fortune by really getting to the heart of it.

Am I really promoting literacy by buying a box of fortune cookies or am I really helping the cookie manufacturer? If a fortune cookie goes uneaten or unread is it truly lucky? A fortune cookie by another name is just a cookie but still good with chocolate ice cream.

LEARN CHINESE – East 东

On the continuing quest to write myself happy….



Landing on the Right Side of Happy

Like too many Americans I lost my job. “Lost my job”…what is that anyway? How does one “lose” a job? I didn’t misplace it. It isn’t like my sunglasses that I am forever looking for, swearing that I left them in a “safe place”. I didn’t let go of its hand and it wandered off. I didn’t make a losing bet with my job as the stakes. I didn’t go into the store, come out and forget where I parked it. So, actually…more clearly stated…I didn’t lose my job, it was taken from me. To quote my former employer “We are sorry but your position has been eliminated.” OH, BULLOCKS!

Like those other hundreds of thousands of jobless Americans I am struggling. I am struggling to hold onto my self-esteem, the roof over my head, the food on my table, my sanity, and my happiness which is teetering on the precipice of an abyss.

Self-esteem is a precarious thing. Who knew that it would take such a huge hit when my job was taken from me? I sure didn’t. I would have hugged it more and given it more positive feedback had I known. I would have given it a cookie, preferable one freshly out of the oven…all gooey and warm. I guess I kind of knew that I was proud of what I did. That feeling of pride, of a job well done, of being a productive member of the human race, of HAVING a job, was the key to my self-esteem. My identity was wrapped up with my job. Who am I now? “Oh, that is Kathi…she doesn’t have a job.” “How sad.” You feel like “who would want me?” I’m not good enough. I’m the stuff my cat Ophelia hacks up and leaves me as a pressie in the middle of my bed.

The roof over my head and the food on my table are now provided by Unemployment. Wow, I can’t even begin to describe the rollercoaster of feelings you go through when you have to apply for unemployment for the first time…like ever. I felt like a criminal…like gum…stuck to the underneath of a table. They don’t care that I have ALWAYS had a job. They don’t care that I never had been fired or laid off. I felt like I had done something horrible…like this was my fault. Which is complete and total bullpoop…I KNOW that…but it is how I feel.

My sanity…well, it comes and it goes.

Happiness is a fickle bitch. It can be fleeting. I am trying to teach myself that my happiness isn’t wrapped up in my job. It’s bigger than that. I’m happy my dog, Angus, is napping beside me right now and snoring. I’m unhappy because the Buffalo Bills have broken my heart yet again. I’m happy that I live in a house with a tub and that I have a place to live in general. I’m unhappy that I am hungry right now and don’t know what to cook myself. I’m happy that I have food. I’d be happier if I had those cookies I wrote about earlier. I’m happy that I am finally writing this blog.

So, I am going to write myself to the right side of happy.