I heard an article about StickK.com on NPR this morning. It’s a website that makes you put up money and if you don’t lose weight, you lose the money (to charity). I signed up with a 52-week goal of losing 37 pounds and a commitment of $2/week. If I lose at least the required amount per week, I get to keep $2. If I don’t, it goes to the Freedom to Marry organization. This was actually listed as one of their “anti-charities” - that is, a charity you don’t want money to go to - but I would rather give it to them than some neutral charity that they would pick for me. (You can choose your own anti-charity, but not your own charity. The anti-charities are pro-choice, pro-gay rights, pro-environment, and pro-gun control.)

So anyway, if you want to support me, let me know and I’ll put you down as a supporter. This means you can leave encouraging messages on my board or something. I only just got started on the site, so I’m not 100% sure how it will work out, but I’ve already put up my $104 so I definitely want to do this!

I thought I was going to make it through the day without eating anything off my diet. But I had a couple of bites of pecan pie, and I had more than a few handfuls of trail mix. No wonder I’m not losing any weight at all - I’m still totally sedentary and I’m still eating almost exactly what I should be in order to maintain rather than lose. It pisses me off, it makes me sad. I can’t exercise - I don’t exercise. Maybe I will try again to use the stationary recumbent bike downstairs…but I’m not sure where it went now that the Xmas tree is down there. It’s just downright depressing. I mean, I’m glad I’m not gaining, at least I can maintain, but it’s my own fucking fault that I’m not losing. Aw shit, I’m just depressed.

• I have had a headache for two and a half days now.
• I forgot that I had put my tiny diamond earrings on the bed, and then I went and slept in the bed. They are not lost, they are just missing - either on the bed or the floor. But it’s going to be a pain to find them.
• Although 25% of voters have voted for deafjournal.net, I realized that I don’t want to be solely responsible for providing support for however many users I get! So that one is probably out of the running. Really, right now, it’s between corsetworld.net, geekygrrl.net, and meredithonline.org. I still don’t know what I would do with the latter two, because I already have amanita.net where I keep all my stuff. CorsetWorld would have a purpose, though, so I’m kind of leaning that way - but I still like the geekygrrl.net too.
• The ATM in the building where I work is no longer making us pay a surcharge! Yay! (I use a credit union with exactly one location in the metro area, so I am used to paying a surcharge at all ATMs.)
• I am on a million Gallaudet-related mailing lists right now. I am getting several blogs (People of the Eye, Elisa Writes, Mishka Zena, and RidorLIVE) by e-mail and I am also on the GallyNet-L mailing list which is very active. I also continue to get two copies of every USA-L News mailing that goes out (can’t figure out how to deactivate either of them!) and I signed up for the GUFSSA alert list this morning. My mail is full of Gallaudet-related stuff.
• I am no longer sad when the scale hasn’t gone down. I have been at 160 for a couple of months now, give or take a couple of pounds now and then. I am going to continue on my diet, so I will be elated if I lose weight, but I will still be happy if I just maintain.
• I still have a headache. I have no Advil at work.

It’s very disappointing when you decide “screw the diet, I haven’t had chocolate chip pancakes in a million years, that’s what I’m going to get” and then they are not very good and not very chocolatey at all.

I was going to write about high tea at the Ritz-Carlton for A’s birthday, but I felt like telling the story in ASL instead. So you can view the video for that here (WMV file), and the translation follows. There’s a bit of Truffle in there too.
Read the rest of this entry »

A friend of mine, who shall remain nameless unless e chooses to identify emself, posted recently about spending money on food and then throwing it away. My friend said that wasting money, but saving calories/fat, was still a waste.

I have a very different approach. I have been dieting, in various forms, for a few years; this approach is something I came up with very early on. For me, money is no object if it keeps me eating well. This probably also stems from my dozen-plus years as a vegetarian; it is often more expensive to live as a vegetarian than to eat meat. So maintaining my chosen dietary lifestyle has been expensive for a long time. As a dieter trying to lose weight, though, I am spending even more money, and I am okay with that.

Currently, I spend about $450/month on food. This is because I am on Diet to Go, which provides all of my food for me. It’s a good plan, and it’s successful: I have lost almost 30 pounds since January. Because it is successful, I don’t mind paying for it, even though it is about $150 more per month than fending for myself. Money is much easier to come by than weight loss, and if something costs money but allows me to lose weight, then I prefer to take the easier, more expensive route rather than struggling to lose weight - and being unhappy as a result - just to save some money.

I feel the same way about going to a restaurant. I am paying to be satisfied. If I don’t eat everything on my plate and I don’t want to bring the leftovers home, then I don’t. I paid for the meal, not the food - if I have enjoyed the meal, then I have gotten my money’s worth. Sometimes I will bring leftovers home, but only if I’m really going to eat them. Alternatively, I will deliberately only eat half and then have the rest at a later time, thereby getting two meals for the price of one.

If you are poor, or you otherwise need to watch every penny, then my approach is not for you. I’m not saying my feelings about food and money work for everyone, but they work for me, and I am happy this way. I manage both food and money in a way that I am satisfied with. It’s
become a way of life for me.

• Today I am down to 161 pounds. I started 2006 at 187.5 pounds. That’s progress, but I still have a while to go.
• I now know three people who have the Sidekick 3. I am not one of them, and I only ever see one in person but he doesn’t usually have his with him then. I don’t think I’ll be wanting one anytime soon.
• I decided to put away my iPod until the new battery and/or the AC adapter arrive. I was going to try updating the firmware because that sometimes helps with battery life, but I didn’t remember that you have to plug it into the wall to complete the firmware update. So it’s a brick till I get the AC adapter, I guess…argh!
• It is so frustrating not to pick at my new tattoo. I want to poke it and move it around and play with it. I think if I got another design on me I would want an ILY handshape.
• I decided to revamp the way skins are presented on my site. Instead of having a skin listing in the sidebar, I now have a skin selection page complete with screenshots. I also put up a single AdBrite ad; so far I have earned 53 cents from it but that’s just from network ads - I don’t think anybody will actually buy an ad on my site. But hey, 53 cents is more than I ever got from AdSense. I don’t like advertising in general, so I may get rid of it eventually, but we’ll see.
• My car was reluctant to start Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning, so I took it in last night. It had also been balky about changing gears (it’s an automatic) but that apparently isn’t the transmission or anything else - they said it was just running the A/C that changes the load on the engine. They said the starter might be going bad but it would have been $350 so I said I would wait, and the guy admitted that was actually fine. Turns out I was overdue for my inspection (oops) and in order to pass I needed two new tires. Tires plus inspection plus oil change (that was overdue too) totaled about $215, not bad.

• I’m going to quit Diet to Go for a month and try NutriSystem’s all-vegetarian diet. It doesn’t have as much variety and the food isn’t fresh (you don’t even have to refrigerate or freeze any of it, although you do buy your own fruits and veggies), so I probably won’t stay on it for a long time, but it’s cheaper than DTG and I have been desperate for a change.
• I got my Sidekick skin and applied it. It came out okay; could be better applied but I think the curved nature makes it impossible to get it perfect. They have a money-back guarantee, but I’m going to wait a few days and see how it goes before contacting them.
• I am genuinely nervous about tomorrow, when I’ll be seeing Mr. Misogynist again. He was the interpreter last year for this contest. I know Jerry said he wanted me for the important stuff, but I’m nervous just about being in the same place as this guy. Who knows if he’ll even remember me. Ugh, I am just so unsettled about it.

Today is my 25th birthday, and I am fretting about whether or not to go out to dinner. I have done extremely well with my diet, and I haven’t eaten anything inappropriate even in the face of emotional adversity. But it’s my birthday, and I want to go out to dinner. My plans are very specific: tonight, go to Sunflower and get my favorite dish, which is soy protein chunks done up kind of like Chinese food. At home, maybe a little bit of alcohol - like a little bit of kahlua, maybe, if I have any at all. This weekend, one piece of cake. (It will be ginger spice cake because that’s what my sister-in-law wanted, and her birthday is also today - she’s exactly two years younger than me.)

It sounds to me like I’m being pretty reasonable. One meal out, possibly a small drink, and one piece of cake. But I have been so rigid on the Diet to Go menu for two weeks that I’m scared to go off. I’m losing weight very well. Is this going to kill my diet? Will I only lose half a pound this week instead of a pound and a half? (Or whatever.) I’m just not sure what to do! Part of me is tempted to just eat tonight’s bean burritos at home, but I know A was also looking forward to going out to dinner with me. I’m scared of breaking the rules.

Hi everybody. I’m hanging in there okay. I was very sad at home this morning, and when I got to work I was looking at cremation jewelry so I was still kind of mopey, but I’ve been goofing off for a while so I’m doing okay now. Wu is always somewhere in my thoughts, but I find that I am able to relax at least and not get stressed out. We received the UPS tracking number for the urn this morning, and A brought her to the crematory. They were done with her by a little after 12:30 so A will bring her home tonight. I assume they give us a little box temporarily. I want to keep her up in the bedroom with us for now because that’s where she spent most of her time. I couldn’t do it last night because there was still a cat in the box, but I want her close. I’m so glad I made this decision, I’m glad we’re keeping her in our home. Part of the reason is that she was never allowed outside (she was already declawed in front when we got her) so it would have been weird to put her out there, and eventually she would have been gone. We have buried a couple of chinchillas and a hamster out in the yard, but that spot has been grown over now, and that was several years ago so I doubt there’s even anything left. I don’t want that to happen to my Wubie.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned yet what the hardest part was. When I brought her to the vet Wednesday night, she looked very ill. But they had her in an oxygen cage, so she was breathing much better. When we went to visit with her before they did it, she looked fine. She was alert, she recognized us, she gave me that wonderful picture. Even when they brought her out of the cage and put her on the table, she wanted to jump down from there. It was unbelievably painful to put her to sleep because she looked healthy. If she had been droopy and sick, it might have been a little easier, but she looked like she was ready to come home with us. It just about broke my heart, and I’m going to stop this paragraph before I cry.

I’ve had a stomachache for most of the day and I’m not sure why. It’s not quite nausea, just discomfort. I have been playing online pretty much the whole day. I do have to stay until the end of the day, though, because I can’t pick up my food until 5:00. I used to leave a little early on Fridays but I can’t do that anymore because of the food. By the way, I’m proud of myself for sticking to my diet yesterday - I really wanted to eat crap just for something to do, but I didn’t do it. Also, I lost four pounds last week, but so far this week I’ve only lost half of one. Quicklinks will probably return tomorrow; they auto-posted yesterday but I took them down because it didn’t feel right. Obviously nothing new was added yesterday, so I’ll put the ones that posted yesterday into the auto-post for tomorrow.