Dieting and Other Things

July 23rd, 2012

My younger sister has been going through many-a-changes in the last year, one of them is adopting a new, healthier lifestyle. In her journey, she has managed to lose just over 50 pounds. Though I am very proud of her, I am also very jealous and angry with myself for not being healthier. I try, I really do. I wake up every morning with the intention of eating well and being active but I just really love food and eating said food. It's an activity I just really look forward to doing each day. And I like to eat a variety of things. For example, today I woke up, had a bowl of Marshmallow Mateys (yes, they are generic Lucky Charms and I don't care if they are made of crap, I like them) Ok I lied, I had two bowls...OK I LIED AGAIN..three...it was three bowls. I'm so ashamed. So after breakfast, my friends text me to meet up for lunch before we went to the pool. I had a turkey melt sandwich thing and fries, usually I get a salad but the service was horrible and I didn't want to confuse the server or anything. After the pool, I came home and got ready to go to work at 4:00, ate a bomb pop and a few potato chips, once again I am going to justify this by saying I hardly ever eat potato chips, really, ask Rob. I also took a handful of cherries to work with me. After I got off work at 8:00, I ate a leftover BBQ country rib, yes a as in a single rib, it was pretty great and four jalapeno poppers. Oh yeah, I vaguely remember eating a few E.L. Fudge cookies.

Alright, as I write this I realize today was an exceptionally horrid day of eating to decide to share with everyone. I suppose this is why people keep food diaries. Ehhh, this is embarrassing, yet all I can think of right now is really wanting more Marshmallow Mateys. I'm beginning to think with all the money the generic cereal company saves by not putting their product in cardboard boxes, they spend on crack to sprinkle on their cereal so people become addicted to it. I can't think of any other explanation for these withdrawals I seem to have if I don't eat their cereal twice a day. That's the other thing I do, I go through food stages. I will not eat cereal for months, then I will eat it all the time. Two weeks ago I decided I loved cereal again and all last week I ate choco dynabites (generic coco pebbles) for breakfast, lunch and dinner some days. I also decided I loved english muffins with strawberry jam. This week I am still stuck on the english muffins but I'm sick of the dynabites and switched to the Marshmallow Mateys, which I have not eaten, bought, or really liked for the last 5 years. I usually go with the granola type cereals, Rob is more of the sweet cereal eater in the house.

Lately my tastes have been really weird, and no I'm not pregnant, and yes I am sure..very sure. It's ridiculous how every time I don't feel well, or have a food craving or gain weight or say anything people always get that goofy look on their face and ask "Are you pregggggnanttttt?????" No, I assure you I am not. "Are you suuureeeee?????" Yes I am very sure "Wellll there is a chance riiighhhtttt????" Umm..no! But if you don't believe me, feel free to take a look. Oh I'm sorry, did this just get weird?! Did this innocent conversation just get super awkward between us? Wonderful, stop asking me if I'm pregnant!! Believe me, I don't keep a lot of things to myself, EVERYONE will know when I get pregnant! Not only because I love the attention and plan on making vast amounts of obnoxious t-shirts to wear around but also because I am a huge hypochondriac and will probably think I am at death's door every 3 days. You will know when the morning sickness begins because you will be invited to the reading of my will, every Thursday at 3:30 for three months. I will also be walking around constantly screaming "MY SCIATIC!!" while I hold my back. When you see me, stomach slightly swelled, in an electric wheelchair, covered in churro crumbs, you will know that I am pregnant! Well that post got weird so I leave you with this, dieting isn't real, I'm not pregnant and they try to make me go to cereal rehab but I said no..no..no...

Meet Razzle

I thought I would introduce everyone to a couple of my personas, you've seen Dick (I'll have more background on him later) now I'd like you to meet Razzle.


Razzle Wunderlust is her name. She was born to an old hippie couple and they would spend the summers travelling the Mid U.S. selling beads and jewelry at various festivals and flea markets. Except for the one time they accidentally left her in Dayton, Ohio for a couple days when she was 9, life was pretty ordinary for little Razzle. During the school year, Razzle was home schooled, her parents felt like teachers and too much structure in a child's life would make them submissive and introverted. They always encouraged Razzle to be a free spirit and embrace who she was on the inside, and she did just that. Unfortunately her parents were terrible entrepreneurs and could barely afford to take care of themselves so at age 15 Razzle was sent to live with her aunt. Her aunt was much more strict than her hippie parents and also had a real job so Razzle was promptly enrolled into public school. Everyone there thought she was really weird and smelled like patchouli. Razzle would spend her lunch break singing and twirling in the sun, and the rest of her day staring out the window with a far off look in her eye. Her aunt work long hours so Razzle took that time to explore the city and make friends with the local bums and prostitutes, not on purpose, her hippie parents just never taught her about stranger danger.

At 18, Razzle's aunt told her she needed to go find a place of her own so she set off to start a new adventure. She got a job at a small diner where she met her roommate, Sparkle. Obviously Sparkle and Razzle were destined to become best friends, which they did. On the weekends, Sparkle and Razzle liked to go hang out at a weird dance club called "Chernobyl". They loved dancing to all the different international music the DJ would play. One night they were approached by one of the bartenders, Ramon, who worked at another club and he wanted them to check it out. Even though they didn't know Ramon all that well, they trusted him completely, something Razzle might have thought twice about if her damn hippie parents would have, once again, taught her about stranger danger, its important folks. So after Ramon finished his shift, he took the girls to this club he told them about. It was called "The Dirty Martini" and it was a strip club. Being free spirits, the girls decided to check it out and ended up talking to some of the dancers that worked there. Though Razzle and Sparkle did not see value in material items, they really wanted to travel some day and thought this might be a good place to make some extra cash. Besides, dancing was dancing, they would just have less clothes on. So like every single Lifetime movie ever made, soon things turned bad and the next thing you know Razzle is doing drugs and partying every night. She adopted the stage name "Dolla Bill" because God knows the name Razzle Wunderlust just wasn't strippery enough . One night after her shift, Ramon took Razzle to his friend's house where she meet two of the most horrific, terrifying creatures she had ever seen in her life. They called themselves Monisha and Bonisha, the prostituting hoes, they made their living flying around town on a razor scooter selling "thrills" as they called them, and even had their own ridiculous theme song. Well that was enough to make Razzle open her eyes and she vowed never to wrap her leg around a strip pole (for money) ever again! Razzle got clean and moved back in with her parents to start a new, honest way of life. Sparkle ended up falling off her trapeze one night (she was kind of a specialty act) and breaking her back. She tried to go back to stripping but soon the novelty of her act wore out. You see her vertebrae had to be fused together and no one wants to make it rain on a stripper who can only do the robot.

So that's a little about Razzle, I wish I had a picture of her but she believes getting her picture taken will steal her soul. Instead I have this composite sketch of her to share, enjoy!

Photo Ops

Ever since I was a little Rachy, I have loved performing and being in the spotlight. I remember being really little, laying out on the giant mounds of snow left from the snow plow, singing to the airplanes that flew over. I knew my grandma lived far away, so I would sing to the planes just in case she was on one of them. I also loved to sing and dress up for my family, with the help of my older siblings.
Time went by and we moved from the farm into my great grandmother's house in town. I met some neighborhood friends and one day while we were out riding our bikes we noticed a news crew downtown. So we went to investigate and they asked if we wanted to be in a shot for a story they were doing about our town being chosen as the All-American City. So of course we wanted to! I still remember it like it was yesterday, there was like 4 or 5 of us, we coasted by the camera, I made sure to nonchalantly do a one handed drive-by while I sipped my drink in the other hand, daring yet hydrated. Heck yes! That was about the time I realized that I needed to seize every opportunity I had to be apart of any news story, newspaper article, or published picture. So I did just that, mostly I just try to do casual walk-behinds but I will admit I have stalked a reporter in Hy-Vee so I could get my picture in the viewpoints section.

OOooo..me in my plumper days :D

It's not uncommon to have reporters from the newspaper stop by the library when we are having a big event, so I thought my reporter chasing days were over, I mean I'm right where the action happens! Of course I'll end up in all sorts of pictures! Then I started noticing these pictures popping up, and realized the universe was playing a cruel prank on me. I call them..."photo fails".

Presenting Dan Wardell from Iowa Public TV a surprise gift..I believe it was on their blog?

This one is from an article in the local paper about Winter Storytime.

Obviously the newspaper doesn't think I am important enough to be fully photographed, so my new plan was to just insert myself in other peoples pictures and post them on facebook, once again Thank You Microsoft Paint!

Can you even tell I'm not really there?!

The time I played back up accordian for Dierks Bentley             ^^^ They put me in back :/

Then I learned about photo bombing, my true calling in life...Some were obvious

Family Pictures, they had no idea I was back there until we got the pictures back.

Others were a little sneakier....

Can you see me? Lacey took this picture and was really creeped

out when she realized what I had done

I don't have a lot of photo bomb pictures to share because they are always on someone elses camera and it would be really weird for me to go ask people I don't know very well to send me the picture they just took at their child's graduation, because I just photo bombed it and I want to put it on my blog. So there is little proof of these so called pictures but I assure you they are out there. As you can see, I am really on my way to mastering this craft, every picture is getting a little creepier and a little stealthier. In conclusion, if you are ever taking a picture of your loved ones in a public place, look carefully, I might just be there..being creepy.

Birthday Weekend Adventure!

Well my 3 1/2 day birthday weekend is over and has ended with me gaining 4 pounds, developing a sweet new limp, a visit to the doctor's office where I got a wonderful tetanus shot and was prescribed an antibiotic that the doctor tells me can cause severe diarrhea! So I guess you'd say it was a success! Actually I had an awesome birthday, I had to work in the morning but after work I came home, my mom was over baking my birthday cake and had cleaned up my kitchen. She made a lemon sponge cake and I made lemon curd to fill it and then we "frosted" it with a whipped cream topping. It was amazing. Ellie and I had a dance party in the pool for a little while and then we ate a wonderful dinner. We BBQ'ed these little rib portions, with low-fat cheesy potatoes and baked beans, no wonder I gained 4 pounds! My mom made me this great headband that I wore all day, and I got some great gifts! We were going to have a bonfire but it was like 104 degrees out so instead we hung out in the air watching TV, which was just as good.

Yup..that's a cat card!

Then on Saturday Rob and I met his mom for lunch after that my sister, Ellie and I went fishing for a couple hours, I caught three little fish, which I was thrilled about because I haven't caught anything ALL YEAR.  During this trip I managed to cut the bottom of my foot on a rock which progressed into a limp by Monday thus me having to go get a tetanus shot and antibiotics.

Reasons why I'm not surprised when I get put on antibiotics, fish kissing...I was just really excited I finally caught something OK?!?!

After we went fishing, Rob and I went to our friends' wedding reception which was SO FUN! Great music, good food and of course the bride looked stunning! We partied til the cows came home, complete with some pretty great ribbon dancing done by my other persona, Razzle Wunderlust. She used to be an exotic dancer but she gave up the pole in hopes of a better life but sometimes when she drinks too much she goes back to her old ways. Anyways she's really into interpretive dance right now.

Oh yea! AND Rob and I got a Kindle Fire, kind of a combined birthday present for us. It's wonderful, much better than the cheap-o Black Friday sale tablet I dropped and broke a couple months ago (I was so mad at myself!).

On Sunday I went fishing again, which was a bust. When home, got groceries, made dinner, watched True Blood (YESSS!) and then at about 10:30 I had a freaking wood tick on me and screamed like a little girl while Rob yelled at me that I was a "disease carrier" for the rest of the night.

It was definitely the best birthday weekend I have ever had!

Yay! My Birthday Week!

It's my birthday on Friday! I'll be the big 2-6! Woohoo! 26 is still considered pretty young so I'm not to that point where people start dreading their birthdays. I don't think I'll ever not be excited when it gets close to my birthday, it's the one day a year where the whole day is about celebrating the fact you were born. I literally did not have to do ANYTHING, yet every year I get presents and phone calls and Facebook messages from people who are glad I exist! That's awesome! I'm not sure why my mom doesn't get any presents on my birthday, I mean she was the one who had to do all the work, I just came flying out like "HEYYYY Y'ALLLL!" (birth to age 3 was my Dolly Parton stage) and everyone was so happy to see me!

Anyways, 26! I guess I never thought about what my life would be like at 26, life could have taken me all sorts of places, I could be travelling the world, living in NYC trying to make it big, sitting on a sidewalk somewhere homeless and hungry, still living in my mom's basement, who knows! But in all the scenarios, there is one thing I never expected of my 26 year old self. Something that I figured wouldn't happen for a very long time, and I didn't think I'd come to accept. It is....the swim dress! DUN DUN DUHHHHHHHHHHHHHNNN!

It's a swimsuit, that's a dress! Swim dress!

Sure, it has to do more about my big girl status than my age but I think the fact that I'm about to be 26 helped me with accepting the fact that sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do, but things will be ok. Was it my intention to walk into Kohl's on Saturday and buy a swim dress? Heck no, I just wanted to find a swimsuit that would keep everything in its place with as little chance of a wardrobe malfunction as possible. Even when my sister peer pressured me into taking a swim dress into the dressing room I had no intention of buying it, I was just going to try it on, laugh at how dumb I look and leave the store just as depressed and angry as I have in the past. No, I try the dumb thing on and I'm like "Oh, ok, I guess it doesn't look horrible. And everything seems secure, hmm, it is pretty comfortable. *sigh* Damn it.." So I waddle out of the dressing room to show Rob, I have to say it was the first time I think I have ever come out of a dressing room in any type of swimwear and didn't feel like a complete idiot. Of course he thinks it looks nice and fits me well. Crap. But then I check the price..$57.40?! And that's 40% off the original price. There is no way I am paying over $50 for a swim dress. I show Rob and he just shrugs, "It's gonna cost just as much if you buy the separate top and bottoms." Me- *Eye twitch* Why must he be such a math genius? So I throw the thing in the cart and we go to check out, I end up getting an extra 15% off, which is cool I guess, but it doesn't make me feel much better about the fact I kinda look like I raided the locker room after a water aerobics class. When we get home I launch the bag onto the couch and contemplate taking the thing back in the morning and trying to find something at a different store. But then I remember that I'm super lazy and that sounds like an awful lot of work to be doing on Sunday. And then I remember we are having pizza for dinner and forget about everything and spend the rest of the night watching TV with Rob and the dogs.  

The Next Day

By the time we finished our Sunday ritual of grocery shopping and got back home, it was sweltering out so I gave in, put on the swim dress and headed out to the pool in the backyard. (We've nick-named it Tranquility Bay.) With the exception of the five times Ellie, my 4 year old niece, yelled at me that I was getting my new dress wet, nothing too traumatic happened while I donned my new swimwear for all the world to see. I was able to relax, cool down in the pool and I didn't have to scramble for my towel to cover myself when I got out, like I usual do. I felt completely fine walking around the backyard in all my swim dress glory. So the moral of the story is, sometimes a dress is just a dress but other times it's a swim dress. Oh and appreciate your mother, not only for giving you a birthday but for forcing you to try on all those articles of clothing that you did not want to try on and not leaving you in the store when you throw a huge fit because you hated doing it. My kids won't be so lucky, I will leave their ungrateful butts in that Target dressing room, go home and burn every piece of clothing they own. That will teach them to embarrass me in public. Brats. Until next time!

By the time we finished our Sunday grocery shopping and got back home, it was sweltering out so I gave in put on the swim dress and headed out to the pool in the backyard we've nick-named, Tranquility Bay. With the exception of the couple times Ellie, my 4 year old niece, yelled at me I was getting my new dress wet the day went on as normal, I was able to cool down in the pool and I didn't have to scramble for my towel to cover myself when I got out, like I usual do. So considering everything I decided to accept the swim dress, maybe I can play it of as one of those vintage style suits