(the) Jebbica

Flowers.  I’ve never really seen the point of getting them.  They seem like an extreme waste of money for something that are just gonna die soon.  I mean, you can buy a goldfish for a quarter, and even it will probably stick around longer.


This was my theory, anyway, until I got some.

 

There’s just something about the way they spruce up my cubicle, the gleam of envy in my coworkers’ eyes.  They’re already jealous enough that I have someone who does the cooking and laundry, who takes out the trash, pumps the gas, and will fix a broken headlight.  Of course, he’s also impossible to buy for, a pain to deal with at parties, and super-cranky in the mornings.


But who is to say I am without flaw?


So, even though I was a bit jaded towards Valentine’s Day, it is still nice to have a special romantic day with your sweetie.  Of course, my romantic day was on the 15^th, since my sister’s birthday was the 14^th (and besides: everything is half-off by then, anyway, which I’m totally cool with.  My theory is, don’t be a sucker. If you can get twice as much for half the price, why wouldn’t you? The candy still tastes just as nice.)  In addition to the beautiful pink rose and alstroemeria bouquet, my Someone Special got me some new bras (fyi: he was totally unabashed in regards to searching through the lingerie section alone), and my favorite, Milka bars.  Now, of course I’m on a diet, and now we have two bags full of candy (and $15 worth of doughnuts, which is what he wanted for V-Day!).


Most of the candy should keep awhile, so I’m trying to think of ways I can still enjoy a little now and then while still maintaining my healthy eating regime.  Today, for instance, for my 10:00 a.m. snack, I mixed a few dark chocolate M&Ms with a few cocoa-dusted almonds.  Just enough to feel like I was eating something sweet while still getting in that delicious protein.  As much as I love carbs and sweets, I am also adoring the high protein-high fiber-low carb eating.  I already cannot wait for lunch, which is black bean salsa (recipe coming), turkey, provolone, and spinach on a whole wheat pita with a side of celery and hummus (everyone I know seems to think hummus is gross, but I think it’s good if you get the right kind! (Here’s a photo) The Sabra Roasted Red Pepper is delicious and tastes a lot like pimento cheese, a celery staple). 


I am even starting to exercise a bit.  I’m not athletic, and I’m certainly not graceful.  I can barely walk without falling over.  So last night, my sister Maegan (my Valentine’s Day-born sis) came over to play some Wii Fit.  I suggested that we try Just Dance, the game that I was kind of awful at.  She, The Boyfriend, and I took turns playing a two-player game, the odd one out squaring off against the winner.  It was so much more fun that way!  Maegan won a lot, and The Boyfriend sat a lot of them out, so it was mostly just the two Wallin girls in competition (me, getting my fat ass handed to me time and again).  Before we knew it, an hour and a half had gone by, and we had shed several layers of our clothing and were panting into the snow-filled air outside thinking, wow, it’s not so cold out here!  She definitely kicked my butt at most of the songs, but I didn’t care.  The point of it is it’s a great aerobic workout, and I am starting to understand the rhythm of dancing a little more.  There’s no fluidity to my moves whatsoever, but at least I didn’t fall down this time.


I’m not sure I can see a difference on my body just yet, but I can definitely tell that I feel better with the things I eat, and I already lasted much longer on the dancing game this time than I did last time.  I’m getting full a lot sooner, too, which I’m taking as a good sign.  I wish results were immediate, but as long as I keep on this path, I think it will slowly but surely start to pay off.  Now if we could just keep those post-holiday candy sales at bay!!

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Valentine’s Day. Whether you’re single, married, or are dating someone, there is ample opportunity for this made-up holiday to potentially become one of the year’s more memorable days, for better or worse.  Of course, if a special someone proposes to you on V-Day, you’re going to remember it for the rest of your life, as cliché as it might in all reality be.

But for most people, there is a lot of pressure put on this day, and for what?  After all, it’s just another holiday created by retail giants hoping to get consumers to spend money on greeting cards, candy, and jewelry.  As you can see from an article in the photo above I wrote for the school paper some TEN YEARS AGO (good God, I’m old), I was jaded about Valentine’s Day then, and I’m jaded about it now.  Just think, how lovely and curmudgeonly will I be in another forty or so years? I can’t wait to know me then!

The Boyfriend and I don’t generally ever do anything special for Valentine’s Day.  It has sort of become a tradition to go eat Indian food, then maybe go shopping and try to say “I love you” a little bit more.  But in all honesty, we’ve been doing a lot of that on regular ordinary non-Hallmark days.  So, I wasn’t really putting too much stock into us planning anything romantic for this weekend.

It doesn’t help that my youngest sister’s birthday is also on this day. (She used to date a guy whose birthday was also on Valentine’s Day…can you imagine? It was almost too barf-worthy to be true!).  So, I’m looking at my weekend schedule, and it’s pretty much booked solid.  It starts with a Pure Romance party at a friend’s house on Thursday evening, segues into a female family movie night on Friday, parlays into us getting our taxes done Saturday afternoon, a concert Saturday evening with several friends and coworkers, a Rock Band party at a friend’s house late Saturday night, and concludes with church and birthday cake with the family Sunday afternoon.  And of course the weather is supposed to be terrible Sunday evening.

I just didn’t think there was going to be any need to bother with the fuss of spending money we didn’t have on each other. We already know we love each other, and no amount of paper hearts is going to make it anymore apparent!  And yet, apparently The Boyfriend is kind of sad about this.  “Maybe he was planning a surprise?” my BFF asked.  Doubtful, since it’s the norm for me to say I WANT THIS instead of trying to bother with dropping hints and winding up disappointed.  So, I texted him during work yesterday and bluntly asked him. “Were you planning a surprise for V-day?”

His answer: “Fishing?”

FISHING?  “You want to dig worms and gut fish? Seriously? How romantic,” I texted in reply.  Now, that may be romantic to someone, but it ain’t me!  And I didn’t think The Boyfriend found it particularly seductive, either.

There was a long pause between our two phones before he sent me an answer.

He had been asking if I was fishing for compliments.

So, the jury is still out on whether or not there is an actual surprise in store for me, or if VD (aptly named, in my opinion) will be just another day.  All I know is, if I wind up ever having to gut a fish, there’d better be a damn ring inside it.

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Last Friday was the beginning of ten days off from work for me.  I am normally off Fridays, and we are closed this week Wednesday-Friday, so I thought if I asked to take off two days, Monday and Tuesday of this week, I could have a ten-day vacation.  I had planned on going on a roadtrip.  One of those, let’s flip a coin and see where we end up kind of road trips.  I was so excited because I was actually going to get to go somewhere.

Then I got sick.

And then I ran out of money.

I have been sick for awhile now, and nothing I seem to do knocks it out of me.  I went to the doctor a couple of weeks ago, who said I had a sinus infection and gave me some antibiotics.  I got better, but it wasn’t a week before I had it again.  I’ve taken the rest of the antibiotics, a bottle of Mucinex-D, a Z-pack, a gallon of chicken noodle soup, a fistful of Vitamin C…nothing, nothing, nothing.  I feel like I’m coughing myself into oblivion (hack hack), and it sucks.  I wonder at this point if I will ever get better, or will I sound like a hacking frog for the rest of my life.

So, I’ve spent the biggest part of my vacation staying at home, with the puppies.  They are great entertainment when you no longer have cable.  I’ve done some house cleaning and Christmas decorating, and I’ve done some schoolwork, but for the most part,  I have done nothing.  I have gone nowhere.  And when I return to work on Monday, will I even feel like I’ve had all this time off?  Because tomorrow’s Thanksgiving, and it doesn’t even seem like it should be Thursday already.  Hack, hack, hack.

On the bright side, I think I am losing weight.  I haven’t had much of an appetite, and the only thing I ever want to eat is soup.  So, if I do wind up pigging out tomorrow on homemade turkey and dressing and fifty different casseroles and Coca-Cola cake, maybe it will be okay.

The puppies will be six weeks old tomorrow, and they are getting to be quite the handful!  One thing they love to do is hide behind the door in their puppy room, so when you open it, you start looking around for them, and then they’ll pop out and make a run for it.  They also have taken to the pee pads really well, so that’s been a major plus.  We haven’t had any problems getting them to eat (watery) dry food, either.  I was looking around for a 2010 Maltese Puppy Calendar to order for Christmas, but MaltSmart was already sold out, and my puppies are cuter than the other ones in my opinion, so I decided to make my own.  Feel free to check it out if you’d like!  Hope everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving and Black Friday.  Now, if you will excuse me, I have some more hacking to do.

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