Precarious position

Another vent. Dealing with lapsed prescriptions today, which means I get to feel dumb talking to people on the phone about things I dropped the ball on. Just got myself a bit under control yesterday and managed to avoid some temptations. Today...here I am poised on the brink of feeling really stupid and out of control, so what better to do than to eat something bad! Yes, I know that won't help. And while I know there shouldn't be a connection between feeling stupid and guilty (for not getting a physical earlier in the year when I had an indication that there might be a problem) and going on a food binge, there you have it.

So I think instead I'll have a shower (yes, it is already almost noon: why do you ask??) and brush my teeth. Must get groceries today since we're out of almost everything. Maybe I'll try a new recipe out for dinner. I've got my WW ice cream for a treat.

PS: Miraculously still have 2 mini containers of ice cream in the freezer.

PSS: It occurs to me that if there's a liability issue for a doctor issuing refills for a patient he hasn't seen in 2 years, perhaps he should have written me a letter last year instead of getting stubborn and pissy about it now. Just sayin'....

Venting before I do any damage!

Just have to blow off a little steam in order to not go off on a bender. I've been obsessed lately with a certain game on a certain social network who shall remain anonymous except they are named for a body part.... Anyway, Kyra got me hooked, and Ethan plays as well. I let them have accounts on this network under my supervision, even tho they are not strictly old enough (ehem, cue the guilt over teaching a lesson about working around the system...) I got into the game so much that I created a couple of different personas in order to play more. Well, I finally reach saturation level with the game, after about a week of playing for such long stretches that I didn't eat much, and so decided to dump the extra personas. That started a bunch of redistributing the wealth, so to speak: spending these people's "money" and sending it off as gifts to me and my kids. Furthermore, my zeal in helping them reach game goals had me playing their pets, and adding new network people so as to get more "money".

Yesterday it all backfired on the wrong person: Kyra's account got disable because they suspected her of being a scammer. They said she was accepting people as friends who were not friends. What gave her away? Her account name which is clearly not a person's name, or all the gifts I sent her? Who knows. She has been slapped, but as they say, they are watching her for suspect activity.

Which brings me to my rant. How frigging hypocritical! As I got enmeshed in the game, it came to my attention that people were adding friends indiscriminately, and creating people on this network with goofier names than Kyra's, names like "John SPP", just in order to earn "money" from the training program. How is a last name like an animal less suspicious than a last name of all consonants, I ask?? So irritating!! We're not trying to scam anyone, we play nicely, we give complements and gifts. Other than bending the rules slightly, we're doing nothing wrong, whereas...

And to be clear she is being slapped by the network, not by the game. The game admins acknowledge that people will have multiple accounts, and you get rewarded for having a lot of friends. No way to have 1000+ friends than by accepting the friendship of total strangers.

So the whole thing has soured my experience of this social network. And I feel guilty for possibly getting her in trouble with my overzealous play. So join me in trying not to jump boldly off the wagon to bury my guilt... (On the plus side, my right shoulder has been bugging me more from the increased computer play, so probably just as well I take a little break from the game...)

That was fun!

I took a hooping class with my sister Lisa today. What fun, and what an intense workout! I was sweating up a storm by the time we were done.

Yes, I am talking hula hoop here. The self-proclaimed "Mayor of Hooperville" was on hand to give 15 of us instruction on hooping. After a stretch, she taught us how to keep the momentum going, how to keep it up and get it back up (no comments from the peanut gallery), how to change direction, hoop on our hands, and even pass ourselves through the hoop. I had a blast, so much so that I ordered a hoop. Hopefully I won't break anything in my house when I hoop (it does run away at times from my enthusiasm, or maybe I'm projecting...) Already I feel complaints from muscles I have long since forgotten, and I am expecting bruises on the tops of my hands from the hand hooping.

The class reminded me that I love the challenge of learning movement, that I have trouble doing two things at the same time (walking while hooping, for example: hard...) and if I remember to add music to exercise it becomes much more like play than "work". Added bonus: I found the title to the elusive Jack Johnson song I heard once and could never pinpoint. Yay me!

And now for something completely different: a goal

With 2 short months until my 30th high school reunion, I have been trying, without much success, to climb back on the wagon. I'm all about talk and no do, but this time I might have a good idea. I found an interesting run/walk for October, and I'm going to sign up for it. It's a 10k walk over the Columbia River. Jason seems leery, but I think it's doable.

Activity is usually the last to happen for me and first to go once I get off track. What I'm missing is finding something I enjoy doing. Failing that, I'll take a goal or something to work up to. I can walk. During our meeting last weekend, the leader was talking this up. It is true: walking is cheap and easy and anyone can do it. She also suggested climbing stairs. I found out that I can only climb my stairs at home for about 2.5 minutes. Surely a summer of training will not only make the 10k doable, but lose me some weight, too.

I also am trying to not fall into the same things that end up sabotaging my motivation. My friend just rejoined WW, and we used to have this thing that after the meeting we'd workout, and then go to Starbucks. Needless to say, we weren't just having point-free coffee. So bad launch to the week. This time, instead of eating there, we're going to get a low point coffee and walk around the neighborhood by the WW meeting. Hopefully this will help both of us start the week on a more positive and helpful foot.

I'm on Facebook now!

So I think I'm going to put the kid-related stuff there instead of here.

Happy Birthday, Ethan!

Today was Ethan's party. It went pretty good. Had one no-show and one non-responder; 2 sets of parents stayed. The last kid is still here, but she was Kyra's friend assigned to kid wrangling, and she arrived late, so no biggie.

The lightsabers were a big hit, as were the inflatable ones for the little sisters. 2 kids took us up on the offer to wear a costume, so we had a storm trooper and a jedi knight.

I'm very disappointed to say that the cake looked fine despite being custom-designed. Yes, that is a strange comment, so I'll qualify it. Ever since I discovered the Cake Wrecks blog, I've been scheming for a situation where I can trick a decorator into messing up our cake order so I could send the resulting hilarious photos to Cake Wrecks. This even seemed tailor made for such a screw up, considering the bakery did not have a Star Wars-themed cake on hand. They did have a Darth Vader head (and as it turns out also an Anakin Skywalker head) so we agreed on Vader on top of a Star Trek cake. I was rather hoping it would be horrible. As it is, there were some inexplicable orange swoops surrounding Vader. Not sure what they represent, but not really that funny either. I'm sending a picture in anyway because you can never tell.

Danya wields her lightsaber while sharing a bean bag with Alba.

Ethan's new Luke Skywalker costume was cool but a bit big (hence the missing arm?? Not sure what he was doing here....)

OK, I'm not sure what the scenario in his mind was, but Ethan penned 2 notes imploring some cat to not...do some dire thing. It puts to mind a cat holding a .45, perhaps, but with what opposable thumb and how is he standing up?? Not sure, but it's kind of funny...