Are you listening to me?

I'm back. I need an outlet. I could dump all this on the hubs, but he'd probably just give me that look - that blank look he gets when I'm talking and I know he's either not paying attention or sleeping with his eyes open again. So here I am, dumping on you guys. It's probably more pleasurable for all involved if I don't call it dumping; there is sort of a negative connotation with that. Venting? Ranting? I'm not necessarily angry, at least not all the time. How about conversing? Let's converse, folks. Oooh, take it one step further - let's Chuck Taylor. Get it? No? Damn it. Don't look at me like that. Are you even awake?

So it's been a while. It has been a while. Where am I in life? Geographically speaking, I haven't moved a damn inch. Semi-frustrating at times; we've embraced the game of "how much furniture can we cram into a two-bedroom apartment" and so far, it appears that we're winning. Or maybe we're losing, I'm not sure. In either case, we have a lot of stuff in a little space. At least we're comfortable in our crowdedness; we got new furniture today. It's comfy. It's calling my name but I'm resisting the siren song, for the moment anyway. It's funny how furniture never looks as big in the store as it does when the delivery guys are trying to stuff your sofa through the front door. They saved the sofa and the wall, but we had to console a delivery guy with bloody knuckles with homemade oatmeal raisin cookies. Or maybe that was just the hubs' way of getting rid of some of my mediocre baking, I don't know. I guess it's better than him throwing them in the ditch. (Inside joke. Sorry.)

I probably don't weigh as much as the last time I wrote, and hallelujah for that. Birthing a 10-pound, four-ounce chubster helps in that department. Our kid count has risen to three and three is good. We are outnumbered. And somedays I think we're being outsmarted. We've taken to calling them by numbers instead of names; I thought I would be spared the dreaded "mommy brain" by continuing my education, but alas, the power of a constant barrage of cartoons and superheroes has turned my brain to mush. See? I'm way off topic. I was talking about my weight and now I'm all off on mushy brains and I suppose those things can be connected, because post-babies, I'm just sort of mushy all over, but it's not the direction I was going. So yeah, now that's out there - three babies has turned me into a giant blob. I'm not happy about it and I try to embrace that "love your body, it's given life" attitude bullshit but so far I'm not fooling myself. Mush is mush is mush and I is mush, people. It's not pretty. But here's the thing - I'm mushy, right? So I get upset that I'm mushy and what do I do when I'm upset? I eat. And I don't eat little bits of bad stuff, I eat ALL the bad stuff in a four-block radius. And then it only makes me mushier, which makes me more upset, which makes me eat more... You can see where this is going. So what do I fix first - the mush or the head? Some might say that a little bit of healthiness would fix both at the same time but those people probably like people like Jillian Michaels or they are Jillian Michaels and if Jillian Michaels ever preached her BS to my face I'd have to smack her in her big horse mouth. And then I'd have to run away really fast, or at least as fast as a giant blob of mush could run, which let's face it, isn't that fast at all. And then I'd probably get my ass kicked because I've seen what happens when Jillian gets mad, I've seen the Biggest Loser, she's a bat shit crazy bizzo when she wants to be. So after all that, I'd be a big bruised mushy blob, making it even more difficult to partake in any form of exercise and increasing the likelihood of stuffing my face full of junk food and you see where I am? I'm right back to square one, people. Only I've gained six pounds and I've got a black eye.

And there you are. Or there I am. Whatever.

So yeah. See? Time away doesn't mean that I've become more normal; it's only given me more time to fester in my craziness. 

Fester. That is such a great word.

Give me a Wii, I'll be yours forever.

I'm sitting in bed, Brodie sprawled out in the Bee's usual spot and Kingsley at my feet. It rained last night, I can see out the window. I didn't sleep very well but don't chalk that up to the rain. No, I didn't sleep very well because the Bee didn't sleep very well. And because we don't have one of those Swedish-spaceman-wonder-material Tempur-pedic matresses - you know, the one where one person can breakdance and the other can sleep with a glass of wine balanced on their forehead - I felt every time he rolled over to get out of bed. Which was often. When the Bee doesn't sleep well it makes for an especially long day for him and an even longer day for those around him. I pity those stuck in the tunnel with him today at work.

So I'm tired today too. Tired but not grumpy.

Yesterday didn't turn out to be as fabulous as I'd anticipated. But maybe I set my expectations too high? In spite of my good mood and the great weather, I wasn't able to find my motivation to do much of anything. I looked up and saw that it was nearly 1 pm - at that point I'd barely moved from the sofa. I was grungy, Little Man was still grungy, I hadn't Shredded or eaten or anything. The day just sort of got away from me. I found myself running to get things done so that it appeared that I'd accomplished something when the Bee got home from work. I hurried up and popped in the Nazi's DVD and Shredded my way through level two, only to end up with an oddly swollen knee and quite a bit of pain. Damn you, Jillian Michaels! Damn you!

I iced it and took some Advil; by early evening it was feeling significantly better, especially in comparison to the ankle I rolled while limping my gimp ass up the stairs, not able to walk correctly because of my bum knee. But this morning I'm having hardly any pain - things seem to be back to normal. So here in a few minutes I'll tie on my tennis shoes and try again. I was kind of hoping that taking a day off would help relieve the pain in my knees. I don't know if the pain comes from the weight or the exercise; I guess I'll just keep going until the answer makes itself clear. Obviously, if I continue the exercise and lose the weight and find that my knees don't hurt - then it was the weight causing the pain. If after continuing the exercise and losing the weight, my knees still hurt, well, then it's the stupid exercise that caused the pain and I'll sue Horse Face for all she's got. (Which would be a good plan except for that huge fine-print message at the beginning of the workout that basically says, "If this causes you pain, knock it off. If this causes you pain and you don't stop, we're not responsible for your injuries, dumb ass.")

I did set up two interviews for this coming Monday. Both are with temp agencies. I was sort of depressed about this until I realized that my interest in any job they offered would be temporary at best, fleeting at worst. I have no long-term career goals anyway; maybe I shouldn't be looking for long-term work?

Interviewer: "SuperJanel, what is your short-term career goal?"
SuperJanel: "Get paid."
Interviewer: "Oh. And your long-term goal?"
SuperJanel: "Don't get fired."

When I started the interview process at Giant Conglomerate Bank, I knew from someone that worked there that they often gave away gaming consoles and trips and money as incentive prizes for people to come to work and do their jobs. So when the HR rep that called me asked why I wanted to work there, I was pretty honest: "I want a Nintendo Wii." And I STILL got hired. But I never won a Wii. Which I probably should have put on my exit interview paperwork as the main reason I left. Oh, wait. I never went to the exit interview. But that's because I was never asked to go to an exit interview, the bastards. I wouldn't have gone anyway, but still, it would have been nice to have been invited.

Oh well. It's now 7:32 in the a.m. I've got to go take my daily beating before I shower and head to Chubby Kids for my weekly session of public humilation.

"Thank you, Jillian. May I have another?"

Do you hear that?

It's completely quiet here this morning. Well, completely quiet except for the dog tipping over the trashcan in the bathroom and the ceiling fan and the neighbor's kids are screaming. But it's still pretty quiet. No lullabies, no mobiles, no baby cooing, no drill sergeant Jillian Michaels... It's nice and quiet.

It's just me and Pootie home this morning. The Bee and the MiniBee took off for his cousin's house early and left me home alone. I feel weird, like there's something I should be doing but I'm not sure what it is. I did my Shred this morning (day 11 - woot!) and then went for a bike ride, came home, talked to my momma, made some breakfast and now I just don't know what to do with myself. I miss the MiniBee (and the big Bee too, lol). I've never sent him out to play with Daddy before - I'm a little nervous. But I'm sure they're fine.

I fell off the Chubby Kids wagon hard last night, to the tune of beer and martinis and pizza and ice cream cake. I guess that's what weekly points are for but holy cow. I can't be doing that very often. It was Mark's birthday and we all got together at West Glen to celebrate. We ate at Graze; I'd never been there before. Their menu is all appetizers, which is kind of different, but all so very good. Remember that I said the Bee would never eat ground chicken? I lied. If I could make ground chicken taste like the Food Guru makes ground chicken taste, we'd eat it all the time. Freaking amazing.

How does one get the moniker of "Food Guru" anyway? I want to be a "Something Guru" where something is replaced with something awesome, like food. What kind of guru could I be? How about a cheese guru? Or a waffle guru, I do like me some waffles. Although Chubby Kids has pretty much done away with my enjoyment of most cheeses and waffles, unless you count the 2% cheese I've been eating (which is SO not the same; cheese should not bounce like Jell-O) or the Eggo Nutri-Grain Low-Fat waffles I heat up in the toaster (which pretty much suck but aren't as many points as toast). Some days I just miss food. And then I think about the weight that I've lost and where I'd like to be (in terms of pounds, not location) and I can hear my mom's voice: "There is always another pizza." I have moments where I'd like to stick a virtual sock in my virtual mom's mouth and eat the damn pizza but mostly I just resign myself to eating half-ass cheese and cardboard waffles because that's what the Mega-Nazi Jillian would want me to do.

I have nightmares about that woman. *Shudder.*

Anyway. I'm going to go turn the radio up, clean my kitchen, maybe vaccuum and take a nice long shower. And then I'll wait for my baby to come home. :-)

Day 1: Complete

I hate Jillian Michaels. If I could find the receipt, I'd take this DVD back. She makes me feel fat and flabby and she has horse teeth. I hurt in places I didn't know I could hurt, although I think that means that there are still some muscles under all my extra weight.

I shredded today. I jumping jacked and push-upped and lunged my way around the living room (as much as someone of my stature can do, anyway), stepping over the dog and ducking out of the way of the ceiling fan when necessary. I looked like a damn fool and felt pretty stupid too. Jillian is a no-break-taking, 20-minute workout Nazi and she'd roll my ass if she saw the lackadaisical approach I was taking to her shred. I wasn't even using real hand weights, I was using green beans. (She ought to be thankful for that. If I were using real hand weights I'd have chucked those SOB's through the tv. She's lucky; I won't waste green beans.)

But I figure, some shred is better than no shred and if it turns into 60 days (or 90 or 120 or 733 days), what's the harm? It's more than I did yesterday (hell, it's more than I did all last week) and if I stick to my Chubby Kids and keep walking the dog, it's definitely an improvement. I asked the Bee if he wanted to shred with me. He laughed. But after having done this I realize that our living room floor probably couldn't take the both of us doing jumping jacks at the same time. Oh well. He'll be jealous soon enough.

I'm going to go collapse now.