Whose Bad?

As we approach the last quarter of the year.  I’m looking back on the 4 goals I put in front of myself with a bit of malaise in regard to my performance.   So I must get it together and see what kind of catch-up is actually possible and get to getting!!

Goal 1: Get Gun License – well I did my part and now I wait and wait and wait for the county to do theirs.  At this point all I can do is wait; based on the timelines they provided I got my class completed and paperwork in with plenty of time to spare.   That said, if the government could be held accountable to deadlines they are already 2 months behind.   Since we know they cannot I wait and HOPE I get some kind of notification before the end of the year. 

Goal 2: Go natural – DONE!!  Yeah for one completed goal this year.  Did the BC on 4/6 and am currently rocking my first twist out!!  I like my hair and the relative ease.  It is not maintenance free however, so that has been a lesson learned.  In fact since I have no real idea how to style my hair in its natural state it’s been a challenge.  Everything is new and not everything is pretty…lol

Goal 3: lose 50 pounds – Hands down a HUGE failure here!!  Perhaps I can get together for the last quarter and lose 10-15?  Maybe, I don’t know…. Just can’t get my head around caring enough…ugh

Goal 4: Get motorcycle license – While I do think I have some legitimate excuses (uhmm reasons) why this didn’t happen the bottom line is it failed to become a priority in the mist if other things that were going on in my life this summer.  That said I’m committed to getting the permit this quarter so I can take the riding class next spring!!   So We’ll consider that ½ done if anyone else is keeping score

So at the ¾ mark of the year of the badass, its well… not quite that damn bad!!  UGH.  So by the end of the year I predict I’ll be a gun license having (barring my neighbors failing me on the back ground check), natural hair sporting, motorcycle permit having cubby girl….lol 

Damn so close

Tall Slut No Panties

Some of you already now, I watch TV to be entertained…laugh even.  I do not watch reality TV with all its angst and drama because I have enough of that in my own damn life and don’t need to watch other people react poorly, behave barbarically and/or be continually victims or victimizers.  When I watch the idiot box I want to see one of three things, something to make me laugh, something to make me think or sports.  That’s it!  Heck lately the news doesn’t even fall into the something to make me think category and I’m having a hard time watching that…ugh.

Anyway this is NOT about TV and the perils within, however one of my new favorite shows Don’t trust the B---- in apt 23.  Got me to thinking out loud in front of my husband (huge mistake) and the subsequent dialogue is blog worthy.

So let me set this up… the season finale of Don’t trust… was about Chloe actually acknowledging that she was friends with her roommate June.  In the process of this mayhem it is revealed that there is a Japanese anime book being published about Chloe’s life called “Shitagi Nashi”; which loosely translated means Tall Slut No Panties.    Apparently there is a guy quietly staking Chloe and chronicling her life in this comic book and let’s just say that Chloe is a free spirit. 

OK so I’m watching the show and laughing at how incurably narcissistic Chloe is and I say out loud to no one in particular.  “Damn I use to be Tall Slut No Panties, what the hell happened to me?”

Doesn’t the husband say… “Yeah what happened to you?” 

Seriously, WTF just happened?  Did he really just answer a rhetorical question that was not even aimed at him?  Did he really have the nerve to chime in with agreement?  So I give him a chance to “fix” the situation by saying “Huh? What did you say?”

and….. Wait for it…..  

Doesn’t he start listing the slutty shit I USED to do!!!  I know all the women are right now laughing your asses off thinking “Oh Lord” (in your Bernie Mac voice) because you already know his ass is in trouble with a capital T!!

So here’s where I bring this full circle back to reality TV and why I don’t watch it… IF I was a reality TV watcher I would be subliminally influenced to tear his ass up… and I mean tear him up!!  Go for the jugular, start talking about all the shit he used to do or better yet all the shit I thought he would do but it turns he has no clue how, when or why he should do any of it.  It’s kind of like the slow draining tub issue I have going on right now.  Are you really taking a shower in 3 inches of water every day and you can’t think to take the damn plunger and fix the damn thing or better yet when I put the plunger in the tub you can’t even think through….. OH, maybe I should try and unclog the drain…OR move the plunger!!    And this is just the TIP of the iceberg, Oh I got stuff I could say….and how!!
However, since I watch sitcoms, I’ve been subliminally conditioned to stay away from hateful banter because frankly it’s just not that funny and go straight for the punch line.  So to his list of things I USE to do I say…

Oh well seems you married Tall Slut No Panties and managed to turn her into Fat Wife Granny Panties….sucks to be you, huh sparky?

Ass….

What cost $150 an inch?

Breathing Room that's what!!

So I’ve been neglecting the blog because I really don’t want to write what I need to write about so I’ve just been stuck on nothing… Everything I could write about seems silly and inconsequential.  Not that anything thus far is of any real significance…. But that is hardly the point.

Today I’m going to buy a king size bed because I need more space…much more and without sounding full of mystery and drama.  I really need more space.  UGH

I’m without a doubt creating distance and frankly I need the distance even in my sleep.  So off I go to spend thousands of dollars for what amounts to 20 inches of additional space. 

I always wanted a king size bed and mom is going to take the one I have now since it’s still has years left on it. 

I think I’ll buy myself some new down pillows too…

Rainbows...

Why I suck a Zumba and you should to!

Ok so after a few consistent weeks of Zumba, I can say without hesitation that I suck at it.  REALLY REALLY suck at it.  That said I kind of like it…weird huh? 

After considerable consideration, I think the reasons I suck at Zumba are all my own, have nothing to do with the instructors ability and frankly probably not fixable, therefore I will always suck at it.  Which by the way is OK with me.   I figure you can’t be good at everything and sucking at something is no reason to stop when you are getting good RESULTS anyway. 

Ok so here’s why I suck:

1.       I’m just not the most coordinated sister in the world.  Plain and simple – I’m clumsy.

2.       I’ve never been the best dancer.  In fact when I was in HS my friends (God love them) would spend HOURS and HOURS teaching me the newest dance so I wouldn’t make a fool of myself.  There were just random dance checks…”Drena, do the woop.”  If I did it right…. They join in smiling giving me five.  If I looked crazy…They would all join in until it was better.  FUNNY STUFF!!

3.       I don’t have the bandwidth or frankly inclination to remember the routines.  Seriously, that is just never going to happen. 

4.       This one is my favorite… there are so many woman in my class with absolutely NO rhythm that if I look left or right I’m done…completely off beat and going to wrong way.  That can go for the instructors too.  Who sometimes seem to be doing the routine but not necessarily to the music if you get what I’m saying.  So I get all confused.

5.       Lastly, I don’t always pay enough attention to the instructor and she is saying one thing and I’m off in my head someplace and doing another

So that is why I suck, which wouldn’t be too bad if I could be at all inconspicuous.  But there is no change of that happening since my class is full of Barbie like specimens and college students.  So, I stand out like a fly in milk.  Happily that doesn’t seem to bother me much.    Given the size disparity it really is more their problem than mine.   That’s a badass way of seeing it…right?

Anyway, today is a new class called Willpower and Grace.   So let’s see if I’m any better at this it looks intense: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7El9wWd2ViQ

Badass to the Bone!

I’ve been doing absolutely horrible on my eating right and exercise plan for 2012 for the last two weeks!  Not sure why it so damn easy to fall off the wagon but any change in schedule is enough for me to find myself running behind the wagon – just half heartily gimping along acting like I’m really trying to get back on board.  My down fall is sugar (well primarily – we’ll ignore fat for this conversation) and I cannot tell you how many sweet tarts I ate last week.   So between all the sugar around the office last week and my sales meeting throwing me off my exercise schedule …OY.  Yes I know and can hear it myself…..EXCUSES, EXCUSES, EXCUSES!! 

So last night I sat up and tortured myself by watching a marathon of “My 600lb life”!  First, for the record I don’t have body dimorphic disease.  I know I’m not close to where those people are.  I know that it would take years for me to get there however, I do feel like given the right set of circumstances I could get close.  From what I saw all you need is an enabler (I have one – Hubby), a food addiction ( If I don’t have one I’ve got to be pretty close), be predisposed to weight gain and lastly be able to justify bad behavior!  Well that would be me in a nutshell – CRAP! I really need to get rid of my enabler!!  OK, that was a joke but kind of ironic that I choose the one trait that has nothing to do with me changing….Y’all pray for me!!

Anyway, it’s back on the grind this week.  Back to eating better – NO CANDY, NO JUNKFOOD – Funny cutting those two things out of my diet is enough to get me to a steady 1-2lbs a week weight loss.  UGH that truth is so ugly sometimes.  NO CANDY! NO JUNKFOOD!  By default that makes my diet low card because that’s how I get my carbs other than that I’m a meat eater by nature.  Also back to exercise – its Monday so its ZUMBA night! 

So this year is the year of the Badass!  Part of being a badass is finishing the things I start.  Getting things off my bucket list and looking like the person I see in my head!  She is a badass!!

Good thing I don’t have to do it all by myself:

Philippians 1:6

⁶Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:

Yes, I knit

So here’s what I figured out the other day.  If you doing anything constructive/creative outside of work, church (in my circles anyway) and family.  You are lumped in to a group of people with “too much time on your hands” or the dreaded people with “nothing else better to do”.  It seems that lots of people are just too busy to do or pursue anything that they actually love or like to do and because they are sooooo busy they resent anyone who chooses otherwise and in their resentment they marginalize your work and your life/time to make themselves feel better.

So if you know me you are already laughing because you also know that I’m about to go bullshit on a few people!

First, yes I knit!  Why that is such a freaking shocker to people is beyond me.  Is there a type of woman that knits and I simply don’t fit the bill?  Or are you just so narrow-minded and ignorant that you believe that young(ish) black woman are too busy making babies and drinking malt liquor or selling out and castrating their men to actually choose and be proficient at a productive and beautiful craft?  Which one is it?  Here’s a shocker, I have other friends who knit, crochet, scrapbook, take pictures etc.  Who are accomplished, well rounded, happy, involved woman with families, jobs, lives, responsibilities and OH MY GOODNESS will wonder ever cease….TIME to do what they love to do! 

Second, NO I’m not making you anything so please stop asking!  Quit boring me with your lame and INSULTING excuses

How is it that you can stand in my face and say… “I wish I had time to do something like that” and then ask me to make you something?   Am I in the twilight zone?  Btw…how many hours of TV do you watch a night.  Statics say that the average American watches 34 hours a week of television.  That is close to 5 hours a day!  Just 6 hours short of a full time job!  So even if you (Ms. Make me a shawl) are on the low end of the spectrum.  You have plenty of time to make your own damn shawl. 

I love when you say….”I can’t learn how to do that or I’m not good at stuff like that.”  Really, stuff like what? When was the last time you tried stuff like this? Is that comment meant as a compliment?  Well for the record is comes of condescending , disingenuous and patronizing , ESPECIALLY when you follow it up with…You should make me one of those.   Uh, yeah the answer is NO again.  The origin of knitting goes back to the 11^th century, surely if some peasant girl in Egypt can figure it out, you can.  Unless of course, I’ve mistakenly thought you were just narrow-minded and ignorant and it turns out  you have real mental deficiency; then maybe you don’t have the hand/eye coordination or mental capacity to pull knitting off.  If that is the case…..I’m sorry and will add you to the charity projects list.  Just know that I’m already committed to the oncology ward, the veteran’s hospital and the city mission this year so it won’t be coming anytime soon. 

No you cannot pay me to make you the scarf I made my sister/mother/friend/husband/daughter/etc.  Well you could……. but once I told you what it was cost (taking into consideration my time), you informed me that you could buy one for Wal-Mart for $10 or Macy’s for $30.  Which of course makes me wonder why your time is so valuable but mine is worth only between $.10 to $.1.25 and hour!  How a person is supposed to NOT get offended by this mess is beyond me.

Lastly, Yes I knit/crochet and have been known to scrapbook.  Not because I’m a person with a ton of time on my hand but because I CHOOSE to spend the time I do have creating something I think is beautiful.  Because time is the most precious of all commodities and when I spend it making something for someone I love they know it cannot be undone, returned or unspent.  Because spending my life and time producing something that is not only beautiful but tangible is important to me. 

It’s not that we have too much time or nothing better to do.  In fact, it seems to me that all these crafts of love are about time…not wasting it or using it up but spending it!  Spending it wisely 

My goddaughter said something to me the other day that speaks to my love of knitting and how I think about the time I spend doing it.

“Auntie, you know why I love you?”

“Why?” I said

“Because you were there for my mommy”

Because I was there, sitting, chatting waiting laughing, SPENDING TIME when her mommy needed it. (and yes I brought my knitting J)