Domestic Geek

I found this link yesterday for an online favicon generator.

Marcus bought a pretty good scale recently. Turns out my old scale was off by 15 pounds...and not in my favor. My metabolism is already slowing down with the reduced food intake (I'm going into starvation mode, I guess) and I've gained weight this week. Marcus and I went for our first bike ride of the season. My poor butt hurts! My goal is to ride from 2nd & Potomac to Chatfiled by the end of the summer (Marcus thinks it's about 20 miles one way). Every week I'm going to get a little farther until I make it. By Christmas of next year (2007), I'm going to have lost 140 pounds—a whole person—the old me.

I've had a major shift of viewpoint lately. It could be because I've been so poor recently or it could be that as I'm nearing 40, my whole outlook on what's important in life has changed. I'm focusing less on material THINGS. I think back on all the time I wasted driving around looking for wrestling figures (hundred of dollars wrapped up and I can get about $20 for them on eBay), Star Trek stuff, scrapbooking supplies...How much money I wasted on junk that is never used...how much money I've spent storing that stuff in a storage unit...how much money I've wasted on pop/Starbucks/food to make myself almost 300 pounds...IT MAKES ME SICK! There is stuff I've been throwing away in the craft room that I ask myself, "Why in the world did I think that I ever needed that?" I could've had the life I wanted by now with a house and a garden and such, but I wallowed and spent foolishly and I have nobody to blame for where I am now but me.

I knew I was having a shift when I walked all the way through Hobby Lobby one day and didn't find one thing I really wanted to buy. The only things I want to buy now have a purpose. I need some things for my business. I need some books for some things I'm trying to learn. I need some new clothes. I need healthy food. I need to save for a vacation.

I think I was buying stuff to try and fill the emptiness in my life. Trying to numb the pain of being an outcast and being lonely. Don't get me wrong, I know I have people in my life that love me. Marcus has been the rock that has kept me relatively sane. The problem is I haven't been loving me. I took a turn in college where I really liked myself to really hating myself. I started letting myself be abused by people, started expecting less of myself, started giving up on my dreams, started gaining a lot of weight. The problems compounded when my mother died and my sister turned on me. I became an extremely angry, depressed, hopeless person. I'm trying to let all the anger and resentment go. It's not healthy and it serves no purpose except to keep me stuck.

It dawned on me as I was sifting through junk last night that I have been wanting to start my own business for over 17 years. Mom and I used to talk about starting something long before I met Marcus (our 14th anniversary is coming up). What has been holding me back? I wish I knew. I still don't know. It can't be fear of my life getting worse, because it is sucking pretty bad right now. Moving forward with my design business will be the greatest thing I can do for myself right now. I'm never going to get rich working hard everyday for somebody else.

Well, all of that being said, time for me to get back to work. Have a great day, everybody!

I've blocked and/or try not to think about a lot of things that happened in my youth. As I was going through a box of Mom's old craft supplies that I had back in my craft room, I found some stuff that made me remember: I used to be a Camp Fire Girl.

I didn't even want to be one. All of my friends were Girl Scouts (Brownies). I got stuck being a Bluebird because then my sister could join, too. She wasn't old enough to be a Brownie yet. Except for a week-long horseback riding camp that I went to one summer and that I got to learn archery, I don't have any good memories of that time. In fact, except for my sister, I couldn't name a single person in that picture. We stayed involved as long as we did because it was really Mom's thing. She was a group leader, candy chairman, day camp leader, etc. I just remember being an outcast everywhere I went. I was the shy, fat girl that nobody wanted around. I hated selling candy door-to-door. I was so grateful when Mom got involved in the music stuff we were doing and we didn't have time for Camp Fire anymore.

It makes me a little sad now when I try to dredge up memories of what I accomplished in those many years I did that and I can't really come up with much. It is just one more example of having gone through the motions doing something I didn't want to do for the sake of someone else.

Happy Saturday, Everybody!

Thanks to everybody that left a comment or emailed me directly that you read my blog. I was seriously trying to evaluate if writing stuff here is even worth my time. If nobody was coming here except the people looking for the Toys 'R Us Bunny Commercial every Easter, then really, what is the point? Hopefully, in the coming months, the content here will be a little more interesting!

I've been taking some serious looks at my life and what I do day-to-day. Serious changes are in order. What I've been doing for so long is obviously not working and i'm tired of it. I may not write about all or any of it here...we'll see.

Right now, I have a craft room mess to tackle.