Um yeah, this looks waaaay tasty! Can’t wait to try it but didn’t want to hog the recipe lol Cheers, theamazingshrinkingwoman! 🙂
Milk, Men and Mayhem
24 JanI know that saying about not crying over spilled milk, everyone in the English speaking world knows that saying and I’m sure there are other versions for other languages lol but what about milk going sour overnight…is it ok to cry a little over that? or at least swear a bit?
I ask this because last night my milk was fine, this morning when I went to put some in my morning tea (well, ok, afternoon tea cause I slept in but still! it’s my first cup for the day and in my world that is practically sacred lol) it had gone bad. Ugh. When I opened the lid I got a whiff of that horrible smell nobody wants to experience but I tried to pretend I didn’t smell anything and poured some milk in to my tea…where it curdled. Double ugh. A lovely cup of tea wasted. Sadness.
I’ve never been able to understand how something seems to go instantly bad. Sure sure, I know it didn’t happen in an instant, it has sloooowly been going bad since it was packaged and shipped to the store but it feels like an instant process…is it only me that feels that way?
On a completely different note I would like the world to stop associating all of Canada with that annoying Bieber kid who is constantly embarrassing us and instead focus on these guys…
Canada’s Mens Bobsled Team 2014
These fine gentlemen are the Canadian Mens Bobsled Team for the 2014 Olympics. I now have a new sport to pay attention to lol 😉 The guys posted this pic on one of their Twitter feeds, apparently they had to weigh in hence the lack of clothes, I wonder how much the beards weigh? I also wonder when bobsled athletes became so muscle-y, I always thought they were super skinny, like in the movie Cool Runnings (ya know, the movie about the Jamaican Bobsled Team competing in Calgary, AB, if you haven’t seen it you should, it’s a funny movie 🙂 ) Not that I am complaining about the muscles, or the uh, skin show *blush*, just curious if the increased muscle mass has any adverse affect on speed or aerodynamics…and of course that curiosity is the sole reason I will be watching the bobsled races once the Olympics start…that sounds convincing…right? 😉 teehee
The cat is causing mayhem this evening. He is in an especially hyper mood and chasing a stuffed ladybug all over the place. Keep in mind the toy doesn’t move on its own, he is chasing it because he is flinging it places, it’s really cute to watch lol. He flung it in to the air and it landed in a cloth bag that has various items in it, he couldn’t get it out because the sides of the bag are too high for him to reach to the bottom so he knocked the bag over but then couldn’t get the toy out because one of the items was squishing it. Watching him try to find a solution to this problem made me appreciate his cunning even more then I already do…it also made me wonder why he hasn’t killed me in my sleep yet because I’m certain he could lol. While in pursuit of his ladybug he has knocked over countless things and created havoc in my tiny apartment. I don’t reeeeally mind cause he doesn’t do this all the time and hey, it’s his home too right? Why shouldn’t he be allowed to go a little nutso sometimes? What sucks is he doesn’t clean up after himself, the spoiled brat lol, which means tomorrow I shall be cleaning his mess. I know I know, I should be cleaning the mess up now but it is just papers etc and I’m busy watching Criminal Minds before I go to bed lol Sleep first! Cleaning some other time! That’s a good order don’t ya think? 😉
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Nervous Nelly…Nellie?
24 JanI just changed my Gravatar pic on WordPress and it has me nervous, a stupid thing to be nervous about I know but there ya have it, nervous.
well ok, I’m not this nervous!
Why am I nervous? Cause now people can see what I look like! Ack!
Sure, I sometimes post pics that have partial shots of my face, and yeah ok, if you are even vaguely observant you can look to the right and see my face on the Twitter Widget and if you actually read my Twitter feed you will see the occasional picture of me where I’m not at all trying to hide my face buuuuut I dunno, this feels different…is that weird?
Now, when I leave comments it’ll be my picture beside the comment instead of my former Gravatar which was a purple fairy (I like fairies, don’t judge! that’s just mean 😛 lol), if someone wants to see who I am on WordPress they will actually see what I look like…even though it was my decision it has me mildly freaking out which in turn is making me laugh at myself lol
Anyone tech savvy could have followed my blog to my LinkedIn account, my tumblr account (which is super new!), my facebook account, my twitter account, my google+ account…omg I have a lot of online stuff, what is scary is I know people who have waaay more! My point is, on some of those other accounts I haven’t been as cautious as I have been here when it comes to my image being attached, but because I write about my life, and personal stuff on here, I try to keep it a bit more anonymous.
Apparently I decided to change that a bit lol 😛
I’m probably nervous for nothing, most likely nobody will even notice it has changed, or care that it is a picture of me now, but for me it is kind of a big step in my being alright with people who aren’t personal friends knowing a bit more about who I am. I’m so judgmental about what I look like I didn’t want to offer up my image for judgement by others but for some reason, tonight (well, technically early this morning as it is 2:25am Friday but I haven’t gone to bed yet so to me it still feels like Thursday night lol) it feels like it is a good night to make this little change to my WordPress account.
So hi there all my WordPress friends! You now know what I look like…ack! 😛
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Peering Over My Shoulder
24 JanToday is day two of my Food Journal and I am surprised at how much my food choices were affected by the knowledge someone was going to be reading (and judging!) my eating habits. Who’d of thunk it? lol
I wanted to eat pizza but didn’t because I didn’t want the trainer to read that I ate pizza, just like I didn’t eat a whole whack load of other things today because of the judgement that will be passed on my food choices.
It’s like Big Brother or George Orwell but in a smaller way. 😛
Normally I try to not let other peoples judgements of me affect my behaviour. I mean yeah ok, I know it does but I try to not let it affect me too too much. This time though, I am choosing to alter my behaviour because I know what I want to do is “bad” and having someone figuratively looking over my shoulder keeps me from indulging in the self -destructive behaviours that will do nothing good for me. It’s like having a little coach on my shoulder helping me to resist the foods I shouldn’t be eating. It’s so much easier to decide to not eat something when I know he will be reading my food journal on Wednesday.
Lately I’ve been eating foods I shouldn’t be, I’ve been eating foods in larger quantities than I should be and to top off those oh-so-lovely decisions I haven’t been exercising nearly as often as I should be. This has resulted in me feeling icky, slower than normal, fatter…even though I know my food choices are making me feel this way I can’t seem to stop my behaviour, or at least I wasn’t able to until today. Today though, when I thought about eating pizza, even though I wanted it, I kept thinking “nope cause he’ll read it”. Even though I know I shouldn’t be eating it, and normally that knowledge would be enough to stop me, lately knowing that isn’t enough, buuuut knowing someone else is going to know what I was eating was enough.
I don’t know why I am needing an outsider to help me have self-control over my food but I do and luckily for right now I have one, yay! 😀
Don’t think I managed to eat perfectly today, I didn’t, but I did manage to minimize the screw ups which is nice, lol. 🙂
I didn’t make it to the gym but I did go for a nice walk to the grocery store which I am going to pretend counts as exercise lol I used my Runtastic App to track the walk there, paused it while I was shopping then restarted it on the walk home. I’m cranky with myself because I forgot to restart it right away so the info is a bit wrong because it didn’t track the entire walk home. What I have from it says I walked 3.16km and it took me 1:07:17. It is a pathetic distance and if I was going running or hiking I’d put my nose in the air at such a short distance but hey, I can’t control where the store is lol and I’d like to point out that the walk home had me carrying two fairly heavy grocery bags. Not like I didn’t know I was going to be buying food but I didn’t take in to account how heavy some of the items would be, especially when they are stuffed in to two bags lol
The walk home got me thinking about weight I have already lost. I don’t know the exact weight of the two bags but I know they weighed enough my arms were hurting from carrying them, the straps were digging in to my hands and my breathing became a bit laboured. Not hugely laboured, if I’d been walking with someone I’d have still been able to talk but I was breathing heavier and faster than normal. I made sure to walk the same pace I normally walk, even with the addition of the bags, hoping to turn the walk in to a bit more of a work out.
When I started breathing heavier I started thinking about the extra weight I was carrying, how at one point, not all that long ago that extra weight wouldn’t have been weight in a bag but weight that was on my body. I realized that if I was doing that walk a couple years ago I might have been breathing heavily not because I was holding something but just because my body was that much larger, and more out of shape then it is now, and if walking that distance/elevation would have made me out of breath just from walking how much worse would it have been if I was carrying my groceries back home? It’s an unsettling thought…
It’s easy to forget how far I have come, how much I have changed (for the better), how 3-4 years ago I would have been so happy at the thought of being how I am now. Because now, all I think about is how much farther I have to go and how I never seem to be able to get there. I think about how much I still want to change and how I seem to be at a level that asks more of me than I am able to give. I know I won’t get results without putting in the work, I know I won’t reach my dreams without making an effort, I know I have to do more than I am doing now to get where I want to be but in the day-to-day act of living I seem to forget the larger far-reaching goal and I focus on the in-the-moment gratification.
A small sacrifice now will make for a happier future me. I used to know that deep in my bones, I didn’t even have to remind myself when offered something tempting because it was one of the mantras I lived, but lately, sigh, lately I don’t think that automatically, I don’t even remind myself when having to make a choice, I just say “screw it” to having impulse control and eat whatever – or at least that is how it feels to me.
It’s important to remember how far I have come while not letting go of the lessons I have learned along the way and using that knowledge to keep me on the path to a healthier, fitter, happier me. I guess sometimes I just need a kick in the butt to remember! 😛
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A New Beginning?
23 JanI volunteer as a Big Sister, my little sister is 16 and we get along really well. The Big Sisters Organization sent us some gift certificates for a local gym that specializes in you working with a personal trainer. The gift certificates entitle us to an assessment, having a program made for us (individually I mean) and two training sessions. It’s a pretty sweet deal actually. 🙂
Today the lil sis an I went for our first consultation and oh wow were there a lot of questions lol The entire time was spent answering all types of questions about well, anything and everything concerning injuries, past and present physical activity levels, eating habits and more.
We were given homework, we each have to keep a food journal for a week and take it to the trainer when we see him next Wednesday so he can see what our eating habits are like and give us advice on them. He said there are two ways to go about the food journals, (1) eat what we think he wants us to eat and write that down, the trick there is that we have to be able to maintain those eating habits for longer than the week or (2) write down the truth. 😛
I have opted for writing down the truth and I’m almost looking forward to seeing the reaction he will have when he reads my eating habits lol Except for when I tracked my food for weight watchers and wrote that down on this blog waaaaay back in the beginning of this blog nobody has seen what I eat on a day to day basis. Which admittedly isn’t all that odd cause really, how often does somebody see or read about every morsel of food you put in to your mouth? 😉 I know my eating habits are all over the place and I’m actually looking forward to having an expert help me figure out what I should be doing food wise. Mildly nervous but still looking forward to it lol
Next week we will undergo physical fitness assessments, so we’ll have to do a bunch of different activities that will measure cardio, strength, flexibility and, hmm…I’m sure there is one more…nope, totally blanking on what that is, shrug, oh well. lol We will also have our body fat % figured out and we’ll each be given an exercise plan and taught how to do the various exercises in that plan. Then I guess we go back once per week for the next two weeks to actually work out with the trainer and after that I dunno what happens, I guess that is when we decide if we want to keep working with him and paying for his services our go our own way and hope we learned a lot.
I know my lil sis won’t be able to stay with him because even though I don’t know what he charges I know it’ll be a lot and she most likely won’t be able to afford it. Frankly, I can’t afford to work with a trainer on a regular basis either, which kinda sucks cause I really wish I could. I think knowing I was accountable to them, knowing I had to show up or lose the money I was paying for that session, knowing that someone was actually tracking my improvements or lack there of would help me to stay motivated on my lazy days, heck, on every day not just the lazy ones. If I like how the rest of our sessions with him go I might see about meeting with him once a month to keep me on track, depending on how much that would cost. But that decision is a while away so no need to really think about it yet! 🙂
I’m trying to look at this personal trainer experience as a new beginning in my weight loss/strength training world, I’m hoping what I will learn from him and knowing I will be seeing him again in a week and wanting to be slightly better than the last visit will help get me on track. I think once I am back in a routine, back on track so to speak, I will be able to maintain it, I usually can. I do so much better at exercising regularly during dragon boat season, I just need to get that drive back and have that drive push me in to the gym, or on to a hiking trail, or running around the neighbourhood lol Anything! *rolls eyes*
I keep trying to remember this
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Stir Fry Sunday
19 JanI officially declare Sunday: Stir Fry Sunday! *insert parade here* 🙂
I don’t know why but I got the random idea to make stir fry for dinner tonight, I made a list of all the various ingredients I needed, hit up the grocery store on the way home from work and bam! cooking ensued! wOOt!
Because I was down about not getting to film the commercial today I wanted to make sure I did something that I would enjoy, well, either enjoy the act of or the result of during the time I would have been filming. I don’t particularly like cooking but I do enjoy stir fry, and eating lol I used to make stir fry fairly often years ago but I don’t really remember what I did back then so I was approaching this task as a newbie.
Normally I don’t use raw meat, unless it is frozen and requires minimal touching. Raw meat = yuch! Also, if I am not throwing a frozen chicken breast or frozen piece of fish in the oven then my protein usually comes from tofu, fake meat, eggs, things like that. I am always so certain I will under cook the meat and give myself food poisoning and duuuude, that would suck! …obviously lol…Well, today a friend gave me a look, you know the look, the kind that is clearly labeling you as a dumbass in their eyes when I told her I don’t cook raw chicken, she then gave me a thawed, raw, icky chicken breast, told me to cube it, throw it in the wok first with a bit of oil and I’d be fine.
Since I can’t lose face over this I…cooked the chicken! *gasp* I’m sure to you this is ho-hum but to me it’s a big deal cause ick, I had to touch raw meat, and cut it, and cook it well enough I didn’t get sick from it…that’s a lot! I also then had to bleach the sink, knife and cutting board cause there was raw chicken touching all those surfaces, or the juices from the raw chicken, and now I envision salmonella spawning all around my kitchen. Double ick! 😛
I used a bit too much oil, I drained a whole bunch before putting any veggies in the pan, but other than that the cooking went really well! I tossed in some frozen veggies from the Europe’s Best brand, there were orange carrots, snow peas, yellow carrots, water chestnuts, red peppers, baby corn and bean sprouts in that mix. I then added more water chestnuts (you can never have too many! lol), raw sliced red and yellow peppers, sliced mushrooms and at the very end some baby spinach (I just warmed it up, didn’t cook it), oh and I put some stir fry sauce I bought at Safeway in there for flavour. For plating it, I put the veggie and chicken mix over some brown rice, sprinkled a bit of soy sauce on and topped with peanuts.
Holy cannoli it was gooood! 😀
I made that! whoa!
There is even more of a bonus to this delish meal, because I didn’t measure anything, just added stuff, I made enough for two servings, as you can see in the picture, so I now have lunch for tomorrow sitting in my fridge. How great is that? I have no idea if this was healthy or not since I didn’t measure anything, just poured in amounts of things that looked good lol I figure it can’t be too too horrible since it was a meal made up of mostly veggies, with some protein and a bit of starch. There is probably a healthier alternative to brown rice but I don’t know what that is. But hey, that is what Stir Fry Sunday is for! To experiment with different combinations of things on a weekly basis, fair warning, this could get weird lol
I had a distressing discovery when cooking, I no longer have my wok…I have no clue where it went to and I’m kinda cranky about that. I had a really nice wok, I can’t remember getting rid of it, and I can’t imagine why I would have, but since it is gone I must have decided at some point to give it away, sigh, stupid stupid move! This was made in a large frying pan and it just wasn’t the same, even though it did turn out delish lol
I’m going to wait to buy a new wok, see how consistent I am with Stir Fry Sunday, I figure if I make stir fry weekly for a month or so then that justifies buying a new wok, until then the frying pan it is! Which makes me a bit ghetto but oh well lol
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A Little Down Lately
18 JanDo you ever have days where for absolutely no reason you can point to you are a bit down? I’ve been having days like that lately and when I have the energy to care it pisses me off, mostly I don’t have the energy to care though lol
This evening I am a bit down but I know why. I got booked in a non-union no-pay commercial that is filming tomorrow. The plan was I would rush after work to the set and film, yay! Even though I wouldn’t be getting paid it would be good exposure and I looooove being on set. Plus, it is my first official booking with my new agent and it seemed like a great sign for how the rest of the year would go, so soon in the year getting a booking? What a wicked start!
Well, sigh, I got an email that the time of the shoot has been changed to tomorrow at 11:30am, I can’t make it because I will be at my day job and it wasn’t enough notice for me to swap shifts. Ugh. Luckily, because it is a no-pay gig I won’t get in trouble for not being able to go anymore but there goes my exposure, double sigh.
Since I got the email with the change of time I’ve been down. On my drive back to my apartment after work this evening I was actively thinking about getting a milk shake, as if drinking a ridiculously high in calorie drink would somehow make me feel better. Taste good suuuuuure but do anything good for me long term? Nope. Short term though…well, that’s a different matter since some days a person just wants to eat/drink their feelings lol
Instead of buying a milkshake I made a drink at home that I love but rarely have because it isn’t all that great for me (though there are a lot worse drinks out there lol) but also because I like saving it as a treat.
these two added to warm milk = deliciousness
You take milk, warm it on the stove, while it is heating up add a couple tablespoons of the almond powder that is in the pink tin, stir for a bit, pour in to a mug and sprinkle some nutmeg on top.
It’ll look like this…
Warm Almond Milk topped with Nutmeg
If you are like me you have a mug you use for special comfort drinks (hot chocolate, warm almond milk with nutmeg…um, those are my only comfort drinks lol) which is why my drink is in that snazzy Star Trek mug that I got in Vegas. 🙂
I haven’t been working out a lot lately, read between the lines and that translates to “I haven’t been working out at all lately” 😦 Bad me! *shakes finger at self* Mostly because of the hip and a small part because of my being lazy lol I went for a walk last Wednesday and am embarrassed to admit that was my only form of activity for all of last week. Laaaaaaame!
So now I’m trying to decide which way the correlation goes, do I feel down and as a result haven’t been exercising or have I not been exercising and that has me feeling down…either way the result is I am not exercising. *rolls eyes* I had a day or two last week where if I had wanted to push the hip I probably could have done something active but didn’t go because (get this!) I felt fat! Yeah, you read that right…I had a day where I didn’t go to the gym because I felt too fat to go to the gym, I felt that everyone would be staring and judging me as I failed on the treadmill, as I tried to lift weights, as I looked ridiculous stretching…you get the idea…
I am well aware of the faults in this logic…I can’t get in shape if I am not exercising but I was feeling too down and fat to want to go exercise. This is not a situation I am used to and I’m not really sure how to get out of it…*confused face*
I’ve decided I’m fed up with myself. Hell, I am irritating myself. So tonight before I go to bed I am going to pack a bag with my work out stuff in it and hang it on the door knob to my front door, that way I can’t possibly forget it tomorrow when I leave for work. Then after work no matter what I am exercising! I may go to the gym, I may go for an outdoor run, I dunno, but I am damn sure I am gonna do something cause no way I’ll start feeling better about how I look if I just keep doing nothing.
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Shallow Moment Happening…Right Now!
17 JanAhahahahahaha I just finished jumping up and down, doing a little (ok, big!) butt wiggle of a dance and aaaalmost silently squealing like a little girl!
Guess whose online purchases showed up in the mail todaaaaaay?
Yay for new stuff! 😀
This whole delayed gratification thing? Totally worth it! wOOt! wOOt!
My jacket was waiting on the doorstep when I left my place today to go to work, I took the package with me but left it in my car while I was working, drove me nuts I couldn’t open it right away lol When I was off work I drove to a friend’s house, she has a pair of snow pants that she was willing to let me have (provided they fit of course) because she’d bought a new pair and this pair was still in excellent condition but obviously she doesn’t need two pairs.
Purple and green, awesome combo!
I was kinda worried, ok, really worried I’d be too fat for them. KR is way tinier than me and even though she was replacing these pants because they were way too big for her I was still worried what was way to big on her would be too small on me. I was all prepared to be mad at myself when I tried them on and they didn’t fit but guess what?? Not only do they fit, they are a bit loose! OMG yay!! Even though she didn’t want any money for the pants no way could I not give her something for them (brand new they would cost around $200 and these were in such good shape she could have easily sold them for $100). She finally said $50 which duh, oh course I said yes to but I’m pretty sure I’m gonna give her a bit more than that cause they are so awesome and she’s doing me such a huuuuge favour.
Then, when I got home waiting for me on my doorstep were my new boots from Aldo, sweeeet! They fit perfectly, super comfy, nice n cozy, I can’t wait to wear them out! 🙂
They are finally all miiiiiine!
So now I am dying to go to the mountain and try out my new gear, I wanna break in the jacket and snowpants and my snowshoes oh-so-badly but alas, I hafta work tomorrow so no going to the mountain for me. Boo! I’ll be going this coming week on my days off for sure!
The boots however are not meant for snowshoeing, nope, they are meant for fashion so I’m pretty darn sure I’ll be finding a way to wear those suckers, oh I dunno, tomoorrow? lol 😛
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7 Second Slate
16 JanSlate: a quick blurb you say about yourself on camera right before the start of an audition to make it easier for the casting directors to know who they are watching. In your slate you generally say some combination of your name, your agent info and what role you are auditioning for.
Easy peasy. 🙂
Well, there is a new type of slate being used in the acting world and today I filmed one. It was 7 seconds and I had to say my name and something about me that is not about acting. I had 7 seconds to show my personality, make myself sound interesting and basically convince people I have never met to choose me to see in person.
omg! Who can do that in 7 seconds?! lol
Oddly enough I find it harder to do a slate than to do an audition scene. Either type of slate! I think because slipping in to the skin of a character is easy, and since you are no longer you but your character it doesn’t matter what you do in front of the camera cause it isn’t you, it is the character you are being. But a slate? Ugh. You have a super short window of time to show who you are, while saying a blurb of information, and for some reason I always turn in to a bit of a robot when I do a slate.
Today, after I did my second take the camera guy said, and I quote “ok, that was good, let’s do one more and try to have fun” Fun. *rolls eyes* I do have fun when acting but sooooometimes I have to be reminded of that, usually during an especially intense scene, which for anybody reading this who isn’t into acting is kinda normal so don’t go thinking I suck or something lol But to need to be reminded to have fun while doing a slate? Makes me want to kick myself a little bit lol The next take was much better, in fact, it was the one we used, so yay!
For the slate I had to dress in the same outfit I wore for my main head shot and I had to try to make myself look as close to my head shot as possible, this means I had to make myself look purdy 😉 lol So today I was that girl who had the makeup and hair done, the cute dress and high heeled boots on and wow is it funny how you get completely different looks when dressed like that vs wearing yoga pants and a hoodie lol
Dressing up like that always makes me feel a bit like an imposter lol
I’m going to pretend you are interested in why these 7 second slates are being filmed and explain where they are used lol Feel free to skip ahead if you *gasp* aren’t curious…though how could you not be? 😉 😛
There is a website that is used by agents, casting directors and actors for setting up auditions. It isn’t the only way auditions are set up but one of them. As an actor it is my responsibility to have an updated resume, head shots, demo reel and now a slate on the site. My agent can submit my page from that website to casting directors who are posting casting calls and auditions. When my page gets submitted the casting director will take a look, see my head shot, check out my resume and if they like what they see they will then click on my head shot and they will get a pop up page that will show them my 7 second slate. This gives them a chance to hear my voice, see my body language, witness my energy…basically give them more information so they can decide if they want to see me in person or not.
So far there is only one website that is using this 7 second slate, other sites you can upload your demo reel either for free or for a small amount of money and the casting director can watch that instead. This particular site wants to charge me $22 per minute for my demo reel! Ridonkulous! Which means they get my little slate and not my demo reel cause dude, I’m not made of money, eesh.
So yeah, my day was planned around filming something that lasts 7 seconds lol Oh the weird life of an actor 😛
Afterwards I grabbed some take out sushi, hung out at a friend’s house for a couple hours, came back to my place did some random tidying up, put laundry in, plopped my butt down in my living room chair and proceeded to watch really boring tv lol. I decided I was fed up with my viewing options and was starting to stand up so I could go change and go to the gym when my timer beeped reminding I had to switch over the laundry and poof! my plan of going to the gym went up in smoke cause oops, I’d kinda forgotten I had clothes in the machines and other stuff waiting to go in. I hate being that person who takes up the laundry machines by not removing my stuff within five minutes of the machines being done so no way was I gonna go out, especially when I still had a whole other load to go in the wash. My laundry didn’t finish till 10:49pm and my gym closes at 11pm so guess who completely missed out on a gym visit due to laundry? Yup. This girl. How dumb is that?!
I’m gonna set my alarm for earlier then normal tomorrow morning and see if I can drag my butt out of bed early enough to go to the gym before work but considering how much I hate mornings I’m not holding out much hope I’ll make it to the gym. lol. And no, I don’t even feel bad saying that cause I figure hey, least I know myself! 😀
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Delayed Gratification
16 JanOnline shopping teaches us a valuable lesson. It teaches us that sure when you press “purchase” you may get that excited feeling in your tummy because you just bought something awesome but that doesn’t mean you’ll get to enjoy that item right away, not like when you go shopping in a store.
Oh delayed gratification, how you taunt me!
Recently I bought boots, boots that I have been wanting for months and months. I patiently stalked the boots online, waiting until they were at a sale price I could afford and when they were reduced in price I pounced! I quickly put a pair of those boots in my online shopping cart, hit the checkout button and presto! I became the proud owner of a pair of kick ass boots. Wellll, an owner in name only since they didn’t just magically jump out of my computer screen onto my lap. Nope. They are in transit somewhere, sloooooowly making their way to me. Ok fine, not that slowly, I’m just impatient so the 3-5 business days it will take to get those boots feels like forever. I know I know, first world problems *rolls eyes*
The other day, I bought a jacket, yup, I was online shopping again. I can vaguely justify this purchase because I have been trying since November to find a jacket and snow pants for snowshoeing and have been having miserable luck with it. I have basically stopped looking in the stores because the jackets they put on sale only seem to be in extra-small size and even then they cost $300 and up. How is that a sale price?? And how is it that everyone is ok with the cost of winter sports gear?? It’s ridiculous! So yeah, every week or so I check online for jackets and snow pants. I haven’t been too rushed because we’ve had a depressing lack of snow on the mountains this year so even if I had all my gear I wouldn’t be able to go snowshoeing yet. The lateness of the snow kinda worked in my favour that way. Well, guess who got snow? Yup, us! WooHoo! Rain in the city, snow in the mountains, finally! Only problem is now I wanna get my ass up to the mountain but can’t cause I don’t have the right clothes to go through the trails on my snowshoes without freezing, or coming out drenched lol.
I found a jacket, my size, on sale, and if I signed up for the email list from the company I’d get an additional discount on my purchase aaaand they were having a “spend x amount of money get free shipping” promotion. The sale price and the free shipping were both ending the next day so I felt mildly pressured to buy! buy! buy! Even though I hated the idea of buying a jacket online I hadn’t tried on it seemed this was going to be the only way I could get one so out came the credit card and boom! I increased my debt load. 😛
I was all excited the next day, thinking how I bought a new jacket blah blah blah but the excitement faded when I realized there was no real point in telling anyone about it since I couldn’t actually describe it except for what I read in the description and saw in the pictures. I can’t talk about how good it fits (hopefully it does!) or how I love the colour (it might not look the same in person) or how warm/waterproof/epic it is cause I haven’t actually had a face-to-jacket experience yet. It’s kinda driving me nuts lol
You know where else you have to cope with delayed gratification? Weight loss. Getting in shape. Changing to a healthy lifestyle. Building muscle. Whatever your plan is, whatever your final goal is, whatever you want to call it…they all teach us about delayed gratification cause duuuude, none of that stuff happens overnight, sadly. 😛
You may change to healthy eating habits and follow them religiously, you may start a work out plan and never deviate from it, you may do or change any or all aspects of your life to achieve whatever changes to your body you want to achieve but the changes won’t happen overnight, they won’t even happen within a month, you just have to trust in what you are doing and wait. Wait for the changes to be visible in the mirror, visible to other people, visible to your critical judgement of your body.
That waiting can be hard. That waiting can invite doubt, skepticism, impatience, it can invite all kinds of things that are hard to battle. You may start to think you are doing something wrong, that you are failing because you don’t see changes yet, you may be tempted to go back to your old way of eating, your old way of not exercising, you may think what does it matter when all those changes you made to your lifestyle aren’t creating change to your body.
This is where patience comes in. The same patience I have to attempt to have so I don’t go nuts about the boots and jacket that are en route to me through the postal system is the same patience I have to try to hold on to when looking at my body and being upset I don’t see changes to it despite having made changes to my eating and/or exercising.
I have to attempt to be realistic about the process. I can’t expect the boots or jacket to show up on my doorstop the next day just like I can’t expect my body to be instantly slimmer and toned because I made changes to my diet and exercise regime last month. The changes that have begun are internal, I’m sure my innards are getting healthier even if my outer body isn’t showing much difference.
Something else I have to remember is to stop being so hard on myself when I don’t see those changes right away. I am impatient. I want to wake up tomorrow and look exactly how I want to look even though I know that is impossible, I’m sick of working at it, fighting for it, I want the results to be here already. When I look in the mirror and see the results aren’t here yet I start to call myself names, put myself down, think poorly of myself. I judge myself more harshly then anyone else ever could, I know all the right buttons to push, all the best mean comments to make, all the areas I am most sensitive about to criticize. I am my worst critic. I am my meanest judge. I am my biggest doubter.
And I have to stop that.
I have to trust that I will get there, that one day I will look in a mirror and like what I see, or at least not hate it. Just like I know the boots and jacket will eventually arrive I have to have faith that the changes I am working for will eventually be visible. Otherwise I’ll spend my whole adult life hating my body and that is just a waste of my time. 😛
The Amazing Shrinking Woman 