SAT DEC 14 2002 

BOOKS!!!!!!!!

2:50AM I love to read and collect books, the best are the truly unique ones. I collect on a wide range of topics and interests. I love art books and books about mythology and I collect books that size positive just to have them. I am interested in the sacred and mystical as well as human nature. I like books on herbs and a wide range of unusual fiction.
I like to collect old paperbacks with prices under $.60 and have every Shakespear play on paperback as well as others. I have found some great books at library book sales.
My favorite place to get books is on the discount racks at Barnes and Noble and Borders not just because the prices are so amazing but because you never know what you will find and sometimes you find something you never thought about getting and just have to have or you find something just amazing and that is now out of print or that is totally unusual.

Here are some of my most recent finds:

  

This is Barnes and Nobles Books own third compilation of Gorey's works. I was very lucky cause the hardcover version is no longer in print and I found this copy this week for $10 and saved 10% more with my readers advantage card. The cover above is the paperback cover, the hardcover actually has a drawing of Gorey himself standing near a wall drawing on the front and then him walking away on the back.
This book is huge and contains the complete contents of some of Gorey's famous and not so famous stories such as: THE UTTER ZOO, THE BLUE ASPIC, THE EPIPLECTIC BICYCLE, THE SOPPING THURSDAY, THE GLORIOUS NOSEBLEEED, THE LOATHSOME COUPLE just to name a few of the 17 stories in this collection.

  

I collect books on size positive subjects as well as fun and funky books on self esteem to help with the subjects I like to write about and just cause I like them. I was thrilled at the idea of a book on big sex and love and Hanne Blank is a great writer and editor.
Unfortunately to sale this book, or maybe because the title was already long the name is a slightly misleading thing. It implies that the whole book is a juicy salacious how too book of big sex for big people. I had looked at it in the book store and realized it was much more about relationships and size discrimination in relationships as well as dating and other interpersonal relationship issues dealing with large people.
The book only deals with sexual issues really in the last few chapters and as a super size woman I was kind of disappointed to see that it really did not deal with some issues as well or as in depth as I would of liked. Some issues that are important to Super Size sex such as frontage were spoken of and then simply dismissed quickly.
Over all the book is really good, if you go into realizing it is not a sex how to and more of a basic book on living life as a large person who has relationships as well as a sex life.

  

A brilliant find. I have to admit to being totally stoked about this one.
This book shows why I haunt Barnes and Nobel's discount book racks as well as those of Borders Books. It is not just that this beautiful book was marked down from nearly $50 to $10 it is that it is no longer in print in any format and I love it very much.
I can not describe it better then the review at amazon so here goes.
""For centuries tales of the goddess's creativity, strength, and suffering have sprung forth from every civilization and corner of the world. Editor Jalaja Bonheim, Ph.D., has compiled a unique and culturally diverse anthology of goddess-related literature and art. This elegant volume is created with a non-partisan perspective to appeal to a general audience. 120 full-color illus. 20 b&w illus. ""
The book has some of the most beautiful art work in every style and goddesses from around the world and nearly every culture from paleolithic to modern times with the stories (albeit shortened) of them accompanying the art work.

 FRI DEC 13 2002

OK I swear I am going to get so I am doing these before late at night, maybe even before midnight of the day in question...LOL I just hate to skip a day.

I have decided to do the blog in two week sections with an archive of the former ones for easier download, I hope this works best for people since my blogs are graphic heavy.

Ok for something light and silly I thought I would show you some of the things on my desk, I am one of those people who tend to decorate the world around them and I collect all kinds of odd things and put them in arrangements around my house.

Now and then I will show some of them too you. 

  

I don't know why but I have become addicted to candy canes.... OK I know why, you know when women flirt and say they are "orally fixated"? Well I am actually. I nibble on things all the time, my fingers, my necklace, pens and pencils, and yes food.... so I love having candy canes to suck on in all kinds of flavors. Well not all kinds, I can not stand the idea of bubble gum...ick.
I have peppermint of course and Cinnamon since my nickname is Cinnamon girl for the hair and for always having cinnamon on me. I have wintergreen and raspberry. What I really want to find it butterrum which I saw all last year and can not find this year...POUT. Of course the day after Christmas I am going to stock up on a ton of candy canes and stick them in my storage room.

  

I am very bad with anything that sparkles and throw in glue, especially super glue and I am dangerous (usually nail glue). I love to decorate things, I can not help it and since I sit in front of my monitor so much how could I leave it Blah??? There was this pack of rhinestones calling to me ((doesn't everyone have a loose pack of rhinestones in the house)) and there was the fingernail glue... and some sparkly stickers and it happened. You may notice there is still room for more rhinestones... I sure notice it, and will be sure to take care of that fact as I go along.
On top you see my FA-Froggy and my BBW-Froggy (Prince and Pounce) he is a very happy froggy cause he has his big beautiful lady frog. These are the only beanie babies I have and they were given to me as gifts from different friends kids cause they both loved the tattoo of a frog on my arm. Next to them is Disco Lizard.. A great bean bag I got at Greenbacks a good $ store and could not resist... me compulsive??? Never.
Beside my monitor is my cobalt blue vase where I keep my flowers, I live next to an Albertsons and they always have great deals on flowers and I always try to buy at least a consumers bunch of flowers every week, something different just to keep the place cheery.

  

Here is the Desktop that is on my monitor at the moment, in the pic there is actually a different one but when I went to look for it at my dad's site I found this one and as usual just had to have a new one. Dad's GARF site is FULL of amazing pics some intentionally sized to be desktop pictures without losing any quality ((I shrunk this one down to a tiny size for this page)) My Dad also sells high quality limited prints of these pictures.
I am amazingly lucky to have been raised my entire life around fish and aquariums, we had a fish and pet store when I was a small child and have been in the business in one form or another ever since. I have met amazing people from around the world who are trying to save the world's oceans and who are studying coral as a way to help cure many diseases. I consider myself lucky to have seen things that many scientist would have loved to be able to see up close and personal.

THUR DEC 12 2002 

9:00PM  Your probably going to find that a lot of what I write in the future and even in the last week is about mental health and the way we think and self esteem and some of you will get something from my thoughts and experience since I have suffered and more importantly SURVIVED my mental illness for well over 25 years so far as well as living with that of those in my family and those around me. I have read and studied what I could, I have talked with professionals, I have talked with other survivors and those who are still just traveling towards survival (to me survival is when you at a place where you are stable, you are comfortable, you are cognitive of your illness and its effects on you and others and you are making a serious effort to make sure it does no further damage)
Others of you are going to say "Oh hell she is talking through her hat again, I wonder if she has any good recipes?"
Well the fact is mental illness is a journey, no matter how stable you get, no matter how good your drugs, no matter how good your councilor, or how supportive the people in your life you are always working towards mental stability. The problem of course is as far as I know none of us became mentally ill on day 12 and was treated with the "perfect" drug on day 13 and now it is all hunky dorry. Most of us suffered for years, some of us, like myself from early childhood and no one could understand why we were like we were, ourselves least of all.
Finally if we are lucky we or someone in our lives realizes that we, like an estimated 1 in 4 Americans, have a mental illness and hopefully we got some help and maybe by some miracle usually after a lot of trial and error we and our Dr. stumble on a medicine that relives a great many of our worst symptoms. The worst of the anxiety is gone, if what was wrong is depression suddenly we can get up and notice the sun is shining, if it was mania we can carry on a conversation without changing the conversation every 30 seconds.
Only one problem. As much as the medicine helps there is still those nasty old thought processes, habits if you will. For so long you have thought a certain way that you taught your brain to think that way. The meds and even counseling can only do so much if you are not willing to change the way you think and this takes a concerted effort.
I took a wide variety of meds over the years and none of them worked, hell maybe some of them might have stood a chance if I was ready to let go of the thought processes that for years had trapped me in low self esteem and self hatred. It is hard to tell the difference sometimes between the depression of messed brain chemistry and of sheer self loathing, for years I had the thought process to tell myself the most hateful things about myself, to even when I was not in a depression see the worst in everything not just myself because why would anything go good for me. I had the thought process to let people take advantage of me cause any attention was better then being alone even when I knew they were using me. Even in a mania when most people, my own dad and brother included are totally happy and joyful, I would be discontented a lot of the time cause those thought processes were there that I was not good enough. And of course I would be blowing my money and store charge cards left and right out of control.
When I finally started to work on changing the Thought Processes then things began to change for me. I began to work on my self-esteem, I forced myself to change my ‘inner speak' I corrected myself every time I ‘said' something in my head that was negative about myself or life in general, sometimes I think I changed just to stop from having to correct myself. It was hard and trying and I could of given up at anytime and at the time I was not on meds or at least not any that were doing me any good, I was moving from one to another and I finally just got to a point where I could not stand to be unhappy any more and this seemed like the one thing I could I do. I could change the way I THINK through my ACTIONS.
By taking the Action of actively rethinking and correcting my Thoughts I trained myself to think in a different way and I wont lie we are talking a LONG HARD TRIP, and a lot of slips. But you want to know something? After I had retrained my thinking I still suffered from boughs of chemical depression, including a few horrible ones, but they were very different, they were no longer aimed at ‘me' the pain was there, the sadness you can not explain, but I was not beating myself up with it, I was not saying to myself "I feel this way cause I am so horrible a person."
My mind had known from the day I was diagnosed and probably before that, that my depressions were due to something irregular in my brain but still the illogical depressed side said "If I was not a horrible fat ugly awful unlovable stupid person I would not feel this way." But after a year or so of retraining my thoughts I suffered a depressive episode and started to think that crap and out of the dank cloud of depression came riding the "Corrector" my little voice that calls bullshit on my bad self talk, and in a school teacher voice it said "NOW YOU JUST CUT THAT OUT YOUNG LADY, YOU ARE DEPRESSED, THIS IS CHEMICAL, YOU WILL SURVIVE, YOU ARE ALLOWED TO FEEL BAD, BUT I WILL BE DAMNED TO HELL IF I WILL SIT HERE AND LISTEN TO THAT KIND OF TALK. NOW SAY YOU ARE SORRY AND GO CUDDLE UP IN BED, YOU ARE A GOOD PERSON WHO IS JUST FEELING BAD AND IT WILL PASS. "
And guess what? It did. And so did every depression after that and they were never like the old ones, a weapon to beat my self esteem into the ground with, oh man they hurt like hell of course they were depression that is what depression is don't get me wrong, but they were no longer my weapon against myself. Then I met the right med tech and got the right combination of meds for me and I have not suffered a serious mania or depression in 2 ½ years. And believe me I have thanked fate over and over.
My point is you have to work on everything, work to find the right meds, give them a while to work, it can take 3 to 4 months to get the full effect but if they really don't work talk to Dr. about alternative drugs and consider it may take a combination, also side effects are their worse in the first month and often lessen by the middle of the second month it may be worth seeing if you can make it through to at least 6 weeks before giving up on a drug that seems to work just cause of side effects.
Try counseling but remember you make the decisions, if you are not comfortable with your counselor by the end of the second visit look for another one, if you go through a psychiatrist for your meds you may try telling them what kind of person you are most comfortable with. I was honest and said "you know I am not all that comfortable talking about large body issues with a really tiny person or a man, some of the stuff I want to talk about is very woman oriented." My Meds persons said "I know the perfect person for you" and hooked me up with Annie who is a 60yr old super-cool hip BBW into metaphysics and stuff like that and we get along like gang busters. There are also agencies that do referrals and they often know stuff like that.
READ, you can find a lot of info on line but I always cross source anything I read, if you check a med out check it only at a reputable site (I will give links) and if you read about a certain symptom or illness read the same info on more then one site ((any serious info I give here that is not just my opnion or experience I will give a link, I am not trying to be a mental health pro, I am talking about my experiences and what I have learned)) I will often look the stuff up on three sites to confirm that they are giving the same info, once you read the first you can do a close scan of the other two, you tend to get more info and make sure what you are getting is real stuff.
There are AMAZING BOOKS out there and I will try to include links to them when I can. Some of these books can really open your eyes and change your outlook.
OK I have been on a roll I admit it, I don't even know what got me started today, I guess I have just been thinking about it a lot lately. LOL tomorrow will be fluffy and light and very TGIF I promise.

WED DEC 11 2002  

8:00 PM I ADMIT IT, I AM A PROUD MAMA CAT...
I took the Kittens ((otherwise known as the Royal Pains)) to the vet today for their last set of first year shots and their final check-up after their spay and neuter. They both handled it surprisingly well considering how wild Princess was when I took her in to get her stitches out. Neither of the little brats were any to thrilled to go in the box of course since they have figured out that it means the vet's office.
I lost my last cat over 3 years ago and I had had him from a kitten for 11 years, I was devastated and was not sure how long it would take me to get another a pet. I was also involved in a very long distance relationship where I was traveling across country sometimes for months at a time. There was a time there when I thought I might be moving permanently in with that guy and it was pretty obvious that he did not like cats to a serious degree, something that use to always bother me a lot, the idea that I might never have another one in my life.
I have also always wondered about people who are not allergic to cats but really dislike them, it seems sort of weird to me. They always give you a ton of excuses about how cats are aloof and mysterious and they don't listen and well it all sounds to me like they just want something they can control as opposed to something they can love.
Of course there is also the fact I have never had a cat like that, I am not saying I have not known a few who were like that occasionally but they all made up for by being loving caring animals. My own cats have Always been the most affectionate, giving animals around, if anything they are too adoring, a girl might like to get dressed without a kitten sitting on her foot. Every cat I have owned came when called and these two little hellions ((please note I call them things like brats and hellions in a totally loving way)) come to Princess, Nepo, Kittens, Brats and Bedtime.
After my last relationship ended I decided I was going to get a cat and this was just as my dads mama cat had babies and I promised my step mom to take one of hers... I ended up falling in love with two of them and between us Sally jo and I bullied my dad into giving up his favorite kitten DG (Daddy's Girl) who is now Princess DG to keep Nepo company.... it was the best decision I have made in a long time.
How can less then 18 pounds of combined energy make me so happy? Keep me so busy and make me laugh so much??? I spoil these two rotten, they have more toys then the average preschool and as the people who talk to me in Dimensions chat know I talk about them all the time. Pets bring us out of ourselves, they lower blood pressure and calm us and I have no doubt they are good for our mental state and I know if nothing else they give me an excuse for talking around the house.... LOL no one can accuse me of talking to myself now.... not that has not happened but now I can blame it on the kittens.  

TUE DEC 10 2002  

""""Take the longer view to defuse short tempers.....
Enough is enough, Sagittarius. Talking it through will only take you over the same old ground worn smooth by centuries of nervous pacing. It's time for you to give way to action.""""

This is part of today's horoscope, and to the vast majority of you it means nothing but to me and a few others it means a lot. I recently dealt with a lot of anger and hurt about something that happened over a few year period recently, something I bottled up inside of me and then finally I allowed it to explode. Unfortunately instead of dealing with it as I went along and venting these feelings they built up like steam and the explosion nearly blew the top off the friendship I was trying to save by not expressing those feelings in the first place.
The big problem came after the explosion, I could not turn off the steam or the anger or the hurt, I pacing over the same ground, tearing it up and mudding the path that lay between me and my friend. I have been having stomach problems lately and the stress of my anger was making it much worse and I found myself saying "so n' so is making me sick to my stomach" "so n' so is making me so angry" "so n' so made me blow my top like that."
I started to reread a book a had read maybe 8 or 9 years ago on Morrita therapy which is very Zen, a form a thought my father has proclaimed all my life, and while I don't agree with everything they say from a therapeutic standpoint some things struck in what they had to say.
We EACH are in control of OURSELVES.
We must control OUR OWN actions.
We are allowed to FEEL ANYTHING, what matters is what we DO with that feeling.
We CHOOSE if we are going to dwell on negative feelings or if we are going MOVE FORWARD through our own efforts
NO ONE but OURSELVES MAKES US FEEL ANYTHING we choose to allow ourselves to feel and react to what they do. We may have a primal first reaction to them and that may not be controllable, but we choose how we react after that, we choose to let ourselves react, we can learn to redirect those feelings or work them out.

I realize I should have chosen to deal with those feelings as they came along so I could get on with my life, bottling them up was crippling me. The feelings I had were not wrong, they were mine and had a right to them, but the ACTION I took of blowing up at my friend and going off like a fireworks warehouse with a lit match was wrong and it was my choice.
I have since realized this person did not MAKE me angry, I allowed myself to GET angry at their past actions, it is not the same thing, I chose to not let it go. By the same token they din not MAKE me sick or MAKE me loose control. I allowed myself to stress out knowing the stress would hurt me and I lost control on my own.
And I have also MADE the CHOICE to let go, to realize that my anger is not going to change the past, it happened, it is over, it is like blowing out a match, there is no point in striking it over and over, you are not going to get anything more out of it. You might as well go on with your life and find a new match and get yourself a candle this time so you can move forward instead of backwards.

Maybe it seems weird I am writing this but well it is MY Blog and I get to write anything that strikes my fancy right, and this is what I am thinking about right now. I have recently started to talking to a young friend who is dealing with depression and they are asking me how I survived, I suffered from it since my preteens as part of my bi-polar. So I am really thinking a lot about the way we think and the nature of depression and thought and a lot of other esoteric stuff...LOL as well as the way I got through and how I do get through life now and you know helping my friend is really helping me. I am not suffering depression right now but I will not claim that I do not ever have negative or aggressive or down thoughts. Or that I would not just plain like to change the way I think about a bit, most of us would benefit from a tune up in our thought process, so this came at a really good time when I just happened to be already looking into a lot of stuff on the way we think and feel and live our lives to the fullest.
It should be an interesting journey and I will be sure to bore you with it.

MON DEC 09 2002 

Noon :: Last night was great I went over to dads and we all drove over to the Olive Garden, Yum what a meal. I had lobster spaghetti and we all shared calamari, artichoke dip and mushroom caps for an appetizer and then I had a frozen tiramisu and my wonderful step mom sally jo insisted I take a piece of desert home with me so I took home a slice of chocolate lasagna. And of course I got a birthday song sang to me again...LOL no YEEEHAW this time though.
Dad gave me exactly what I needed for my birthday, some money. I have gone a little nuts for Christmas and bought too many gifts and was sort of standing there looking at $20 for the rest of the month going "ummmmm how did that happen????" But I LOVE the holidays and I am having the best time.
I bought myself a bouquet of flowers with some of the money from the grocery store in front of my house.... they are just what I like. Warm pink spray roses and purple orchid like flowers with babies breath and heather and I mixed them in with the last of the carnations I bought last week. It amazes me that you can buy such beautiful flowers for $8 and yet more people do give flowers. I give them all the time since they have $4 consumer bunches of all types of flowers even the spray roses which are my favorite, they are smaller and more delicate then the giant over breed ones and they seem to still have some of their wildness still in them, long stem rose are beautiful but they seem so cultured to me and I guess I like a feel of nature, if I were to buy a bouquet of long stems it would be a mixed bunch of colors.
I also prefer the warm rich tones, pinks and peaches and oranges and golds and the roses that have mixed colors like whites with hints of pink or gold. When I was younger of course it was blood red but well I grew out of it and to me they seem .... I don't know ... lifeless. They just don't show me the same joy as other shades of roses. I really love carnations with their spicy scent and long life and many other more common flowers and a mixed bouquet is always what I like best, I would rather buy two consumer bunches for $4 each and mix them then spend the same amount on long stem roses. Perhaps I am odd that way?
Another good thing that happened because of my birthday is it got me back in touch with my little adopted cyber brother who is in the navy, Ian. We have been talking about a year now and kind of lost touch when he got busy at his new posting but he called me for my birthday and it has been nice catching up ((Told you I would say hi..... :P ))

10:30 :: You know I listen to a lot of BBW's and FA's and they tell me horror stories about how they were treated growing up, how they were ridiculed for being fat or liking fat people by their own families. I know of BBW's and BHM's whose family put them on drugs as early as 7 and 8 and who told them they were not worthwhile for being fat. One girl told me of her mom telling her she could not love her till she dropped the extra weight and she was 10 old at the time. Another young man was 19 when his mom told him to stop dating this fat chick or else move out of her house be cause she was not having any fat grand children, the horror stories go on and on. Others have told me about totally unreasonable demands academically where a B grade was equal to failing.

I realize how terribly lucky I am, my family never once insulted me for being fat or even for having a learning difficulty. From the earliest age till today they have always told me that I am beautiful, that I am smart, that I can do anything I wanted with my life. All of my family has always let me know that they thought I was very talented and every time I did something they lauded it. They have always been my biggest fans and have always gone the extra mile or two to support me in my endeavors. I went through some very trying times in my life and like every young person I dragged my family right along behind me and they followed along with their support and picked me up when I needed it and gave me room to fly on my own when I needed that as well.
I have gone through many fashions and styles, some odder then others, including the time, when transferring to the 10th grade in the middle of the year and stressed beyond belief, I took fingernail clippers to the left side of my hair at the temple and started cutting. I cut a little bit more and more over a three day span until I could not hide it and my mom looked at this ragged mess and instead of screaming at the mess I had made of a then $30 perm she said "Well you know I hear shaved heads are in style" and borrowed my grandmother's shavers and gave me a crew cut on one side of my head..... personally I loved that do. They have seen me through every color of hair including fushia and never balked at driving with me in my hippy painted car when I was 24 and had a mohawk and a nosering and was into wearing torn up clothing. They simply loved me for who I was.
I know women who are terrified that their family will see them on line, my entire family on the other hand has seen me on line and on TV and they think it is great, they marvel that I am so brave and they are proud of me. They laugh and say "Wow where does she get the bravery for that? I wish I was that brave." Then they tell me what a great job I did.
Even with this great backing I suffered low self esteem when I was younger, but I can not imagine how much worse it would have been without a strong family to back me up. I honestly believe that without the support of a strong and loving family I would not be alive today, I would not have made it out of the pit of self hatred. Knowing I was loved gave me the safety net to find my way out.

I was lucky on this birthday, one of the best gifts I got was being able to tell my family what they mean to me.

 SUN DEC 08 2002

  3:20 :: Well yesterday I got dressed up in this great sweater my grandma got for me from the lane catalog a gold eyelash chenille (I would have love to get it in black or burgundy but no such luck and I figure the gold, which is a beautiful rich tone, will go with just about anything) and a long full black velvet skirt and did my hair in these killer curls, this involved sleeping in foam rollers, so I was looking and feeling great. I love the way I look in curls but my hair just doesn't take curls easily and I had to make a choice, color or curl and well, I AM a redhead damn it.....My body just does know it... but my soul does. Not to mention I once had a strand test to get a perm and the lady told me I didn't have enough hair in my dye to get one.
After getting the rollers out of my hair and getting my face on the way I wanted...LOL I went over to grandma's house and found out that my stroopwalfes had arrived from the Netherlands, a friend on line sold them to me and a lot of people were talking about how amazing they were so I thought they would be a fun thing to have for Christmas eve, of course we had to open one of the 5 bags....OHHHHHHHHH man they are wonderful, I wish I had bought more of them. They are thin waffles (think waffle cones) with a layer of real butter caramel between them and they are perfect for dipping in gingerbread tea which is what we did while waiting for my mom and step dad to come over.
My mom brought me my Entertainment discount book, these are a two for one coupon book to restaurants and events around town and a great deal and the best thing is you buy them from a charity and they get some of the money, I get one every year and use tons of the coupons, I have no problem saving money personally and it is also a great way to try places I might not go to other wise.
After mom and John got there we went out to the Lonestar steakhouse.
LOL I know that it seems like the last place I would go but I love it cause they are so nice there and very fat friendly with big sturdy chairs without arms and the food is amazing and they have sweet potatoes which I love... hell I can even stand the country music if it gets me a big old yam....LOL Actually they play fun upbeat country that is a lot of fun to listen to.
I had a combo plate with a 6oz perfect sirloin and 6oz bourbon salmon and my HUGE Sweet potato and a cup of really good french onion soup and then they brought me out a dessert of a brownie Sunday and sang to me...LOL When they asked me how old I was I told them I was old enough.....what a dork like 34 matters.

Tonight I am going to the Olive Garden with dad and Sally Jo, my step mom and it should be fun too. I also love their food. Ok I have to get ready since I intend to take some pics there as well.

 SAT DEC 07 2002 ..My 34th Birthday!!!

  9:00AM :: I can not sleep. Probably all the chocolate, or the damn kittens wrestling on the bed (of course as soon as I get up they sack out. Or just enjoying being alive. Of course the sponge rollers don't help...... LOL I would so love to have hair that was naturally wavy with big loose curls. Most of the time I leave it strait and long (at least I am trying ti got it nice and long and even) and that style is in fashion, not that you would know it from the complaints I get from guys about why don't I curl my hair in all of my pictures anymore....LOL Oh well you can not please everyone so you might as well please yourself and I like it nice and smooth and long.

So I am sitting here in just my new leopard coat in front of the heater (I put last years coat in storage and got the new one out ...it is just so soft!!! and I admit I am spoiled OK??? I just love the way it feels and I would never just toss a good coat. I will keep the old one for when I need a coat or for when we hear about someone my size needing one since it is still in great condition just a little matted down)
The beginning of the week and I was really pretty down about my upcoming birthday, some things had happened lately to make me as if I was just not going forward with my life, as if I was never going to achieve the thing I want with it, never going to be happy. And then there is just the plain old fact I am getting older, I am as of today 34 and even though I shouldn't I find myself looking in the mirror wondering where the wrinkles are going to come from and who is going to want me when they do.
Me over-dramatize??? Never... LOL

I am not saying I don't still have flashes of those feelings, I am a human being who suffers from Bi-polar manic depression and Seasonally Attuned Depression and even treated properly, and I am treated and I do take my meds and stuff, I still tend to suffer from bursts of depression a little more easily then the average Jo-ann. The difference is with the meds I am more likely to stop and say "OK this silly you are over reacting, go out and get some sunlight, or bright light, calm down, talk to someone, talk it out, feel what you are feeling, it is real but it will pass and it does not have power over you."

I was feeling so down earlier I made joking request on my yahoo updates "fan club" for cheer - me - up birthday gifts not thinking I would get any at all, last year my birthday past on line with barely any notice, just a few people saying happy birthday. Of course last year I was deeply in a relationship and did not have as much of a web presence as I do now since I am single again. I also was joking about my birthday in chat and getting old.
I was surprised how many people started wishing me a happy birthday in my club and in chat days before my birthday and last night by midnight there was already a post on the Dimensions magazine On-line weight board wishing me happy birthday and many many e-mails waiting for me when I woke up!!! What a wonderful way to get up.

Yesterday I got an amazing box of truffles which was ten times what I expected, I figured someone might send me a dark chocolate Terry's whack and unwrap orange or raspberry (yum... LOL) or mars bars or even Brown & Haley Truffles (they make almond roca, both are good) from the grocery store if I was lucky and believe me I would be crazy wild happy with any of those, so my mind was blown when the UPS guy showed up yesterday. I honestly did not believe anyone was going to send anything so to get such a sweet gift was amazing, it just showed me that all the work I have put into my page all these years has truly been appreciated and so am I and that really cheered me up. It was not so much the quantity or even the quality of the gift (Though that was great was great and I am sending a big thanks to ‘H' and to anyone else who sent anything I have not got yet) it is simply the FACT of the gift.... the fact that someone took the time and effort, like I have taken time and effort, to show they care and that meant more to me then I can ever tell here or anywhere. There are days I wonder why I go on working on my page, when I get demanding letters or insults and I think "why do I do this?" and then I will get an amazing letter from someone telling me I inspired them or someone will take the time to show me they care what I do and I realize it matters.

So the gift and any other I got is not some issue of "getting the loot" for me... I can get my own candy and little toys and things, it is a sign of affection and respect for the effort I have put forward and that means so much to me.

I look back at my life and I can not believe it. One I never thought I would live to be this old. I am not joking. My teenage years were so hard and my early 20s were so wild I sometimes am amazed I made it this far but I did and I am never going back. I pulled myself out of the dark and it was a long slow trip I have not yet finished but I closer tot he end of it then the beginning.

I just found a copy of the book that probably made one of the biggest differences in my life as far as my mental state on things not size related are concerned and I had a lot of those to deal with, I found I had to deal with all of it part and parcel to deal with any of it. I think that often (not always) big people or people with something obvious about them that people might not like and they can blame their troubles on... blame that for all their troubles, and it can be a HUGE part of it but they then refuse to look at their other troubles because they see only the huge one in front of them. It is like coming home to find the zoo in you house and the only thing you see is the elephant in the living room but you don't notice the lion standing beside you.
I was so hung up on being fat and hating myself for it I was not dealing with any of my other issues and believe me I had them in spades. Then I found David K. Reynolds Book about Morita Psychotherapy: Playing Ball on Running Water. Basically it just let me look at things differently, let me look at how I was dealing with my emotions and feelings about stuff, I had already been making tenitive steps toward self esteem but as I began to learn to deal with my feelings I began to make my first strides towards self esteem.
So when recent events pulled up a lot of anger and uncontrolled emotions in me I thought about that book and went on line and found ABEbooks and got it at an amazing deal (you need to check them out) and I really do suggest this book or any Morita therapy book to anyone interested in dealing with emotions, it is a very simple and calm, zenlike concept and it is not going to mess up your mind, you will either find something from it that will help or you wont.

Well I am going out with Grandma and Mom and my Step dad tonight so I probably should try to get some sleep and it isn't like I have not typed my dainty little fingers to the bone or anything already.... but you know I am bound to add more...LOL so I will go for now.

Fri Dec 06 2002

3:30 PM : I admit it, I always love to go overboard for birthdays. I never just have a Birth DAY I usually have a birth WEEKEND or at least a birth THREE DAY PERIOD.....LOL
Well my Birthweekend started today at about 12:30 when there was a knock on the door and the UPS man was there with a package. A wonderful fan had sent me a gift.... TRUFFLES!!!! DeBrand fine chocolates.
I am trying so hard to go slow and savor them. The little flyer inside says that they have to be eaten in two weeks.... TWO WEEKS???? these babies are not going to last the weekend!!!!
I just added a new tint to my hair, not a bright one like last time this is just Glintz a mild Ruby red one instead of RAW color which is wilder, I just wanted to brighten it up for my birthday but didn't feel like going the whole nine yards. Sometimes I feel wilder then others and who knows there is still time to do ‘Sin-a-Min' or ‘Hot Rod Red' before new years. 

8:30 PM : Just got back from grandma's house, went over and made us dinner and visited with my uncle Ed for a while. After he left I spread the new comforter I got for my birthday out on grandma's bed and put on the gold eyelash sweater she got me ((Yes I got to get into my presents early....LOL I helped pick them out... I am SOOOOO spoiled)) and we took some pics of me eating my truffles.
I ate the raspberry one while we took the pics and ohhhhhh it was so amazing I let grandma have a bite and she agreed it would be so easy to get spoiled with stuff like that. Probably just as well I don't get them all the time cause when I do they are an amazing treat. I ate a few more, giving her bites of them and we had a great time talking about how amazing they were. My grandfather teased me about my "fan club" which he thinks is kind of cool.

I am so lucky to have such great grandparents they are totally supportive, my grandfather has seen me in the back yard in my undies getting my pic taken and he just shrugs and goes back in the house to watch the news, he figures the yard has enough bushes around the neighbors can't see and if they can it is none of their business anyway....LOL. My grandfather played saxophone in swing bands and knows more about classical music then some music teachers I know and all my life he has shared that love of music with us grand kids.

My Spinner lists include four classical stations, two swing stations, three jazz stations as well as four blues and many rock and alterative stations (also ambient, laugh trax, gothic, nature sounds -good for sleeping too- and a few other odd ones)

The Blog of Blah Selesune is the most amazing woman another goddess (I named her the Goddess of Giant Sex Queens) she spent hours late last night helping me figure out how to get the comments thing working on this Blog and she is always funny and insiteful and sexy as hell. Check out her Blog that is so far from Blah it is not funny.

 Thur Dec 05 2002

1:30AM OHHHHHHH I finally, WITH the great help of the amazing Selesune (Goddess of the Giant Sex Queens) figured out how to make the comments thing on Blog work. It was a combination of having the page set so all links would automatically go to another page and the fact that I had left an 's' off a url AND the fact that HALO had suddenly decided after who knows how long to give me more html that was not there when I first started ((I SWEAR IT)) ... Well I dont know what it is but when I put the code for the comment the page goes insane so no comments.
And my long tall Goddess of html even custom made my comments box....what a gal. Think I will keep her.... now I just have to figure out how to get her in the first place.

NOON: OK I just got out of the tub, nice hot water and just the right amount of vanilla and Patchouli bath salts (I like patchouli when it is used as a light perfume, NOT as a deodorant or in place of bathing as so many people I knew when I was growing up did. For years I couldn't stand it cause of all the wannabe hippy kids dousing themselves in the cheapest brand they could find. Now I like it but I buy a very good brand and mix it with almond oil 6 to 1 with either vanilla or jasmine or rose to cut the sharpness. The almond oil is a great carrier medium and helps you control how much you put on.
Anyway despite my plans to have an early evening last night I did not and so I wanted to sleep in, NO such luck I was woken up by Loud music and hammering at the house behind me (which had a fire last month) so I decided to get in the bath. Of course it was in the bath I realized what the music was.....ARGGGG BUBBLE GUM POP. Everything from the banal (Justin Timberlake...what was that little boy with the saprano voice thinking having rap music in that piece of fluff?) To the vile Emenem (Selesune will kill me she loves him but I can not STAND him) and that was what finally chased me from my nice warm tub. POUT
OF COURSE I am out five minutes and they stop for lunch and so does their music......LOL Oh well I need to get ready I am going to get my license renewed and I am determined to make gingerbread today.
We were talking in chat and I decided that as a desert I am a big hot fresh slice of Gingerbread with lemon sauce on it when I am in an earthy sensual mood and when I am in a silly flirty mood I am a thick many layer Napoleon with all kinds of tasty fillings and a yummy topping. (These of course are two of my favorite deserts)

11 PM: Just got home. I finally got my drivers licences renewed today, nothing like putting it off to the last minute...LOL Every time I have flown for the last year someone would look at it and say "You know this expires this year." So with two days to go I get it done. A decent picture even I think.
I went over to Chef's Hut to have a couple of cups of coffee before my other appointment (when I have nothing else to blab about I will tell you all about Chef's Hut)
I decided I need to get a trim for my birthday as my hair grows so fast around my face so I went to Great Clips and actually got my hair cut by this beautiful Blond BBW who did a great job.

Then Finally went to grandma's and made my Gingerbread!!!!
Never one to pass up a photo op I put on my long Hipsters T-Shirt over my undies and had grandmas take pics of me making my cake and even eating a slice. I think I will take a few pics of going out for my birthday also and do a big birthday gallery.
The Gingerbread came out amazing as did the lemon sauce and we had a bunch of it and I even nibbled a few crackers with brie (not good for my tum tum but oh well I really like it) and then we watched some TV. Now I never watch TV at home and the only time I do watch it is at other people homes, every once in a while I will go to grandma's on a Thursday and we will watch CSI and Without A Trace, a couple of the few shows I can actually stand anymore.

 

 WED DEC 04 2002

  My 34th birthday is soon and I decided to do something a little different like this Blog maybe just a way to keep track of a new year coming on or just for fun. LOL I am feeling a little old lately which is silly I know I don't look it and I know 34 is not old, maybe it is the weather. Or maybe it is the crazy kittens ((the royal pains)) keeping me up off and on all night tearing up the house with their wildness, not that I would trade them for anything but the two of them are wilder then a bag ful of racoons.

Maybe it is natural to feel a little down sometimes around your birthday or the end of the year, you start looking back and wondering what you have done and with a Dec birthday it is a double whammy.... the last little while I have felt sort of blah and I think this is part of it but something happened yesterday that sort of brought it into perspective.
I look back and I think about how much my life has changed and how much I have changed, how I am no longer the person I use to be.

I ran in to ‘K' yesterday at the post office... I was surprised to see him there He saw me pulling in and followed me in and waited at least 20 minutes to talk to me. ‘K' was from my wild days about 7 years ago when I was finding my self esteem and was first finding out about FAs and had gone a little crazy exploring my sex appeal as a big woman ... I was still working on the inner self esteem and at the time just having a guy who not only wanted to have sex with, hell I had had those since I was 15, but who wanted to tell me how amazing my body was while doing it blew my mind. Unfortunately ‘K' was a more or less a closet case at time and I was young enough and still low enough in my self esteem to think "booty calls" were sexy.
Mind you the sex itself was AMAZING or maybe it was just the fact that for the first time in my life I was free to do something totally wild and sexy like go to a guys house in the middle of the night in just a rain coat and high heels and know he would go insane and spend the entire night telling me how amazing my body is. I had not found the ‘net yet so this was unbelievable for me.
Of course pretty soon I started to realize that this guy had no intention of ever being seen in public with me and that he did have smaller fat chicks he did go around with who he didn't mind being seen with, so as time went on and my self esteem grew I finally did the one thing I had never done, I had him come to my house for one last time and then said goodbye.
I have seen him once or twice since then and we would say and catch up but I was involved and now that I am not I told him this time that any guy who is unwilling to be seen in public with or unwilling to spend time being my friend doesn't stand a chance being more then that. I am not looking for a relationship, but it would be nice to have someone to go out with once in a while but there is no way I would go back to what was.
I have come a long way, I am not saying that as I was talking to him I was not remembering how hot it was with him or how sexy he made me feel, I also not saying that with my Birthday looming I have not been feeling lonely and thinking "man wouldn't it be nice to hook up?" But I know that I will never go back to the person I was, so desperate for any morsel of approval that I would answer the phone at midnight to a guy who would never go out with me... or who would have a one night stand. I have "come a long way baby" And I am not going back for anything.

I was suppose to go make my birthday cake early at grandmas but I don't feel very good, I so do not want to get anything that is going around lately in time for my birthday. Maybe sleep and lots of liquid and ummmmmmmmm chocolate....yeah some chocolate or maybe some macaroons, the real ones the chewy gooey ones not those crisp ones, of course that means going to the store...LOL oh the sacrifice. Maybe chicken soup.

Dad and Sally Jo (my Step mom) are back from Mexico....LOL dad is buzzing right along a thousand ideas a minute, oh well he does have great ideas, how come I never get all sparky like that when I get manic, I just get all buzzed and shaky and chattery...LOL. And of course I never get that manic any more. Now if I got like dad it might be worth it but no I prefer nice and stable. Dad gets briliant which is why he runs such an amazing company as GARF and he and Sally Jo lecture around the world.

I will be going to dinner with mom and grandma and John (step dad) on Saturday for my birthday and dad and Sally Jo on Sunday... well at least I will be eating good this weekend.