Saturday Slant

Today's Saturday Slant deals with evictions. Not a lot of people know this about me, but I was actually forced out of my apartment my sophomore year in college. I moved into this duplex with five other girls, and the lease clearly said, "No pets", but being the dumb kid that I was, I thought that surely they wouldn't mind if I just got a little cat! Nope. The landlord drove by one day, saw Gabrielle sitting in my window of my bedroom, and that night we had a nice little message on our answering machine telling me that I had 48 hours to get the cat out or they would call the sheriff to remove it. My roommates were SO angry with me. Hence, my first grown-up decision in life. I had to decide whether or not to find a home for my cat or to move out. Obviously, I still have Gabrielle, so I guess you know the decision I made. I asked a friend at work to keep Gabrielle for a week, found another college student to take my place on the lease, found an apartment that did allow pets a few blocks up the road, and moved in...WITH Gabrielle. Granted, if I had to do it all over again, I probably would not have gotten a cat and broken the terms of my lease, but we all make dumb decisions in life and ten years later, I still have my cat and love her to pieces, so I know I made the right decision to resolve the situation. And I never got my security deposit back either. And to afford this apartment, I had to work full-time so I could pay for my utilities, food and gas since my parents only agreed to cover the rent, tuition and books. Again, a decision I made. It shaped me as an adult, though, so I'm glad for the experience.

On to the Slant...

Your current home town has just been declared inhabitable; everyone must move out of the town. Where would you move? Why there? If you have a significant other, roommate, or other co-habitants, how would the necessity to move affect your relationship with him or her? Would s/he move with you?

This is a great topic. Philip and I have discussed moving away from the Dallas area many times. I've lived here for only eight years, and while I love it here, I'm not tied to it and would have no problem moving somewhere new. When I was four, my parents moved our family to Phoenix, and then to Winston-Salem, North Carolina when I was thirteen, and then I moved here all by myself when I was twenty-one. Obviously, I've adjusted to new places and moving and making new friends! Philip was born here though and all of his family is here, so it would be very hard to move away and leave them behind, but he has mentioned wanting to do it several times. A place that we have mentioned moving to several times is Oregon. I've never been there, but he has, and loves it...says it's very idyllic, very quiet, cool, peaceful, and that the coastline is beautiful. The only time I've even seen what Oregon looks like is on the movie The Goonies, so we'd definitely have to make a visit out there to see what it's like before moving our family there. There is nothing wrong with Dallas if you don't mind the heat, the storms, the fact that it's flat as a pancake, the traffic, and the concrete jungle in which we live. I don't mind that, but I wouldn't mind moving elsewhere either.

Well, well, it's Saturday again and another week is behind us. I got home from work last night and I was, no joke, STARVING. I felt like I was just craving fat in a bad way. Philip and I decided to split our free day and take a free meal last night and a free meal today, so we went to Chili's and I got a bacon cheeseburger and had some Godiva chocolate raspberry truffle ice cream for dessert. It was truly delicious. I don't eat cheeseburgers very often, maybe once every six weeks, so I indulged, ate my burger, and it was yummy. So was the ice cream. And lo and behold, my weight was only a pound higher this morning than it was yesterday, most likely from the water, so it obviously didn't hurt me. Not sure what I'm going to eat today, but I may get a steak and a potato and dessert. I'm not really craving anything in particular anymore, but I'm hungry for red meat for some strange reason, so a steak sounds good. Then, it's back on the clean wagon tomorrow. It's tax-free weekend here in Dallas, so we're going to hit Old Navy again too.

This morning I saw my therapist, Jean. I hadn't seen her in about two weeks, so we had a lot to catch up on. She is very happy with how I'm coming along, and praised me significantly for how well I'm maintaining my weight. I'm now going on about three months since I stopped my competition preparation, and I've managed to keep my weight between 7-10 lbs over my lowest weight, which is pretty amazing...most women after they go through a prep like that gain about 15-20 lbs, so I feel pretty good about it. I told her about the analogy of the monkey with his fist in the jar holding on to the nuts, and she thought that was a good analogy, and agreed that until I accept that I am thin and attractive, and that THIS way that I look is how I should want to look and not like a waif-like ripped to shreds figure competitor who hasn't eaten fruit or dairy in months, I'm always going to be suffering inside. She agreed that she doesn't know what it'll take to get me to drop that image, but we're going to continue to work on it. What she wants me to do THIS week is to pick two days where I weigh, and that's it...and put the scale away the rest of the week. It's going to be hard...I typically get on the scale every day to monitor and make sure I'm doing okay, but she wants me to not do that anymore. So I'm picking Tuesday and Saturday to weigh. No more daily weigh-ins.

Stitching-wise, I worked on Ocean Fantasy last night, and tonight I'm going to work on Fairy Tale Sampler by Dragon Dreams. We watched Bad Santa last night. It had some funny moments, but overall one of the stupidest movies I've seen in a long time. The fact that Billy Bob Thornton, Bernie Mac and John Ritter were in it saved it, but it was a dumb plot.

I guess that's all I've got for today. I can't believe it's 1:20 pm and I haven't done much productive anything today. I crawled back in bed and went back to sleep after I got home from seeing Jean...I'm still just so tired. I can't remember a time when I was more in a need of a vacation than I am right now. I realized Friday that I have not had any time off from work since Christmas of 2003. Almost eight whole months without a break. Oy. I really need to wrap things up this week so I can really be "away" from work, that's for sure. The rest and relaxation is so needed. I didn't go to the gym yesterday and I'm not going to go today either...just too tired. But definitely tomorrow...shoulders and abs!

I hope everyone enjoys their Saturday and thank you for reading.