Author: Bobbie

Everybody’s Selling Something

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My house is on the market.

No, this isn’t an homage or reference to a “Company Men” instance, in fact, life is good at the Big Travel Company. But the fact of the matter is my house and its square footage (interior, not so much exterior) isn’t enough for Myself, Boy, Man Person, and His Cat. Honestly, it’s the Cat that needs the square footage.

Having taken most of the unused furnishings and the entirety of my 2k+ volume library and boxed them up, tetris-style, into my garage, I can no longer park in it. Having replaced the carpet and repainted much of the interior, the house is officially on the market. This is a demoralizing, un-fun event, on several levels.

First, there is the fact that one needs to work with a realtor. In a buyer’s market, selling a house is a pain in the butt, and it’s a double pain in the butt if you’re a hyperanalytic metrics fiend. I can tell you right now the selling stats of every realtor who’s been through this house, the days on the market of each competitor to this house, and the pros/cons to my place vs. my comp set. I can also tell you it astounded me, too, that the competitor house listing at 35k more than mine that had their hot tub in the front yard (mine was in back) and had 100square foot less and about 1/3 the acreage just went pending. I have no idea why. Your realtor is there to guide you through this, mine is guiding me, but that doesn’t mean that her years of experience and my years of analysis don’t clash occasionally.

Second, there is the fact that your house is no longer your home — it is NO ONE’S home. It’s staged. Ever live in a staged house? It’s seriously un-fun. First off, staged houses do not admit that people wash their hands, so 2/3 of the bathrooms and the kitchen have the soap dispensers hidden. Also, because people do not wash their hands, the towels in those areas can totally be wrapped in raffia — no point in drying hands that haven’t been washed. Somehow it is still okay to have toilet paper in the bathrooms, apparently we all acknowledge that people poo. They just magically have sanitary hands afterwards. 

In a staged house, your TV will be at an angle that home-theater experts will declare is “exactly wrong”, you will have dishes in areas that you never had dishes (over the fireplace??), you will have angled “uplights” and fake ficus, place settings on the never-used breakfast bar and feature cards touting the wonderfulness of your RV parking (hey, mine has coax and full hookups!). Your glass coffee table and dining table (they aren’t really mine, in a way) will be cleaned daily (as will your stovetop) JUST IN CASE folks show up to view your house.

About that: item 3,492 that sucks about having your house on the market? Realtors who leave messages insisting they will show your house between 11 and 1, and then don’t. Or show up early or late. Or call with 5 minutes’ notice.

You would think the yummy prospect of homebuying (with a staggering pre-approval) would take the sting out of this: it doesn’t, quite. It’s not that we haven’t found some amazing places (we have — and considering that our search radius is 1.5 miles, that’s impressive). It’s not that we haven’t created a pecking order (we have a solid #1). It’s that there are so many that come *close* but are either oddly laid out or have too much space or have too little space or have EVERY ROOM angled. Paint and cabinets are relatively easily ameliorated, bones of a house are not. I tell you what though: anyone who wants a beige and brick 2-car garage house that looks like every other one on its block is TOTALLY in luck.

This also brings up a different sort of language you speak with your Significant Other. You start to refer to housing prospects by such monikers as “619 Dog Pee” (it was going for 619, the garage smelled of Dog Pee) or “Rambler Weird Kitchen” (nuff said) or “Eat Pray Love” (you don’t want to know). And then you need to explain the relative merits of things that excite you: “Oh, okay. So finding a house with a greenhouse is like you finding one with a complete home cinema already wired and all tech stays”. “Marble slab countertops = good, marble tile = bad. I would explain why but it’s like you explaining why one projector is so much better than the other. Just trust me.” 

I totally get that these are great problems to have. And ultimately there are things I will not be flexible on — location, for example. There are things he will not be flexible on — space, for example. If it means we are left in this house for another year while we wait for someone to transfer or bail, that’s fine.

I have cranberry juice in my crystal decanter, and artfully done throws on each bed; so I cannot live like this for a year or even several months.

I’m on a Plane… I can complain…

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(written on Cinco de Mayo at 35k feet):

I have a massive issue with airlines that don’t offer wifi on all of their flights. I’m sitting here, United, on a 3 hour direct flight and couldn’t help but notice that my personal productivity has gone down the drain.

Part of the problem is I am one of these people whose brain is always on. Always. I have trouble going to bed at night sometimes because it’s on, and if I get up in the middle of the night then it’s 2:1 I won’t be able to sleep for an hour or two because the brain is on. I’m not even remotely suggesting what is running through it at any given time is useful: oftentimes it ranges from work-related (useful!) kid-related (useful!) or PTA related (useful!) to an in-depth analysis of when I last got a pedicure and if I really should go and get one in the next few days (so! not! useful!).

For me, getting to the airport early means I can leverage free-wifi and the ubiquitous Starbucks. Today’s blog post is courtesy of a work-provided venti iced caramel latte. It’s technically decaf but I think that isn’t doing much to stem the tide of angst. While I got lots done in my hour-after-security-before-last-minute-boarding, I am stuck on this plane with no access to anything useful. Cloud computing, the idea that you can access *your stuff* from anywhere, because it’s not tied to a given machine, has one fatal flaw: you need to have internets to get to it. And I have none.

Instead I have sat and watched the movie Red again (pretty good, actually funnier the second time around), paid $9 for in-flight Tapas (also surprisingly good), and seethed at all of the things I could be doing right now. Mostly work.

People often ask me what I do. My official title is: Director of Business Development & Initiatives, Americas. I can write that here because it’s on my Linked In. But that title doesn’t really tell you what I do, and really? I can’t tell you what I do. Not in a, “I’d have to kill you”/CIA sort of way; it’s more like a “I don’t want to get fired” kind of way. Easily twenty-five percent of the projects I work on either do not come to fruition (we go down the path and discover it’s an untenable or impractical one) or would have no external significance whatsoever. The other seventy-five are either corporate-specific (the travel industry is different from, say, the financial services industry) and would require you to be in the industry to get what I was driving at (or have a 2-hour primer on the topic), OR are very very shiny and I can’t talk about them. I really do mean that.

From a professional standpoint, there is a measure of tooting one’s own horn that is of value, both internally and externally to your company. Internally it’s valuable to work your way up and over (or over and up as it is sometimes done); externally it’s valuable to show a prospective new employer what you are capable of. I cannot, however, post about most of what I do.

Right now for example, I’m on a flight. I’m going to a place where I will need to discuss a business and operational plan, as well as the associated human and project management associated with that. Sounds very nebulous. Next week I have a meeting about a method of incentivizing people to do something extraneous to their job description without harming the parts of their job that are IN their description. And then there’s the process tree chasing — it’s official that X leads to Y, but unofficially we all know it routes to Z who then checks with A (or B) and if it meets condition C then it will never ever go to Y.

See? It doesn’t help the discussion along at all. Knowing that I can’t further any of it, though, because I’m on a plane, is sad.

The Things One Does For Money

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Instead of run/walk/limp, Sunday featured a run/walk/run. I managed to complete with a time of 10 minute miles. But let’s be honest, that’s not what you’re here for. You’re here to see how the tattooing went.

The henna was applied on Thursday by Katie Bachand, and she is a lovely lady. She makes the henna herself, and adds essential oils, so instead of smelling all chemically I smelled like a spa. One interesting thing about henna is that when it is applied it is much like a mask: it’s gloopy, then it dries, and then it flakes off leaving little “henna boogers” everywhere. If a booger drops and gets remoistened, it will stain whatever it drops. I will remind you I just got new white carpet.

It’s fine, no henna boogers. I couldn’t resist adding that measure of suspense.

Here’s what was done on Thursday, and how it turned out on the day of the race:

I still have them with me, as the henna will take up to 4 weeks to fade.
 
I was sincerely thinking about shaving my head for an upcoming 3 day bike ride in September, however, it looks like two of the days are not what I though they were, so I backed out. No head shaving for me.
 
Unless I find another just cause.

Cohabitation, Part II

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When I was a young lass (so many, many years ago) I cohabitated with a male person who then became my husband. All of my friends were cohabitating too. And, at 22, your notion of what is irritating or inconvenient is much different from the notions you have fifteen years later.

There has been not one debate over toilet paper roll placement (paper goes OVER THE TOP), toothpaste tube squeeze methodology (I’m not touching this), bed-making efficacy, or dishes. There have been no lengthy discussions over the cat box, feeding of the cat, or locating the cat (the cat likes to hide).  There have been no concerns about money, or time apart, or time together.

In a large part, the things I have to get used to are the things that never occurred to me.

Leftovers, for one. As a mom of one (who goes to his father’s house 3 nights per week), leftovers in the fridge mean lunch– or even dinner– for the next day is taken care of. Bankable food. Thanks to folks in from out of town, and a disinclination to cook after you’ve moved furniture around all day (all the furniture that was left in the house was crammed into my 12×12 dining room), we had Indian leftovers and Italian leftovers.

They never stood a chance. I’m not saying Lobster Carbonara isn’t a perfectly acceptable breakfast item, I’m just saying that if my choice were that or cereal I’d eat the cereal.

Then there’s the GIGO law: Garbage In, Garbage Out. Literally. When the Male Person asked me when Recycling was, I told him it was on Thursday. However, I did not mention that Trash Day and Yardwaste Day are on the same day. “How come the Recycling bin is at the curb?” I inquired. “It’s recycling day, I thought you said.” “Well, why didn’t you take the trash and yardwaste out with it?” “Because you didn’t tell me that was the same day.”

Or, like the time we went to go yell at Lowes. I had ordered new basement doors — my basement doors are an odd size and come with measurements that suffix with “3/16” and so forth — and they came in incorrectly. After procuring the receipt, copy of submitted measurements, etc., and piling them neatly in the “man area” of the counter, I sauntered down to the truck and asked him if he needed help with the doors. He said no, so I went and sat in the truck. As we readied to depart, he asked me if I had the paperwork, and I said “No.” And he looked at me as though I was from Mars.

It’s fair to point out I may have been. I have no idea *why* I just assumed he’d take the paperwork, because after all he was the one to do the measuring and so, in my semi-logical brain it fitted that he’d get the paperwork. How that was supposed to manifest itself into his hands from the kitchen fifty yards away was not part of the equation.

Taking two people who have lived essentially “alone” for a period of time and having them live together is an interesting social experiment. It is also an exercise in patience, something I’ve been short of as of late. (You have your house torn up for 4 days straight and see how well you function). (Also, the IHOP in Bellevue does not have cheese blintzes, so if like me you made a special trip to get a fix to kinda calm you down? Don’t do it.)  As we move to Phase III of Operation Super Secret Project, I expect to be more patient. After all, my house is together.

If only I could get over the insurgence of forest-green towels. Really.

Cohabitation, Part I

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I’ve been in absentia in the ethersphere of late, courtesy of the massive upheaval at home (including Operation Super Secret Project, Parts I-CLVIII) and the continuing fascinating Super Secret Projects at work. Sorry about that. What did I miss?

Cohabitation is both awesome and totally f-d up. The awesome is, of course, having your object of affection right there: you can reach out and touch someone, as it were. Accessibility makes the heart grow fonder and all that jazz. You have someone to share household obligations with (let the record state that I went out for a run and came home to find my car interior Armor-All’d) and now I can watch Battlestar Galactica (I’m almost done, don’t ruin it for me, I don’t know yet who the 5th Cylon is) more than one night per week.

However, this particular cohabitation is f-d up, and it’s largely due to the massive upheaval. We didn’t plan this terribly well because it took a lot less time to get some things done than we planned (this was like when I planned to have a baby and everyone told me it would take like 6-8 months to conceive, and it took like 2 weeks. You think I would have learned my lesson.) And it took a lot longer to get some other things done. In short: it ran exactly like a work project, and here I had been under the illusion I was mistress of my life.

This resulted in the Male Person moving in BEFORE the painters and carpet people came in, neither of whom can, of course, do their work in a day. We are now on day 3 of painting, which, if you’ve ever had painters redoing bits and pieces of your whole house, you know means your bed is in the middle of your room, there are no curtains anywhere so your neighbors know you wear that old sweatshirt more often than is likely healthy, and the cat is displeased.

Carpet will take two days, which results in us moving 1,400 square feet of furnishings into the other 400 square feet (compression garments are NOT available in dining-room size) on Friday, having him do tear out and putting in new pad, and then waiting until Sunday (yes, Easter Sunday) for the new, fluffy, nearly-white carpet to be put in. Meanwhile, we have my furniture, and his furniture, in the house and garage. We are the owners of four sofas and 2 coffee tables, 2 kitchen aids and a staggering volume of knives. So in addition to all of this, we need to figure out what to keep, what to store, and what to donate.

Life will calm down by Monday — just in time for the Male Person to leave for a few days. Leaving me home either with the BoyChild or alone, with the cat.  The cat is not a fan of the upheaval, either.

In other news: I’ve quit training for the STP (there is no time there is no time there is no time) but may be on the hook for 2 or 3 triathlons and definitely for one run this summer, I had the most huge injection I’ve ever had two weeks ago and will totally blog about it later, and the deer are eating my #$%%$#( tulips again.

Unlikely Happenings

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Last week I was in Chicago and Phoenix (aside from weather extremes, both were lovely) and this week my world is upside down.

It is April 6, and it is snowing in Sammamish. Big, fat flakes are falling from the sky, and they’re STICKING. I have no doubt they’ll be rained away or melted away by morning, but it shows a fundamental lack of temporal observance on the part of the Sammamish sky.

I am waiting for a cat to come out.

My boyfriend’s cat.

We are cohabiting. Officially. He has no other house to go hide in, or for me to ask him to go to.

Now, this wasn’t a surprise (to me). I knew, leaving for Chicago, that when I got home 9 days later that I would have acquired some new furniture pieces, a third grocery consumer, and a catbox. Nothing here was unplanned, nothing without a spreadsheet rationale. I will say that he (and the cat) tolerated my post-trip typical cleaning frenzy quite well.

As much as we’ve all settled into a groove– there’s been a slow progression/dress rehearsal for this many times in the last year — the only one to whom this circumstance is completely new is the cat. The cat doesn’t like people much. Correction: the cat doesn’t like people. She likes *him*, but that’s about it. So here she is, ensconced in a rambler (no stairs to deal with) but with far more windows and wider ledges than she’s been privy to previously. She is not sure about the Boy Child.

Tonight is our first official night alone together. The Man is off Doing Things, and will not be back tonight. I know, here we are more than three years into acquaintance and yet I find myself wondering what she will do: will she hide under the bed all night? Will she come out now that the Boy Child is asleep? Will I find her asleep on his bed? Will we suddenly become fast friends, with me officially adopting her as my cat? An unending string of improbabilities floats before us…

Then again, it’s snowing in Sammamish on April 6. Stranger things have happened.

Traveling for Fun and Profit

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This week, I will be at SeaTac four times. Two for business, two for pleasure, with a scant 20 hours between the two trips. I like to travel, I work for a travel company (the number one in the world!), so this is all good.

However, every time I get to the airport I am reminded of the hassle factor involved in travel. I like to arrive with tons of time (having been the historical benefactress of gate changes combined with extra long security lines resulting in a fugitive-like run experience through LAX) and park myself at Anthony’s, Starbucks, or the nearest wifi-enabled bar experience.

To that end, fellow travelers, isn’t it time we had a code of conduct at the airport? Something like this:

  • If you’re meandering down the terminal, be my guest. How about you do it to the RIGHT of the terminal, so those of us who know exactly where we are going and have a set schedule in mind can get there? I walk through a terminal like I’m walking in NYC, the faster and more efficiently I get where I’m going, the happier I am (and the happier those who have to deal with me are).
  • Once you’ve retrieved your boarding pass from the machine, you can move away from the machine to discuss with your spouse/child/associate what the next steps are/who is hungry/who has to go to the bathroom. That conversation does not have to happen in front of the boarding pass machine.  Especially when there is a line.
  • Don’t “tsk” at me because I’m over 21 and can head into the bar while you have to wait for a table in the restaurant.
  • Yes, that is the restroom line. A couple of flights just landed and the novelty of a bathroom stall with twice as much room as the one on the plane is attractive. You don’t need to check with all 12 of us if we are really in line. Yes, we really are in line.
  • Yes, airlines will try to upsell you at every turn. They will offer you five more inches of legroom for $50, they will offer to check your bags for $25, they will offer you an express lane for $35. They’re trying to make money. Some of us will pay them for the convenience. Skwawking about it loudly will not make them stop.
  • Be prepared when you hit the security line. At SeaTac, you need your ticket and your ID when you see your first TSA agent (the one before the machines, at the desk). Then put your ticket and ID away, you won’t need your ID out again (unless you hit the bar) and you won’t need your ticket until you board.
  • In the security line, you must remove your shoes, your laptop gets its own box/bin, your jacket has to come off, and your toiletries fit into a quart size Ziploc that is taken out of your luggage and visible to the TSA agent. They don’t make the rules, and we all have to follow them.
  • Yes they have backscatter machines. They occasionally use them. Figure out what you want to do about that *before* you hit the line.
  • They will card you at the bar. They will card you if you look 20 or if you look 80. It’s part and parcel of the deal. The waiter/tress may not like it if you kiss him/her.
  • Travelling with kids can make your travel more of a hassle, and non-kid travelers should recognize that. Don’t complain loudly about the family with kids. Get in another line. And if it’s a single parent (Mom or Dad — Mom’s aren’t given magical powers or anything), offer to help if you want things to go faster.
  • The overhead compartment will fit 3-4 bags, and yes that means wheels out. If you have two bags, it’s not nice to put BOTH in the overhead compartment. One above, and one below, kids.
  • Your flight attendant doesn’t have magical powers and if it’s a cashless cabin she likely can’t break your $20. Nor can she tell you, mid-beverage-service, about your connecting flight. She has 300 passengers she shares with two other people, and that includes the beverage service, meals, prep, teardown, and oh, safety. Be nice.
  • Anytime anyone does something nice for you, say Thank You. It’s surprising how many people take vacation and take vacation from manners.
  • People in the middle seat are the least comfortable. If you’re in the window, you’re likely the most (having a wall to rest against and no cart bumping your elbow. Therefore, the window seat takes the armrest closest to the window, and the middle seat takes the other one, and the aisle seat takes the armrest farthest from the aisle.
  • You can take your shoes off. But please leave your socks on. Feet smell.
  • Someone frantically typing on their laptop, or having ear buds in and reading/listening to music, or sleeping, does not want to make friends. Someone talking to you does. Don’t be offended either way. People are people.
  • When the light goes off and you take your seatbelt off, you *could* jump up and start grabbing your stuff. Or you could wait the 20 minutes for the 30 rows in front of you to disembark. Why not be comfortable? And no, they can’t really go any faster.
  • The flight attendant who has taken care of you and 300 others is saying goodbye. So is the pilot. Say Thank You.
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Multitasking

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I remember explaining, sometime in the last few months, that I enjoy multitasking and that I’m good at it. The person I patiently explained this to replied that I was likely some sort of dopamine junkie, and, citing a New York Times article, suggested I wasn’t as multitasking as I thought I was.

Having read the original study that the article was based on — don’t get me wrong, I like the NYT as much as anyone, even if their paywall can be rendered #fail by a 14 year old and his 4 lines of code — I both agree and disagree.

Yes, the “high” one gets from multitasking is a result of dopamine and the checklist mentality. You can also get other hormonal highs from equally “productive” sources: sex (or a hug, if you’re female) releases oxytocin (not oxycontin, that you have to get from your doctor). Exercise releases endorphins. Hormones aren’t really bad things, it’s the regulating of them that is required.

Having sensitivity to caffeine and a disinclination to consume enough alcohol to render me useless, as well as the physical limitation on how many hugs I will allow my personal space bubble to accommodate, dopamine is all I’ve got left. I can release it by shopping, or playing online scrabble, or working.

A lot.

Lately, however, I’ve been privileged (if that’s the word) to work with others who *cannot* multitask effectively. These folks do not necessarily work in my company — or even in my field, technically — but they are folks I have to deal with on a semiregular basis for the various projects I have on my Very Large Checklist. It has brought to my attention the severe need for Multitasking Etiquette, which I hereby present to you in rough draft.

1. It is understood that if you’re dialing in for a conference call, you may pause to take notes and so forth. It’s a good idea to put yourself on MUTE when you do — or when you are chewing, or swallowing, or chatting with your neighbor, etc. Putting the conference call on HOLD, however, results in us all hearing your hold music. Please don’t do that. We’ll send you notes if you’re that busy.

2. It is understood that if you’re dialing in for a conference call, and you missed something due to multitasking, that all you have to do is say, “Sorry, I missed that. Can you rephrase that?”. We know you missed it, that’s fine, and you give us the option to rephrase. Lovely. Do not, however, say, “Um, what do you mean, exactly?” It leaves us in the position of guessing that you actually missed it, but somehow you’re blaming us.

3. It’s really, really rude to paraphrase in explanation for someone else. That is something they should be able to do for themselves.

4. Also topping the rude list? Arriving to the con call 5-10 minutes late and asking everyone to check in and/or rehash what was covered. Double rude if you’re the one who called the meeting.

5. Sending an email reply one week TO THE DAY after the due date and then wondering why your feedback wasn’t used and/or taken into account? Not ok.

6. Asking people to work the weekend and/or check in on their holiday, and then not doing so, PARTICULARLY if you’re on the same level as they are, is not ok.

7. Asking people to work the weekend and then extending the deadline but not telling anyone until Monday morning is also poor form.

8. Sending multiple email missives about the project in a given day, each with updates over the last one, instead of one nice coherent email (per day, or even per TWO days), sucks.

9. Sending meeting announcements for when my calendar already has an appointment also sucks. There’s space there and I’m available from 6am-10pm PDT. You should be able to find *something*.

10. It’s good to have an agenda. It is even better if you follow it.

Please Give Me Money

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When I write to ask you about donating for the upcoming 5k run (May 1st) for the American Lung Association, I fully expect you to think to yourself, well, yeah, sure, but what have they done for me? And maybe you don’t smoke and have never had a black spot found on your lung in an X-ray, and you don’t have asthma and your lungs are free and clear. And that is awesome. But the ALA needs to raise $130k for this event, and thus far they’ve got about $33k.

–>To cut to the chase and donate without reading all kinds of interesting facts as well as the stunts I’m willing to pull to get you to donate, go here: http://action.lungusa.org/site/TR/RunWalk/ALAMP_Mountain_Pacific?px=4415558&pg=personal&fr_id=2590 

 The American Lung Association is around for more than just research. The local ALA provides the following programs *in addition* to funding treatments and research for cures for diseases such as lung cancer, lung disease, COPD, and asthma:

  • Teens Against Tobacco Use – a peer teaching tobacco prevention program. The ALA trains staff to work with high school students on the health hazards of tobacco use. These adults then recruit and train high school students to serve as role models and teach children in elementary schools about why it’s not “cool” to start smoking.
  • Master Home Environmentalist – a FREE program for anyone who lives in King County – with a simple phone call, our highly trained staff will come to your home and assess the hidden dangers and quality of your indoor air.
  • Lung Help Line – a FREE program for anyone to use, call 1-800-LUNG-USA and be connected immediately with a Respiratory Therapist, whom you can ask questions about your lung health.
  • Freedom From Smoking – considered one of the most successful smoking cessation programs out there; our staff and resources will help you quit for good.

Interesting thing to note: More people who have never smoked die from lung cancer than people do from AIDS, liver cancer, or ovarian cancer. And Lung Cancer kills 160,000 people annually – more people than breast, colon, and prostate cancers combined.

Now, I’m wracking my brain trying to figure out how to get you to donate. Thus far I’ve given you the option of semi-permanently marking my body with a henna tattoo (to be done April 28 on the Expedia Bellevue campus, by a professional), and that did bring quite a few of you in.

If it’s not enough incentive to see your design etched in henna on my person for 30 days, how’s this? Each person who donates $25 or more enters into a raffle for a PAIR OF RUNNING SHOES, from Super Jock N Jill, valued up to $100. You heard me.  Running Shoes. (Folks who have already donated are in the running – pun intended).

You can donate here: http://action.lungusa.org/site/TR/RunWalk/ALAMP_Mountain_Pacific?px=4415558&pg=personal&fr_id=2590

Lo Fidelity

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I weigh X-3. In order for me to be healthy, I need to weigh X-22. (I was at X two weeks ago).

Having lost 22 pounds (or more) on several occasions — 5 major ones that I can think of, none of them pregnancy related — I know exactly how to do this. The problem is, however, that when I try to lose 22 pounds at 37 years of age, it is significantly different from when I lost 22 pounds at 18. Or 23. Or 27. My body does not react the way it used to.

At 18, I came back from Australia (6 month student exchange) and weighed 37 more pounds than what I had when I left for it. (I had actually just got done losing 15 pounds BEFORE I left). It took about six months, going to the gym maybe twice a week, taking the occasional walk, and eating smaller portions. That was it. Done.

At 23, I was a newlywed looking at my wedding photos, and particularly the rehearsal dinner ones. I had gained about 23 pounds. I remember crying on the floor of my Oceanside apartment, my then husband helplessly watching. I started walking 4 times per week, cut back on the food, and it was off in about 4 months.

At 27, we had just moved up to Washington. That 23 pounds came back. (Do you see a pattern here? Big change = big eating). I joined a gym and ate Slim Fast for breakfast, Lean Cuisine for lunch, and frankly whatever I damn well wanted for dinner. In about 5 months it was gone.

At 32 I was charged with losing 30 pounds, by my doctor. I was in Grad School, my son was a very active toddler and then preschooler, I rarely saw my then husband (he worked nights, I was working full-time and in the aforementioned school). We had friends staying with us who knew cooking and wine, and so I ate and ate. When I got to the doctor she diagnosed me as pre-diabetic, and told me to knock it off. She handed me a 1320 calorie diet, and I had to weigh everything. I also had to work out at least 4 times per week, for at least 30 minutes, and I had to break a sweat. In about six months the weight was off.

Then I got divorced.

Interestingly, the weight didn’t pile on with the divorce. Therefore, it isn’t necessarily negative things that drive my weight gain, but it is big change. Here I sit, with a couple of more Big Changes coming my way (nope, not yet, only 2 more months and then I can talk about it) and I’ve known about the Big Changes for about four months now. Four months of Big Change eating = I am now back to where I oughtn’t be.

I’m currently using an iPhone App called “Myfitnesspal“, which has an online counterpart, and is free. I log everything I eat and it tells me where I’m at during the course of the day not only calorically, but nutritionally. For example: I have learned that one (1) Rainbow Sprinkle Top Pot Doughnut is 2/5 of an entire day’s caloric intake. I have learned that 4 cups of salad (which gets me full) is about 1/12th of a day’s caloric intake. I have learned that white wine is calorically “cheaper” than red, and that on days where I’m “good” the scale will not necessarily be kind to me the next day, but on days where I’m “bad” it will not necessarily be mean, either. (A recent evening that included steak and wine resulted in the scale telling me I had lost a pound. A recent evening that included all of 4 cups of lettuce and some vinaigrette resulted in the scale telling me I added a half pound. It’s vexing.)

I also have fitness requirements, having learned that I need to be committed to an event in order to keep me honest. The difficulty in this lay in my schedule: I have an active boy child, who participates in Karate, Boy Scouts, and Baseball. Somehow the stars have aligned so that Saturday rides now conflict with Saturday games, and Tuesday spin conflicts with Tuesday games. I’ll still do the STP, though. I may do it slowly and I may hurt like hell the next day, but I’m on for it.

It would be really, truly fantastic to just take it off and leave it off.