2008: The year without – September!

In August, I gave up three things: desserts, nail biting, and text messaging. Honestly, text messaging wasn’t that hard. Sure, there were a few times where I just didn’t feel like talking to a live person, but I either just did it, or waited. There’s nothing that says you have to immediately call someone as soon as you’re able.  You can wait until you actually feel like talking to the person. Or, conversely, wait until you’re near a computer and simply email them.  I even turned off Dodgeball, and I don’t think I’m going to turn it back on. If I want my friends to know where I am, I’ll tell them myself. I hope they extend me the same courtesy.

The fingernail biting was difficult for the first few days. I hadn’t realized my tendency to stick my fingers in my mouth while I’m driving. I dug out an old charm a friend had given me: a simple amethyst circle tied to a circle of small beads. It was smooth, and cold, and I walked around for several days playing with that instead of my cuticles. Until I broke it. Oops. But by that point my nails had grown long enough that they looked good, so I was spurred on with the “oooh look pretty girl hands!” mentality. I’ve even had to cut them!

And then there were the sweets. I didn’t fare too well on that one, but I will say that when I did indulge, it was high quality products. For example, after walking into a pole, I made myself feel better with a freshly baked gingerbread cupcake from Miette. And it only happened a handful of times. I’m starting to really appreciate the quality over quantity. Sure, a Snicker’s bar sounds good in the middle of the afternoon, but I’d rather have this handful of nuts now and some olive oil gelato later. Olive oil gelato, by the way, is fantastic.

I hadn’t really thought about what I wanted to deny myself this month as I was distracted by a new development. My dance teacher announced that she wants us to mount an entire show for ourselves the first weekend of October! Of course, there will be multiple announcements as the date nears. But my first and worrisome concern is that I put on my tried-and-true costume and found it to be more than a little snug. So with firm resolve I announce that September is the Month Without These Extra Ten Pounds.

Of course that’s easier to say than to do, and just proclaiming that I’m going to loose that won’t make it happen. So how am I going to do this? I’m revisiting some of the things that have made me feel healthier in the past, and also thinking about quality vs quantity. No fried foods. No sugary snacks. No desserts unless they’re fancy and small. More vegetables. Curb the drinking*.

I anticipate our rehearsal schedule will be severe, but as a boost, I have borrowed my mother’s rowing machine. Last night I made it a total of eight minutes before being completely exhausted. Of course, it was eleven at night and it was dark and I couldn’t figure out how to adjust the tension, so I was probably cranking along way higher than I should. Not too much soreness, yet. I’m sure that’ll change.

* I was going to give it up completely, but between the birthdays of my best friend and my mother, I would have been miserable. And I wasn’t drinking on mother’s day, so there’s no way I can miss mom’s birthday. Besides, we’re going to St. George’s! So maybe once a week, and only one or two.

2008, the year without: August! (for reals)

So the caffeine ban didn’t really stick. It’s less than a week later and I find myself having delicious, delicious caffeinated sodas. I missed them, it’s true. I do seem to have broken my coffee-when-I-get-to-work habit, though it’s been replaced with a mint-tea-when-I-get-to-work habit. I think I just like drinking something when I get to work.  As for the laptop in the bedroom ban, I think I’m going to keep that one. I like keeping the bedroom a quiet, serene place, and the laptop totally disrupts that. Sorry, boyfriend. I know it breaks your wee heart.

So it was my birthday last week, and I was very busy hating the days at work*, and loving my evenings. There were dinners, there was bowling, there was plenty of drinking. What there wasn’t was a lot of thought about what to give up in August.

Trevor and I had a VSC** about this a while back, wherein he completely questioned the whole experiment and made me feel about as deep as shallow puddle. He expected me to really stretch myself, massively changing my lifestyle. And while that wasn’t entirely my goal (what the hell IS my goal, anyway? I should write about that), he did give me some good things to think about. But probably not this month, since I’m already five days behind.

So what did I finally decide? I had some interesting ideas. But I think, finally, that August will be the Month Without Desserts (+more). I do love some sweets. A Milky Way bar in the middle of the afternoon. Birthday cake. Pudding. And I’ve noticed that in the months I’ve been denying myself, especially foods or drinks, my consumption of such things increases. I’m giving myself one out, though: fruits and cheeses, while considered desserts, are safe. Because goddamnit***, fruits and cheeses are important.

What is this (+more)? I was intrigued by Oz’s suggestion of giving up text messages. I don’t constantly text, but I do use it often. And I remember saying earlier that I was interested in using the phone for what it was made for, talking. So this month, I’ll read texts, but I will not send them. I will instead call people back when they write me.

On top of that, I’m going to make a serious attempt to not bite my nails this month. I had quit years ago, but this last year saw the return of bitten ends and gross hangnails. I need to remember that people biting their nails is disgusting to watch. And that I don’t know what’s on my hands, even though I wear gloves all day and wash them all the time. I need to go out and buy another nail file, obviously.

And that’s enough of that.

* It was the magical week of “Mace does everything wrong.” Except that I didn’t do everything wrong, I was just wasn’t doing it the best way, and while I got very mad at myself, I realized later that a certain amount of that was “no one told me the right way.” Which then made me all weirded out because I thought that maybe I should just KNOW this stuff. But then I remembered that I’ve only been here five months, I was doing something for the second time EVER, and sure, it’s common sense and second nature to the people who have been her for seven to twenty years. Gah!
** Very Serious Coversation
*** Sorry, Kevin.

2008, the year without: July!

I would say the month without a credit card was a rousing success. It’s nice to know that I can survive, hell throw a HUGE ASS PARTY, using only cash. It just meant that I usually had large sums of money on my person, which tends to make me nervous. But sometimes I would keep different amounts in different wallets. I think in the future I’d like to use my credit card for large purchases, and maybe gas (which I guess IS a large purpose nowadays), and try to use cash more.

So July is going to be double duty. First off, I’m tackling something that I’ve become rather dependent on in the last few months: caffeine. I could easily blame the late-night boyfriend for this one, but the truth is, I’m a big girl and I can go to bed whenever I want. I just don’t. There’s also the whole enjoyment of coffee in the morning for me: I come to work, I get my coffee, I sit and read my email and news. This morning I tried it with herbal mint tea. This may work. The big test will be about three in the afternoon, when I usually have a soda when times are rough. It’s really too bad that most caffeine free sodas make me gag (except for root beer. Damn, now I want a root beer).

As for the second bit, it’s something I’ve lifted from kfan. I’ve had a long standing rule about televisions, phones and computers in bedrooms, but recently, they’ve snuck in. I think someone might call before I fall asleep, I leave my cell phone on my nightstand. I’ve taken to watching Venture Brothers tucked in, and my laptop is found on the floor next to the bed more nights that I can count. This is NOT helping me sleep. I stay up late, saying “Oh, I’ll just check this one more time” or “I’ll just play one more round of Scramble.*”

So, to sum up, July is the month without caffeine and the laptop in my bedroom.**
* This is nearing a serious addiction. I’m serious.
** There is an exception. I really mean this on school nights. Trevor and I have a long-standing tradition of watching Infomania in bed together on Friday nights. I’m not willing to sacrifice that. But not during weeknights!

2008, the year without. June!

I celebrated my triumphant return to booze with half a bottle of champagne with brunch, and then two glasses of wine when I got home. After a rather sudden nap, I awoke to find myself incredibly nauseated, which was only relieved by vomiting. Yay booze! I’ll have to reintroduce myself to moderation, obviously.

On the whole, though, not drinking is a good thing. It was easier to wake up in the morning (except for that last week, for some reason, but I suspect it was unrelated to this project), and I never had to worry whether or not I could drive. I remembered that dancing sober is just as fun as dancing drunk. I think the hardest part, really, was explaining the whole thing to my friends, who often looked at me like I had grown another head.

It’s been pointed out by several people that all these omissions so far have centered around food. One person even went so far to call it a diet, which was never the goal of this experiment. So it is time for a different kind of crutch. June is the month with no credit card.

I’ve noticed in the last few months that my usage has skyrocketed. I blame this mostly on finally having a card that gives cash back, and because I am terrible about having cash on me. Plus, I’m going out a lot more than I ever have. I’m pretty good about spending only what I have, but I’m curious: will I continue to keep enough money on me to get by?

I’ll still be using my ATM, of course. That’s money I know I have. And there are one or two bills that go directly to my card, and I’m not going to purposely make things difficult just for Netflix and KQED.

What material items can you not live without?

2008, the year without. May!

I suppose it was some sort of retribution. Or punishment. I fell off the wagon and ate three crispy chicken nuggets at a fundraising party yesterday, and I am suffering. My stomach is not happy, and the intestines are following suit. Or course, it’s a toss up: was it the forbidden fried food, or the three industrial-sized glasses of sangria*?

Either way, it helped point me in the right direction for the year without. May is the month with no alcoholic beverages. (I say beverages specifically, so that if I feel the need to make poached pears again, I’m scott free.)

I tried this last year, and found that I slept better, felt better, and could still have fun and drive home at the same time. I’m not a binge drinker, nor do I drink every night. I drink pretty regularly, but almost exclusively socially. I’m not worried about a potential problem. This just another thing I enjoy that I’m going to do without for awhile.

You’ll find me on June 1st with a big drink in the sun somewhere, to be sure.

*Sangria made with Gewürztraminer, strawberries and raspberries. Which was ridiculously good.

2008, the year without. April!

I cheated.

Bad, bad Mace. I had exactly TWO french fries during the month of March. I still consider that better than scarfing down an entire plate, like I can (and have) done. I could come up with some interesting excuse, like I was the acting food taster of some celebrity/royalty/clown, but really it was just that someone ordered some at a new place, and I wanted to try them. Feh.

I hadn’t started out on this project to keep building things off each other. The original plan was to give something up for a month, and then go back to my evil ways. But now, on month 3/4 (depending on how you look at it), I’m still not eating fast food, and I’ve barely touched the fries.  And now I’m going to build on this again.

April is the month without ANY fried foods.

This distressed my boyfriend, for some reason. “No fries?” No. “No chips?” No. “No fried eggs?” No. There will always be things that toe the line. Is French Toast technically fried? What about stir fry? I’ll address these concerns as they come up, I suppose.

Again, I’ve lost no weight and feel no healthier. It may actually be time to get off my chunky butt and do something.

Operation Sad Closet

Operation Sad Closet, originally uploaded by maceelaine.

So to continue my quest for closet help, I’m swallowing my pride and showing pictures of my closet. I just opened the door and some pictures, without cleaning anything*.

I’m hopefully going to go through those four boxes and find things to get rid of, but I’m definitely keeping a lot of it. There’s a lot of Flamenco accessories in those boxes, and even if I’m not using them regularly, I will be using them at some point in the future. And they’re expensive. But the sight of those bankers boxes is depressing.

More views of the depressing closet:

* This is kind of a lie. I took the bra sitting on the floor in front of the closet out of the shot.

Help me! (closet edition)

My closet is horrible right now. It’s a complete mess, and I hate looking in there right now. I need help!

My first plan of attack is to find some new storage containers. I currently have all my Flamenco costumes and rarely used accesories in bankers boxes, and they are UGLY. Does anyone out there in the interwebs know of a good storage solution? My closet shelf is 57 inches long and 11 inches deep. I’d prefer opaque boxes, as I don’t want to stare at the contents all the time – I know what’s in there.

HELP!

2008, the year without. March!

Truffle Oil and Herbed Fries, originally uploaded by maceelaine.

February was quite a tumultuous month. Interviews, quitting, starting a new job. I managed to do it all with panache, and without the crutch I like to call Taco Bell. On the flip side, though, I felt so busy that I barely even noticed the lack of fast food, though I admit there were a lot of sandwiches in February. I just don’t feel very different. I don’t feel lighter, I don’t feel healthier, and I certainly don’t feel richer. So how do I stop this up?

I’m going to keep the ban on fast food. And March is the month without French Fries. It’s only a small step, but there are plenty of normal, nice restaurants that serve those perfect little morsels of comfort. And I really do turn to them for comfort. I’m a stress eater, and in times of great duress, sometimes fries are all I want for days on end. I have been fortunate that so far, with the new job, the craving hasn’t been so dire. I can actually stave it off to a certain extent with almonds. We’ll see if it lasts.

2008, The Year Without

I enjoy denying myself things. I’m not prepared to delve into the psychological aspects of WHY I do this, but it’s true. In the past, I’ve given up drinking, sodas, meat for over six years, and more. I’m pretty sure it’s not just food, but those are the easiest to quantify.

 So this year I’ve decided to make it a project: give something up each month, and track how it affects my life/body/relationships. Since I didn’t come up with this concept until mid-January, January is the Month Without Restrictions, which is especially apropos as I have been binge eating and not really taking care of myself at all.

So what’s on the slate for February? February is the month without fast food. I hate to admit it, but I adore greasy, unhealthy burgers and fake Mexican food. And lately, being so busy at work, and having un-adventurous lunch-mates, I’ve found myself going more and more. The goal of this exclusion is hopefully for me to make better choices about what I put in my mouth, and to also encourage me to make my lunch at home and bring it in. I also need to stop the bad habit of eating in my car!

I’d like to add that I’m not counting sandwich joints in this. I still need some options for quick dining, and I think in general that fresh-made sandwiches are better for you (and yes, I know some sandwiches are decidedly NOT healthy. I’m going to try and be aware).

And now, since it is the last day of January, I’m hitting Taco Bell.

Also, will someone please buy me this?