Category Archives: My Adventures

hey, i’ve heard this song before!

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the good news:

  • we found a new apartment. by the beach. hel-lo!
  • we booked our trip to mexico in may for our one-year anniversary!

the bad news:

  • there’s the potential for reorganizing at the hubby’s job, which could mean layoffs.

<sigh> haven’t i heard this song already?

this news has had me in a funk the last few days. it took me months to finally get comfortable with the idea of leaving my mom alone. and now that we have found an awesome place and i’ve finally let myself indulge in all of the interior decorating ideas i’ve had tucked away in my mind for months – we’re put on pause. <sigh>

the good news:

  • my mom is happy to have us at her house to weather another unemployment storm, if need be.
  • we’re only out $200 for our deposit on the apartment.
  • we bought the travel insurance, so if the worst happens, we get our money back on our trip.

so while it isn’t the end of the world, it certainly hampers two of the best things we had planned this year. it’s embarrassingly hard to pick up the pace again after that.

but…

that’s what we’re going to do. it’s better we know now. and we’re certainly more prepared this time. and most importantly, the gloom and doom may not even happen. so i am officially putting good vibes out there. i must remember that things always have a way of working out for the best in the end.

february goals

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even though my middle name is luscious pork fat, i am not opposed to vegetables. i really do love them. and i know i should eat them more often if i want to live a long healthy life enjoying meat treats. to encourage me to try more and eat more meatless meals, i am challenging myself to a month of vegetarian dinners. sure, that means i could eat cheese pizza every night and i wouldn’t be necessarily eating healthier. but if 80% of my dinners are the healthy kind of vegetarian, i think that’s a great improvement.

vegetarian dinner: day one. aka how not to do vegetarian.

i heart valentine’s day. not the long stem roses and diamonds kind of valentine’s day. the handmade paper valentine, turn a shoebox into a mailbox by gluing pompoms and doilies on it valentine’s day. though ever since they changed the formula of those conversation hearts candies, valentine’s day just isn’t the same. i loved those little candy hearts. i am not a big fan of spending tons of money on this holiday, but i do have a fun little surprise that the hubs will be delighted about receiving at work! i’m counting this as my creative project for the month.

i’ve got a lot of organizational housekeeping on the docket. i was inspired by this to streamline my closet. we’re hiring a tax accountant to do our taxes this year, since it’s our first as a married couple. so while we’re at it, i may as well collect, merge, and purge all of our financial papers. and mama needs lots of help getting her affairs in order. when my dad passed everything seamlessly transferred to her as his spouse. the same will not be true when she passes. some people may find this task morbid or uncomfortable, but it is a fact of life. and a crucial way to take care of those you love.

january in photos

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  • took the nephew and mama to the harlem globetrotters. tons of fun. monchi was talking excitedly the entire time, turning to me to scream “who’s got it better than us? NOBODY!” after every basket. he was super stoaked to get autographs at the end of the game and it was a huge surprise to hear that his favorite globetrotter was the only girl, TNT. he claims it’s because she can dougie :) later in the month i took him down to walmart to pick up supplies to make his first scrapbook. he LOVED it. “i’m being creative!” he wanted to have an art show and sell free tickets.
  • nfc championship game was a huge disappointment. with all the screaming and jumping and ahem, eating, i ended up pulling a muscle in my ribs or something, which i mistook for a gallbladder issue. overreact much? when the niners lost, the monchi burst into tears shrieking “my life is over” and started tearing down the posters he made that night. the good news is, i tried out a new nail polish technique in honor of the niners.
  • the first rain of the season led us to our fave local brewery for some french onion soup, burgers, and cocktails. and by us i mean me, the husband, and mom. i love that my husband wants my mom to come out with us on our dates. insists that she comes.
  • among other food “adventures”, i tried beets again, determined to like them. mainly to “heal” the gallbladder i thought was dysfunctional. now that i know it’s all good in the hood, i like them enough to eat them again! and i did! most boring news ever! the husband and i also tried a new-to-us indian restaurant. i was afraid that when i told him what i was in the mood for, he was gonna pitch a fit. but he went with it! we ended up at a place we had made fun of every time we walked by. don’t know why, we just did. food was great, except for the lamb, but the owner himself came out to apologize and take it off our bill. we’re definitely going back.
  • january was the month of doctor visits: 2 urgent care visits, 1 regular doc visit, blood tests, urine tests, antibiotics, nausea, pulled muscles. thankfully, nothing was serious. and thankfully, i feel 100% now. i’m totally ready to tackle february!
  • in january, we met our first savings goal. to reward ourselves we booked a trip to mexico! actually, we’re going for our one-year anniversary. if the husband had his way, he’d knock me up on the trip and 9 months later i’d pop out our first bebe. for the time being, we’re more than stoaked to be frolicking en la playa come may!

anatomy lesson

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i find it downright miraculous that despite my chubbiness and family history of diabetes, i am healthy. cholesterol, blood sugar, blood pressure all check out super healthy. my doctor has even said that despite being obese, despite the stress i’ve been under, that i do in fact have a healthy glow. maybe she was being kind, but i took it to heart. and god bless him, my husband tells me how beautiful and sexy i am at least twice a day. i told myself i wasn’t going to add even more stress by going on a strict cold-turkey type diet. i told myself i had the time to make small changes to get my weight down gradually.

apparently, that time has run out.

now before you get all worried, i am okay. i am in no grave danger. <knock on wood>

but…

i did go to urgent care last night ’cause i had a sharp, localized pain on the right side of my chest that was both:

1. something i’ve never felt before and
2. not going away. even after over 24 hours.

it hurt to breathe. or laugh. and that just ain’t cool. after a series of questions and a quick examination, the doc figured it could be one or a combo of three things:

1. gas/acid reflux
2. a strained muscle from yelling and screaming and jumping around during sunday’s nfc championship game or
3. an issue with my gallbladder.

after being relieved it wasn’t my heart or lungs, i was slightly, very embarrassed that all 3 of these things could have been prevented if i wasn’t such a fat ass. finally, my chubby ways had caught up to me. and all i can say is thank god my wake up call was this and not a multitude of other things it could have been.

are you happy god? i’m listening. and thank you. truly, sincerely.

now before last night i knew nothing about a gallbladder except that it sounds like the least sexy part of the body. after neurotic extensive googling, i learned that the gallbladder is a small pear-shaped sac that stores bile for the liver. when your body senses there is food to digest, it releases the bile to help digest the fat. while you don’t need the gallbladder to live, it’s best to keep the one you’ve got functioning happily. your gallbladder can give you pain for a couple of reasons, the most common being gallstones -excess cholesterol that accumulates and crystallizes and gets lodged in the ducts the gallbladder uses to send bile to your digestive system. so i was right. it is the least sexy part of the body.

it isn’t yet confirmed what exactly is causing my pain. i have ruled out gas/acid reflux because i’ve taken all otc remedies and the pain persists. it may indeed be a strained muscle, and i’m using heat and tylenol to help with that. again, the pain persists. i’ve scheduled an appointment with my regular doc to investigate my sexy gallbladder. it will most likely involve an ultrasound and blood tests. it may even involve fun things like injecting me with radioactive dye!

but then again, it may not even be my gallbladder at all. my symptoms apparently mimic a lot of gastrointestinal issues, based on my obsessive quick googling. whatever the case is, there is no quick pill to fix it. unfortunately, or more accurately fortunately, the only thing i can do at this point is eat healthy. and i mean really healthy. high fiber, whole grains, lean protein, no processed foods. you know, all the shit i was supposed to be doing anyway.

*sigh*

this is not just for vanity anymore, folks. this is for realsies now. it sure beats medicine. and hands down beats any kind of surgery, even if i don’t technically need my gallbladder. i’ll hopefully know more after my doctor’s appointment on thursday.