If I tell you my weight I may have to kill you

I finally went and got my Illinois drivers license yesterday.

I have obviously been procrastinating. I couldn't anymore.

When I went to Florida with my friend Gigi last month, I got stopped by security because my Michigan drivers license had expired. I hadn't realized it. The nice security guy let me go, but not before letting me hear all about how nice it was of him to do such a thing.

I've only lived in three states, but every Secretary of State office seems the same to me. It's there some kind of law that says the office has to be a dirty, smelly, dreary place. Same thin brown "carpets", same looking counters with the same tired, frustrated, sad looking people sitting behind them.


The woman who waited on me was faded. That seems the best way to describe her. Her hair was a dull dirty blonde, still styled with an 80's poof of bangs. Her posture implied that her job was draining the life out of her. Weary and slumped, she asked me in a monotone voice the questions she must ask hundreds of times a day. I was in a bit of a hurry so I rattled the answers off rather quickly. It was like a tennis match. She lobbed over a question is her tiresome voice. I'd return an answer swiftly.

Back and forth, back and forth we went.

When she asked me my phone number I had to pause for just a second to recall our new home phone number. I never use it (and you know how I am with numbers).

I have a habit of looking at the ceiling when thinking about something, but I pulled the phone number out of my sad little number disabled brain as quickly as I could. The next listless question was tossed at me before I had time to take my eyes off the water stained ceiling tiles that my ADD mind was just finding interesting (they looked like chocolate chip cookies). She was obviously pushing to keep up the speed of the volley. The next question was the Hubs social security number. I actually know his better than mine own but I was still looking up while I rattled it off along with the next couple of questions.

Just as I'm getting my end of the volley back up to speed she slams me with a question I didn't expect. "Your weight please?" This time my pause has nothing to do with not being able to recall the answer. I see that weight on the scale every morning. I just don't want to tell her. I'm not even sure why I don't want to tell her. Maybe I just don't want to say it out loud. If I say it out loud then it becomes real. Like that whole tree falling in the forest saying....

I WAS planning on loosing some weight soon. I don't want THIS weight in my permanent computer file record thingie! I just had a little too much Halloween candy. If I'd known I'd have this in my permanent record, I'd have procrastinated even longer, till I was at my ideal weight (which means I never would get my license).

I could lie....and now I'm having a moral dilemma here. Can a cop give you an extra ticket when he pulls you over for lying about your weight on your drivers license?

Yes these are all the things going through my mind in a very quick few seconds. And I'm still looking at the ceiling....

So I shout out a weight.
Not my real weight (NO I'm not telling you what I told her!)
Yes I lied. And I feel bad.

And she pauses. And pauses. My mind is waiting for the next question. And it doesn't come. And I'm feeling guilty about lying. I peel my eyes off the ceiling and reluctantly look at her.

And she is looking at me. She is looking right into my eyes. Into my soul.
She knows I lied. I can feel it. She is judging me. I can feel that too.

I'm starting to blush. I'm waiting for her to say "Oh come on!!! ___ pounds? Really?"
I'm starting to think of excuses. Like ~well, that's what I usually weigh (before 4 kids, that is)
or ~I'm just retaining water.

I'm starting to sweat.

And she says in her monotone voice "Eye color: Brown.

My diet....going down in flames!

Dear guy who invented South Beach Diet,

I hate you.

I'm hating you so much right now that I'm not even willing to google you to figure out your real name.

That's all I want to say.

Thank you.

Tori the carb addict.

This is my third time using The South Beach Diet plan.

I'm so good at it now that I don't need to look at the book anymore (hence me not remembering the guys name).

As I've said before, I am an accomplished yo-yo dieter.

South Beach is my favorite yo-yoing trick. It's easier than walking the dog.

Except this past week. See, it was my birthday. Well, not really. It was the day I finally got to celebrate my birthday with my dad and Ann. My dad is a fisherman extraordinaire and Ann does a mean fish fry. So if there is one meal I want for my birthday it's the fish my dad caught.

Unfortunately, fried fish doesn't really fit in the South Beach phase one plan. And I was on like day 9 of phase one (which means I was almost done and could move on to the "good carbs"). And when you cheat, you basically have to start over again--it's pure torture!!!

So I blew it.

And when I blow it, my mind starts thinking "well, if I'm gonna blow it, I should just blow it big!".

I mean who wants wants to go down smoldering? I want flames baby!

Big huge chocolate cake and fried fish FLAMES!

But then after I blew it that one day (which was last Wednesday), I looked ahead at my week and well, Sunday was not too far away. And we were having a pot luck on Sunday at our house.

Pot lucks.....who doesn't love a good pot luck. And just to be sure I would have a really good pot luck experience, I made all my favorites. (Flames! I want big ones remember)

This time it was white chicken chili with sweet cheesy corn bread muffins. Oh! and homemade mac and cheese from Mary at Deep South Dish. And I will tell you this, The Hubs loved that mac and cheese so much that he actually said this...."This mac and cheese is so good that it's worth you blogging!"

For all of you who don't know, The Hubs does not like my blogging. That's quite the compliment!

The pot luck was awesome and someone brought a whole chocolate cake from Portillo's. If you've never had chocolate cake from Portillo's you should go and get some right this minute. It's insanely evil, it's so good!

So now, I have a house full of left overs because I made too much food. And I have issues with throwing away perfectly good food (it's another one of those issues from being raised in Holland, MI and being surrounded by cheap Dutch people).

It will take me at least 4 days to finish off all this food (by myself).

And then.....I'm going to Florida next Tuesday with my girl friend. No one should be on a diet when you are on vacay.

And if I'm gonna go down in flames.....

my diet yo-yoing tale

Once upon a time there was an accomplished yo-yo performer.

She and her hubby (who was not a yo-yo performer but did it just for "fun" once and a while) lived in a quiet little suburb with their 4 kids.

The accomplished yo-yo performer (I'll call her Duncan) didn't intend on being a yo-yoer. She just kinda fell into it. It all began back in college, when Duncan was a freshman, and she learned her first trick called the sleeper.

As seen here.

www.yoyoing.com/beginner/entry2.php?tid=128

Duncan learned that she could throw her yo-yo down and keep it there for what seemed like forever. And it was great. Everyone complimented her on her yo-yo trick. And she felt good.
Little did she know this would be the beginning a life time of yo-yoing.

Yo-yoing was pretty easy when she was in her 20's. She didn't have to put much time or practice into it. She learned some new tricks to add to her performance. Once she got her yo-yo to stay down she could "walk the dog"

entertainment.howstuffworks.com/easy-yo-yo-tr...

once she figured she could handle a dog , she learned "rock the baby".

yoyowiki.org/wiki/Rock_the_Baby

Actually the babies came before the dogs but that's another tale all together
Life was pretty full and hectic with dogs and babies and she quit worrying about her yo-yoing and put it away for a while.

But soon Duncan started to miss performing. She missed the applause. She missed feeling good about herself. She didn't really want to do the yo-yo thing again but it was all that she knew. So Duncan got out her yo-yo again.

When she tried to throw her yo-yo down into a "sleeper", it just popped right back up. She tried again. The same thing! She couldn't get her yo-yo to stay down.

She decided that maybe she needed some help. She tried going to a place where there were other people struggling with yo-yoing. But that just made her feel guilty because it costs money and she really hated it. She read everything she could about yo-yoing. Sometimes certain things worked and she could keep her yo-yo down for a short period of time but then it always came back up. She noticed that it took more and more effort to throw it down, and when it came back up it almost knocked off her feet. Duncan was incredibly discouraged

.

The worst part was that she felt like everyone was watching, waiting for her to perform. Especially her hubby. Would he still love her if she couldn't be good at this yo-yo thing anymore? Whenever he decided to give the yo-yo a try he did it with ease. He would say "look honey, I just threw it down with no problem on the first try!" This only discouraged her more (and made her hate him a little. She had dreams of trying the slipknot from her yo-yo around his neck...sorry).

So for now, Duncan is thinking about giving up on yo-yo performing and trying something new.

If this was a real fairytale she could lose weight by blogging.