My Life

Personal Posts

Then Would It Be Real?

/ Varza / 2 Comments

Friendship. Such a simple, easy word with so much meaning behind it.

Once again I find myself in a pretty common predictament of finding out the people who I believe are my friends, probably aren’t. I am seeing a pattern of people who I used to hang out with not really wanting to be either around me or alone with me. And once again, I am finding myself becoming very hurt by certain actions of people who I consider (or considered) my friends.

Now, why does this happen? Easy, if I am too much myself. Meaning, I don’t keep my mouth shut and be the good fat girl – I become ostricized by the people around me. If I put myself too much out there, people start to walk away or turn away from me. They are kind to my face but I get a feeling when it happens that I have overstepped myself.

Is it normal to feel this way? I don’t know. I just do. I have had it happen to me so many times in the past that I know when I have shown too much of who I am. I need to stay the good, fat girl that doesn’t do anything to upset anyone. I actually hate feeling this way. I have come to the conclusion many times over, I am not made to have too many friends at any given time. Everytime I do – things blow up in my face. Then I end up going back into my hole, licking my wounds and begging for forgiveness like the good dog I am.

But this time, I just want to go away and not come back. Just not deal with it. I am tired of apologizing for who I am and things I say. I am a very blunt person. If I don’t like something, sometimes I don’t keep my mouth shut because I just can’t. I will be extremely honest with someone. There are quite a few people around that I don’t like. For a number of reasons. Usually when guys are overly perverted or a person does or says something that upsets me – I let it go but then it eats away at me and I just start disliking that person more and more.

Whats even worse is when you are honest and just reply to a person honestly and they attack you on a message board. For no other reason then pointing out the obvious. Which then rolls over to your “friends” not talking to you anymore.

So, in truth – if people can stop talking to you for being yourself… is the friendship real? Has it ever been real?

Ant vs. Elephant

/ Varza / 2 Comments

I get a lot of questions from people when I say I try to shop at small local stores instead of large chain stores. And I guess the easiest way to answer is – working in a small store I can understand how hard it is to struggle against the monolithic chains. Its extremely difficult and in dealing with them sometimes is more headache then its worth.

Example – I work next door to a Target. The Target stores seem to think that because they are Target that they can do pretty much whatever they want without thinking about any other stores. Last year it was the reconstruction they did to expand their store. We found out the day it started even though being right next door, they didn’t think to let us know that they would be blocking the entrance to our store for 7 months. Making the old ladies that want to buy a Jesus statue or a few prayer cards or a rosary have to wade thru a construction zone. Not they have to worry about that – their entrance was moved to the far end of the shopping center. Their customers need not worry. This also added on the constant blocking of our back entrance where we receive delieveries of large amount of candles. When we would talk to them, they would just hand us to the next person in line. It was a complete and utter pain in the ass.

And I like Target. I really do, I shop there all the time. But I would rather not but sometimes you just can’t get what you want unless its from a chain store. Because the small stores that tried to compete with them no longer exist. Because you can’t. If you try – you lose.

Another example – we just found out that because a home improvement center wants to be in our shopping center (their closest location is 6 blocks away, oh dear!) we may have to disappear from a location we love. Because the owner of the shopping center doesn’t care. And the home improvement center definatly doesn’t  and when their construction may start – well, it will happen during the Christmas season. One of the two seasons that keeps us alive thru the summer time. Yeah, that will suck ass big time.

But the biggest example of all is Wal-Mart… I do not shop there unless I absolutly have to. They are the worst of the worst. They will go into a small community and carry the exact things being sold in the small stores and undercut the costs to get people to shop at Wal-Mart. Because if you go in for one thing, you will keep shopping for everything else while you are there. They don’t want you to go to another store for anything. The main reason – they want to be the only store that exists. There is a real evil behind that smiley face. And when I mean undercut – they will sell under the actual costs, to get people to distrust other stores who sell at the Suggested Retail Price. An average customer will think – if I can get this movie for 13.97 at Wal-Mart why do I have to pay 24.95 at so-so store? Why? Because the so-so store can’t even buy that movie at 13.97. Add in the fact that they are not good to their employees and pretty dang sexists (I experienced this first hand when I worked there and wasn’t allowed to take a break from cashiering until 7 hours into my 8 hour shift). You can find out more about this monstrosity here: http://walmartwatch.com/

And breathe….

Sorry, Wal-Mart gets me a little worked up from time to time. So, why do I shop locally… because I feel for the people who are suffering because Target, Wal-Mart, GNC, Chili’s, etc need to have just one more location a few blocks from the last one. Because people who put their entire livelyhood, finances, life, peace of mind, health on the line to fulfill a dream of owning a store happen… only to be destroyed by the Elephants of industry who only care about how much money they can make and how much they can destroy small businesses (that is mainly wal-mart). These small business’ don’t get bought out by bigger stores, they pretty much can lose everything because its easier for us to go to a Barnes & Noble then it is a small book store.  Or to a Chili’s because its known then trying out a new small family owned resturant whose food is just as good if not so much better. Its also another reason why I try not to shop online unless its something I can not buy in town. But thats another blog…

So, in today’s retail world its Ant vs. Elephant… and then Ant’s don’t seem to have a chance at all.

Finding Balance in My Diet

/ Varza / Leave a comment

With starting the process of loosing weight and at the same trying to get off of soda, its been a bit of a challenge with my diet add on the desire to quite intaking fake sugars I can’t even really talk about that. I don’t say diet as in – I am cutting this and that out to loose weight. I mean diet – as in what I am eating throughout the day. My first step was to stop drinking Diet Dr. Pepper. Now, I didn’t head straight to the Dr. Pepper rack but I did start buying Green Tea in a bottle. Bad choice – so much sugar in those its insane. So, trying to cut back on calories has been difficult because I have been loosing calories that I could use to eat healthier and the right amount to one single drink a day. And they are empty calories/carbs not good carbs like brown rice or natural sugars from fruit. Just icky sugar. And it was frustrating that at the end of the day I was going over the limit I set for myself because of a drink.

So, yesturday I started drinking (again) Cranergyfrom Oceanspray. While not completely giving up caffeine, which I can now go most of the day without, I am also drinking something much healthier for me. With a lot more natural sugars and less calories. I give myself 3 glass of juice a day before and now substituted some of that juice with this during the work day. Unfortunately it used Sucralose in it… which is a step back in that department but its hard to get everything. At least its a step forward in the calorie department.

Now, I am a full support of keeping carbs in your diet for mental/physical health reasons. Especially for women. Cutting all carbs out of your diet is insane. There is a reason why carbs are the largest food groups on the food pryamid even if we really don’t need that many breads in our daily diet. But like many things in life – its all about moderation. I was finding, after tracking each days food intake for the past few weeks that over 60% of my diet had been cards. I had decreased my caloric intake in many meals but my carbs were still really high. So, next step – decrease the portion sizes of my carbs. No more just spagetti for dinner – unless I am running a marathon the next day, which isn’t going to happen for more then a year from now – but make a larger salad and have a smaller plate of spagetti. I guess that means no more large bowl dinners of Spagetti and sausage. And also eating healthier carbs. Again spagetti – try to buy whole wheat instead of white flour based spagetti. And buy food with less preservatives.

So, is it working? I haven’t a clue but I will let you know. But on top of everything else my body is slowly showing change after 3 weeks of workouts. I have been focusing a little much on toning and not aerobic so this week I am upping the aerobic and balancing it with the strenght/toning. This morning I woke up for the first time, early enough to workout in the morning. I did the 10 minute Boot Camp DVD which allows you to choose between 5 different 10 minute sections to make your own workout or just do a single one. I did the Arm & Upper Body workout and then a Fat Blaster – which just about kicked my ass. But I will say, I am liking what I see in the mirror each morning and my clothes are fitting a slight better. I am just glad I haven’t lost the body that responds quickly to excercise yet. I was scared it had gone away. And the cherry on top – I am loving my life so much better now and just liking myself a little more. Its been a difficult few weeks but each day just gets better and better. Now to just loose those LBS.

 

Body Image?

/ Varza / 2 Comments

I found this great article about how the interwebs and women are changing the face of a good body image in the world for women. Great! I checked out some of the sites they talked about and then went from them to some of the blogs about having a good body image. And… they made me feel like shit for wanting to loose weight. They aren’t blogs about having a healthy body image at any weight. Its only having a healthy body image for fat chicks and being proud of it and screw trying to loose it because you will just fail. Screw em. I don’t like being fat, I hate it actually. I hate that I hide from cameras because I hate what I look like. I don’t enjoy having to spend more money on clothes. I don’t care if there are places for me to buy the right size clothing and that the fashion industry sucks ass. It always has and it always will. Duh! Welcome to America the home of you aren’t ever going to be good enough.

I watched a video one woman did and she just bagged on everyone who wasn’t big. What if someone wants to loose weight. The weight I am at I can’t even get health insurance because I am too much of a risk. She talked about living life to the fullest – but what happens when I can’t because my weight keeps me from doing things I want to do. I can’t even go horse backriding for force sake! Yeah! I am happy with how I am and never going to change.

If someone is happy being a bigger person I am happy for them. Good for them. But why should I force myself to love myself the way I am when I can change it and I’m not happy. I am disgusted with myself because I do not like the way I feel. And I don’t see a fat person in the mirror – I just don’t like feeling rolls on my body. I don’t like that I can’t go on a simple hike because I can’t keep my breathe. I want to be who I am not who someone thinks I should stay.

Maybe some of those toughting a positive body image should think everyone should be where they are happy not just be fat and hate people who don’t want to be.

Varzaland Has Moved to WordPress

/ Varza / Leave a comment

While I continue to figure out Dreamweaver, I got tired of having a crappy website. So, I am now forwarding my website to wordpress.com. I find it easy to use and easy to get a handle on. And it lets me be lazy.