I have a secret.

Yes, I am about to share with you a very deep and personal secret. Are you sure you want to know my secret? Are you sure you can handle the truth? You can't handle the truth! Okay, here goes...I am a chronic over eater. That's right you heard me. I can't stop shoving food down my throat. I love everything about food. I love to cook it, bake it, smell it, look at it, and of course the most obvious: eat it. I'm driven by food so much so that even as I'm writing this, I had to get up to redirect the puppy and ended up redirecting myself to the kitchen for a snack. Mind you I just ate an entire box of mac & cheese an hour and a half ago. I can't stop thinking about food!

I've been chronically over weight the majority of my life. I began gaining weight around age 5, when my mom moved my sister and I from Reston, Va back to Kansas City, Mo where our family is from. I don't know if it was the stress of the move or that I felt the stress of my mother, but from that point forward I have never been unable to completely get my eating under control. It's so hard to say I've been obese for more than 2 decades. Although I can't exactly pinpoint why I first began to gain weight, I do know that I am definitely an emotional eater.

I eat when I'm bored, I eat when I'm depressed, I eat when I'm tired, and I eat when I'm anxious. I over indulge nearly every day. I cannot say no to food. My husband also has a love for food, but unlike myself, he can maintain a healthy weight. Just the other day he brought home a dozen donuts. I ended up eating over half the box in 24 hours. When I know the temptation is there, I'm drawn to it like a magnet. Another good example of this is at my work place. I work for a well known corporate childcare company, where food is abundant. There are crackers and goldfish aplenty. And I can't keep my paws off of it.

For as long as I can remember, I've been dieting. As a child, my mom did everything she could to help me. She even went as far as enrolling me in the Jenny Craig program at the ripe age of 9. I began yo-yo dieting in high school and it's been an up hill battle since then. The smallest size I've ever been was at the age of 16, when I stopped eating all together for a short period of time. Obviously that wasn't the healthiest choice, I was driven by low self esteem and the need to fit in.

I've started and stopped Weight Watchers more times than I can count.  I've committed to and abandoned countless workout regimens. As recent as last fall I tried to train for a 5k, which I subsequently gave up on during a vacation back east after 10 weeks of training. Last year Biggest Loser, one of my favorite shows, was doing auditions here in Portland. I talked to everybody from my boss to my husband about auditioning. Unfortunately, I allowed the majority of these people, with the exception of my husband, to talk me out of it under the pretense that I wasn't fat enough. Now I look at the women on the show and their average weight is very close to my own.

The bottom line: My weight has always been an uphill battle. No matter how hard I try, it's one step forward and 2 steps back.

Save the drama for your mama!

Who hasn't heard horror stories about roommates gone bad? I thought for sure, these things wouldn't happen to me. As a 27 year old, the only roommates I've had were my freshman year dorm-mate in college, an ex-boyfriend and my husband. Oh, and the guy I rented a room from for the first 3 months I lived in San Diego. Though the girl from the dorm's was cliquish, she was smart and harmless. My ex was a mess, but that's another story for another day. The dude I rented from, well he turned out to be a Secret Service Agent who did undercover work in Thailand. As soon as I learned of his work, I high tailed it out of there. He was a perfectly nice guy, who made a huge effort in socializing me in a new city, but to tell you the truth, I was quite scared for my safety. What if his cover had been blown? As for my husband, well I wouldn't have married him after cohabiting for two years if I felt we couldn't share a life (or space) together. These experiences, for the most part have been positive. Until now.

When we moved into the condo last summer, we knew the rent was going to be more than we had originally planned on spending. That coupled with a student loan lingering over my head, we began talking about getting a roommate two or three months in. We tossed the idea around, discussing the pros and cons. My husband's biggest issue was giving up our privacy. I, on the other hand, only saw dollar signs. I felt we really needed help relieving my financial burden. Our discussions never went much further than that. It was all just a lot of talk. Until one day in October last year, a kid who my husband works with, we'll call him Nick, and had gotten to know by giving him rides home from work, informed us that the girl he had been sharing an apartment with screwed up out of a place to live. My 'mommy radar' immediately clicked on and wanted to help this Nick guy out. We had a spare bedroom and he needed a place to live. 

I didn't know him all that well, but from the few times we had hung out, I never got any red flag readings from him. He was always curious about my lifestyle choices and was always eager to learn something new about nutrition and cooking. I found out in the weeks that followed he was just beginning treatment for a DUI and having a place to call home was imperative in his successful completion. I have this uncanny knack to find people who need fixing or to be helped. This is something I can totally blame on my mother for. She always provided the safe haven for people in need when my sister and I were both teenagers. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely believe this is a positive quality in a person. It's called empathy.

I know, I know. The DUI should have been the biggest red flag of them all, but we were coming up on the holidays and I knew we could help this kid. I thought for sure, if he lived in a positive environment among responsible people, the light would turn on for him. He moved in the first week of November. All was well that first week. He drank some beers but I didn't notice his drinking problem until the second week rolled around. One night he got so intoxicated. he rambled on for 3 plus hours about how amazing his genes were and how he was smarter than all the other employees at my husband's company. It has been down hill from there.

He did eventually quit drinking after he failed two urine analysis in a row, but I had lost any respect I had for the guy. I started picking up on strange nuances he had. On more than one occasion I've caught him staring at himself in the mirror for 10-15 minutes at a time. He pulled a no call-no show once because he decided to stay up all night drinking and was to hung over to go into work. Prior to that he had called in fake sick a few times. He dated another coworker of my husband's, but told her she wasn't pretty enough to be his girlfriend but it was okay, because he still wanted someone to booty call. I could go on and on about how irresponsible and arrogant Nick is, but I'd be here all night.

The bottom line is that the kid has no boundaries. He started drinking again in the past month because his case got thrown back into court after he couldn't afford to pay his treatment fees when he spent all his money on Christmas shopping. Last weekend, Anthony and I came home from a Trailblazers game to find Nick drinking vodka shots after my husband explicitly told him we didn't want him drinking in our home. When this kid is drunk he sounds like a broken record, constantly restarting a conversation every five minutes. My husband ran to the store, leaving me with Sir Drinks A Lot, who followed me around the condo blabbing on and on about nothing important. I went into my room, shut the door, and called Anthony because Nick had made me feel uncomfortable. About 90 seconds later Nick knocks on the bedroom door and starts to let himself in before I can say anything. Who does that? Seriously, what if I had been changing my clothes?

We asked Nick to find a new place to live back in January. He didn't take us seriously at first, so he really didn't start looking for a place until a few weeks ago. When we found out we had to move, we absolutely knew we did not want him coming with us. I was really hoping he'd be gone by the time my sister visits in a couple weeks, but I'm losing hope. I think a celebratory night out is in order for the day that kid does move out. Until then, the great debate has commenced, to roommate or not to roommate again? Obviously we would put the person through a more detailed screening process but is it worth it? I have to say, the idea of watching a movie in my underwear sounds so appealing.

Lola, Lolita, Lola-sun

Let me just preface this by saying: I love my puppy. I love the way she chases her tail. I love the shape her mouth makes when she chews on her bones. I love the way her butt moves when she trots. I love her speckled black nose. I love that her ears have stayed soft as she loses her puppy fur. I love the way she stretches her paws out when she first wakes up. I love how pretty her markings are. I love how her tail wags when she's excited. I love that she gets hiccups all. the. time. I love that she is curious about the world around her. I love when she randomly jumps in my lap to be pet. I love that she loves water. I love her attempts at playing tug of war. I love how she bats around a ball. I love all the kisses she gives me when I come home from work and get up in the morning. I love that she's discovered her reflection. I love how sweet and innocent she looks when she's sleeping.  I love my puppy! But she drives me absolutely crazy!

She's so naughty and stubborn. I feel like I've exhausted every form of discipline and training. Spray bottles, saying 'no,' positive reinforcement, time outs, teaching her 'off.' None of these things have worked with her. She's completed puppy school and is ready for the intermediate class. I decided to wait a month until after we move to make sure I had the time, attention, and, well money. Even the commands she's learned, she's begun to only listen part of the time. She's developed really bad habits such as counter surfing, noshing on my undies, harassing the cat, attempting to steal food from our plates, jumping on us, chewing on shoes and jumping on the coffee table to name a few. She used to charge and scratch at the bedroom door at night until I borrowed a hinged baby gate from my brother-in-law that completely blocks her from the door.

We've tried crate training her but she has really bad separation anxiety. Every time we leave her in it, whether for an hour or 4, she poos in it and gets it all over herself. She cries, howls, paces while she's alone. We tried playing soft music, giving her lots of toys and chewies to keep her busy, covering it with a blanket, putting our other dog in a kennel next to her, and even giving her a t-shirt I slept in. I shower her with toys and different kinds of bones that she only loses interest in days later. She bites us often, especially now that she's cutting her molars, sometimes it feels as though she'd rather bite us than her bones.

On top of all these things, I think the worst problem is that she refuses to poop outside. Or rather, she refuses to be house broken! She pees on about 95% of her walks but turns around and pees again 30 minutes later in the house. I will give her this though, she very rarely goes in random spots in the condo. In other words, she almost always uses the puppy pee pads. There was a time when she didn't even do that. She's 5 months old, shouldn't she have a stronger bladder by now? I would think she would be able to hold her pee for longer periods of time. Ugh, this dog!! I'm ready to trade her in for a new version.

Luck Would Have It

 Thanks to my husband's brother, we are officially a two car household again.When the water pump on my Stratus went out in June 2009 and the gear box on my husband's T-100 was having issues, we just didn't have the cash to get them fixed. It's been almost two years since we traded in both our vehicles for our Focus. It's also been 2 years of negotiating rides and schedules to get from point A to point B and back again. It was an extremely hard adjustment for us to equally lose our vehicle independence. Between his ever changing schedule and my regular babysitting jobs on the weekends, we bickered often about driving arrangements. Long story short: he was not a fan of me dropping him off and picking him up from work and occasionally having to ride his bike to work. He always wanted the freedom of having the car with him while I felt driven to support our family as much as I could. Those conversations ended in frustration more often than not. 

Lucky for me (please note the sarcasm in this sentence) Portland is the mecca of public transportation. I rode public transportation every day for a year and a half to get to work, spending upwards of 2-2 1/2 hours a day walking, waiting, and riding. Meanwhile, my husband happily drove himself to work, to play, and if I was lucky, to pick me up from work on his days off. I finally got fed up wasting so much of my free time riding a bus, spending nearly 12 hours a day away from home, and found a lucky opportunity to transfer to a center that was within walking distance of our current home. 

When we found out we had to move right before the New Year, we knew our search radius would be limited. We had considered buying a cheap car from a friend, knowing that we would need to drop at least $500 on top of the initial purchase price to get it running after it sat in his driveway for nearly 4 years. I was apprehensive we would have enough funds to both move and get the car in working order. Fast forward two months, and my husband casually mentions the prospect to his brother, who happened to have an unwanted car sitting in his driveway. They negotiated a down payment of $500 with 5 additional payments of $100 on the assumption his wife would agree to the sale. That night my husband received a text from him saying "you can have the car." My husband interpreted his message that his wife had agreed to the terms. Eventually my brother-in-law calls him and luck would have it, explains that instead of giving us our original wedding gift of $1000 towards the down payment of our first house, which we are nowhere near ready to purchase, he would just give us the car, free of charge. I have to say my jaw dropped, my brother-in-law is by far my least favorite person, who has caused a lot of emotional and financial pain in the past. 

My husband, Anthony and I, are the lucky owners of a '96 Volvo wagon. My husband is super stoked. However, I have to say this car has had some rough owners, and unluckily we will have to drop some money into. Though the engine has been recently rebuilt, my husband is fairly confident with a little TLC, this wagon will last us a few years. And to top it all off, Anthony is so excited to have cargo space again. He has mourned the loss of his truck since the day he traded it in. I am so grateful for the door my brother-in-law has opened for us. I am simultaneously nervous about the extra expenses a second car brings. For now, I'm calling it our belated wedding present.