Just Be Honest

I exercised again last night. I am 2 for 2 this week! Last night, I used a video that I bought. And you know what...it wasn't that bad. It's called "Tank Top Arms, Bikini Belly and Boy Short Butt." I would like all three of these attributes; so , hopefully this video delivers.


My one gripe about these home workout videos is...


The instructors are so saccharine sweet it gets on my nerves.


"That's it, you're doing great!"
How do you know I'm doing great, you stupid tv lady!


"Doesn't the burn feel good?!"
Uhhh, no. If the burn felt good, everyone would be doing this. The very fact that it's called "the burn" shows that it's not a pleasant feeling!

"Give yourself a hand, you did a great job!"
Fuck you, why would I clap for myself in my living room.


No, I want a video that tells it like it is...

Video Title: Get Up Off Your Couch, You Fat Ass!

Ok, if you keep going, your ass won't jiggle when you walk!

Do four more reps if you would like to get rid of your arm wing span!

I know squats hurt, but in the long run your thighs won't burn from the heat rash that you get when your thighs rub together when you walk...KEEP SQUATTING!

I understand crunches SUCK ASS, but unless you want to continue to look like the Michelin Man, I suggest you keep crunchin' away!

And once you have reached the end of the workout...

OK ladies/gentlemen, you actually did something good for yourself. I know it doesn't seem like it at the moment, but once you are able to breathe again and you have soaked up the puddle of sweat that you are standing in, I want you to go in your kitchen, get a garbage bag, open your cabinet and refrigerator and put the following items in the trash bag...

cheetos
kit kat
ben & jerry
ding dongs
ho hos
twinkies
etc...

Just to be on the safe side, if something tastes REALLY good...put it in the bag. Once you are done, tie the bag up, walk outside and throw the bag in the dumpster. Now, if you do this and continue to work out to Get Up Off Your Couch, You Fat Ass!, you will no longer have the tub of lard look you are currently sporting. See ya tomorrow!

Now THAT'S a video I would buy!

Until next time...

Mandy

Getting My Life Back On Track

Recently, I have been in a funk. Seriously, when I look in the mirror, the first thing that comes to mind is YUCK! Then I wonder, "How did I let myself get this way?" So, I decided that enough was enough. It's time to make some changes.

Change # 1: Quit Smoking.

DONE! I am proud to say that I have not smoked a cigarette since Wednesday, January 21, 2009 - 10:30am...yay me.

This has not been an easy 6 days. I have wanted to cry, I have wanted hit someone in the face (nobody in particular, anyone would do.) I have screamed at my computer for not moving fast enough, and i have chewed so much gum that I now have super hero jaw strength. Probably the hardest time was this last weekend. I DIDN'T GO ANYWHERE. I decided to stay home because there are no cigarettes there and if I left I would have to drive past the Valero where I always purchase my happy, little cancer sticks. I will say this...my apartment has never been as clean as it is right now. Seriously, whenever I wanted to smoke I would clean something. My home looks so pretty right now, that I've made my bed both mornings this week, just so my house can continue to look sparkly! It has been over 144 hours since my last cigarette, and each hour that passes is getting a little easier.

Change # 2: Eat better.

Working on it.

I am a big fan of the hamburger and french fries with the Coke. But, I have come to the realization that if I want to lose weight and feel better, then I have to stop with the fast food. For the past two weeks, I have been cooking more and bringing leftovers to work as well as healthy snacks like grapes, carrot sticks, trail mix, etc... And, I have noticed that I do feel better, not to mention I'm saving money...which is always a good thing.

Change # 3: Start working out.

UGGGHHH, I HATE WORKING OUT!!!

I hate the gym. I know this sounds totally irrational, but when I go to the gym to work out I feel like people are staring at me and thinking, "Gross, looking at that fat girl over there, sweating like a pig, and breathing all of over the elliptical machine totally makes me sick." Or if I take one of their aerobic classes I just wait for the instructor to yell out over the horrible, techno music, "Fat girl in the back...are you OK...we don't want you to have a heart attack!" So, I decided to start in my living room! Last night,I went to the "exercise tv" section of my I Control and looked for something that would ease me in to working out. (I haven't been a non-smoker for very long, I didn't want to blow out a lung on my first exercise tv try.) I found it...A WALKING video. I started reading the about section and it said that the video was 45 minutes long and it was for beginners. So I think to myself, "Walking in place to the beat of music...Beginner...How hard could it be?" The first part of the video was not bad, I was a little winded, but I was keeping up. Then the bitch said, "OK, not it's time for some sculpting exercises." And I was like, "OK, we're going to slow things down and do some crunches or something, this IS a beginner video." We didn't do crunches, no, we did evil leg lunges. About 15 minutes into the video, my face was beet red, my hands were shaking, and breathing was becoming difficult. So, I screamed at the mutant, freak on the television and then turned it off. I have heard of people becoming addicted to working out, I wish I had that addiction. But, I will make myself do it again tonight when I get home...you never know, maybe I'll last 16 minutes.

Wish me luck!

Until next time...

Mandy

The New Picture

I got my Paw Paw a digital picture frame for Christmas, so I went through some old photo albums and pulled out some of my favorite old pictures and took them to Walgreens and scanned them all to disks. (Apparently, scanners have a shelf life of 1 year. Everyone that I knew that had a scanner told me, "I had one, but it broke after about a year. So I went to Walgreens.) After standing at the scanner in the photo section of Walgreens for about and hour, I received my three discs with 25 pictures on each one. So, after the pictures were loaded on the frame, I had three disks of pictures that I didn't know what to do with. So, I said to myself, "Self, why not use some of these as the header for your blog." So, that's what I did.

The picture I used during Christmas, the one with Paw Paw, Megan and me was probably from 1981 or 1982. The dress I had on was one that my Nanny made for me. When I was in the first and second grade, she made all my dresses. You see, back then, I refused to wear pants. If my mom tried to put blue jeans or pants of any kind on me I would start crying and tell her that "I didn't want to look like a boy!" Which, if you noticed how long my hair was, people thinking I was a boy was pretty much impossible.

The current picture was taken in either 1979 or 1980, as you can tell by the avocado green linoleum and the yellow Formica on the cabinets. Ah, the 70's such a colorful decade! Another indicator of the year, is the boots I'm wearing. My first year of dance was 1979-1980, I believe, and those boots were part of the parade uniform my dance studio had. Anyway, I was a HUGE Wonder Woman fan...I thought I was Wonder Woman. I would put on my Wonder Woman Underoos and my "go-go" boots and run around the house with my golden lasso, and fly around in my invisible plane. If you were a small child in the late 70's early 80's then you remember the joy an Underoo set brought, and if you were a girl in the late 70's early 80's then you HAD to have a set of the Wonder Woman. I have several pictures of me in these Underoos, and in each picture I'm standing the same way...the very obvious superhero pose.

So, that's the story behind the picture. Whenever I see it, it makes me smile!

Until next time...

Mandy

RANT!

**Warning, this post contains foul language!

Have you ever looked at a picture and immediately gotten pissed off? Well, that happened to me yesterday.

I was on Facebook again, and decided to look up my brother. He is actually my half-brother, we have the same father. Anyway, I was looking through his pictures and came across one of an old man and one of my nephews. I wondered who the man was, so I looked at the caption...Josh and Gramps and under that it said James. That's when I realized that I was looking at a recent picture of my dear, old dad. Let me preface the next statement with this statement...I am not a physically angry person, I've never been in a fight and I've never actually hit anyone in the face. But, at that moment, I seriously wanted to hit that man (the sperm donor, not the brother) in the face with a tap shoe. (I say tap shoe, because I've actually been hit accidentally with a tap shoe and it really hurts...) I'm not kidding, I would love to hit him right between the eyes SO HARD that he has the words Del-Tone permanently embedded on his forehead. That way, when people ask him, "Why do you have Del-Tone on your forehead he would have to explain to people that his daughter, that no one knows about, hit him with a tap shoe with the force of 32 years of built up rage. Don't get me wrong, I have had a great life and I have the most wonderful mother in the entire world. And believe me, my grandparents went above and beyond the call of duty for my sister and I. But, that doesn't take away the fact that I had a brother that I didn't know until I was 19, I have cousins that I've never met, I have another set of grandparents that were never around and now they're both dead so we'll never get to meet them, an aunt I barely know and an uncle somewhere out there. And you know what, the grandparents, the aunt and uncle are just as bad as the father was. When he and my mom got divorced, he disappeared...Didn't all this extended family wonder about us, or was it out of site, out of mind? Who knows, I figure it was their loss.

Oh, and...

Dear Jim:

You are a son of a bitch. And if I ever see you, don't be surprised if you get a big FUCK YOU, and a nice, sweet wave of the middle finger. And you better hope I don't have a tap shoe in my car.

Your daughter,

Amanda

Ok, rant over...I feel much better now!

Until next time...

Mandy

BONJOUR!

I recently joined Facebook, and I haven't decided whether I like it or not. It's kind of boring actually, but I have been able to find some people I worked with a LONG time ago.

Have you ever worked somewhere that you felt like all your coworkers were part of your family? In my early 20's I worked at the front desk at Hotel Sofitel Houston, and we were just like family. We would plan employee outings, if one of us had a party the entire front desk, bellmen, concierge and reservations staff was there. We looked out for each other. I worked at the Sofitel from 1996 - 1998 and it was probably one of the best times of my life. It was my first "real" job and my coworkers were the first friends I made outside of my high school friends.

I started working at Hotel Sofitel Houston in March 1996, I was 20 years old and all of my coworkers were between the ages of 20 - 25. My first day there I met Jeanette and she soon became one of my favorite people. In the months that followed, I became friends with Ricardo, Cynthia, Aaron, Delia, Wade, Ben, Ryan, Neil and Miryam. We would laugh and cut up during the lull between check in and check out. We would help each other not lose our minds or pull our hair out on sold out nights or checking in Continental Distressed passengers. On our days off, Jeanette, Cynthia, Delia and I would go shopping at the Galleria. The front desk agents, bellmen and concierge that worked the night shift would often go to Clayton's after work for a quick drink before we went home. And the Christmas parties...the Christmas parties were the best! The hotel management would assign each of the hotel employees a room so we wouldn't have to drive home after we drank at the party. I remember one winter, a cold front came through and all the roads iced over in Houston. My boss, Leo, told me that I was not to go home. So, I was stuck in the hotel for two days with only my uniform with me. Luckily, we were down the street from a mall so I could buy some makeup and Delia was nice enough to bring me some pj's. The only bad part of staying at the hotel was we were sold out at the time, so I had to stay in a room that was not available to guests...THERE WAS NO HEAT! But, I gladly shared my room with a coworker that I was "seeing" at the time. (Or a coworker that was using me at that time, I'll let you figure that one out.)

At that time, I still lived with my mom in Channelview and all the others loved making fun of my accent (which was a lot thicker than everyone else's) and teasing me about where I lived. I remember when King of the Hill first aired, Wade was nice enough to bring me some review or something that compared the residents of Arlan to the fine people of Channelview. Somehow, Cynthia found a Waffle House name tag and put my name on it. Now that I'm writing this, it sounds more mean than funny...but, I wasn't the only one that was teased, so whatever. We would all get together and do bowling night, night at the bar and we even did a scavenger hunt...Ricardo, Brian and I were the winning team and that's because I was the only one who knew where to find a french tickler!

I was at work in March 1997 when I got the phone call that Nanny had passed away. Leo (the boss) pulled me in his office and made me sit there until I calmed down. He found someone to come in and cover my shift and then drove me home. (He knew I was in no condition to drive, so he drove the 30 miles, one way, to take me home.) At that time, Aaron had moved to Chicago, but still found time to call me and send me a very nice note. My grandmother's death was probably one of the hardest things I've ever had to deal with and my friends at the hotel made sure I made it through.

You are probably wondering why I left such an awesome job, with great friends...well, I'll tell ya.

1. Hotels, as a rule, don't pay very well. I made less than $20,000 per year.
2. Hotels are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I missed spending holidays with my family and I really wanted to see what it was like to have a weekend off.
3. I fell in love with a coworker, that didn't love me, who eventually became my boss.

And that, my friends, is how I learned that you don't mix your personal life with your professional life...NOTHING GOOD CAN COME FROM IT.

But, other than that, Hotel Sofitel was the best two years of my life!

Until next time...

Mandy