Chipped Polish & Wornout Jeans

Sometimes I think I want too much out of life. And I don’t mean little things like the fact that I’d love to have more readers on my blog (although I really would) or finally mastering some recipe or losing the fifty or more pounds I need to lose. I want to do so much with my life, and some of it is all so different.

I want to change the world, make it better, and I want to practice law. For so long I’ve wanted to be a lawyer, and I’ve done as much as I can to make that happen. I’ve given up so much to do it. I feel like I lost Jake to my own ambition because I left before I should have; if I had stayed in TN just one more year instead of rushing off at the first change I got, maybe things would have turned out differently for us, and then maybe I wouldn’t be so lonely. But that’s not the point. The point is that I so desperately want to be a lawyer, and I’m so afraid that I may never become one. I don’t what I’d do with my life if I couldn’t go to law school and become a lawyer. I’d give everything to be able to do that.

But I also want to bake; I want to make amazing cookies and cakes. I think it would terrific to be able to make these fabulous creations that make people smile when they see them. How does that add up? I mean becoming a lawyer and owning a bakery, or maybe just a small shop that sell custom orders only. I love baking, and I love being able to be creative in the kitchen. I had so much fun baking my niece’s third birthday cake, and I would love to keep improving. My Grandmother offered to send me to classes to learn stuff, and I’m really tempted to take her up on that offer. It would be great to be able to really decorate cakes and to make those beautiful and adorable cookies I see on other food blogs all the time.

When I said that I want too much out of life, I meant it. You see I want to write. I mean really write. I’ve always been passionate about the written word both reading it and writing for myself. It should come as no surprise that I have read thirty two books towards my goal of reading one hundred books in the year 2012. Someday I’d like to be published. I’d like to write something amazing and brilliant, something worth reading. I have folders full of unfinished works that I just haven’t been able finish. I have so many ideas, and I just want to write everything.

I want so much, and I’m so afraid that I want to much. I want to write and bake and practice law. I want to be happy most of all. I want to be happy.

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In other news I have a new obsession. You can find me on pinterest! I don’t know what makes it so fabulous, but I love it.

Don’t you just hate it when you find a brand of clothing that just fits perfectly, only to have it discontinued? I have been wearing Arizona jeans for years, mostly because they are inexpensive while still looking nice. Well it appears that will no longer be the case. If they stop making shirts, shorts, and skirts, I’ll really be in trouble. Most of my wardrobe is Arizona, which is probably not a good thing, and I only own a few nice long sleeves shirts and sweaters. I have no clothes for warmer weather. I have two nice tank tops and three nice short sleeve t-shirt type shirts; I have no shorts, and no nice tops. Meanwhile I think I own one skirt, a short white eyelet number I bought while dating Jake because I wanted to be a girl for a change. I’m not even sure that the skirt will still fit me, and in any case, my thighs are so fat and my legs so pale that I highly doubt that I will be able to wear it ever again. Besides, I have no reason to dress all girl again at the moment.

I mentioned the fact that Arizona may be discontinued. Well, this leads to any number of problems, one of which is the fact that I have had to seek other brands for jeans. I went two Saturdays ago on a hunt for jeans, and I wound up with Levis. That is not the point of this entry. The point is that I had a minor breakdown over my body in the middle of Dillards because I felt fat and ugly. Let’s put it this way; I hate having to hear the words ‘we don’t have that in your size’ or any variation of that sentence. It never means that everything is too big. All my life I’ve dealt with it. I’ve put on a brave face and pretended it didn’t bother me for a long time. But lately my body image issues have been so terrible that putting on a brave face doesn’t exactly work for me. Sometimes I just can’t. Two sales girls asked us if we found everything alright, and I lied and said yes, even though I wasn’t having an easy time finding pants in my size at all. My grandmother was with us, and of course she tells the girls no that I’m having trouble ‘finding jeans to fit me’. From there it was go go gadget emotional breakdown, and I exited the store through the nearest door to avoid sobbing in the middle of the juniors department.

Here’s the deal, clothes for women my age, early to mid twenties, are generally one of two things: expensive or cut too small for me. I’m a curvy woman with wide hips, a big butt, and a decent bust line. I’m also built tall and long, meaning that everything is too short. I have to buy jeans labeled ‘long’ and unless I flatten my stomach shirts are impossible because my torso is long too. I have broad big shoulders and a wide rib cage, which makes me feel like I’m built like a man most of the time. I don’t feel pretty, and I’ve never felt pretty. It isn’t fair, but it’s what I deal with daily. I want to dress in something other than t-shirts and jeans, but it’s very difficult when clothes are cut narrow and short. My wardrobe staples are jeans, t-shirts with either sponsors for the race cars or my nerdy vintage green lantern t-shirts, and tennis shoes. None of that is remotely feminine or sexy at all.

I started to want to look more feminine when I was maybe a junior in high school, but I’d always been a tomboy. I love clothes and I love doing my nails now, but when I was thirteen and fourteen, all I cared about was four wheelers, horses, and the great outdoors. I didn’t know how to balance it, and I still really don’t. Suddenly I wanted to feel pretty. I wanted boys to like me and think I was pretty. But most of all, I wanted to feel like I belonged. By the time I was in college I was completely on my own again. My boyfriend lived in another state, and I was scrambling to make friends. I had no reason to dress up other than for mock trial, and that only required a black suit and heels.  When my boyfriend returned I wanted to be pretty again, remind him of why he started dating me, but I wasn’t very good at it. I’m still not good at it.

I’ve improved some I suppose. I know how to put on eyeliner and make up, and I know what does and does not flatter me. I like to paint my nails, and I don’t mess them up as much. But I still feel unattractive most days, and I feel like my clothes make me look even worse.

The ugly honest truth is that from a young age women are taught to be at war with our bodies; we are taught to hate their appearance and to want to be prettier, thinner, and more perfect. We are bombarded with images of rail thin women, shamed for being overweight, and told that feeling fat or unhappy about our appearance is a silly problem that can simply be handled by eating less and working out, even if it isn’t that simple. If we don’t conform to a certain image we are often shamed and mocked. Worse than that, we are taught to judge other women by their appearance; we are taught to hate those prettier than us, seeing them as competition, and mock those who do not conform to the predetermined and predefined concept of attractiveness. It makes for difficult for women to form relationships with each other, and it’s a recipe for eating disorders and self esteem issues.

It’s something I struggle with constantly; I am nearly twenty-five, and I have severe body image issues. I’ve had them since I was perhaps sixteen, and they’ve gotten progressively worse. They can be absolutely crippling, and there are days when I can’t stop myself from crying for hours; I have trouble looking in the mirror, and I rush to get dressed so that I don’t look at my reflection. I’ve had days when I’ve fallen apart because of my weight, and nights when I’ve cried myself to sleep. It’s exhausting, and the longer it goes on, the worse I feel. The sad thing is that society sets us up to feel dreadful about ourselves, and instead of fighting it we fall in line. It’s hard to fight back, especially when you feel worse everyday.

It’s easy for people to crack jokes and say it’s a ‘first world problem’ to feel fat and ugly and want to hide your body because you hate it so much. Especially when they don’t feel that way every day. It makes it hard to go about your life when you can’t stand to see your own reflection. I don’t want to look in the mirror or get dressed because I don’t want to see my body. I wear giant hoodies that three sizes too big so that you can’t see how big I am, and I literally cry myself to sleep some nights because I’m so afraid I will never be pretty enough and that I will always be too fat and too ugly to be wanted. And then you hear or read things where people say that you’re being too sensitive about your size or a fat joke or that you’re just upset because you’re not skinny enough to wear something made for someone so much smaller than you as if that means you’re just jealous and that you should just eat less and stop being a fat ass.

Hating your own reflection is like carrying around a massive weight on your shoulders, and everyday it gets heavier until you collapse under the pressure. That is the ugly honest truth. I wake up in the morning and when I look in the mirror all I can see are the flaws. I see fat and stretch marks that will never go away; I can’t see anything else, and it breaks me a little more every day. I have never felt pretty, never felt beautiful, not once, and I'm exhausted. I’m so sick of being fat; I’m so sick of hating my reflection and never feeling pretty enough. Anytime I lose weight, I just gain it back and then some. I can never wear cute clothes.  I’m sick of my reflection making me cry; I’m sick of finding new stretch marks on my thighs and stomach every day or seeing them get worse. I look like I’ve been pregnant or something, and those things may never go away. I’m fat, and I have ugly marks all over my body. And this is what I deal with on a daily basis.

One of my goals for this year is to read one hundred books; Kushiel’s Dart is the first among them. I will be tracking my progress on GoodReads, and I am going to make a conscious effort to broaden my reading horizons. And now, without further ado, here is my first review.

I've read a great many reviews of this book, and many of them were very off-putting. They all said the same things; sex seems thrown in at random, the writing is repetitive, Phedre is a whiner, word choice is very poor. I will admit that Carey abuses the word phallus as if it is the only word she knows for male genitalia, and I also freely admit that Phedre was an initially whiny narrator who can get rather repetitive. The book does start off slow, as Phedre provides an information dump that lays out her parentage and explains the Houses, but once she reaches the age of ten, the story begins to pick up and move at a decent pace. However, none of this deterred my enjoyment of the novel.

I particularly liked that Phedre wasn’t your typical heroine; she isn’t a princess locked in a tower who picks up a blade to defend her home, and she isn’t a girl masquerading as a man in order to fight. From the beginning she is completely honest about who and what she is, and I loved that about her character. She is a woman, through and through; she is a courtesan, in a world full of finery and pretty that hides darkness. Behind the beauty and sensuality of her world and lifestyle lurks treachery and danger, and Phedre uses her wits and her skills to survive.

I thoroughly enjoyed the refreshing change of having a female protagonist whose sexuality and femininity was empowering and important; so often we see female characters tossing aside their femininity to masquerade as men or having their femininity treated as a weakness. Sexuality is rarely portrayed as a good thing, and there is often a great deal of shame thrust upon openly sexual female characters. Such is not the case here. Instead Phedre's sexuality is embraced and is in fact a powerful and important aspect of her character; having a hero who is a sexual masochist was daring, and I applaud Carey for being able to do so without turning Phedre into a slut. I was particularly impressed by the way that she humanized Phedre and showed both the positive and negative sides of her life as anguissette, especially when she was forced to become a bed slave.

The sex scenes were well done and were handled in a tastefully, though those that were graphic in detail are not for the faint of heart, Phedre's experience with Melisande and the flechettes for example; many of the scenes were simply fade to black, implying what took place instead of spelling it out in graphic detail. None of her encounters seemed thrown in for the sake of adding eroticism to the novel, and each served a purpose toward forwarding the story and developing Phedre as a character. Even her relationships with others, especially her companion Joscelin, are shaped by these encounters, and by allowing Phedre to be trained as an extremely keen observer, Carey is able to show us how other characters' views are shaped by Phedre's role as courtesan and spy.

Often with first person narratives, the protagonist is developed at the expense of other characters, but such was not the case here; through Phedre's keen observations we are able to learn a great deal about the individuals she encounters. Her friends and companions, as well as her teachers and enemies, were well developed, and because the reader learned about them as she did, the development felt more natural and less like an unceremonious information dump.

The world building in the novel is exquisite, and Carey creates a world of both beauty and  darkness; it is fairly obvious that she is building using Europe as a base, with her primary location of Terre d’Ange being based in France. A good world build is as important to me as good character development, and Carey does not disappoint. The D’Angelines have a rich culture with a religion based upon angels fallen from grace, all following an angel known as Elua; The central idea behind their religion is “Love as thou wilt” embraces sex as a spiritual act and not just a physical one, and Carey does an excellent job of handling this idea without turning it into a tawdry idea of sex everywhere.

I do wish to address what many have complained is the pedobear seal of approval on this book, in that children are accepted into the Houses at the age of ten, where they are trained to become courtesans. Do I approve of the sexualization of children? No. However, one must remember that this is a fantasy novel, set in a time period that harkens back the medieval period; children matured much faster during that time due to shorter life expectancies. Also, since the primary focus of the tale is Phedre’s journey it is important to remember that she is brought into the Delaunay house at ten, but she does not begin her training to become a courtesan until she is fourteen when she dedicates herself as a servant of Namaah; she does not lose her virginity until she is sixteen.

The novel was rich in detail, and while normally I am turned off by first person narratives, Phedre was an engaging narrator for the most part; she does begin as sort of a whiny brat, but as she matures, so does her voice, making her more relatable. The political intrigue can be very dense and hard to follow, and I found myself wishing I had taken note of which characters were enemies and which characters were allies. Kushiel's Dart is an engaging and lush novel, filled with intriguing characters and sharp plot twists and narrated by a unique and captivating woman who's emotional growth rings true.

Vain and Gratuitous Picture to update you on my appearance (edited in photoshop out of boredom)

But the problem with a blog when you have no life is that you have nothing to write about. Most of the time my life consists of playing in Photoshop, occasionally writing on novels that may never be finished, tons of reading, and cooking (lots and lots of cooking). Just a reminder, I talk about my culinary adventures at A Taste of Joy, and I promise to update that blog more often. In fact, my goal is to blog more from now on, and hopefully I can manage that.

Before I start with the updates on what little has transpired in the life of Nic, let me begin by saying that this blog will hopefully become a lot more interesting. I’m not going to be blogging about major political issues or anything like that, though I may talk about important issues that have been on my mind a lot, but I am going to hopefully talk more about life as I experience it. This includes blogging about the books I read, the movies I see, things I see, and things that happen in my life. Whether or not that will be interesting or worth reading is yet to be determined, but writing used to be a great outlet for me; I intend to let it be that again. So on with the blogging.

As I mentioned earlier, I have been doing a lot of reading, and you can find my Goodreads updates both on my sidebar and by visiting my account. I’m open to book recommendations and friends there. I plan to blog more about my literary adventures, including reviews of sorts of the books I’m reading.

Currently I am halfway through a re-read of George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones so that I can move on to reading A Clash of Kings, and it’s one of those books that is so dense and rich that reading it a second time gives you more to love. Let me take a moment to talk about this book in general, without giving away too much, and then when I’ve finished I will write an actual review.

Martin’s writing style is very heavy, and he tends to be very wordy; however, for me that is not a deterrent so long as the story continues to move forward at a decent pace, which for the most part he does. He has a sort of Joss Whedon wickedness about him, in that you will fall in love with characters only to have them viciously taken from you via death. But his characters are deliciously human, and even the villains are realistic. I absolutely love that there are characters to love, characters you’ll love to hate, and characters you find yourself cheering for despite misgiving. The story rotates through their various points of view, which can be very daunting, and some of his chosen narrators leave a lot to be desired (I’m looking at you Sansa Stark, you little simpering whiner); however, each narrator weaves a brilliant portion of the overall tapestry, bringing their subplots and motivations.

The world is richly developed, and while there are underlying elements of high fantasy (dragons, direwolves, magic, and the mysterious Others), the fantasy aspect is cleverly worked into the overall story without bombarding the reader. It is not a book for the squeamish or those uncomfortable with sex, violence, and death, but I highly recommend it for fantasy lovers who want something thick and detailed to feed a need for heroes and villains.
Other books I’m reading:

• Eona by Allison Goodman
• Brisingr by Christopher Paolini
• Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey

The only update I have for now is that I have two mapped out but unfinished barely started novels. One is a futuristic dystopian work called NeverWonder and the other is a historical fantasy work that has yet to be named.

When you are a child you don’t realize how much more there is to losing a loved one than their death. You don’t see the extent of the sickness if they are ill or the difficult choices about medical treatment and care. You only know that your loved one is gone. Being an adult and dealing with it is so much more difficult. I’m learning that now as I sit here, blogging from the hospital room where my Nanny, a woman who has been a very large part of my life, is slowly dying. My Nanny is possibly suffering from a very rare degenerative neurological disease called Atypical Motor Neuron Disease; it is incurable and will eventually claim her life. This has really affected my family, especially my mom who was always close to her mother, and that tears me apart because I am very close to my mom, to the point that I will go to blows with people who mess with her. The family drama that is happening due to crappy relatives only makes this worse.

Right now, as I sit here, my Nanny is dehydrated and a bit emaciated because she cannot eat due to her inability to swallow and she made it very clear that she did not want anything invasive like feeding tubes; my mom and I come and stay at the hospital almost everyday, and early in the week we were actually sleeping at the hospital because we weren’t sure she was going to last the night. We are practically living in the hospital room at the moment. The sad thing is that, while we don’t want a pat on the back or anything, no one seems to appreciate the way we are sacrificing and suffering, and instead either we are ignored or it is implied that we are doing this out of a guilty conscience. We have nothing to be guilty about because we have always taken care of Nanny and been there for her. So all of the drama that is happening on top of my mom losing her mother. Soon I will only have her recipes and the memory of her voice, and I’m not sure how to handle it. I love my Nanny, and I will miss her so much; I already miss her. That is why I’ve made up my mind that the bakery and sweets shop I plan to eventually have will be called “A Taste of Joy” in honor of Barbara Joy Smith, my Nanny, the woman who opened my eyes and introduced me to the joy of cooking.

When I was younger, only about eight or so, I lost my Granddaddy to lung cancer, and I remember only understanding that he was gone. And when I lost my Pa and then my Papa within a few months of each other I was in high school; I was not involved in the decision making process or any of the drama that happened afterward. Now it is entirely different. There are people who must must be called and choices about her care, and most of that is falling to us; the problem is that those who don’t want to make the choices are not happy with the choices we make. It is a painful vicious cycle, and it feels like we simply cannot win. And while I know there is no real victory here, I simply wish there was a way to make things better for my mom, who is suffering because she is losing her mother. I wish my family hadn’t lost their ever loving minds and decided that this is the perfect moment to stir up drama and cause fights, and I wish that we could have peace in this family for once because it is something my Nanny has always dreamed about.

I guess I’ve been thinking too much again. I’ve all but given up on ever getting to be with Jake, although I miss him terribly; I still do not know what happened, and I still wonder if he left because I was a mess. I can be so harsh and abrasive, and I’m a mass of contradictions and trouble; I came with baggage and damage because the one person who’d promised me forever lied to me, cheated on me, and never had the courage to actually end the relationship, and I got scared a lot. Sometimes I feel like I was way more trouble than I was worth. I know I should move on because that would be the wise decision, the strong choice, but I have yet to get over him, even though it has been well over a year since he said it was over. My heart still break when he crosses my mind, and there are times when I need to hear his voice telling me it’s alright, and I know that can’t happen.

It seems others haven’t given up hope; my mother swears that he’s going to come back, though I find that hard to believe. She says that he still loves me, but I highly suspect that she is simply saying things to make me feel better; I’m sure that he’s moved on, and I hope he is happy. He is good man, and he will make some very lucky woman very happy; I hope whoever that woman is, she is grateful and kind and loving because he deserves that. My grandmama, who fell in love with him the moment she met him, is convinced that I will turn around and there he’ll be; she firmly believes that I just have to be patient and he’ll be back. I don’t think so. A tiny part of me still hold out hope that he will call me or show up, and I occasionally have these stupid heartbreaking dreams where there’s a knock at my door and I open it to find him standing there, waiting. I’m sure that someone else has come into his life, someone less damaged and crazy, and he’s happy. She probably swears less than I do, and she’s probably more of a lady than I’ll ever be. I think my nanny still secretly hopes that he will come back because he was smart and funny and well mannered and everything a good Southern man should be.

I will admit that there were times when the only bright spot in my day was the sound of his voice on the other end of the phone or a text message saying hi; no matter how crappy my day was, he could make me smile. I could be crying and miserable, and he’d make it better. I have moments, when I’m in tears and falling apart, that I reach for my phone and have to remind myself that I can’t call him, that he won’t answer, and he certainly will not come and kiss my tears away. I miss his smile, his laugh, the way he had so much faith in us and in God and in everything; I miss the way he held me tight, and I miss the way he’d sing in my ear when I was feeling terrible about myself. I miss the way he understood me better than anyone else, and he knows more about me than anyone else in the world; I shared all of myself with him. I just miss him. (I know you probably aren’t reading this, Jake, but on the off chance you are, I miss you, and I still love you.)

I’m trying hard not miss him so much because missing someone who isn’t interested in you is pointless, but it isn’t working. I’m trying not to wish we were still together, but it’s almost impossible. When he walked out of my life, I lost my best friend, which sounds really cheesy, but it’s true.

Guess who’s size thirteen jeans are getting to big? Ok, so I guess that sounds like a ridiculous thing to brag about, but for me the fact that my jeans are too big and that I needed to get a tighter belt is a huge victory. I hadn’t been paying much attention to my progress, mainly because I haven’t had time or really been out in public worried about my appearance. Too busy with the remodel and website to care. However, I’m pleased to report that I am approximately one third of the way to my weight loss goal. I’ve lost thirty to thirty-five pounds, which only leaves me with about fifty to lose! I know that sounds like a tiny amount to brag about considering how much I need to lose, but I’m so excited by the fact that I’m making any progress at all.

I’ve taught myself to eat healthier and pay more attention to portion control; this means that I can eat less and still be full! To be honest, my dietary habits were pretty atrocious before, and a great deal of that has to do with the fact that as little kid my family sort of let me eat whatever I wanted. Part of being Southern is the idea that we bond over food; I tend to blame it on the scarcity that came from the War Between the States (That’s Rebel for Civil War). This leads to the fact that people expect me to eat a great deal more than I do now; I used to eat piles of food, and I’m pretty sure only my metabolism and active childhood kept me from becoming dangerously overweight. This fact brings me to my point.

It’s difficult for me to maintain my healthy diet and eating habits when I have my family breathing down my neck about me not eating enough. On more than one occasion it has been insinuated that I am starving myself to lose weight because I ate small portions, and suddenly people seem to notice when I refuse to eat things I don’t like because it makes my already small meals look smaller. Being constantly told that you don’t eat enough can be just as bad as being told that you eat too much. 

So it’s been a very long time since I updated this blog, and for that I apologize. (As if anyone is actually reading this anyway.) The problem with running  a blog, an actual one and not my Tumblr, is that I have very little to talk about lately; I don’t like to write about my failure to get a job, even though that’s been pretty much the only thing happening for me. I hate this economy so much right now. I also don’t want to write about my continual emotional rollercoaster, mainly because it’s boring and definitely something no one would be interested in reading. I will however be blogging more often, no matter what that means, because I find writing to be cathartic and healthy.

So as per usual, we carved pumpkins tonight, though instead of my father doing them, it was my brother and I. Here is a picture post detailing the carving.

 

 

  

 

The pumpkin that looks like it wants to eat you is my brother’s work, the slightly tipsy wobbly creation is mine. I decided to give him a bad eye.

Blogging is hard; sometimes as badly as you’d like to write, you have nothing to say. And rambling about how your day sucked just doesn’t cut it. I honestly have had trouble coming up with things to write about lately. I hate to blab on and on about nothing, which is pretty much what is happening right now. I mean, I suppose I can give a brief update, but that’s about all I’ve got.

Halloween is Tomorrow: I’ve got two pumpkins and a ton of candy. I will carve the pumpkins some time tomorrow and hope that we get a few trick or treaters. There will probably be maybe ten I will have lots of leftover candy. Hopefully I’ll have pictures of the pumpkins.

NaNoWriMo Starts Monday: National Novel Writing Month! I am participating this year, and fingers are crossed that I actually pull this one off; I’m going to be working on Redemption.

I have a cooking blog: Check out my cooking adventures at The Sassy Southerner’s Kitchen.

In the land of Nic there has been much unrest. Mostly due to the fact that the job market is for crap. I have resigned myself to looking at retail and temp work since I will not be working in law school. I got some well meaning but bad advice from people, and never got a job during school. "Focus on academics" they said. Well I did, and while my grades were very good, I have zero work experience; this adds to my difficulties in a fairly large way. The main problem around here is that no one is hiring, not even for part time. The temp agency show only jobs looking for two to three years of specific experience for the job. I guess I will just have to keep hunting.

The great sink hunt has come to an end, as has the hunt for a faucet; we ordered the sink this morning and it should be here soon. Operation remodel is about to commence and its going to be massive. Paint colors have been selected, as has the flooring and backsplashes. Everything has been picked out and slowly but surely we are collecting the supplies. It will not be long before the project actually begins. With the racing season coming to a close for my father, except for a reruning of the BG Combo early next month, there will be lots of tearing down and repair and making of messes.

Fall has arrived, with weird hot and cold weather habits, and I am sitting here in my hoodie and jeans, sipping water, nibbling a nutrigrain bar, and listening to music. I realize that it has been well over two months since I last sat down at the laptop to write something for a post in this blog. I am ashamed. But I just haven't had much to write about really. Life has been boring and uneventful; all I've really done is some cleaning and work on applications for law school again. So here's watch you missed for the last two months:

The job market for law clerks and legal secretaries, which is pretty much the only reasonable paying job that a woman with a political science degree focused on pre-law and a year of law school under her belt is qualified for, is for crap. I know that is not an eloquent way to put it, but its the truth. I've called friends, family members, my doctor who has a whole family of lawyers, friends of my parents, and no one can afford to hire me. I've got a great resume (minus the lack of work experience), but I keep hearing the same thing over and over. My academics (minus last year) and extracurricular activities and skills make me marketable, but the economy makes me expensive apparently. Stupid economy, stupid job market, stupid times, my friends. So I am still jobless, despite all my attempts.

I am learning to code, and it's not as hard as I thought it would be. A lot of it is memorizing tags and where they belong, then common sense and trial and error to move and place things. Why am I doing this? Well, I got volunteered to build a website for my uncle's business, and, because it's family and there was a promise of a little fundage, I spent some of my amazon gift card money on two books on html and css. Becoming a code monkey, that's what I'm doing. I also got photoshop and illustrator, and I am attempting to learn to use them to make graphics. If anything I have managed to make something useful out of my free time.

I do believe that I have lost an inch or two in my hips because my size 13 jeans are just a bit droopy folks. My calves, oh my calves are a beautiful thing. They are tight and tones and strong. However, my midsection is still stubbornly refusing to shrink. (Well maybe it is and I just don't notice because I am angry with it for being so ridiculously chubby and slow to shape up) But I'm trying to be patient. As you know, patience in not and has never been one of my strong points. I am practicing portion control, and that's not easy. It is getting better because when I don't over eat I feel better and I'm getting to the point where I don't have to eat as much to be full. I am walking as often as possible, and jogging when I can. Lately the weather has been uncooperative and I've been kind of sick (weather change + Nic's allergies= no fun) But I am trying to get back on track.

After discovering the ridiculous amount of clutter stifling me in my little bedroom at Casa de 'Rents, I went on a cleaning spree. You see, we are finally going to begin the much anticipated remodel of the house, and its going to dominate my time. Walls are being repaired and painted, new wood flooring (no more carpet), new flooring in the bathrooms, new appliances and cabinets in the kitchen, and we are finally going to get the washer and dryer out of the kitchen area. That is all going to begin very soon, in fact, it will begin as soon as the small loan is processed, and that knowledge got me to thinking about my room, which was still full of boxes from my move back from L-Ville. I cleaned the room and started putting books away again, which is when I discovered that it was clear that my granddaddy had not anticipated the fact that I would be such a massive bibliophile when he built my bookshelf once upon a time. I had to actually redo the entire thing and store some books I never read, just to make room.

The only problem is that I will have to pack it all up again once I move out next year (Good Lord willing, I get into law school again). Which brings me to my final point. I am applying to only schools in TN, and hopefully I will get into the one in Nash-vegas so that I can either get into an apartment in the Boro or Nash-vegas instead of moving to Knox-vegas or Memphis; if this happens where ever I move will more than likely become a permanent residence for awhile, allowing me to stop being a nomad and settle into my own place. When this happens, I will get awesome cooking supplies, and I plan to start a cooking blog. I will still keep this one for personal blogging, but I will also run a blog devoted to my cooking adventures. Speaking of cooking, I think I am going to go have some fabulous tomato soup, now, out of a can of course.

Note from Nic: This blog is getting a fresh new look ASAP. It may stay black and white, but a new background and banner should be coming soon.

I am not the kind of woman who can just say "I'm going to lose this weight and lose these inches", and it just happen for me like magic. I don't have the metabolism and what not for that to be possible. I also get frustrated and discouraged about my body too easily. (I know, I know, but Nic you are always so fiercely defensive about being strong and confident.) So instead I have to work at it, a lot. I have to make myself exercise everyday; I don't have the luxury of saying "I don't feel like running today or going for a walk or lifting weights" and then picking it up the next day like I didn't cop out. I also have to motivate myself, especially because I am so impatient and easily discouraged. I have to set goals and really work to achieve them.

On a side note, among the things that do not motivate me: Bali Fitness commercials and the idea of going to the gym. Here's the deal, I honestly have a problem with body image. Not an extreme problem that causes me serious issues, but a problem. I do not like to go work out in public because every time I've gone to a gym or even a public work out area on a campus, I wind up surrounded by these trim, skinny women, and well, I get all uncomfortable. The idea that I am this huge fat pig sweating next to all these healthy, trim women, makes me feel disgusting, and I feel like I'm being stared at. I know that it's not the case, and I know that these other women probably have to work out and eat right just as much as I do to look like that. But the fact remains, I feel awkward and unpleasant. Bali Fitness Center commercials remind me of this problem, and thus, they also fail to motivate me. It's a flaw, and I'm working on it.

Back on track, I am working to motivate myself, and I do it mostly by setting goals and tracking my progress. I bought these little foil stars a long time ago for some stupid project, and I've still got a ton of them. The stars come in five colors: red, silver, blue, green and gold. I've got a calendar that hangs on my wall by my bed. These two things add up to part of my tracking system. I put a green star on days when I when I get out and either go for a run in the neighborhood or walk the neighborhood. I put a blue star on days when I also lift weights. There are silver stars when I increase my workout in some way, like walking or running a bit farther than usual. Gold stars are for days when I meet a goal.

So here are my current goals:

• Lose fifteen to twenty pounds total by my birthday. That should equate to losing at least a pants/dress size.
• Lose thirty to thirty-five pounds total by October. That should get me down at least two or three pants/dress sizes
• Lose the forty to fifty pounds total that I need to lose to be down to a healthy weight for my height and bone structure by the end of the year.

Well ladies and gentlemen of my readership, what few you are, today is the day I stop procrastinating and start getting healthy. I know I've said it a thousand times, but this time I mean it. This time it's become a neccessity, and it's going to be a priority. I know that this seems melodramatic, but my dear readers, I have had it with hating my reflection. Once upon a time I was merely out of shape, now I am down right fat. I am angry and disappointed in myself for ever letting it get this far. The time had come to stop letting my hips, waist, butt, and thighs expand. I am 22 almost 23 years old for heaven’s sake. There is no excuse for me looking like this. None at all. So I'm going to set some rules, just some basic things for me to remember.

Rule One: No more excuses for not working out or doing some sort of exercise. No more of this it's too hot outside to go for a run or a walk. Even if I'm cramping so badly that I want to cry, I will do some sort of exercise.

Rule Two: No more of this nuerotic obsession with certain parts of my body. I'm going to think of this not as "Holy mother, I need to shrink my huge thighs and chubby stomach", but instead I will think of this as I need to trim down all over and get healthy. I know that I need to lose wait, but instead of focusing on OMG FATNESS, I'm going to focus on getting into shape.

Rule Three: No more being a snack/treat nazi to myself. Instead of swearing off all sweets and all snacks (which only makes me run out and binge when I get the chance), I'm going to think of it as a reward. I worked out and got something done today, so I can have a piece of cake or a cookie or a candy. As for snacks, I will have a snack between dinner and supper, but only then, instead of saying no snacks ever.

Rule Four: I will only measure my waist, hips, and chest once every two weeks. I will not focus simply pounds lost, but rather on inches lost. This is not just about losing fat; it's about rebuilding muscle. I will measure success by dropping pants, dress, and shirt sizes, and not just on dropping 30 plus pounds.

WARNING: This post will be image heavy

It's been awhile, but I figured I would show off my awesome baking adventure. This morning I made All-Bran Muffins. (Yes, that's All-Bran like the cereal) These fabulous muffins are something my grandmother makes, and for awhile I thought they were some secret R family recipe. But nope, they are actually from a recipe my Grandmother found on the box one time and she adds raisins and nuts to the mix. These muffins are fantastic because they are very healthy and very filling.

So I present to you All-Bran muffins:

Lesson learned from today's baking adventure: disposable foil muffin tins are not a good idea for these because the muffins are heavy. Also, these muffins will explode when they hit the floor hot because they are soft.

I am such a terrible blogger; I haven't updated sufficiently in ages because that Peter Pan post totally does not count. Lagging to no internet connection and nothing interesting to write about leaves me little in the way of content. Anyway, I am sitting here now, with the internet working much better, feeling my shoulders tighten slightly. Yesterday Erica and I took her daughter, Kaylyn, to the lake to go swimming. Have I mentioned just how much I love that little girl? Technically I'd be considered a second cousin, but because she really doesn't have an aunt, I am Aunt Nic (well, Aunt Laura because that's my first name). There are no pictures because its impossible to take pictures when you are up to your neck in lake water and getting splashed by a one year-old. She loves the water, and we spent about an hour pushing her float around and letting her play. I didn't get much tanning in, just burned my shoulders a bit. By this weekend, my shoulders will be all brown though. Nothing else to report except that I now sell Mark. Cosmetics.

“The way I flew? Do you know, Jane, I sometimes wonder whether I ever did really fly” “Yes, you did.” “The dear old days when I could fly!” “Why can’t you fly now, mother?” “Because I am grown up, dearest. When people grow up they forget the way.” “Why do they forget the way?” “Because they are no longer gay and innocent and heartless. It is only the gay and innocent and heartless who can fly.” ~Peter Pan, pg 222

In case you didn’t catch it the title and opening quotes are in reference to Peter Pan and the location of Neverland. It’s sad but Peter Pan made me realize how jaded and cynical I’ve become. We read it for my children’s lit class, Children’s Fantasy Fiction, back in undergrad, and I bawled at the end when Wendy had forgotten how to fly because she grew up. I’ve grown up too… I don’t remember how to fly anymore. And when Peter said he’d teach her how again, but she told him not to waste his fairy dust on her, I almost died. I won’t ever fly again. I’ve grown up and forgotten and can’t be retaught. I’ll never remember; I’ll have but fond memories of the days when I could. I want to fly away to Neverland and fight pirates with Peter… that sounds good right now. I want to remember how to get there and how to fly. Long ago I used to fight pirates with Peter. I used to go to Neverland and play with the Lost Boys. I want to go back there. “Second to the right, and straight on till morning” That’s where I’ll go.

But the point of this entry is that I know that many people have forgotten how to fly. They’ve stopped believing, and that’s very sad. I clapped loudest when I watched the play; I clapped for Tinker Bell, who I believed in with all my heart. But lately I’ve come to realize that my clapping has grown softer, my innocence has faded away. People all around me have stopped clapping; they’ve stopped believing, and that is a tragedy. They’ve forgotten Neverland and Peter, and Neverland is childhood and hope. Whether you believe it or not, J.M. Barrie was right. We all know Neverland and Peter; we all flew away with him and fought pirates and redskins and played with the Lost Boys, and eventually we all flew home and grew up. “On these magical shores children at play are for ever beaching their coracles. We too have been there; we can still hear the sound of the surf, though we shall land no more.” The main problem is that we will never land on the shores of that dreadful paradise again, where adventure would sweep us away, and we would be free and innocent. Neverland is not a safe place all the time, and our companion Peter Pan is careless and cruel at times, but it is a paradise to be certain.

Maybe it is that we grow up too fast now, achieving adulthood and abandoning Neverland before we should. Forgetting our old adventures as we discover the troubles and difficulties of adult responsibilities, which are much more difficult to battle than the pirates of our youth. Once upon a time we fought pirates and redskins, we defeated Captian Hook and watched as he fell to the crocodile. But we don’t remember that; we don’t remember Tiger Lily or the Neverbird. We’ve forgotten. And I cry for us, for our past. I do not wish to be Peter, who is still a little boy, but I do wish I could remember how to fly, just once, and head back to Neverland for another adventure.

Deep within us, there is a sprinkle of fairy dust and a happy thought, and that will let us fly. In the shadows there is a boy in a garment of green playing the pipes or brandishing a dagger. He’s crying as he tries to stick his shadow back on with soap or perhaps he’s crowing with glee and delight. Some night while you are sitting in your room, you’ll hear a crow and the window will blow open and a boy will drop in on the floor. He will be the same as ever, and he will have all his first teeth. Now he might forget you from time to time, but you mustn’t forget him, for he will come back eventually. He is a careless little boy. Peter doesn’t change, we do. But if you listen closely you can hear him whispering to you.

So this is a difficult post, but I promised myself that I would write about everything. So here goes. Sometimes in life we make choices that we think are right but in the end turn out to be wrong. Sometimes what we think is the smart move turns out to be a mistake. I am experiencing that now. I got a letter, in June of last year, telling me that I had been accepted to law school in L-ville; after much deliberation I decided to go, even though it was not where I really wanted to attend. At the time most people were encouraging me, and there was always an opportunity to transfer later. So I packed up my life and made the long drive up north; I left my family, my friends, and Jake. I thought I could do it, that even if the situation was difficult and unpleasant, I could power through three years. I was wrong. It was a mistake. I started feeling out of place almost immediately. The minute I started talking and folks sort of stared because I had a funny accent and used strange colloquialisms. I didn't belong there, but I took a deep breath and held my head high, pretended that I didn't need to feel comfortable. I was wrong. I knew something wasn't right, but I tried desperately to power through it. That was a mistake. Leaving was a mistake. I was so unbelievably wrong. Do I regret it? No. I firmly believe that regret does nothing for you. No regrets, just lessons learned. So what now? I guess this is a year of no school for me, which means hunting a job and paying my loans. Hopefully, things will settle again, and I will figure all this out.

I made a huge mistake, and it had so not so pleasant consequences; it feels like right now God is giving me a reset, taking me back to before this happened. Not a rewind or restart, but a fresh start. I need that. I know, short entry is short, but I don't really feel like writing in length about this subject.

I am sitting here looking around at the boxes that hold my life. That's sounds funny, but its true. Exams are over, and I am packing up the apartment to move back to the Boro for the summer. My lease is up on the eighth, and I'm moving out either Wednesday or Thursday. Mama is drivin' up to help, which is awesome, especially since there is no way that all my junk is going to fit into one Blazer. I was going to move this afternoon, but the flooding happening everywhere makes that impossible. I'm not going to write about packing though. Instead I'm just going to do a stream of thought entry about all the things that have been on my mind, and maybe I'll throw in a brief note on my plans for the summer.

I am not the woman I was several months ago when I came to Louisville, and that is both a good and bad thing. Back in August when I arrived in L-ville I was wide-eyed, ambitious, and excited. Law school was an adventure I'd been looking forward to for a very long time. It became complicated the second day of orientation when I soon discovered that my accent was a great deal stonger than most of the people there, and I was definitely a little fish in a great big pond. I got the feeling I was out of place. And it was a brand new experience. I was two hundred miles away from everything thing I loved and everyone. It was frightening and exhilerating all at once. As an undergraduate I could handle most of my classes in my sleep, and I balanced everything relatively easily. I was a mock trial captain and a college senior facing three years of more work than I could imagine, but I could handle it. Law school isn't easy, not at all; I have to work three times as hard as I used to, and I was on my own. Living on my own is not the difficult part; its the being absolutely alone, isolated from everyone and everything I am close to, that made life unpleasant. Even Jake and I felt the strain, and at that point, our relationship was still going strong. In December, my grades were not great, and, I knew I was here for the next two years. Things weren't weren't smooth anymore. And then I thought they were getting better, and I was wrong. I don't have Jake anymore, and that breaks my heart; I threw myself into working, outlines, case briefs, and learning the law, anything to keep my mind off what I'd lost. It hasn't really worked, and now the semester is over. I am leaving my first year of law school, and I am not really going back to the Boro the same woman. I feel like I've lost some of my strength, some of my spark. I'm all jaded and even more cynical than I was when I came here. I've lost some of my confidence, some of what made me, Nic. This summer I hope I can get some of that back.

This summer I am also going to lose this weight. I looked in the mirror after my shower the other day, and my reflection made me want to cry. I'm fat, and its disgusting. This is not a "I hate the way I look cause I can't wear skinny jeans"; this is a "I've gotten so big that it's unhealthy and disgusting, and I have to do something about it" thing. I'm not saying that the break up caused the weight gain, but I really started to gain all this weight after it happened. I guess its because I had nothing to do but work; its not an excuse at all though. I shouldn't have let this happen to me. I should've kept in shape; I should've taken better care of myself. I was pretty much wallowing, and it does not suit me well. I'm angry at myself, and I'm disappointed in what I have done to myself. I have to fix this; I look terrible and feel just as bad. I can't stand it any more.

The idea for this summer is to catch up on my reading, do some writing, get a job for the summer in the Boro, work on jewelry, and practice with my camera. It's not exactly the summer I was so looking forward to when the semester started, but I will make the best of it.