I am going to win TWOHUNDRED AND TWENTY MILLION DOLLARS tomorrow…

… in the Mega Millions lottery that is. I am totally going to win it all- I can feel it. I need to think about what I am going to do with all that money. Maybe I will post about that tomorrow morning??? =-)

First, I’m super excited because I recently found out that a good friend is pregnant!! So excited! Its funny- when I found out I burst into tears.

In public.

What. A. Dork.

Whatever… they were happy tears! I am soooo excited; they are going to be awesome Moms!

Moving right along…

Jillian is yelling in my ears right now through my MP3 player… and guess what she is talking about?

Motivation.

Perfect timing Jillian, thank you! Chocolate will be the death of me! I am soooooo fiending chocolate right now. How do I move past this!? I know I have to keep my eye on the goal but sometimes it’s just hard. So when I finish writing this I am going to go to the gym. I have to- I don’t want to be fat anymore.

Speaking of being fat- my job is contributing to my weight/food issues. Every 2 months we have a new menu for the account that I manage and part of the cycle change is tasting the food.

Key word- TASTING.

I must have forgotten that key word because clearly I did more than “taste”. It wasn’t anything really bad or fattening, I just didn’t need it. There was grilled chicken breast with blueberry jus, Cod with carrots and aritcoke, and Stuffed Gnocchi with mushrooms, spinach and a veloute (basically butter and a little stock) sauce. Sounds good doesn’t it?? Yep, apparently my gut thought so too! That’s okay- tomorrow is a new day and I will work out hardcore tonight. I will move pass this and reach my goal weight... you just wait and see!

I AM NOT GOING TO BE FAT ANYMORE!

Whew. Glad I got that off my cheast! Off to the gym…

I am pooped!

I was reading a really cool blog the other day- Natural Weight Loss Blog: The Token Fat Girl and she mentioned Jillian Michaels’ (from the Biggest Loser) podcasts and how awesome they were. I love Jillian anyways… but the podcasts are the kick in the ass I needed! I listened to a couple of them the last two days at the gym. I thought it would be weird working out with without music, but it was actually really good. It made me want to work out harder. And I did. Today, my butt and legs are literally aching! Hopefully I can keep that going. I am going to weigh myself again Friday Morning- my fingers are crossed!

I had some luck on EBay- I sold another bridesmaid’s dress. That is a total $74.98 that I have made so far from selling stuff that sits in the back of my closest. Pretty awesome!

I am so exhausted-Good night Blogosphere!

Should I be mad?

My girlfriend hasn’t read my blog yet. I told her about it when I started writing it a couple of weeks ago, but she never looked at it.

Okay, to be fair, I should give you a little bit of a background on her. First, she didn’t really know what a blog was or why the hell someone would want to spill their guts out to a bunch of strangers. Second, she hardly ever gets online… she pays bills, and looks for watches and sneakers on eBay… that’s about it.

Okay, so I’m the kind of person who is always curious about what other people are thinking. Call it nosey if you want, but I just think people are interesting. She is the exact opposite, she isn’t nosey, and she doesn’t gossip or eavesdrop… she is fine with not knowing.

I guess I am annoyed because if she was writing a blog, I would be reading every single thing she wrote. We have been together for a long time -going on 5 years, so she knows everything that I write about before I write about it, but that’s not the point.

Why isn’t she reading it!? She’s not even interested- she forgot the web address. WTF!

Now it turns into, “I don’t want you to read it anymore, because you are only reading it because I am mad that you’re not reading it-so read it if you want but I don’t care anymore!”

Hahaha… ok, is it just me or do I sound a little crazy?

Whatever.
I am mad. She is supposed to want to read it- that’s what significant others do right?

Yes it is, but you haven’t met my girlfriend.

Ms. I’m so laidback- not opinionated-not judgmental-everybody loves me- perfect athlete-not confrontational-and cute while I’m doing it.

Now I just sound bitter. I hope she doesn’t read this. ;-)

I just need a quick nap, really, just a refresher cat nap.

Okay it wasn’t a cat nap. I slept for 5 hours. I came home from work today (yes I work on Saturdays- I work Tuesday through Saturday) completely exhausted. All week I had been going to bed too late and working later than usual and I guess it finally caught up with me. Especially with the manual labor bullshit the last couple of days. (Sweating a work is not cute… ever.)

I unusually leave work early on Saturdays, but today it was just one thing after another. I had an employee accident… this bonehead got hit in the eye with a metal carrier. So I had to fill out 80 freaking pieces of paper, send him to the clinic, and call in to into our accident hotline and report the situation to some b*tch who hated her job (you know what I am talking about- the I hate my job so much that I’m going to be rude to you lady.) All this happened after I worked up a sweat from moving pallets around (AGAIN!), so I was already annoyed. I finally got home around 5:30pm. I said hello to my girlfriend, told her I was cranky and went upstairs to take a nap.

That’s the last thing that I remember.

I woke up confused feeling like I was supposed to be some where. I looked at the clock and it was 10:30pm! What the hell! It’s Saturday night and I go to sleep before 6pm. Oh well! It’s funny too because I am totally about to go back to sleep!

Since I was up, I thought I would write while I watch Food TV. (Yes, I am a Food TV junkie… and HGTV. What?!) You guys have a wonderful night… I hope your Saturday was more productive than mine! =-)

I have an announcement to make…

…I lost 1 lb!!

I am down to 204 lbs. I’m getting closer to being under the 200lb mark…hallelujah! I have never really been thin (smallest was like a 10/12 in high school and college) but I just recently tipped the scale over 200 lbs… well recently meaning the last 2 years or so, but anyways, I really need to get back under 200… there is something scary about being over 200lbs.

With that said, some friends and I are getting together tonight for dinner and a movie. My roommates (My girlfriend and my Bff) and I have a $100 gift card to a local restaurant… so I have the financial diet part ok… now I just have to be conscious of the weight loss diet. The movies is going to be tuff… can you enjoy a movie without popcorn and milk duds?? Okay, I’m just kidding, I know I can enjoy the movie… truth is I don’t want to waste the $20 I’ll wind up spending for all that junk food, so it actually works out pretty well.

The more stingy I am with my money the less crap I eat… hhmm, there’s a new theory!

I also have to mention that I am so excited that more people are reading my blog! Writing is so therapeutic; I never thought I would get so into it. And to know that people are reading my random thoughts and can somehow relate… very cool! So thanks for reading!

Random Babbling part II

Busy at work again today. It’s amazing; I go weeks BSing the days away and now that I have really gotten into this blogging thing I’m busy all day long and don’t get a chance to write. I shouldn’t be complaining…. Be happy you have a job!!

Soooooo….. today is PAYDAY!! WOOOOOOO HOOOOOOO!!!


I took the advice from Ms. flirty *almost* 30 and paid on my highest interest rate credit card instead of the order that I initially had planned. Guess how much I paid to that stupid 19% credit card (credit card #3)??

FIFTY-ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS!!! $5,100…. Crazy!

I mean I have made big payments before, but not quit this big. TAKE THAT MASTERCARD! =-) Very liberating. I did a quick estimate on how long it will take me to pay off all my credit card debt and I am now down to Feb. 2011. Everything (not including my student loan) was schedule to be paid off by December 2011….. so that means I shaved off 11 months!! I am feeling pretty damn good!! Plus I still paid $650 on credit card #1 (my expense refund plus my regular payment) and I will pay the balance off with my next paycheck. Looks like this get out of debt thing might work after all!

About my other diet, you know… the weight loss diet…. I didn’t work out today BUT I ate really well today, and I wound up doing some manual labor at work today. Not just pushing papers around, I mean like using a pallet jack kind of manual labor. Let’s just say I broke a sweat. I wasn’t aiming for a workout at work today, but I guess that is what happens when companies downsize… we downsized a little too much!

One more thing before I go to sleep, my BFF sent me this article today "Lambda Legal: Lambda Legal Sues Florida Hospital for Mistreatment of Deceased Lesbian’s Family"… it’s really upsetting. I know I talked about they gay thing yesterday… and I wanted to keep it light today, but I really need to bring this up. I can not imagine what this family was going through. These 2 women had been together for 18 years and had 3 children, they even had healthcare powers of attorney but according to the hospital and the state of Florida, that didn’t matter. Because they were a lesbian couple this woman had no visitation rights, they wouldn’t even accept medical information from her because they were not “legally related”. WTF! Her partner died alone because she was banned to the waiting room with their three kids. I’m sorry, I don’t care who you are or where you are from…you can not tell me that this kind of shit is okay?! This kind of thing may not happen often and it may not be broadcasted in the daily news, but the fact that it has happened even once should be reason enough for same-sex marriage/civil unions to be legal in every single state in this so-called “free country”. How can you justify this? It’s scary; it’s real life scary shit. Nobody, I mean Nobody should ever, ever be told their relationship of 18 years, that their three kids, that their family isn’t right or worthy just because they happen to be of the same sex. Didn’t we do this already with the race thing???

Ok, that’s it… I said my piece, I’m gonna get off my soap box now.

Random Babbling

I am pooped! I was super busy at work today, and then I dragged my ass to cardio kickboxing for an insane workout! I’m glad that I went; I really need to drop this weight. I just added a weight tracker at the bottom of my page, so maybe that will be motivation for me.

Anyways… on to my EBay sales recap.

Out of the 6 items I posted, I only sold one. But at least I sold one… that is better than nothing! I re-listed 2 of the items (which are listed in the sidebar to the left) since yesterday was super-cheap listing day at EBay. I figured I would give it another shot. I reduced the price a little, so maybe that will persuade someone to buy my dress and shoes. If that doesn’t work then maybe I will try to sell it to a second hand shop? We shall see.

While we are talking about making money… tomorrow is payday! Remember… my bonus!? (Read yesterday's post if you don’t have a clue what I am talking about) I’m super excited about paying off some bills!! I will update my debt tally tomorrow… hopefully I won’t be too busy at work. I can’t wait to see the numbers magically shrink!

On to some current events…

Have you guys heard about Ms. California in the Ms. USA pageant??? I’m not really sure how I feel about it. I do respect her for standing by what she believes; everyone is entitled to their opinion. But I’m sorry, her opinion is stupid, prejudice, and completely ignorant …. And that just my opinion! Yes, she was polite when she said she believed marriage is between a man and a woman, and I understand that not everyone will agree with my lifestyle, or Perez Hilton’s for that matter, but I wonder why. Why don’t you agree with it Ms. California? Is it because of what your religion has led you to believe? Or what your parents told you was written in the bible? Ms. California, you really should see the movie "For The Bible Tells Me So" , I think it would clear some things up for you. In the meantime, I will keep you in my prayers.

It’s been a long day… good night world. Oh, and Happy Earth Day!

The tax-man ate my paycheck.

I should be more excited right now. I mean, I am happy… super happy, but WTF! Is it really necessary to take that much money out in taxes??

I need to elaborate.

I just found out that we are finally getting our bonuses at work for 2008. Woooooo hooooo!! I haven’t mentioned it at all because I didn’t want to jinx it. There had been talk around the office for the last few weeks, so right after our last pay period ended, I went into our payroll system and changed my exemptions from 1 to 5, thinking this should help soften the blow from the tax-man. Our finance chick sent me a text message last night saying that my bonus was 17% of my annual salary! I suck at math, but my calculator says it should be about $8200 give or take! Awesome! I’ll be able to pay off at least 2 of my credit-cards!

Wrong.

When I got into work this morning, the finance chick printed out my prelim pay-stub for this week, my gross pay is listed as $10,110.38 (SCORE!)… I scan the printout trying to find what will actually be deposited into my account…

I almost fainted; $6886.44.

Okay, I don’t want to sound ungrateful but this amount not only includes my regular bi-weekly pay, it also includes my expense return from my Dallas trip. This means, that out of my $8200 bonus, I get $4602.91. COME ON! That is ridiculous! That’s effin’ 45% paid in taxes!!!

Don’t get me wrong, I am still very excited, because it is money that I didn’t have. But just the thought, if I would have changed my withholdings to exempt instead of freaking 5 I could have paid off TWO credit cards plus some!! (Okay, I might have been pissed come tax-return time next year... but I still would have made out better!)

No point in dwelling on what ifs.

Now that I have gotten that off my chest, I can focus on the positive.

I do have $4600 to work with, so I will pay off Credit Card #1 ($418.15 from my expense return, so I’ll have to take $735.39 from my bonus.) That leaves me with $3865, so I will put that towards Credit Card #2 bringing my balance down to $3822. Not too shabby! I’ll have to plug in the numbers, but this also means that I will have my credit card debt paid off earlier than I anticipated!! This is really good news!

Okay, I’m happy again! =-)

About me…

It's so hard to describe who I am in a few paragraphs.... but here is my attempt. Thanks again for reading!

About me…

Plastic Surgery...

Watch me cut-up my credit cards. I finally did it!!

Weight-loss diet VS. Financial diet

No, my name is not “Lola Adams”. So the facebook thing may be more difficult than I thought. I want to remain anonymous… well because people are crazy and I’d prefer to not have an internet stalker. Not that I’m interesting enough to have a stalker, but you get the point. So back to the drawing board on that one.

Anyways…

In the mist of trying to get this blog thing together and work and being sick and trying make some extra money I have kinda put weight loss on the backburner. Good news though, I keeping steady at 205! I haven’t been eating bad, but I haven’t been going to the gym enough. One thing about me, I gain weight just by looking at food, so I have to work out regularly. I guess that is the norm though.

I have a theory about all this…

Excessive debt and being overweight have a direct correlation.

I mean think about it, you get stressed out because you owe all this money, so you eat. THEN you get stressed out about being fat so you “buy yourself a little something” (a trip to Barnes and Nobles, a bag or shoes or some other accessory- because clothes never fit right). Then you feel guilty about spending money so you are back in the refrigerator looking for a “friendly” little snack to soak up your troubles! It’s a vicious cycle! So how do you break it? Can you be on a weight-loss diet and a financial diet at the same time?? I am certainly trying; I’ll let you know what happens.

What do you think?

I GOT A BID!!

Someone put in a bid on one of my dresses!! I’m sooooo excited, I can’t even take it! It must be The Secret working. I thought I was going to be sad to see my stuff go, but I’m not; I happy to see some extra money coming in! I still have more stuff to post on Ebay… so maybe I’ll see some more action!

Here’s to you msdaisy64 for putting in the first bid!

HTML what??

This blogging thing is very addicting and time consuming! I am in the process of trying to change my layout. With the basic layout that I am currently using, I can’t add tabs that would redirect you to another page with more information about me. Lucky me, I don’t know enough about HTML editing so trial and error is the way that I am going. I was at home all day yesterday and I looked up at the clock and it was already 9pm… I had been on the computer for like 6 freaking hours and I was still stuck!

Today, I have written myself a to-do list so that should help. I really want to get more people reading my blog so I’m in the process of creating a Facebook page and maybe I’ll start “tweeting” on Twitter. I’m not getting any hits on my EBAY listings so I need to come up with something to create more traffic on the sites. This is like a full time job! It’s fun though, because I KNOW (I’m using the secret) that I will dig myself out of this hole!

Thanks for reading! Please check out my Ebay listings! (links are to the left)

Ebay...

So, I have gotten ONE item up on Ebay! Only one so far, it’s so time consuming. I consider myself pretty computer-savvy, but I’ve never sold anything on Ebay, so it’s a learning process. I took a bunch of pictures this morning so I will post some more items for sale later on today or sometime tomorrow. I have another Bridesmaid dress, 2 pairs of shoes (the ones that I wore with the bridesmaids dresses) and an autographed Laili Ali t-shirt that I dug out of the back of my closet. I know have more things that I can sell, but I first need to do a little spring cleaning to figure out what’s worth selling. Every penny that I earn from these ebay sales are going directly to my smallest credit card balance… the faster I can pay it off the better!! Please check out the links to the left… thanks for checking it out!

Happy Easter

Happy Easter everyone! I had an interesting Easter experience today; I volunteered with Hosea feed the hungry with my BFF. I have volunteered before, but never working with the homeless. I’m glad I did it, but it was very emotionally draining. I mean I’ve see homeless people on the street and I given a dollar or two to the guy hanging out at the intersection right off the highway, but actually having a conversation and asking about their background? Never. It was disturbing. I didn’t know if I was going to cry or give someone my wallet. And soooooo many of the people I talked to were veterans. Veterans! I mean they served our country for God’s sake! It’s sad no matter who the person is, but I guess it hits a nerve with me, because my father is retired Army; he enlisted at 17 and served for 20 years. I remember when he came home from Desert Storm. I haven’t really talked about my background much, maybe I need start from scratch and reintroduce myself…. Maybe that will be my next post? Anyways, I am getting off subject, the point is, it’s really, really heart wrenching. This experience makes me what to do more, if I can some how help one person just a little bit, it’s worth it. My blog is light-hearted and fun, for the most part,... nothing too heavy. But after a morning like today it makes my shit seem so miniscule. Everyone has their story. Here I am bitching about being in debt (that I created) and being overweight, and there are people out there, in this country, the wealthiest country in the world, that don’t know how they are going to get their next meal, or where they are going to sleep tonight. How can we justify this? Yes, some people made bad decisions, and some people get stuck in a place so bad that it seems impossible to recover, but does that make it okay? I guess that is Capitalism, but don’t even get me started on that. I guess what I am trying to say is, be grateful for what you have and were you are in your life, because there are many, many, many people who have it much worse.

Join the revolution?

I’m finally getting on the bandwagon. I need to setup an ebay account asap, I have so much crap, the first thing that I am going to put up for sale is my Bridesmaid dresses. Any plus size girls need a dress?!

Also, I heard through the “blog-vine” that someone by the name of “broke bride-to-be” started a blog not too long ago asking for donations to help pay for her wedding. It totally made me think of “Save Kayrn”. I LOVED that book, Kayrn is the reason I even started writing a blog. (It turns out to be good therapy too!) So the question is; should I ask people for donations like Kayrn and Broke bride-to-be? I haven’t decided yet, I kinda want to do it on my own, but at the same time, HAVE YOU SEEN HOW MUCH DEBT I HAVE? I am pretty anal about being organized, so I have a very detailed budget and debt pay off plan, so if I stick to it I will be free of credit-card debt by June 2011. I’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, I’m going to start selling stuff and see where that gets me.

Isn’t it ironic…

OMG! I totally forgot to mention my relapse irony (see April 4, 2009 post). So I have been tracking my sister’s birthday package online. Lucky me they “attempted” delivery yesterday, but no one was home to accept the package (the lady at the post office failed to mention that it has to be delivered into someone’s hands and won’t be left in a mail box! I ♥ USPS). So anyways, I talked to my Mom and she did receive a package pickup slip, so I’m thinking, “Awesome my sister is going to get her birthday gift on time!” Wrong. My Mom informed me that she can’t pickup the package until Saturday because the Post Office is closed for Good Friday. SHIT! I fell off the wagon for nothing.

I'm back...

I’ve been M.I.A for the last few days; I had to go out of town for business. I traveled to the “lovely” state of Texas for a menu meeting. I had a great time until I got sick. I guess it was the change in weather… 45 degrees to 82 degrees does the trick. The meeting was pretty awesome; there were 14 Chefs, and 3 account managers. First of all, being in the same room with that many chefs is always entertaining, and second I got to cook with them! This trip made me want to go to culinary school even more. One day.

I think I relapsed...

I have been doing so good, haven’t used a credit card in like 53 days, and I totally fell off the wagon today. The worse part is that I used the one credit card that I still carry in my wallet at the POST OFFICE!! My little sister’s birthday is next Friday and being that she lives in another country, I can’t procrastinate when it comes to sending gifts. I procrastinated. It was suppose to be a quick and inexpensive trip to the post office, but when I finally got up to the counter after waiting in line for 20 freaking minutes I found out that I had 2 options; 6-10 business days for $2.80 or 3-5 business days for $27.95. Her birthday is next Friday, so that is 5 business days. I have $28.17 in my checking account until next Thursday; can I live on 22 cents for 6 days? Ugh. Guess which one I picked? At least it wasn’t something selfish like shoes or a bag, right? Yes, I could have gone the cheap route, but what if it takes 10 days? I was up until 2am yesterday making her birthday present (I made her a home video on windows moviemaker!), I will be damned if she doesn’t get it on her birthday! So $36.35 later I’m sitting in my car kicking myself for falling off the wagon (I bought a book of stamps too. What?! I figured if I’m gonna use my credit card I need something tangible to show for it!). I know you are thinking 36 bucks isn’t a lot of money….well, it is when you are on a tight budget and EVERY penny is accounted for. Plus, I just spent $76.83 at western union to send her 40 Euros for her birthday (It’s amazing how many fees they charge!!) I actually considered just going to the airport buying the 40 Euros at one of those currency exchange places and just send it with her birthday gift, but then I had a flashback to the time I sent 300 Euros (in the mail like a DUMB ASS) and it got “lost” and she never got it. That still makes me sick. So anyways, I’m hoping my big ass back on the wagon…Restart the clock, back to day 1 credit-card-less.

New URL

I finally found the perfect url..... "saveashopaholic". Perfect!!

I was just randomly poking around on the internet and I found out that Julie & Julia has been made into a movie!! How cool is that? I loved this book... I hope the movie is just as good. It comes out August 2009, I can't wait!

I’ve been reading other peoples blogs all morning… very interesting. I was trying to change my url and everything that I typed in was already taken… sooooo, I had to see what other people were doing with the urls that I wanted. Come to find out, most of the blogs were old…. Like the last posting was from 2005. Seriously? Like quarterlifecriss… apparently I’m not the only one having one, because a lot of people wanted that url. It’s funny because the urls that I wanted must say something about me… , almostthirty, quarterlifecrisis, screamatthetopofyourlungs, howdidigethere, financialdiet, 20something. Lol… so I wound up with http://yellatthetopofyourlungs.blogspot.com/. I must be angry or something!

I lost 5.5lbs!

Wooo hooooo!! I got on the scale this morning and it read 204.5! I need to get under 200lbs ASAP! Just thought I would share that, I am headed to the gym for Cardio Kickboxing!

P.S. There was birthday cake at work today and I didn't touch it! lol