Wow.

When in the world did I get 10 followers? And how many of them are spammers? Weird.

Anyway... I'm more than a month back from India and I am slowly crawling my way out of post-travel depression. I never really thought of this as an actual thing before. But looking back on my time in the UK and I realize that it is true.

I thought I wanted to come home from India. It was a rough trip for more than one reason, but with a few days of recuperating I found myself in a black hole. Crying, miserable, binging, sleeping, not sleeping, copping attitude at work, isolating myself. The I saw a photo montage of MM's project member's pictures. And the first thing I thought when I watched it, "I want to go back."

MM has no desire to go back - at least not before we get other places checked off our list and not anytime soon.

It was really hard going back to work and normal daily routines (my hot water heater and furnace both broke while I was away) after getting back. Everyone wants to know how the trip was. Putting it into words and painting an accurate picture is just impossible.

*Sigh* so here are the holidays. 5 Days til Christmas with MM's family. I'm really looking forward to time off of work. I want time at home to clean my house, and I want some time vegging at his parents place. Two and half more days of work...

Excited and Scared

I have a Dream Box. At least that's what I call it. I got the idea from a combination of dream board (goal board) and an anti-procrastination tool I read about. The idea is, when ever you get sidetracked from a project with thoughts of doing something else - "Why am I spending time on this, I should be starting my own business." - you write them down and put them in the box. Then they are off your mind, but not forgotten. I don't think that the time managment guru really expected that I would use the box the way I have - I even decorated it - but it works for me.

I filled my box with things that I want to do someday like:

Learn Spanish
Learn Sign Language
Go to Italy
Decorate my own place

Well, a little while ago I took one of those things out of the box because it's no longer just a dream. I am actually doing it in less than a week....

I am going to India.



I can't remember when India officially went on my list of places I want to visit. In high school I was obsessed with the Beatles and especially George Harrison. There is no doubt that India effected them. Then in graduate school I started reading the Dalai Lama's biography, who is in exile in India. At the same time I was working with a girl from India. At some point I just decided that this was a place that I needed to see.

I have to say that I am ridiculously excited to be going. I am going with MM and we are meeting my friend in her home city before going to New Delhi and traveling the "Golden Triangle." I am looking forward to seeing the Taj Mahal, and the Pink City. We are also booking a safari in Ranthambore national park (cross my fingers we see some tigers!).

At the same time I am really nervous to be going to a developing country. I know that there is terrible poverty. I have read about the beggars and the scams. I have heard about the stares and the "eve teasing."

Never-the-less, I am on my way. My passport and travel visa are secured, my vaccines obtained, and my flight booked. A few weeks from now I can officially cross "Go To India" from my bucket list and maybe replace that picture of the Taj Mahal with one that I take myself.

All is well that ends well

So, my strategy for dealing with this revelation about MM did not go well. And why would it. I wasn't upset about the anniversary thing. I was upset that he slept with somebody else (even if it was early days) and went to Europe with her (I have yet to do that with him and it's been 2 years).

Eventually on Sunday night we had another talk. Again, it wasn't going so well, and MM came out and asked where this was coming from. I thought my heart was going to pound it's self right out of my chest. But, in the end I came clean. I told him that I had done homework on his computer while he was out and that afterward I was looking at his pictures. He didn't get mad like I thought he would. And he was incredibly sweet about the whole thing. At one point he even offered to leave. Which wasn't at all what I wanted.

I felt immensely better after coming clean. I don't know if he did or not, but I know that I can celebrate our anniversary coming up without feeling sad or upset.

I went so far as to read some of my blog from the early days of our dating. I think I need to do this more often when I'm feeling down about us. I had something good. I enjoyed our dating for the first few months. It isn't until I start thinking our relationship should be something else that I get depressed. And usually it isn't even from a deep sense of needing or wanting something else. It's just an external "should" that I feel the need to meet.

Anyway... we're back to being good again. I'm hoping we keep it good for a while now.

Where do we go from here

I feel like a jenga game. My foundation is being taken away from me piece by piece and it's a matter of time before it all comes crashing down.

I tried to talk to MM last night but he was drunk and I don't think he remembers it now.

I'm trying to put these two separate MMs that I know together in my head.

On the one hand there is the guy I've known for two years who: gave me a toothbrush to keep in his bathroom drawer the first night I slept over which was the first night we had sex; always wanted me to spend the night; has told me the story of being angry with an x girlfriend for continuing to sleep with him and moving on to someone else after they broke up; told me he missed me during a business trip after a month of dating; got jealous when another guy put his arm around me at my birthday party a year ago; has friends who told me that MM loved me before MM did.

Then there's the guy who: didn't want to be called my boyfriend for the first 6 months of dating; talked about his evil X constantly for the first 10 months; told me he was going to New York for New Years, but actually went to Europe; has pictures of this trip with a girl on his computer; has other pictures of them in his current apartment kissing (he has never taken a picture like that with me.); tells me know that when we met he was not ready for a relationship.

In our conversation that he doesn't remember he told me that this isn't a road I want to go down - which tells me that I was right and he was seeing/sleeping with someone else (maybe someone elses) after we started dating. If he didn't do anything, then why would I care? I could handle dating... took someone out to dinner? drinks? a show? Fine, he does that with friends now. But if he fucked somebody while he was seeing me too... that I don't know if I can handle.

He told me that I can pick whatever date has meaning for me and he'll celebrate it as our anniversary. How can I do that? I don't really know when we started being exclusive. I know when I THOUGHT we did, but if he's remembering that time and it includes some other girl(s) then I certainly don't want to celebrate it.

I have been so psyched about having a 2 year anniversary with him. I've never made 2 years with out a break before. But if our relationship is really 2 years old then if was with someone else in that time, he cheated on me.

How could I have been so stupid?

I've done something really stupid...

I'm afraid to call or text a girlfriend because I don't want them to act weird about it later.

I'm at MMs - he planned a night out with friends, and I'm sick so we were hanging out together until he went to that. I thought I was going to go home, but he seemed to think I was staying the night so I did. After he left I got on the computer to do homework.

I know I shouldn't have. And I tell him all the time that I don't... .but I snooped.

It started because he didn't originally invite me out tonight. He said he wanted to catch up with people he hasn't seen in awhile. But I knew from Facebook (again where I didn't get an invite) that he had invited the girl I dislike who used to live across from him. Who I completely admit to being jealous of. I know she wants him and she's cute enough with enormous boobs which to me equals jealousy. I found a picture of her in his computer trash (yeah, already with the snooping) so I went to his pictures folder wondering if there were more.

Instead I found pictures from New Years 2009 when we'd been dating about 2 1/2 months - when he told he me he blew off plans with friend in New York to go to Europe and visit different friends. The time everyone told me to break up with him because he didn't tell me he was in Europe until he got home on January 4th. I found all of the pictures not just the 3 on facebook - all the ones with him and a girl. And they're not just friends - because they were kissing in some - and then I found others of them in the apartment together also kissing.

On the couch I'm sitting on right now. At the table I've eaten at before.

And I don't know what to do. Because I was with him. I was dating him and sleeping with him.

We celebrate 2 years in 2 weeks. We booked a trip going to Asia together in month! (Yeah, that was supposed to be a happy excited blog post once the visas go through). We have plans to go to Europe in the spring.

I tell him that I don't snoop. And for 2 years I didn't. I know that this is what happens. I'm upset and if I bring it up I'm a snoop. And if I don't I just fester. Even though it's over and he loves me.
But here I am crying and he'll be home soon and I don't know what to do.

The ones we love

I've been sitting on this post for awhile now because it's really hard for me to write. I don't know why. It isn't anything new or surprising, it's just that it has finally started to bother me on a fundamental level.

I went on a family vacation in July. Just my immediate family consisting of dad, mom, her new husband, my brothers, sisters -in-law, niece and nephew. MM did not come with me because of work and school obligations - there was just no getting around it.

I drove with one of my brothers and his wife. Everything was great on the drive there. He teased me a little bit when, at a restaurant we stopped at for lunch, I tried to get them to sub a pancake for the sausage links in a breakfast combo. They wouldn't. But whatever. All in all the drive was pleasant. The drive home was good too (except for losing my phone) they played what I wanted from their iPod for most of the trip and treated to coffee and donuts when we got stuck at a restaurant during a torrential down pour (1/2 the parking lot flooded!).

It was how he treated me during the actual vacation that I have a problem with. It started with the breakfast issue - telling my family that I had given her such a hard time that I made the waitress cry with my unreasonable demand for a pancake instead of sausage. Went to a joke about my inability to dress myself because I missed a button on my cardigan, and it got to the point where he even ragged my boyfriend's way of using a knife and fork (MM spent a good deal of time in Europe).

I realize this about my brother - he's great to me, until there is an audience. Then his need to be king of the mountain superior comes out and he turns on the weakest link he can find. It's usually me, but I've seen him do it to his wife too. It's not malicious. He thinks it's funny and just "good fun" teasing. Or sometimes it's about him being right about everything and everyone else just isn't as smart, enlightened, or knowledgeable as him. Although, the comment about MM came at a time when my brother was incredibly cranky, it was entirely uncalled for. My response, because at this point in the vacation I had completely had it, was "if you don't like it, don't look at him while he eats. Or better yet, don't hang out with us anymore."

The weird thing is - and maybe in the above case it was a blood sugar thing and dinner calmed him down - that when I pretend like I don't care about what he's saying or that he's not hurting my feelings, he calms down about it or stops entirely.

When I was in high school and college he used to be really mean to my cat. The cat hated men in general and my dad and brothers in particular. It didn't help that this brother would egg her on. It used to really upset me and I would complain about it - try to appeal to any sense of his love/like for animals, the fact that his would-be-wife had a cat - but he still wouldn't stop. He just didn't. Then I wised up. Just like it's no fun to tickle somebody who doesn't laugh, it's not fun to tease someone when you don't get a rise out of them. So one day when he was bothering my cat, I just said, "well, she knows she doesn't like you, and if she won't leave the room, it's her own fault" and walked away. It felt horrible to do, because really it was my brother's fault for aggravating her, not the cat's fault for acting on territorial instinct. But, lo and behold, he stopped. He rarely, if ever, bothered her again.

I know that I should just remember this, but sometimes you expect the people who are supposed to love you to act like they love you.

It's been awhile

Wow, I had totally forgotten about that last post.

No, I haven't started eating meat again. I do every now and then start researching Certified Humane meat and CSAs etc... but I never get very far with it. I start feeling so horrible and get turned off again at the thought of eating it. So, I guess that's my answer - no conscientious omnivorism for me.

On the flip side I have been eating much healthier. For a while I was having terrible mood swings. I would feel so bad for MM, because little things would set me off and I'd be terribly sad about something he'd done or said, and other times I'd just be over the moon. We wouldn't fight our anything - but I couldn't shake the feeling that I was getting stuck in the "you can't do anything right" mentality. And I knew it wasn't reflecting reality. So... I took a look at what was going on in my life:

sitting on my ass all day in a job that I don't even really do (instead I'm facebooking, blogging etc).
eating junk on a regular basis (weekly binges of twizzlers, doritos or cheetos, ice cream or candy bars etc.)
procrastinating on things that I thought mattered to me (piano lessons, dancing, school, organizing my office and home)
watching way too much tv

This led me to two things - 1) a book by Hyrum W. Smith (yes, he's Mormon, but I can over look that - and overlooked alot of the "god" messages) about time management from a value standpoint - finding your values and living them. And 2) I got hooked on The Biggest Loser through Hulu.com.

I am still working on putting my values into practice for time management. I thought of that as I went to bed last night after sitting on my butt watching TV for a good bit of the night. I looked around my room and thought - "I wanted to clean this up and instead I sat on my ass all night."
But, it is getting better. I am getting more done in other ways because after watching so much Biggest Loser and reading the book I realized that myself and my help are very high on my value list and I need to start living that way.

Which led me to this book by Jillian Michaels. Okay, she's not an endocronolgist, but she's done her research and has the bibliography to prove it. After reading it I have given up high fructose corn syrup and all sodas including diet. I have given up all artificial sweeteners - which was harder to do actually, since I loved Splenda. I have started making all of my meals. I actually sit at home and eat breakfast instead of stopping at Dunkin' Donuts (a prior fave of mine). I bring food for a snack (no vending machine visits) and lunch (no Taco Bell or cafeteria food anymore) and make dinner at home. I have actually manged to exercise for the past few weeks too. And I'm starting on a running program to be half-marathon ready at the end of October.

I found that it is actually working!

MM and I had a great Memorial Day weekend (with the exception of a couple moments of moodiness). We spent it at his parents house, went to a wedding and to the Indy 500. The moody moments were - the day after the wedding when he was helping his dad on the farm and I was left to my own devices - and just be fore the Indy when I found out that I didn't need to hunt down and buy a sun hat before we left because we were sitting in the covered portion and now I had this thing to deal with (there was also the added factor of MM joking around that this was a car race not a derby and hats weren't required which royally pissed me off) . All in all though the weekend was fun and in the process I gained a bunch of weight. Its weird, I could binge at home and be fine with my weight because I wouldn't eat normal food too, but if I go out I eat normal and indulge which is disaster.

So as soon as I got home I started to clean up my diet. The moods have been much less severe - only once this whole week and that was directly related to me not eating every four hours. My libido has also made a change for the better which MM has totally noticed. Before it was an effort to get in the mood and if MM didn't approach it just right I would be totally uninterested. I'm also sleeping better most nights. This seems to have a correlation with exercise and when I eat my last meal.

There is still room for improvement. I have cheated a little bit here and there. I had a couple of cookies and donut holes which are given out free at my grocery store. And I haven't eliminated my fat - free coffee creamer which I am sure has weird stuff in it. BUT I have made strides and I'm hoping that this is one "diet" I can actually stick too.

A woman's prerogative

So, I'm thinking of eating meat again.

There's no other way to say than to say it. Although, it could be because it's after 1pm, I'm really hungry, and looking at a cooking blog, but those french dip sandwiches actually look good. So do the bacon cheddar muffins.

Is this terrible of me? I'd have to get off my animal loving high horse if I did.

I will say that it scares me. I have no idea how to watch my calorie intake while eating meat. But worse, it makes me feel sad for the animals. Like I'm saying that I don't care about them as much as I do. On the other hand someone made a comment to me that if I want food animals to be more humanely treated taking myself out of the equation all together is not the way to provoke change.