I bet you can think of FIFTY things that taste as good as you feel reading THIS!

According to my "plan" (oh great--now I have to think about that Friends episode and laugh again. That takes up a lot of time...), today is "Friday's Fabulous Facebook Finds" day. I should write about all of the things that other people did to make me laugh this week. According to my "plan," that is. Since we all know that I am about as consistent as my internet signal (N-O-T CONSISTENT...), I'm not sure if my rambling will end with that or not. I guess we shall see. YES--WE shall see. So continue reading and DO NOT click on that little red "x!" Do not minimize so that you can watch or read something better. DON'T DO IT. Thanks!

I left the gym this morning feeling pleased that I stayed for two hours and did a pretty hard workout and feeling crummy that...well...I was at the GYM. I KNOW there are people out there who LOVE going to the gym (Tom, Laura, Heidi...) and I salute you. No, really--not with THAT finger--I salute you the proper way because the world needs people like you to motivate people like me to get our fat @S$#s moving!  If we didn't see other people doing it and having fun, we would NEVER put down the Ben and Jerry's and get to a workout facility. EVER. I know that the more you work out the more endorphins you produce, but I've said this before: ANY endorphins I EVER produced were delivered OUT of me with the placentas. If the first two didn't get them, that last one sucked them up like ME on a chocolate ganache-filled cupcake. IN FACT, my friend Melissa at http://www.adoredbefore.com/ and http://designherbrands.blogspot.com/ wrote an update the other day that I had also posted a bit differently weeks before about this. First, my friend, Tom (not the lounge singer (Tom Jones)--the OTHER Tom (he's the one who makes Tony Robbins look like he's depressed and unmotivated) posted "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels" on his facebook page and I thought, "Huh. I guess that's true" and continued thinking about it for days. IN FACT, I think about it EVERY day and I finally posted, "Anyone who thinks that nothing tastes as good as skinny feels OBVIOUSLY has never tasted..."Lindt truffles. Or Nutella. Or lettuce wraps from P.F.Changs. Or Bang-Bang shrimp (or the yummy house salad--and the BREAD) from Bonefish. Or the BREAD and pretty much anything else from Carrabas, dipped in the "Italian butter." Or ANY of my Auntie Jojo's cooking (or my grandmother's cooking when she was alive). Or my mother's cooking back when she used to cook meals--198...SEVEN maybe?  Six? Let's say my mother's cooking circa 1984, just to be safe. Or this amazing doughnut (and the TOMATO PIE!) I had from Jim Main's bakery in Vineland--the outside is just a little crispy while the slightly warm doughnut oozes with the most decadent white filling EVER combined with the smooth chocolate icing...YUM. Or ANY of the baked goods that the Italian bakeries in New Jersey seem to offer. Or Rita's gelato--Swedish Fish with vanilla. Or the filet we used to get at It's About Thyme in Culpepper, Virginia (YES--CULPEPER!) that you could cut with a spoon. A SPOON. That bad boy would turn a vegan into a meat eater in seconds. A SPOON. *SIGH*

OR ANYTHING from Fotis (ALSO in Culpeper, though so many people don't have faith and snub their noses at Culpeper, so they will miss out on these delectable treats) which is run by some chefs who left The Inn At Little Washington (which is supposedly one of the BEST places to eat in the COUNTRY--at least as it was told to me by a guy I taught with years ago who took his wife there for their...twenty-fifth? Fiftieth? I'm lucky I know my OWN...!) wedding anniversary) to start their own restaurant. No one is happier than I am with their decision to leave, as Fotis is a fine dining experience for those who do NOT wish to sell a kidney to get funding. The wait staff treat EVERYONE (Even the jean-clad parents of two (at the time) who spent their day at a pumpkin farm) like royalty which makes the food taste EVEN BETTER. My memories of that place make me much happier than my memories of being skinny. Sorry, Tom!

Of course, when I was SKINNY, I THOUGHT I was fat, so maybe THAT is why my memories are so tainted. I didn't get to ENJOY my skinny days and I REALLY enjoyed my not-so-skinny (yes, I KNOW that means fat, but I'm not as eager to use that word now that I know that it applies to me. Thanks...) days eating what I wanted to eat. That's not to say that I wasn't healthy--I just need to not eat sugar EVER and to work out DAILY. THAT is what MY body needs to look good. And THAT pisses me off. GREATLY. I feel that I want to renegotiate the contract. I will exercise regularly (AT LEAST three to five days a week) and eat everything in moderation and you, body, will look like a person who is exercising regularly and eating everything in moderation. Unfortunately, my body is a bi&%# and didn't agree to my terms. I have to say, for the entire time I lived in Montana (almost two years) I only worked out seven times. SEVEN TIMES.  I did try to be an  EXTREMELY healthy eater when we first moved there, but I was very sick. I would FORCE down fish (can't stand it, but REALLY want to...) and find fun quinoa and bulgur recipes, not to mention the berry, flax seed, spinach, kale banana smoothies I drank with my kids each morning--but I still felt crummy--ALL the time, and when I tried to work out, I was exhausted and sometimes in pain. We moved there a few months after I stopped nursing my youngest, so I went INTO this new "contract" still needing to lose baby weight (from all THREE of my children--don't let me fool you!) and when I lay dormant for twenty-three months--let's just say it DIDN'T help! I gave up on the strict healthy eating because I thought, "i feel like I am dying and there is NO WAY I am going to choke down FISH as my last meal!" There were many days when the only thing I would eat would be a chocolate milkshake I begged my husband to bring home. Take THAT, body!

I had a partial hysterectomy and felt a bit better, but still not good enough to exercise. Of course, the longer I took to "feel like" exercising, the worse my body got. I had ANOTHER hysterectomy (Relax, boys! You KNOW we have the parts--well, I don't have the parts anymore, but there is no need to be shy about this. It's ALL medical...) and felt even better, though I didn't feel like a normal human being until after I was on a steroid that helped me to pack on 30-40 EXTRA pounds--WHILE I wasn't exercising (though I gave up the milkshake diet AND the fish!), so I was a HOT MESS. And by "HOT," I don't mean HOT. At. All. A friend of mine who has suffered from and risen above autoimmune diseases her whole life insisted that they test me for Sjogren's disease. She and a Rheumatologist  I worked with thought that my symptoms (OH-SO-MANY) mimicked those of Sjogren's patients. Long story--LONGER--I went on Sjogren's meds and am now renegotiating my contract with my body. And my body is winning. In my defense, it weighs more.

SO. I've pretty much given up on endorphins AND most of the foods I listed above which I happily reacquainted myself with after my first surgery, however, I am a sucker for a baked good and anything hinting of chocolate. If only...if only those baked goods made me as happy as I would feel if I were to fit into ANY of my fat clothes (YES...my ridiculously "fat" clothes are now too small. YIKES!) or into my old workout clothes that are actually kind of cute. NOW I am a smelly disgusting mess in my mismatched clothes that barely fit when I pick my daughter up after the gym and I don't even have a cute workout outfit because NOTHING is cute in this size AND nothing fits me anyway.

Wow--this went from "hopefully going to be funny," to "not funny at all," to "downright depressing!" Glad I could be of service...
I bet "skinny" feels WAAAAAAAY better than THIS felt while reading it! THAT'S something, right?!