cindy's world

Because we are both surprisingly sore from our new workouts Monday and Tuesday, my gym trainee and I decided to opt out of the noon gymming and instead run some of her local errands on foot at lunchtime. We walked in total maybe a solid hour, at the end of which, when we were at a busy intersection waiting for the light to turn so we could cross the street, a beat up car pulled up and the male passenger started saying something flirtatious to us about how we were out there exercising. In truth I didn’t understand him, but my gym trainee replied to them that the gym was a mile up that way, they can swing it. The male passenger, a black man in a muscle shirt perhaps in his 20s, flexed his biceps at us and said, “I’m halfway there already.” His buddy driving laughed. There were a couple other sentences exchanged and the car turned. My gym trainee said something about how she wouldn’t give out her number to anyone who could holler at her in the middle of the day from the passenger seat of his friend’s car. She’d wonder, “Why’re you here? Why aren’t you at work?”

I noted that we don’t look like we’re working (we were dressed in gym clothes) in the middle of the day either. But she made an interesting point. Is it REALLY flattering if some obviously indiscriminating deadbeat considers you in his league?

Maybe he was on vacation.

Candy wrapper count for today:

1 peppermint clear cellophane wrapper
1 York Peppermint Patty wrapper (the heart-shaped ones with the pink mint cream, leftover from Vday)
4 gold Almond Roca metallic wrappers
4 pink and silver Hershey’s milk chocolate metallic wrappers (also heart-shaped Vday edition)
5 or 6 French truffles that came out of a big metallic bag w/o individual wrappers to count

…HEY! Some of these Hershey’s wrappers are wadded up into a tight little ball! I don’t do that! I think I’m picking up someone else’s wrappers that they threw into my trash can. Maybe I only ate HALF of what the wrappers claim I ate! Eh, who’m I kidding?

2 tangerine skin wrappers/peels — and that would be the only healthy thing I ate all day.

“It’s okay, you’re PMSing,” commenter ‘a’ told me about half an hour ago. Right before I tore into the bag of truffles.

That being said, I think I need to force myself into the gym tonight.

What sucks is to be starving and not be able to eat the food that’s right in front of you. I had insisted on going to the gym today because I’d missed all my lunchtime workouts this week as our trial keeps running late, but after our workout today my gym trainee and I ran across the street to Tropical Smoothie Cafe where I grabbed a buffalo chicken wrap. Sooo good! Unfortunately, as I expected, when I walked in the courtroom the judge was already on the bench having a hearing, despite the fact that I wasn’t late. So now the wrap sits on my desk, getting cold, as I drool.

I’ve always thought it a form of torture, too, when I’m starving to death and have to drive to pick up a pizza. My parents were always too frugal to pay or tip for delivery so after waiting what felt like forever until the estimated time the pizza would be ready for pick-up, they’d take me along to the pizza place, and of course I wasn’t allowed to eat before dinnertime for fear of ruining my appetite. So we’d pick up our pizza, I’m starving while the cheese and meat aromas circulate around the car, and as a final tease, my job was to hold the hot box on my lap. There was rarely a longer drive than the one back home. As tormenting as these drives were, when I lived on my own I would also occasionally opt to pick up my own pizza rather than have it delivered. I think it’s the Asian thrift gene passed on, but I did make one modification: no later than when I get in the car, I would open the box and grab a slice of pizza, happily proceeding to burn the roof of my mouth off with molten cheese on my drive back home.

*looking at wrap*

MAN I wanna eat. I think I’ll take my wrap out into the back hallway and eat in secret.

I wasn’t going to do a weekend update post, but seeing as how I’ve been in the habit of using my blog as a reference when I see strange charges come up on my credit card statements, it doesn’t hurt. I’ve also used my online record of my life to settle some disputes. Dork, huh?

Saturday: Mr. W and I visited some houses he’d found online thru his MLS search. We always check out the neighborhood and houses first before involving any realtor now, cuz that first house we saw online and got all excited about turned out to be a total dud. We’d met my realtor there and realized as we drove to the area that we’d never live there. The area of the city was dirty, run-down, old, and there were a bunch of illegals milling about on the sidewalks trying to discreetly get hired for exploitatious work. I was so embarrassed to have wasted my realtor’s time. Photos are so deceiving! On this trip, we found some neighborhoods we loved and houses that we were impressed by, so much so that I called Grace’s dad and told him to cancel paperwork for the 2nd shortsale house (the ex-“the one“).

Sunday: Mr. W and I got up bright and early, hit the gym, then met up with Vicky and her boyfriend Glenn for Korean BBQ. Vicky had recommended the place, and it was delicious AND generous in its food portions. Apparently all the small dishes AND all meats were all-you-can-eat. The waitress also kept coming by to cook and turn the meats for us. We had thin beef slices, cubed steak, marinated chicken, bulgogi pork. The included salads staved off the meat sweats. I was also not feeling too guilty cuz I KILLED myself on the weights at the gym earlier, so I figured I earned the right to chow down on so many animals. Lunch was fun and a lot of laughs. We stood outside in the parking lot after we were done and made tentative plans to do outdoorsy stuff in the future. Vicky has, through her interactions with Glenn, become quite the hiking fan. Mr. W was already a hiking freak, so by default, I am going to be doing more hiking. I also promoted a wine country bike ride/wine tasting, which I’d done a couple years ago with the NorCal friends, and it will always be remembered as one of the happiest, most carefree times of my life, a desperately-needed reprieve from my life at home at the time. Vicky and Glenn were in for that, and also were in for my last pitch which I REALLY want to do: rafting down the American River. Vicky had swimming-related concerns, but I convinced her she’ll be fine on the guided raft tours wearing a lifevest. (Or I’d feel severely guilty if she weren’t.)
After lunch, Mr. W and I met up with Grace’s dad at my parents’ house (5 houses away from Graces’ parents’ house), and the three of us went to look at 3 houses. I liked one in particular, Mr. W liked another one, but in the next couple of days following, Mr. W fell in LOVE with the one I’d liked. Today he downloaded photos of this house and they are now revolving background wallpaper on his laptop. We’re waiting for my realtor to come back from vacation (next Sunday) to put an offer down on the house. I figure this gives fate a chance to intervene — if it’s gone in a week, it was never meant to be ours; if it’s there AND the price was lowered due to lack of interest in the current price, so much the better for us.
After seeing the houses, Mr. W and I returned to my parents’ house, where my parents promptly put Mr. W to work figuring out what’s wrong with their surround sound stereo, and installing rear speakers for their sound system. It was so cool to see my fiance stripping the plastic off wires with his teeth, twisting wires together, painstakingly hiding wires around walls and fireplace to hang the rear speakers. *swoon* I told my mom that even if I left him now, she and my dad would’ve gotten their money’s worth from him. She wasn’t pleased with that comment.

Monday: Another low-key day, starting with another drive to the house that Mr. W fell for, an on-foot jaunt around that neighborhood listening to birds sing their welcome to spring. Mr. W and I then washed our cars, knowing that it’s going to rain again this week but not wanting the dirt to pack into cake on our respective paint jobs. Then we had dinner as we watched “Buffy” and “Angel” on DVD (still in succession so the cross-over events would be in line), and ended the evening by hitting the gym again.

Good thing we did the gym 2x, cuz I worked thru lunch today.

Before I write what I came here to write, I feel compelled to report that this morning, someone came upon my site by doing a search for “jordan boobies” on Google. Jordan, your boobies should feel honored. Especially since on your blog, you promote feeling them on the regular.

I had a great day at the spa yesterday. I hit the whirlpool, hit the steam room, and then got a relaxing 80-minute full-body massage that put me in a sort of trance-like state. After finishing, I let the massage oils absorb into my skin with another 10 minutes in the steam room, then hit the great rainfall showers. At one point I had water spraying on me from 3 different directions. By the end of my time there I didn’t even care that despite my recent weight loss, my stomach fat still jiggles as I walk, which I observed with dismay in the mirror as I went into the whirlpool in my bikini. (How low does my body fat percentage need to be to stop jiggling?)

After I went thru a few loads of laundry, I headed off to Mr. W’s house. He and I looked at a few more houses online that had dropped into our price range. Our realtor agent told us that we’re not locked into the short sale house, so if in the meantime we see something we like better, to feel free and explore other options. I personally have a problem with the short sale house’s bedrooms and bathrooms (BIG problems with their bathrooms), but the rest of the house is fine. But if houses formerly out of our price range lower their asking prices due to the spiraling market and fall into our price range and we don’t have to do any fixing-up to move in, so much the better. Vicky seems to have found such a house for us online and we looked at it online last nite. We were very interested and will probably drive by to look at it soon. It seems more move-in ready than the short sale house, is newer, is valued higher, has a prettier pool (Again with the pool. Why do people build so many pools?), is larger, and it’s the SAME PRICE!

I have faith that whatever happens will happen because it’s meant to and if I lose something I think I want, it’s because something bigger and better is around the corner that I’m meant for, and I trust the universe completely. Oh, and I had another perfectly reconciled credit card statement that accounted for every receipt I have, “coincidentally”.

I haven’t weighed myself in like a month cuz the digital body fat scale I have at home has finally run out of battery after like 8 years. Mr. W’s old bodyfat scale, which I knew how to operate, went on the fritz and he’s got a new one that I can’t work, so I haven’t been using his scale, either.

When I arrived at Vicky’s apartment yesterday, she was out walking the dog but had told me to go ahead in as the door was open. So I went in her bathroom, and saw that her digital body fat scale, the same model as mine, was out. Of course I had to get on it, curious and nervous after my prior 2 weeks of only going to the gym twice to do cardio. And of course I had to strip from head to toe so as to eliminate any possible excess weight (You think I’m bad? My mom wouldn’t even step on her scale if she was damp from her shower.).

This model of scale had always placed me at approximately 28% body fat, and I had been about 126ish pounds for a long time. When my weight fluctuated down, the body fat would go up, and if my weight went up, my body fat would drop, indicating that if I put on or lost weight, it was muscle. But yesterday, I was at the lowest weight I’d been in a long time, 120.0 lbs. The body fat percentage was 24%. I had never been at a LOW body fat percentage WHILE weighing less, too! At least, not in recent memory.

What I think happened was that with the increased weights my gym trainee and I had been doing before we took a break, my body composition had changed dramatically to put on a lot of muscle which burned off a lot of fat. And with the two weeks of not doing weights but doing a little cardio, my body burned off some of the accumulated muscle but did not put the fat back on due to the elevated metabolism created from the new muscle. So the result is a drop on both ends.

I’m 5 pounds to goal!

(Click here to see a post I’d written last year about what body fat percentage is right for your body type.)

I’m working away…but I’m here to do a quick status report of my projects.

1.) Roofing – My association treasurer’s letter “to clarify the secretary’s letter” arrived yesterday. He explained the situation to the homeowners about having to pay for my roof, and brought up a good point: if my roof had been replaced 2 years ago when everyone else’s roofs were replaced, everyone would’ve had to pay an extra $300 THEN, so it really doesn’t make a difference whether they pay then or now because either way everyone has to pay for my roof. I got the 2nd estimate yesterday, too. It was only $200 less than the first estimate. So I’m gonna compare the 2 contracts and see who gives me the more bang for my buck.

2.) Parents’ Trust – Vanessa’s a huge advocate of setting up a Living Trust, because she found out the hard way when her dad passed away without having done one, that there are major messy, extensive and expensive probate issues that they’re still trying to clean up. College roommie Diana sent me a Living Trust format which I customized the best I could and this past weekend, Vanessa (who’s a legal notary until February 8, which is in 3 days) came with me to meet my parents, have lunch with us, and she notarized the Trust and Deed for them. I had a judge look the papers over but he had some concerns, so he referred me to a good Probate attorney for document review. I submitted my documents to his office today and set up an appointment for Valentine’s Day (the first open appointment).

3.) House Hunting – No significant progress. Just keeping an eye on the market and on the places we’d like to live. House prices are still dropping (woohoo!) and more nice houses are coming up for sale (woohoo!) and interest rates just dropped another half percent last week (woohoo!).

4.) Wedding – I got my photographer booked. Josh, my buddy from jujitsu, is gonna do it. He’s a new Orange County Sheriff but was a professional photographer, so he’s, like, friend/photographer/security all wrapped up in one! Talk about multi-tasking! Plus, he’s going to give Mr. W all the raw digital images he (and his photographer assistant) will take and Mr. W likes to play with Photoshop, so Mr. W will make our wedding album. I’m pretty sure I’m way ahead of schedule; all there is left to do as far as vendors go is to find a florist for our bouquets.

5.) Taxes – Done and mailed out yesterday. Why wait if I’m getting money back? I just have my parents’ taxes left to do.

6.) Exercise – My gym trainee and I are back in the gym. Yesterday we did upper body and today we did lower body. I’m sore, but I guess that’s a good sign. Aside from being a little weaker, it doesn’t look like my 2-week hiatus did much damage. Whew!

Okay, I guess this update wasn’t that swift.

I think I’ve been up since like 2am. Laying there. Listening to an incredibly detailed (I can distinguish each instrument and hear the exact voices in the lyrics) reproduction of the theme song from the prime time cartoon “Family Guy” playing over and over in my head. “Where are those old-fashioned values, on which we used to rely?” I’ve already manipulated several instrument parts in my head to bring out the horn, add a trumpet for a bit part, created a dramatic pause in percussion at one point just to see what it would “sound” like, added a marching band beat on the drums for the end where the people sing, “It’s…the…family…guuuuuy!” (that one didn’t end up sounding very good, but kinda goofy). I liked the version in my head that ends with the horns doing “shave and a haircut, six bits”. I’d always been able to “hear” in extraordinary detail in my mind’s ear; I imagine it’s a bit of what Mozart did when he wrote full symphonies with all the complete instrument parts in a first-and-final draft. Less interestingly in my head while this music was going on are the foreground thoughts — consumed by Mr. W’s ex situation. (She called him tonight and left a message demanding child support money despite the fact that Mr. W’s daughter has moved back in with him full-time for weeks now and made it clear she is there to stay.) So 2.5 hours go by of this, and I think I’m losing my mind cuz altho I can control the music, I can’t get it or the thoughts to simply stop.

Okay, so I’ll blog.

I’m very excited about being a new member of the Bare Escentuals mineral makeup consumer community. A friend bought me a special edition color kit for Christmas (2 eyeshadows, 1 blush, 1 powder eyeliner, 1 gold dust accent powder, 1 loose powder, 3 different application brushes), and I liked the way it worked, and was interested in trying the all-natural mineral foundation cuz hey, it’s supposed to be good for your skin and improve skin over time. “Makeup so pure you can sleep in it.” So yesterday I went to Sephora and paid $60 for this Starter Kit.
I was skeptical as to how long it would last and how well it would cover. With my oily skin, the only decent foundation I’ve been able to find (and stuck to like glue for over 10 years now) is the Revlon ColorStay brand which boasts the motto, “It really won’t rub off!” Well, it does transfer, but only after a couple of hours, and I’m sure with normal skin it’d stay put pretty much all day. I get shine breakthrough in an hour and have to blot. However, I’ll say that I don’t have to reapply even if I go to the gym.
I applied my new Bare Escentials mineral foundation without washing my face beforehand (altho I was wearing no makeup, I had been up for quite a few hours), and although I wasn’t happy with the immediate coverage and kept dumping out more foundation powder to brush/buff onto my face, the end result after a first layer of Mineral Veil as oil-absorbing base, spot-concealing specific areas with the foundation powder using the included concealing brush, quite a bit of foundation powder all over, and finally ending with another layer of Mineral Veil as setting powder, well, the end result was really decent. Mr. W liked it better than my original liquid foundation because he said it looked less “masky” to him and more natural. So then I popped in the DVD and watched the tutorial tell me all the things I did wrong. Apparently you’re supposed to apply as many layers of foundation as you need coverage for, not dump a bunch on the brush to apply cuz you don’t see immediate full coverage. And for fuller coverage, you’re supposed to use a special included “Kabuki brush,” not the “full face brush” I’d been using. Oops. BUT, this foundation, even tho I did it “wrong” and didn’t optimize what it can do, lasted longer than the “high-tech,” chemically created ColorStay brand! Not only did I not get shine break-through (altho I looked slightly dewy, not shiny, without reapplying, repowdering or blotting after 6 hours), but at 10pm, I pressed my face lightly against Mr. W’s white T-shirt and the makeup did not transfer! (He didn’t appreciate my little test after I told him why I’d just leaned my cheek into his shirt-sleeve, stared at the sleeve, leaned again, checked again.)

And that is…the most exciting thing happening in my life right now. It even beat out the fact that I couldn’t stop peeing today as I debloated and it turned out I didn’t gain any weight after my 2-week gym hiatus. Well, I did do a half-hour cardio session once each week, a few days ago I ran 3 miles at lunchtime. Hmm. Looks like I should’ve stopped this post a few sentences ago. Sorry.

I didn’t sleep except for a few faded minutes here and there this entire night. I feel absolutely sick; head pounding, febrile, nausea, cold chills, heart palpitations, you name it.

How many sleepless nights is this in a row now? How long can I keep this up? Are these the symptoms leading to stroke? Am I gonna mentally snap soon? Is this gonna make me lose weight?

I woke up at 12:30 a.m. so angry, and continued being angry, heart-pounding, mind racing, and seriously considered going to the gym at 3:30 a.m.. But calculating the time it would take for me to go from the gym to the shower to work, I decided to wait it out just a little longer. And finally fell asleep.

This morning, as with every other morning, I left for work with the intention of finally going to the gym at lunch. And this lunchtime, as with every other lunchtime for a week and a half, I had to stay behind and work through lunch. Today it was because lunch hit in the middle of a complicated 4-count criminal sentencing we did this morning that I’d been working on for hours and I couldn’t be interrupted in the middle of my 5-page data entry and typewritten clarifications and explanations and calculations. (Imagine getting a total sentence of ‘9 plus 14 years-to-life’. Eh???) Now, we’re about to dive right back into our 2-week jury trial.

And I’m still pissed.