Wednesday, April 28, 2004

mashed potatoes crusty french bread frosted flakes chocolate chip cookies twix bar brownie new york superfudge chunk salt bagel dried pineapple fettucine alfredo french fries ketchup fudge sauce

Now I have that out of my system. Back to my lunch of chicken breast over lettuce with zero carb ranch dressing.

Monday, April 26, 2004

Weigh in #1

Well, 4 days of South Beach Diet under my (shrinking) belt, and though I never want to see another scrambled egg, I weighed in at 126.8 this morning. It's easier this time around, I am simply having eggs and a home-made turkey sausage patty for breakfast, salad and cheeses/deli meats for lunch and picking a vegetable-rich dinner from the SBD cookbook. Snacks are celery with soft cheese or a handful of almonds. A lot easier than gagging down that awful V-8 juice every morning like last time. I really do need to add in some exercise, I was mortified to find that I have cellulite on my thighs. I got some when I was pregnant but figured it would go away. I don't wear shorts much so I never noticed. Though I walk with the kids to the park from time to time, pushing the combined 60 pounds of child plus the weight of the double stroller, I am trying to get myself on the rowing machine each day. For me, that is a lot harder than changing my diet. I've never really enjoyed exercise and it takes up valuable napping time.

Wednesday, April 21, 2004

What I'm reading

In an effort to get back on the road to Swimsuit Shape, today I bought The South Beach Diet Cookbook. I've only had a chance to sit down with it long enough to make dinner, but so far, it's very motivational. Though we are not officially back on the diet, I'm making a Phase 2 Oven Fried Chicken with Almonds (still in the oven) and have roasted up a can of garbanzo beans per another recipe. The garbanzo beans smell great as they're cooking and are a good thing to have around instead of a handful of goldfish crackers. To fully embarrass myself into actually losing the weight, I'm reporting that I'm 129 pounds today, up from 119 in November. Ugh.

Friday, April 09, 2004

"Good Bye"

No, not my blog - I've finally said my goodbye, in a stilted, robot-like male voice, to AOL after nearly 10 years. I have no regrets, I've been meaning to cancel my account for a long time and just kept putting it off, making sure I had changed my email address with absolutely everyone. I've got a free Yahoo! account now and am perfectly happy with it, except for when some numbnut friend of mine sends me a gigantic MIME file internet joke (that I can't even read because I have a Mac) and it fills up my allotted MB, like an elephant in my little virtual apartment.

The customer service people at AOL, it's their job to convince you to stay when you call (yes, you have to call, you can't simply click a "cancel" button) to tell them you've had enough of them and their creepy "AO" logo, reminiscent of the spooky pyramid-topping eye on the back of a dollar bill. So poor Jason at AOL, it was his job to ask me why I was quitting after 9 years and 8 months of "You've Got Mail". I could have gone on about the spam, the cost, the speed or lack thereof, but I simply told him I didn't need it anymore. When I first encountered the Internet in 1994, I needed a little help interfacing, and AOL was a nice friendly ride to the great electronic void, like carpooling with your next-door neighbor. (I also used the short-lived eWorld for a while. Anyone remember eWorld? ...anyone?) I no longer need the help.

The funniest part of the farewell phonecall with Jason was that I was required to give the answer to my secret question in order to prove it was really my account I was closing. Nine years and 8 months ago, setting up my AOL account and my secret question, I apparently had quite a sense of humor, or perhaps had a few too many cheap beers in me. My secret question was "How fresh are you?" and the answer, which I had typed in as a younger, sillier me and never expected to be saying over the phone, to Jason or anyone else, is, of course, "Like having fresh panties every day." (Which was, once upon a time, the advertising catch phrase for Stayfree or Carefree or some other feminine product. Really.) I'm glad Jason got a good laugh over it, since he wasn't able to get his commission for keeping me on as an AOL member.