New Year's Resolutions....

I know I made some resolutions in November, but I've already forgotten what most of them were, so I guess it is time to make some new resolutions that I'll forget in six weeks. 'Tis the season!

So, what is going to be important enough for me to make a goal about, but not so important that I actually have to achieve that goal?

1. Make some money. Since I left the cosmetics biz in February, I haven't actually earned any money. I was not working for some time and anyone who has started a business knows that the first six months aren't really the time to draw a salary. Pretty soon, though, I'd like to be able to deposit some money in my account and then immediately blow it on shoes and personal-care items. (Like eyeshadow. And chardonnay.)

2. Lose some weight. I've pretty much beaten this dead horse, but the funny thing is that this was my resolution last year and I weigh exactly the same now that I did a year ago. Super. I guess the silver lining is that I didn't GAIN any weight.

3. Stop messing with my hair. Every time I get depressed about my weight or life situation, I dye my hair. I need to give my hair a break so it will grow out instead of falling out. So, nothing but fresh highlights every couple of months. Seriously. I mean it this time.

4. Work out at least 30 minutes a day. Wii Fit counts. Power drinking doesn't.

5. Be nicer to Big Smelly Dog. It isn't his fault he's big and smelly. I have channel all that disgust and frustration at the reason we have Big Smelly Dog - Tony. Won't he be thrilled?

6. See my friends more. The last eight months have been largely hibernation for Tony and me. We both need a little more fresh air and a little less alone-time. So, brace yourselves, Friends of Lacy. I'm coming out!

7. Let go of the fact that I haven't accomplished the things I wanted to before I turned 30. So what if I haven't published a book, become famous or married Hugh Jackman? I have a blog, a few people know who I am and I married a guy who is willing to put on the Wolverine costume whenever I ask nicely. Things could be worse, for sure. I still have a Master's degree, a lovely home and a business that is starting to take off. Perhaps 30 is the new 20 and I'll accomplish all my goals before I'm 40. Except the Hugh Jackman thing. That might upset Tony. And then he'll stop wearing the Wolverine suit.

So there we have it. Check back with me in six weeks and see how many of these I actually remember.

Mission Statement

I've been working the past few days on an employee handbook for our company. (No, we don't have any traditional employees yet, but I like to be prepared. Once you hire a person incorrectly, it is really hard to go back and do it over. Trust me, I know.)

Anyhow, my fabulous attorney (well, one of them) sent me this workbook to fill out so we have a clear, concise and legally binding document instead of the back-of-the-napkin version I was working on. ("Um, come to work on time, do what you are supposed to do and don't sass off" was pretty much the entire thing. I know, brilliant!) Forty pages of questions later, I'm convinced there isn't a single question an employee could ask me that wouldn't be answered in this document, from what time they should arrive to how to chew their sandwich at lunch. ("Quietly, but with purpose.")

However, one particular piece of the questionnaire is tripping me up. The mission statement. The good attorney feels that no employee handbook is complete without one. I feel that they are a treacly, nonsensical waste of time that is usually created by committee so that it can be emblazoned on a wall somewhere prominent in a granite and steel-filled office. In other words, extraneous to our current situation. For example, here's a sampling of the aforementioned treacle, from the half-way decent to the half-witted:

1. Instead of a school's mission statement being that "We teach children," this is what you get - "Community School recognizes that each child is an individual; that all children are creative; that all children need to succeed. Therefore, Community School respects the individual needs of children; fosters a caring and creative environment; and emphasizes the social, emotional, physical, intellectual development of each child." I bet the tuition there is like $30,000 a year. And $20,000 of that goes to the marketing team that developed the mission statement.

2. Here's a truly awesome one for a WEBSITE THAT HELPS PEOPLE MOVE PAST THE GRIEF THEY FEEL UPON LOSING A PET. Understand that I could do an entire blog just on the ridiculous state of our country that we need a site like this, but they have a mission statement, and it is a doozy: "I'm on a one-woman campaign to stomp out guilt, the kind of guilt that clings like a leech to the coattails of our grief. It pains me to see good, loving people feeling guilty about uncontrollable circumstances surrounding the loss of their pet. Granted, there are circumstances where heinous acts deserve the roughest of guilt trips but for most people this isn't the case." I'm still stuck on how a leech clings to a coattail. Perhaps with a pushpin?

3. Here's a reasonable one. I just says what it says, with no vampiric organisms or feel-good yuppie-ness: "The Department of Human Resources partners with members of the University community to foster a work environment that attracts and inspires excellence in people so the University is successful in its mission." I understand. I get it. I still don't see why it is necessary, though.

4. And my favorite: "Our mission is simple: To offer education on the wise use of credit." Brilliant.

I guess that is why I'm having such a hard time with this. Even though I'm a writer in my spare time, I don't see that more verbosity is necessarily better when you are telling people what you do. Sure, it feels good to tell people their children are exceptional. (Note: most of them aren't. Otherwise, the word "exceptional" has lost all meaning. Deal with it. Your kid is probably - in the truest sense of probability - average. And that's okay. You probably are too.) And it is nice to put a leech on the coattails of grief. But what are you trying to do at the end of the day? What is the net net of your business? What is your basic business model? Do you hire people for a university? Do you counsel about credit? Do you help self-involved pet owners get over the grief of losing Fluffy to diabetes at the age of 20? Do you teach wealthy children to believe they are gifted? Tell people what your job is and let them get back to their lives. Or don't tell them at all. Just do it.

So, with that in mind, I believe that our mission at Legion Logistics is this: We move freight and make money.

Perfect! Now let's get back to moving freight and making money.

Intermission

Hey all! Just wanted to hop on here quickly and let you know I haven't forgotten about my blog. I've been very busy lately with the holidays and work and it has seemed impossible to carve out enough time to write a blog that wasn't complete gibberish.

I'll be back soon enough, I'm sure. Writing this blog is like having an exercise routine - you have to be disciplined about it, and we all know how disciplined I am. Things have been happening that I've wanted to write about, but every time I think to sit down and expel all my fabulous thoughts, an email comes, the phone rings or there are cookies to be baked.

By the way, the party went fabulously. People enjoyed the cookies, or so I'm told. We also discovered that Jack makes a mind-bending punch. I, as usual, over-prepared intensely, so I had about 3,000 dozen cookies left over that were sent with Mom and Jack to their respective offices and I'm saving the left-over beer and wine for our Super Bowl Party, for which I will be baking NOTHING. In fact, I may never bake again.

The holidays were also wonderful. Mom, Jack and my brother Levi came down and we ate, drank, played games, opened presents, saw movies (Avatar is a revelation, especially in 3-D. Sherlock Holmes is entertaining in a fluffy sort of way.) and generally had a good time.

Now I'm settling into my usual post-holiday funk, amplified by the fact that 2010 is the year I turn 30 and I still haven't figured out what (or even who) I want to be when I grow up. I know age is just a number and certainly 30 isn't old, but I had a lot of things I wanted to accomplish by this point that I haven't. (There are a lot of things I HAVE accomplished that seem somewhat diminished by the un-accomplished. It's like that prayer that talks about what I have done and what I've left undone. It's the undone that bothers me.)

So, I'm going to wade back into my accounting work and try to set aside time each day to blog (and work out!). We'll see how it goes. Hope your holidays were wonderful and that you have something properly celebratory planned for New Year's.

Cookie mutilation

I hate my hand mixer.

No, I LOATHE my hand mixer.

Every time I get that stupid thing out, my blood pressure immediately goes up. Take last night, for instance. I started testing recipes for the big party, so I was making my first-ever batch of sugar cookies. (For a long time now, my position has been that if a dessert isn't chocolate, there is no point in making it. However, for a party I need to cater to all tastes, even those folks who believe that baked disks of non-chocolate dough are actually a dessert. Lunatics.)

The problems started right away. I bought butter at Sam's Club yesterday, but instead of sticks, I got one-pound blocks of unsalted butter. It tastes great and was really cheap, but how on earth do you figure out what one stick of butter would be when confronted with a chunk of butter the size of a recreational vehicle? Well, I hacked it in to approximate quarters (four sticks in a pound, right?), tossed one of them in the bowl and added the sugar.

Then I brought out the hand mixer from hell. This stupid little machine ostensibly has three speeds, but I've found those speeds to be fast, faster and frickin' turbo. There is no such thing as a low speed for creaming butter and sugar. Instead, you end up flinging shards of butter and sugar all over your formerly clean kitchen. I actually hunch over the bowl with my arms wrapped around it to try to keep some portion of the ingredients where they belong. At one point last night, I looked down at Sarge and saw that he was covered in tiny pieces of sugary butter. It looked like I was making a puppy fritter. I was near homicidal when I finished, fantasizing about throwing this hand mixer in the lake and driving to Sam's, where I had been taunted by a fabulous Kitchen-Aid stand mixer earlier in the day. However, I didn't have the $289 to buy it. And throwing appliances in our lake is probably illegal or something.

(Side note. I once owned a stand mixer. It was a Sunbeam, but it worked really well. I lost it in the second divorce. Let's just say that my ex and his "roommate" Rich were probably more likely than I to whip up a batch of midnight cookies at that point. You learn to make concessions in divorce proceedings.)

Adding the wet ingredients seemed to help, but I have to admit my dough didn't look exactly like I'd intended it to. It was sort of...crumbly. I know there are some baking experts who read this, so if they have any tips, I'd appreciate it. Once I'd wrapped it up and put it in the freezer to chill, though, it seemed okay. I had 20 minutes to crank out some truffle filling while the dough chilled and then we could bake!

Except a friend stopped by (totally cool, don't think I'm complaining) and 20 minutes turned into nearly an hour. The dough in the freezer was frozen into a giant hockey puck. So I just threw it (gently) on the counter and moved on to the truffles, which are so easy Sarge could make them. As long as you don't eat all the dark chocolate chips before you've melted them into ganache. That is a serious risk around here, which is why I got nearly eight pounds of chocolate chips yesterday. The risk of eating so many I yarf is higher that way, but at least I won't run out. Once the ganache was in the fridge, I turned my attention back to the great cookie experiment of '09.

At this point, I should probably admit that I've only used a rolling pin a few times in my life and the last time was about 10 years ago. In fact, it was exactly 10 years ago, when I made gingerbread men for Christmas. I had to go out and purchase a rolling pin yesterday (Tip: Paula Deen has a nice one at Wal-mart for around $10.) So this whole endeavor was a little tricky. But, I floured and rolled and cut (don't ask why someone without a rolling pin has fistfuls of cookie cutters) until I had two gigantic sheets of cookies. Into the oven, out of the oven, and they aren't that bad, really. I think they need to be thicker, but beyond that, I think they taste vaguely like the sugar cookies I've eaten accidentally in the past. Add some lemon and powdered sugar frosting, and they are almost worth the calories. Tony liked them, too, so I figure they are fit for human consumption. One recipe tested, 32 to go.

However, since Christmas presents have already been purchased, I've started my wish list for our anniversary in February:

1. A Kitchen-Aid stand mixer. In red. With all the fixin's.
2. Take me someplace where I can use my hand mixer for target practice.

Home Alone

I'm home alone today. (Here's hoping that no one is stalking me and will show up in my yard this afternoon. Perhaps I should say that I'm home alone WITH WEAPONS.)

Tony had to go do an inspection of a customer's warehouse in Cleveland. The FAA is so picky about who they let ship cargo on airplanes these days. Jeesh. So he and our air guy are driving all the way up to Cleveland this morning and back this afternoon. I don't envy them that trip, but I kind of envy the companionship. The office is terribly quiet without him.

But don't misunderstand me. I'm taking advantage of the fact that the cat's away for the day - I'm going shopping! Well, grocery shopping, but money will be spent and bags will be brought home! So that counts.

(We return to this blog after a brief interruption while I sprinted into the street in heels after my gigantic trash can. Why can't the trash can ever blow away when Tony is home? Oh, and thank goodness for neighbors who call and let you know when your trash can is headed for the lake.)

Anyhow, this morning was very interesting - Tony had to leave before sunup, so I was left to wrangle the dogs. Sarge is easy - pick him up, throw him out in the yard, open the door 10 minutes later, stand to the side as he sprints in the house, you're done. Beau is another story altogether. I have as little to do with him as possible because he smells and is licky, so when my face was the one outside his kennel this morning, he was stumped. He didn't even know what to do. I told him "Outside" and he promptly ran me over and charged outside without his Invisible Fence collar on. Super.

I figured he wouldn't go too far because he's a giant chicken, but I still didn't want to leave him out too long. Around 9, I opened both the garage door and the door to the house and left a trail of Beggin Strips from the door to the kennel. Success! He's going to yarf from all the treats later, but I'll let Tony clean that up.

I feel kind of the way I imagine many new parents do the first time they are left alone with the kids. I have no idea how they will react or what will work. Tony handles the dogs, I complain about the way they smell. That's pretty much it. So I'm going to fumble through today and hope I can get Beau's collar on him before afternoon potties. And that Sarge doesn't blow away in the 100 mile per hour winds we're having.

Speaking of which, there are some dog bowls I have to go retrieve from the lake.

Freestyle Dishwashing!

I realized yesterday that Tony is a freestyle dishwasher.

See, the arrangement in our house is that I cook and Tony does the dishes. Most of the time, that just means that he's the one loading and unloading the dishwasher, but occasionally, I'll use a non-dishwasher safe pan and the scrubbing gloves have to come out.

When it comes to the delicates, the hand-washables, Tony is pretty pedestrian. He gets the hot water going, puts some dish soap on the scrubby cloth we use in the sink, and goes to work. It's when the dishwasher door opens that he truly becomes an artist.

I have never seen my husband load the dishwasher the same way twice. Most people, having loaded and unloaded the same dishwasher a few times, develop a system. My mother is the best example - the racks in her dishwasher are practically labelled and if you put something in the wrong way (knives tip down, for example), she becomes like that cross-dressing football kicker in the Ace Ventura movies - "LACES OUT!" - although this time it's more like "SHARP END UP!" (Her contention is that the sharp knife tips cut through the vinyl rack over time. My rebuttal is that the sharp knife tips cut through my hands immediately, so that's the greater good. I lose every time - the argument and some blood.)

But Tony approaches every dishwasher loading as a unique event, as though he's never done it before. The plates go in facing left one time, right the next, the front, the back, sideways. Sometimes he breaks them in half and washes them that way. The glasses and mugs are the same. When I load the dishwasher (which is never or very close to it) the coffee mugs go on the left and the glasses on the right of the top rack. I think there is a lovely symmetry to that. Tony just tosses (sometimes literally) all of them in together. It's like a big, beautiful beverage-container mixer dance in there. No discrimination. He is beverage-blind when it comes to these vessels.

We also load silverware differently and this is where it gets technical. I hate opening a dishwasher and seeing that two spoons or forks have nested in the wash cycle, resulting in them still being dirty. Therefore, I'm really particular about how the silverware goes in the basket (It puts the silverware in the basket) I place a spoon in every slot until I have to double them up, and then I make sure they are facing different directions so as not to "spoon." HAR HAR. Okay, I couldn't resist. Same with the forks, etc. Tony just grabs great handfuls of silverware from the sink and jams them into the basket willy-nilly. It could be one section of just spoons next to one of (tip-down) knives. Makes me so nervous.

At the end of the day, though, it works. Our dishwasher is so powerful (which is why it sounds like a jet taking off during the wash cycle) that it seems to blast any thought of dirt or food from the dishes. And if Tony's going to keep doing the dishes, I'm not going to complain. I find that a loathsome chore, and part of the reason I never cooked when I lived alone or with a less-responsible spouse.

But I do think I'm going to start photographing his dishwasher creations. It's art.

Total Panic

Sometimes I wonder just how well I know myself. I'm typically a pretty relaxed, laid-back individual who rolls with the punches, takes the long view and doesn't get too wound up about things.

Until I start to plan a party. Then I lose my ever-loving mind, freaking out from the time the invitations go out until the party is over about food, drinks, decor, what I'm going to wear, who is going to come, etc. Every time I plan a get-together, I end up in a month-long flop sweat. I lay in bed at night, staring at the ceiling, envisioning every possible outcome of the party. I mentally try on different outfits - some of which I own, some of which I don't - trying to find the one that perfectly expresses my ability to host a party, entertain all of my family and friends, cook, flirt, laugh, tell great stories, and keep everyone's drink full. I'm not sure what that outfit looks like, actually, but I bet Martha Stewart owns a couple.

So most of the time, I don't host big get-togethers. I do better with small dinners. But this weekend, I had a few too many cocktails out with the girls and suddenly, I thought it would be a marvelous idea to have a party the day after Christmas. (Keep in mind, I'm responsible for Christmas this year for the first time ever, so I'm just adding to my list of anxieties for the holiday season.) Once I started talking about it, I envisioned this glamorous night of cocktails and desserts, with all my friends floating from room to room in my house, sipping tasty drinks and nibbling on delectable desserts, all of which I'd make from scratch. As the weekend went on, the guest list grew, as did the menu, the bar, the decor, and especially the bill. Tony went blithely along, knowing that his participation would be limited to opening the door and hanging people's coats in the hall closet. (Which is jammed, top to bottom, with office supplies. We'll have to find somewhere new to hide that stuff.)

When I finally sobered up this morning (it was a good weekend, what can I say?) the full reality of what I've committed to hit me. Now, don't get me wrong - I'm super excited and can't wait to have a house full of people partying it up. I have always wanted to host parties and dinners and feed everyone I know. HOWEVER, I have not done it often, and I've certainly never hosted a party with this level of expectation. It is one thing to open a case of beer and a bag of Doritos and throw some burgers on the grill. It is quite another to invite close to 100 people to your house for a dessert buffet, signature cocktails and mingling.

I've spent the last two hours, between taking phone calls and trying to get some work done (because in addition to this party, I also have this JOB thing, this COMPANY to run), in a total panic, flipping wildly among web sites, looking for cocktails that will work with desserts, recipes for miniature desserts that I can make with my limited pastry skills and kitchen equipment, decor ideas and my evite page, where my mood is entirely decided by how many people are attending and how many guests they are bringing. (My self-esteem depends on being liked by everyone, so the guest list is a measure of my self-worth.)

I think much of this would be easier if Tony and I had entertained at all in our new house. But we were waiting to get enough furniture so that we wouldn't have to host a "Bring your own chair" party. Now that we are at that point (thanks, Mom!), I'm ready to stock the bar and open the door to the hordes. In theory.

In reality, I'll spend the next 18 days testing recipes, frantically counting glasses, calling my mom every 20 minutes for advice, trying on outfits, buying the Party Source out of vodka and champagne and laying in bed, staring at the ceiling, sweating it out.

But maybe the flop sweat will help me lose the 25 pounds I need to before the party.

'Tis the season

It's Christmas shopping time again. Around our house, that means one of two things - either we have money and we get to blow it out (that has happened once) or we're on a budget and we have to be extremely careful with what we spend (that would be the other Christmases we've spent together.)

With Tony, the problem is that he's really good at buying expensive gifts and doesn't do that well with the budget stuff. I have some truly extraordinary gifts from the flush years - jewelry, handbags, scarves, clothing. I also have some truly bizarre gifts from the lean years - key chains, plaques, etc. It is a running joke around our house that with a buying limit under $50, Tony gets kind of lost.

This year is a lean year. I already bought Tony's gifts online while I was at my mom's. I'm having them shipped to her so he doesn't peek and she is going to wrap them for me as well (she's a full-service mom.) Mom also told me what she wanted, so I'm going to get that for her and that just leaves Jack (no freaking idea what I'm going to buy him) and Levi (hello, gift card!). The dogs are getting some toys and a bag of Beggin' Strips. I know, I spoil them.

Tony, on the other hand, has done no shopping at all. He's terrified of buying me the wrong things. Let's just say I had a bad, hormone-induced reaction to a REALLY NICE gift a few years ago and he's never recovered, poor guy. So mom and I have decided to help him. The budget is $100, so we've both been going to my favorite clothing store web sites and sending him link after link of tops, skirts, pants, etc. The best part is that he showed me what my mom sent him and gave me veto power over her choices. (They were all lovely, mom. Don't worry, I didn't veto a thing.)

But at a certain point, I realized that it would be easier for him to just hand me the $100 and send me to the mall, but then I wouldn't have anything to open on Christmas and that would make me sad. You don't ever want to be the person sitting there with nothing to open. Gives the impression that you've been bad that year, or something.

So instead, I carefully orchestrate my Christmas gift options, choosing only items that I know will fit, match and look great together, so if Tony chooses wisely, I'll have a matching outfit under the tree. And if he doesn't, I'll have a great selection of separates to work into my current wardrobe. The best part is that I know how much it means to Tony to buy good gifts and this will give him the opportunity to do that, and not worry that I don't like something he bought for me and then have a repeat of birthday '07. Oh, the horror.

Here's hoping your shopping is going as well as mine and that I figure something out for Jack before Christmas Eve, when I freak out and buy everyone a Snuggy.

Hey, that's not a bad idea......

Whew, what a downer!

I just re-read my post from yesterday and I think I owe everyone a great big apology! What a big pile of moodiness I was yesterday!

Obviously, I shouldn't write while hungry. From now on, I commit to only write posts after a large meal or snack.

Speaking of which, we went to the grocery store today, so my hunger pangs should be held at bay for a while.

However, today was sprint-shopping, the most nerve-wracking kind. Tony and I left the house at 11:40 to go to Sam's, knowing that I had to be back for a phone conference at 1:30. Which would have been plenty of time, except we stopped at a neighbor's for 10 minutes to chat and invite them over for drinks and stuff on Saturday (adding a few more items to my grocery list at the same time!). By the time we got to Sam's, I had approximately 20 minutes to shop, check out and get everything loaded in the car. It normally takes me that long just to reach the back of the store.

Add to that the fact that Tony got a call from a very chatty customer 30 seconds before we pulled in to the parking lot and we had what I like to call "a situation." I abandoned Tony in the car with nary a glance over my shoulder and sprinted through the parking lot to the store, shoving old ladies and SUVs out of the way as I went. (Sidebar - why is it that people in SUVs backing out of parking spaces inevitably have to stop and start over? It's not a semi, people, it's a Jeep Liberty. I've had dogs bigger than that.)

As soon as I hit the store, I was in the zone, digging out my list, tossing my coat to the doorman (what, your Sam's Club doesn't have a doorman?) and speed-walking toward the dog food. Only to realize when I got there that there is no way I can pick up a 50 pound bag of kibble. Well, not if I want all of my internal organs to stay internal. I picked up dog Christmas presents instead, including Beggin' Strips (the dog equivalent of Combos, I'm convinced) and some chicken-scented chew toys (I'm hoping they smell like COOKED chicken and not BARNYARD chicken).

After that frivolity, I scurried off to the food section, desperate for some sort of acceptable, grown-up appetizer for Saturday's cocktail gathering. Normally, I'd serve pizza rolls and Doritos, but I think this get-together requires more finesse. Our neighbors seem fairly sophisticated and spray cheese on Ritz Crackers just doesn't seem appropriate.

Dashing wildly from aisle to aisle, I filled the cart with a random collection of frozen and not-frozen bites, hoping a theme would emerge besides "Lacy's Desperate Attempt to Seem Cultured." Sadly, none did. We'll be eating chicken sausage, bruschetta, frozen shrimp and whole apples, I guess.

Once Tony joined me, I force-marched him all over the store, making him pick up the heavy stuff, yelling at him to keep up and at one point, stomping my foot in the dairy section because he wouldn't shut up about his customer and help me figure out if we had enough food for everyone. He's so selfish sometimes.

Twenty minutes after sweeping through the front door, we were on our way back to the car in a driving rain, only to be foiled when Tony put all the groceries in first and forgot about the dog food. This is how we ended up with our legs sticking out the front doors of the Mini, trying desperately to jam a bag of dog food the size of a fifth-grader behind the front seats. We did it, but it wasn't pretty.

As we rocketed home, I realized we'd forgotten the wine (kind of important for a cocktail party) and the trash bags, but that was collateral damage we'd just have to live with. I've done too many surgical grocery strikes to believe that everyone comes back alive.

Dis-Ordered Eating

I was reading a magazine article the other day about people with eating disorders, and one sentence really struck me. The woman, a former bulimic, said that she knew she had a problem with food when she stopped thinking of it as something to be eaten and enjoyed and started only thinking of it in terms of how many calories each food item held.

Uh-oh.

Now, don't get me wrong. I know I don't have an eating disorder (despite what Mrs. Mansfield, my first-grade teacher, told my mom, I never did develop anorexia). But I have realized over the past few months that I have disordered eating. My relationship with food is uncomfortable, difficult, fraught with guilt and remorse and very rarely, successful. I love to prepare and eat food and I hate myself for doing that. Well, I love myself when I prepare food and I hate myself when I eat it.

Every bite I put in my mouth is calculated, as are all the bites I DON'T. I have done enough reading about nutrition to know approximately how many calories are in the foods I eat. What I don't know, I find out by reading nutrition labels. Obsessively.

I think all of this started my junior year of high school, when I had to keep a food journal for a week for chemistry class. The rush I felt when I could restrict my calories to 1200 a day (keep in mind, I was 16 at the time and 45 - count 'em 45 - pounds lighter than I am now) was incredible. Since then, I have always been interested in how many calories I'm consuming and burning and wasting, etc.

It all got much worse about a year ago, when I realized I'd gained a lot of weight in a short period of time - 20 pounds in about six months. That is horrifying for me, because although my weight has fluctuated over the years by five or 10 pounds, my clothes have always fit. Now I'm reduced to borrowing clothes from my mother (with the promise that in a few months, I'll be small enough that I can give them back to her because they are too big) or wearing the same two or three outfits constantly. It is demoralizing to walk into my closet only to see lots of beautiful things that won't fit over my ass. Add to that the great boot blowout of '09 and I'm mortified every time I think about my size.

So, I obsess about my food intake. Over the past year, I've tried all sorts of things - exercise, diet, extreme exercise, diets that made me cry, eating only whole foods, eating only processed foods, crying, you name it. None of it has worked. I weigh the same amount now that I did in January. Which is to say 25 more pounds than I want to weigh. The frustration, self-loathing and anger are incredible.

And this has brought me to the point where even though I'm so hungry I want to cry right now (although a great deal of the tears would be shame from admitting any of this) I'm afraid to eat anything because I'm trying so hard to lose weight before we try to get pregnant again. (Yes, a part of me thinks that if I were thinner, I wouldn't have had the miscarriage.)

I know I'm not alone in my frustration and anger about this. I know many, many people struggle with their weight. However, when you are standing in the pantry crying, it is a solo endeavor. And when you can't get your favorite boots to fit, there is no one who can help you (except if you get stuck, and then husbands can usually be recruited to cut them off.)

It doesn't help that, intellectually, I know that if you eat fewer calories than you burn, you will lose weight. Try telling that to my face when I get so stressed out about paying the bills that I order Chinese food and then silently berate myself with every bite. (That would be yesterday.) Tell me that when I cook chicken and brown rice for the 42nd time in a month even though I find it soul-killing to cook and eat such boring food all the time. (Beyond that, I don't even like chicken and rice.)

I'm not sure what the solution is. I refuse to buy any more big clothes. I refuse to be happy in this body because I know it isn't good for me. And I find it impossible to feel attractive when all I see in the mirror are my imperfections. And knowing that everyone in my life likes me better when I'm thinner doesn't help much either.

So I think I'll go stand in the pantry and cry.