Food for thought.

This is not okay. 

With the new year rolling in to town, I've seen more of these so-called "motivational" pictures than ever. And it honestly makes me feel sick to my stomach. How have we become so obsessed with the idea of becoming skeletally skinny? What has happened to our brains to lead people to think that THIS is the ideal? 

Let me start by saying that living a healthy lifestyle is something we should all strive for. When I eat right and exercise regularly, I feel happy, healthy, and full of life. When I overindulge and behave like a lazy bum, I feel sloppy and uncomfortable, and sometimes even sick. I enjoy running hard and pushing my body to do hard things. And truthfully, I feel much better about myself and have a much easier time maintaing a healthy level of self esteem when I am at a healthy shape for my body. 

That being said, there is so much more to life than the size of your waist.

For just about as long as I can remember, I've felt self-conscious about my body. I can remember smiling with my mouth closed in pictures, because I was embarrassed about my under-bite, and turning bright red when I had to order a bigger sized school t-shirt than the rest of my friends. I remember those painfully awkward years of feeling so bad about myself, and I just want to reach through time to hold that painfully insecure girl tight and tell her that there is absolutely nothing wrong with her. I was a normal little girl. I played outside, my mom packed me healthy lunches, and my little belly was not any sort of endangerment to my health. And yet, at 9 years old, I was already convinced that I was fat. How did that idea even get into my head? Who has the right to tell a little girl that she is not the right shape? As my shape has bobbed around over time, I've felt euphoric happiness as weight drops off, and complete devastation when a pound or two should find its way back on. What right does my weight have to control my happiness? And more importantly, why in the world would anyone strive to look like they are quite literally starving themselves?

In middle school, I remember learning about African women who wear spiral metal coils around their necks in order to elongate their neck. We were all so scandalized by this idea. Self-mutilation to preserve some bizarre ideal of beauty? Who in their right mind would put their body through such torture, to such pointless and bizarre looking ends? This fixation on becoming alarmingly thin is equally horrifying to me. Women on the runways today have body compositions suggestive of anorexia. As they drop to such unhealthy weights, their hair can fall out, their immune system weakens, and their reproductive organs completely shut down. This is not health. This is not even pretty.

I see the young girls around me and my heart breaks to think of them worrying about their size or their shape. It starts so young. Not only does it make my heart ache to think of these girls being robbed of their childhood, it makes me mad. It makes me furious to see young girls who are perfectly healthy feel fat and not pretty. They are selling string bikinis and halter tops on the rack for tiny girls. We are teaching them so young that their value is relfected in what they see in the mirror. According to popular culture, being heavy is not only unattractive, but it is a character flaw. Surely heavier people look the way that they do because they lack the self-mastery to curb their raging appetites. It's like having the will power to subsist on celery sticks and weight loss shakes puts you on a higher moral ground than those weakling plebeians that need food to survive. This is a lie! Food is not a sin. Food is meant to be enjoyed. Life is meant to be enjoyed. There is no victory to be found by starving yourself to reach some illusive ideal. We will never be skinny enough.

I feel so strongly about this issue, I can hardly organize my thoughts into anything coherent. I just want it to stop. I don't want to see these skeletal women on the cover of fashion magazines. I don't want to hear my friends complain about every part of their body that they think is flawed. I don't my future daughters to cry when they develop hips.

Our bodies are incredible. Whether they're a size 2 or a size 20. My sister had her first baby two months ago, and the first time I held my new baby niece, I was just in awe that her tiny heart was pumping away. Her brand new lungs were working perfectly. She is perfection. And she will always be perfection. I can't stand the thought of this new and perfect baby being thrown into a world that will tell her all of the reasons why she shouldn't think she is perfect.

You hear that Gandhi quote thrown around all of the time: "Be the change you wish to see in the world." So, it starts with me. However unorganized and poorly written this little rant is, it's a step forward in saying that I believe in something different. I believe in eating healthy food to make my body work better. I believe in eating cheesecake on my birthday. I believe in taking my dog on walks. I believe in running hard and appreciating my hard-working body with every step. I believe in wearing a swimsuit to play in the ocean, and not worrying about how I look. I believe in standing in front of a mirror every now and then and noticing everything that is beautiful about the way you look. I believe in spending some time without looking in a mirror, and noticing everything that is beautiful about who you are.

And mostly, I believe that most people truly believe these things too. They just need some help remembering.
 

Mother of all blog posts

Whoa nelly.

It's been over a month since I last blogged. I don't even know where to start. December was an absolutely bonkers month, in many awesome ways, and in a few less-awesome ways. And sadly, my little blog was sorely neglected. If it makes you feel any better, my laundry, dishes, dog, and husband were also a bit neglected. And now I am in that negative cycle where I have so much to catch up on, I don't even want to start because it is so intimidating! And then I have other amusing anecdotes that I want to write about, but feel like I can't until I sit down to write a big catch-up of all that I've been doing in the last month. My life is certainly fraught with adversity.

But here I am, back at work, with nothing but the free pebbled ice and my new "Pooped Puppies" calendar, featuring a daily photo of a precious sleeping puppy, to sustain my optimism.

In order to meet the demands of both my desire to chronicle recent happenings, and my ADD regarding writing long summaries, and keeping in harmony with my love of writing lists, I have decided to write an A-Z of what's been keeping me busy. My mom took tons of great pictures, which I will hopefully get later, but for now there are just some random iPhone pictures.

A. Ate a lot of things. Most notably, rib night with the Reich-cousins, Steak Pit at Snowbird, Tucano's for the Care Bear's birthday, enough Christmas candy to keep chocolate companies in business for the next year, and 1/2 a jar of nutella in one week.

B. Birthday-ed my beloved. It is hard to start a sentance with the word birthday. We went skiing together, opened presents, ate cake, and just celebrated my awesome husband.

C. Christmas. Duh. It was the bomb diggity. After spending a week in Dallas with the Reeves and celebrating a little Christmas with them, we flew out to Utah to spend a week at Snowbird with my family. We spent most of Christmas morning traveling to the airport, flying on the airplane, and driving up to Snowbird, but we were just so darn happy to be on our way to Utah to celebrate Christmas, we were happy as clams. We were spoiled rotten, as usual. Every single time I ask Cary what time it is, he replies with "Time to get a watch!" This has been his response for the entirety of our relationship. So, for Christmas he got me a beautiful watch. That cute stinker. For my Christmas/birthday present to him (and with some help from my extremely generous parents) we got Cary an iPad for Christmas! He loves it. And I love borrowing it.

Love my new watch! And goodness, why does my arm look so weird?

D. Dancing. Of course we had to Just Dance it up this Christmas. I particularly enjoyed Brent and Todd's rendition of "Beautiful Liar." Their hips don't lie. A clip, for your enjoyment:

E. Ellie! Gosh, I love that baby girl! She is so darn cute. I spent as much time as possible holding her, kissing her perfect baby cheeks and smelling her perfect baby head. They need to find a way to make babies stay newborn for just a little longer. I refuse to accept the fact that she will grow up.

Ellie dancing with Grandpa

F. Fizz. I drank a lot of Diet Coke.

G. Got in a little car accident. The day before Anna's (Cary's sister) wedding, I was out running errands with my mother in law and sister in law. We were stopped at light and the car behind us just plowed into our car, knocking us into the car in front of us. Besides some head aches and stiff necks, we were all fine. But nothing like a car wreck to remind you to hug everyone a little tighter.

H. Half Marathon. I ran in a half marathon in November, and then put on a half marathon for the base in December. So I've had half marathon on the brain for quite a while now. One of my goals for 2012 is to run 2 more half marathons. I really enjoyed participating in one, but boy did I not enjoy being in charge of one. It was completely consuming and so stressful. And of course, on the day of the half marathon, it was 40 degrees and raining, which happens about once a year in Del Rio. C'est la vie. The half marathon is a large part of why I have been absent from the blogging world. My job turned from 8 hours of thinking about working and mostly not, to 10 hours of frantically running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Phew. But, overall it was mostly successful, and now it's over!

All the runners who braved the freezing run... Bless them. 

I. Illness. I played hostess to several different sicknesses during the month of December. As soon as I was coming around from one bug, I caught another one. I am just now wrapping up the cold that my little brother so generously gave me for Christmas. Come on immune system, get it together!

J. Joy. I love Christmas time. I'm always sad to see it go. We filled our December with constant "Michael Buble Christmas" station playing on pandora, cookies, hot chocolate, Christmas movies, and the spirit of Christ in our lives. Although the music and decorations may be seasonal, I hope we can continue to keep Him close to our hearts through the year.

K. Kicking and screaming as we had to come back to Del Rio. I was happy to be back to my bed and my friends here, but not so happy to be headed back to real life. Living so far from our families is the hardest thing about our Air Force life. We love them so much, and miss them dearly. And I was not pleased to meet my nemesis, the alarm clock, again. Or to go back to only eating desserts on the weekend. Darn.

L. Laughing. Oh boy, did we do a lot of that. Hilarious youtube vid for your viewing pleasure:

M. Marriage. Cary's sister, Anna, got married over Christmas break and it was so beautiful! She looked radiant and they both looked so happy. I love weddings. Their reception was gorgeous and we had a great time busting a move on the dance floor. Another one of Cary's sisters, Sarah, is getting married  next weekend! We are so happy for both of them! AND, my very best friend Danica got engaged! I love marriage. Highly endorse it.

Anna is so beautiful! Why does my head look so strange?

Gosh, I love that guy.

N. New Years. The Reichman always know how to party on New Year's Eve. We played a little rock band, a little Just Dance, some card games, and ate lots of good food. And went to bed at approximately 12:10, just the way I like it. Cary and I made some 2012 goals, and I thought I'd post a few of them, for accountabilities' sake.
1. Run a half marathon together. (Side goal for Amy: Run a half marathon in under 2 hours)
2. Eat 2 fruits and 2 vegetables every day, which is not so much a struggle for Amy, but is a major struggle for certain members of our household who actually gag when I put peppers or tomatoes into any meals.
3. Read scriptures and pray together daily. I tried to tell Cary that we need to include a falling-asleep-on-the-couch clause, to excuse family members who already fell asleep while watching Malcom in the Middle from having to wake up to read scriptures, but my movement was rejected.
4. Go on a weekly date. Any good ideas for cheap but fun date ideas?
5. Be able to do 1 pull- up. (Just for Amy) (And it's a long shot)

As you can see, it got a little out of hand.

Yikes.

The only picture we took together, in which we both look a bit concerning.

O. Oh goodness. This is getting quite lengthy.

P. Purchased Christmas presents. Living in Del Rio can be a bit of a challenge when it comes to Christmas shopping. I had originally planned on buying everything online, but somehow we found ourselves a week out from Christmas, with zero gifts. So, we spent lots of time driving all over Dallas and Fort Worth in search of Christmas presents. I hate shopping and crowds, so it was a struggle. But we celebrated the end by going to Cheesecake Factory, so I'm calling it a win.

Q. Quitting my job. Oh, how I wish. Not for a couple more months. But unemployment will taste oh so sweet.

R. Reuniting with a friend! While in Colorado in November, I got to see my Del Rio BFF Makamae! It was fantastic. And it also involved Cheesecake Factory. I love that place.

Hooray for friends!

S. Skiing! Even though the snow was terrible, we loved skiing together over Christmas Break! Cary took a couple of lessons, and is getting much better. I think he might actually enjoy skiing now! I enjoyed going down runs as fast as possible, because I hate that schkskchksch sound when you turn on ice, so I just decided against turning. It was a good time. I was so sad to leave Snowbird. Skiing is about the only thing that I am any good at, and I miss being able to ski throughout the winter. Dumb ol' Del Rio.

T. Thankful. We are so blessed.

V. Visited Cary's family that is sprawled across the Dallas-Fort Worth area. He has 9 cousins. Visited my family that all came up to Snowbird. I have 50 cousins and first cousins combined. It was nuts. In the best way.

W. Waited patiently to give each other our Christmas gifts! This never happens. I always get too excited and give my gift to him early. I tried several times this year to convince Cary to let us exchange gifts early, but he remained strong. Sources indicate that the reason for his refusal to give me my gift early to be that he had not purchased it until 2 days before Christmas.

X. Xpertly packed our suitcases to weigh 50 lbs each to get ourselves back from Utah with all of our Christmas loot. Also got in trouble for putting a blu-ray player in our carry on. Sheesh. TSA, man. Watch this video:

Y. Yahtzee, Speed scrabble, Nerts, Oh Heck, Rummy, Kinect, Wii frisbee golf. Many tournaments took place. Cary and I cleaned up on Nerts, but I got my fanny handed to me on everything else.

Z. Zzz. The simple joy of not having to set an alarm clock.

Good gravy, that was long. Shorter, better, and funnier updates in the future. Pinkie promise.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

Potpourri

Greetings, people of the internet!

[Insert the usual apology for my lengthy blogging absence and typical litany of excuses, followed by a renewed vow to write with more regularity]

Phew. What a busy few weeks it has been. Between preparing to run in a half marathon, organizing the half marathon on base, pondering thanksgiving meal planning so as to optimize the amount of deliciouness I can experience before I have to unbutton my pants, and general care and keeping of house and husbands, I haven't had much room in my noggin for thinking up interesting things to blog about. But, I ran my half marathon (woo! also, hello sports bra chafing.) and for better or worse, have adopted a lackadaisical (10 point word. I didn't even use a thesaurus, so I'm promoting it to a 15 point word) attitude regarding current projects at my place of employment, so let's get this party started.

I have a lot of things I feel like discussing, and they should probably each have their own blog post so as to avoid one overly large and nonsensical post, but I don't feel like it and you're not the boss of my life, so quit yelling at me!
....

Hey, so guess what? My sister had a baby yesterday! I can't wait to meet my sweet little niece! I love her already. Look at this precious girl:

Ellie Jane Blake

I can't wait to hold her and snuggle her and kiss those perfectly round baby cheeks! I'm Colorado bound on Friday, and it can't come fast enough. I already feel so connected to that angelic little baby. A little glimpse into heaven.

I sang "Come Thou Fount" yesterday in church. On a normal day, that song gets me all choked up. Combine that with the fact that I had just looked at pictures of my lovely sister holding her tiny miracle, and I was already feeling like the space between here and heaven was very thin. My knees shook through the entire song with the effort of trying not to cry. But I lost the battle at the end of the song and barely squeaked out the last lines. Music has always been my solace, my outlet of emotion, and my connection to the divine. For anyone who is interested, or for those who were there yesterday, but want to know what the song sounds like without ragged breaths and a shaking voice, I thought I'd post the recording I made for my mom when I left home to go to school. And if you think it's totally lame that I'm posting a recording of myself singing, once again, you aren't the boss of my life! (p.s. I couldn't figure out how to add a song, so I threw on a random picture I found on the internets and made it a video. Technology, why are you so hard??)

Thanksgiving is in 4 days. Oh, I can't wait. I love eating. And, I love the grateful attitude that Thanksgiving inspires. I am so undeniably and undeservedly blessed. I recently read a quote, something along the lines of, "What if one day you woke up, and the only things that remained were the things you were grateful for yesterday?" That quote really inspired me to consciously acknowledge all of things I have to be grateful for. Almost every day, I lay (lie? I just did a google search and I still can't figure it out) in bed and feel overwhelmed with gratitude for the life I am blessed with. I have a wonderful husband. He makes me laugh every day, even if I am grumpy and I don't want to laugh. He is so patient with me and my many idiosyncrasies. I have the most incredible family. They are my best friends, and I am constantly in awe that I am related to such amazing people. We have a cozy, comfortable house and a fridge full of food. I have a cute pooch who wags her tail by the door when I come home. We live in a great community and I'm so grateful for the friends we've made here. We are surrounded by such kind, thoughtful, hilarious, welcoming, and inspiring friends. They constantly act as answers to my prayers. I'm grateful for a healthy body. I'm grateful that I have a job. I'm grateful for my husband's job and his pride in serving our country. For my faithful little Honda that keeps running even though I don't take very good care of her. For phones, e-mails, skype, and texts to keep in touch with my friends and family. For Diet Coke (Don't look at me like that). For best friends who don't care if it's been a month or a year; you pick up exactly where you left off. For music. For beautiful things. For chubby baby legs. For the using a towel that's fresh out of the dryer. For holding hands. For books that take me to a whole new world. For little kids who can't quite say their "R's" yet.  For the gospel of Jesus Christ. For a loving Heavenly Father who knows me, and hears my every prayer.

Life is a beautiful thing. And I am so grateful for mine.

Sick Beats

I just updated my iPod shuffle to get ready for the half marathon Sunday, so I thought I'd share my favorite running songs. I have terrible taste in the music I like to listen to while running, but if these songs can motivate my fat butt to run 13.1 miles, they must have some kind of magical powers:


Jai Ho!   A.R. Rahman & The Pussycat Dolls
Set Fire to the Rain   Adele
What the Hell   Avril Lavigne
God Gave Me You   Blake Shelton
I'm a Slave 4 U   Britney Spears
Circus   Britney Spears
I Wanna Go   Britney Spears
Fighter   Christina Aguilera
Dirrty   Christina Aguilera
Good Girls Go Bad   Cobra Starship
You Make Me Feel   Cobra Starship
Butterfly   Crazy Town
Lose Yourself   Eminem
I Like It   Enrique Iglesias
Like a G6   Far East Movement
Dog Days Are Over   Florence + The Machine
Tonight Tonight   Hot Chelle Rae
Don't You Wanna Stay   Jason Aldean
It Girl   Jason Derulo
In My Head   Jason Derulo
On The Floor    Jennifer Lopez
Stronger   Kanye West
I Kissed a Girl   Katy Perry
E.T.  Katy Perry
Teenage Dream   Katy Perry
I Run to You   Lady Antebellum
Just a Kiss   Lady Antebellum
Bad Romance   Lady GaGa
Party Rock Anthem   LMFAO
4 Minutes   Madonna
Moves Like Jagger   Maroon 5
Everything   Michael Bublé
Feeling Good   Michael Bublé
Get Ur Freak On   Missy Elliott
Lose Control   Missy Elliott
Uprising   Muse
Hot in Herre   Nelly
Grillz   Nelly
Super Bass   Nicki Minaj
Smells Like Teen Spirit   Nirvana
Misery Business   Paramore
Give Me Everything   Pitbull
Disturbia   Rihanna
Only Girl   Rihanna
Rude Boy   Rihanna
Break It Off   Rihanna & Sean Paul
Push It    Salt-n-Pepa
Give It Up to Me   Shakira
Carry Out   Timbaland
DJ Got Us Fallin' In Love   Usher
She's Not There   The Zombies
In da Club   50 Cent

Seriously, every time I hear "Lose Control" I get so pumped I can't even handle it. I'm going to be dancing my way down the course.

Distance runners do it longer

My good friend Makamae posted this on Pinterest today:

I need this water bottle.

Oft times while I am running, I ponder either what I ate that I am now repenting of, or what I get to eat after accomplishing the run.

That didn't sound as pathetic until I typed it out.

I gotta be me.

I'm running a half marathon next weekend. It is probably not going to feel super good, physically. But it is going to feel AWESOME in all other ways. For those not aware of my running history, here is a little run (ha) down:
- I weighed 165 pounds when I was 13 or 14. Chubs, in a major way.
- I got down to 140ish through counting calories slash not eating hot pockets for after school snacks.(I'm 5'7"! I have hips! I'm never going to weigh 115! Don't hate.)
- I got tired of dieting all of the time, and decided to take up some sort of exercise.
- I've always hated running, but decided it was an activity of skinny people, so I should probably take it up.
- I ran to the end of our street and had to stop and catch my breath.
- I kept running and trying and complaining and sweating.
- I cried from happiness the day I ran an entire mile without stopping.
- Ever since that first time that I ran a mile, I've been scared of returning to the state where I couldn't run a mile.
- So I keep running.
- I trained for a half marathon last spring. I was all ready: I trained, I bought new shoes, I ran my 10 mile run, and then I chickened out. The altitude in Utah was killer, and I was scared to run it all by my onesie! I'm still mad at myself to being such a wimp.
- I'm in charge of the half marathon training group on base, but I can't run the base half marathon, because I'm in charge of the dang thing.
- The idea of training for, but not running, 2 different half marathons made me angry.
- I impulsively and possibly a bit foolishly registered for the Rock N Roll Half Marathon this week and ran 10 miles today in preparation. It was fun and not too bad, and I'm not even sore! That is a statement that I never thought I would make in my entire life.
- Word.


Wish me luck! Especially that I don't have any bathroom emergencies during the race (always happens to me).

Treatise on Halloween

Here I present, in no particular order of significance, my thoughts on Halloween (and a few other things):


1. I was a princess for Halloween from ages 3-9. Creativity is not my strong suit.

2. I want to have a bowl full of raisins or toothbrushes to give to anyone who comes trick-or-treating to my house who is above the age of 16. Go buy your own candy, ya bum! Trick-or-treating is for plastic pumpkin toting little kids, and not for greasy teenagers carrying pillowcases for their haul of undeserved candy.

3. I love scary movies, but I almost always have nightmares for a few days afterwards. I mean, not wake-up-screaming and hysterical nightmares, but I dream that some psychopath is trying to kill me, and then right as I'm about to die, I wake up. After my heart palpitations have ceased, and I reach the conclusion that my house is serial-killer free, I doze off; only to have the exact same dream. It is torture.
      Side note to #3: Cary went cross country one night this week, and it was my first time sleeping alone in our house. Just as I was drifting off to dreamland, Abby bolts up and starts barking her head off at the door. For a full minute, I was convinced that I was in the clutches of a mass murderer. It really makes no sense. When Cary is around, I very rarely fear that murderers are going to sneak into our house (unless I'm in the shower; which is a subject for another time.) But the second that he is gone, I interpret every little sound to be the sound of a cold blooded killer making his way into the house.

4. Well, this seems as good a time as any to discuss my irrational fear of showering. Not that showering in and of itself is scary (although you might think that I feel that way, what with the alarming irregularity of my showering habits) but I am always terrified that someone is going to sneak in my house and kill me while I'm sudsing it up. It would really be the perfect time. The water is running, I can't hear anything, and besides threatening to squirt shampoo in their eyes, I am defenseless. Usually at least once per shower, I have to turn off the water for a few seconds and listen to make sure there are no axe wielding psychopaths in my house. And I can't even count the number of times I've gotten shampoo in my eyes beacuse I've felt the need to open my eyes while rinsing because I am positive that death itself is about to pull back the shower curtain.

5. I shouldn't have watched Psycho when I was a little kid.

6. I have mixed feelings on the "fun-sized" candy issue. One the one hand, candy is undeniably fun. And it is always strangely cute when it is in miniature form. And in the moment, it is certainly fun to eat half a bag of mini twix and kit kats and snickers. But afterwards, when none of your pants fit and your teeth hurt and you are full of self loathing, it is decidedly not very fun. Here is what I don't get: As a person who is perpetually trying to eat better, I would never consider eating 2 entire full sized candy bars. That would just be ridiculous. But I can eat 2 candy bars worth of fun sized treats faster than you can say "Type 2 Diabetes."

7. I am 1 of probably about 5 people in the world who like Good N' Plenties. I also sincerely enjoy Peeps. I am thrilled that they are available for all holidays now, instead of just Easter.

8. Speaking of Peeps, but unrelated to Halloween, and slightly inappropriate, but still funny:




9. One year, my friend and I painted cardboard boxes to look like dice and wore them for trick-or-treating. This seemed like an excellent idea, until we realized that the location of the arm holes prevented us from bringing our arms together or putting them down. Much armpit chafing ensued.

10. I had several excellent ideas for costumes this year, but due to laziness and lack of husband cooperation, none of them came to fruition. My first idea was for Cary to be Mario, me to be Princess Peach, and Abby to be Yoshi. Then I decided that we would be the whole Where's Waldo clan, including his dog and girlfriend who I learned through a googlesearch, is named Wendy. And then I decided Cary and I would be cowboys, and Abby would be a cow. All of these costumes revolved around the idea of dressing up Abby. I am one of those people. In the end, we're just going to be grown ups sitting at home and passing out candy. This counts as a costume to me, since I still can hardly believe that I am a married adult with a house in which to pass out candy. Weird.

The last week of my life at work

According to the 4-pictures-in-a-row option I just discovered on photobooth on my computer:

 Left to right, from top: Grrrr. Aww man... Huh? Whatev!

And then I went on a roller coaster. 

Computers are fun.

And I need a hobby. 

More substantial updates to come; pending less "Grr" and more "whatev!" moments at work...