Finding My Way 5/30/18

So, after closing my Facebook account a mere week or so ago, I decided to create another one as a means to connect with friends and future readers of this blog. Listen, I haven't thought it all the way through. I swear these changes are just happening without much thought at all. It's as if I'm being guided into doing stuff without realizing that I'm being guided. I don't know what I'm doing or where this is going but for the time being, I'm being led to write and promote my writing.

Writing was my passion for years before I stopped. I even used to write poems...(I still can't believe I did that, but it's true). Before I was typing them, I was handwriting them, as early as sixth grade. I'd started writing in diaries at around seven or eight years old. It was my preferred means of expressing myself because I felt like I didn't have a voice. Writing is a part of my identity that I'd clearly forgotten all about for years...and I'm not even sure how that happened.

When I'd look at my old poems or even old love letters I'd written to an imaginary man - yes, an imaginary man I called "future husband," - I'm reminded that I was mad corny. I'm still mad corny. There is something almost theatrical about the way I write sometimes. There is a side of me that is super dramatic and flamboyant and...corny. I wonder how many times I can fit the word, "corny" into this paragraph...hmm...corny :)

Maybe the right word for it is, "quirky." I have weird little quirks about me that I've tried to suppress for years. Is it weird to admit that for years I've felt like I've been existing and not really living?  I've spent a lot of years caring about what others think about me, and therefore, trying to remain as invisible and "normal" as I possibly could - but you know what? Normal is boring. It's not me. I may not be for everyone but if I'm going to live a full life, I can't continue to suppress my personality.

I'm weird and proud of it dang it!

I don't think it's a coincidence that this is all coming about as I've renewed my commitment to spending more time with God. I've been extremely neglectful in that relationship and I'm not happy about it. I need to know Him better because there are times when I'm just not sure Who He is to me, and that's not OK because there was a time when I was 100 percent sure. That's my fault. In spending more time in His Word, I know He will reveal Himself to me, and in so doing, will reveal me to myself, too. I mean, how could He not? He created me in the first place!

Until next time, stay blessed!

XOXOXO - Jess

Floss Gloss Lean & Colores De Carol Camellia 5/29/18

Today, I have on the most lovely purple polish from a brand called Floss Gloss called Lean. It is such a girly bright purple with quite a bit of pink to it and I just adore it. I bought it in early 2016 along with four other polishes from Live Love Polish, and this is my first time wearing any of the polishes from that order. (Although, I'm not 100 percent sure I've not worn the Picture Polish called Merge...I know for sure my daughter has, but I'm not sure if I have...hmm...). The formula on Lean was phenomenal! You'd expect polish in such a small bottle to be a bit of a pain to apply - but nope! It applied perfectly, evenly, and almost completely opaquely in one coat, though I threw on a second for good measure. I want this baby to last!

On some nails I also have a single thin coat of Colores De Carol's Camellia, which is a beautiful holographic topper with multichrome flakes. It's my favorite thing to put on top of just about anything. As beautiful as Lean is, I couldn't see myself wearing her as a full mani without a little something extra to spice it up. It's not the polish's fault, but my weird skin tone. In general, I'm not a fan of manicures that only feature one creme polish. I do have some exceptions, like, bright colors, dusty colors, and especially off white polishes like Coconut Milk from KL Polish or beautiful nude colors like Gray-T Escape from Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure, which are so clean and beautiful on their own that I often can't bring myself to distract from them, particularly on days when a fresh, clean look is preferred. However, Camellia on top of any of those polishes is also pretty darn stunning.

Isn't that a sweet mani? Even with my newly-shortened nails, it looks beautifully girly and just all-around yum.

I hope you enjoyed this short and sweet nail-polish-related post!

Until next time, Stay Blessed!

XOXOXO - Jess

Non-Entertainment & Weight Loss...Apparently...5/24/18

I'm suffering in silence over here at my desk. I can barely keep my eyes open. What I NEED to have happen is to still be this sleepy when I get home. That way I can just clean up and crawl into bed and sleep long and hard until 5:00 a.m. the next day.

I keep starting and then changing my mind about watching something on Prime Video. I'm so disinterested in just about everything right now. I have zero videos left on my YT watch list, too...I ended up deleting a lot of them without watching because I changed my mind about being interested...Why do I keep trying to entertain myself when I just cannot be entertained at the moment?

I had to unsubscribe from a vegan Youtuber today after watching a video featuring cheap (as in, inexpensive) meals. The bowls of the cheap "servings" were like five inches in diameter and two inches deep. Of course those servings are cheap. And who can eat that little and be satisfied? She's also mad fake. I just can't with her anymore.

Boy, am I cranky today or what?!?! Baby needs a nap.

I've been feeling extra fat and heavy and gross lately and have been hating what I've been seeing in the mirror. It's been like this for at least a month if not longer. Yet, my plant-based son hugged me last week and commented on how "slim" I was getting. Later on in the day, I overheard him saying to his non-plant-based brother, "Mom is looking healthier than I've ever seen her look in her life!"

My coworker commented two weeks ago that my weight was really coming down. I quickly responded: "Lies! I'm actually gaining weight." Because that is how I felt.

I started to wonder if maybe my perception and reality were not in alignment. I couldn't find our scale so to prove that I wasn't going crazy, I did something crazy (makes perfect sense!): I pulled out my two pairs of "goal pants." The last several times I pulled them out, I could tell just from putting - excuse me, trying to put - one leg in that it wasn't happening, so I'd just pull my half-calf right back out. Monday, however, something super weird and inexplicable happened: my entire legs slipped into both pairs effortlessly. I had to tug a little bit to bring them to my waist, but I got them up there with nowhere near the effort that it "should" have taken. This is insanely surreal to me.

And yes, several weeks ago I pulled out an olive jacket that I bought in the fall of 2016 that I couldn't wear because it was too small; a jacket that was still too small this past fall and winter, but that, as of this spring, I've been wearing...but still. And yes, there are some shirts I have around the house that used to be somewhat fitting but that I now seem to swim in, but still.

Y'all don't understand: I don't see how this is possible. When I look in the mirror, I don't see progress. I often don't feel it either; meaning, I'm still super self conscious and want to cover up everything all of the time. If it weren't for the clothes, I wouldn't believe it. It still doesn't make sense that they look like that on me, though...I don't see the connection. I'm more likely to believe that the clothes were stretched out than I am to believe that I'm actually getting smaller.

I've been eating what I want, when I want, in the amount I want...and have even strayed from strictly vegan food...yet somehow, my body is still shrinking. How is that?

Is something wrong with me?

Until next time, Stay Blessed.

XOXOXO - Jess

TV Tastes...5/18/18

You may or may not know this about me but I used to be super obsessed with TV court shows. For years, I'd scour YouTube looking for new episodes to watch before they were removed for copyright infringement. When we got a DVR this past fall, I was so excited because I could now record them at home and watch after work. NOT People's Court, NOT Judge Mathis, NEVER Judge Joe Brown for goodness sake - WHY Jesus? - and no other court shows, just Judge Judy and Hot Bench. I added Hot Bench to the recordings just a few months ago because I liked Judge Acker.

I loved everything about these shows. They had kind of a rhythm to them that I found comforting. I can't quite explain it. However, weeks have gone by and I have not had the urge to watch the nearly 30 episodes (of each show) my DVR stored for me. I actually tried binge watching some two weekends ago and found that doing so drained me. It's so weird...I tried watching some again two nights ago and was just turned off. I canceled the recordings and deleted both folders of nearly 60 total episodes without watching them. I really can't believe I did that. You have no idea how seriously obsessed I was with these shows!

I think a combination of a few things has inspired this action:

1. The obvious pre-biases on some cases have gotten on my dang nerves.
2. Some people are starting to become long-winded, reminding me of Judge Joe Brown. Asking stupid questions and drawing out the process of asking stupid questions thinking they're doing something special with their questioning but really are just looking foolish.
3. I've been disagreeing more and more with the outcomes from both shows.
4. I started watching For The People (FTP), The Good Wife (TGW), and now The Good Fight (TGF).

FTP is a new show. I don't jump to watch the show every week; I kind of let them accumulate on Hulu before going back to them. There's one guy on there that I just cannot tolerate because he's so clearly trying to portray something that he so so SO is not. I get acting is all about portraying who you're not, but this guy isn't a good enough actor to pull it off. It makes me resent whoever cast him just as much, if not even more than the guy himself. I may end up not watching the show after a while unless he gets better - or better yet, replaced. We'll see.

TGW was recommended to me when I put a post up asking for recommendations. It wasn't until I was a couple of seasons into it that it hit me: this show, and For The People are uh-duh, court shows. Just different kinds. These are more serious I guess, and going back to the TV courtroom cases just didn't click to me anymore. What's my deal with court shows anyway? I watched all of the episodes of TGW, but, if I'm honest, I barely enjoyed it. It was hard to stay into it. Now, there were some good moments, but to me, it started out dry and ended dry, too. That last episode was the absolute worst way to end that show.

TGF is also hard for me to enjoy. Again, some good stuff, but mostly, I'm bored. I don't know how Maia got such a huge role in this show. The acting ability is so lacking there. Like..overly dramatic or something. It's bad when someone who is supposed to play a small, supporting role, Marissa, oozes so much more personality in the few minutes at a time she gets on screen than pretty much everyone else who gets much more screen time. I actually really liked her on TGW, too. I'd like to see her in more stuff. Oh, and the main investigator, Jay: don't like his acting, but when he and Marissa are together in a scene, it's fun. I like their chemistry and suspect they might start dating. I like Diane, too, but her little hallucinations and fake laughter are not cute to me at the moment. I hope they stop. Lucca...I have mixed feelings about her, but mostly because of the way she speaks. She's British but is not playing a British person, so her exaggerated speech is annoying at times. I like her with Colin, though. He's adorable and they look adorable together.

Why am I torturing myself like this? I feel a bit..."off." Like everything and nothing is entertaining me all at once. It's weird.

Anyway, that is all I have for now.

Until next time, Stay Blessed!

XOXOXO - Jess

Prayer Of The Week - THANKFUL!!! 5/15/18

This is the day that the Lord has made, and I will REJOICE! And be oh so GLAD in it!!

(I find when I am in the most jubilant of moods, I sound corny - I think my true joyous self is a flamboyant stage actor from the times of Shakespeare. I also make big gestures and open my arms widely and eagerly to hug the world!)

Thank you, Jesus, for Your glorious mercies, which You renew every single morning! We are so undeserving of even the most minute of Your glances in our direction, yet You greet us every morning with great interest in our well being, with adoration and love and forgiveness and grace and mercy and great expectations! To know that Your thoughts of us far exceed any that we could possibly imagine with our limited brains is just so overwhelming to us!

WE ARE NOT WORTHY! BUT WE THANK YOU! WE ARE SO GRATEFUL FOR ALL THAT YOU HAVE BEEN, ARE, AND WILL BE IN OUR LIVES!

Everything You touch is a song, a perfectly written love poem, a great masterpiece, an awe-inspiring work of exquisite art, a tear-jerking expression of great love! You are the Creator of the heavens and the earth! The Great Comforter to those who mourn! The Great Provider to those who (think they) lack! The Great Banner to those who can walk in Your victory! The Great Healer to those who are sick! The Great Giver of Peace to those who live in chaos! The Great Shepherd to those who need direction! You are our Righteousness and EVER PRESENT HELP! Who and HOW are we without You? Nothing! Nowhere! Lost! But dust! Yet You raise us up and call us to walk in righteousness, as the precious children of an almighty KING! WOW!!! You are MARVELOUS!! You are EVERYTHING to us!!

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, GOD, FOR ALL OF IT!!!

My vocabulary is so limited. I struggle even now to express all that You are to me! Lord, You are...I just cannot! I had to speak in tongues just now because I've run out of words!

God, we love and we thank and we praise and exalt Your name! Asking for nothing, expecting nothing, except that You please accept our attempt to worship and praise You and all of Your mighty works on this day! Hallelujah!

THANK YOU!!!

In the all-powerful name of Jesus we pray (praise)!


AMEN AMEN AMEN!!!

Not Vegan Anymore...? 5/11/18

I don't know why, but this past month has been so weird for me, diet-wise. I've eaten quite a bit of non-vegan food and I have no explanation for it. Of the food I've eaten, I can honestly say that there was only one thing that I thoroughly enjoyed: a Mediterranean salad that contained a bit of feta cheese. The steak I tried to eat: NO enjoyment - in fact, my husband and I both agreed that the accompanying vegetables were far more enjoyable. The fried chicken sandwich, beef burger, chicken salad sandwich, tuna salad sandwiches, pizza, and so much more were all just BLAH. Wait, I take that back. I kind of  enjoyed the chicken salad sandwich...if I'm really honest, I actually really liked it. It ranked at number two on my list of most enjoyable garbage food I've eaten in the past month. As good as it was, it wasn't as absolutely deliciously enjoyable as that Mediterranean salad, which was mostly comprised of plants (go figure) with a sprinkling of feta cheese...

I'm retaining water like a mug, and I'm not happy about it. I was so frustrated yesterday that I contemplated going back to a ketogenic diet, with which I had great weight-loss success, but at the expense of my intestines, joints, muscles, stamina, and sleeping through the night. I barely defecated, didn't sleep at all and had the dark(er) circles and ever-present haggardness-of-face to prove it. I mean, I looked exhausted all of the time, even when I didn't feel tired. I couldn't walk any amount of distance without my legs feeling like they were about to give out on me, and I had shooting pain from my right butt cheek down my right leg on a daily basis. I couldn't sit or stand for an hour without the pain becoming too much to bear.

Since we went vegan - or maybe I should say, "plant-based," because we still owned and used leather products and non-vegan skin products - I sleep through most nights, joint pain is gone - that shooting pain from the butt down the leg? Completely gone. My skin has improved, my stamina is ridiculous and even after extreme exercise, when I really pushed my body to do things it hasn't done since, like, middle school, I recovered to the point of being able to do it all over again in less than 24 hours.

I don't know if I'm depressed and if so, if that's the reason I'm giving up on myself this way. I swore I'd never eat pus (mucus) - I mean cheese again, yet I ate pizza with cheese! And feta! Of all of the non-vegan foods I considered going back to eating once in a while once I became healthy again,  cheese was not one of them. It's been almost a week since I've had any cheese and my throat is still fighting off the phlegm. Forget that cheese is garbage for my body because of the fat and cholesterol -  but I'm lactose intolerant, people! How could I do that to myself? What is wrong with me?

I needed to remind myself of my experiences with the ketogenic diet and plant-based diet. That's what this was about...I think. But, I also need to watch What the Health again to remind myself why I made the decision to cut those foods out of my life. And yet, I've been avoiding doing that, too. What a mess.

Another big issue is that I'm so lazy and abhor cooking. My husband cooks a lot but he loves oil and salt, and to be successful at a high-carb diet, fat and salt have to be extremely scarce. He's already tired of rice and beans or lentils. I can't tell him to stop adding flavor to stuff or complain when he gives me something that he clearly put a lot of time and effort into cooking.

I just now remembered that at one point, I'd made the decision to not care about weight loss, but to just focus on being healthy and putting healthy things into my body. Looks like I've given up on that philosophy, too...

I feel stuck. I feel like not eating anything at all until I figure out what the heck to do with my life.

Well this just got dark. Sorry.

Anyway, that's all I have for now....

Until next time, be blessed!

XOXOXO - Jess

Bizarre Sunday Night Dreams...5/9/18

The morning after having this dream I emailed myself everything I remembered about it. That's the only reason you're getting so much detail days after the dream actually occurred :)

First dream: I was walking with a young girl - not sure who she was - down a sidewalk. We noticed on the ground a flattened, deep blush, shimmery tote bag, with the handles stretched out, and started to walk past it. It actually looked like it was pressed into the ground, like it was part of the ground. I tried to restrain myself from going back for it because I thought it'd be silly, but then the young girl stated she couldn't resist and went back for it. I felt dumb for not going for it first because I really wanted it. We went back together, but I got to it first. I bent down toward the bag and just as I was about to touch it, it turned into a puppy...which makes zero sense, but it did. There are pieces of this part of the dream that are fuzzy to me. I have a vague memory about thinking that the puppy had purposely flattened itself out in a way that made people think it was dead, which is why nobody picked it up (this was a thought I believe I might have had in the actual dream, not upon waking). But, again, I remember seeing a deep blush bag that sparkled on the ground, not a flattened puppy. I don't know. Maybe she was under it. Anyway, after I picked it up, my husband was there all of a sudden, and not the girl. While holding the puppy in my arms, I looked up at him and said we needed to find its owner. As we continued walking, falling more in love with puppy, I said, "Or...we could just take her home and keep her!" He smiled at me and we kept walking.

We eventually ended up at a friend's house when it started raining. I left the puppy in the car (all this walking and suddenly we had a car) because it'd fallen asleep. The friend, my husband and I seemed to be working on some kind of project. After a long while, I suddenly remembered that I hadn't fed the puppy, and got up to check on it. While at the front door, I came to realize that the puppy was a baby. Yes, apparently I left a baby in a car for hours! Around this time I vaguely remember hoping that my friend had baby formula in the house. In fact, I think I thought about the formula before I thought/realized there was a baby in the car...

The road between the house and the car appeared to be flooding, the ground underneath looking like mounds of mud. I stood in the doorway contemplating how I was going to get to the baby and then back to the house without soaking and dirtying us both. I stood there feeling guilty for even thinking about that while this baby was in the car alone, and yet the thought of the mess I'd have to go through to get to it paralyzed me, and I couldn't move...I woke up.

Second dream after falling back asleep: I'm walking toward a bus stop. Just as I arrived, a swarm of parrot-looking birds colored red and white flew past and landed on the power lines above me. I stood there for a while and kind of zoned out. Just when I realized I've been under these birds for way too long and needed to get away, down came the storm of white. I had gobs of their "gifts" on my head, shirt, arms, etc. I thought to myself that I was on my way to an important meeting and couldn't go looking like this, so I walked back to my office. This office wasn't my current, real-life office. It was huge, had a lot of wood furniture and a big mirror and closet. I apparently had an assistant ready to clean me up and make me presentable, which she did, extremely quickly. There are pieces I'm missing from this dream, too...like, there's a foggy recollection of the assistant reassuring me with her words, telling me not to worry, and of me, marveling at how quickly she's making me look and smell nice again. I was staring into the mirror watching her putting the finishing touches on my appearance when I woke up again...

That's all I can remember for now. I'd love it if you had any insight on these dreams. They were so bizarre!

Until next time, Be Blessed!

XOXOXO - Jess

New York & State Of Mind...5/1/18

The majority of what I watched today on YouTube were Sweet Digs videos from Refinery29 where they show you what you get for $XXXX in NYC. It's amazing how tiny some of the spaces were. I still don't know why I am looking or why I care to look...

The way the people were dressed also made me pretty darn sure I couldn't survive there. I don't have any fashion sense or style. I could wear the same thing every single day and not give a hoot. Plus I say things like, "I don't give a hoot," which I don't think will mesh with NY culture...

Anyways....

I've been feeling kind of crappy for about two weeks. You know something ain't right when all you want to do is eat ramen noodles, which is loaded with sodium, which causes water retention, which makes me feel even more crappy. You ever have fat days? I've been having fat weeks. I feel like everything I'm eating is making me blow up like a balloon that refuses to deflate. I keep telling myself I will fast for a few days just to bring the swelling down but then I cave at the first sign of true hunger. How's that for honesty? I hope nobody is reading this...

I'd like to have a week all alone with no one and nothing to see or talk to except for Hulu and Netflix. Is that unhealthy? Probably.

On the plus side, I posted a couple of nail polish related videos in the last few days. That's something.

That is all I have for today.

Until next time, be blessed!

XOXOXO - Jess