Merry Christmas Darling

John Travolta eat your heart out. For I am now the new bubble boy. What you see before you is four layers of heavy duty Saran Wrap designed to keep out the bitter cold and keep me from working the street corner in winter. Cause this fat thing is what you want to see in Lycra and fishnets. And if anybody wants to stand and freeze on my deck I will be more than willing to recreate the immortal scene in The Bubble Boy where John Travolta gets his first kiss. 

I've long complained about the piano in the Lobby where I work. How loud it is etc. This week hit and all time low when The Carptners tribute trio came to sing. You have to understand I am not a Christmas music snob. I owned the Greatest Brady Bunch Christmas cassette that's how low my standards are. Yet if there are two Christmas songs that drives me absolutely stark raving mad is Christmas shoes ( I wanna buy these shoes for my dying mama. Sappy and it plays on too many emotions plus when the kids choir starts singing? I toss my cookies) and one other song Merry Christmas darling...happy new year too....I'll throw a log on the fire it fuels my desire... and she's singing that with her brother? Um awkward! This morning on the Christmas music station that's the song I woke up with. Then the tribute band came in. 

Three times. They sang that song three times. I thought that type of torture was banned by the Geneva  Convention? So many questions. Who starts a Carptners Tribute band? Plus then to make the day ever so much better turn on the car radio and on FM 100.3 there she is again. Singing her little heart out. 

I now have nightmares. 

So hence the Saran Wrap. I've gone into hiding. 

Send help and Sprinkles.

Gratitude

Every Christmas since my Mom had cancer (read about it here and here I personally try to find something that reminds me of what the power of kindness and strength can do for others. I'm not a big oh! Watch this! Do this share kind of video person. So you don't have to worry that I will send you email links of kittens sneezing.

So when I get pulled down by all the consumerism and stress there is always a story of someone or something that make me go so this is what it's all about. I don't know the Parker family personally but we do share something in common we come from the same hometown and that makes them friends of friends. It makes it more powerful.

I don't celebrate loss. I celebrate stories of goodness and strength. I celebrate people who teach me so much every year. I celebrate life.

I celebrate love.

Roar

"These are the only pants that fit me right now"- Regnia George. 

Three months ago I blew the crotch out of my last pair of fat jeans. They had given up the battle and I don't blame them. Yet it left me in a bind. I was close to tipping the scales at 300 pounds.No really I was 280 pounds three more Talenti Gelato and I was gonna end up shopping at Ron's Big and Tall store emphasis on the big not so much on tall. Worse moment of my life.

So it was that moment that I decided I wanted to live. So what was I going to do? I wasn't going to buy new jeans to reward myself for reaching that size. One does not reward bad behavior. So my mom bought me a pair of jeans at Costco ( I heart you) and I said thank you. No really. They a size forty. You could use the material to make yourself a nice blanket, a dress, or if you were adventurous you could use them to reupholster a chair. 

As I work hard as I watch what I eat and say goodbye to old friends its nice to feel these pants get bigger and bigger around me. I know I look terrible yet on one hand I always wanted a pair of those huge baggy pants that were so popular in the late 90's. I feel like Alice getting smaller and smaller with each bite I eat and each time I move my body. 

It's nice to use material as a shield against the world as I work through this great moment in my life. No really cause this time the lesson stuck. Plus it's nice as I hover between this land of extreme fat pants to just regular fat pants. 

So in this moment I just want to say to all the pants that have lost their life in this epic battle of my life I want to ask you to give them a moment of silence. 

Old Navy Grey Pants 2009-2013

Gap Cargo Pants 2012-2013

Banana Republic Pants 2008-2012 

Levis 2010-2013

Black North Face Athletic Pants 2008-2013

I'll never forget you. 

Shaking it Like a Black Girl Up in Harlem

Happy Double Stamp Day! I don't watch Family Guy but I saw this on Pinterest and it describes me at work perfectly with my work BFF's. 

I love Wednesday  for three reasons first it's double stamps at the coffee cart. Get 10 stamps on your card and get a free one! WHOO! Mocha Chiller you be mine for free! I limit myself to one a week on Wen and I get double stamps! So to celebrate this I've declared every Wen. Double Stamp day. It's a weekly holiday! I don't like the sound of the word hump. It brings me back to 2007 when a certain song was played over and over again "My Humps! My Humps! My lovely Lady Lumps..." which was fine till you started seeing rather large people (who are bigger than me) sing it and then you go no no dear. You don't have humps. You have mountains. Oh Fergie for a brief moment we believed and wondered why you had such fascination with London Bridge. 

Reason number two: It's one day closer to my day off! So I know in less than 24 hours I will be free! Free! Free to sleep! Wear sweats! Catch up on my stories. Lay there in my bed's warm embrace and not feel obligated to do anything else but enjoy it's warmth. Plus it means it's just one more day till Friday and then off to the best forty eight hours ever. The weekend! 

Reason number three: Did I mention it was double stamp day? Okay you don't know how excited I get. I was sick one Wen. I got a text from my BFF barista  Julie and almost all my co-workers to let me know that I was missing double stamp day and hoping I feeling better. I felt so popular. 

Today was really bad. I woke up this morning at four (no I wasn't THAT excited. It's double stamp day not CHRISTMAS!)  and did some glorious ESTY shopping. Why was I born brilliantly witty but so damn broke?  So I window shopped till my alarm went off. I must apologize to my smoking neighbors below me.* insert rant here I can't win! Fan or cigarette smoke. Can't I just get a quiet tortured poet girl to live below me and hear her cry over Grey's? Heck. I'd be the nice neighbor that brought down his new friends Talenti Gelato and said here we both need this and share a box of Kleenex? Is that too much to ask for? **Rant over. any way Beyonce got me out of bed singing Get Bodied. Let's just say I didn't hit snooze or turn it off. to refresh click here here. Don't worry I'll wait. 

Okay so after my shower was like I want your body (like I was going to ignore that) I got ready for work. Since I'm training the mini me I was sitting at my desk bored. So I decided that the best way to learn was to figure it out for herself I had a great 30 second party in the hidden office behind the MAMMO desk.  Then I actually did all the nasty work that I've been putting off.  

Then I got in the car. 

Guess what was playing...

CHILDREN GO WHERE I'LL SEND THEE....oh look another song...

Needless to say it's 12:30 am on Thursday and I'm singing CHILDREN GO WHERE I SEND THEE! Trying to figure out where in the world they were sent! 

I'm gonna see four by four...and one for the itty bitty baby...

Stompa

I woke up with a bit of rage in my heart. 

For the third morning in a row my i-pod has played song of death to me to get me out of bed. I was once in love with this song. In the warm summer months I would drop the top on Bertie and do the whole head bob oh I'm so cool dance in my car seat dance (aka I looked like I was having a seizure) and I would turn it up when ever it came on.

Till this morning. 

"When you are ready come and get it...When you are ready come and get it when you ready....nanannananan"  So all day when I was checking in PT's the tech would come grab a patient in my head I'd go When you readdyyyy till that moment it slipped out of my mouth. 

I said it out loud. 

Whoops. Well that made someone's day I hope. 

You know what else is embarrassing? Singing it at the top of you lungs while you sit in the parking lot trying to convince yourself that you are a strong confident person and everybody is going to be nice to you! NANANNAANANa COME AND GET IT! 

See. 

Such anger Selena. Look what thou hast created. 

I hope you are happy. 

Come and get it. 

Indeed.  

I Came in like a Freaking Wrecking Ball

I think I have a problem. This evening when I was being domestic making dinner I was putting things away in the tupperware containers when I came to the sad realization. That all my containers were the Cake Make Rainbow Sprinkles variety. 

Oh boy. 

I love my sprinkles. I love them in my ice cream. In my yogurt and when I was on a serious food bender I would make the cotton candy cake mix from Betty Crocker and throw in the sprinkles and eat the dough. Dinner of champions. 

However my favorite way to have them is to buy a container of Greek God's Honey Yogurt and mix equal parts sprinkles and mini chocolate chips in it's heavenly creamy goodness. Oh sweet charity. 

As I stood there in the kitchen I thought of those hot summer nights hidden in my den watching hours upon hours of Netflix and eating container after container of yogurt and sprinkles. When I would finish a container I would sneak out and buy more. I had to have it. It was what I lived for. 

Driving to the store with the roof down and realizing that I was so lost that I didn't have a way out. The yogurt didn't judge. The sprinkles added colors to the dull grey that had become my life. Eventually you become so numb to every feeling but the desire to fill the hole inside yourself.  

Give me sprinkles or give me death was my motto. I would actually get giddy when the damn things were on sale 2 for four dollars! Buy them all! I traveled with them in my luggage the secret security. That my magic sprinkles could take me away. Take me to some where better. In stead of the harsh reality that I was in. 

Then one day I walked into my trusty Smith Food King and they were sold out. Gone. Zilch. No more sprinkles. If you ever want to see a fat grown  man cry take away his drug. I stood there in dumb shock that they were gone and I realized in that moment that I had a problem. That my sprinkles had turned me into a freaking wrecking ball shape. My carpet hid little remains of smashed colored wax my chairs had them on the seats of the chairs.  So I quit cold turkey. Walked out of the store drying my eyes. I was like Scarlett O Hara I was never going to have sprinkles again. 

So I guess what I'm trying to say is my name is Blake and for a brief moment I had a glorious affair with Cake Make Rainbow Sprinkles. It's been 30 days and I'm finally sprinkles free. 

Every day is a constant battle. I want to slip back in my old habits. Yet I know if I do the Sprinkles win. 

I wish I knew how to quit you Sprinkles. 

Here Comes Santa

Fa-la-la

I decorated. By decorated I mean I got out my Charlie Brown Christmas Tree and my Christmas star and called it good. See this is the month in which I will live in three places. Work, School, and my bed. I will wear my Santa footie pajamas but that's as far as I usually get. Christmas is usually the time of year I fall apart. I bring on too much like cookies, pies, cakes, oh and who could forget my favorite ice cream PEPPERMINT BARK (Talenti Gelato I heart you call me k?) and my pants explode, my self esteem crashes, and my VISA screams for mercy. 

This year I'm taking on a different approach. I'm going ZEN. I'm going to the dark place known as Oprah land. See if you have ever listened to the prophet Oprah she talks about to listen to your inner voice and what it wants. Since my inner voice has been stuck on one voice screaming FEED ME! FEED ME! EAT ALL THE FEELINGS! MY NAME IS BLAKE AND I'M EMOTIONAL AND I NEED FOOD! SUGARY SWEET DELICIOUS FOOD!  Which is fine for the first little bit till the crotch of  your pants explode and you have to go home early from work cause you are now indecently exposing yourself.   Come for a mammogram and a strip show! Two for one special! Which call me crazy is not the atmosphere my boss is going for. 

So I've been working on rehabilitating  myself. I  decided this time I'm going to say no to the non essential things and stressful situations. I have eaten enough of my feelings to know that if I eat anything more I'm slowly killing myself. Committing suicide with every pint of ice cream, each candy bar, each time I sit there on the couch trying to eat away all the negative pain creating a nice fat shield to the world. I'm a obese person who was destroying my self  worth with each bite. And it had to end. 

It had to end. 

Cause there is new life coming, there are amazing people in my life, and there are wonderful people I haven't met yet. I've ran marathons, I've ran half marathons but I couldn't stop choosing to be miserable about myself. I looked into the mirror and realized that I had stretched myself physically to every limit. My face had no shape, my dimples were swallowed by fat, and my shirts were stretched so tight they looked tube tops  threatening to bust off and hit somebody in the eye and through it all I hated myself. I turned every negative comment ever statement about my weight. Someone complaining about the parking lot? It's because I'm fat isn't it! Look I didn't say it was rational. I compared myself to impossible models. Here's my sister the Ironman and her brother the incredible fat man! Watch your children parents cause he just might eat them! 

On the darkest day I lay there on the ground praying. Praying for an answer, praying for help, praying for absolution.  There was no shining light. There was no heavenly being. Just my voice in a calm whisper that said be honest. Be brutally honest. So I started talking. I talked to my bishop, I talked to my therapist, I talked to my Doctor, I talked to my parents, I talked to my friends, I talked to my co workers about my struggle. Till my friend Stacy pulled me aside and said I've been there. This is what I did and this who I went to and what I did. Side note on Stacy she looks amazing like somebody lit her from the inside. She literally has lit up!

I'm not going to say exactly what I'm doing just yet cause it's embarrassing and painful but it's healthy and I feel more like myself than I have felt in a very very very long time. Hence the return to the blog. 

So bare with me. If' I'm being boring please let me know. Let me know what you want me to talk about! Let's start a conversation! Facebook me! Text me! Leave a comment. Instagram me  (bfarru8422 is my username. 

Here's the cheesy sentimential gooey part. 

I warned you. 

Turn back if this disgust you. 

If you are feeling this way and abusing food I just want you to know you are not alone. It sucks. It doesn't get easier but it gets better if you ask for help. Help is always around you just have to ask for it. Don't be afraid to try.  I'm here if you need me. 

XOXO 

B