flat to fat

Here, let me just show you how I looked some two years ago when I was drilling ATS at least twice a week:

And this is me now, the fat-bellied girl in black and green suit on the right side, beside my bb:

Sad, isn't it? I can't even think of dancing again. I don't know how to get back to it. After I danced alone on the stage a year ago, I didn't want to try it again. It felt so lonely. The ones who knew ATS are in London and USA. How can I dance with them? I have to think about getting rich first.

Anyway, I've been juicing since three days ago. I got the inspiration from this blog: www.bastaigat.sikat. She followed the menu strictly and lost 8 pounts in one week but I was combining fruit and vegetable juices with egg, muesli, and wheat bread. Of course, I couldn't, wouldn't ever let go of coffee. I didn't have a juicer and was just using this blender from my bb's aunt:

The carrot combined with apple, pear, and cucumber and looked like this:

I strain the pulp bits and just drink the juice. On the second day, they consisted of much the same fruits, added with celery and singkamas, and a glass of watermelon fruit juice. It's the same combination today, but a dash of cinnamon will be added. I'm cooking potato soup for my hot-soup craving at night.

This has one regular potato, 10 cloves of garlic, one small onion, turmeric, pepper, and some salt. The basil leaf on top made it taste refreshing. BB downed one bowl too.

This has 3 pieces of apples, 2 oranges, 1 celery, a dash of cinnamon. I finished 2 glasses ad bb finished one too.

I weighed 106 pounds two days ago. I will give myself another two weeks of this juicers and low-carb diet and see what happens.

the courage to start, and the humility to start again and again

Has it been six months since I last posted here? It felt like a lifetime has been lost. And it was because one guy in the office messed up his job so badly, and I was among the girls who had to pick up the slack. In my work life, I have been through this a lot of times before.  The men mess up and the women clean up and put  humpty dumpty back together again.

As a result, I have grown a fat belly (34 inches, a first) and have known no other dimension about living but the pressures at work. Finally they got a new guy (hopefully a better one) and I can look at getting some time off. At least some time to sleep eight hours, and some time to cut up my fruits and vegetable so that I can at least eat healthy.

Most of all, I can find time to look at what's ahead of me. I am forty-four and frightened of growing old sick and poor. The years are catching up so fast, and I feel like never before that I have to be on my toes and plan and prepare well so that I won't get old cranky and a a pain in the ass to others.

The fascinating thing about this stage of not-anymore-too young-to-doubt-and-still-not-too-old-to-give-up is the certainty that I will know what I want to do in my old age and I will know what I will be able to do to get there, if given the chance for some ME TIME.

Needless to say, I am hating my work right now for taking up all my strength and time and energy.
I have forgotten how it feels to have a passion -- when I used to be passionate about dancing, learning a new language, writing.

But all of that is going to change.

If the now is going to stay bad for some time, I will make sure to have time at least for dreaming. I will no longer allow them to take that away from me.To pursue my passions, to be healthy, to be rich. To be of help to others in a really significant and tangible way.

I will stop focusing on the limitations of my current situation and start building a mental vision of my future. That is what I am going to do. To hell with the office who don't know the meaning of work-life balance. (I am still really mad.)

weekends into weekdays

i used to know weekends like this: a trip to the parlor and an unhurried stroll in the mall.  it has been a long while. how i miss these little things that make me happy.

but more than that, this weekend is a turning point of sorts. i finally figured out what to do for the next two decades of my life. for a long time, i was only sure of what i no longer wanted to do. but it took me a while (like, four years?) to figure out what i really, really wanted to do next.

it should have been a no-brainer, for there have been just these few things that made me look forward to weekends: writing, dancing, and sewing.

it has been a journey trying to know what about writing that is meant for me, and what about dancing that is meant for me. it has been a mystery trying to know what about sewing that i find hard to let go.

at any rate, i don't have big dreams...just a longing to commit myself to these passions day by day. i have forgotten how to plunge with both method and madness. as i begin to see what this means, i feel happy to find my old (actually, younger) self back. i feel i am going to begin life again, at 43. how cliched is that, huh?

just for the record, it has crossed my mind to take up MA in Linguistics. it has crossed my mind to venture into some fusion tribal practice as ATS has been making me feel lonely. and it has crossed my mind to sew another set of 15 yard skirt. it has crossed my mind to pick up my Korean and Spanish language lessons. let us see five years from now what becomes of these.

i am happy to find my song again.  but it doesn't feel like having to start all over again, not like the way it happened in the past twenty years after my parents died and my ex-es left. i am simply picking up the pieces that have fallen by the wayside during my journey, and seeing them now for what they were really worth-- my valued properties rather than excess baggages.

i used to get embarassed at the thought of having started projects that i never managed to finish. but, they never really left me.maybe i picked up projects that i didn't  know had a lifelong enrollment. maybe i am finally learning by heart this one simple lesson: there are a few certain things that  i can not live without, and they don't have to wait until weekends to get done. if they are something i really liked to do, they will get done.

home

It is not possible to talk about my new home without going back to the major drama that started it all.  Some five years ago, I found a place to call my own.  I lounged in it and in the comfort of knowing I will live in solitude for the rest of my life.

But then somebody came in a flash, and not without my help.  After getting scathed and scratched by a deranged cat, she forcibly evicted herself to start a new life with me. It was the most jarring event in my life that I welcomed with much surprise, joy, and relief.

After a week of living in her suitcase and sleeping on the office’s couch, we figured it will be safest for her to stay with me. The thing with being both girls is that you need to think of both your safety in equal measure all the time.

So we shopped for pots and pans and laundry basket and pillows like a newly-wed couple minus the ceremonies. It was heaven to be settled after the storm that had passed us by. But after one month, we had to leave the place in deference to my sister who was unable to grasp the complexity of my situation at that time.

We moved to a much smaller place where I am able take six steps to the left and ten steps to the right. It was what every new couple had to endure—we were short in funds, short in friends, but blessed with hope and faith in each other. We had my old mattress, her old bedsheets, a spooked television, and  a makeshift cabinet. We lived happily in one cramped place with a new member of the family.

After one year, a new place opened for us— one that is at least twice bigger than our current place. It took us only half-a-day to move all our stuff. There we stayed for three years fighting and making up and adjusting to a life of togetherness and home-cooked meals. We were able to get ourselves  bigger cabinets, a real sofa-bed,  a real gas range, and other things that make for a really comfortable home life.

More importantly, we discovered who our real friends are. Also, happily, my family came to accept us. Them and my friends finally realized  that having a dick is not one of my primary requirement for  choosing the person to love.

Here's comfy and orangey room
with wires and cables and Duday's toys all around. 

Two weeks ago, we again moved to a place we have been dreaming of having. We don’t dream big dreams but we work hard for what we can manage to have. Our new place is on a rooftop with windows all around, and a view to the skies and the open fields. It has two rooms and a space that could soon become my mini-studio.

It is like our life turned a new page. God is so good.