Display

This is the start of the display for the Holiday Food Experiment on Sunday.
I have more tweaking to do but this is a decent start!
Click on the photos to enlarge.

 

And some tweaks...

Bullies

There is this kid in Patrick's class who is a total jackass. Typical bully who looks for your weakest area and pushes and pushes at it.
Last month this kid was hitting Patrick. (I'm not one who promotes fighting but both Mike and I told Pats if this kid puts his hands on you again, lay him out.)

Today apparently this same kid told Pats that he has a "goose face" (what?!) and that his mother is fat.
I wanted to instruct Pats to tell this kid "My mom is working hard on losing weight and when she's thin, you will still be a pathetic jackass". I didn't however.

I told him that he needs to stay away from this kid and if he teases or hits you again, you need to tell a teacher.
I wrote an email to his teacher about it.

I'm seriously about a breath away from telling Patrick to just punch this moron in the face and be done with it. Walking that thin line between teaching him what's right and the kind non aggressive way of dealing with bullies and teaching him to shut this little shit up before the words have even left his mouth.
I'm so pissed off right now that I want to knock this kids teeth out.

The school has one more chance to make this right. If this happens again I'm going to call a meeting with this kids parents and the school. I'll include Mike and no one wants him involved. TRUST me.

This is twice now that Patrick has been bullied and made to feel uncomfortable at one of the places he should feel safe.
NOT a happy mother right now...

A story

Once upon a time there was a band in NYC called Lovemaker
Lovemaker had a fan who folks called Amber.*
Lovemaker had another fan called Julia.*

  Julia was a lovely gal and supremely talented and was going to school at NYU for art.
Amber and Julia got to be friendly since they were always at the shows together.
Amber showed Julia around since she was native and Jules was from far away. (Rhode Island)

Jules started to date a guy who was a big time heroin addict and was a mutual friend of Amber's best pal.
Shit went downhill for Jules really fast but she was completely blinded by love.

Somehow Jules and Amber decided it would be a great idea to get a place together.

They found a fantastic place in Staten Island and agreed to move at the end of the month.
Jules landlord was fed up with the rent being late or not being paid and so she kicked Jules out a week before Amber and Jules were due to move in together.
Somehow Amber wound up at 3:00am moving Jules and fighting with the landlords on Jules behalf and paying for round trip cabs.
Jules lived with Amber and her family for that week and then the little girls moved in together.
To pay her rent and support herself Jules took a job at a local Staten Island Strip Club called LIPS.
Amber worked at her dad's company doing Computer Graphics.
Bills were always paid but life was not harmonious to say the least.

Jules was a total slob who never cleaned up and always had her heroin addict boyfriend over.
Finally Amber had had enough of her spoons disappearing and put her foot down.That boy was not allowed in the house anymore ever again.
Jules agreed but one day Amber came home early from work and the boy was there.
The girls fought like tigers.

Eventually it became clear to Amber that things weren't going to change and she had to get out of there.
Jules went to Florida that night and Amber moved out. Unfortunately for Jules all the utilities were in Amber's name as was all the furniture.

When she got home from Florida, the apartment was dark and bare.
In the middle of the room was a note.
"You want to have your heroin addict boyfriend here that's fine but I'm done with him checking our machine for messages and wondering when my stuff is going to disappear to pay for his habit. I'm outta here."

Years later, Amber isn't sorry for what she did but is sorry for how she did it. She also really misses that apartment and will be going back to visit it super soon...

So going to take the kiddos!

From Gothamist:
Ready for a blast from the past while you're doing your holiday shopping? NYC Transit has the "Nostalgia Shoppers' Special Train" running every Sunday through December 26. Straphangers on the 6th Avenue line between Queens Plaza and 2nd Avenue are in luck—here are details from the MTA, "You can catch a ride on these classic R1/9 subway cars at stations along the weekday M line between Queens Plaza and 2 Av. You can board the train at these stations" —today's first one leaves 2nd Avenue at 10 a.m.!:

- Queens Plaza
- 23 St-Ely Av
- Lexington Av/53 St
- 5 Av/53 St
- 47-50 Sts/Rockefeller Center
- 42 St Bryant Park
- 34 St Herald Sq
- 23 St (6 Av)
- 14 St (6 Av)
- W 4 St Wash Sq
- B’way-Lafayette St
- 2 Av (F line)
Departures from 2nd Avenue are at 10:01 AM, 11:31 AM, 1:01 PM, 2:30 PM, and 4:01 PM. (4:01 PM departure terminates at 47-50 St/Rockefeller Center.) Departures from Queens Plaza are at 10:44 AM, 12:14 PM, 1:43 PM, and 3:14 PM.

Also, the MTA has vintage NYC Transit buses running on weekdays in the late morning and mid-afternoon on these routes: B1, B65, S61, Q13, Q46, M34, M42
Bx7, and Bx30.

Holiday Bake A Thon

I'd really wanted to have a holiday bake a thon to raise funds for my two charities (Autism Speaks and MS). To do this however, I need to borrow a commercial kitchen from someone somewhere somehow.
This is a MUCH MUCH harder task than I anticipated.

It is at the point now, where I'm either going to throw my hands up and scrap the idea or just do it out of my apartment and risk the fines that might be levied at me.

If you have ANY leads or suggestions I'd greatly appreciate it because I think this would really be cool and could raise lots of funds for my charities!

Exercise in rejection and exercise in exercise

A few years ago my sister got involve in CBT or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for her OCD.
I admired the hell out of her for being so brave to confront her anxieties so head on.

When I decided it was time to get on top of my issues I thought it would be good to follow her lead and put myself in a situation that had the potential to set off all my triggers.
So I sent out a mass email to everyone in the area that I like and who I'd actually want to spend time with and invited them to my place for a Cupcake Decorating party.

So far, only one of my trusty gal pals who I really love has taken the time to respond and said she would come.

The chicken with no head in my brain is squawking (okay since it doesn't have a head it's not really squawking) flopping around and running in circles with anxiety concerned that my party is going to actually be a play date and no one will come except my true blue pal.

This is good. I'm combating the damn thing head on and at the end and on the other side will realize that it's OKAY if no one comes or even responds.

Next weekend is the bakeoff thing and I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm going to be the only entrant who arrives without a teammate. I have to be okay with this.  I have to be okay again with being alone.

I've also decided to once again get serious and back on track with my getting into shape and weight loss.
To that end, I'm going to start updating my blog again. Not this one. The weight loss one.
http://overweightmommy.blogspot.com/
Over the summer I took a month off of Boot Camp and did no exercising at all and put back on much of the weight I'd taken off.
With this impending stair climb event I'm going to start doing much more cardio and running stairs at the Monroe Center and my mom's apartment building.
Hopefully that combined with the Rittalin I'm going back on I'll take this weight off no problem.

Because I tend to be reward motivated, I've promised myself that when I take off 50 pounds I will start my tattoo sleeve.

I will be updating the weight loss blog as soon as I get started with the stairs. Next week I think. It's my plan to do Boot Camp 3 days a week and Stairs 2 days a week.

Wish me luck!

Stair Training

So I've been on the hunt for places I can go to train with stairs.
I suppose I can check with my mother's building and see if they mind my running the 18 flights.
I know I can work with the 5 stories at the Monroe Center but I'm looking for other places too.
I found these in the city.

View Larger Map

I'm feeling really dense however because I cannot come up with any other building or place that has stairs I can use to train. I checked out the 9th Street Light rail Station here in Hoboken but apparently the stairs are locked unless the elevator is out of order.

I just found these stairs in Weehawken

Shippen Steps

At the end of Shippen Street, directly across from the double hairpin curve are the Shippen Steps, an outdoor public staircase down the Palisades Cliffs which continues in the same direction as Shippen Street. They begin on Hackensack Plank road and end at Park Avenue. There are 96 steps, with a diagonal span in length of about 250 feet.
New Jersey Transit Bus Route 123 makes a stop at the top of Shippen Street along Palisade Avenue and runs between the Port Authority Bus Terminal and Christ Hospital in Jersey City Heights. a few blocks to the south is the Marginal Highway, a main transit corridor for North Hudson-Lincoln Tunnel traffic. On the other side, the Shippen Stairs end about .25 mi. from the Hudson Bergen Light Rail Lincoln Harbor Station and New York Waterway ferries, though pedestrian access requires a detour around the tunnel's toll plaza.

More in the city

Connecting West 174th Street with Featherbed Lane, Bronx NYC

Roosevelt Island Station Stairway: 159 stairs
Lower end: subway level
Upper end: Main Street
Type: concrete
Parking: unknown
Note: On the F subway line; info and photo courtesy of Michael Ring of the Prospect Park Track Club, Brooklyn, NY.

 Exchange Place Stairway: 128 stairs
Lower end: subway level
Upper end: Exchange Place
Type: concrete
Parking: unknown
Comment: On the PATH subway line; info and photos courtesy of Michael Ring of the Prospect Park Track

Thanksgiving

Ya know what I love about my family?
This outfit passes as acceptable Thanksgiving attire...

Facebook

It's been 5 days since I've put the kibosh on Facebook. I'm thinking my account might be staying in cold storage till all of eternity.
I'm not going to delete it because of all the photos I have up over there but I don't think I'll be logging back in.

I have such mixed feelings about it. It's great for someone who is socially awkward like I am. It was my way of being social and now that it's gone, there is an isolation that has set in but it's not unwelcome and it's not bad.

I think not having it will force me to reach out to people and put myself out there and work on my most vulnerable spot. Rejection.

I need to realize that a no to a lunch date or a coffee is not the end of the world, and it's not always because I'm unloved or that folks don't want to be with me.

I'm sure that's the case with a few folks but I know that there are plenty of people who DO want to hang with me and I need to seek them out and leave behind those who don't really care for me or about me.

Forward motion, always forward motion...

Photos

You will have to forgive and indulge me. This post is going to be more visual than anything else.
After Thanksgiving I'm going to have both a contractor and an interior designer come in and I want all my ideas in one place.
I'll let the photos tell you the story. Don't forget to click on them to enlarge!