No mom I do not celebrate Easter.

So every Christian Holiday comes around and I get asked the same question. “But with your Buddha stuff you don’t celebrate it right?” In the traditional sense, no. I do not feel the need to get dolled up an go to into a house of worship and celebrate the rebirth of Christ on Easter. The reason for this is pretty basic. As a Buddhist, we believe everything is reborn. Would I get dressed up when the trees spring back to life? Or the grass is no longer that stagnant shade of yellow that winter has left it? When the homeless man comes back to this world as a mighty ruler and can finally look down his nose at all those who have looked down upon him, there will be no days marking it. No grand celebrations. So why is one man more important than another?

Okay, to be fair…any excuse for me to dress up is a good excuse. But I will skip the Christian need to sit in a pew and listen to anyone minister from a Holy Book. I do however have the utmost respect for those who do these rituals. As well as the traditions accompanied by them. I love the coloring of eggs (a Pagan, not Christian ritual) with my children. I love to celebrate our family, and make new memories because there is one thing that is universal, in all religions. Human life is fragile, it is fleeting. And we never know how many days, how many memories we have left to make.

From Fat Ass to Bad Ass.

**Warning extreme language,caps lock and LOTS OF AWESOMENESS EPIC BADASSERY** HOLYOMFGSONOFHADES!!! Ladies. Gentlemen. Others. I DID IT!!!  After a crazy weekend I jumped on the scale yesterday and..I have hit my GOAL Weight!!! I weigh the same as I did when I was 21. Now, I took this picture because I wanted to show the difference in what my body looks like it is totally not my 21 year old body anymore. I took it because this is the reality of extreme weight gain and loss over years and years. And what abusing your body, and of course children (another form of abuse 😂) looks like! I don’t give two shits who sees this picture and scoffs. Or gives me a hard time. I don’t care who thinks I shouldn’t post it. (yep I’m looking at you) It’s taken 2 years 2 months and 3 weeks. But I am 109 pounds lighter!! Thank you to my family for supporting me fat and thin. My friends for understanding that my crazy fitness goals will infiltrate my life forever.

It has been a horrible, hard, amazing, enlightening, mind blowing experience. But it is mine. And I FUCKING DID IT!!!

Loss Never Leaves.

March is a good and bad month for me. My brother Joe and also my son Jays were born in March. Saint Patricks Day is in March. Snow melts in March. All good things. But it is also marred with tragedy for my family, my mom and myself.  I will never get over the first real trauma that happened to me in March. The day I lost my first adult best friend.  I do not need to look at my tattoo to tell me when the day is coming, because I can feel it. I recoil into myself, my attitude shifts, I become more solitary. My heart hurts, my head hurts and I find myself contemplating life more. Odd for me, because I already spend most of my days contemplating already.

But on March 12, 1998.  I drove right by her. I drove right by that accident. We got out of work at 2:30, and it was taking forever to make that short ride to get home. We were cussing, and nagging. Complaining about the day and I had no idea what was in the ditch just a couple miles away. I relive it every single March, and unfortunately I feel like I always will. No matter how much time passes.  When we saw the accident I remember  telling my ride that I hoped everyone was okay, and then I went home. When I got there mom had her jacket on and was wanting to go to the accident to see if she could be any help since she was a CNA. So we went. I stayed in the car, just looking, but not really you know? I mean who really looks at an accident? I couldn’t actually see the car still from where we were parked. And I again, I mean who wants to see an accident? So I futzed with the radio, until I glanced up and saw my mom climbing back out of the ditch and practically running towards me. So I opened the door and looked at her, and then she said words I can not ever forget. “It’s Julie and the girls.” Even typing those words, I can not breathe. My heart stops, even if for a moment.

Everything is a fog from there, but she would not let me get out of the car. Paramedics were working on my best friend, her girls and her boyfriend.  My mom gave me Julie’s purse to take with us to the hospital. And then the sound of sirens screaming as the ambulance left. But I knew, I can tell you the second my best friend died. I felt it, I feel it now.  What I can also tell you, is that I live every single second in regret that we were no longer speaking. We had gotten into a huge fight over something unimportant, and now…18 years later, I still wish I had swallowed my pride and just apologized because for the life of me I can’t remember what we fought over. But I can remember the weight of losing her. I remember the devastation on her daughter’s faces when they learned their mother was gone. And I know pain that I feel every single March.

99 Problems but that scale ain’t one.

It’s weight loss Wednesday! And I am still at the exact same number on the scale I have been for about a month now. But I am not trippin’ about it. I still have 5 pounds to go in order to reach my goal, and you know what it will happen. That is not even a doubt in my mind. So now I will give you some reasons/excuses as to why it has not happened yet.

1. I have had not one, but 2 deaths in my life in as many months.
2. My mom was hospitalized, AGAIN!
3. My Autistic son made the High School Baseball Team
4. Rapid cycling bipolar and sometimes that means, my brain says no, when I say go.
5. I went back to work, that means not going to bed till 3 am, so no more 5 am work out
6. Steak. Shrimp. Cajun French Fries.
7. HELL NO H20??? Where did my water intake go? Oh right, what water!

The reason I am posting this is because we all have shit happen to us that sets us off course. But the last time something like this happened to me it was mom getting cancer,  I gained 27 pounds. I sat around in my room and ate chocolates and cried in my Mountain Dew. Luckily, I am not there. I still have no desire for that shit show to start again. I have made positive strides, and I am never going backwards again. Time for me to pick up where I left off and smash that damn scale. 

 

Seventh Heaven

The night kept me cloaked in it’s onyx embrace. I was free to roam in it’s protection and enjoy whatever the evening had in store for me. I was making a habit of being low key now, keeping to the underbelly of the cities I dwelled within and making sure to cause no undue attention to myself. I was living well within their world, even if living by their standards and my own were quite different.

I walked among them just a random pale-haired female of above average appearance and clearly more taste in fashion. Though my thirst, that would always give me away.

It was my thirst that had me at the opening of the alley off Seventh street now. This was where the dibilitated buildings met cracked pavement and lonely souls sought to end their suffering. Tonight, I planned to aide them in that. The sounds of the city were nothing but a dull roar, background noise in comparison to all the hearts I could feel beating just for me. My heels echoed off the cement as I rounded the corner and turned into the alley that kept the back entrance of Seventh Heaven, some dive of a strip club. I was quite surprised though as I entered the alley that instead of finding dinner, I would become a voyeur.

I kept myself concealed by keeping to the far side of a dumpster and out of sight as I watched him thrust himself deeper into the back of her throat. His hands were tangled in her chestnut locks of hair, wound in fists as she bowed before him. Her body bent in an “S” shape, knelt on the pavement taking his length into her awaiting lips. She would attempt to rock herself back on her heels only to have his fists pulling her back to him each time with more force. Her eyes were welling up with tears as she tried to fight her bodies natural urge to gag and still she bobbed her head to meet his vicious onslaught of thrusts. I found the act itself a mystery, a confusing puzzle I did not understand. Not the act itself, that was no more than another form of sexual gratification. No the fascinating part came from the trust necessary. To shove the very thing that determined his manhood into an orifice designed for tearing meat. Yet he did so brutally, without fear.

He began omitting low guttural moans as his hips rocked like pistons and it became evident that he was nearing his end. It was in that moment that I made my move. Appearing soundlessly beside him and jerking his neck towards me I punctured his jugular with my incisors effortlessly. Like two porcelain plungers they penetrated his sinewy flesh and gripped onto the rubberband surface of the vein. I drank in heavily as he convulsed against me in a mixture of eurphoric orgasm and exquisite pain. The female was staring straight up at the scene, her eyes wide in terror as I fed from her partner. I lifted a single finger in her direction wagging indicating she keep herself exactly as she was until I finished. She did just that, swallowing hard as he released himself completely and involuntarily into her awaiting mouth.

I continued feeding upon him, taking long swallows of his very life’s essence until I felt his body began to slow beneath me. His pulse drumming to a much slower beat as I drained him and his partner satisfied him. Only when I felt him begin to go to the edge of death did I retract my fangs from him and release my grip on his throat. Dabbing my lips delicately and turning my back on them. Leaving them to wonder what had just happened and leaving me to lose myself back in the evening’s welcoming embrace.

It’s not a Diet, IT’S A FUCKING LIFESTYLE

The picture on the left is a little hard to look at. In one hand I was holding a putter, but in the other a four pronged walking cane. You know the ones you see decrepit 80 year old’s using? But I was only 33. I was having 10 Grand Mal Seizures a day. I was gaining weight progressively. And my mental state was crashing fast. How had this happened to me? A headache, that led to a brain tumor, that led to scar tissue. That led to a lifestyle change. A NEGATIVE ONE! 😒
Fast Forward to today. I am able to walk, jog (slower than a 3 legged turtle but I do it), my moods are more regulated. BUT THE BEST NEWS? Knock on wood, but I have not had a seizure in 4 months!! I eat right mostly, I exercise 7 days a week and I do not rely on pills to wake, to sleep, to feel. Now, that is a lifestyle change. 😀

Shall I Moan or Motivate This Monday?

Across all my social media I try to keep the momentum going. To show people that truly anyone really can be healthy. Rich, poor, gym membership, no gym, 500 pounds, 130 pounds. But I am also Bipolar let’s remember. And today I just want to lay in my bed, binge watching my DVR of Beverly Hills 90210 The Original,  while chain smoking *a collective gasp rings out* and do nothing.

Sometimes my muscles get tired, my mind gets tired, and I need a down day. But I don’t give myself one of those in the typical sense. I never just skip a day of working out. I don’t believe in rest days because for me that’s a day for me to get lazy, break my routine one time and suddenly it could be every time. So I choose to do something every single day. Don’t get me wrong there have been days where I only get 4000 steps on my fitness tracker but those are 4000 more than I used to ever get.

Even today I started this blog post at 6am determined to do nothing, and then I saved it. It’s now five hours later and I’ve done my arm circuits and 30 minutes of cardio. So much for just moaning today.  Maybe, I just needed to remind myself of why I am doing this. Maybe I needed to remember that working out lifts my shitty hate everything mood. Or maybe, just maybe someone, somewhere doesn’t feel like working out either…NAH! Everyone always feels like working out!

Sometimes, Confidence sucks dick

So my confidence sucks today. I didn’t want to do the fitgirl photochallenge because I don’t feel fierce at all. I took 500 pics, none of them any better than the last. Then I said screw it, go look in the mirror and check yourself out, go list all the things you hate about yourself and get it over with. I have done this with the kids before giving them 5 minutes of freaking out and then told them to get over it so I figured I better do it with myself. I started with all my sagging skin. And I started crying because I truly hate all of it. I hate my thighs. I hate my bingo wings. I hate Dolores my gigantic pooch of Fat flap that hangs beneath my belly button. I cried and then I cried for a few minutes longer. But then just for the hell of it i I flexed my right arm and I shut up because there amid the bingo wings, and the stretch marks and the tattoos was a bicep. A bicep that I could actually see. One that I had worked for, sweated for and earned. So today, I may not be feeling my fierness, but I am feeling my baby biceps.

A Podcast About Me?!?!

I have never really thought of myself as inspiring or motivational to anyone. I wake up and stumble to the coffee pot just like every other American on Monday mornings.

That being said, I had the opportunity to do my first podcast recently about my weightloss. It was nerve racking, but awesome. To be able to explain how hard this was for me, why I’ve done it, and how rewarding it is to be down a 100 pounds is a dream come true.

If you want to hear me talking about the journey and many other weight loss adventures check put Fromfat2that’s Blog!

http://fromfat2that.com/2016/02/fitgirl-shawna/

St.Valentine DIED for this??

So today is Valentine’s day right? The day that we buy overpriced flowers, candy, dinners and jewelry to show our affections to those we love, like, and lust over. Well no thanks. St. Valentine believed in love so much that he was beheaded for it. Marrying couples against the orders of an asshole dictator just because it was in his heart that live was real.

Well, here I sit with my heart shaped box of chocolates and don’t feel anymore lived than I did before I got it. If you truly live someone, show them everyday. Not just one day a year. Show them in little ways, it’s not all about grandiose gestures. But small subtleties. A hand hold in a crowded place, dishes being done, a nice unsolicited dinner made just because, a smile.

That all means more to the person you love than flowers that’ll die, candy that’ll go to their ass, and jewelry that ends up in a box somewhere. That will all mean more to the memory of dearly departed St.Valentine than showing your love once a year.