Years ago, I hired a personal trainer. (I hired him for 10 sessions, but only actually showed up to 3 because Oh.My.God. He wore Dove shorts! And had excessive body hair! He seriously grossed me out enough to not show up for 7 PREPAID sessions, because DUDE…Dove shorts.) In the 3 workouts that I managed to get through without puking, he taught me proper techniques for lifting weights and using the machines.
I have to admit that deep down, I feel superior because of my (very limited) knowledge of weight lifting technique, but the truth is, I really don’t know shit.
Last night, I was laying on the bench, doing some free weight chest presses, quite possibly feeling cocky whilst using my Proper Weight Technique, when all of a sudden, my left arm starting burning like a bitch. I thought it was strange that I hardly felt anything in my right arm, but justified it by saying “Well, I’m right handed, so my left arm is weaker!”
I noticed a woman walk by and look at me, because at that point, I could barely lift my left arm. My right arm was all up in the air waiting for the left one to get up there and join it. I was grunting and pushing myself through the lobsided pain, when I suddenly realized the problem.
I was using a 8 pounder on my left arm and a 5 pounder on my right. I was mortified because HAHA! I’m a jackass! But, instead of correcting the problem by getting the proper weights, I tried to play it off by switching the weights, as if to say “YEAH, I DID IT ON PURPOSE.”
I can’t help but worry a little bit about having uneven arms, like, one being bigger than the other. Like my boobs!
buy cheap viagraorder viagra online
(PigHunter also recently pointed out to me that one of my eyes is smaller than the other, so I’m just one big, sexy hunk of uneven body parts! Too bad for you, I’m order levitra onlinegeneric viagraTaken, bitches.)
I need to look into taking up a sport because 2 days a week of Aerobic Dancing isn’t going to cut it and buy cialis onlineorder levitra onlineFreestyling it at the gym just isn’t working out the way that I had hoped it would. As much as I wanted to believe that it would grow on me and that one day I’d love it, maybe even master it, my unequally sore arms are further prove that it just isn’t “my thang” and I don’t think that it ever will be.

Last night on the way home from the gym, I began to reflect on my struggles with weight.
My eating disorders and issues with food began when I was 15 years old. That’s the age I started starving myself. That is also the age that I learned about “laxatives” and how if I DID give in and eat something? I could just take a few laxatives and shit it all out.
I’ve always believed that I was fat, even when I weighed 125 pounds and wore a size 5. In reality, I never was fat. I would gain weight, from time to time, but then I’d go on a crazy diet, or starve myself for a few weeks, or exercise exessively for days until I lost it all.
When I went through a severe depression a few years ago is when I truly became overweight. I learned to use food for comfort. I also learned to lock myself in the house, away from the world (except to go to work and back.) I went from being slightly overweight (145 pounds) to weighing over 200 pounds. The combination of eating for comfort, anti depressants (ahh, prozac) and lack of any type of physical activities lead to my weight gain.
I had expressed to my psychiatrist that I was tired of the weight and that I wanted to lose it, so I made a commitment to myself to start eating right and GASP, working out. I did that, but the weight wasn’t coming off. He finally agreed to switch my medication (goodbye Prozac, hellooooooooo Welbutrin.) and in one month, I dropped 13 pounds.
And then, I found out I was pregnant with my 3rd child.
I gained 45 pounds with that pregnancy and found myself weighing in at over 250 pounds.
I knew that losing the weight after having G-Unit was going to be hard. I knew I’d have to work at it every single day.

WannaBe Writer’s Block strikes again.
I keep sitting down to write about things. Things that have happened to me, things that my children have said that have made me laugh, things that they have done that have nearly decapatated me. Things that have happened to friends of mine (OMG! My friend from high school won $100,000 on Deal or No Deal and he invited me to his celebration party!) Things that have happened on TV (Peter from the Amazing Race is AN ASS. Did Jeffrey have outside help to finish his collection? HAHA NEW YORKS REACTION TO GETTING REJECTED A SECOND TIME BY FLAVOR FLAV!)
But everytime I write, I end up hitting “delete” two minutes later.

Because… boring! And also lame.
Maybe tomorrow.
(But seriously? Did you watch Flavor of Love? AWESOMENESS)

There was a time in my life where I decided “Hey! I think I want blonde hair!”
When I told my stylist, she looked at me funny and said it would be a good idea to add blondISH highlights and gradually lighten it. I wasn’t having that, I was like “highlights? Hell naw. BLEACH IT BLONDE. NOW!”
She let it be known that she was “against it” and I let it be known that I didn’t care because I wanted to be blonde.
A few hours of processing later, I was, um, a “blonde.” Only, not really, because I was “an orangish.”
I immediately drove to my sister’s house to show her and she was all “THAT LOOKS HORRIBLE.” Her main “issue” with it was that it wasn’t at all blonde, but kinda orange, much like the color of my skin, which meant that my skin and hair all kind of blended together making me look like a giant stick o’ bronzer.
My sister has an incredibly awesome sense of style and I trust and value her opinion when it comes to matters of hair/fashion. But, I didn’t want to believe her about this because I wanted to be a freakin’ blonde and was in what The People like to call “major denial.”
Later that day, when I was outside watering the grass, my neighbor -who happened to be the ceraaziest, most hilarious person I’ve ever had the pleasure of living next door to- drove by and looked at me in a way that led me to believe she did NOT like “The Blonde.”
She walked over and in her crazy way of talking said “What the fuck did you do to your hair? Your hair matches your skin and you look all one color and it’s creeping me out, woman.”
I was still in denial, even though two people had just given me not so positive feedback about The Blonde. Because in my heart, I wanted to believe that I looked “hot” and that “Blonde was my color.”
Why? I do not know. But, looking at a bunch of old pictures that I found last night, I realise just HOW RIGHT they were and how BAD IT LOOKED (and these pictures were AFTER I agreed to let myi stylist “weave in a little brown”. So, it was worse.) and how desperately I wanted to believe that I could pull of blonde hair.

“Go Carrot. It’s your birthday. We’re gonna party like it’s your birthday”.

Continue reading →

I have a history of overreacting to things in life. I can’t tell you how many times a loved one has told me to “CALM DOWN” or “CHILL OUT” or “OMG. YOU PARANOID FREAK ARE YOU SERIOUS?”
I’m a very emotional person, who is filled with many fears, most of them irrational (like, I’m scared to drive with sunglasses on because what if I get into a car accident and my airbag goes off and the force of the exploding bag crushes the glasses deep into my face, blinding and mutilating my face?) some of them rational (cancer, heart attack, losing my sight, or a limb.) It’s hard for me to NOT overreact because OMG. I COULD DIE. JESUS HELP ME!
When I first started BALAWWWGING, I used to over react to any negative thing that was said about me. If someone left a comment calling me a fat pig, I’d fling my body off of my chair, fall to the ground and sob like a little baby. Then, I’d write a post about it whilst sobbing hysterically because “OMG. SOMEONE WAS MEAN TO ME.”
Then I learned that hey, not everyone is going to like me, or what I have to say. And some people will hate me, and some people will make fun of me, and some people will take times out of their obviously very full and rich lives to create anonymous email accounts to tell me how if they were my husband, they’d have “slapped that cookie out of my hand.” And some people are just assholes, and some people aren’t assholes, they’re good people who just don’t find the humor in certain words that I use regarding a certain little person who KISSED MY SON at school the other day and will feel the need to leave comments that aren’t very nice to let me know how they feel.
And that’s ok. It’s all ok. Because they are people who I do not know, who do not know me and who have formed an opinion based on what I write here.
Fine.
We all do that. Every single one of us. It’s just that some of us don’t feel the need to take time out of our lives to tell the people that we can’t stand on the internet that we can’t stand them. We simply roll our eyes, or stop reading their blogs, or make voodoo dolls out of them and poke them with needles in the vaginal area.
So, I’ve learned to ignore, to laugh at, to perhaps think about what was said and if it’s true, to learn how to change or become a better person, or to call my brother and accuse him of sending the email. (Which haha, how cute is it that I accused my brother of such a thing?)
In many ways, this blog, the people who read it, have taught me how to Chill The Hell Out.
Well, when it comes to “internet related things.” Because PIGHUNTER KNOWS that I still haven’t learned how to calm the hell down in “real life.”
Example. Last night, I was placing potatoes into a pot of boiling water and as I dropped one into the pot (HA! HA! HA!), the boiling water splashed out of the pot, straight into my eye.
Now, it hurt, but that is not what I freaked out about because I have a freakishly high tolerance to pain. What I freaked out about was this.
“OMG. I BURNT MY EYE. I BURNT MY EYE! WHAT HAPPENS TO AN EYE THAT IS BURNT? DOES A BLISTER FORM? AM I GOING TO GET A BLISTER ON MY EYE? WILL ICE HELP? OMG! TONY! WHAT IF I GET A BLISTER AND IT GETS INFECTED? CAN I GO BLIND?”
(I am not exaggerating people. I actually said those things and I actually compulsively checked the mirror to see if any blisters were forming and quite possibly kept covering my left eye to see if I may be losing sight in the burnt eye.)
I sometimes watch “calm people” and secretly envy their ability to not immediately think that they are going to die, or go blind, or end up in a wheelchair for the rest of their life.
(Funny story about THAT. One time? When me and Tony were painting? I was standing on a plastic chair, because I was too lazy to get the ladder out, and as I stretched my body to reach the highest part of the cieling, the chair busted into pieces, sending me crashing to the ground. It happened so fast, that I didn’t actually know what had happened, but what I did know is that I had fallen off of a chair and that I could have severed my spinal cord and (TRUE STORY), so as soon as I hit the ground, I started screaming (AGAIN, TRUE STORY) “OMG! I MAY BE PARALYZED! TONY! AM I PARALYZED?” I jumped up and was running around the house (to make sure that my legs worked) and continued to scream “OMG. AM I PARALYZED?”
Tony was laughing so hard that he couldn’t breathe -which, GLAD YOU FIND THE PROSPECT OF ME LOSING THE ABILITY TO WALK SO FUNNY, MISTER ASS- and was all “Babe, you’re NOT PARALYZED. Look! You are running around! GET A GRIP! And, oh, for future reference, if you really think you may have severed your spinal cord… DO NOT MOVE. That’s the worst thing you could do!”
Go ahead, laugh, but dudes, I WAS SERIOUSLY INJURED. Honestly. Look at the bruise that it left on my ass.

Not so funny now, is it?)
In all seriousness, I hate that I make things in my life out to be much bigger in my head than they are in reality. My life would be so much easier if I could get a grip and some perspective on things before I react. For once, I’d like to be able to enjoy a cookie without getting all “OH MY GOD. I JUST ATE A COOKIE AND RUINED MY DIET FOREVER I MIGHT AS WELL EAT THE WHOLE BATCH NOW!” about it. I wish I could eat the cookie, enjoy the cookie and move on with life.
I wish that I could watch my boys play football and not want to shout out “BE CAREFUL! You smack your head on the pavement and get permanent brain damage!”
I wish that when I hear a funny noise coming from the motor of my van, I wouldn’t start crying because “OH NOES! The transmission must be going out and that costs at LEAST $1,500 and where am I going to get an extra $1,500 from and HOW WILL I FEED MY KIDS WITHOUT MONEY?”
And I wish that I could remember what in the HELL my point was in writing this in the first place because “OMG. What am I even talking about anymore? Why do I even have a blog if I can’t get through a post without forgetting what my post is about? MAYBE I SHOULD QUIT BLOGGING BECAUSE I SUCK AND EVERYONE WILL HATE ME AFTER THIS.”

This morning, I was listening to a country song that I love.
(Yeah, I listen to country music and you would too, if you weren’t such a music snob, thinking your too good for The Watermelon Crawl and stuff, which, whatevs)
Gabby came running to me and said “hold you, mommy.” I picked her up as I continued to sing the country song that I love.
She started to sing along with me. She got so into it and was singing at the top of her lungs in her sweet little jibber jabber lingo that I love so much.
I immediately thought of “Love Thursday.” I ran to my computer, opened up “sound recorder” and hoped to God that she wouldn’t stop singing.
She didn’t stop.
She continued to sing, as did I and I was able to record a little bit of how absolutely beautiful we sound together.
(And by “beautiful”, I mean in the sense that my two year old is trying with all of her heart to sing with her mama, not literally beautiful, because haha, I “have a cold.” Yeah. That’s it.)
I went ahead and made a very short, very cheesy (as I do not know how to use windows movie maker because I am really dumb when it comes to anything to do with “computer technology.”.) but I am going to post it anyway, because I’m trying to be creative and because I can.

(Turn up the volume, as the sound quality is really bad, but have your fingers ready to plug those ears up when I get all “mariah” and start belting it. Seriously. Have.Them.Ready.)

So, um, The Haircut.
Or should I say The “Haircut”?
I’m pretty sure that The Do that I’m sporting qualifies as “Chickening out”.
Yes, I chickened out. But! I kinda blame my stylist because she was all “Long hair is SO hot right now. It hasn’t been this ‘in’ in years.”
That was all I needed to hear. I was all “Really? It’s in? Sweet! Just give me some funkay layers!”
Ummmm…
Before:

After:

So yeah, you can see that it’s been cut, and you can see that there are layers, but not so sure that they’re “funky” and also? Not quite sure what to do with it. It’s all thin and frizzy and AHHHHHHH.

(Is that a before cut picture or after cut picture? I do not know. I can not tell!)

Uh. The layers. Seriously, What do I do with them?

Oh! I know! Put them in pigtails! Which is SO TOTALLY DIFFERENT than what I was doing before I got it cut!
Yeah.
And also?
Shit.
And quite possibly?
Hate.

Do you know what I love?
Starbucks? KFC bisquits with honey? THE OFFICE?
No! I mean, yes, of course! But, also? I love that I can write a post in which I act all dramatic and SCARED about getting my hair cut (you’re getting A hair cut? WHICH ONE? Isn’t that hilarious? That’s a joke PigHunter loves to say EVERYTIME that I say I’m getting a haircut. Hardy Har Har.) and people actually become emotionally invested on the plight of my hair and check back to see if I’ve had it done and they cheer me on and tell me to “JUST DO EEEEEEEEET!”
God. I love that so much.
Do you know what I do NOT love?
California!
Specifically the area in California in which I live and must drive because OH MY GOD! THE MORNING TRAFFIC.
You see, the traffic is so horrific in this stupid ass wanna be city which is nothing more than track homes, starbucks and Target shopping centers, that I make my children take the bus to school. Because? The traffic is so bad and the drivers are such assholes, that halfway to the school, I’m calmly sticking my head out the window,lovingly asking “WTF, MAN, SERIOUSLY, W.T.F?” and secretly wishing I had a baseball bat in my car to um, smash peoples “windshields.”
This morning? The boys missed the bus and SWEET MOTHER OF BOBS. By the time we got to the 2nd signal, Ethan was all “You’re going to fight someone today, aren’t you mom?”
It’s frustrating because it shouldn’t be that big of a deal. Seriously, we live so close to both schools and their both in peaceful, residential neighborhoods.
Look! I painted a little (but totally precious) picture for you! (Try not to let my amazing paint skills distract you from the point, ok?)

x-our house
1-ethan’s school
2-andrew’s school
3-the van
How hard could that drive be? Right? Seriously, down the street to Andrew’s school, back up the street to Ethan’s school. (Even though Ethan’s is closer, Andrew has to go first, because his starts FIVE MINUTES EARLIER than Ethan’s. AH!) So easy!
But dudes. Everyone wants to live here! And it’s crowded and there’s a traffic light every 2 feet and everyone drives a Hummer and no one knows how to drive correctly, and everything thinks they are “entitled” to cut you off and AAAHHHHHH. KILL. PUNCH. SLICE.
I used to love living here. Beautiful beaches 45 minutes away. Majestic mountains, with skiing and lakes less than an hour away. Dodger Stadium, Angel stadium (BOO. ANGELS SUCK! But still!) LAKER GAMES! The Price is Right studios! Beautiful weather!
But now? Those things are harder to appreciate because of all of the CRAP that comes along with it.
Outrageous home prices (It’ll cost you $500,000 for a small, ugly, old house in this here shitty ‘hood), traffic, smog, POTHOLES!, traffic, DID I MENTION TRAFFIC? Because, traffic.
Were it not for the fact that all of my family lives here, I would move to a different state in a heartbeat.
But? I am a wimp who does not want to be without my family (and, who, more importantly, is most likely going to chicken out with the whole “cutting of the hair” thing) and so we will continue to live here and be frustrated with The Traffic and the unaffordable housing for the rest of our lives.
The things we do for the love of family. (And for the fear of not being able to make friends in a new state and of my children being the ONLY kids with a Mexican last name. Because, you know, that’s another plus of living in SoCal, The Mexicans. We live here.)