Comcast Rant

Since I moved out on my own into the big old world, Comcast has been my cable provider. At first, they seemed ideal and the corny commercials seemed legitimate.  But then, they give you 6 months free of a promotional priced package, where I was paying around $80 a month, then shoots up to some ridiculously overpriced amount. Currently I am paying roughly $150 bucks a month for this. Ben and I have ONE box, NO DVR service, NO movie channels, basic HD channels, and "Xfinity" internet.  What in the HELL am I paying $150 bucks for?  I'm not asking to see a copy of my statement, because I've seen it. I GET what I am PAYING for but what I don't understand is how they can charge people $150 a month for cable and internet?


So yesterday, I get another $150 bill and that was about it for me. Not to mention, if you are one day late on your bill, they shut your service off and then charge you $5 bucks a device to turn all of your stuff back on. They shut me off last month because I was a day late, and 2 months before that they shut me off for being $.20 cents off on the bill. Twenty CENTS off.  When I called them to complain, they said, "Well the computer system shuts you off, not the reps."  And still, thereafter, charged me the reconnect fees.  Not to mention, that my internet connection is so unbelievably slow that more often than not, I have to restart my computer because it's working so hard to bring up a website that it just freezes. Two months this went on before I finally called Comcast (I put it off because most of the time when I talk to them I get nowhere so I just kept procrastinating) and the guy was completely confused when I asked him to run a health check on my system.  He kept mumbling weird things into the phone before finally putting me on hold for 20 minutes. I had actually set my phone down, turned it on speaker, and then forgot I was on hold, because I had time to watch almost a whole show before I realized that my phone was still on. He never came back, so I hung up. Useless.


Yesterday, I got online with a rep and asked them why I keep getting bills that were so outrageous. I also wanted some kind of compensation for the fact that I've had the slowest Internet on the planet. I figure if I'm going to get raped all this money, I can at least have a Internet connection that works faster than the speed of my hair growing.  The rep tells me that he cannot talk to me because I'm not an authorized user on the account.  Ben has called Comcast before and told them that I was, and although I've fought with Comcast numerous times, that was the first time I'd heard that one.  I have a feeling that after all my complaining to them, they've blacklisted me, but instead just told me that I'm not authorized to speak to anyone. I told him "Thanks for nothing as usual" and logged off. In a stint of rage, I completed the survey you are forced to take after chatting with an online rep and without even reading the questions, just vigorously clicked 'highly dissatisfied' until my finger hurt. Then in the comment section I went on a long rant (basically what I just typed here) but made sure to end my comment with 'Your service is terrible, Comcast is terrible and I hate you".


That'll show 'em.


The conclusion? I'm still stuck with a $150 bill and nothing is being done about my internet.


Moral of the story: Keep calling Comcast and complaining because it makes you feel better.

Weightloss

Well, I have lost 40 pounds total. After so long, I just started training myself to eat in portions, work out a couple days a week, and just cutting out unnessecary sugar and condiments, sticking to low fat foods and whole grains, limiting red meat and seriously cutting back on diet pop.  It has just become a routine.

I recently signed up to run my first Chicago Marathon 5K in September 2012, and hopefully will be doing others before that.  It's so far away, but I'm already nervous!  I can run 3 miles now, but it's still tough. I figure by then I will be able to do the whole thing, no problem.

It's always been a personal goal of mine and I finally sucked it up and paid the $25 registration fee to run.

Another one I want to run in is the 'Run for your Lives' race in Indianpolis in June. It's a 5k and obstacle course that you run through, all while being chased by Zombies. I can't imagine a funner way to run a race, and obviously it would give you more insentive to finish when you're running from something instead of for something I suppose.

Recipes Worth Trying

So I've been hooked on a website called Pinterest for awhile and I find the best things on here.  I found a few recipes that I made and wanted to share. 

I normally make recipes off of the Kraft website and am more often than not, disappointed with the outcome. I made a recipe one time that consisted of macaroni and cheese, grilled chicken and vegetables. The way they described this 'dish' was to simmer the chicken in a pan, add the frozen veggies, and then put the mac and cheese in the pan once made, then cook all together.  Once finished, I tried to eat it, but it was really lacking a lot of things. The freezer taste from the vegetables basically soaked into the contents of the dish and the chicken with the mac and cheese was just awful. I could only get down a bite or two before dumping the rest in the garbage. Kraft  = failure.  I've never made anything off the Kraft website that didn't end up in my garbage.

I am no expert cook, and quite frankly, I hate cooking in general.  My mom is a great cook, and makes it look so easy. Watching my mom is like watching the food network. I swear she never follows recipes, just a pinch of this and handful of that, and a beautiful, perfectly cooked entree comes floating out of the oven. I feel like I struggle a lot, and then my food always comes out half-assed for some reason.  I tried to make a corn dog casserole the other day and ended up with some kind of stuffing with hot dogs in it. It didn't taste bad, it was just like having a hot dog Thanksgiving. It was more awkward than anything, and once again, ended up in my garbage.

So finally, I decided to switch it up and try some more challenging recipes. Maybe the recipes I was trying weren't turning out good because they were crappy recipes. Like I said, I'm not an expert, but I can cook when I really set my mind to it. 

First, I found a stuffed pepper recipe.  From what I remember, and from what my curious co-workers told me when I told them about it, there is supposed to be a tomato sauce simmered into the stuffed peppers. Which is true, because I remember my mom making them for us when we were kids.  The red sauce also works in the cabbage roll recipes. I'm pretty sure it's the same stuffing actually.

Here's the recipe I used from Kalyn's Kitchen. I loved this because she even took pictures which was helpful to a cooking dumby like me! 

The only difference I made to her recipe was that I did not use the ground fennel (I couldn't find this anywhere! I'm sure I wasn't looking in the right place), and I used 3 sausages instead of 2, so I had extra stuffing. I personally loved it without the red sauce. It had a nice texture to it and the Parmesan really brought it all together. We only had 4 smaller peppers, so all the stuffing we didn't use served nicely as leftovers the next day.

The next recipe I tried were creamy chicken taquitos.

I am always iffy on Mexican food because up until the past couple years, I always hated Mexican food. I think I generally was not a fan of corn tortillas and cilantro, but I've aquired more of a taste for it since we have a really good Mexican restaurant at the end of our road.

This recipe comes from Pennies on a Platter

My differences were that I made it with red medium salsa instead of green salsa, and left out the cilantro.  They were very good! I think that some refried beans would have worked on these as well, or even used to dip in.  We didn't have any though, so we used some light sour cream. I also used 1/3 less fat neufchatel cream cheese.

I've added both of those to the 'yes' list for dinner ideas:) 

And....I'm back.

So I was really starting to feel guilty beacause I quit the gym back in the middle of July.  Honestly, I was so annoyed with the other people that went in the morning that they would seriously ruin my morning.  Not to mention some guy was hitting on me every morning and I'd finally had enough. I packed up my mental 'luggage' and left that place.  In place of my work outs, I started hula hooping.  I got pretty good too. It's a really fun hobby to pick up and Youtube is an awesome place to see tutorials on tricks and what not.  I also decided to cut back on red meat (hamburger mainly) and diet pop.  I never believed the myth about drinking diet pop until I actually cut back on it.  I have a friend that works at the gym, so I got a hold of her and asked her about rejoining the gym.  It'd been about 2 months and I was starting to feel really bad about my lack of exercise.  I was worried that I was packing on all these pounds again and whenever I ate something fattening or 'carby' I'd be sitting there imagining the fat just placing itself back into the places it had dissapeared from. She told me that I wouldn't have to pay another enrollment fee since I had just recently quit, so I jumped on it. I was back in there the next day, pedaling away on the stationary bike.  I decided that weighing myself needed to happen because I was anxious to see how much weight I gained or didn't gain since I'd quit the gym. Much to my disbelief, I'd actually LOST 12 pounds in that two months. I guess the mix of hula hooping, no hamburger and diet pop actually did work.  So that now puts me up at a grand total of 35 pounds lost. (Pat on the back). I'm making it a point to work harder at the gym. Over this past weekend, I rode 10 miles on the bike, and over the past few days, I've run a total of 3 miles. Psh, 3 miles, I know, but for a person who despises running at much as I do, that's quite the accomplishment to me.

Aside from the 'no hamburger/no diet pop' policy, I've been trying to train myself to portion control.  Let me break down the Weightwatchers diet for you:

Portion control - Take smaller bites and eat less of something. If you have a giant steak, only eat until you are full and take the rest home for later.  That's why they always say that you don't have to deprive yourself of eating foods you love. You can still eat them, just STOP eating when you feel full.  Something I try to do when we go out now is if I want to get something on the menu (pizza - because I love pizza), I get a dinner salad before hand, or a cup of soup (a vegetable, broth based soup, creamy soups do not work for this idea because they are loaded with fat and sodium). By the time you get your actual dinner (or the pizza in my case) you are somewhat full, and won't devour the entirety of the entree (25 peices of pizza). If you like cheeseburgers as much as I did (remember, I'm cutting back on eating hamburger meat), cut the cheeseburger in half before starting to eat and set it aside. I bet by the time you eat that half, you're full. Then you don't feel as guilty about eating it, and you have some for later.

Dietary fiber - Dietary fiber absorbs water as it passes through the digestive system. In other words, this helps you poop.  Start checking labels, the more dietary fiber that is in food, the better it is. It's easily digested.

That's pretty much it. Portion control, and foods with dietary fiber. The higher the dietary fiber, the lower the point on the system.

By no means am I any kind of expert, but it's just little everyday tactics that get easier after awhile. I do things now and I don't even notice. I got a cheeseburger from McDonalds a few weeks ago for the first time in 2 months out of desperation for the taste of fast food and I actually found myself cutting it in half and saving the rest. Once I put the other half in the fridge, I felt silly. I feel silly even typing it. I also found a new love for fish. Once I got a taste of a good slab of grilled salmon, it's all I want to eat. There are so many ways to experiment with chicken and fish, with different seasonings and breadings. I also switched from regular Yoplait yogurt to Greek yogurt.  Greek yogurt is always recommended by whoever, Jillian Michaels and whatever, but I tried it and I never want to go back to the Yoplait crap. They have such different textures. Greek is thick and pasty (and awesome with fruit or honey I might add), and Yopliat is runny and gloopy.  The only problem I ran into is that Greek yogurt is really expensive. I was pretty bummed about it actually. $1.50 a cup? Gawd.  So I tried Aldis one day and was extremely happy with the outcome. $.89 a cup, and taste just as good as the expensive ones. I will warn you though, you really have to have a taste for it because I tried to get all the girls at work on the Greek yogurt horse and they weren't having it. There were a lot of crushed faces in the room and a lot of wasted yogurt.

Oikos - good
Yoplait greek - shit
Dannon - good 
Aldis brand (Friendly Farms) - awesome

And that's my lesson for the day.

By the way, if you want to watch something that will really change your mind about eating fast food, watch the documentary 'Supersize me'. 



Garage Sales

Since October is near, a lot of towns are having their Oktoberfests which means garage sale season begins.  The town I work in was having it's garage sale weekend so I decided I would get up early and venture into the psychoville to find a bike I've been looking for.  The fancy neighborhood of the town is where I wanted to go because a co-worker of mine lives there.  I was hoping she would drive around with me, but she kept insisting that driving wasn't going to happen and that she refused to go despite it being in her neighborhood. I ignored her warnings. Ben wanted to go fishing that morning, and all my friends were preoccupied sleeping and what not so I had to go solo.  I got up early Saturday morning and when I arrived to the neighborhood of choice, I was shocked at what I saw.  Normally when you think of garage sales, you picture an entire town, some people walking and most just slowly scooting along in their vans or vespa scooters or whatever, pissing off everyone who got stuck behind them who isn't participating in the garage festivities.  This was different.  People were packed along either side of the road, leaving nothing but a tiny path in the middle for cars to squeeze through.  Families were piling out of their Hummers and BMW suv's, sporting fanny packs and visors, pushing strollers, walking down the middle of the path, making it nearly impossible to get through.  I was dumbfounded. I called my co-worker repeatedly in a panic because she never around her phone. When she did finally pick up I immediately questioned her on the strange event happening in her neighborhood.  She gave me the 'I told you so' speech, and I eventually ended up in her driveway.  It was definitely an advantage knowing someone in the neighborhood because there wasn't anywhere else to park.  It was basically a flea market with no parking lot. 


When I left my house that morning, it was windy, cold, foggy and on the verge of raining.  I decided that jeans and hoodie would be a good choice.  Upon arriving to Pleasantville, the sun popped through the clouds and radiated a whole lot of heat and sunshine throughout.  I figured this would be a good opportunity to get some exercise, but thereafter, was doubtful it would be very enjoyable to walk the neighborhood in skinny jeans and what not. Now sweating and irritated, I stopped at my first house.  I don't know about some woman, but me personally, I think sweating is the most annoying thing that could happen right after you get done putting make up on and doing your hair.  Granite, I had my bedhead-do up in a messy bun thing and wasn't wearing much make up, but I've been growing my hair out so I have a lot of baby hair growing in. So when I start sweating, the baby hair sweats into a curly cue and makes a perfect swirl on my shiny forehead. I ended up buying a wine holder for Ben's bomber beer bottles.  We're not big wine drinkers, but I'm trying to accomplish an Italy/Mediterranean look in my kitchen and thought it would be a nice touch.  I also bought a few decorations for kitchen 'theme', and a Hoover Wind tunnel vacuum for $15 bucks.  I was unsuccessful on the bike, but I got a vacuum so that's good.  The vacuum I have at home now is a hand-me-down from Ben's grandma. The vacuum is a 1980 Winter Olympic Electrolux vacuum.

The thing is still kicking good and strong, but it's a pain to use. It's like dragging a little kid around in a store that doesn't want to be there so they just go limp and you have to pull them around like a big wet noodle.

On the way back to my car and before I bought the vacuum, I saw what I thought was the PERFECT bike for me. It was a maroon woman's mountain bike with a water bottle holder and squishy silicone butt pads, which is unnecessary, but a perk.  Now my co-worker, Rochelle, always tells us stories about two of her neighbors. I will just say their names are Dee and Judy.  According to Rochelle, Judy was influenced by Dee and turned into a real bitch even though she used to be an nice person.  Judy lost a lot of weight, and is now 'very blessed'. Blessed about the weight loss and blessed about life.  Once again, this may just be me, but I get extremely irritated when people describe their lives as 'blessed'.  It's one thing to be 'blessed' if you are a religious person and stick solely with your religious views or if you are a cancer survivor, but people who drink a lot, eat a lot of fast food and smoke cigarettes bother me when they describe their life as 'blessed'.  Anyway, when I walked up to Judy to ask her about the bike, she was munching viciously on a stick of celery. I asked her what she wanted for the bike and she told me it wasn't for sale. Turns out, it was Dee's bike. Dee had ridden the bike over to visit her bff Judy and had so conveniently parked the bike amongst the garage sale items.  At this point, Judy, Dee, and their husbands were all questioning me about what kind of bike I wanted. How old did I want the bike to be? What color bike did I want? Etc.  Feeling completely stupid now, I just kept saying, "Thank you" and slowly trying to back away, but I felt like they were keeping me there to entertain their garage circus.  Finally Dee says, "What about those people across the street? They are selling bikes."  to which I replied, "Those are men's bikes, I don't really want a men's bike".  The reason I do not want a men's bike, is because generally, men are taller then woman.  I am 5' 4", and I have short legs. I am not going to buy a men's bike that I have to struggle to climb onto. I had already looked at those bikes, they were pretty tall as far as 'climbing up onto'.  I guess my response must've offended her because she looked taken aback. "What's wrong with a men's bike? I ride a men's bike. I've been riding a men's bike for years!"  At this point, I'd have enough, told her I would 'keep it in mind' and stomped off through the grass to Rochelle's house to get my car.  People are unbelievable. Who cares if I don't want a men's bike?  Why did my preferences about bikes offend her? If I have something in my mind that I want, I'm not going to get something else because some celery munching, visor wearing weirdos thinks I should. 

So overall the day was success and I only spent a little under $30 bucks.  I could have spent about $300 on all the decor I found, but luckily I ran out of cash in my wallet and had to call it quits.  That is why I do not keep a lot of cash on me on all times, it makes it way easier to spend. One thing I did learn though is that I am going back next year and I am definitely bringing someone with me.

Hula Hooping

Hello friends. I realize I've been gone for quite a long time, but I've been extremely busy.  Once we got back from Florida I was pretty much bombarded with work at the office.

I realized that my blog is going nowhere fast, and I want to give it a kick start. My blog was originally intended to keep me on track of my weightloss journey by blogging about it everyday. That was obviously short lived.  I kept up on my word though as far as my personal goals. I guess I decided that instead of busting ass and practically killing myself, that I was going to do it my way.  It occured to me one day while going over the Weightwatchers diet, that all it is, is portion control and eating a lot of dietary fiber and proteins.  I joined the gym, was there about 2 years, and then hated it. All the old people would congregrate in there in the morning and gossip (loudly--usually yelling across the entire gym to each other), and then some guy started hitting on me every morning and I'd finally had enough.  The gym was split into two parts, one being cardio and one being weights. I would be allllll the way over on the bike, and he would be alllll the way over on the bench press, and he would come allllll the way over to where I was biking and turn the fan on above me that was on a timer. That fan is obviously not going to be cooling you off, so why are you coming all the way over here to turn it on???? Then he would awkwardly start asking me about my life...where I went to school, why I wasn't there yesterday, etc...I probably could have told this dumb ass that I was married and he'd say, "Oh, cool...so when are we going to hang out?" Vultures I tell ya. Not to mention I'm sweaty and in my gross gym clothes, so....I don't get it.

I ended up quitting the gym and taking up hula hooping.  You can hula hoop for hours, break a nice sweat, and it's so much more fun then going to the gym. This is just my opinion of course, but I personally hate the gym.  I find it to be repetivtive and boring, whereas hulahooping, is only $20-30 bucks for a decent homemade hoop and you can pretty much do it anywhere.  I made my own hoop firstly, which required a trip to Menards, 1" plumbing tubing, 1" pvc tube connector, a few rolls of duct tape and colored electrical tape and ta-da! My hoop. 

When I made the hoop, I did not follow the key point in which you are supposed to put a hair dryer on the the openings to widen it and put the connector in. Instead, I just got a smaller connector and duct taped it together so after a little bit, the hoop eventually stretched out into a tear drop shape, so every once in awhile I have to cut the tape off and retape it. After a month or so, I ended up buying another one off my friend who makes them, so I have both of them now. The purple hoop is weighted because of the particular piping I used, so it's better to exercise with. My red and black hoop is bigger, lighter, and ideal for doing tricks with.  I will eventually be posting a video on here as soon as I can muster up the courage.  I feel a little weird knowing that my face will be on youtube, so I'm biding my time, but I'm picking it up quick and I LOVE it. I would suggest it to anyone who wants to switch up their exercise routine.

Old ladies

I work in a little podunk town in Illinois called Monee.  It's about 35 miles South of the city.  Monee is also a truck stop paradise. They have a Petro station which is connected to an Iron Skillet where all of the truckers and toothless wonders reside.  Ironically, the Iron Skillet is my favorite place to go for a late night drunken snack, and to gawk at all of the mysterious people that are dining there.

In Monee, there is also a Dunkin Donuts. I occasionally stop at DD to pick a large unsweetened iced tea or the occasional iced coffee.  Today, I was sitting in the drivethru, waiting at the window, and I see an old lady with large Robo Cop glasses on, circling the parking lot, confused.  She finally positions the car in such a way where her rear is facing the front of me, and starts backing the car up towards me.  I put my hand to the horn waiting for her to back right into my car, but she didn't. Instead, she parked it a few inches from me, turns it off, cranks the seat back, and is clearly readying herself to take a nap. Now mind you, I am at the window of the drivethru waiting for my iced tea, and myself, and 3 other cars behind me, are now blocked in by this sleepy old woman.  I can't think of anything better to do but bust out laughing hysterically.  I couldn't help myself.  It was goddamned funny.  The lady finally comes to the window and cranes her neck aroud the window, "What is happening?" She asks me. I respond, still laughing, "I guess she was tired."

"She's sleeping?!"
"Yes..."
"I'll be right back."

A few minutes later, one of the gas station attendees comes out and bangs on her window. She woke up suddenly, waving her arms around. I'm still laughing. "YOU CAN'T PARK HERE, YOU ARE BLOCKING THE DRIVETHRU".  She rolls her window up on the lady, pulls up, and parks at a gas pump to continue her nap.  I don't quite understand what this was all about considering there was a Petro station 15 feet down the street where people can park and take naps and what not. Old people boggle me.