Author Archives: Poppy Cede

don’t walk

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Hi. You’re great. Small favor. If you are not capable of navigating yourself through pedestrian traffic while walking and talking on your cell phone, please move yourself out of the way of pedestrians, park yourself, and have your phone call. When you’re on your phone you drift toward people walking toward you. I promise you that you do this. And I promise you that when you spill coffee all over me I’m not going to be happy about this. Because why would I be happy that your inability to walk and talk would cause me to have molten hot coffee all over my front? So, thanks. And, you’re still great. Bye!

Eat.

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I moved from the healthiest state in the nation to one of the least healthiest states in the nation, and my weight shows this. I have given myself permission to eat horribly for the last 4 years. This has affected my physical and mental wellbeing, and I keep growing out of all my pants. It’s unawesome for my self esteem.

I have made a decision to change my eating habits. I did watch Forks Over Knives which says that a plant-based diet is the healthiest, but I am not quite ready for that. Instead I’ve settled on ovo-lacto vegetarian eating Monday through Friday, the choice to eat meat Saturday and Sunday, and permission to eat anything I want for special occasions. Over time I hope to lessen my dairy intake, but to still be able to stomach meat and dairy. I expect to fail miserably at cutting out dairy, but I’ve gone long stretches without meat so I’m not even worried about that part.

I will be using the Forks Over Knives cookbook for loose inspiration, but I grew up in a place that taught me healthy eating, I’ve taken a nutrition class, my body tells me what’s good to eat vs. what’s not good to eat, I have a lot of vegetarian cookbooks and websites to refer to, and I just need to apply all these things to take back control of my life.

Healthy Poppy is around this corner…

The Challenge

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Every time I meet a new lady doctor I warn her that I always feel violated for several days after the physical exam. I am convinced that me saying this activates The Challenge Gene in them, a competition of sorts to be the most gentle they possibly can be, gentler than any of their predecessors or successors.

Today’s visit with my new doctor was the gentlest anyone has ever been.

And I still feel all crampy and violated. :) *sigh*

There is no winning with me, Doc.

Be nice.

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I don’t know what’s happened to me lately, but I’ve let myself get out of control with being a Grumpy Old Lady.

Today I’d finally had enough of myself and googled how to not hold grudges. This led to a search about forgiving (myself and others), letting go of resentment, and the health benefits of being a nicer person.

I know a lot of you who know me think I am a nice person. The problem with that for me is that the nicer someone tells me I am the more destructive I want to be to that image, because it’s built into my character to resist you.

I don’t want to not be me, but I also don’t want to nitpick my boyfriend to death with shit that doesn’t matter when he *NEVER* says one bad word about me to me or to others.

Tonight I asked him to help me be nicer. Tonight I said, “do me a favor. If I’m being mean please say to me ‘you’re being mean.’”

I have too many excuses for why I let myself be mean: I am hungry, I am tired, I am premenstrual, I am a woman, I have to stay hard for the city, I work too hard, I’m bored, someone did me wrong.

Life’s too short for excuses, so I’m going to try not to make them anymore, and just be happy.

Today I downloaded nature sounds for me to listen to on my iPod Touch and my work computer, sounds that I used back in 7th grade to center myself, to meditate, to bring me from the dark to the happy light.

Join me or don’t, but I’m going to try to be happy again.

Waiting for approval

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It’s funny how I’m holding back from making plans because I’m waiting for my supervisor to approve my vacation request.

How many times have you let someone else hold you back from doing something with your life that you actually want to do?

I bet we do that at least once a day.

Kinda sad.

We should stop doing that.

Dust yourself off and try again

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I guess I’ll hang out here for a minute. This meme seemed fun when Earl did it, but I didn’t like my answers for a few of the letters so I didn’t bother. Then Adam did it too so I went through my alphabet again and it changed enough to please me.

Type each letter of the alphabet into your browser address bar individually and see what page comes up, then post the results here.

A – The apps part of Facebook (apps.facebook.com)
B – blogger.com
C – cerealwednesday.com
D – disney.go.com (I don’t recall going there for any reason… weird)
E – en.wikipedia.org
F – facebook.com
G – google.com
H – My friend Heather’s Facebook page
I – imdb.com
J – Jared (as in Britt and Jared)’s Facebook page
K – kohls.com
L – latimes.com
M – mta.info
N – nyc.gov
O – oneload.com (the replacement for TubeMogul)
P – a link to my bank
Q – Quiz Whiz on Facebook
R – a redirect of the Google Accounts page
S – a link to my Facebook page, because my name is Stef
T – twitter.com
U – usatoday.com
V – vimeo.com
W – www.facebook.com (lame.)
X – a link to the MacBook Air with OS X Lion
Y – youtube.com
Z – Zum Stammtisch restaurant on Facebook (our favorite German restaurant)

Christmas

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I had a really great Christmas. Everyone was way too generous in their gift giving. When questioned about this they simply would say “it’s just that kind of year” or “I love you!” and who am I to turn away the generosity of others because of their love for me?

Before Christmas I had actually not been in any sort of spirit for it, barely getting presents for anyone at all. I made out my Christmas cards while very sick, with no address book so I had to look up everyone I could remember and missed a lot of people, and I’m lucky I got out the 20 I did.

My favorite gifts were intangible — seeing friends I haven’t seen in a long time, getting to spend time with family members I love, seeing the happy smiles on faces of people who enjoyed what they receive, getting to try something new and simultaneously fearing and loving it (we drove on the 35 degree incline of the Bristol Motor Speedway, which hosts two NASCAR races a year, and I was so terrified my eyes were moist, but I would of course love to do that again).

I feel like I’ve lost my knack for writing tight blog posts, so just keep bearing with me.

My stepdad gave me the NASCAR track gift AND a Tempurpedic pillow when I told him that the pillow I was sleeping on in the camper made my neck better. He also showed up to a movie he knew would have a lot of things in it he wouldn’t care for, just so we could all be together. My mom gave me the gift of promising to come here in February to help me clean and organize the apartment. If you hadn’t noticed, Dawg and I never showed you a video of our home after we moved in. That’s because it’s a disastrous mess in here, mainly because of all the stuff I lugged here from Vermont. It all needs to go, or be organized so that it fits neatly here, and my mom is riding the Megabus to come all the way here to do that.

And Dawg’s mom told me she wants me to call her Mom. Because I’m a keeper. :)

My brother’s family sent us gifts from Vermont all the way to Tennessee so we could open them with my mom and stepdad. They were too generous, and I told them so, but they’re happy about it and I now have a fridge filled with peanut butter cups of varying shapes, and a neoprene cover for this MacBook Pro I’m typing into right now.

Dawg gave me items that tugged at my heartstrings because they were from him to me, and they are sentimental to us. And I loved watching him open his gift from Georgie because she truly got him one of the best gifts of all time — 4 pairs of pajama bottoms in a huge box, one pair flannel, one pair fleece, one pair cotton with Santa hat skull, and one pair polar bear. :)

I am a flawed person, and yet these people still love me. Such a great gift. The best, in fact.