Tight Pants for Christmas

Posted on 25 December 2009 | 5 responses

Christmas is a barrage of great tasting, fat-filled foods that no woman or her pants can stand up to.

I like to think Christmas is a time of connecting with family, remembering why the holiday exists in the first place, purchasing and wrapping gifts, and some quiet moments of rest…but let’s have a moment of honesty.  It’s a good excuse to eat everything you know you shouldn’t.

Cookies, candies, chocolate covered anything and everything, cakes, nuts, caramel corn, and pies are lurking all over the place.

A woman who is trying to eat ‘Primally‘ has no hope of success over Christmas unless she has a will of iron.  I forgot to ask Santa for that this Christmas.

Every Christmas my family vows to eat healthy and go for a run together every morning.

I last for one to two days at the most.

Then the sleeping in and sloth-like habits take over from sugar-induced comas.

At this point, we all WANT to be good, but can’t…

DL – Hey guys.  Ummm….are we going for a run today?
Thinner Family Member – Well, we are supposed to…perhaps later?
DL – Yeah.  Sure.  LATER it is.

Then when later comes, I am conveniently busy with a piece of cheesecake and just can’t go for a run.  Shoot!

Every year I get the SAME THING for Christmas – tight pants.

My question is – who ISN’T vowing to go on a diet tomorrow?

PS – I just ate my last *wink* peanut butter and chocolate cookie…

Top 10 things that look fun, but aren’t…

Posted on 19 December 2009 | 7 responses

There are things in life that seem like they will be fun and everyone thinks they will be fun, but they aren’t.

They are horrible.

1. Skiing. Strapping boards to your feet, climbing thousands of feet up a steep part of a mountain, and then sliding down while trying not to die is a bad idea. Perhaps it’s because I am not sports inclined, but getting frostbite while contemplating your life with only two small poles to keep you from death is not my idea of fun.
2. White water kayaking. When you find yourself hanging upside down in the water while strapped into a small plastic boat heading straight into the rapids, you will understand. Can anyone say ‘air’?
3. Tole Painting. People look so serene and happy painting flowers, birds, and other kitschy things on wooden objects. In reality it’s a practice in learning how not to swear while doing a genteel lady’s craft. The art isn’t about painting at all, it’s actually appearing to be kind and gentle all while fighting the intense desire to harm someone.
4. Running marathons. The prestige associated with marathon runners is huge; everyone seems to revere a person that can run 26 miles straight. Don’t get me wrong, it’s completely impressive but who wants to spend 3 hours a day running around instead of drinking lattes and catching up with friends? All so that you can pay money to run in a race and get a t-shirt. Something isn’t adding up for me.
5. Martha Stewart recipes. Martha is a horrible, vindictive woman that is not on the everyday woman’s team. She creates fabulous magazines with beautiful pictures of food that seem attainable. What she fails to tell you is each recipe requires at least one ingredient that can’t be sourced unless you have black market connections and at the end of your 3 hour meticulous baking extravaganza you will only have 24 odd looking cookies to show for all your hard work.
6. Canning. Take at least one whole day of your life, cut vegetables or fruit for 6 hours, shove them into jars, and then cook them in a huge vat on your stove for hours on end. After 12 hours, your house is hotter than a sauna and you’ve used up all your energy for the week. The only reason to can anything is if you don’t have a grocery store within 200 kms of your house.
7. Pedicures. I love shoes and am a known shoe-aholic. I need those calluses to be able to wear all my shoes and don’t want to pay someone money to touch my feet for an hour and make all my shoes painful to wear. It’s just a bad idea.
8. Swimsuit shopping. Whenever a girl plans a trip to a tropical place, a new swimsuit is required. It seems like fun to go get a cute new suit for your trip until you are standing underneath florescent lights with all your cottage cheese, droopiness, and muffin top hanging out for the world to see. All of the sudden it is clear why some women opt for muumuus instead of bikinis.
9. Riding the teacups. Going to the fair is always fun and nostalgic, and at times the nostalgia can get you into trouble. You find yourself thinking that riding the childhood rides is a good idea. Halfway into the teacup ride while trying to hold down your chili dog and caramel apple you remember why the dizzying ride is only good for people under the age of 12.
10. Gardening. It seems romantic to till the earth, plant seeds, and watch the fruits of your labor grow. After fighting weeds, rocks, drought, and bugs for 8 weeks all you have to show for your labor of love are 8 tomatoes, 4 zucchinis, and 7 ears of sad looking corn. The lettuce comes in right away, but is out of season by the time your meager amount of tomatoes and zucchini are ready to be eaten. Since you have to go to the grocery store anyways for veggies for the lettuce, why not skip the stress of the garden and leave the veggie growing to the professionals?

If you are thinking about attempting any of these things, I suggest you don’t.

What is on your list of things that look fun but aren’t?

Nice or not the sharpest knife in the drawer?

Posted on 12 December 2009 | 3 responses

Whenever I travel and tell people that I am Canadian they are always so pleased to meet me. Everyone seems to think that Canadians are just the nicest people in the world.

I disagree.

We are the most gullible people in the world.

Today the high temperature is -30 Celsius. Since when is a high a negative number? This would be similar to a high jumper bragging about his new record breaking jump, only to hear this explanation: “Well, I ran up to the pole and just fell over. It was awesome.”

Somehow when it came time to split up the continent, the Canadians decided the pretty fluffy white stuff up North was better than the beaches, palm trees, ocean, and temperate weather or were severely drugged. I hope beyond all hope they were severely drugged.

Maybe we are nice because we are just happy not to be dead after braving the elements to go to work or get food from the grocery store.

It tends to make me grumpy though.

In -30 Celsius weather, the following things happen:

• Nose hairs freeze within 1 second of being outside. Make sure not to have flared nostrils when braving the elements, otherwise your nose is frozen into place.
• If you decide to not wear mittens, within two minutes you have to look to see if you still have a hand. It quickly becomes a frozen, lifeless lump of flesh that clangs together without any feeling. This is a bad thing.
• Air gets trapped in your lungs and you can barely breathe. In order to breathe, a scarf must be wrapped around your mouth and nose.
• Vehicles must be plugged in so they start. Then the environment is severely harmed by letting the car idle for about 20 minutes before driving anywhere.
• A massive brain freeze occurs from the cold air hitting your forehead. It’s the same exact feeling you get from eating ice cream too fast, but there is no rocky road in your tummy.
• 14 layers of clothing are required to leave the house and you to tell yourself that Oompa Loompa really is the fashion statement this winter.
• Glass wearers suffer more than non-glasses wearers. When a glasses wearer comes inside to escape the frigid temperatures, nothing can been seen for quite some time due to extreme fogging.

Where else is being outside a matter of life and death? In hot countries you may become dehydrated, but you aren’t going to die within 20 minutes of being left out in the elements. During a Canadian cold snap this is a reality.

In this weather it is safe to assume the man on the side of the road with a broken car does in fact need help and is not pulling a Ted Bundy scam.

Perhaps that is why we are so nice, if we didn’t help each other out more of us would die.

At least I get to wear fun boots in the snow. This is the only positive of the whole weather fiasco in Canada; fun boots and accessories!

How are you keeping warm today? If you’re cold and the temperature is above 0 Celsius, please consider yourself to be in paradise!

Wild Horses Couldn’t Drag Me…

Posted on 7 December 2009 | 2 responses

I grew up in the city and still live in the city.  Thus, there is no reason for me to understand farms and wild creatures.

This weekend I traveled up north to Athabasca in the -27 degree Celsius weather to visit a fabulous friend from the coast that was visiting another fabulous friend who happens to live in Athabasca.

While traveling on the one lane highway covered in snow and ice, I saw a rather odd sign after passing a VERY small town that consisted of a gas station, 5 trees, and a fork in the road.  It read:

CAUTION.  Wild Animal Crossing Next 40 KMS.

My question is how do you know when the wild animals are going to cross?  In the city, we have amber lights that flash when pedestrians want to cross the road.  It is very organized.  The drivers slow down and the people cross without mishap.

When a herd of wild horses burst out of the trees and run next to your car and onto the road, there are no amber lights flashing.  You have to deftly maneuver the car to a quick halt without sliding all over the road or maiming a horse that has decided to cross NOW and bring all his friends along to circle your car for awhile.  It takes all your womanly mental strength to not scream while slowing down as fast as the ice will allow and avoid the monstrous four legged creatures.

Once I realized I had stayed on the road and didn’t need to drag the carcass of a dead horse off the road, all I could think was: “Who’s horses are these and why are they outside in the cold weather without even mittens on their hooves?! ”

Don’t horses get cold?  Shouldn’t they be wearing more than their God-given coats when it’s -27 degrees Celsius outside?

Is this something that all non-city people know the answer to?  Someone, help me!

McDonalds Right Before You Workout?

Posted on 1 December 2009 | 5 responses

While putting my make-up on after my work this morning, I noticed a very skinny woman wearing tight yoga pants and eating McDonalds’ hash browns in the women’s locker room.

Dear young, skinny chick at the YMCA,

Please don’t flaunt your skinny body in your tight yoga pants while eating deep fried white carbs in the YMCA women’s locker room.  There are those of us that don’t have the metabolism of a cheetah and can’t lounge around and eat bad foods and stay skinny by merely making an appearance at the gym.

I just finished running several miles at an incline and only ate fruits, vegetables, and tuna fish yesterday.

Severely Annoyed,

Donloree

Who eats McDonalds at the gym anyways?  Anyone else see something wrong with this picture?

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