The Queen's Rambles

I’ve had this Post an Update window open for days, but nothing seemed worth writing about. Could I finally be out of words? From 2002-2010 I wrote an entry, often a long one, every. single. day. That ended when Elsa came along, and now I just can’t seem to care about writing at all. I find new blogs and read about people’s children and think “why do I care? I don’t give a flying flip. I don’t even know you, and your kids is just a kid.”

Of course, though, I do care about my friends that I’ve known since 2002 or even since 2010, or even the friends that I’ve just met recently who post on LJ. I just don’t care about the people on my Feedly who have “real” blogs, except the select few who have had real blogs forever and feel more like friends than random people trying to sell their experiences for free samples of Greek yogurt and movie tickets.

Part of the reason I’m so quiet is that I am so unhappy with myself. I look in the mirror and see a person who looks like a clay golem. I have food issues, no doubt. I probably should see a counselor. When I hate myself the most and am feeling the worst about myself, I eat more to punish myself which makes NO SENSE. I know it, you know it, this has been happening since I was nine years old and my mom would put me on all kinds of diets and always poke and prod and tell me how fat I was. So around and around we go. Last fall I dropped 24 pounds, but I’ve since gained it all back plus some. Yay me!

I started WeightWatchers again on Sunday and hope I can stick with it awhile. I know I will never be skinny, but I definitely felt a lot better after dropping those 24 pounds. It all becomes so hopeless to me, though–always eating these super boring foods that feel gross in my mouth (veggies and fruits are so wet and slimy. Ugh). Knowing that it has to be a lifestyle choice FOREVER sends me off the rails.

That’s life, though, right? I’m at an age where the best I can do is maintain. I have lost all hope of ever being physically attractive. I shouldn’t care, but it is just a part of being a woman I guess, to care so deeply about these things. Obviously not as deeply as people who take diet very seriously, though. Guess if I really cared I would stop eating.

I’m not mentioning exercise because I exercise all the time. In fact, I need to go get ready for my BodyPump class in about 10 minutes.

Soooooo. . . that was totally not what I meant to write about. I was going to write about our trip and this ingenious thing called a packing cube. So those bloggers who write about yogurt and movie tickets? A whole bunch of them also wrote about packing cubes, which is something you must go out and buy immediately if you travel. They basically help you organize everything that you pack, then you stack them into your suitcase. When you get to your destination you pull out the cubes, stick them in drawers, unzip them and viola! You are not living out of suitcases and everything is organized.

I bought four sets for our family, color coded of course. I probably didn’t need a set for Elsa–in fact we only used one of her cubes because I used gallon baggies to put together several outfits for her. Each baggie had a top, a bottom and undies. This was the other great idea! It was so easy to get her dressed and make sure she matched each day.

Anyway, back to the packing cubes. I packed each of our things in various configurations in our correct colored cube. When we got to the beach there was no digging around the suitcase for the underwear or bathing suits. Everything was organized and quickly went into drawers so we could put the suitcases away for the week.

We even used one of the small packing cubes as a way to store our snack bars and other important items at the beach (Kindle, phones, wallet, etc). It had a little handle and was perfect for keeping close.

So there you go. Those bloggers who work their brands and network and all that finally hit on something that people actually need to know about.

Are you still curious about our beach vacation? It was simple. We got wet, got hot, got sandy, ate a lot of ice cream.

And now I really do have to go get ready for BodyPump.