It was suggested that I do vblog entries to track my weight loss.  I wasn’t too keen on the idea as it: 1.) involves video of myself and 2.) requires me to buy a web cam.  Also, no one needs to see me work out.  I can show you just fine without any embarrassing video footage.

Typical squats should look like this:

My squats look a little more like this:

[Minus the porch, because why would I be doing squats outside?  That's just silly.]

In less aerobic news, Mr. W’s job search continues.  He’s going on his own with the IT thing and has five clients already, which is pretty good for a week and a half.  We are hoping that this will pick up and he won’t have to get a job that would interfere with keeping the gaming store open.  The store means a lot to him.

I don’t think I mentioned it, but Bossman still hasn’t officially terminated Mr. W.  The last Mr. W heard on the subject was that he was being suspended for a week.  He knew that it was more than that, of course, and when he talked to a co-worker the other day found out that everyone else knows that he’s been let go.  But still, not a word to Mr. W about it.  So we can add “coward” to the list of not-so-nice things we can say about Bossman.

Whenever something might be wrong with me, health-wise, I always do the exact thing I should not: search the Internet.  This is especially bad if you are a hypochondriac [which I am], because basically all the Internet does is take your symptoms and tell you that you might have cancer.

My favorite is when I go to a medical site in order to try and eliminate what could be wrong with me by looking at other symptoms.  I think, “Well, phew!  I don’t have any of those!” and then the site continues to say that all or none of these symptoms may be present.  That’s not helpful!  It’s like with heart attacks.  Heart attacks in women can have no symptoms at all.  You, Female Reader, could be having a heart attack right now and never know it.  Does that make sense?  Isn’t that something you’d think you would know about?  Clearly all systems are not normal here.

Our organs should come with distress beacons.  “We’re getting a signal coming from the pancreas.  Copy that, Pancreas, prepare for hospital visitation.”  But no.  Our body’s way of telling us something is wrong is with general, unspecified pain.  So when I have pain in my calf and go to the Internet to try and find a reason I see that it could be a stressed muscle from not stretching before my daily stint on the ellipitical machine, sure.  BUT IT COULD ALSO BE a blood clot that will make its way through my blood stream and lodge itself into either my brain or my heart, killing me instantly!

Or cancer.

School is over with, and I couldn’t be more excited.  The plan now?  WRITE!  I figured I should ease myself back in with short stories and take it from there.  I have quite a few ideas for a collection of shorts about romance gone awry.  One story is done and a few others others have just been sitting on the back burner of my brain.

After the wedding, I plan to throw myself back into the book Tim and I have been working on for way too long.  It needs to be done.  He and I are pretty close…I’d say we’re three-quarters through this draft.  And this is THE draft–no more major overhauls.  Now all we need is the perfect, attention-grabbing query letter that will not only leave its reader spellbound but frantic to pay us lots of money for our novel.  [If you know where we could find such a letter, please contact me and/or send it out on my behalf.]

In other news, with the wedding looming ever closer, I have become obsessed in my pursuit of pore supremacy.  I currently use the following:

• Pore-minimizing cleanser [mornings]
• Blackhead-minimizing cleanser [night]
• Exfoliant [monday and fridays]
• Biore nose and face strips [wednesdays]
• Eye puffiness takeaway-er [night]
• Toner [morning]
• Pore Perfect day cream [morning]
• Mattifying moisturizer [morning]
• Pore-minimizing night cream [night]
• Prescribed acne medicine [night]

I’m not sure, but I believe this may officially cross the line of too much skin care.  After using these products, my pores had better be so minimized that they are virtually non-existent.  Major expeditions will need to be launched to explore my face for pores.  If these products cannot make that dream a reality then it’s simply not possible to do, and I will be forced to resign my skin care attempts to live the remainder of my days in a state of pore mediocrity.  I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

Except Paris Hilton.

Have I mentioned that I think our new apartment is haunted?  Because I do.  The guest bedroom gives me bad vibes.  I don’t know why, there’s nothing scary in there.  I hate even going to the bathroom at night because it’s right next to the guest bedroom.  I realize I’m a big pansy, but that room creeps me out.

One day while Mr. W and I were unpacking boxes in the guest bedroom, I went for one of my boxes and saw a cd laying inside on top of everything.  I don’t own any CDs [they've all been copied into my computer and then sold or given away] so I knew it wasn’t mine.  When I asked Mr. W, he said he’d never seen that CD before.  Neither of us recognized the band [and I don't remember it now].  I opened the case and there was no disc inside.  Very strange.  I threw it out.

A couple days later Mr. W noticed a tiny remote stuck in a small statue on top of the TV.  He says he must have put the statue there with the remote stuck in, not noticing, but I really don’t think it was like that before.

And I’ve been having bad dreams every night [probably because I'm creeping myself out.]  Last night I dreamed that I worked in a bar as a waitress.  I had lots of guy friends and admirers, but there was this one guy that was super creepy and started following me around.  I don’t remember much, but somehow I found out that he was a psycho stalker of the “If I can’t have her, no one can” variety.  He comes to the bar, and I *know* that this is the day when he’s going to try to hurt me.  When he’s distracted I take off running.  The bar is apparently in the middle of a huge prairie, so there aren’t many options on hiding spots.  A friend of mine has a minivan parked right next to the creepy psycho stalker’s motorcycle [with a super loud engine] and I jump in the minivan and hide between some seats.  I figure that when people are in these sorts of situations in movies they take off running and are caught.  No one ever thinks to hide super close.  The stalker realizes I’m gone, gets on his bike, and speeds off in pursuit.  I wake up.

I think, “whoo!  escaped that one!” before falling back asleep.  Totally new dream in which Mr. W and I are driving around a nice suburban neighborhood looking at houses that are for sale.  We look through one and get back in the car as the stalker rides by on his motorcycle.  I tell Mr. W to get the hell out of there.  He seems to know who this stalker guy is and doesn’t ask questions.  I’m hoping the stalker didn’t see me, but he turns around and begins to follow us.  Mr. W speeds up and is trying to lose the guy in this residential neighborhood and I wake up to the sound of my alarm.

Teri’s Current Ghost Theory: My apartment is haunted by a man who used to ride a motorcycle, had an eclectic music selection, a penchant for tiny remotes, and is able to affect my dreams.  Oh, and has both fallen in love with and wants to kill me.

The Ghosthunters TV show has me thinking I need to purchase some infrared thingamabobs and EMP whatsydosits.  However, the Paranormal Activity movie would suggest that acknowledging the spirit will make it more powerful, inevitably possessing me and causing me to kill others [sorry if I spoiled anything].  So which is it?  Paranormal Activity had a bigger budget and special effects, but I really like those Ghosthunter guys.  I’m so torn.

Still having wedding dreams.  In the first, I dreamed that my wedding party was comprised of the people in my department at work–very strange.  Also, we were all walking down the hall toward the sanctuary and I enter to see people frantically setting up tables and chairs because apparently it had been forgotten.  I’m standing in the doorway waiting to walk down the aisle and realize there’s no music because I forgot to give my brother my iPod.  I run back to the dressing room and grab the iPod from my bag.  I find my brother, who is freaking out for some reason, and give him instructions on what to do.  He runs off to the bathroom to throw up and then comes back for the iPod.  I wake up [thankfully!].

In the second dream I am opening mail and see that one of my uncles has sent me $1200 as a combination birthday and wedding present.  I was disappointed when I woke up from that one, let me tell you.

In more dream news, I had a very disturbing dream last night.  I dreamed I worked for some city government office.  There were about 30 or so people that worked in this office and it got out that the head boss guy and some receptionist chick were having an affair.  And apparently because of this affair the citizens were screwed in some deal and were pretty pissed about it.  So pissed, in fact, that they started attacking the office trying to kill everyone that worked inside.  And they were really getting into it, like crashing cars at full speed into the building in an attempt to take workers out [the citizens were never harmed by this, however].  Eventually, only me, some random dude, the head boss, and the slutty chick were left alive. The slutty chick was killed and the head boss guy got really depressed and decided to kill himself by pushing his face into a running circular saw.  I am hiding under a table trying to plug my ears while the guy screams when I wake up.

First thought, “Seriously Brain, what the hell is wrong with you?”

Second thought is that the head boss guy is Stephen Tobolowsky.

Mr. W once commented on how I am in so many of his dreams and that he wants to be in more of mine.  He should probably rethink that.