The Big Bang Theory vs. Seinfeld

The other day I had a revelation that The Big Bang Theory (BBT) and Seinfeld share a lot of similarities. I wondered if BBT was created in an attempt to replicate the winning formula of Seinfeld.

BBT	Seinfeld
Leonard and Penny are friends who are an on-again, off-again couple	Jerry and Elaine
Aspergic Sheldon	quirky Kramer
main set is in an apartment building with a friend who lives across the hall (Penny)	Kramer lives across the hall
Howard has a screamy mother; is Jewish	George has screamy parents; is Jewish

That's all I can think of right now. Still, I think the parallels are noteworthy. Do you see what I see?

As an aside, I don't care if they are similar. I very much enjoy both shows.

Operation Bye Bye Belly Fat follow-up

I look down at my stomach and am not too sure I can flatten it in about 5 weeks. I didn't work out this weekend. I also am really, really sick of salads and vegetable wraps. Yesterday, instead of drinking green tea all day, I had 4 cups of coffee (it was a hectic out of the house day.) I didn't have any donuts with my family, or chocolate cupcakes later on. I did have some birthday cheesecake, shared it with Oliver (who only liked the fruit which meant I had to eat all the cheesecake-part. .)

Something synchronous happened to me while on the elliptical today. I looked down to see how much time was left, and there was about 5 minutes, 40 seconds. I thought, "my personal version of hell would be to be stuck on this machine for the last 5 minutes of a workout. .. forever!" Just never getting past that final grueling last 5 minutes.

I looked down a few minutes later, and it was only 5 minutes, 2 seconds. What the?? I stared at the display. It was not changing. It was frozen. My nightmare became true!!

So I got off. I figured I was close enough. It had never frozen before.

When I was thinking of how that would be my personal hell, I thought conversely, the corresponding version of heaven would be to be stuck on an elliptical for the last minute countdown -- forever! That continual "I did it!" elation that comes from completing a work-out!

Well, I was dinged on missing it today. But it has never frozen before so hopefully I will have it back tomorrow :)

Now to drink lemon tea and fold laundry before Oliver wakes up.

Operation bye bye belly fat

The suburbs have made me a bit chubby. I no longer am pushing a stroller filled with shopping and baby gear, and a child, while wearing another baby, around town on a daily basis. That used to be a total of 60-70lbs that I'd lug around. I used to walk a lot, snow, rain or shine. It wasn't unusual for me to walk around running errands for 3-4 hrs a day. Now I drive everywhere. It saves time and is way easier with two kids, but it's really bad for my health.

Strangely, the fat has settled completely on my stomach and butt. I read this is due to stress and lack of sleep. I can't change those factors too much, and I'm willing to bet it has a lot more to do with too many donuts and cookies :( City life meant Starbucks stops for lattes, I lived within a 10 min walk of 7 locations! Now I am surrounded by Tim Horton's, which I drive through, of course. I used to always get a small coffee and a Boston cream donut. Ugh. Also, yum!

I do love the way my stomach feels, but not so much the way it looks. I'm hoping we can go on a trip to Jamaica this April, and want to look good in a swimsuit. I think bodies look a bit sloppy with a belly, though god knows I also feel as though they're really comfy and warm .....overall though, my vote goes toward trim and neat and tucked-in stomachs. For a while I was really enjoying my squishy belly, even eating more baked goods when it would start to become flat, but it's now time for it to go.

As of last week I'm doing 20-40 mins a day on the elliptical, 15 mins or so of assorted crunches and other core stability exercises I looked up online. The biggest change I'm making is to cut my refined carbs in half or less, and replacing those with raw vegetables, seeds, nuts and other good fats -- adding 1 gram of omega 3s via supplements which I was doing for a very long time but slipped away from this winter. I am also drinking a lot more green tea during the day instead of 2 or 3 cups of coffee cause coffee makes me crave sugar and I read that green tea aids in weight loss, as does the addition of good fats. Morning coffee is still a necessity, though.

I have about 6 weeks to do this. Here are two photos I took today, one as I am naturally and one as I aim to look in 6 weeks. I'm sucking in my stomach to get that look :) heh. Hopefully in 6 weeks I won't have to. I'm genuinely curious if I can achieve this in such a short time frame and thought it'd be cool to document, plus this holds m more accountable.

what is going on

I have been crazy depressed for the last week, hence the bummer random memory posts. My brain is unwell.

I am normally struggling but much like an ocean, it is only the surface that is disturbed by the challenges of daily life with young children and almost no help. Underneath the surface I normally feel very calm and appreciative and content.

But not so this week. This week I am a mess and having nightmares and waking up in the middle of the night to cry for an hour (happened twice.)

It is because of my youngest sister, who I mentioned before. I can't find the post, I don't have the time to waste looking for it but it's probably under my family tag.

She went from being a hard drug addict for over 10 yrs, well maybe even 15, to being a heroin junkie for the last 3 or 4 years and I fear the end is near. She was in hospital this week with a bad infection in her arm, from the needles. She hasn't resembled a regular person in years now, no possessions or home or friends or anything. I don't feel right sharing the little I know of her gutter life, suffice it to say it is very, very lowly and terrible and a living nightmare.

I am so sick of waiting for her to get better or to die. It is the crux of my depression: I am so sick of waiting for her to get better or to die.

She has died several times, but brought back to life.

She has gone to rehab many, many times, but walks away. They can't force the addicts to stay.

She has been in jail many times. Beat up, put in solitary confinement where she is left to sleep on a concrete floor and they don't give them anything at all to do for days at a time. It is torturous to think of her in that position.

She has been to many doctors.

She has been offered refuge and help by each of our family members, including me. Even by a family friend who lives out on the prairies. It's always ended badly, with the main point being she doesn't really want to get better.

I feel like I am giving excuses here instead of getting to the point.

Ahem.

She probably has hepatitis C now, we think, there is some evidence but like all the other details about her it is hard to find out or know anything for sure. Like this week's hospital stay we often find out about things after the fact. She is very hard to get a hold of cause she's all over the place and the most unreliable person...a junkie, right, She lies, never shows up (almost never), etc etc. . .. .

So I am afraid to even be around her, if I would ever get the chance again. My children definitely can't see her. Hep C can be transmitted by saliva and she is a kisser. .was a kisser(? who knows what she is now.) I haven't seen her in 7 months cause of how elusive and messed up she is. She even sleeps for days at a time, ugh there I go getting into her personal details.

I have been mourning her and unable to sleep or think of much else this week cause I just don't see how this can end well. There may be a miniscule chance that she will go to rehab for the 30th or 40th time and actually stay for months and get better? But then her body is so destroyed, her liver is destroyed, who knows about the other organs but I think they are, too. Her brain is not right. You can tell when you talk to her, even when she was on methadone for a while she just was not the same. .the same as what? As what she was when she was a child? Her entire adulthood and most of her adolescence has been mired by drugs.

What is different now if she's been like this for so long?

Finding out her heart has stopped so many times, that she most likely has Hep C which means I don't think I can see her, and the arm infection. On top of an already challenging life, this is destroying me right now. I have been incredibly angry, sad and worried about her for a decade, but now. . .now it is really bad.

I have to get on with my life and stop waking up and crying and having nightmares that also involve my father's early accidental death, which I was helpless to prevent as well :/

The College of Midwives also interviewed my other sister and husband this week for my case. Oh my god, my son is pullingh m,y hands off the keyboard for the 15th or so time in writing this post. I can't even write. but this isc all I've got.

random memory: dead plants

I was 18 and just returned from a month long trip to Poland to visit family. I had left my best friend with the key to my apartment so she could water my plants.

I had missed her and my home dearly. I was excited to return but as we met at my apartment and I looked around, I noticed my sort-of boyfriend's pajamas on my bed.

He had never been there, with me. We had been living together and I had gotten my own place recently because I felt we needed space. . .my best friend and her boyfriend were our roommates and I had left the three of them to be.

But his pajamas were there, in my new apartment.

She tried to make some excuses. They didn't make sense. Overall I believed it was all innocent. . because she said it was. But underneath that, underlying her bad excuses, I knew.

Also, the plants she was supposed to water, the whole reason she had my keys, were dead.