Gaining Weight

I've decided that I need to gain 50 pounds. The reason? So I can come up with a miraculous diet plan, write a best selling book about my weight loss endeavors, and have the need of an accounting job become a distant memory in my life. Seriously, this is an actual sentence I read today at work:

"Debt and equity securities not classified as either held-to-maturity securities or trading securities are classified as available-for-sale securities and reported at fair value, with unrealized gains and losses excluded from earnings and reported in a separate component of shareholders' equity."

Not only am I paid to read stuff like that, but I'm supposed to
A: Understand it
B: Care

So you can see the need for the best selling diet book. I think my diet book has a better chance of becoming a best seller if I actually lose weight by using its methods. Gives me a little street cred, you know? So what will my diet entail? I can't really say, it being proprietary information and all, but I'll give you a hint. The title of my book will be… (drum roll please)
The Sugar-Free Fudge-pop Diet (Your Key to Weight Loss that Lasts!)

Coming to a bookstore near you. Prepare to be blown away!

Week in review (July 6-12)

Monday
Watched the Bachelorette finale. Did anyone else think she would pick the snowboarder with weird hair? I didn't see it coming. I think her dad was kind of upset about it as well.

Tuesday
Ellie wears high heels to the Tigers game. We get into a bit of a discussion about whether this is a responsible clothing choice. It's not. One of my biggest pet peeves is girls hobbling around Comerica Park in their heels, trying to keep up with their dates. It's a baseball game ladies! Not the Prom! Besides, guys think it's hot when you wear sporty stuff. Even though I have to agree that a lot of it looks ridiculous.
Somehow I am not able to make Matt Joyce my boyfriend. Oh well, maybe next game.

Wednesday
I get my hair cut. Yay! Then I meet Monica for sushi at 'O Sushi' in Canton. This is my first sushi experience in years, and I must say I enjoyed it much more this time around. I give props to Monica for not making fun of me too bad when I ended up having to use the little kid chopsticks. She did, however, recommend that I not do sushi on a date. Words to live by.

Thursday
I buy a bike from a co-worker. I'm pretty excited about this! Directly after work I go to Target to get a helmet and a gel seat cover. I ride around for about an hour, and I actually enjoy it. It's hard to keep my heart rate up though, I keep having to stop at red lights and stop signs. I'm going to take my bike to Hines Park Saturday morning.

Friday
The gel seat cover did not help. I feel like my butt is one big bruise! I'm not really sure how to remedy this issue. Any suggestions?
It's 3:30 Friday afternoon. 90 more minutes until this work week is over!

Who's your Tiger?

If you live anywhere near the Detroit area you are probably familiar with this phrase. It's on TV commercials, billboards, flimsy cardboard signs given out at the games, it's everywhere. I've given this question a lot of thought over the last three years. Some might argue that it's not really a question that necessitates deep thinking, but I've always struggled with it. Whenever someone asks who my favorite Tiger is, I usually have to give them the list of who my favorite Tiger is NOT, as that list is much shorter. (Nefi Perez anyone?)
In the last week, this has all changed. I was watching the game last week on TV, when a friend texted me to bring my attention to the player that has just come up to bat. "This guy looks like your type." And my type he was. He was tall, had dark hair, and in that very at bat he hit a stand up triple. I immediately googled him and found out that he's 23. Perfect! I have a bad habit of liking them young :) His name is Matt Joyce, and he had just been brought up from the Triple-A team in Toledo to replace Ordonez, who is on the DL. (DL means disabled list, not down low, which I just found out means something different than what I thought it did).
All of this was fine and good, but today my admiration reached a new level. There was a story on the news about how a black kitten somehow got loose in the indoor area where the Tigers have batting practice when it is raining. They showed the kitten up in the rafters, and then they showed Matt Joyce cuddling up with the kitten with a huge smile on his face. It was, quite frankly, the cutest thing I've ever seen.
I figure the whole situation is pretty much perfect. He's cute, he plays baseball, and yet he's not that famous. That's a plus because I really don't need the paparazzi following my every move, you know? I'm going to the game tonight, where I plan on getting this whole relationship started. I'll let you know how it goes!

To the 19 year old

Today when we made eye contact in church I got kind of nervous that somehow you could have possibly heard about my blog post that basically said I was after you. The term 'cougar' may or may not have been used. I just want to assure you that the post was just a joke, and that I have no intention of stalking you in the near future. Or ever, really. So...carry on.

What's your score?

A few years ago I used to play a game with a friend. We would score people we knew based on his/her physical attractiveness. I'm ashamed to say that we could entertain ourselves with this game for hours. We had detailed descriptions of what the different score ranges meant:

5 = Completely average. Someone you would not notice on the street for being attractive or unattractive.
6-7 = Reasonably good looking (I want to date someone in this range)
7-8 = Hot
8-9 = Super hot. Not many every day people fall into this range
9+ = reserved for famous people only.


We had different scales, a relative score (relative to their age mainly), and an overall score. We proudly gave accurate scores to all of those girls who were 'fake hot', mostly meaning that they dye their hair blonde, get a fake tan and wear tons of makeup, and then for some reason people start to perceive them as being more attractive than they really are. We were true revolutionaries!

We played this game for months, but it kind of puttered out when it became apparent that I was starting to give everyone a score in the 6-7 range because I didn't want to hurt their feelings. Even though they couldn't hear me.

Now you may read this and think, "Wow, Christi is the most shallow person alive!" Which may be true, but not because of my participation in this game. I just really liked quantifying the unquantifiable. I'm a numbers geek, and things don't really make sense to me until I can assign some sort of numerical value to them.

This post is kind of rambling, and you may wonder, What was the point of all of this? The truth is that there is no point. I was just sitting at the food court in the mall, and seeing all of the people walk by made me remember the game we used to play. Those were the good old days!

Confessions of a Cougar

***Disclaimer*** I am definitely not trying to make this blog solely about guys and dating. I do have other interests in life, it's just that you have to admit that guys and dating make for good reading!

Today at church there was an extremely hot guy sitting on the bench behind me. I noticed Elizabeth talking to him, so later on I wrote her a note (yes, I'm 28 and still writing notes in Church) asking her how old he was, and she informed me that he is 19. Her exact words were "19!!! Ha!" Then she said, "He's over 18. Go for it Cougar!"

Is this what my life has come to? It seems like all of the guys I want to date are younger than me. I guess a few years doesn't matter, but when they start hitting 23 or 22 (let alone 19), I start to get worried. Worried that is, until I came across this AMAZING article on MSN.com. Apparently, I'm not even considered a Cougar until the guy is around 15 years younger than me. Considering that in Michigan, the legal age is 16, I couldn't even date anyone young enough to make me a Cougar. At least not without going to jail. Also, according to the article, being a Cougar is really awesome and every woman should try it. So there you go. 19 year-old, here I come!

So I'm starting a blog...

I have several friends who have started blogs recently. I've often thought of starting my own blog, mainly because I like to hear myself talk, but I haven't for several reasons:

A) No one will read it
B) People will think I'm stupid (or confirm suspicions they already had).
C) I won't have anything to say, or I'll think of things to say but forget them once it's time to blog
D) This is just another passing fad, and I'll quit after three weeks just like the time I vowed to give up sugar. (I lasted 4 weeks on that one, which if you think about it is a pretty long time).

But then I figured, why not. It could be fun, and at least I can kind of pass this off as a journal, so when they give that lesson in Relief Society I don't have to feel guilty.

So the first official topic of my blog is flirting, and my inability to do it. This topic comes up because I went on a date last Saturday that, if I'm being honest, went pretty horribly. I gave a play by play of the date to my friend Ryan (if you want details too just ask, I'm happy to discuss my pathetic endeavors), and he explained to me that the reason I am such a horrible dater is because I have an inability to show interest and flirt with guys. He's quite sure that every guy who has ever gone out with me has felt like, after the date was over, that I was not interested. And I have to admit that I've gotten this feedback from the few guys who stuck around long enough to get comfortable with telling me that. So what to do?
It's not like I don't want to flirt, I just literally do not know how. Subtleties are completely lost on me. I'm the kind of person who can be totally in love with a guy friend for months and he would have no idea. Then eventually I get frustrated and blurt out something stupid like, "Because I'm in love with you, you moron!" I'm not sure, because I've never tried it, but I don't think that would go over so well on a first date.
So, any flirting tips for me? My friend Ryan thinks that I won't ever be able to change, and that I just have to stick it out until I find a guy who has enough self confidence to keep asking me out even though he can't be sure I don't hate him so...pretty sure that's not the way to go.


Anyway, suggestions are welcome!