antigone – Page 3

March 5, 2020 antigone

Introducing: Senna

Dogs, Pets

Ben has been asking for a third dog for a LONG time. Like, since the day we brought Danica home.

Ben: What’s one more?
Me: Well, we have to walk them daily and I only have two hands so… Ben: You don’t give yourself enough credit.
Me: And you give me way too much.

Honestly, this conversation happened at least a few times a month. For YEARS. Like, 10 years. I was resolute in my stance. NO. THIRD. DOG. You guys, we share a bed with a combined 130 pounds of dog. There is basically a whole other human adult sized mass of flesh in bed with us every night. And one of them, I’m not naming any names but it’s Kumo, wants to sleep either directly between us or sucked up so close to me that I often feel like I have my own personal furry space heater that also I’m allergic to. All year. All 11 years. All 11 summers even.

Then one day about a month before Christmas I was scrolling down my Reddit feed. OH REDDIT, YOU SILLY WHORE. I’m subscribed to r/OldManDog which is exactly what it sounds like, just photos of old dogs, and a lot of users post tributes to their old pups on their last days looking for support. And on this day I realized, most of the photos I was seeing of last days were for dogs that are either the age of our two, or YOUNGER.

And I scrolled and scrolled and scrolled. And I cried.

And after a few days of thinking about it I thought that now is the time. It’s time to get a third dog. Our pair are so bonded and the thought of either of them being an only dog wasn’t something my heart could handle. I read a lot, I watched videos, I searched my soul and all the signs pointed to: NOW

But, of course, I did not tell Ben any of this. Mostly because I had a thought in my head of wanting to surprise him with a puppy for Christmas (this was a bad idea, don’t do this) and partly because admitting to him that I wanted a third dog was going to come with a ridiculous amount of WHY DID IT TAKE YOU SO LONG TO COME TO YOUR SENSES conversations which I was going to avoid as long as possible.

We had many conversations over the years about wanting our next dog to be a bully breed so I spent the next week looking at websites and Instagram accounts and Facebook rescue groups for Our Dog. There are SO MANY cute puppies out there (honestly, adopt a dog, you guys, give them homes) and I had a few bookmarked but then one day on my lunch break I ran the same search I had run on Petfinder ever day for a week and this face popped up.

I’m so mad at myself for not saving the description of this little lovable, cuddle obsessed, smart boy who at the time was named Luke. What I can tell you is that the photo combined with the few paragraphs about him being very submissive and sweet sold me instantly and I shot an email to the rescue group that had him.

At dinner that night I could not contain myself and told Ben that there was a POSSIBILITY that I had emailed a rescue group about a puppy that I had seen online because I was thinking about getting him a puppy for Christmas. He did his wonky but adorable one eyebrow cocked look while waiting for me to deliver a punchline. But I wasn’t joking. And in amazing, fantastic, supportive husband mode he explained that he didn’t NEED a third dog, he just liked to mess with me and see how far he could push the joke. It was an adorable lie. “But let me just see the photo, I’m curious about what dog you chose.”

And that was that.

Ben came home from dinner and took over the adoption process. He took photos of the yard, submitted forms, and quickly became best friends with Luke’s foster mom while peppering her with questions.

Exactly 7 days later, on December 22nd, we drove up to Brentwood with Kumo and Danica to meet him.

And the rest is history.

I’m not going to lie and act like this has not been SO MUCH ACTUAL WORK. I had conned myself into believing that our dogs were never puppies. We brought them home and they knew how to sit and stay and not go out the front door or up the stairs or that you aren’t allowed to eat shoes and poop and they let us sleep in till 10:00AM on the weekends. But no. That is not how puppies work.

But Senna is a pleaser so he makes it FUN to teach him things. He loved puppy class, he is an absolute champion walker/runner, and his favorite past time is putting anything in his mouth to chew so he’s very treat motivated. Also, he gives AMAZING CUDDLE. There is absolutely no other place he’d rater be in the world than asleep with either us or one of the other dogs. So the time he ate poop and then vomited it all over the living room floor was traumatizing but he was there ready to offer a cuddle after I had to clean it all up.

I could go on and on about how amazing he is but those are stories for another day. I just wanted to get something up to always remember the story of how we adopted our first bully and how I don’t know how we went this long without this love in our lives.

Welcome home, Senna.

April 19, 2019 antigone

Airport Rambling.

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I don’t know what it is about sitting in an airport bar that causes me to feel the need to write. This time it’s a coffee bar, but still. I sit and watch the people frantically walking by, making up back stories for all of them. That old couple is headed to see their grandkids for Spring Break. That hipster is on his way to an interview for a job he hates but will look good on LinkedIn. That family is clearly at the beginning of their vacation to someplace exciting because the kids are still behaving and the parents don’t have regret written all over their faces yet. That lady just really has to pee.

Anyway, making up all these stories causes me to want to write. At this point I’d love to say that I want to write something profound and deep that you will love and then share with all your friends and be all, “Look at this amazing writer that I know!”

But instead I’m going to be real and give you the thought diarrhea that makes me question if it was a good idea to stop therapy.

Today on the way to work I saw a truck that had one of those “How’s my driving” sticker with a phone number you can call, I guess to tell them how they are driving. Does anybody actually call these numbers? Because I was thinking about making one and using a Google Voice number and then making the voicemail Dominic Toretto’s famous quote. Then never returning the calls.

I video’d myself making some soap not long ago. It was the one and only time that my soap actually accelerated and I was lucky just to get the shit into the mold and it’s the soap I like the least of all the soap I’ve ever made. I watch soapers on YouTube make beautiful creations that are perfectly crafted and shot from the perfect angle and of all the soap videos I’ve ever watched I’ve yet to hear a single soaper drop an F-bomb. I feel like I need to upload my video and title it “How To Do Everything Fucking Wrong When Making Soap: A Cautionary Tale”.

It annoys me that people think SSRIs contain serotonin. They don’t. Your body makes serotonin and taking an SSRI doesn’t give you more or make your body make more serotonin. It just blocks your body from reabsorbing the serotonin it makes, thus allowing the neurotransmitter to tell you brain that YOU DON’T WANT TO BE DEPRESSED BECAUSE DEPRESSION IS STUPID before being sucked back into oblivion and never getting that message across. Exercise HAS been shown to increase the amount your body produces though. So when people tell you to go out for a walk or to work out (if you can, I get that sometimes not enough serotonin makes this impossible) they aren’t just being a dick.

Okay I should get going. Hopefully my dad will be here soon to pick me up and I can’t wait to pull his finger.

November 16, 2018 antigone

A Little Piece of Hobbiton.

Hobbiton, New Zealand, Travel

“I feel that as long as the Shire lies behind, safe and comfortable, I shall find wandering more bearable: I shall know that somewhere there is a firm foothold, even if my feet cannot stand there again.”

October 29, 2018 antigone

I miss it.

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I can not tell you the number of times I’ve sat in front of this very screen, typed a sentence, backspaced it, typed it again, closed the tab, then just greatly condensed what I wanted to say and posted it on Facebook instead.

So many times.

Over and over.

It’s not that I hate Facebook, it’s just that Facebook has made it very easy to be very lazy. Why tell a story in five paragraphs and know that maybe ten people will see it? I can tell the story in five sentences and get the instant gratification of likes and hearts and comments. I wrote my English 1A final paper on how social media grants us instant dopamine hits that keep us coming back for more. Refreshing, sharing, refreshing, sharing. Always in search of that high of validation. I wrote eight pages on this but I’m still I’m a slave to it. I know it’s happening and I don’t care. I want more. We all do. Maybe some of us are more self aware about it. Maybe that makes it worse.

But now, right this second, I’m sitting in an airport bar, I’m trying to forget about the anxiety I always feel before flying, drowning that fear in Moscow mules, and jumping between social media platforms hoping that other people out there have felt what I’m feeling. Looking for that validation that I’m not alone in feeling this way but painfully aware that “misery loves company” isn’t the best coping mechanism. Probably alcohol isn’t either but this is delicious so I’m ordering another one.

A few weeks ago somebody in one of the many groups I’m part of on Facebook said she wanted to start a blog and if anybody had one, if they had advice on how to grow her audience. She had started a few in the past but had not had a lot of luck growing a readership. My advice to her was to stop writing to grow her audience and to just write about what she really loved. That if she was passionate about something, people who were also passionate about the same things would find her and support her and tell all their passionate friends about it and THAT is the kind of audience she wanted.

And then I refreshed and waited for her to like my comment.

It wasn’t till later that night that I realize the irony in telling her what I did. As with most advice it was really easy to dispense it while ignoring the fact that I’ve basically been doing the exact opposite for almost two years now.

So I’m going to try and do better. I miss this so terribly. I miss just putting my words out into the world. I miss telling a story. Writing it down. Reading about it 3 years later and laughing about that thing that happened. I miss using my fingers to release the anxiety and the depression. I miss having a place to be brutally honest about where I am mentally and not having to feel like I need to hide it behind filters.

I miss it.

July 1, 2018 antigone

A Beginner’s Guide to Keto From A Beginner.

Keto

Those of you who follow me on any social media account in existence have, for the last two month, been subjected to my keto journey. I think for my first post about it I promised to not become one of those annoying keto people then promptly became a very annoying keto person. VERY. ANNOYING. I’m sorry.

The question I seem to be getting most often is “How did you start?” And I get that because there is SO MUCH information out there about keto that it can become very overwhelming very quickly.

When I first started my BFF pointed me to this subreddit. She has been doing keto for awhile and had told me several times how much better her stomach was doing with dairy. It was so hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that you could eat MORE dairy and MORE meat and have LESS tummy issues.

Then I decided one day after a particularly bad SIBO attack that cutting carbs NEEDED to happen. So I spent he next few days reading everything I could find on google and jumped in feet first.

And it’s been life changing. My stomach took about two weeks to adjust, it was rough. I got the keto flu, it was rough. But then all the pieces fell into place and I’ve been doing AMAZING. My stomach issues are about 85% better and a major happy side effect is that as of this morning I’ve lost 19.2 pounds in the last two months.

So! Where should you start? First find what your keto macros should be by using any of the keto calculators out there.

READ!

Keto in a Nutshell from the Keto Subreddit was GREAT. It’s a very easy to read account of the why/how of keto.

Also, the subreddit in general has been a great source of information and motivation.

You will have questions though and I found answers to most of them from Perfect Keto. What are ketones?! What is ketosis?! They do a great job of answering all of that.

SUPPLIES!

I got these keto test strips for around $8.00. I still have about half of them left two months in. I tested A LOT at first but now I usually just test first thing in the morning, when I get home from work, and sometimes before bed.
I also have the subscription for MyFitnessPal ($50.00 annual fee) because it lets you see information at the macronutrient level daily and per meal. You don’t NEED this but I like that it’s available.
There’s a lot of information out there about the keto flu but overwhelmingly what I read was that the best way to combat it was to HYDRATE, HYDRATE, HYDRATE. Most people swear by Powerade Zero but it definitely upset my stomach so I ended up getting some Xtend BCAAs in strawberry kiwi ($20.00 for the tub of 30 servings) and they were really helpful. I’m about to order some more because I drink one 12-16 ounce glass a day now. The BCAAs and Tylenol were enough to keep the keto headache mostly at bay for the 3-4 days I had them in the beginning.

BUT WHAT DO I EAT!?

Well, ALL THE THINGS! Here are some things:

Meat: chicken, pork loin, bacon, salmon, turkey, canned tuna, and sometimes beef
Vegetables: spinach, broccoli, asparagus, cauliflower, cauliflower rice, mushrooms, brussels sprouts, zucchini, green beans, lettuce, cabbage, celery, cucmber
Snacks: dry salami, prosciutto, sliced gouda, sliced havarti, hard boiled eggs, cheddar cheese, avocados (SO MANY AVOCADOS), strawberries, raspberries
Other: Eggs, heavy whipping cream (in everything! I make whipped cream, I add it to coffee, I use it to make pan sauces, ALL THE THINGS), salad dressings such as ranch or blue cheese dressing (I know a lot of keto fans prefer ranch, I’m a blue cheese fan), I get a small tub of jalapeno artichoke dip, natural no sugar added peanut butter, almond flour (I use this to make 90 second keto bread twice a week or so), avocado oil, olive oil, butter, artificial sweetener (I have tried both Erythritol and SweetLeaf Stevia and I prefer the stevia), ChocZero 50% Dark Chocolate Squares, and unsweetened bakers chocolate to shave onto my whipped cream and berries for dessert.

There are literally THOUSANDS of meal ideas on Pinterest and my favorite website for recipes so far has been KetoConnect. They also have a YouTube channel to show how most recipes are made and full days of eating Keto. There are so many keto YouTube videos so when I want some meal ideas I search “full day keto”.

My keto macros are: 1770 calories, 20 NET carbs, 88 grams of protein, 149 grams of fat.

Some people on keto go by total carbs but most go by net carbs. To get net carbs you take total carbs – fiber – sugar alcohol = NET carbs.

So an avocado has 12 carbs and 10 grams of fiber.
12 carbs
-10 fiber
___________
2 NET carbs

I eat at least one a day. High fat foods like avocados keep me full for quite awhile. This is a very common day of eating for me. I didn’t hit my fat goal but I still had more fat than protein and only 15 carbs so I’m completely happy with that. You don’t have to be PERFECT for keto, you just need to be aware of your macros. My three main goals for the day are:

Stay under 20-25 carbs. (I aim for 20 but don’t worry unless I’m at more than 25)
Try to get as close as possible to that fat macro.
Keep my fat grams more than protein.

If I’m eating out I just get a bunless burger with a side of veggies, or a salad with meat (LOVE taco salad), or fish and veggies. So far there hasn’t been anywhere that I haven’t been able to stick to keto. I’m not shy about asking for substitutions at all, most places don’t mind.

I have had two cheat times. Once when I was in Washington for 6 days, last weekend I had a cheat day where I allowed myself to cheat for breakfast and dinner, and in two weeks I’m going to Mexico and will likely cheat there too. It hasn’t really slowed down the weight loss at all. You can see the two spikes were both cheat times and within a week I was back to the pre-cheat weight!

WHEW! That is a lot. I think I’ll stop here for now. I really hope this helps out. If you have any questions feel free to comment or message me on Facebook or Twitter and I am more than happy to answer them. I have been SO HAPPY with how great I feel, how much better my blood pressure is, how HAPPY by tummy is and I’m not going to complain at all about dropping almost 20 pounds! I plan on adding some of my favorite recipes as blog posts soon!

June 21, 2018 antigone

Facebook is my abridged brain dump.

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Oh, HI!

How are you? Good? I hope so!

This is just a blog post to remind you that I’m alive.

This is the point post where I usually stare at the screen for about 15 minutes then close the window, get up from my computer, and walk away.

I feel like I’ve been suffering from a 2 year bout of writer’s block. I WANT to feel the passion. I want the satisfaction of hitting the Publish button. And I want that feeling like the words on the screen have scrubbed clean the inside of my head and made way for new ones.

I mostly blame Facebook and Twitter for this. The instant gratification of feedback and interaction on paraphrased versions of what I really want to say lures me in every time. I’m not saying I censor myself there, I don’t. But I do TL;DR most things. Facebook is my abridged brain dump.

Anyway, I’m not at all promising I’ll be here more but I’m saying that I WANT to be here more. I really, really do.

I hope to see you again soon.

March 25, 2018 antigone

Let’s see who is paying attention.

Giveaway, Uncategorized

First person from the US that comments “SEND ME ALL THE PAPERS” gets these!

1 – Photo Paper Plus Glossy II – 8.5×11 – (20 Sheets)
1 – Photo Paper Plus Glossy II – 5×7 – (20 Sheets)
1 – Glossy Photo Paper – 4×6 – (50 Sheets)

I have a bunch more of these to give away, I was just looking for a fun way to jump back into the blogging world.

Disclaimer: Canon has no affiliation with me or this blog. They have no idea I even exist. These packs of paper came as a bonus add on when I ordered and paid for ink from Canon and now I have WAY TOO MANY of them and need to get rid of them. YAY! My clutter becomes your free stuff!

February 1, 2017 antigone

Split Finances: The Why

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Ben is a planner. He likes to plan and make spreadsheets and know what’s happening before it happens.

I am not. I’m more of a fly by the seat of my pants person. I don’t necessarily care what’s happening next and if I have to think about it too much I start to worry about it and try to assess all the worst case scenarios that might pop up and then I shut down and end up eating a pint of Ben and Jerry’s in the closet at 1:00AM.

These two different styles of thought apply to MANY things. Finances, for instance! So for the longest time Ben had been in charge of our finances. I kept a general eye on the bank account and I had general ideas how much we paid for things but I had no idea when they were due or how much he might have budgeted for any of it. Because of this we had an agreement in place that if either of us was going to spend over $X.XX we’d talk to the other person first. Ben was REALLY good about this. I was NOT. Again, I’m a fly by the seat of my pants person, remember!

The last straw came when I was Kirklands about six months ago and ALL THE THINGS were on sale so I ended up spending about $180 on stuff for the house. I had FULLY INTENDED on telling Ben about it that night but then, you know, life. So he was rightfully pretty upset when he saw it.

After we talked more calmly about it we both realized that it might be better for us to split finances.* We both have different passions. For Ben, it’s his M3, for me, it’s makeup and planners and making the house cute and etc. It was really hard to budget because we were both trying to push for our different wants AFTER our needs were met. I REALLY want Ben to be able to peruse his passion. I love seeing him get enjoyment out of something he loves so much. And I know that Ben wanted the same for me and this really was the best way for us to BOTH get what we wanted. He doesn’t have to explain where the money came from for all the car parts that are currently living in our workout room and I don’t have to explain to him why I NEEDED to buy the entire aisle of clear storage at the Container Store to organize my Washi tape by color and size.

So, that’s the WHY. Next time I’ll get into the How we make it work for both of us.

*This is a huge glossing over of what happened. Ben suggested it. I was like THAT IS TOTALLY NOT FAIR YOU MAKE DOUBLE WHAT I DO FUCK YOU AND YOUR HUGE INCOME! It took me a few days to realize I was being DUMB. I spent a lot of time reading about different ways that couples handled it and the thought of being able to spend whatever I want on whatever I want and not having to explain why was what I had always wanted so reacting the way I did was pretty ridiculous. Luckily, I have pretty much the most patient husband in the history of all husbands and he gave me time to realize this on my own and only said “I told you so” about 47 times.

January 11, 2017 antigone

END GAME WORST CASE SCENARIO

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I am embarrassed by the level of sticker crazy I have gone with my Erin Condrin LifePlanner. I had a small and more simple planner from a Kickstarter last year and I really liked it but I had a gift certificate for Erin Condren and I did like the colorful planner so I got it for this year. I love it! It’s laid out really well and is similar to how I was already using the smaller planner.

But then I made the mistake of googling some ideas for using the planner and I found… THE STICKERS. So right off the bat I bought this super girly sticker spread for January and once I got it I was IMMEDIATELY hooked.

I am so embarrassed of this planner obsession.

After that I got a little sticker crazy on Etsy but they are pretty cheap! So I set a budget then got super sad when I hit it. Below is my first week in January which I really love. Some girls are SUPER sticker crazy and literally fill the entire week with stickers but I’m more of a “white space planner” (I’ve had to learn the sticker lingo) because I do NOT like clutter and I need white space in my life, okay.

So once I hit my budget I started reading how to make this cheaper and a lot of girls mentioned buying printable stickers off Etsy and printing them on sticker paper myself so that’s exactly what I did. AND! I used credit card points so I got this printer FOR FREE. And the ink FOR FREE. So now I can buy JPEGs like the one for these watercolor To Do List stickers for $1.75! BAM! Cheap sticker to make my week PRETTY!

I know, I kind of hate myself right now too. But planning is something that my counselor recommended to me about two years ago and it has helped IMMENSELY to keep my anxiety more under control. I am the kind of person that automatically jumps to the END GAME WORST CASE SCENARIO and it’s really helped me to be able to write down a goal, list out the steps to get there then cross them off along the way. I’m a more pleasant person to be around and that’s awesome for a whole lot of people.

And it helps my obsessive organizational tendency. The same part of my brain that needs my cans to line up and my clothes to be hung in color order REALLY LOVES that I can look at this and see orange for Cassidy’s schedule, dark green for work, light green for bills, pink for personal stuff, blue for Ben, etc.

I’ve also become an insane budgeter since Ben and I split finances (this has been SUCH a positive more for Ben and I and I totally plan on blogging about it SOON) and this has reigned in my need to obsessively check all my financial accounts online.

Okay, I’m done now. I can’t promise that this will be my last planner post but I DO PROMISE you that I hate me more than you do right now.

TRUST.