"The Master Cleanse"

So I might be crazy, but I have decided to do "The Master Cleanse". If you don't know what it is, you can Google it. I am doing this to flush my body of toxins and start with a clean slate. I have been consistently  losing weight since the end of September and today I have reached the 20 pound mark, so I am NOT doing this cleanse for weight loss. I am losing weight just fine on my own. My main reason for this is because I have  really been making an effort to eat healthier and be more active, and I thought it would be good to clean out my colon of all of the nasty stuff that has built up over the last 30 something years of a bad diet. Hopefully I will feel like a million bucks after this.

This is the first time I have ever tried doing a cleanse, but my friend swears that it will change my life. She does this twice a year and she is a very healthy and active person, so I am taking her word for it.

It is not going to be easy because I will go without food for 10 days. I am not a big eater or snacker anyway, so I don't think it should be too hard, but if I get a craving for pizza (which I am about to start PMS, so that is a VERY good possibility) it could get difficult. I just need to stay focused and look at my countdown on our dry erase board by the front door, and remember that this is not forever. Plus, I will end my cleanse a few days before my 4 year anniversary with my wonderful husband. I have already informed him that I do not want a fancy-schmancy dinner for our anniversary. I just want to go out for pizza!

I wanted to blog about this so that I could document my feelings, cravings, and/or the empowerment I will get from this cleanse. I am very thankful my husband is so patient, so if I get crabby, I know he will forgive me.    
;-)

So today is day one. My starting weight at the beginning of the cleanse is 146.5 pounds. Wish me luck!

Another vinegar fiasco but a new lesson learned!

April 10, 2012

It has been a little while since I have written....what can I say? We have been busy. DH got an email about one of his interviews and they are interested in him becoming part of their team. He needs to find out what the next steps would be on our end in Germany and he still needs to talk about salary and relocation. This happens to be the job he wanted the least out of all of them, so we are trying to hold out and we are hoping he will here about another one that he had a lot of interest in. There are so many factors to consider, that we have no idea what we are doing. I feel good though. I am happy that someone wants him...now hopefully we will have choices (hopefully I am not being to greedy. ;-)).

Now...back to the vinegar thing. I had a week of uneventful showers after my original two incidents and I am still thrilled with the vinegar hair conditioner thing.  Although I had a smooth week, I did have a new incident occur and I learned something new because of it.

We went to Berlin on Thursday and stayed until Monday. We stayed with some friends and had a great time. When we arrived, I began to unpack our bathroom stuff to put them in the shower, and I realized that my spray bottle with the vinegar had leaked...almost all of it. Now, fortunately I did not have very much in the spray bottle to begin with, and also I had packed all of our toiletries in a thick plastic bag. None of our clothes were covered in vinegar.  Every thing in the bag was covered though....and this included things like my deoderant, hair brushes, face lotion, and my toothbrush. Yes, my toothbrush. I tried to rinse everything thoroughly (especially the toothbrush) and I dried everything off. Thankfully my toothbrush did not taste like vinegar when I used it.

I learned two lessons through all of this. One, when travelling, it might be better to bring the bottle of vinegar and then fill the spray bottle when you arrive at your location. Or, just buy a small travel size container of conditioner for the trip.  Two, vinegar does an amazing job of cleaning your hair brushes! Both of my hair brushes had a decent amount of hair in them, particularly my round roller brush that is really hard to clean out, but the vinegar basically made the hair fall right off the brushes. It was all hanging off so I just pulled the hair off and threw it in the trash. Just a quick rinse and my round roller brush looks like it is brand new!

I am officially in love with vinegar. I just keep finding new things that it is good for and I am thrilled. Hopefully by writing about this, I can save some of you from the same mistakes that I made, and hopefully you can benefit from my new discoveries!

We are almost out of fabric softener now, so we will be switching to vinegar for that soon too. I will keep you all updated!

Another day, another lesson

So today was day two of using vinegar as conditioner for my hair. I was wondering what my hair was going to look like after I used vinegar yesterday and then dared to allow my hair to air dry. Usually when I let my hair air dry, it turns into a afro-like mess. I was pleasantly surprised! My hair was shinier and smoother than it has ever been using conventional hair conditioner! Fantastic news. When I woke up this morning, it was still smooth, shiny, and fairly tame. Amazing!

I bought myself a spray bottle today so that I would not have a repeat of the "eye incident" today. I was looking forward to my shower this evening to see how well it worked. I was not sure how much I wanted to spray on since yesterday I just dumped it on and possibly used more than necessary. No biggie though. If I did not use enough, only DH would see the afro mess and he has seen it before.

So when I took my shower this evening, I waited until the end of my shower to use the vinegar because you are not supposed to let it sit on for long. You basically coat your hair and rinse it out. So I figured I would end my shower that way. HUGE MISTAKE! Whatever you do, NEVER EVER use vinegar on your hair AFTER you shave any part of your body.  As I rinsed the vinegar out, various precious parts of my body began to burn, and I am fairly certain it was worse than the eyes. I would go as far as to say that I may never have to shave again because hair might actually not grow back...  Can you tell that I like to exaggerate a bit? Seriously though, it really did burn.

In the end, the "eye incident" was avoided, but I still learned a new and valuable lesson.  My hair was soft and easy to brush through, and I look forward to a shower where there are no new lessons to be learned. :-)

A word of advice...

March 27, 2012

So I had run out of conditioner and I have committed to using vinegar as a replacement. When DH and I went to the grocery store on Saturday morning, I was looking for a spray bottle to put the vinegar in for easier application, but the store did not have a spray bottle. How is that possible you ask? I have no idea. This store is one of the largest stores in Germany and it is an all purpose store, not just a grocery store, but there was no spray bottle to be found.

On Sunday we had a pajama day and I did not even bother showering, so it was no big deal. When I showered on Monday, I used nothing on my hair for conditioner. I did not want to just dump the bottle on my head and waste a bunch of vinegar.  Tonight however, when I took my shower, I knew I needed to use something.  So I decided I would just try the dumping method until I can get to the store tomorrow and get a spray bottle.

I learned two things in this process, and I was reminded of one thing. First of all, whatever you do, DO NOT GET VINEGAR IN YOUR EYES. It really stings! This is one of the reasons that the pour method is not a good one.  The thing I was reminded about is how bad vinegar tastes. Only a few small drops had run down my face, but I managed to permanently damage my eyes (Okay, that might be a slight exaggeration), and the taste on my lips would not go away for the rest of my shower!

With that being said, the second thing I learned was that vinegar really works! My hair was definitely easier to brush through than on Monday when I used nothing at all! I am so excited about this!

Overall, I would say that I had success. I mean, as long as you learn something, it can't be a complete failure, right? Now I just need to get a spray bottle to avoid further eye casualties.

On a completely different note, DH has received two emails regarding setting up a second interview for a job back in the good ol' USA! I am feeling so happy about this. I want to get home to our family, friends, and a normal life (or at least normal for us). I am saying prayers that this pans out for us and we can move soon. I really need to get out of here!

I was also semi-productive around the apartment today and the animals and I enjoyed some time together. Overall, I would have to say that I had a good day. :-)

A better attitude!

March 20, 2012

Well I know it has been a while since I have written, but that is because I have been doing a lot of thinking about where I want to go with this blog.  I have decided to have a "fuck it" attitude towards living in Germany and the attitude I get from so many of the people that live here. I figure at this point I don't like Germans very much (I know that is a generalization, and I do like some Germans...just not most of them), so why should I care about whether they like Americans or not?  Americans have a bad name in a lot of places and I was always struggling to prove that Americans are a great group of people!  I have decided that it is a waste of my energy (they aren't going to change their minds anyway) and it only stresses me out, so I am done.  I don't really care what Germans think of Americans anymore. I am going to go about my day, being nice and friendly, and when they give me attitude, I will simply roll my eyes and ignore them completely.

With that being said, I am going to try to switch over to a more positive blog so that I can remember all of the good things in our life, which means I should also consider coming up with a new title for this blog....too bad I am not very clever about those sorts of things. Maybe DH and I can work together to come up with something good..

So it is the first day of spring and things are going pretty good.  DH had another interview  (I am not sure if I updated about the last one or not. The people decided that they did not have the budget to hire someone, so he did not get the job...but neither did anyone else).  DH is also waiting to hear back from someone else that had sent him an email telling him they would like to discuss some potential opportunities, so we will see what happens.

I went to the Netherlands with DH for a few days last week (he had to go for work), and it was a nice getaway. It felt good to get out of this apartment.  We also got to visit with a couple of our friends that live there and we rarely get to see.  I did come home with a cold though. I should have known it was coming because I took a two hour nap one of the days that we were there and I was complaining to DH about my ears itching. I think I am on the upswing of this cold because I seem to have a bit more energy today. I decided to strip the bed and wash everything and hopefully DH won't get sick (although he did mention that he feels like it may be coming). He has been taking his Echinacea though, so hopefully that will work.

I guess that is it for now. I just wanted to give an update on the changes I plan to make with my attitude and my blog. Here is to better things!

I don't know how much more I can handle.

February 27, 2012

What a week I have had.  Last Wednesday I met up with a friend that had moved out of Nürnberg but was going to be in town for the day.  It was nice to have coffee with her and chat. After that we went to the Red Cross to check out the second hand clothes. I did not find anything for myself this time, but I did end up getting a couple of stuffed animals for Bailey. She rips her toys apart so fast, I would much rather get her toys there at a fraction of the cost, than at the pet stores.  We went and got a couple of drinks after that and had a really enjoyable day. The sun was shining and it was actually warm enough to take our coats off for a bit while we sat outside and soaked up the sun.

Thursday was an okay day. DH worked from home that day so I did not have to drive him to work so I could use his car to go and clean our friend’s apartment.  We went to the gym together in the morning so that was nice…except that I got into it with this total tool at the gym.  I have seen this guy many times before and I always kind of laughed in my head about him. He always has a ponytail in and chomps on gum like a cow chomps on grass. He also always walks around the gym like he thinks he is totally the shit, when what he actually is, is a total tool.  Anyway, I had never had any encounters with him until Thursday.  He had put his towel on one of the only two abdominal machines in the place. He had actually “reserved” 4 different machines with various items he had brought with him to the gym. I didn’t worry about it to much at the time because I was still doing my cardio. When I was done on the treadmill, I went over and did some stretching, and then moved on to the weights. I did everything that I wanted to do except this one machine that this dork still had his towel on. I saw him doing another exercise so I finally got tired of waiting and I removed his towel and hung it over the sign next to the machine. As soon as I sat down and he noticed it, he stopped what he was doing and began yelling at me telling me that the machine I was using was his. I told him that he did not own the gym and he could not just “reserve” all the machines that he wanted and expect nobody else to use them. He told me that he could do that, and my response was, “well, if you can do that, than I can remove your towel when you are not using it so that I can get on….and you don’t have to like it”. He looked at me very angrily and then told me that I had two minutes, to which I responded with a “whatever” and some eye rolling. 

I am so tired of Germans thinking that they are so much better than everyone. I am tired of their sense of entitlement that they have. I am tired of them thinking that what I do is any of their business and that they have a right…no, actually a duty, to inform me about all the things I do wrong. Of course I know that this is a generalization, and not all Germans are like this, but it seems more often than not, these are the people that I have run ins with and I am tired of it. I want to go home.

Of course none of this is helped by the fact that I have not started my period yet.  I still have sore nipples, emotional instability, cramping, etc.  I even did it to myself again….I allowed myself to think that maybe, just maybe one sperm managed to squeak by DH’s blockage (after all, when he had his SA done, they found 35 dead sperm). Maybe a sperm managed to squeak by and somehow survive.  Maybe, just maybe I happened to ovulate a decent egg this time. Maybe, just maybe, God had decided that I had suffered enough and I was going to be that “miracle story” that everyone tells you about (although nobody actually seems to know any of these people). Maybe this was going to happen. I actually bought a pregnancy test when I went to the grocery store. All of those maybes turned out to be no though. The test was negative of course. Then I got mad at myself for even allowing myself to think like that again. Why do I keep letting myself go down that path of possibility? It only disappoints me every time.  I wish that DH had zero sperm in his SA and I wish that it was actually impossible in every way for us. At least then I could move on and stop torturing myself.  All of this just makes me mad at God all over again. I keep praying to Him and asking Him why he allows these thoughts to get into my head. Why is He doing this to me? Have I not suffered enough? Does He get some sort of kick out of watching me suffer like this?

It certainly seems to be that way. Friday night we went to a party and there were two pregnant girls there. Two very lovely, well deserving, pregnant girls. It is only a reminder of how I will never have that. It is not that I am not happy for them, because I am. I am just sad for us. Very, very sad for us.  I smoked that night and drank a lot of wine.  I don’t know what else to do.  In addition to this, we have about 10 friends that are pregnant right now. Every time I open up FB I see baby shower photos, ultrasounds, status updates about feeling the baby kick, and so on. I smile for these people, but I cry for myself. I am tired of feeling sad and frustrated.  I am tired of forcing a smile.

Saturday DH and I relaxed for most of the day. He surprised me by getting our favorite pizza so when I woke up around lunch time, he was on his way home with food. That was nice.

Sunday we had some really wonderful friends over for a big breakfast. We made a ton of food! We had thick French toast, buttermilk pancakes (made from scratch), coffee cake, fruit salad, bacon, homemade sausage (DH is good at that), coffee, champagne…..we REALLY ate! Our friends have a lovely little girl that is definitely entertaining to watch. We took her to the park that is right by our apartment and it was fun to watch the men play with this sweet little girl. Of course, it made me a little bit sad to watch how wonderful DH is with kids and we can’t have any. Mom ended up cold and asked me if I wanted to go back in the apartment and I said sure. It worked out for both of us. She didn’t know I was sad, but I was able to get away from the scene and she was able to warm up. I smoked two cigarettes . Rats.

And now here we are at Monday. I do NOT plan on calling MHM today because I just can’t deal with it. I have things I need to get done, but I just feel exhausted because of this never-ending PMS. I will try to get something accomplished today. I need to go to the gym because we did not go all weekend, but I don’t feel like it at all. I have no idea how to force it.  All I can think about is getting back to the States, getting a job, and being around family again. Blah…….