Hallowe'en!!!

I love Hallowe'en!

Any time I get the opportunity to dress up as something scary is an amazing time in my books.

Up until Saturday night, I hadn't actually gone out for Hallowe'en since 2008, which thinking about makes die a little bit on the inside... the last couple years were so hard for me, not going out and partying like a zombie. I didn't have many friends to hang with after Hallowe'en 2008, since they all moved away. So I spent 2009 and 2010 at home, eating candy, getting fat and telling myself that all those fuckers at the parties around town weren't having as good a time as I figured they were.

This year I said 'Fuck that noise!' and got a ticket for one of the parties. Fortunately, a couple of my derbies were going to, so I didn't have to go by myself and be a loser in the corner! Hooray!

A few weeks ago I went perusing my closet to try and put together a costume for the party. I figured I could just be a Scary Fairy again, but may switch it up by using a different dress.

Well, as it turns out, all that candy eating made me too fat to wear any of the stuff I wore in 2008. And since I really didn't want to half-ass it, I turned to the Internet to try and find something, anything to wear.

I found a pretty sweet costume, one I wouldn't have thought of getting, but worked out very well, as you can see:

A female Freddy Krueger. With her next victim.... mwahahaha!

I didn't see any other Freddy at the party I was at, so yay for being semi-original!

It was definitely worth it, it revived my love of Hallowe'en, and all was right in Ginger's world.

So scare the hell outta some kids and pop in a scary movie, Happy Hallowe'en!

Tricks and Treats,

Ginger

WLW: Expectations

Brace yourself – I'm talking about food again.

I fully expected to come out of this weekend with a gain.

I mean, how could I not? I was down in Vancouver for a meeting with free beer and free food! Combined with two rather late nights with very early mornings (who came up with idea that delegates coming in from out of town should have be actually awake and lucid for breakfast at 7:30 a.m.?!!?), I'm surprised I'm not full on sick right now.

Of course, I probably just jinxed myself, butI digress.

I was on an executive floor in the Holiday Inn Downtown Vancouver, with a king sized bed (yay!) and a floor to ceiling mirror that really wasn't too forgiving. Yikes. Here's the view from my room:

Good thing I'd found out ahead of time where we were staying,

I originally thought it was across the street...

It feels like all I do at these things is eat. There are designated times for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And this time, it was all buffet style. Oh sweet jesus, do you know how hard it is to resist going back for seconds when food tastes that good?

The banquet dinner was spectacular. Seafood, chicken, pasta.... that spinach canneloni was to die for.

Hell, even the one meal I had to pay for at Joeys was amazing. My steak was perfect, and they have something called crispy mashed potatoes. What's a crispy mashed potato, you ask? Well it's mashed potatoes, wrapped up in a spring roll, fried, then topped with sour cream and bacon bits. And not those crappy little simulated bacon bits – like bacon bits that used to be whole strips of bacon. Fucking delicious. And brilliant!

I love bacon, can you tell? Had a lot of that, too.

Then there's the booze. First night, hospitality room. Free beer! Have as much as you want! I think I only had two, just because I hadn't eaten yet and was halfway gone after just those two. But then at dinner I just had to try the Super Sonic Gin and Tonic the waiter suggested. Look at the name, I had to try it. It was basically a G&T with slush. They add slush to all their drinks. Very odd.

So aside from the food and booze, there were other awesome things about the weekend. I got to see some friends I haven't seen in years, which was yay! Hanging with those friends and their other friends, I came to the stunning realization that I'm not a club girl in any sense of the word. I went out wearing jeans, a regular black shirt, a new cardigan and my new sketchers, while many of the other girls there were in five inch heels, miniskirts and sparkly tops with their tits out to here. In comparison, I looked like I was in my pyjamas.

In da club!

Not so much.

I'm okay with that though, I like pyjamas.

I also did a little shopping, because retail therapy always makes me feel better.

So I did gain, most likely from beer bloat. Just to show I'm not wussing out again, I am, as of this week, only down 10 lbs total. Which sucks, but I had a good time this weekend. It was worth it.

I think I should make some kind of long term goal. I'd really like the be down 25 lbs by the New Year. Which will be exceedingly difficult as we're moving into the season of Halloween candy and Christmas parties. Oh, and that order I just put in for Purdy's Chocolates. But, I think I can do it. And with roller derby being done until March, I need to find some other physical activity.

I did go to the walking track last night for about an hour – I even tried running a lap! And I ran the whole lap without stopping. I could've done more, but I forgot my inhaler and got all wheezy. I'm going to try and do more running laps when I go walking laps.

We'll see how things go. It's Halloween party weekend, which means more booze, but I'm going to stick with the G&Ts so we can avoid the beer bloat. I will have photos to share of my kick ass costume later next week.

So I'm going to get back on track, I already started today. I'm finding that my soup n' salad lunch wasn't doing it for me, so I'm going back to my salad and protein regiment.

You know, I just realized I only said Fuck once in this post... how fucking weird is that?!

Food and booze,

Ginger

Bright Lights, Big City

I went to Vancouver this weekend for some meetings and other such stuff, and took my Nikon for a little walk around the streets near my hotel.

See, I have thing thing about neon signs at night. I don't know, something about the super bright colours against the darkness just does it for me. Maybe it stems from playing with a Lite Brite as a kid... that thing was amazing!

Soooo, yeah. Now onto MY photos!

Looking down Granville Street

A camera store! That wasn't open. Lame.

Who wants another tattoo?!

I just loved that there was a place called Speakeasy.

Oh come on, Orphium!

You couldn't have all the lights working just for one night?!

I hear you get what you pay for...

I'm in vogue, really.

Mmmmmm.... hot dogs.

I enjoy this blue saxaphone.

I hope to get back to the city sooner than two years from now. I throughly enjoy street photography. I like some of these so much, I may just have them printed off and framed... we shall see.

Brights and Lights,

Ginger.

WLW: Back on a Track...

I had an overwhelming urge to get up off my ass on Saturday and go to the walking track.

I couldn't shake it, and normally I'm pretty good at ignoring the desire to get off the couch when I'm trying to read a book. But not on Saturday. So I gave in and toddled myself down to go for an indoor walk.

A year ago I would go to the track a few days every week, or at least try to. Back then, all I really did for activity was, well, walk and dance practice. I had ceased running, so I needed to do something more.

On Saturday I noticed something about my stride. I don't have a very long stride, which I'm told is silly because my legs are so long I really ought to have a longer stride. But I don't. What I noticed was that my thighs didn't jiggle as much when I walked. Which is astounding since I carry a lot of weight on my thighs.

There was a little jiggle, but not nearly as much as there used to be. So yay for that.

I managed to do 19 laps. I was aiming for 20, but I was starting to hurt by 15, and I probably should have stopped at 17, but I pushed through two more laps. My biceps hurt, how much sense does that make?! Plus I think a blister is starting to form on my right heel. Gonna have to take care of that... blarg!

I think I have roller derby to thank for the not-so-jiggy thighs. All that skating has really built up the my quads, pretty soon I should be able to snap a man's neck with these babies! Or at least I would, except our season is over in a couple weeks, which is sad, but probably necessary.

Here's the girls doing a weaving drill through the pace line:

Wheeeee!

As for food, I pretty much fell off the wagon this weekend, goals be damned. It was my own fault though, I got so busy at work that I didn't have time to eat my lunch. On Thursday and Friday I only had an apple and one of those Soup to Go things, so by the end of the day I was completely ravenous... I didn't care what I was eating, just get some food in my goddamn stomach!

That led to one binge, then another, and then one more. Ugh. Very unpleasant. Then, on Monday, I did another bad thing and wound up having hot flashes all fucking day... I didn't know if I should stick my head in the trash can and puke, or just tear my clothes off.

I've had hot flashes since I was 16, so I'm used to them, but I usually get them at night... it's been many years since I had one during the day. Once they passed, I couldn't bring myself to eat anything because I felt so shitty, so I went hungry the rest of the day.

From one extreme to another: binge, then starve. That's a bad Ginger! Bad!

I don't really want to share my weight this week. It's made me not too happy with myself, so I'm going to use the Golden Power of Fuck-You-I'm-Not-Sharing. I gained, and that's all I feel like sharing this week.

I could probably chalk it up to hormones, but that feels like the bitch way out. No, it's just me, being stupid.

How about if I make the goal this week to not let myself get so hungry that I gorge when I get home. Or, If I'm going to, make sure it's not on Quiznos or something else that's going to ruin me for another week. Like carrots.

This is actually going to be incredibly difficult seeing as I'm heading down to Vancouver this weekend for a meeting thing... nothing but restaurant food all weekend. I feel nauseous already.

Wish me luck.

Ginger.

Hands

Musician hands, to be exact. Some are sharp, some are not. Like I said in a previous post, I'm astounded by those that can actually play a musical instrument. I couldn't even play the ukulele in grade school. Well, that's not entire true... I memorized where my finger were supposed to be for the first few chords of a song called Country Gardens or something. I had no idea what chords I was playing.

So, anyhoo, here's a few photos from Spotlight 2011.

D'ari

Dayna Manning

Dave Tolley

Naomi Shore

Lindsay Pratt

Gidd Hampton

The Willms

WLW: Giving thanks

The Thanksgiving meal really is wasted on me.

I'm not a fan of turkey, unless it's covered in salt and swimming in gravy. I hate stuffing, and I don't really like anything pumpkin flavoured. And my sister makes me eat a brussels sprout. Barf!

But she makes a good meal, and I appreciate her willingness to feed me.

A turkey meal in general, however.... meh. I'd pick chicken over turkey any day. Or, better yet... Ham. Like a real ham... mmm, now that's delicious.

Especially with scrambled eggs and cheese... oh,so fucking good!

Where was I?

Oh right, giving an update.

Long weekends are awesome. We should have them every weekend.

I took in the Spotlight 2011 thing at the NPCC on Saturday, went batshit with my camera. I do so love taking photos and getting paid for it. I also love that the ISO on this thing can go up to 6400, making it ideal to shoot in low lighting situations, such as the theatre where le musicians were doing their thing.

Look, a microphone!

I also went a little nuts taking pictures of people's hands. I don't know why. Maybe because I can't play a musical instrument to save my life and I'm astounded by those who can? I might just do a post of nothing but photos of hands. Super deep, right?

Then I had a bellydance workshop on Sunday and learned a new drum solo from this lady. She's awesome, I recommend her. After that was the aforementioned meal. Yay for my sister!

I'm sitting here, trying to remember what I did on Monday, and I'm drawing a blank... I know I went to my sister's house again to catch up on TV I've missed, but beyond that, I don't really recall what I did... must now have been important. Or productive.

Bleh.

Have I mentioned how much I don't miss going to city council meetings? Because I don't miss it. At all. But I guess I needed a little reminder and sat through my first one in almost a year last night. So goddamn boring!

Does anyone else find it funny that this WLW wasn't really about food, except for the first part? Is that a good thing? Am I moving past my obsession with food and spending my time thinking about other stuff? Or is it that I'm just too damn tired to try and remember what I did or didn't eat during the past week and how it made me feel?

Or am I just asking too may questions?

That's probably it.

Anyhooooooo....

It was probably a good thing I didn't check in last week, since after returning from a weekend in PG I felt so ill from eating nothing but restaurant food, I probably would have cried after stepping on the scale. Luckily the flu tried creeping on me, probably from breathing in all that recirculated air on the plane, but I kicked its ass! Go me!

So what's the damage this week?

Last time we checked in I was at 220.7 lbs. This week's total is...

*bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz*

220.5 lbs

We have hit the 15 pound mark, muthafuckaaaaaas!

I'm going to set a goal this week, since I haven't done that for awhile, and when I used to, it seemed to help. By next week, I am going to be out of the 220s. That is the goal. I don't care if I'm at 219.9, as long as I'm not in the 220s anymore.

Wish me luck.

Meetings and Restaurants,

Ginger.

Random Photo Friday: Morning and Night

Oh sweet jeebus, I fucking love this camera.

There was quite the interesting sunrise this morning. I was getting ready for work and saw the that tree outside had a lovely orange light shining on it, and rather than make my lunch, I went onto the balcony and started snapping away.

The camera has a variety of auto settings, which normally I wouldn't use, but I wanted to see how the sunrise setting worked.

ISO 100, 1/1250, F5.3, 300mm

Not too shabby, I'd say.

Then! Tonight I finally got a night clear enough night to actually see the moon, which is still about four days away from being a full Hunter's Moon, but I found a blog that told me how to get good results when trying to photograph the moon. T'was excellent advice.

ISO 100, 1/250, F11, 300mm

Oh I cannot wait until the 11th when it's full! I tweaked the curves just a tad, and cropped out a good portion of the excess sky, but this photo was all the camera. No major adjustments.

I has a happy!

Shutters and Bugs,

Ginger.

WLW: Watch This Space

I've had a headache and chills on and off for a few days, which leads me to believe my immune system is in a dire battle against the dreaded Influenza Virus.

Due to the total lack of energy, I'm taking this week off from Weight Loss Wednesday. Which kinda sucks because I had an awesome story to tell.

Oh well. I'll save it for later this week or something.

Here's a sleepy kitty.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Chills and Sniffles,

Ginger.

Everyone slap Joffrey!

I've become a huge fan of George R.R. Martin's series, A Song of Ice and Fire. I have devoured the first three books and am well into the fourth.

Seriously, if you haven't picked these up yet, you don't know what you're missing.

It's also the series that HBO's Game Of Thrones is based on. I applaud the show for sticking so close to the source material and killing off those characters that die in the book. The series really can't progress until they do.

Peter Dinklage utterly and completely deserved the Emmy for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama that he won for his role as The Imp, Tyrion Lannister. By far the best character in both the show and the books.

One of my favourite moments is when Tyrion slaps Prince Joffrey in the second episode. Joffrey is a little shit, and I can't wait until he dies in the show.

So, for your viewing pleasure, here's a video someone made of Tyrion slapping Joffrey for 10 whole minutes.