Warning: Tele-Rapist On the Loose

It started out like any normal morning.  I check my email, get on Pinterest to see what I missed overnight, dish out cereal for the kids and unload the dishwasher and fold clothes from the dryer.

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**ring**
**ring**
**ring**

I race back to the bedroom to try and get to my cell phone before the Grey's Anatomy theme ring tone comes to an end.  "Huh, weird number," I thought as I noticed the incoming call was from "319."

"Hello?"

"Hi. This is (whatever his name was)," a man with a thick Indian accent greeted me.  "Your computer has a virus and you need us to run a check to see if you need our anti-virus software."

"I don't need your software.  My computer is fine."

"No.  Your computer has a virus."

"No.  It doesn't."

"Yes.  I can see that your computer has a virus.  It is very dangerous."

"Dangerous?  Like it will explode?  Is it going to hurt me?,"  I sarcastically ask to try to tick this guy off.  I should've just hung up.  He is obviously weird.

"I can see your computer on our router and I can tell you the ID# on your computer.  This proves that I can access your machine and I know that it has a virus,"  he continues to convince me about my dangerous situation.

"Wow.  You are magic," I taunt him.

"You need to go over to your computer and turn it on now so that I can verify some numbers on it," he tells me.

"I don't have time for this.  My computer is fine and you are wasting my cell phone minutes."

"What is your land line phone number and I will call you back on that to discuss your computer virus."

"I don't have a land line."

"That is not possible.  How are you accessing the Internet and I can see your computer?," he asks.

"You tell me.  You are the magical computer man,"  I answer.  In retrospect, I have no idea why I am still on the phone with this guy from India.

THEN HE ADDS TO THIS ALREADY WEIRD PHONE CALL: 

"F*@k you.  Yeah.  F%#k you."

(l   o   n   g     p   a   u  s  e   on my end of the phone as I try and decide whether he actually said what I heard him say or if his accent was just too thick and he obviously was just saying "Thank you.  Yeah.  Thank you.")

"Excuse me?,"  I try and confirm.  "What did you say?"

"I wanna f*&k you.  You sound so cute.  I want to f#@k you."

"Oh my gosh.  Goodbye."  And I hung up on the tele-rapist.
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People.  I usually tend to exaggerate and dramatize events in my life when re-telling stories just to make them funnier or more exciting.  I promise you this is a word for word transcript of the phone call I received this morning.  HOLY CRAP!!!!  When I hung up, I think I stood in my bedroom for a solid 30 seconds dumbfounded that it actually happened.  Then, as I usually do after anything notable, I called my sister.

After I told her about the tele-rape, she laughed so hard she couldn't speak.  My husband did NOT find it as funny.  He was mad and acted protective of me.  Kinda sweet.  If I think about it too long, I almost want to be mad, too, and feel a little violated.  But that's boring and melancholy, so I am going to act like Kelsey (my sister), and laugh at the hilarity of it.

Though I mainly share the story because it just is too bizarre not to tell, I also want to let everyone know to be careful if they get calls warning of a computer virus and DO NOT TURN ON YOUR COMPUTER.  Apparently it is an identity theft scam and the posed tele-rapist telemarketer is trying to get you to share computer information so that they can hack important information like credit cards and passwords off your machine.

The Sunday Scale - Issue 01

Well, Sunday is weigh in day and I am happy to report that I am down 2.2lbs from last week.  I am down to a svelte 184.0 lbs.  Still really really chunky, but somehow when you are on the downward weight trend and you go to bed with your stomach growling every night, you feel skinny.  Hey, I'll take the motivation wherever I can get it.  Even if it is false.

With as hard as I've been working on it, I am glad I saw the scale budge.  WEE HAW!!!!!

So to celebrate, I asked David to go get me some Ben and Jerry's Oatmeal Cookie.  He is literally out driving to the grocery store right this second as I type this.  What am I thinking?????  So I tried his cell phone a million times and he isn't answering it.  I need to stop him.  I cannot do all this work and undo it in one weak moment stuffing my face with the sweetness of B&J's.  Dang it.  He is going to walk in the door any moment with a pint of crack.  And I am now going to have to resist it while it's in my house.  I'm going to feed it to the kids tomorrow before I have a chance to eat it.  OMG.  This sucks.

Here he is.

I.
Will.
Be.
Strong.

Dinner tonight was a great new healthy recipe find.  I can't take the credit because I got the recipe off Pinterest from a blog I love to read, Mama Laughlin.  But I am going to repost it here because it was really good (for being as healthy as it was).  Click the link below for the recipe.  It's only 294 calories per serving.


Mama Laughlin's Skinny Enchilada Lasagna

MAJOR CHICKEN TIP - Maybe everybody already knows this, but I feel like I made it up.  I think I am a genius for it, so I thought I'd share.  To shred chicken for soups, casseroles or chicken salad, I first bake or boil the chicken and then effortlessly shred it with a touch of a button by putting it in the blender.  We use a Vita-Mix.  Just put it on the lowest setting and it shreds it super-fine and even.  So easy and gets it smaller than anything I could ever do with a knife.  This is how I did the chicken for the Skinny Enchilada Lasagna.

Welp, that's it for today.  I am so grateful for this blog.  Without it, I'd be eating ice cream right now.

Long Run Saturday

So today was my long run as I train for this ridiculous half marathon.  Dad and I met at his house at 6:45am and were hitting pavement by 7:00.  Today called for 4.5 miles.  Woh.  No one died.  So at least that's good.

You wouldn't think exercising for under an hour would hold as many rituals as it does, but here is the rundown of mine.

1.  Make sure the perfect running clothes are clean so I don't have to dig through dirty laundry hampers in the morning and wear something that smells rotten even before the run begins.  I don't go as far as laying everything out (probably because the workout clothes I want are dirty and they barely end up in the dryer just before I hit the pillow, crossing my fingers they will be dry when I wake up).

2.  Set the alarm 10 minutes before having to get out of bed so that you can hit snooze exactly one time.  This really isn't a running morning ritual as much as it's an everyday morning ritual.  Whatever.

3.  Take a shower.  This sounds stupid since I am about to get all hot and sweaty, but not only does it wake me up, but for some reason I really like when I get all sweaty and you can smell the shampoo I just used.  When you've been running and sweating for 30 minutes and every crack and crevice is rank, it's invigorating when that breeze blows by and you inhale the scent of fresh shampoo.  I'll really drive home my insanity if I tell you that Pert Plus keeps its aroma power better than any of the other shampoos I've tried.  It's just how I roll.

4.  Drink one cup of coffee.  This is for the caffeine effect and the blow up your b hole effect.  The coffee needs to be drunk at least 30 minutes before you run to give it time to work it's bathroom magic so that it doesn't strike mid-run.

5.  Eat a banana.  I don't like to eat much at all before running because it just makes me feel that much fatter and heavier.  Plus, anything you eat will be nastily burped up.  When running alone, it just is kind of annoying.  But when you are running with someone... that's just gross.  And rude.  Bananas are kind enough to give me just enough calories so I don't starve without the negative burp effects.  Additionally, waking up on a Saturday morning to run 4.5 miles is bananas, so eating one just makes sense.

6.  Drink 8-10oz of water.  At first, I was nervous to do this.  I thought it would make me have to pee.  But it really doesn't.  If you are running far enough (or just to the mailbox in Texas during the summer), you'll sweat out the water before it has time to reach your bladder.  If I don't drink before I run, I feel sluggish and dehydrated and really hit a wall at the 3 mile mark.

7.  Get the accessories in order.  I have to have my iPod shuffle, a nifty new green one I gifted myself last month when I decided to train for a half marathon, and my specific sony headphones.  My ears are dumb and every other kind of ear buds fall out.  These ARE THE BEST.  If you have trouble keeping your headphones in, get them now.

I also have to have Burt's Bees lip balm.  It's a deal breaker.  If I don't have it and I'm going over 3 or 4 miles, I will probably postpone my run.

This morning, all my rituals went smoothly except for the coffee.  I was in a hurry to get to Dad's and since it's hot outside, coffee just didn't sound good.  So instead, I mixed up some Spark for energy.  It doesn't get the poop going, but that's ok.  Coffee isn't a deal breaker like the Burt's Bees.

So I get to Dad's and we exchange comments like, "We must be crazy,"  "Why are we doing this?,"  "Who is up at this time?," or "I'm never doing this again."  This has almost become its own ritual.  Strangely enough, it's actually encouraging and builds camaraderie.  Then we begin the run.

The first mile went fine.  No biggie.  Until Dad says we have to turn back because he has to take a crap.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  So we run a mile back to the house.  2 miles down, 2.5 to go.  I hated running back to his house because it was a false finish.  When you get back to where you start, you are supposed to be finished.  That's just how it works.  Not today, apparently.

So we went back out to finish the last 2.5 miles for our total long run of 4.5 miles.  It felt pretty good.  Maybe it was the 5 minute poop break, but it wasn't bad.  Next week is 5 miles.  Dad is coming to MY house and I am going to map a 5 mile course that has plenty of 7 Eleven's along the way for necessary plumbing.  We aren't coming back to my house until we're done.  :)

Distance:  4.5 miles
Time:  Approx 55 minutes (we don't time ourselves yet, it's about finishing, not PRs)
Temperature:  82-84 degrees
Overall:  Great

Popping the Blog Cherry

I love blog stalking. It's my reality t.v.  But I am a blog virgin.

I've read others' blogs and envied that these people have this amazing forum to express what is going on in their lives. It's really just a public journal. I am not a comical writer, and I don't have the incredible wit that my virtual BFFs do. No one will ever find or follow my blog. BUT I want to do it for myself. So this is a feeble attempt to write down what I'm feeling and what's going on in my life. Here are the top things that consume me right now:

1. I am a full-time nursing school student. I am about to start my last semester and will graduate in December 2012. Thank God. I've been going to school since I was 5.

2. I have two of the best kids on the planet. I know every mom thinks that, but it's actually true for me. Brace yourself and try not to be jealous... 

SEE??!!!?!??!

I told you they were amazing. Here are a couple award-winning poses of them when they found a new app on our iPad. 

Incredible.

3. I am trying to lose 50 pounds. I currently weigh 185 and am trying to get down to 135, which is what I was when I married my husband 9 1/2 years ago. I gained an enormous amount of weight with both my pregnancies and through Weight Watchers, was able to get down to 145 three years ago. But now I have put 40 pounds of that back on. I am going to attempt to blame that on going back to school full time and just needing chips and salsa a stress outlet. But truth be known, I am a bottomless pit with an addictive personality and when I decide to EAT, I really really EAT. It's bad and embarrassing, but I really don't want to be one of those moms that just lets themselves go and only thinks about their kids. I don't want to live vicariously through my daughter's wardrobe, while I only wear yoga pants and tshirts because I am rolling out of anything else.

So the plan to lose 50 pounds is 1) use Weight Watchers to count every morsel of food that crosses these lips. 2) Workout 5-6 days per week. 3) Weigh every week. Currently I have it in mind to do this on Sundays, but that may change.  It will depend on if I might need prayer after stepping on the scale...

4. I am training to run a half marathon with my dad. It's on December 31, 2012 in Allen, TX (about 30 minutes north of Dallas). The training plan is something I totally half-assed and plagiarized from other published training plans brilliantly put together with all of my running knowledge and skills. I really want to be a "real" runner. I have done half a dozen 5Ks, 1 10K and ran/walked 1 half marathon. For my training plan, click here. 

Tomorrow I'll work to upload some pictures of me through the years.  It'll be like a private showing of "Beauty and the Beast."