For our New Year’s Resolution, my sisters and I decided to start eating healthy and work out more in order to look good for some upcoming weddings. Now, in the past couple of years my New Year’s Resolution has been to not make a New Year’s Resolution and I have successfully followed through on those. But this year I decided to challenge myself and have come to the conclusion that I do not like to be challenged. My sisters and I were all about getting 2014 off to a healthy start back in December. We even cleverly named our new fitness endeavor “Fit for ’14” and of course put a hash tag in front of it whenever we talked about Fit for ’14, making it look more cool and appealing.

Our strategy back in December was to basically binge eat junk food as much as we could before that clock struck midnight on January 1st. “Better eat this cheeseburger before Fit for ’14 starts” or “let’s hit up all the fast food restaurants and get it out of our system before Fit for ’14 starts” were phrases often spoken in our house in 2013. The binge eating we were good at. Everyone showed a lot of self-discipline and dedication on that part. But now that it has come time to put our plan into action we are struggling hard-core. Now we say things like “Let’s start on Monday”, “It’s the weekend so I’m just going to treat myself to this gigantic bowl of ice cream” or my personal favorite “When does Lent start, March? Let’s just start Fit for ’14 then.” In our defense, it’s really hard to change your eating habits and start eating healthy when your food pyramid looks like this:

I did get a gym membership though. How many times have I gone to the gym in these past twenty days of January you ask? Well that’s none of your damn business. I was going to go a couple of weeks ago but I had a cold so obviously I couldn’t go. I didn’t want to make myself more sick! Then I got new gym shoes and I figured I needed to break them in by walking around the house for a while before I actually used them at the gym to avoid blisters so that took a few days. Then it was extremely cold outside so I figured walking from the gym to my car after a tough workout all sweaty would be a recipe for pneumonia. I have really come to the conclusion that I am better at dressing myself for a work out than I am at actually working out. Yoga pant, check. Cute dry fit v-neck, check. Obnoxiously bright Nike running shoes, check. Going to the gym just isn’t fun. That elliptical machine is the devil in the form of workout equipment. They should make criminals use that thing instead of locking them up in jail. It would be a better punishment. Gyms are humid and smelly too-a breading ground for germs if you ask me. And going at a time of year like this when it is prime cold and flu season? No thank you.

Plus it’s not like I don’t get any exercise at home. I mean we keep the ice cream sandwiches and Klondike bars in the basement freezer so going up and down all those stairs is no walk in the park. And I’m sure I burn tons of calories trying to stay warm in my house since my dad likes to keep the thermostat at a temperature just warm enough so the pipes don’t freeze. If I ever move out of my parents’ house (and that is a big if at this point) someone will have to teach me how to work one of those things because I am not allowed to touch it here. There must be some unspoken code among Fathers about protecting and guarding the home thermostat that the rest of us non-fathers don’t know about. I’m convinced my dad has a silent alarm system hooked up to our thermostat that notifies him immediately when anyone in our house even comes close to it. “Don’t even think about turning up the temperature! If you’re cold put another sweatshirt on!” My mom stays warm in our house by layering up. She’s usually quite comfortable in her slippers, a turtleneck (which, by the way, turtlenecks are so practical. It’s like a shirt with a scarf attached to it!), and two to three sweaters.

As of now we are thinking of changing Fit for ’14 to Fail for ’14 because at this point, it’s more fitting. Eventually I hope to get myself into action but Rome wasn’t built in a day and plus, I think “Fit for ’15” has a much better ring to it…

As you walk up the stairs to the second floor in our house, all five of our eighth grade graduation pictures line the wall. I don’t know if this is my parents’ twisted way of showing their affection for us or if it’s to deter guests from venturing up to the second floor. The pictures are just hideous. I mean woof. Nothing like having a picture of yourself in your most awkward stage staring back at you each night before you head upstairs to bed to remind you how ugly you once were. Just to give you an idea, here is my wonderful portrait on the wall:

I just have one word for my 8^th grade self: Tweezers. Like would it have killed me to do a little eyebrow clean-up now and then? I guess I was too busy wearing jean skirts, working on my sweet jump shot (That part paid off. We won the 8^th grade girls basketball championship – still livin’ in the glory days), and shopping at Hollister to care. Now I wonder how anyone can shop in that place without a flashlight! I mean how are you supposed to find a super cute outfit to wear to the boyz football games in that dimly lit place?!  Anyway, back to my picture. Luckily, I had gotten my braces off two days before the graduation pictures were taken, but unfortunately I hadn’t grown into my teeth yet, so I looked a little horse-ish. Another blessing is that my untamed, luscious locks covered up my extremely large earlobes. I have always been a little self conscious about them and for good reason. Do your ears hang low, do they wobble to and fro? Can you tie them in a knot, can you tie them in a bow? You can’t, but I practically can. I’m surprised the Claire’s employee who pierced my ears at the mall could use a standard ear piercing gun and didn’t have to use a more powerful model. I also wish someone would have splashed a little make-up on my face. I mean yes, the picture was taken in the dead of winter, but I look like I haven’t seen sunlight in months and am suffering from a vitamin D deficiency. A little bronzer would have done me good.

It’s not easy going through that awkward stage, and nobody in my house tried to make it any easier for anyone else. In our family, people found it necessary to point out any blemish on anyone else’s face, even though they knew darn well it was a zit, and it was usually brought to everyone’s attention at the dinner table. Conversation usually went a little something like this:

-“What the heck is that huge red thing on your forehead?”

“It’s a pimple, OK?!”

-“Oh. Wow, that’s a big one. You should put some heat on that. Or some toothpaste, I hear that dries it right out”

Nothing like being reminded of the disgusting and obviously distracting pimple on your face while trying to sit down to enjoy a meal.

I think Brittany Spears captured the essence of the awkward stage perfectly in her hit single “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman.”  Those words perfectly describe me in my graduation picture because I’m sure guests walking up our stairs look at it and think “What is that thing?”

I feel now I am in the middle of my second awkward stage. But instead of singing “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman” I’m singing “I’m Not in College, Not Yet Employed.”  I guess I’m just going to have to ride this one out like I did the last awkward stage.  At least this time around I’ve grown into my teeth.