I'm starting to think eating chocolate and peanut butter ice cream doesn't really solve anything. Call it a hunch.

The best chocolate and peanut butter ice cream I've found so far is the Dreamery kind, which the 7-11 on the corner, unfortunately, is currently selling for $1.99. This is bad news. For a while, I chalked up my cravings to PMS — that whole salty-sweet thing some people like me go through on a monthly basis. I think the real deal is stress.

Yes, I'm stressed. I've got the second installment of the cat calendar to finish and submit by tomorrow, I've got to pack, I'm moving to an area where my primary contact for a while will be Grant's dad (to whom I'm not exactly close these days) and there are too many damned mirrors in this house. Seriously, one whole wall of the living room is mirrored. I guess the previous owners thought they'd try to make the place look bigger, but it's been the bane of my existence ever since I was eleven years old.

Ah, yes. I keep thinking it'll be fun to have a lake nearby (as I will in my new place), so I can ride my bike and take walks with Grant. It will be fun, I know, but the weight loss I hope to achieve will surely happen more slowly than I'd like. No, I'm not saying how much I intend to lose. ;-)

Right now the thing is...I look in the mirror, don't like what I see, and I think, well, screw it, some more ice cream won't make any difference because I'm so deep into it right now anyway. I know that's not entirely rational, but I know people who do that all the time. And besides, who said I was rational?

Blah, blah, magazines, blah, blah, stress, blah, blah, models, blah, blah, supermodels, blah, blah, society's unrealistic standards, blah...

Take your pick. There are lots of scapegoats out there. The fact is, I'm cute. There, I said it. I'm nice. I'm a good mom. I'm smart. I'm funny. My body gave life to a glorious, brand-new human being, fer cryin' out loud! But I also let what other people think of me affect me too much.

I don't like that.

I still have a membership to a gym. I got it a long time ago when I worked for the evil aerospace company and we got a cheap deal. The membership is maybe 10 years old...? Not sure. I am sure, though, that I've never used it. Is that nuts or what??

Okay, that's just me being hard on myself again. You see what I put up with? But back to the stress. I may be dreaming when I think that my stress will abate after I move. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. I hope it will. Or more accurately, I hope I can reframe things so I'm not so bothered. And use my gym membership (there's one near my new place) and take walks around the lake and maybe even wear out the tires on my bike a little, too. Okay, at least I can get them dirty.

All things in their own time. For now, though, somebody hide the ice cream.

- Beth