Even though it seems contrived to repeat myself year after year after year, my resolutions posts are easily the most important blog posts I write. I could write nothing else but resolution posts and they would validate the existence of my blog, personally. It’s important for me to have them bookmarked so that I can look back on them. Yes, most of the time, most of my resolutions go unkept by December 31, but it’s still important for me to set these goals for myself. I like the promise of a fresh Gregorian calendar year ahead of me to taking more steps towards becoming the person I want to be.
This year, I’m going to do what I’ve been futzing about and not doing in past years: I’m going to schedule time for these resolutions every day, every week, every month. After not achieving certain resolutions year after year after year (see #1 and #2), I really understand the value of me making time for myself and the goals I am setting for myself. Even though my schedule has been — and will remain for some time — painfully uncertain, I can still make sure to make time for goals that are important to me. I’ll denote things I need to schedule with an asterisk(*).
I currently have my plate pretty full until January, but I have drafts that just need photos (always the photos…) and some other things I’ve been wanting to write up for you all! Here’s what I will have for you as soon as possible, preferably before January:
New York trip recap
The end of my Florida recaps
Hogwarts week recap (I wore Hogwarts House-inspired outfits every day leading up to Halloween)
All the other things I promise all the time… like the 2+ year late Europe posts
And of course, even if those don’t make it, my year-end recaps WILL be up by December 31st, for sure.
Just letting you all know that I’m still here, I’m thinking of you every day, and I will try to be better.
I don’t consider myself to be a person of many vices at all. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t gamble.
What do I do instead? I eat chips. Or at least I used to.
Hi. My name is Starr and I’m a recovering chip addict. If you could take a pause from laughing at me for a moment, I’ll explain my sad story. (Cue violin music.)
I’ve always loved chips. They’re crunchy, they’re crispy, they have this amazing savoriness, even a bit of umami-ness. I love the taste and texture and how they never let me down.
The funny thing is, I actually gave up chips for Lent a few years ago. It wasn’t exactly a walk in the park, but I pulled through without too much issue and resumed eating chips after Easter, finding that I had regained self-control in the presence of chips. I still loved them, but I no longer felt like I needed to inhale every snack-sized bag that reached my grubby hands. I could eat one bag, or even share one with a friend!
Evidently, I lost this self-control somewhere along the way. I know exactly when. It was a little over a year ago, and I was at a really stressful job. I had a snack drawer at my cubicle and there was always a bag of chips in there. At the peak of my burn-out that would eventually lead to me leaving that company, I was eating an entire family-sized bag of chips every day. FAMILY-SIZED. I was not a family. I was — and remain — one single person. In fact, I was eating so many chips every day that I started gaining weight. I’m lucky enough to not really gain weight very easily at all, but I starting putting on pounds during those last few weeks at that company with all the chips I was eating. No matter how much I love chips, they are no where near as good for your body as they are for your soul, and they are really quite bad for you when you eat enough to supply a weekend barbecue with friends.
With the weight gain and the realization that I could probably eat two full-sized bags of Doritos every day if I let myself buy that many chips, I decided to quit cold turkey. I figured it’d be like when I stopped eating chips during Lent. When I found myself craving chips, I ate some cereal to satisfy my crunchy craving and sate my hunger. But I still wanted chips. Okay, I decided to have some roasted seawood to satisfy my salty craving. I figured chip craving = crunchy craving + salty craving, at the end of the day, and as long as I could fulfill those two, I didn’t need chips. But I was wrong. In fact, I ate through most of my snack foods that day, and even though I knew I wasn’t hungry, I still desperately wanted chips.
In short, I realized I was addicted to chips. I wanted something very specific and I wasn’t able to substitute other things for it.
That moment, coupled with me actually tearing up in the chips aisle of my grocery store, woke me up to a pretty bad problem. Not eating chips was going to take a lot of willpower. Would I ever be able to eat chips again?? I told myself I would start eating chips again when I started a new job, but when my first day approached, I realized I just wasn’t ready.
Today marks me being one-year clean of chips. The last time I had a potato chip was August 20, 2014. (Incidentally, it wasn’t the first day I went chip-free. That was a relapse. Originally, I had quit chips about a week prior.) I have had, on hand, a bag of Captain America Cool Ranch Doritos (Cool Ranch or bust!) ready for this day, but we are not together today. I’m going to ease into chips with those and the Fritos (see below) because I’m not even sure I can handle a potato chip just yet.
Because bae should be there when I have chips
I’m not going to eat the whole bag. I’m trying to really practice healthy portion control with chips, and that’ll be the biggest struggle of all.
Let me walk you through the chips that have tormented me the most:
There are going to be a lot of kettle cooked chips in my future. Nothing beats that amazing crunch!
Ben introduced me to these and I now LUST for jalapeno kettle-cooked chips.
These aren’t potato-based BUT they’re really addicting. My roommate and I used to have to confiscate the bag from each other. They were buy one, get one free yesterday and I’m just such a sucker for deals in the chip aisle.
These are my TOPS. I basically always buy one of those 3 bags (maybe all 3, if I’m feeling really naughty). But you know, in my obsession with these 3, I forgot about other great ones that I rediscovered right before I stopped eating chips.
Sour cream and onion! I missed you. (Until I ate a family-sized bag in one sitting, that was a low.)
BBQ chips are all fine and well but honey BBQ? Oooooooh yes. Also, did not know that Utz was a local(ish) brand!
I have a lot of fears.What if chips aren’t as amazing as I remember them being? What if my body rejects them? (Oh god…) What if a year of hyping them up has just set me up for epic disappointment?
But this has been a really good exercise in self-control. I don’t actually NEED chips. I want them, really badly, but I can live without them. It’s been oddly empowering, and I kind of want to experiment more with these year-long abstinences rather than just my annual Lenten one.
Back. With. A. New. Review! Oh, I’ve missed attending early screenings so much. (Thanks Fandango for hooking us up, even though it’s super shady to be offering free concessions vouchers and then not honoring that offer when moviegoers show up to the theater. I know concessions is how theaters make most of their money but there is no need for DECEIT, Fandango. For shame.)
I was invited to see Amy Schumer’s new feature film, Trainwreck, by my regular movie crew. The trailers made it seem pretty funny and Amy Schumer is kind of on fire right now. She’s an incredible comedy writer and actor. If you haven’t seen any of her sketches from her show, you need to go over to Youtube or Comedy Central and do that now, you’ll be glad you did. Here’ssomerecommendations.
This movie had more heart than I expected. With movies like this, I expect more somber moments to be interrupted with farts or inappropriate jokes, but I think this movie just felt very real with the highs and with the lows.
Also, if Lebron James was to go into acting after retiring from the NBA, or if he was to do the Space Jam remake as has been rumored, I’d be okay with that. He was really funny in this movie, held his own quite well.
I don’t know, there’s not a whole lot for me to say about the movie, actually? It was a pretty predictable story but I laughed so hard. Amy Schumer really delivered with this one.
ALSO Tilda Swinton is in this playing the editor of the men’s magazine Amy Schumer works at and it’s really hilarious because it’s so unlike any of her past roles. In fact, it’s kind of fun spotting stars in the movie, like Mike Birbiglia, Randall Park, Ezra Miller, John Cena, Lebron James, Amare Stoudemire, Tony Romo, etc. (For all you sports fans out there.)
Mmmm sorry for the short review, I just don’t have too much to say. Trainwreck was funny. Go see it if you enjoy laughter.
…….. so my last update here turned out to be a big whopping lie, didn’t it? I said I’d settle into a routine in June and schedule time for blogging.
As it turns out, my hours at my new job got a little crazy for me. My every waking moment was dedicated to work. I haven’t seen most of my friends in weeks, I had barely seen my own apartment before I moved out of it, I haven’t seen my family in a long while.
What felt really bad on my end was being told that this is what I signed up for. And it wasn’t. I was not prepared to devote my entire life to a startup that I liked but didn’t love.
You know what I love? Watching movies (I have watched maybe 3 movies since I started this job and I don’t even know if it’s worth putting reviews up for them anymore), seeing friends and family, coming home before 9 PM, not checking my email first thing in the morning and last thing at night, and, of course, writing this blog!
Lesson learned. With two moves and another opportunity coming along, I had no choice but to respectfully bow out of the new job.
What that means for you, dear readers, is that there will (hopefully) be more activity here really soon! So stay tuned for all the things I told you I’d have in that last update. I’ve been jotting down notes on posts I want to write in between my long work shifts; let’s hope I find enough time and motivation to crank them all out!
Sip of Starrshine 