Other - Café Con Monica

Chocolates and heartbreak

February 11, 2011

With Valentine’s day coming there are so many women out there with expectations that are beyond belief and men who have no clue what they are getting into. Some people really love Valentine’s day and go all out and some just think it is another day. I fall somewhere in the middle. I think the idea is cute, the decorations are adorable and in concept showing someone you love them on a day is sweet. But I also find that I think making a big fuss or dismissing altogether one particular day is unfair. Here are some reasons why we shouldn’t make a big deal of Valentine’s day:

1. He/She should be bringing you home flowers and chocolates and romancing you the other 11 months of the year.
2. Everything is over-priced…flowers, candy, flights, food.
3. Reservations are almost impossible
4. He/She might be living under a rock and forget completely
5. High expecatations lead to great disappointment.
6. Gifts shouldnt matter anyway…especially not the price of the gifts

I have had my share of great and bad Valentine’s days and still I continue to like the day. If you know anything about history then you know that the day is set aside to honor the martyr St. Valentine. Really thats not all that romantic. Remember, when we were younger and we would give or get those adorable cards with some candy. Or those times when we would get a love note from a secret admirer. Imagine if at that age you had told your secret admirer his/her note needed to include an expensive dinner and equally expensive gift to follow. Ha!!

Somewhere along the way the lines blur and we develop this warped sense of what it really means. If you take offense to anything I said you might have crossed that line and this is your alert to come back, if you are like me and already just like to sit back and enjoy the sites on that day then great! I also like to point out that if you want to share Valentine’s day and don’t have a boyfriend/girlfriend then grab your closest friend and tell them you love them and maybe buy them a box of chocolate, catch a movie or just have a movie night together. It is as much a day for lovers as it is for friends.

The goods, the bads, the maybe somedays

February 4, 2011

I think pretty much everyone listens to music nowadays. Well, unless its expressly forbidden in your religion…are there any religions that do that? If there are, I am sorry. I love music as much as I love food, and I looovvve food. There is something about a great song that can bring me to tears or make me smile. Some songs even make me want to throw something or dance around like I am experiencing a seizure. This is a good thing, I saw a Dane Cook skit once about just needing to dance. I think it is definitely a woman thing. Sometimes I feel like desire to put on some music and just dance and dance until my head is completely clear. Other times when I am already down and depressed I put on some music that will make it worse and begin crying my eyes out. I love all kinds of music, can appreciate at least one song in any genre…no seriously name a genre and I can tell you at least one song. (note I may not know the name or artist, only the chorus) I get jokes all the time because I am often caught listening to country music. I didn’t grow up on a farm or in any southern state but I just love it! I love walking into a bar/club and feeling the beat in every bone. This could, of course, could be just because its so loud that I have no choice. Or it could be my love for the sounds. Either way music falls under the good because it is a beautiful thing that I could not live without.

Do you know what can fall under a bad category for me that is associated with music? The infamous music snob. You know who you are. You think that the music you listen to is so much better than anything else out there for a laundry list of reasons that we are all subject to hear when we tell you how much we love the new Britney Spears single. Please just can it! I don’t judge, there is something to be said for anyone who can get a record deal in a world where everyone wants to be an artist. If someone can make a song about chicken noodle soup, there is still hope for the undiscovered artist in a small town in Oregon. Just because you don’t like rock, rap, hip hop, country, salsa, jazz does not mean that it is not good music. Someone out there loves the music you are talking trash about. The next time you want to get on your soap box, remember someone out there thinks the band/artist you love is trash too.
The same can be said about movie snobs but that is a whole different day.

I could probably give you an impossibly long list of the bads today but I am in a generally good mood and it’s Friday. I can say that for every bad there is a positive. Living in Chicago definitely teaches you this. In a city where we got almost 2 ft of snow this week and couldn’t leave our homes it was hard not to look outside and see how beautiful everything looked covered in white. The horrible winters make you appreciate the agonizingly hot summers.
But just to be sure I actually cover a few bad things, here are my favorites:
rude people
spitting & all bodily functions in public
occasionally the CTA
lack of table manners
Catcalls and whistling to get my attention
misuse of “there” and “their”
Just to name a few. I guess it could be worse.

Ahhhh the maybe someday’s…Maybe someday I will love to workout. Maybe someday I will appreciate math class. Maybe someday I will like the taste of brussels sprouts. Maybe someday the texture of cottage cheese won’t make me gag. Maybe someday I will not be furious when I can’t understand the guy at the drive through. Maybe someday I will learn how to spell conscious without the use of spell check. This list could also go on and on as well.

And that my friends is my Friday rambling… I think I really just wanted to write about music today.

The art of dieting

January 27, 2011

Just the word diet makes me cringe. Its an awful, horrible, torturous process that I don’t know anyone actually enjoys. That being said, I am back on one. I am testing out Medifast again. Let me be the first to say this is not an advertisement for Medifast. The diet is horrible and you have to really really determined and hate yourself just enough to actually stick to it. For those of you that don’t know or haven’t heard me complain about it, it’s a low carb diet consisting of dehydrated foods that you have to eat 5 times a day, then you are rewarded with a meal of your own and it has to be as low carb as you can get.
THIS SUCKS. No seriously.

How do you even figure out what diet is right and won’t kill you? There are some ridiculous ones out there, liquid diets, chocolate milk diets, cookie diets, Atkins…the list goes on and on. Some you can tell just from the name that they are ridiculous. Others sound good and then you get the book, or read enough info on the web to think you got the idea and you realize they will be awful as well. What works for some may not work for others. The cookie diet might work if the cookie didn’t taste like chalk…if the goal was to starve myself rather than eat the cookie I would lose 20 pounds fast.

Diets are the devil. Yes, I said it, they are. The truth is you have to change something or you won’t lose weight. Right? But if you want to lose 10 pounds in the next 5 days just cutting out the pop and candy won’t work. Why not?! I have to say, that’s just not fair. I am typing this and thinking of a very good friend of mine and how she has told me time and time again that if I don’t give up the cookies the working out doesn’t matter. So if you are the type to get in it for the long haul, you know the type with patience then you can just eat better and exercise and it will work out. On the other hand if you want to see that fat gone tomorrow you have to torture yourself with some retched diet.

Lets talk a little bit about working out. I don’t want to sound whiny but I DO NOT like the gym. at all. I try hard to enjoy the burn and the sweat and imagine that the results will be great. Unfortunately, while I am working out all I can think about is how much my ass is jiggling, how I must be red in the face, and how much this “burn” hurts. All the DVDs and hot trainers in the world can’t make me like that pain.

I tell myself over and over again I won’t diet, I will eat better and workout and then I wont have to torture myself anymore. Obviously I wrote this because I didn’t listen to any of that. The thing is I can repeat till I am blue in the face that I will treat my body better but I love food. There is no getting around this problem. The good news is that I finally realized I need to lose weight and get into a shape that makes me happy and not anyone else. Meanwhile, I am back on a diet and miserable, cranky and if you get too close and smell like food I might just bite you. The thought of someone enjoying a piece of bread right now makes me close to homicidal. I know that plenty of people can relate so after having said of all that. Good luck with any diet you might be doing and be strong!

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