Children of the corn [maze]

I like apple orchards.


And corndogs.


And corn mazes.


And wooly bear caterpillars.


And this hilarious coincidence of a crossroad.


I love fall and everything about it. I think it's unfair that it only lasts a couple of months.

We bought 1/2 peck of Cortland apples....my favorite. They aren't the most popular and that's fine with me. That means they are cheaper. We can get a 1/2 peck of Cortlands for $7, whereas that same amount of Honeycrisp is like $10. I like Honeycrisp, but not that much. Cortlands are better, IMO. They are almost purple on the outside and white on the inside and mild and happy.


Yes. I took a huge bite out of it. I have a big mouth.

So Fall, being the season of change, I'm going to do something for myself. October is a good month. Good things happen to me in October; however, what I had anticipated for October did not happen. I did not get the position at work that I aimed for and I did not get pregnant. Which is fine. I'm not concerned about work. That will happen eventually and I've come to terms with it and made peace with it. I love my job, and there will be a place for me there; maybe just not when I wanted. It's okay. As far as the pregnancy thing...I'm letting that go as well. The whole thing annoys me. You spend your entire life trying to prevent it from happening and then when you actually want it to happen, it doesn't happen. So forget it. I'm sick of hoping to get pregnant, all the while attributing every single symptom I have to a possible pregnancy symptom, only to take a test and have it give me a big fat no. So I'm going to stop trying. I am, however, going to do something else which I know will show me results in some way, shape, or form.

I joined a gym today. Not like I have never joined a gym, but it has been a while since I was an active member of a gym. I'm also hiring a personal trainer to work with twice a week. I'm going to get skinny while all of my pregnant friends get fat. So take that all of you. Yes, my day will come, but for now, I'm going to just focus on myself and my waistline. Perhaps by this time next year I'll have Jennifer Aniston's body. Well, probably not. We're the same height though. She probably has a smaller bone structure than me. Whatever. I'm going to look cute in a bikini. Then after that if I get pregnant, I'll have a cute pregnant body and I can wear a tight shirt that says "I ate a baby" and people will know that I'm pregnant and did not actually eat a baby. If I wore that now, people would give me dirty looks and actually believe that I ate one. When really, I didn't. I just don't exercise and I like cookies.

So, we'll see how that goes. I'm not going to talk about how I'm going to lose all this weight because that just sets me up for failure. Then in 6 months I'll have to embarrassingly admit that I haven't lost any weight, have only gone to the gym 4 times (all within the first week of my membership), and that my fat pants are tight. But I did spring for the $38/month, so it would be a huge waste of money if I didn't go a few times a week. Even if it's just to go on a machine for 30 minutes. Plus, every machine there has a built-in plasma tv with expanded basic which means I can watch any and all of my favorite tv shows instead of contemplating ways to end my own life while I'm suffering on the elliptical.

The elliptical and I have a love-hate relationship. More like a hate-hate relationship. I can't even talk about it. It hurts me from the inside out. The treadmill is worse though, truthfully. That thing is dangerous. I seriously fell off of it once. I was 21 and being trained by this Nazi named Rebecca. She was so amazing and she made me skinny. She seriously did. She put me on this diet of only apples and water and I lost like 75 pounds. So she has me running sprints on this treadmill, and then she kept it on level 8. I noticed all at once that my right shoe was untied and I was developing a shin splint. I couldn't breathe but I needed her to lower the speed. I was too disoriented to do it myself. I begged with her to make it stop and she was all, "No, keep going!!" I tried, I really did, but I ended up blacking out. I fell, hit my chin on the handlebar, then scraped my face on the belt and ripped my pants. Oh yes. I did. I ended up on my back on the floor and the treadmill was still going at level 8. There was a muscular guy with a ripped tank top and small head who stopped drinking from his BPA-free water bottle long enough to look at me and raise his eyebrows. Then he scratched his left pectoral muscle. I noticed his nipple was pierced. Then he just walked away. It was humilating.

These days, having gained all of that weight back plus some (yeah, I'm not exaggerating), I find it safer to go on the elliptical. No impact. No risk of losing control and having the machine throw me off of it. And I think I burn more calories too.

I'm NOT proud of the fact that I've gotten fat. I've always been sort of chubby but I am pretty sure this is the worst ever. I am able to talk about it because I don't totally hate myself. It's entirely within my control to change it. So I'm going to. I will not, however, take it upon myself to post pictures. Are you kidding me? My friends know what I look like. They won't judge me. They'll even go so far as to tell me I look nice. I know they mean well, and they probably are being honest. I just really don't think I look nice. A size [insert my secret size here] is not nice. And if women twice my age can look better than me, women who have had children and divorces and midlife crisis, then I can certainly look good, too. And I will.