Hiding behind a computer screen.

| cheriarmour

I was like a junior in college when this awful, terrible invention called “Juicy Campus” made its rounds around the internet.  10 points for anyone who remembers it.

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Juicy Campus, one of the most evil concepts to hit college campuses, was an online forum, organized by college campus, which allowed folks anonymously, without logging in, to post threads on each campus’ forum, which would in turn, generate a lot of responses.  I attended Elon University, a small liberal arts school of about 4,500 students at the time, which meant that everyone was logged on, and everyone knew who was talking about whom.

As you can imagine, this modern-day burn book took off like wildfire, and no one was spared.  There was one poor kid, who was rumored to have had social problems akin to a disorder represented on the Autism spectrum,  who constantly was the source of these posts.  In another, an anonymous poster criticized a friend of mine, suggesting that she get a nose job.  And when I was juiced, it started off as a thread that stated that I was one of the hottest black girls on campus (out of all .5 of us, whoopdie-freakin-doo), and someone commented underneath that not only was I not hot, that I was annoying and asked for extensions on papers.

Cool.

Juicy Campus is long gone, I think the rumor was some folks had committed suicide due to nasty posts.  I’m not sure if that was true, but it certainly hurt a lot of folks.

Fast-forward to now, when folks are still trying to hide behind computer screens to be nasty and bully others.

In a much more innocuous, but still snarky post on a local forum, someone posted that a duo that appeared on a local news segment was “annoying.”  A completely snarky, and unconstructive critical comment.  And for what?  I pointed out on the forum that local news folks could just as easily log into the forum as we could, and that such comments could hurt their feelings.

Here’s where I come in.  I blog.  I can be funny.  I have no qualms with making it very clear that I hate local morning radio for good reason, or that I’m a huge supporter of Rock n’ Roll coming to Raleigh in April.  But I can assure you that I will be transparent, that I will never hide behind the screen and bully or beat up on others of no reason.  I’ve poked fun at Lamar Odom, Olivia Newton-John, and every single Housewife of Wherever, but I do it with this in mind.  If this person were to read it (yeah right!) would they be in tears?  And if the answer is no, I feel okay.

So I challenge you folks, when you’re commenting on Facebook or Buzzfeed posts, when you comment on local blogs, or when you comment on Perez, that you keep in mind that celebrities, huge and small, are actual people.  If you might not like to feel like crap when you read something about yourself the way that I did, you might not like it either.  Okay?

Let’s hug it out.

 

PC Time Machine

| cheriarmour

Thank you God for Austin Samples, because my girl over at Olive to Run posed this question on her Facebook page.

What is the WORST injury you’ve ever had? [running related or not]

As i described my worst injury to her, I began on a quest to find the photo that would explain the injury.

  1. First, I called my mom, who allowed me to break into her email to see if I’d sent her the photo from my Elon email, since I’d been at Elon when the injury had been incurred.
  2. Then I logged into her email.  No dice.
  3. I emailed my Dad at work.  Except Papa Cheri would not be at work til like 9am.  Okay.
  4. I tried to log into my Elon email, knowing fully well that they’d shut us out of our email like 60 days after we’d graduated.
  5. And finally, I tore through my house, looking for an old PC that I hadn’t booted up since maybe 2010.  The thanks to Austin comes in where I realized I had no cords and no mouse to use the thing.  I got all of those things, and finally booted it.

photo 1

Time machine much?

photo 2

AIM was still on the desktop.  And Marilyn was asleep in the background.

But the main event, the only reason that I booted the PC in the first place?

Knee Injury

The worst injury I ever got.  

::clears throat::

I played rugby for a short time my freshman year.  During this particular game, where my boyfriend at the time was watching from the sidelines in horror, a girl tackled me from pretty high up.  Now take a close look at my right knee without getting nauseated.  So when she did this, I heard a loud crack, and went down.  I remember the coach asking me what was wrong, and I couldn’t tell her, all I could tell her was that I was in horrible pain radiating from my right knee.  It swelled up immediately, and what ended up happening was something called a tibial tuberosity, meaning that a bone that sat at the bottom of my knee had been pulled up and off by my ACL, accounting for that crack I heard.  I spent the next, like 8 weeks in an ACL brace and on crutches, and to this day, that knee gets sore from time to time.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERASee!

Okay, enough of me walking down memory lane.

What is the worst injury, running or not running related that you’ve ever gotten?

The scam in Acuvue Contact lenses…

| cheriarmour

This is about to be a hard-hitting piece on what I feel is a grave injustice!

Okay, it’s not that serious, but it really annoyed me, and you guys tell me if you’ve had this experience.

So I’m blind as a bat.  I started wearing glasses in like 4th grade, and my vision has steadily gotten worse, even more so now that I spend the second half of my day glued to my laptop.

My only option at this point is contacts – I work out way too much for glasses, and I think I look pretty stupid in glasses.

photo 4

 

So the way it all works, is that when you order 6 months to 1 year in contacts, they tout this rebate as like, the biggest draw EVER to ordering the contacts in bulk.  Since I wear dailies, that meant that I had to order a truckload of contacts to get a $35 rebate.

So I apply for the rebate, and I’m notified that it’s going to take 10 weeks to get the rebate.  Okay, fine, whatever.  At least this time I didn’t forget about the rebate, like they were hoping I did.  I got that thing in the mail over the weekend and my “rebate” is a prepaid Citi card with $35 on it that I have to activate, and it expires in a year.  I also have to spend all $35 in one place because they charge you per transaction.  That rebate sucks.  I’m buying my contacts through Walgreens’ website next time.

photo 1

 

Moving right along…SNOW!  Actually, it was fake snow.  Here in North Carolina, we never get good snow, so on my way to the gym last night, the snow was looking pretty serious, but it was for naught.  By the time I was done with the gym around 9pm, the snow seemed to have eased up, and was replaced by a bone-chilling wind and cold.  Ugh, North Carolina, can’t we get just one good snow before the spring?  Please?!

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Once I got to the gym, I ran an easy 2 miles, and then hit the studio to take instead of teach a class with the amazing Loretta Bates.  I look like a beluga whale next to her, but she is teeny, not only around, but she’s a good half-a-foot shorter than I am.  Her class was a blast!  It’s so nice to take a class instead of teach one once in a while.

So how are you guys doing today?  Enjoying a snow day?  

I made a Facebook page! And scenes from the week!

| cheriarmour

Yous know I love my social media right?  So it only seemed fitting that I’d make a Facebook page for the blog, and folks seem to be enjoying it.  So here’s the deal, if you love me, and you’d love to interact with me a little more, do a few things for me:

  • Read the blog obviously.
  • Follow me on Bloglovin‘ if you’re a fellow blogger.  (Seriously, the most useful tool for keeping me and all my blogs organized and in one place, rather than logging on to every single blog.)
  • And follow me on my Facebook .  It’s a little more interactive, because there’s no real lag time between when you comment or ask me a question, and when you get a response, either from me, or from another informed reader.

Okay, moving right along, I hope you guys had an amazing 3-day weekend.  Usually I’m a little more service-oriented and reflective on MLK Day, but since I made a little addition to my family…

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…I spent a lot of the day doing laundry, straightening up, vacuuming, and using my degree in Psychology to train my little girl to make sure she only poops outside.  She’s doing so well!  She’s extremely clingy, and she keeps hurting Austin’s feelings, because she’s glued to me, but she could take or leave my husband-to-be.  He texted me yesterday and said “I hope Coco starts to like me more.”

photo 1

 

My shadow and I went for a run yesterday morning.  She’s very tall, and her hair is long.  Is that what I look like?

photo 2

 

GoodNESS, these Raleigh hills kicked my butt.  Look closely at the end of that road.  Mama ran ALL of that.

photo 3

 

The legs got to come out yesterday, and probably for the last time all week.  They’re predicting snow tonight.  Woo-hoo!  Raleigh never gets any good snow!

Remedy

 

And finally, look at this dinner I snagged last night!  Me and the nearly-husband met with some good friends from undergrad at the Remedy Cafe, a little joint that features a lot of local, vegan, and vegetarian items.   I went with friend “chicken” and some veg mac and cheese.  It was awesome, and I split it in half, added a salad, and brought the rest of it for lunch today.

How was your weekend?  Hope it was lovely!

I am so sick of renting.

| cheriarmour

I have horrible luck when it comes to renting.

2011, the home I lived in with my roommate and her baby was torn up by the tornadoes that ripped through Raleigh in April of 2011.

Tornado

 

That was a nightmare.  I had to find an apartment quickly at the same time that I was graduating from my Masters program.

Then there was the condo that flooded when the guy on the third floor’s washing machine exploded.

BishopsAnd all of this was after the manager of the property made me change all my gorgeous colors back.  Didn’t matter because they had to rip all the walls out!

And then there was last night.

FireSo last night, I was laying on the couch and eating some tortillas.  I started to drift off, and my last thought before I started drifting off, was “what is that smell?  I thought that the last time I lit incense was on Friday.  The next thing I knew, there was a bang at the door, and a firefighter informed me that the girls downstairs, who in enjoy smoking (not cigarettes) had caught fire to the building.  So I shoved the cat into the carrier, grabbed the dog and a phone charger, and left.

About an hour later, I was allowed back into my apartment, but suffice it to say, I am sick of renting, and the next time I see those girls, they’re getting a huge side-eye from me. 

But shoutout to the firefighter who held/snuggled my dog while I scrambled about, trying to find the cat!

 

 

So this happened…

| cheriarmour
Coco
Coco – When she came to me it was spelled Cocoa, but nah!

 

Friday at work, our intern called me, looking for a place for this pup to go.

She was living with a family who’d decided they couldn’t, or didn’t want to do it anymore, and she was going to the pound.

I couldn’t let it happen.  She’s older, and the shelter is constantly at capacity, and as far as I know, she didn’t stand a chance against the younger dogs that so many people go for.  So I contacted the co-founder of my marriage-to-be, consulted, and as a team, we decided I should take her in after discussing it with the front office at my apartment, who gave me the green light.

She’s old.  She’s scared, and pretty underweight.  I’m desperately working to get some weight on her, keep her from pooping in the house, and get her on a healthy schedule.  She’s no running dog, but I’m thrilled to have her in my life.  I know a few days ago I posted about wanting a puppy.  She may not exactly be a puppy, as far as age is concerned, but it certainly is nice to have a little girl (Coco) running around here.  Here’s to getting this girl healthy!

Forgiveness

| cheriarmour
menzies500x310
via Runner’s World

If you’re a runner, surely by now you’ve heard of Meg Menzies, the runner and mother of three from Virginia, who was struck and killed on a run earlier this week.

From the looks of things, it seems like she was doing everything right.  She was running against traffic, wasn’t running in the street, when an allegedly intoxicated driver crossed the white line and hit her.

And on Saturday, bunches of us are running our miles and dedicating them to the mother of  three, who lost her life on Monday.

It really freaked me out when I read about this and got me thinking.

A little over 2 years ago, one of my campers was killed when the driver she was riding with failed to negotiate a turn in the middle of the night.  He escaped, with a .09 BAC and a broken wrist.  She did not, and was consumed by flames when the BMW caught fire.

It really, really bothered me for months, and I went so far as to reach out to her mother, who seemed glad to talk and share about Remy, who was nothing short of a firecracker.  She loved it when I played Beyonce in class, she wore this jangly Tiffany’s bracelet all the time, and once screamed at us for making her clean her room.  So I looked up the kid who’d killed her.  And found that he was still being held in a prison in Norfolk, coincidentally, an hour from where we’d camped that summer.

I thinking of writing him.  I’m not still super angry.  Or sad.  But I do bet he doesn’t feel great in the least about what happened, and I do bet it could be interesting to talk to the guy who spent his last few moments with my girl.  I totally forgive him.  I already had when I realized he would have to spend the rest of his life thinking about how Remy had passed.  But I want him to know that.

On weight loss.

| cheriarmour

This is that time of year where Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Nutrisystem, and Hydroxycut commercials are hitting hard and heavy.  And that’s certainly not to say that all of these things are bad, I personally think that Weight Watchers is one of the best programs out there.  But with everything that’s out there, I’m sure that’s it’s really tempting to try a pill or a chew or something that you sprinkle on your food to help you out to reach your weight loss goals.  But truthfully, as someone who lamented over her weight for a looooooong time, rest assured that none of those things will work.

2010
This was me in the spring of 2010, and I think I weighed approximately 160 at my heaviest.

Then here’s me again.

2011
This is me in 2011 at about 128.

So currently, I rest comfortably around 129 lbs or so, and here’s how I did it.  There were no powders, or magic fixes.

  1. I got rid of dead weight.  Literally, and figuratively.  I started hanging out with people who were like-minded.  Instead of spending time at the bar, I started spending more time in the gym and in my bed.  Did wonders for the bod.
  2. I did a stint at fat camp.  Sorta.  I worked at Camp Pocono Trails as a fitness instructor, more specifically a Zumba instructor, and instead of sneaking my own food and going off the plan, I followed the same plan that the kids were on.  As a fitness instructor, I really would never make my clients do anything that I wouldn’t do myself, and the same went for food.
  3. I stopped counting teaching a class as a workout…
  4. And put a priority on doing my own workout in addition. 
  5. I started using measuring cups to measure my food.  Which sounds insane, but if you’re on any kind of plan like Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig, they’ll tell you the same.
  6. I started logging all my food in an app on my phone/iPod so I could make sure I was in a caloric deficit on most, not all days. 
  7. Annnnd, as I got more into the fitness aspect, I started adding a variety of fitness classes.  Yoga, lifting, I tried Barre, swimming.  

With all of this said, I can honestly say right now, since I’m not really trying to lose weight, I have pulled back a little bit on logging every morsel that goes into my mouth, with the idea that I simply want to nourish my body, rather than lose part of it.

But my gift to you?  If you want it, of course.

For the next week, I will log every morsel and every workout, and bring it to you this time next week.  I’ll critique it, cause I’m definitely not perfect, point out the good stuff, and add a few tips for those of you looking to shed a few pounds.  Who’s in?