30’s been a fun year so far… My poor Mustang was totaled, I spun on the freeway in the rain. R.I.P. Mustang…

I’m no longer a Mustang girl. Who’d’a thought I’d ever own a Volvo…

(Yeah, can you believe that’s the best picture I’ve taken so far? It’s on my to-do list…)

Maybe it was a movie that made it look cool…

Of course mine’s WAY better…’cause it’s BLACK. It's a 2012 C30 R-Design, and of course it has the Polestar Performance package (250HP…which I hear is good ;-) and Cilajet, but it also came with a fun new car payment…and like a WEEK or two later, I discover a crack in the windshiled, a few hundred dollars down the drain. Quite an expensive coulple of weeks.

And to top it all off, my bird is hurt (the one on the right):

Ever given a tiny bird antibiotics? Not. Fun. Oh and another $122, but for a good cause I suppose.

And only a quarter of the year is over. Scary. Maybe 31'll be better.

I’m not a gamer, unless lots of Solitaire and Mahjong qualify me as a “gamer,” but this fully customizable keyboard/”DX1 Input System” at ThinkGeek sure has me imagining the possibilities!  Considering all it could do, gamer or not, the price isn’t so bad either.  When a gadget says it’s compatible with “Windows XP/2000” does that mean it’s not compatible with Windows 7?  Hmmm…

I’m quite fond of this Das Keyboard Ultimate as well…very cool looking.  I can totally imagine it sitting in my Ballard Designs inspired condominium I plan to own some day…soon.  A little European style mixed with sleek gadgets from my favorite geek store.  Too bad they’re out of stock, can’t even tell if the price is reasonable.  ThinkGeek is definitely more than just a place to buy cool gadgets though.  Geekdom is a way of life.  I even enjoy just sitting down and reading the product descriptions, great for a laugh.  Sure, I laugh alone (I wasn’t exactly raised by geeks), but I always love a little geek humor. ;-)

The ProMini Wireless Keyboard is pretty darn cute, but trackpad plus “cute” means insanely inconvenient.  Give me a wireless mouse to replace that trackpad and this could be very useful.  Considering the size, the price seems a little high, but…considering the size such a LOW price could also mean a not-so-good product.

Okay, wow WOW (one wow for the gadget and another for the price).  This Optimus Maximus Keyboard is so cool, if I had a million dollars I just might buy one…but then after about two hours of playing around and watching the 113 individual OLED screens light up in every way I could imagine, I’d probably regret spending $1,600 on a KEYBOARD.  Can you believe ThinkGeek is sold out??  I wonder out of all the people who bought one, how many of those people now regret spending the money, and how many of them were purchased by Bill Gates.  Okay, so I think he probably has better things to do than watch a keyboard light up, but I’d buy one if I was him.  It looks cool, but actually typing on those keys, or should I say “mini-monitors,” probably isn’t as easy as these hollow plastic caps bouncing around on little rubber…funnels (very technical terms, I know, I apologize) that we’re used to typing on.  For that price, I probably wouldn’t use it for typing…just for watching.

Yeah, I think if I was rich, I’d blow all my…richness on gadgets that I’d regret buying later, but which I felt like I couldn’t live without…at the time, multiples upon multiples of all kinds of gadgets and gizmos…I’d be a hoarder of the latest technology…I’d have an Android phone, and an iPhone, and an iPad, and, well, the iPad is so last week, so I’d have an iPad 2 as well.  Luckily, I’m broke, and my brokeness keeps me from buying things I really know, deep down, that I can easily live without.  They’re sure fun to look at though, and those ThinkGeek product descriptions…forever entertaining.  Oh! and free!

My mother told me last week that I have to start paying for part of my therapy.  For the past week it’s been all I can think about.  I’d been trying to figure out how to ask my dad, via email, how this decision came about, if it was permanent, and if they weren’t wanting to pay for my therapy at all anymore…Needless to day, the implications were great.  I don’t have two incomes like my sister.  Just the prospect of having a mortgage on a single income is terrifying.  I don’t live in Nebraska, I live in Los Angeles, where housing prices are almost ten times greater.  A simple one bedroom condominium in a relatively safe neighborhood is around $200,000.  I could buy TWO single family homes for that in Nebraska.  I just don’t make enough to take on additional expenses, especially the $225 a month I’ve just been left with.

When I received a response from my dad I almost cried.  This was permanent, and then he felt the need to tell me how old I am, like I don’t already know, like that changes anything.  I feel like the world is ending.  I feel like all the air has been sucked out of the room, like I’m living in a vacuum.  Maybe coming up with a budget and knowing I make enough money to do this would help, but just the thought of trying to make a budget makes me feel like the walls are closing in.  I feel like there’s no way out.

I also know that although some fear and apprehension is warranted, the extent of my fear is a bit irrational.  I know this, but knowing it doesn’t help.  I’m trying to drown myself in mindless activities – games, tv, etc. – but I’m not sure it’s working.  I can only do that so many hours per day.  I do have to work and sleep and go to the dentist (ugh…the world is against me…).

To add to the chaos, I found out last month that I’m allergic to soy and citric acid, which means I pretty much can’t eat ANYTHING I usually eat or use any of the hair or skin care products I’ve stocked up on.  I LIVE off Diet Caffeine Free Coke and I can’t drink it.  It makes the palms of my hands itch.  It makes the soles of my FEET itch.  It’s ridiculous.  I can’t eat anything packaged, Lean Cuisine, Morning Star Chik’n Nuggets, Zone Bars, anything with Tomato Sauce,  Orange Juice, Yogurt…I’m a vegetarian, I’m a picky eater (it’s mostly a texture issue), I have all these off-limits foods (left over from an eating disorder), and now I have allergies.  All I have left is organic foods with no preservatives you can only find at stores like Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods, and I have to read EVERY label before I buy, a few fruits, and artichokes…the ONLY edible vegetable there is...I’m not allergic to something simple like strawberries, which are easy to avoid, but SOY and CITRIC ACID.  You wouldn’t believe all the foods that contain soy and all the hair and skincare products that contain citric acid, unless you’ve actually had to avoid them.  My skin gets red and blotchy then starts itching like crazy if I eat soy.  I get very itchy skin and eventually hives with citric acid.  Last weekend I had a craving for diet coke and I stupidly thought for a minute that there isn’t enough citric acid in some diet coke to effect me, so I bought some.  And I was miserable.  Hopefully I’ve learned my lesson.  Diet Coke is like my cigarette.  I’m used to always having one in my hand, and it’s hard to stop lol.

From my WW blog:

I'm pretty sure it's an addiction. Instead of alcohol, which would probably be more acceptable in my circle, I had to choose food, at a very early age. I snuck handfuls of granulated sugar, Kool Aid packets of flavored sugar, tiny glass bowls of brown sugar and hid them in my nightstand drawer.

All the food I ate never seemed odd or bad in any way, until I hit *** lbs my senior year of high school. The following summer, someone mentioned anorexia to me...in conversation. A month later I said good bye to my unhealthy foods, became a vegetarian, and nine months later had dropped 40 pounds and landed myself in the hospital. I wasn't yet in an "eating disordered" frame of mind, so the day I returned home, I started eating again...and eating and eating, until I had gained 30 pounds and lost my sense of self. That Christmas I sold my horse, which for my whole life, since I was 3, was my life, and the only healthy activity I enjoyed...and possibly the last.

In the months that followed I tried various diets, but all I lost was the ability to eat without anxiety. I found myself back in the hospital, desperate to be thin, no matter what the consequence. I lost weight, but in the most unhealthy ways. Over a year I gained all the weight back, got my first job, and in no time got back in the cycle of unhealthy weight loss. Life was too much.

Two & a half years later, I switched jobs, which seemed like the only option left, but I kept losing weight, kept avoiding food, kept missing out on life. Finally at my lowest weight ever, the holidays and all the food snapped me back into eating. Now, four years later, never having found the strength to stop eating, my simplified definition of bingeing, I'm at my highest weight ever.

I'm 28 now and I still live with my parents. Some days I'm grateful that I can save up to buy my first home, that I'll never have to rent, and some days I would do anything to avoid going home. But then I remember, I'm pretty sure it's an addiction, and I start to wonder if I'll eat myself out of house & home without someone always there, watching...and judging. Though all in my head, the only thing that keeps me from eating everything I have is the almost paralyzing fear that my parents are watching, in disgust, as I go back for more. When they're sleeping or on vacation, I find myself eating more, even twice as much, as when they're home and fully aware. If I don't keep snack foods in my room I start to panic and even get angry when I can't go out to the kitchen and get food in private.

I am here with the hope that someday, not too far in the future, food will no longer be my enemy, and this so-called "eating disorder" will feel less like a cancer, and more like a cold that I caught in the winter time of my life.

I can't sleep and that's not "normal" for me. I'm the type who wakes up four hours later and can't get BACK to sleep, Unisom's even stopped working for me. I can't stop thinking and worrying and driving myself nuts over the thought of buying a condo and moving out. I'm terrified and so far no one's been able to give me the slightest bit of helpful, calming advise. I've heard the "you can deduct your mortgage payments from your taxes" bit, but that doesn't tell me exactly how much more money I'll have each month. I've heard the "utilities are much less in a small condo than in a house" speech, but I have yet to see proof of that. I've heard that teachers make very little, like $45K a year and yet they can do it, but I don't make $45K. And everyone I've heard these things from either make a ton more than me or are married and have two incomes and have NEVER lived alone in their lives. Splitting everything in half doesn't make it sound so hard, but I'm not dating, I haven't the slightest idea of when I'll start or if I'll ever get married at all. Life scares me too much. I wish I could buy a condo and rent it out for just enough to cover my costs each month, then move in when I'm ready (and convinced that I'll be able to pay my electric bill). I wish so badly that I could do that, if there's a god in heaven (I'd be willing to revisit the possibility) if only someone thought that was as great an idea as I did. I'm terrified, and the more I say it the more it sounds insignificant compared to what I'm really feeling. The more time goes by the more scared I get, because eventually the tension in this house will squeeze me out and I'll have no choice but to move out or live on the street, or go crazy. I've been there, I've searched for apartments, and everything was so far out of my reach, and I had no one giving me any sound advise. Supporting me and helping me are two VERY different things when it comes down to it. Wondering if I can pay my bills and thinking about being alone, all the time, those two things scare me more than death. I'm scared of death, don't get me wrong, but I'm scared of who will take care of my animals, and whether they'll be treated well, not really of death. In the words of Stephanie Meyer: "Death is easy, life is hard." I wish someone had told me when I was 21 and starting my 1st job to start saving $500/month for a down payment, it didn't occur to me then. I'd have $42,000 saved up, PLUS INTEREST! Then consider that we would all like to retire one day, one more thing to save up for, to add to the budget, and my work doesn't contribute to a 401K like larger companies do. I'll have to set up my own retirement account and I'll be the only one adding anything to it. Life just seems too hard sometimes, especially if you're living it alone, and the people around you complain and worry out loud about their lives all day long, but you're shut down every time you try to find an ally, a f****** OPEN EAR! How is one supposed to live when every moment of every day is painful?