I’m going to keep working on my weight loss goal, and also my goal to be able to jog a mile in ten minutes. Both of those are going to take me a while to achieve, but I’m aiming for Winter Break. I’m really trying to eat healthy this year and I’m going to try to make it to the gym three times a week. I may post sporadic updates, but I’m not making any promises.

                As far as my other goals go: I’m done. One of my goals was to de-clutter my room. I’m going to call this a success. There could (and probably should) have been a lot more done, but I’m happy with what I accomplished. My desk is pretty clean, and I got rid of some old clothes and purses. I’ll work on it more next summer (I always say that!). My other goal was to write 50 pages for one story. This one is a fail, but I’m not upset. I still accomplished what I set out to accomplish. I wanted to improve on my writing, and practice writing a few different styles. And I wanted to prove to myself that I could one day write a book. But, I realized that I’m not capable of writing a good book right now, but I feel strongly that in the semi-near future I will be fully prepared to write the book I’ve always wanted to write.

                So I failed most of my goals, but I’m going to keep working on them. My life is a work in progress, and I’ve got a while to get it all right.

Thank you for reading my blog!

                I guess I’m just not a fun person. I like routine and I don’t leave the house much. But today I realized that I haven’t gone swimming in over a year. I used to love swimming. But a few years ago I jumped off the end of a pier and the water was deeper than I expected and it was really windy. I get freaked out pretty easily, so when I figured out the water was way above my head and it probably would be until I reached the shore I kind of started to panic. I started thinking really bad thoughts, like I’m going to drown here in front of all these stupid tourists. And I was really, really embarrassed because I’d always been the good swimmer in the family. My dad had always wanted athletic kids, he never said so outright, but I heard the way he talked about his friends children. That was the only sport I was even kind of good at (and I wasn’t even very good, just better than my brothers for once). So having him there next to me watching me struggle and freak out and having him help me really embarrassed me. I’ve never been good at swimming since then. When I know I can’t touch the bottom I start to freak out.

                It doesn’t help that none of my bathing suits fit anymore since I went to college and gained 20 pounds. Plus, I’ve never been fond of strutting around with just patched of clothing covering me. Oh, and one more thing, large groups of people always freak me out, and the beach is usually packed on a nice summer day like today.

                But I decided that today was beach day and I was going to go swimming! My mom and I went to the dog beach (with our dog of course), and lucky for me it wasn’t packed at all! The water was even warmer than I expected! And I swam for like twenty minutes and didn’t even want to leave when we had to go. It was see freeing to be in the water. It felt like I was flying, except no worries about falling. I still won’t go out past my head, but I really had fun.

                So that was my mini-adventure for the day. My summer is just about over, but it seems that these last few days will be among the best.

                Trying on clothes has never been a particularly great experience, and today was no difference. I had plenty of those moments where I look in the mirror and just hate what I see. Finding clothes that fit right and look good is really hard. It doesn’t help that I’m 5’1, 155 pounds, and I have absolutely no fashion sense. Yes, there are those moments where I feel like the ugliest girl in the store and those when I think Have I always looked this awful? No wonder I can’t get a date! But between those self-loathing moments I was able to find a few shirts that really made me feel good and complemented my figure rather than fighting with it.

                And at the end of the night, when I’m hanging those clothes up, I feel good. I know it’s not much, but even finding one shirt out of fifty that makes me look good gives me a little hope. Not every piece of clothing is made for every person. And while at times it feels like whoever designs clothes is out to ruin me, it’s nice to know that with enough looking something great can be found. And when that perfect piece is found, I know it was worth all the searching.

                I made many strides in getting my room clean. Since that may be the only goal I actually accomplish this summer I might as well give it my all. I also did a bunch of packing and organizing. Although, it’s a bit annoying to realize that hours spent organizing don’t really equate to very much. My room looks messier than ever, but when I haul all my stuff off to college it should look great!

                I’m sure I didn’t make any progress on the scale though! How could I possibly resist hot dogs, potato salad, and strawberry pie!!! I’m not going to regret it, not for a second. Heck, it’s the end of summer. Besides, I must have burned tons of calories cleaning my room, right?

                I didn’t get anything done today. I slept late, rushed to shower, and then met up with my mom, aunt, and cousin for lunch. Sometimes it’s hard having a mom with an identical twin living only 10 minutes away, because they want to be together all the time! And, for some reason I seem to follow my mom around like I’m a little lost puppy. But it’s better than sitting in the house all day alone. Anyway, that took up a ridiculous amount of time.

                Needless to say, I didn’t really accomplish anything today. I’m not too happy with how my summer is ending. But I still have 4 full days before I go back to school, so there’s still time!

                I’ve been really busy for the past week. It seems like I have to go to a family party every week, and I spend Wednesdays with my Aunt and Grandma, and honestly I make a lot of excuses for not doing a lot of things. For example, I haven’t started packing to go back to college yet. I have to leave in like five days! What am I thinking! And, I haven’t gotten around to practicing my clarinet, and I barely exercise anymore. It seems like no matter how much or how little I do I’m always tired. My family is driving me crazy on top of everything.

                So, I’ve been under a lot of stress lately. Yesterday I had a panic attack (which sucks, incase didn’t already know that). So I’m taking one thing off of my stress plate, this blog. Don’t worry; I’m not leaving it when I’m in the final stretch (even though all of my goals are down the drain). But I’m going to forget about the past 5 days I’ve missed and if things get hectic I may have to skip a few days. But I will finish these 6 weeks! Thanks for hanging in there and reading my blog =)

                So I was very surprised when the scale stopped at 153. I’ve lost 2 pounds in about a week and I haven’t even been trying. I’m happy to be two pounds lighter, but I’m really confused. I’ve been trying to lose weight all summer. I’ve been exercising and trying to eat less but my most successful week is when I just give up on exercising?

                Despite this I am going to try to start exercising again. These next two weeks are going to be super busy, and I still can’t manage to pry myself out of bed until 10am, but I’m going to try to fit it in.

                The hair-cutting lady did exactly what I wanted, but it turned out a bit odd for my hair because I have a slightly wavy hair and my bangs always have this weird swoop. Not to mention, I’m far too lazy to straighten my hair more than once a week tops.         When I woke up this morning (Sunday) I kind of looked like I got a mullet, but I’m getting used to it.

                I feel like every time I look in the mirror I catch myself off guard and it takes me just a split second to realize I’m looking at myself. But it makes me smile every time, because I like the idea of being someone new. I hope my new hair style can inspire me to get back on track with transforming my body.

                So I sat watching videos on my laptop all night. I know, it’s not the best use of time. But it is a good distraction and it’s better than spending the whole night being mad and pissing everyone off.

                Also, I know it sounds like I’m bad mouthing my family all over the internet. But no one I know reads this blog, I won’t let them. I do that specifically because I don’t want to have to hold anything back. I don’t want to sugar-coat anything. It seems like no one ever talks about alcohol problems, but they are everywhere. I’m not going to pretend that my family’s problems don’t exist, because they play a big role in my life.

                Tonight I had a lot of fun. The house finally got quiet when everyone went to bed and I was in the mood to write! I finally wrote the ending to a story I’ve been working on for a few months. I wrote an ending about a week ago, but it just wasn’t right. So I threw it out and wrote a new one and I love it! I’m the type of person who starts writing something, gets a good beginning, and then quits and starts a new story. I rarely ever finish anything, so it was a bit of a rush. It felt like when you finish a good book and you love the ending, except it was even better because I wrote it!

                My story is only about 20 pages, so it’s not like something I’m going to try to get published. But I think it’s a step in the right direction. Now I know I actually can stick with something and finish it. I’ll continue to work on the length of my stories, because I want to be a novelist one day. Maybe in the future I’ll return to this story I just finished and I will fill it out (a lot) and fix it up. But for now I’m very happy with it and its long-awaited ending.