I don't usually like to talk too much about controversial topics, but this one is too important to me to avoid, so here goes.

The Supreme Court made marriage legal, and now the huge number of gay citizens in America have a tiny slice of rights to which they can cling. It appears to me that my fellow Christians seem to be the ones acting the least Christ-like, and spouting the most hate. This breaks my heart.

I have read the Bible front to back and, while I don't believe the entire thing, cover to cover, was zapped onto the paper of my book by God, I do believe that this book has one big old message for us all: Love each other. That's clearly put in there, repeatedly. While I may be a bit obtuse at times, even I couldn't miss that point.

Several people have posted articles saying that the gay marriage thing will open up doors for pedophile rights. Seriously? First off, pedophiles are OVERWHELMINGLY heterosexual men. I found a study that gave the number as 11:1, and this was from the U.S. Government National Institute of Health, so I'm guessing it might be fairly accurate. Secondly, pedophiles aren't adults looking to have a long-term committed relationship with another adult. They're criminal perverts who victimize children. You're comparing two things that have nothing whatsoever in common, and that just makes you look ignorant and hateful.

Nobody said you have to like it. There are still many people in this country who think the government in this country exists simply to enforce their thoughts and beliefs. But guess what? It doesn't.

All this ruling does is take a step towards giving this large group of people a tiny speck of rights you and I have enjoyed for years. These people who are just like you and me. We're all attracted to something different, and the only people who have a place to say anything about a consenting adult's bedroom behavior is that person and whoever is sharing his or her bedroom.

The GLBTQ community has been bullied, threatened and basically treated as lesser citizens. In a free country, adults should be allowed to live as they choose, without fear of violence or hatred. This isn't the case. I have seen, with my very own eyes, people whom I love and care for being mocked and verbally harassed, and I know it gets much worse than that. This is strikingly similar to the way people of color have been treated in this country (I would like to say in the past, but unfortunately that's still going on, too).

This is not seventh grade. Stop.

As so many have said, if you don't want gay marriage, don't get one. But allow your fellow humans to have the same dignities that you have been afforded. More than that, though, if you call yourself a Christian, BE LIKE CHRIST. Love your fellow people.

(Also, for those of you who consider non-heterosexuality a sin (which I most certainly do not), maybe check out your sin list....you know you're committing some good ones yourself...maybe clean that gluttony and lust up before you appoint yourself judge and jury to your fellow humans.)

I'm not telling anyone to change his or her beliefs. You can believe whatever you like, but that doesn't give you the right to be hateful. I'm just trying to remind people that the Bible is pretty darn clear about love being the most important thing of all. So do that, before anything else. And grow some manners, while you're at it.

Most of all, stop posting that ignorant, disgusting article. Geez.

Alright, I have a little rant for today. Big shocker.

Yesterday, I was waiting for an appointment, and I looked at my Facebook, and I saw that a friend had posted about her depression, and referred to it as her "cancer." Now, I'm not going to rant about that, even though I personally hate talking about illnesses on Facebook...I don't want attention for having some kind of sick. But I get that some people need to feel supported, and there's really nothing wrong with that. It's just personal preference (although I do think that referring to a disease as another disease is a bad choice, as the two are completely unrelated and depression is a legit thing all on its own).

Anyway, she posted a link to a blog post written by a young woman who was experiencing depression for the first time in her life, and she was writing about how shocking it was to her. Okay, that part was fine, and super sad. 

Then she mentioned that suicide kills 30,000 people per year, and I though, "Hmmm. That seems like less than I thought. I wonder where she got her statistics." I made a mental note to google that later, when I had some decent wifi. Then she said that that number was higher than the number killed by HIV/AIDS every year,

Yep, this is the rant. Get ready.

SERIOUSLY?!? Seriously. Where in the world did you get that? Because it's over a million a year, mostly in Africa. Did you forget about that, lady? That huge, major epidemic over there that's, like, a big big big deal? How can you try to make your illness sound more important by making stuff up? 

It made me crazy, especially because I couldn't actually comment on her blog without sounding like a jerk. I know she's suffering, and I know it's awful, but for crying out loud. JUST BECAUSE IT ISN'T HAPPENING IN AMERICA DOESN'T MEAN IT ISN'T HAPPENING.

And also, for the love of Pete, if you're going to make up stuff, make it believable. Because holy crap. 

Also also, there are over 800,000 deaths annually due to suicide, with over 40,000 last year in the U.S. alone, according to the WHO. So, big deal all on its own. Doesn't need a comparison.

Ugh. Curmudgeon alert. 

Sigh. 

Another no-carb Monday. 

More eggs with a side of eggs and some egg whites for dessert. Oh, and cottage cheese.

It stinks, because I had my birthday this past week, so cake and mac and cheese, a sister weekend, which means more cheese and also beer, and then Father's Day, which means more cake. So now I have a sugar headache and no cereal to soothe my frazzled Monday nerves. Jerks.

Okay, so my husband and I decided to do the no-carb Monday thing so I guess we're the jerks, but still. I hate us right now.

It is also 75 degrees in my house, which does not help. I really like to be cold when I am obsessing about cereal, and how much weight I will gain if I eat even one spoonful.

Ah, well.

In two weeks, it will be my husband's birthday, so more cake and happy time.

Still sick of summer.

And eggs.

Bleck. Monday.

Aaaaaaaaaand it's already Friday. Holy crap, this week was bananas. What with my birthday and all, I didn't even notice that day wa creeping up.

But it did. Thank goodness.

My birthday was super awesome and I took off from my diet, which I really enjoyed. That's probably also the reason I had my first bad weigh in since starting the high protein thing. Yep, I gained seven-tenths of a pound, which doesn't sound like much until I think about how hard it is to lose that much. It means this last week was a loss, next week, wherein I will try to lose that weight, will be a loss, and then the next week will be my first back on track.

Argh.

Oh, well. At least I got to have my mac and cheese.

On to next week.

It's been a while since my last post, because I have been out camping in my newish pop-up and generally having an awesome time. Deal with it. At least now I have some stories, starting with this one, entitled: Instruction Manuals Are There For A Reason!

Yep, they are.

At any rate, we were out in nature, having a super duper time, when I stepped on the bathmat by where the shower/toilet compartment is, and I noticed it was really, really wet. No one had had a shower for quite some time, so I was a wee bit concerned.

For those of you who have never had the privilege of being in a pop-up with a shower/toilet combo, this is what it looks like. Whose idea was it to put the poop area in where people shower? Gross.

Anyway, ours looks kind of like that, but backwards. But it's that clean, because I wipe that bad boy down after every use. Poop kills.

Anyway, the rug by the area was soaked. Massively. After talking me down, because I was convinced that poo water was all over the floor, and, consequently, all over my foot, my husband removed the rug, I went to town with the sanitizing wipes, and we took a look at the problem.

We discovered that we had been making an error in the way we'd been using the toilet.

I KNOW. SO GROSS.

It turns out that, unlike our old port-a-potty, where you needed to fill the toilet with liquid after flushing, with the thing closed, to keep stink from coming out, this one requires you to only run water when the thing is open, to flush stuff into the tank. No standing water in the bowl, because it will cause leaks.

Said it right in the instruction manual, too, which I must've read fifty times because the cassette thingy on it is complicated and we had trouble during setup.

So, yep. Water that was in the bowl where someone pooped could potentially leak out.

I LOST MY MIND.

We threw out the mat, re-sanitized every flipping surface in the camper, and I cried a little. Okay, a lot.

Then we discovered that the leakage had only occurred a little on top of the cassette. Outside of the camper, and not where any of it got in the camper.

Yep, the leakage on the floor was because some water had been draining off of the shower curtain and had just pooled in that one place on the mat. Figured it out because it happened again the next time we used the shower and my husband happened to catch it right away.

So no poo water.

All that freak out for nothing.

Oh, well. If I hadn't had that to freak out about, it would've just been something else.

Okay, there were other things, but I'll save them for later. I'm tired just from thinking about all of that sanitizing. Happy Monday!

I am totally annoying right now, but I just have to be. Why? Because I just did my eleventh weigh-in in a row with a loss from the week before.

Eleven good weigh-ins. Holy crap.

Yes, some of them were less than a pound, and the overall total is only about 13 pounds, but after three years with no results, this is pretty darn cool. 

I just looked back at the last year and a half, and realized that I have never, in all of the time I've been using software to track this (and even before that, as I recall), had more than three weigh-ins in a row with a loss. So wow.

Aaaaaaand we end the week on a high note. Huzzah!

Well, I failed. Yet again. At growing out my hair.

I'm actually really okay with it, because my hair was starting to look like this. Seriously:

from vettri.net

Yep. All the way. I think sometimes I just need to grow it out because when it's really short, it looks all healthy and nice. Sometimes even a little shiny, and I DO NOT have shiny hair. Refer to the above picture for my hair's actual shininess. It is dull and brittle and it breaks easily and I think it's also kind of itchy.

Hair is super itchy.

When you add in the fact that after close to eight months of growing, I still had less than three inches of hair, you get an idea of the pace at which my hair grows. 

It's real, real slow and I just don't have time to wait.

Wait for what? To get to ponytail stage. Because isn't that the real goal? My hair has two decent lengths: Really short and really long. All other lengths are ridiculous, because my hair has to be a certain length to be heavy enough to pull down and settle into curls and not just stick straight up (see above).

Really. It wants to stick straight up. This morning when I woke up, even with my super short cut, it was a full-on mohawk.

It was kind of awesome, but I have to go into work, so I'll be toning that down in a bit.

So, anyway, I feel like every year or so, I need to try growing out my hair, because I forget what my hair looks like, and I get deceived by other people's hair into thinking that mine will look super nice longer, as well.

That is a lie. It will still look just like my hair.

But I know I'll probably forget and try again. Maybe next time, I'll read my own blog and remember and save myself some time.

Ha ha ha ha ha. Not going to happen.

On our drive home from Denver yesterday, my Dad and I witnessed a rare sight: A non-Spanish speaking guy in a Taco Bell, attempting to order in Spanish.

Now, you might think this might not be a problem, because it's Mexican food. The names of all of the stuff are already in Spanish. Turns out that's not so. Also, the cashier was not a Spanish speaker, as was evident when she said, "Welcome to Taco Bell. May I take your order?"

We're happily sitting at our booth, because it is, after all, Taco Bell, and this guy walks up to the counter and, after the lady has given him her customary English Taco Bell greeting, the guy says (in a very, very, very, very bad accent), "Hola! Por favor, yo necesito una frijole burrito no queso." 

I spelled it as close as I could to give you the full experience. It was truly awful.

The lady says, "What?"

The guy says "Yo necesito una frijole burrito no queso."

The lady (who, mind you is an older lady with white hair, and has already greeted the guy in English with a very heavy Texas accent, so he's got to know he's dealing with someone who speaks English) says, "I'm sorry, sir, but I don't speak Spanish."

So then the guy embarrassedly orders in English.

Why would anyone try to order in Spanish at a Taco Bell, especially when he could plainly hear from her greeting that the cashier didn't speak Spanish?

Is it just that Taco Bell brings out his Spanish side and he really, really needs to?

Or maybe he's a moron.

I don't know, but it made me giggle all the rest of the way home. Also, who orders bean burritos with no cheese? That's just crazy talk.