You'll start your diet AFTER my banana bread!

Living off-campus has been great. Really, REALLY great. I love my friends I live with and after having a disaster roommate last year (I'm sure you'll hear a story or two about her on here sometime), I was ready for the move. Dorm life just wasn't for me. My coach tried to tell me that if I was on scholarship, which I am, then I had to stay on campus until I was a senior. AKA two more years. This was so the extra money could be fed back into the school to pay for my room and board instead of being given to me to pay for my off-campus expenses. I almost pulled out the waterworks then and there but decided to instead say that living on campus would be detrimental to my mental health and, therefore, impact my performance in a negative way. He bought it.

So there we were, two sophomores and a freshman, trying to navigate the real estate industry in what is know as the city of Dallas. Yeeeeeah, forget about it. We pretty much just drove up and down the streets around campus calling the phone numbers on signs that said FOR RENT or FOR LEASE. We called one property asking for the price and the lady said, "900,000 dollars." Trying not to laugh, Bag Lady (my other roommate besides Outdoors Woman) said we just wanted to rent it. The realtor asked if we went to SMU. "Yes," Bag Lady replied. "Then why don't you have one of your parents buy it? You can use it while you go to school and then they can sell it when you're done." WHY HADN'T I THOUGHT OF THAT?! Mom, Dad, please please please buy me a 900,000 dollar piece of property worth way more than your place so that I can live there and go to school for only a few hours a day and throw awesome parties in it at night. According to the realtor this was a no-brainer. My parents' brains, on the other hand, couldn't even comprehend. Ok, ok, I never even asked.

After a few more months of looking high and low for something that would fit our budget, we found it. AND I LOVE IT. It's not a regular beige-carpeting-and-ivory-wall apartment. It's a condo with a pool, grills, hammocks, palm trees, brick and stone and textured grass everywhere. Its got character. And its a steal. Something a starving college student (and I mean a real starving college student, not an SMU starving college student who likes to look like he or she is starving because it is "attractive") can afford. I've got my own balcony and its a mere three minutes drive from campus. I'm so so so so so so SO happy.

So today Outdoors Woman and I are driving to practice and I say, "That's it. I want to lose ten pounds (doesn't everyone want to lose "ten pounds" these days?) and that's what I'm going to work on this semester!" She says, "Ok, yeah I want to do it too! I want to be healthier." So we went to practice hoping to burn some major cals but all we did was sit on the erg (its an ergometer--see picture below) and think about rowing while our coach talked. Damn.

So I offered to make dinner tonight. Pasta with sauce and vegetables and chicken. A good, wholesome dinner. When I'm done making dinner and Outdoors Woman and I are just about to sit down, Bag Lady comes in with groceries from the store. We tell her that we are going to be healthier and she wants in. Then, while OW (Outdoors Woman) and I are eating, Baggie (Bag Lady) starts pulling out random things from her bags. "Do you guys like French Bread, pudding, fried chips?" "Baggie! We just told you that we are trying to eat healthier!" OW says. Baggie ignores us. "Ohh I forgot I have bad bananas. I'm going to make Banana Bread tonight!" "Baggie! We are on a diet!" OW replies. Baggie slowly turns around from putting things away in the fridge and I know something bad is coming. Like when the music starts in a scary movie and your body gets all tense and nothing bad has even happened yet and sometimes nothing bad even happens at all and its just the director trying to have a little chuckle at your expense and all of a sudden you get Charlie Horses all over your body from your muscles freaking and spazzing out and the next thing you know there is something warm and liquidy all over your hands and you were so scared that your nails cut into your skin? Yeah uh I've never had something like that happen to me either....uhhh. Well let's hypothetically say we all have experienced something like that and I almost hid under the kitchen table right before she roared: "WELL YOU CAN START YOUR DIET AFTER MY BANANA BREAD!!!!!!"

It was all over. I couldn't start my diet (I mean start being a healthier person) immediately like I had wanted to (or like I tried to tell myself I wanted to, even though I didn't believe myself). So I got some more pasta.

Ten minutes later, after Baggie had announced she was going to do homework, I tried desperately to act innocent when I asked, "So are you making that Banana Bread tonight?" She shut her bedroom door and I could hear her laughing inside.

An ergometer is a machine you use to train for rowing. I like to compare it to a treadmill for runners except you would never, ever, EVER hop on an erg by choice. It is always forced upon you.