I’ve been dog sitting for the past week for my brother’s dog. It was nice to have a furry companion for the week. She loves playing in the snow, having you throw snow balls at her and playing fetch (all day every day). 
Not so LCFH Anymore
It’s 4pm on a Saturday and I’ve spent the entire day moping around and feeling bad for myself. This shit needs to stop. I spent $23 on a lunch that made my officially not so extremely low carb anymore (sushi, nom). I’ve been thinking about this for a week now, and I’m trying not to make myself feel bad about it. Now I’m drinking a coffee light Frappuccino and focusing on positive self talk.
I’m also using myfitnesspal to make sure I don’t unintentionally eat 3000 calories, or overload on carbohydrates. I did keto/ LCHF for six and a half weeks. In three weeks I lost weight, then I didn’t lose any after that. Weeks of adjusting my meals and obsessively reading about keto and stalls brought me to a breaking point. Sure, I might try LCHF again, I believe in it to an extend but it wasn’t bringing me what it promised: weight loss, energy, less appetite, satiation.
And medically I need to watch my carbs. That’s one truth I can’t ignore. I can see it in the blood work. So going forward I’m still stumbling but I’m not giving up. I’m searching for balance that works for me.
So what are you doing about your health?
Xo
Melanie
Angels Wanna Wear My Red Shoes – Elvis Costello // kindred song challenge // song 4
One of my favorite movies is The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. I love the series so much I’m listening to the audio books right now. It reminds me of summer, friendship and freedom. I adore reading stories about groups of best friends, tight knit families and any other sort of community. I love when people – even just those in fiction – have found their tribe. This is another reason why I love Now & Then so much (see my previous post
). Even though the characters had grown apart, they come back together. This is another reason why I enjoy watching HBO’s series Girls. Even when best friends aren’t talking, there’s still remnants of that friendship beneath layers or hatred or mixed feelings. Just watch the season finale of season 5 to see what I mean.
In high school I had a lot of friends that I had met over the internet. These days it doesn’t seem as weird to go online, find a community and become part of something where you can become real life friends. This group is the perfect example of that. Online writers from all over who shared a common interest in writing and Francesca Lia Block met through an online writing workshop and bonded over Facebook and other social media sites. Back in high school I used to write in online journal type sites like LiveJournal. I became close to a few friends that I still talk to and see, if even it’s not on a consistent basis.
There was something cool about Chuck Taylor’s. There’s always been, I think. Even now I’d rather pick out Chucks to suit my personality than stuff my toes into heels. Somewhere along the line, it was decided that Red Chucks were the ultimate. I think it sparked from this song. My friend Kate used to feed me story ideas because she’d think up some world or scenario she would want to see, and I’d make it happen. This still happens to this day. Nana Sprinkles was inspired by the thoughts of Kate Jones. So at some point I wrote her a story about a boy with red Chuck Taylors and all I remember is that he lived in New York City.
Some time after that, and I’m not even sure where the inspiration came into play, but it was decided that as I was going into my freshman year of college two of my online friends – who didn’t really know each other, but had common interests and knew of each other through me – and I would share a pair of Red high top Chuck Taylor’s. Our feet sizes varied a little, but the Chucks were forgiving. We kept them for a month before passing them on, writing in a colorful journal to keep in touch that way. Miranda brought them to a Hanson concert and got them signed. Then, after my freshman year of college Hanson was on tour again and my friend Michelle’s mom somehow knew Taylor’s father-in-law (it sounds a lot more convoluted than it was). She managed to get us on the “meet and greet” for a show in New Hampshire. We were grouped with a bunch of people who won a radio station concert, and we had a chance to get something signed.
I started babbling the moment I stuck the sneaker in Zac’s hand. When the shoes were in Texas, Zac hadn’t come out so the other shoe only had Isaac and Taylor’s signatures. I was determined to fix this. Zac barely said anything to me, nodding as he signed. Then he passed the sneaker along to his brothers.
I met both Miranda and Kate because of Hanson. At this point I’d spent time with Kate, both in Massachusetts and Ohio, and I wouldn’t meet Miranda until a year later. Because of Hanson and Chuck Taylor’s, Angels Wanna Wear My Red Shoes and the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants we have this one cool thing we did back in 2003/2004. Something I often forget about, but every now and then the memory pops up. And it feels like magic.
https://g.co/kgs/yaia6
Xo Melanie
State of Melanie Kristy & A Goodbye of Sorts
You probably guessed from the title of this post, but if you haven’t I want to let you know that this will be my last blog update on melaniekristy.com. I’m going to keep the domain, possibly for author/writer type stuff in the future, but for now my blogging days at this address are over. I’ve contemplated it a lot, and I find that I just don’t have anything to write about here. I don’t have anything to say. Ex-boyfriends have this blog address (ones I’m sure are not reading anyway), I’ve shared it in the past on my personal Facebook, and I’ve come to set up ideals in my mind that don’t align with me or this blog.
It’s become an impossible task.
Please please please find me on twitter (storyshapedgirl) and instagram (storyshapedgirl), especially if you’re interested in hearing about what my next projects are.
with love
Melanie Kristy
Summer Bucket List
Yesterday was the first day of summer and I am ready to dive right into amazing weather, beach days and reading outside. The reality is I’ll probably be hiding in air-conditioned libraries, sleeping with a wet facecloth on my face and scratching mosquito bites for months. Whatever. I am hopeful. So I made a list of things I would like to do / learn / see etc before the leaves turn colors and pumpkin spice is back in season.
Learn to parallel park – we never had to learn this for our drivers test and therefore I really can’t park unless I’m pulling (or backing) straight into a space.
Climb the Pilgrim Tower in Provincetown. It’s only 116 steps but I feel like that’s a sensible fitness goal for summer
Finish the first draft of my novel. I’ve been working on it for three years. It’s about time.
Have five go-to recipes that taste amazing and are easy/ simple to make and eat.
Learn to paddle board
Take a beach yoga class, or tai chi or qi gong
This list isn’t set in stone, I may update it as the summer passes and I hope to update you as well!
What’s on your summer bucket list?
Xo
Melanie
Tulsa Time: My Favorite Band Throws An Entire Weekend Event: & I Remember
A few months ago I almost wrote an in depth confession about how I just wasn’t feeling it anymore. I almost wrote about how the new music stopped making me feel as much, how I miss the excitement, the poetry in the lyrics and feeling something. Something changed. I did. They did. We were like BFFs growing apart.
I told the Good Groupie about this, about how I felt like I was kind of losing my favorite band. There was something missing. Then I shut up about it and tried to ignore it, tried to forget. I didn’t try super hard to make the trip to Tulsa this year. I just let things be for a little while. When something that’s been part of your life for longer than it hasn’t doesn’t quite feel the same, you don’t want to dwell. You want that feeling to go away.
Then one day I felt like it was necessary that I go to Tulsa. I pleaded and worked my schedule and hoped for the time off that I wasn’t sure I could get. I booked a too expensive flight for a forty-six hour stay in Tulsa, Oklahoma for the MOE – Members Only Event that Hanson throws in their hometown every May. So I went.
And I remembered.
My time spent in Tulsa was mostly waiting. Waiting in lines, sitting in folding chairs and wondering when I was going to eat next. It was also spent dancing like crazy, wondering what I was actually witnessing and spending time with friends I barely see.
Every May In Tulsa Isaac, Taylor and Zac Hanson return to their roots and put on a concert. They play exclusive songs from yearly member-only EPs (we get 4-5 new songs a year on top of albums that are released). This year there were group photos, lectures, a “State of the Band” talk plus a movie screening and bowling (both which I didn’t attend). There’s a pop-up store and a gallery of some sort. This year there were a dance party that was reminiscent of a school dance with Taylor Hanson as our DJ.
If you want a more in-depth recap, check out If You Give A Fan A Ticket’s Hanson Day 2014 post, or these posts by The Good Groupie – Backstage Pass: Hanson Day and Hanson Day Misadventures .
It wasn’t until the beginning of Isaac’s “Underneath Naked” lecture that everything came together for me. They played a clip from a documentary called Strong Enough To Break. The documentary recounts the struggles Hanson had with their record label in the recording of their album third studio album Underneath. I can’t find the clip, but it’s about the future and Hanson and “ten years from now.” That’s the part that really got me.
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That was ten years ago. And to be sitting around with over a thousand fans, in the presence of Hanson reminded of everything. The concerts and excitement, the growing with a band, making friends just because someone shares the same favorite band, having insanely awesome friends all over the states who I met because of this band, the waiting and laughing and worrying. All the lyrics that made me cry, the poetic lines that still give me goosebumps, and all the times I stood in the middle of a crowded music venue dumbfounded by words, voices and chords.
You see, I was a fangirl before that was a word (how very hipster of me, I know. -eyeroll-). We all were. We all made up screen names that related to lyrics, fantasized about being friends with band members and stayed up too late just listening to ten second music clips. We called the Hanson Hotline, a phone number with a Tulsa area code just to hear a voice message here and there. We dreamed of moving to Tulsa because obviously it was the place where all of our dreams would come true.
They have come so far and done so much. They turn an impossible record label situation into an opportunity to fly. While their music may not hit home with me completely as it has in the past, I’ve been reminded of just how amazing they are. I’ve also been reminded of how amazingly luck I am to have a love for music that not many other people understand.
So I take back all my thoughts I admitted to almost writing about at the beginning of this post. I left Tulsa with a renewed love, sense of adventure and intense longing for a DSLR camera and a record player.
If you want to read other posts where I discusses this love, check out
Greatwoods, Concerts & Anthem
Sept 1 2014 photos
Wanderlust: Tulsa
Tell Me, Does It Move You?
Charm Bracelet of Memories
Adventures on Sunset
Still Listening
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May 2014 in Pictures
What better way to recap the month than share lovely photographs with you? That’s what I thought.
Fridays inBanking
For anyone who doesn’t already know, I work at a small community bank. Fridays in banking are like a day to conquer. They can be unpredictable and mean. The beginning of the month is particularly crazy. Everyone comes in for everything.
While I don’t particularly enjoy insanity and too much busyness, It’s nice to look back on something and think: I survived another Friday.
I like to start my Fridays off by driving out of my way to Starbucks, eating a breakfast sandwich and being around people in a different kind of busyness. It’s a change from my usual rushed smoothie wet hair mornings.
A glimpse of April in pictures
Things I Love
It’s not Thursday but I still love things. Yesterday I was tied up working on a huge paper about teen advocacy in public libraries. I love learning about this stuff, but papers are not my favorite, of course.
Also yesterday I booked a trip to Tulsa in May. I’ll be there for 46 hours, traveling for over fourteen all together but it will be worth it to see my friends and Hanson and Tulsa once more ❤
I love…
❤ April
❤ spring
❤ airports
❤ meeting internet friends (even if it's only for a few crazy hours)
❤ Boston
❤ Scrivener
❤ getting back into working on my novel
❤ Stuck In Love (& the soundtrack)
❤ sea salted chocolate
❤ salads with greens, goat cheese, berries/ craisins and nuts
❤ coconut … Oil, butter, foot cream, scented candles and of course just plain old coconuts
❤ seeking out new restaurants to try. Finding one called Fairy Cafe
<3blueberry / chocolate Burt's Bees
What do you love today??
Xo
Melanie
Melanie.Kristy 