But I think my dad hates me sometimes. Not literally, but you know what I mean. This whole thing that he's doing with the camera, basically, not letting me buy it but not saying "yes" or "no" he also did with the whole couch situation. For the house, we didn't have a couch, and I told the girls, since they were getting appliances, that I would work on a futon for like $100. And Dad never agreed. Luckily, Mary's boyfriend had a loveseat in the basement that he didn't need. It's better than nothing, but you know. We're still working on a table and chairs, too. But anyway.

When my dad and I have these "discussions," he usually aggravates me, and gets me really angry because he just doesn't agree or disagree to anything, and I think it's ridiculous. So he gets me so angry that I start yelling at him, which doesn't get me anywhere. But then I continue to get angry, and since I'm a very emotional woman these days, I start crying, which is worse. With my father, it's always "maybe" or "we'll see". He never bothers with a "yes" or "no" because he doesn't like making promises, or so he says. Usually "maybe" for him always means "no." Yum.

So since he wants me to have all the money for the camera, I did everything I possibly could. I contacted all the people who owe me money to see what I could get out of them, and they're going to try and get me as much as possible before I leave. I had over $500 off my final paycheck at Cedar Point, but Dad took the lot of it to pay for a credit card bill that he paid for me. About $50 was leftover that he gave me towards the camera. Without telling anyone, I sold my old laptop for parts on eBay, and got about $180 out of it after I pay for shipping, which is good. That brings us up to $230. I then pulled out all the cash I had in my piggy bank, which was around $40.56. That brought the total up to $270.56. That leaves me with $9.43 that I need to be able to buy this camera for $279.99 with free shipping off eBay. (On Amazon, the cost went up to $305! It's ridiculous!)

So to make up for that last sum of money, I'm selling the Sony Reader Touch that I never used, along with a case that I never put on it and a $50 gift card that I never redeemed on eBay. I'm starting the bidding at $100 and letting it run for 3 days, so I can get that money as soon as possible. The money from the laptop should be coming soon, I hope.

Hopefully I can round up some extra cash, too, because I'm going to try to get my dad to pay $180 plus 11% tax on my hotel to go see Julio, toss in about $100 for my food then, about $100 for food during band camp and hopefully around $50 a week during the school year since I don't have a meal plan and I'm going to have to buy all of my food. I also need a few things for the house still, including groceries. I'm going to try my hardest to get a job when I get down to Akron. There's nothing more I need right now than some extra cash! (Lucky for me, I don't each much these days since the diet, so I won't have to spend ALL of my money that Dad gives me, and I can save up for some stuff!)

I also need to get Mariana's birthday present, but I might have Mom loan me some cash to do that. I'll only need like $40, some for the t-shirt (and whatever else I get) and then all the candy and the basket. Basically, I hate money. Nothing more to it than that. I wish we could pay with something else, like food. God knows we have enough of that in my house.

So there's less than two weeks now until we move into the house. Two weeks until I leave on the vacation with the Juarez family. Two weeks and a day until I see Julio. Two weeks and two days until Julio graduates. Two weeks and three days until we drive him up to his AIT and possibly go to the beach for a while. And then two weeks and four days until band camp starts. It's crazy how time is sort of flying now that it's winding down. It's kind of slow still, seeing as it didn't fly like the first bit of the summer, while at CP, but Julio wrote me in one of his letters, "Only 29 days now, babe. Then it'll be 19 and then 9 and then we'll be in each other's arms." When the countdown was at 19, I looked back and I was like, it was 29 days only 10 days ago. That's pretty ridiculous. And now we're down to fifteen days until I get to see his smiling, round, scratchy, Mexican face that I love with my whole entire heart.

Julio says this is going to be our first vacation together. I guess it sort of makes sense. But I'll only count it as that if I get a moonlit walk under the stars with him on the night of his graduation, and then if we go to the beach when we drive up to Virginia to drop him off. I'll be able to know what we're going to do and what we have time for when I get his graduation packet in the mail--he said he sent it to me because he knew that I would understand it better than his parents, who only speak Spanish, but do speak some English. Enough to converse with me, sort of. Haha.

Apparently, Julio sent me another package in the mail, too, with some long-sleeved t-shirts with hoods, or something. There's also a hoodie for his dad in it that I have to remember to take when I go to see them. Hopefully they'll fit this time--Julio bought me a t-shirt last time that says, "I ♥ my soldier" and it was a size too small. He goes, "It's for a good reason, though!" And I was sort of upset that I couldn't wear it. I really wanted to. Hopefully I'll be able to fit into a "large" sized fitted t-shirt soon.

I'm getting really anxious to see him, though. In good ways and bad ways, but I'm trying not to think the bad thoughts anymore. Just the good. About how he'll hold me and hug me and kiss me and love me in front of everyone on-post with him. I feel like the days just can't go by quick enough. I want it to be August 9 already (because I don't want to miss the move-in! Haha.) I try to sleep in as late as I can to make the days go by a little bit faster. At the beginning of the being-home part of the summer, I was sleeping in until 12pm. Now I wake up at 9, 8, even 7:30am. It's getting ridiculous. The swollen lymph node is causing a lot of the problems, though. It fucking sucks. My throat is swelling and it feels like I can't swallow a thing. Which is sort of good for the diet, since it's flourishing now.

I'm actually, finally down to 205 for the first time in a long time. I'm hoping to get under 200 by the time I go to see Julio, and now I'm thinking that it's possible. Only 6 more pounds to go, and averaging 3 pounds a week, it doesn't look like it should be too much trouble as long as I keep eating right and do some sort of exercise here and there.

Julio and I made this bet before he left, that whoever lost the most weight while he was gone would get to choose where we'd go on our first vacation. He wants to go to Montana, to visit one of the guys from his platoon, which I think would be cool, as long as we could go horseback riding! I really want to get Julio on a horse one of these days. I think it would be fun to go horseback riding with him--plus it's so romantic! But anyway. You know I want to go somewhere exotic, like the Bahamas, but we just won't have the money to do something crazy like that. So I might ask my grandparents if we could borrow the condo in Florida and stay for a week or two and just hang out down at the pool, the beach, and I could show him all of the local restaurants that I love… It would be fun. We'd drive down, though, of course.

So, Julio told me that he's lost 20 pounds already, down to 206, last I heard, sometime mid-last week. I weighed 206 yesterday, and now I'm down to 205! I've lost a total of 8 pounds since my diet actually started, and I'm halfway to beating Julio. I'm proud. I started getting crazy about it since I realised he weighed less than I did. There is no way that I want to weigh more than my boyfriend. I want to be able to sit on his lap without snapping him in half, you know?

Daily, I eat a cereal bar for breakfast, a protein shake for lunch, a substantial dinner with a dessert on some days, and then a snack or two depending on whether I'm super hungry or not. The stuff that I eat has a lot of protein and fiber in it so that I stay full longer. I've cut out pop, fast food, most sweets (but I do have the occasional piece of chocolate!), overeating, impulse eating, snacking, and eating because I'm bored. Instead, I read and drink lots of water to keep myself full. And if my body tells me I'm hungry, then I have a little, low-calorie but fiber-full snack that'll keep me satiated until I need to eat again.

I feel like Julio will be losing less weight at AIT and I know I'll be losing more during marching band season, so I think I'll be able to catch up to him. I'm so excited to win. Not only that, but I'm excited that marching band is about to start, I'm about to see and kiss and hug Julio, and I'm going to be starting my new degree. Life is getting better and better as I think about the positives. I think this diet is making me a better person, too, as is Julio being away and in the Army. I'm noticing a lot of changes about him, as well. He's respecting his life and his family and his body more than he ever did, and I'm very proud of him. This is one of the first times in his life he's been able to be told how proud the people in his life are of him, and how proud he is of himself. He's doing an incredible thing, and as much as I might dread him being away, and as much as I might dread the thought of him leaving so soon after being home, I love him and I'm proud of him and I know that he's an amazing, strong, incredible person. Not everybody could join the Army and make it through the Highlanders' BCT. He's more than I could ever ask for.

If ever there was a sweeter, more wonderful boy on the planet, I would be unaware. Julio Cesar Juarez, you're more incredible than words can explain. ♥