34lbs lighter and really grumpy.

December, Saturday Market. Portland's homeless
find creative ways to tug at the heartstrings.

So it’s been a while since I’ve talked about weight. And that’s because I was plateauing again for months, vacillating between 29 and 30lbs from the end of August all the way to December—so there wasn’t much to talk about. After the holidays, I finally began to see movement again. I have now lost a total of 34lbs as of this morning. It’s good to see movement again. My husband suspects that the Lupron and the Clomid might have had something to do with my weight not moving at all, who knows? I’m just relieved it’s happening again. If it was the fertility stuff, I suppose my renewed weight loss is a positive consequence of being ‘cut off’ of the fertility stuff by my doctor (I’ll elaborate upon this later). The fact that I’ve plateaued for months doesn’t mean I was going to give up—I wasn’t gaining weight during those months, but I *was* definitely was getting annoyed with my husband hitting 55lbs lost. He’s the incredibly shrinking man.

We were both exposed this weekend to the typical defensive attitude towards our weight loss, which really fired me up. A friend of ours, who has been struggling with his weight these past four years, made a comment upon seeing the incredible shrinking man, and basically told us that our efforts will inevitably fail. Wow. Thanks a lot d-bag. He then proceeded to give us advice on how to better lose weight. Looking at his unchanging weight, I was dubious at best. The whole thing sent me into a Facebook rampage. It’s annoying when the people you care about are not supportive, even though they somehow think they are being so.

Every time I post something about diet on Facebook, there’s this woman who invariably will go on some windy litany about the types of food she eats and how much they’ve helped her and blah blah blah. No offense but I don’t care! We’re doing Weight Watchers, it’s working for us, we’ve lost almost 90 lbs between both of us, shut up! We get all this unsolicited advice on diets that supposedly make you lose weight faster and blah-de-freakin’-blah... We are not interested in hearing about trend diets that don’t work. No carb diets, Atkins diet, gluten-free diet... There’s no long-term habit-changing on these deprivation diets, just momentary results that, if you stop or change, will go away and bring you more weight back in the end. Don’t tell me you skip a meal, or eat only a little bit and claim you’re losing weight, that’s just plain stupid. Nothing makes a body hoard fat more than depriving it of food when it needs it to function. Starvation mode is not dieting, and it doesn’t work for weight loss, except for maybe for anorexics—but that could ultimately result in lovely extras, like binging and barfing and sometimes a sad, rickety, always-cold, hairy body death. Oh, and death-campers and Ethiopians--starvation works for them too.


This is what weekends usually look like at home. I'm under all that.

Keeping track of what goes into your mouth every day is a good way to put your diet into perspective. Try it for a few days. Write EVERYTHING you eat down. Trust me, it’s mind boggling if you’re 100% honest with yourself and you don’t change your diet for the duration. It’s amazing, now that I look back on the last twenty years, how much I deluded myself about how much and how badly I actually ate each day. I would skip meals, pick at my food for one meal, and then gorge on another, and it all equaled out to BAD, although somehow my brain was really great about fooling me about exactly how much I was actually eating, and what horrid foods I was eating. My god, the justifications too! Thinking I was eating healthy when I was eating all the wrong things—eating a healthy meal but then eating ice cream (OMG so, so bad) or a chocolate bar, drinking lattés every day. It’s a recipe for disaster. I see it now. Don’t try to convince me, now that I’m losing weight, that there’s a better way. This way works, and I’m sorry to say, contrary to your statements Mr. D-bag, that it works for EVERYONE. Hundreds of thousands of people who stick with this program lose tons of weight and keep it off. Hundreds of thousands! The only people who are failing in my husband’s WW group are people who gave up and didn’t stick with the program, the people who always make excuses and lose no weight, or the people whose family and friends are not supportive at all, exposing them to bad foods daily, and enabling them to fail at every turn. D-bag’s attitude is, well, I don’t want to stop doing what’s easy and comfortable—but I don’t want it work for you either 'cause then I'd have no excuse, so I’m going to sabotage you as best I can and try to undermine you. Some friend. D-bag! ::argh!::

Portland's usual overreaction about a few inches of snow. This was last week
There was no snow on the ground, yet there was the reporter, preaching doom & gloom.

Anyway, other than that diatribe, nothing much else has been going on. I’ve been ‘cut-off’ on my fertility meds by my OB/GYN. So that’s the end of that. ::sigh:: I can’t afford a specialist so we will probably be a childless couple, since we are apparently not good enough to adopt from the state either. I’ve been pretty upset about the whole deal, but dealing with it. There’ve been lots of distractions at work to keep me from really getting mired in the whole ‘wah-wah-call-me-a-wahmbulance’ part. The whole thing is exhausting so I’m kind of relieved that I will no longer have to be poked and prodded anymore or put through an emotional wringer for no good reason. This whole odyssey has been such an exercise in wretchedness. Feeling like less of a woman for being unable to conceive, the devastating monthly disappointments over and over, and not being able to stop hoping every time, a day or two late, and I’m looking at cribs at IKEA... then bam... surprise, no baby for you ::said in soup Nazi voice:: The adoption process gave us such hope, only to dash them in one ten-minute home-study with a case-worker who obviously couldn’t give a bigger f**k anymore about her job. She is the honeybadger of caseworkers.

Oh well, at least the crafts and storage can stay in the spare room for the time being.

Our septic tank has been abandoned and in its place is the costly bottomless sand-filter that has completely changed the landscape of our back yard, and removed all of our shade trees, not to mention the cute river-stone retaining wall and my giant, beautiful ferns. BOO! The garage now must be entered from another direction, and next to it, where the driveway used to be is a big raised pillow of sand the size of an in-ground pool. We tried to salvage some of our other trees, and replanted them, but honestly, the cedar and Special Ed (the Christmas Tree) are not looking too pleased by the whole upheaval. And Sherry, my co-worker was talking about how backhoes can often compress soil around roots and kill trees, so I’m watching the maples closely to see if the backhoe murdered any more trees. Our backyard looks like the trenches of WWI. It’s disheartening.


This is Dan screwing in the new ply on the floor.
That is Simon, 'helping'.

We also redid our bathroom. Our toilet started sinking into the floor because of a gasket leak that had been surreptitiously going on for a long time, eating through two layers of ply (but not eating the subfloor thank God). Hubby tore it all out, we had to huck the sink console and the toilet and we redid everything. Of course it’s not perfect and that hideous bath is still there (I want a nice corner stand-up shower unit) but it’s a start.

That’s what we’ve been doing. I have hardly seen my horse at all this past month. I’m a bad mommy. I’m going to try and get some riding time in tonight. I could use the therapeutic effects being around my horse provides. Ai ai. Anyway... that’s it for today.

Talk about incentive, huh?



Miss Pomme-de-FatAss

My dressage saddle had been languishing at a consignment shop in North Portland for months. Nobody is spending money, and I’m sure if I’d put it on ebay I would not get at all what the saddle is worth. It’s a good saddle. But my butt has grown too voluminous for it (it’s already too big for my all-purpose saddle) and it’s time I got rid of it. I don’t compete anymore, nor do I bother with the mussy fuss of dressage anymore (I’d probably get kicked out of competition anyway ‘cause I’m too fat!).

Yeah, I’m on a ‘I hate me’ bender. I’ve been vacillating between 24 and 27 lbs lost for four weeks straight, in spite of following the rules food-wise. Really irritating. And here I was thinking, hey, I’m doing great, I’m losing weight... until YESTERDAY. Yesterday, a pile of us from the barn threw our horses into a little convoy of trailers and went up to a park where we could do some trail riding. While I waited for the slower folks to get ready, Tag and I decided to take a nice little walk around the large arena they have set up there. Unfortunately for me, one of the rider’s mom had a camera and she took a picture of me.

I confess, this picture has been the cause of one of my worst cases of demoralization I have had yet. I look like a potato. I feel like I haven’t made any progress at all! I have a huge double chin, my thighs are HUGE and I’m so wide!!! On top of that, a lady asked me what kind of saddle I had, and when I told her, she told me it was too small for me. I’ve had this saddle for over 20 years. Yeah, my ass has expanded significantly since I got it, but it still felt like she punched her fist through my chest and ripped my heart out. OF COURSE IT’S SMALL... MY BUTT IS GIGANTIC! ::facepalm::

Of course, I saw that picture after the trail ride, so I managed to have a decent time regardless, and at least Tag looked handsome. As usual, he was complimented by so many passers-by. He’s my baby boo. I’m sorry he has to haul my massiveness around sometimes, even if he is strong enough to carry three of me—I still feel bad.

L-R: Nicole walking her horse like a big dog, Cozy, Emily, Danielle and...
Um.. Nicole's mom (always forget her name)

Anyway... So this really serendipitous opportunity came up. I was googling around and found a wide-tree sidesaddle with a largish seat (for Mrs. Potato), and the asking price was exactly what I am asking for my dressage saddle. So I ventured a risk and asked the seller if she would be willing to trade for another saddle of the same value.

She asked me quickly what kind of saddle, and I told her a nice black German dressage saddle, and I could almost hear her squees across the country. So the deal was made and our saddles are wending their way across the country to one another. I’ll still need to buy a balancing girth, and Tag doesn’t know squat about crop-aids, but since I’m so damned fat, and my legs won’t fit into the saddle yet anyway, it will give me time to get my ‘kit’ together and to start planning for the habit and whatnot.

It’s been twenty years since I’ve ridden sidesaddle. This is going to be interesting. ::Hah::  Anyway.. a horsey update.

Potato-woman.

Wrinkled.

I prefer to face my double-chin away from the camera.

This weekend, out of curiosity, I decided to try on my ‘jolly’ green gown. This is the first gown I ever draped. I did it on my ‘duct tape double’ that I made. Although it remains one my favourite gowns, I don’t wear it too much. As you can see, it’s pretty wrinkly, but I just yanked it off its hanger and put it on sans shift or petticoat. I just wanted to see how differently it would fit me with 23 pounds lost. The only problem is one I already anticipated and was aware of and that is my newly sewn stays; they have gotten almost too small. They close all the way and the sides lace together and touch with very little effort. I hope they’ll last through the Pittock Mansion picnic because I don’t want to make new ones for a bit, at least until it’s closer to October and also, December.

The construction process.

I’m still a .. um... plus-sized girl, no argument there, but I noticed two marked things when I put the gown on. 1) the sleeves weren’t quite as sausaged as they used to be and 2) the tightness across the back is completely gone. In fact, there’s even room for a bit of a ripple there in that picture. If only my neck ‘hump’ would go away, but daddy had one too and his never did. ::yurgh:: The really cool thing is that the gown is a Bib-front, and I’ve put this gown on someone who’s no more than a 12/14, and it fit her (except for her lack of stays made her a tad droopier than she should have been)—so that means I don’t have to get rid of this dress for some time, I can still iron it up for the retreat and save myself having to sew too many gowns.

The hat is my new hat acquired from JAS Townsend. I shaped it and beribboned it and added a little white feather for interest. I have shoes in that very same blue. Those, with my stockings, and my soon-to-be-made pantalettes, petticoat and shift will go with my new white gown to the Pittock Picnic this year. It’s the first time in a very long time where I’ve felt this excited about a costume event. Besides, I get to hang with my homettes, which is always good for the spirit. To top it off, I may be assisting in the construction of a tiny gown for a nine-year-old this weekend, which is very exciting.  My dearest BFF S-II has found herself a Beau who came packaged with a couple of free little munchkinettes that she gets to sew for now, which makes me so green with envy! I want to have a little girl so I can make this:

And this:

Precious!!!!

The WeightWatchers front: My weigh-in day is on Tuesdays to today’s weight loss is still at 23. Maybe I’ll have progress for the next post, who knows? I was still at 23 yesterday, but barely, almost rolling into 24. We’ll see what the next 24 hours bring.

I’m off the Lupron officially today. I’ve been jabbed with a dose of Progesterone (which still stings, damnit!) to get my girly cogs and gears kick-started and given a double-dose of Clomid. I would like to do a shout-out to my DO, Dr. Nancy Kahaner and her wonderful staff Sue and Talana... this is the best DO I’ve ever had. If you are near Sellwood/SE Portland and really want someone wonderful and trustworthy and thoughtful, I strongly recommend her. Seriously.

Sue, her nurse is also an author, so we have a lot to chitty chat about whenever I go there. It’s a tiny office, they remember your name, they treat you wonderfully, and they watch your kid while you’re in the exam room. They are good ladies, and it’s the kind of doctor’s office a small-towner like me can appreciate. I like a personal relationship with anyone who is dealing with the equipment south of the equator, let alone being in charge of my health in general.

Aaaaaaaaannnyyyway.....

The horns and gnashing teeth usually retract on beach-days.

I took Satan out this weekend. It was ostensibly for her to visit my brother; who she never asks about when in my presence, but when in the company of others; she accuses me of never taking her to see him. ::Eyeroll:: The last two times I took her, she spent less than ten minutes there before she was ready to go. This time, my brother was dead-to-the-world asleep on his chair, and my mother stayed much longer than usual (a full half-hour), taking this time to profess a litany of her tremendous parenting skills to the caregiver—telling stories that she had blatantly pulled right out of her ass. She told some outrageous lies that I had to bite my tongue to keep from either laughing or just flat out correcting her. Her primary aim on Saturday was to go spend money willy-nilly at a local nursery, Fabric Depot and at Ross. So as soon as we left, that’s where she pressed me to go. I usually do not buckle to this, and take her to see John only, but Dan was downtown slinging burgers for a charity barbecue and I figured what the hell. I took the old lady shopping.

The woman will buy anything; and she will buy it faster and in multitudes if it’s on sale. I kept having to make her put stuff down. “Mom, do you even use those? Mom, don’t you already have some of those? Mom, So-and-So doesn’t need that... Mom, that’s really ugly. Mom, no, I don’t want that, do you even *know* my tastes? That’s awful. Mom, I don’t need that, we live in a tiny house. Mom, are you sure you need that?” There is no wonder her house had turned into something like those houses on that hoarding show, and I have always had a clear image of where my father’s hard-earned money went. It was piled in store-bags with receipt still with them in her trunk, crammed in closets, left in the corner of bedrooms. My mother shops recreationally. She shops for the rush. And since she’s stopped drinking and smoking, it’s compounded into a serious issue. She dropped $300 on Saturday IN SPITE of my efforts to diminish her unadulterated spendathon. If I hadn’t intervened, it would have easily been a grand. I’m not kidding. By the time I dropped her off at the assisted living facility, I was emotionally (and physically) spent.

Being around my mother is such an exercise in restraint these days. Having to sit there and listen to her spew all the lies, the delusions, direct accusations and bitterness, the showers of praise for someone who hurt me very badly as a child, to listen to her vilify one daughter, and try to say things that one might have said in order to get me angry at them. We’re all so programmed to this sort of duplicitous and manipulative behavior that it’s hard to just sweep it under the carpet, it’s hard not to wonder just *what* sisters did say. I have to sit there and listen to her verbal assault about how horrible we all are for not wanting her living with us (I’m sorry, I don’t really want to live in a garbage dump, thankyouverymuch). She’s super angry right now because cowgirl sister is moving to eastern Oregon next month and she didn’t make any arrangements for mom to move in with her... HOW DARE SHE, THAT SELFISH GIRL! ::hahahahahaha::

It’s always astounding, even if we all know her all too well, that she does not see even in the remotest way, how she could be repugnant to us, after all her abuse, her manipulations, her neglect and her lies. She cannot see past her own nose as to why we would in any way be angry with our mother. She is in her own eyes, a saint. A martyr. She’s thrown herself to the wolves for us. My husband knows my childhood very well, and when we were in the Certification for Foster/Adoptive Parents training, he listened to all the reasons kids were taken from their parents and put into foster care, and he turned to me one of those nights and said: “It’s amazing that you guys never got taken away from your parents.” That’s the thing; some folks just hide it better than others. Some folks just never draw the necessary attention; and when the school counselors came to me, and tried to pry the truth out of me time and time again, I wouldn’t trust them to do anything they promised to do, because all my life the adults who were *supposed* to look out for me failed again and again to do so. So when Dr. Derrell sat me down and promised to help me, I never, ever gave him what he wanted; and that was the truth of my family situation. He was an untrustworthy, lying, neglectful adult after all. All I had to rely upon as a kid was me.

All those things come back to me as I drive alone with Satan prattling away beside me. She talks about the past as seen through her cartoon lenses, where she sees a world where she flew about with a cape and saved everyone from themselves, where she threw herself into burning volcanoes for us. Walking through Ross, I mentioned this one time when she did do something mom-like, it was one of the few fond memories I ever had of my childhood, and she said: “I used to be your hero. I don’t know what happened...?” I didn’t reply, because glancing at her watery, angry little eyes, the frown lines her bitterness has burned into her face, I could only feel sorry for someone who’d dug herself such a deep, dark hole with her family, and who could not even begin to see why nobody wants to pull her out of it.

Charge! Office Special & Updates

CHARGE! I guess I'm in a 'little girl and her monster phase'. :)

Well, we made it through the month of June. We have our certificate of completion for this first round of training and we now have to set up exams with our doctor and our references need to fill out the forms. We’re on our way. It might be some time before we’re even considered for a foster-placement for possible adoption, let alone be accepted into the program. We’ll see.


In the meantime (extremely girly and maybe even TMI to follow, so read forward with caution), I’ve been told that the Lupron seems to be working fairly well to rid me of my endometriosis, so I may get a reprieve. After my ultrasound yesterday, it looks like the bits & pieces within have gone back to some semblance of normal thanks to these meds, so the doc thinks it might not be necessary to subject me (and those near me) to three more months of Lupron. Although I must confess, having a three-month sabbatical from the discomfort and all around unpleasantness of the monthly cycle has been nice, and I’m not looking forward to that bit coming back. ::boo!:: I may be taken off the six-month program mid-through, and given a higher dose of clomid, we are going to try again one more time.

Other than that, there’s nothing much new going on. I’m still stitching away at my new gown. Here’s a small preview:

There should be a 12-step program for pleating addicts.

I know, it’s not much. Oh well!

I missed the beach trip with the horse. Thanks to the workshops and my job. Which sucks. I was hoping to be able to do that this year. I may be able to go to Timothy Lake, which is up on Mount Hood with some of the barn folks, which I suppose is some consolation. I had a really nice ride with Tag last weekend. We went out to the outdoor arena. Ever since Tag’s fall (that first one we had long ago) when he slipped on the wet footing and his whole front half went down, Tag has been reluctant to canter in the indoor arena. I really have to push him to move indoors. It’s narrow in there, especially for a boy his size. He does so with care on the longe, but he just doesn’t like it very much. So we went outside in the arena, which is easily double the width of the indoor arena, and I ‘opened him up’ so to speak. I let him canter and gallop until he didn’t want to anymore. He ran with his ears perked forward and with a happy snort. He kicked it up on the long-sides and then leaned in on his turns, giving me a teeny buck of delight twice along the way. Boy was I sore after that, but then we trotted it out, and then walked off his sweat. He was so happy. I can’t remember the last time I had a good gallop. I was hoping to let him do that on the beach, but oh well. That’s what it is all about (besides the grooming and bullsh*tting with friends at the barn of course). There is nothing like it in the world. I walked away with an afterglow. Heh heh!

Hood strawbs. Y.. U...double M.

Before we hit the stable that day, we stopped at a local farm-stand and picked up some fresh hood strawberries grown locally. They look teeny but golly-geez-pancakes those strawberries are SO GOOD. They are sweet and heavenly. We decimated the two little cartons before we even reached the barn, leaving a trail of little strawberry stems on 224 all along the way.

I’m giving a dance workshop at the Sandy Community Center on Sunday from 1-4, so if you’re in town and are curious about English Country Dance, it’s only $5, no costumes required. Comfy shoes and clothes’ll do well enough. Bring a water for yourself of course. I am not qualified to do anything more than a beginner’s workshop, so if you’re looking for amazing stuff, you’ll have to find the local dance groups, which I have provided links to on the ORS events page.

That’s my catch-up post for today. I’m working on an extensive post about the construction of my newest gown, but I need to finish it (of course, it has no sleeves yet, and it needs hemmed as well, but I will post it here once I have all my drawings done etc.

Have a lovely week! I’ll hopefully have something more interesting to talk about soon, rather than listing my rather un-extraordinary goings-on.

Oh, and I am at 23lbs this week.

HC

Passing a milestone and some general grumbling.

Well, we made it through the July 4th weekend largely unscathed, except for an acute case of the grumpies from being kept up late last night by our idiot neighbour kids behind our property setting off M80s and M100s well past eleven. It was like we were in Kabul. One of these nights, I’m going to get up at 3 AM, go out to the Prius, stealth it all the way around to the road behind us, pull up to the house that’s 90% of the time responsible for all the noise, and just lay on my horn until every light goes on. Then I’ll stealth away back to bed. Maybe I’ll do it a few nights in a row at varying hours (but always very late hours) just to be evil. I’ll also be sure to do it during the school year. Little jerks. When not setting off fireworks, they’re tearing up the road and our peace and quiet with their piece of junk dirt bikes, or screaming like howler monkeys in their back yard late into the night. I’m not sure if there are actual parents present, they could be hog-tied in the basement for all I know for all the supervision those kids get. I feel like such a curmudgeon, but gawd! I just want a quiet weekend after spending all week driving through a sea of idiots to my job. Peace and quiet!

At least there were no questionable renters next door. We had a quiet lady who had two quiet, well behaved dogs. Monday, I set up the little round picnic table on the porch, opened up the small parasol and the two matching director’s chairs. I pulled my dress-form Mathilda off her stand and carried her out there and sat her in the other chair. I took a bottle of cold sparkling water (my favourite beverage), my laptop, which was immediately turned on and navigated to Netflix to watch the Stargate Universe second season. I brought my Ginghers, a spool of white cotton thread, my needle, my jar of pins and I scooted Mathilda over in her chair and started stitching. I’ll be posting a project description, but honestly, I haven’t been taking progress pictures so I’ll have to rely on finished product pictures and drawings. Suffice it to say, it was A LOT of stitching. You’ll know why it was so much soon.

All the while, I was being harassed by demanding and territorial squirrels, baby stellars jays that seemed to enjoy making dorky-sounding noises at me, band-tailed pigeons that accumulated in huge numbers when I was quietly stitching away, but would explode into the air en masse if I leaned back to stretch my back or stood up to go to the bathroom or whatnot, and the cat, who seemed happy to just wind around my feet and pace along the bench beside me until I shooed him. He then curled up on the bench in a spot of sun and left me be on the most part. All of this was intermittently punctuated by what sounded like mortars and grenades going off here and there, with the occasional crackle of a less destructive firework. I told my husband that we could easily get away with shooting out random tires or windows out with the shotgun because people would think the blasts were M100s going off. I still think we missed an excellent opportunity to go on a wanton destructive shooting spree, obliterating other people’s property. I’m just saying. We’ll have to keep that in mind for next year. ::kidding::.

Gross.

Weight watchers wise: These past two weeks I was annoyed that I was unable to breach the 20lb mark, it’s a milestone you know? I idled at 19lbs for several days and then I weighed myself on July 4 and today and lo and behold, I was at the 22 pound mark. Just like that. Go figure. I hopped over the milestone and went for something lighter I guess. Yay! HOWEVER, Dan took pics of me riding bareback on Tag on Sunday, and suffice it to say, I do not *look* 22 pounds lighter—but the scale can’t be lying to me. It’s just hard for me to see it. I see it in my husband though. He’s shrinking into his clothes like he got hit by some shrink-a-tron ray or something. Me... not so much. I’m down two sizes, my bras are getting looser and less effective and my pants keep sliding down my derriere. I’m losing about 1.3lbs a week. Only a gazillion more pounds to go I guess. ::groan::. I just wonder how come staying at a healthy weight was so easy when I lived overseas? I ate like a horse! If you’ve ever been to Belgium well... The Friteries! Hello! I used to eat those at least once a week, a huge pack full of huge fries with mayo! No weight gain! I move to the US, and PPFFFFT I blow up like a pufferfish, and have had a hell of a time with it since. First the depression weight gain, then quitting smoking (am in my tenth year btw sans smokes) was a killer, added at least 20 lbs... and the Atkins diet where I lost so much weight super-quickly.. that diet was just a terrible mistake. I gained it all back with more pounds to boot for my effort – not to mention just how unhealthy the rest of me felt from all that protein. ::facepalm:: I just want to look at a picture of myself and not detest what I see. Whenever I start feeling good about the progress I make on this diet, I’m reminded that it’s not moving fast and that changes are not coming quickly enough. It’s so disheartening! People say they see it but I think they’re just being nice. I don’t see it at all.

But hey, maybe I’m just being too hard on myself. What else is new? At least I’m losing weight. I was recently told that the reason why it’s harder for some folks to lose weight is that some people are just meant to be a certain weight. I don’t buy that. If I buy into it, what am I consigning myself to a lifetime of feeling unhappy with how I look and feel, and I’ve experienced life as a person of average size, and it’s so much better than this. But mostly it’s the sense of inevitability. A few years ago, my husband’s favourite aunt went out to the chicken house to feed the layers, and she never made it back inside. She was 52 years old and she fell over onto the henhouse floor and died of a myocardial infarction. At age 52.

I don’t want to die at 52. Hubby doesn’t want to die at 52. An early death... it seems a lot to give up for the momentary pleasure and comfort of something as transient as food (or booze, or whatever damaging thing that can kill you if taken in excess). It’s just not worth it. Even if I failed and gained all the weight back, I can know I tried, and I’ll also know that it’s in my power to change the way I feel about myself. I just need to discipline myself and do it. And god knows the good intentions of the people in my life who say I should love myself as I am, that’s fine if you can. But I can’t. I am not happy with ham-arms. I am not happy with thick thighs, I am not happy that I can’t cross my legs, or that I look like a potato on my horse. I hate my double chin, I hate that I have visions of gowns and costume pieces that just look awful on me no matter what I do. Some girls can pull off the curvy kewpie doll—I’m not one of them. I look dumpy. I hate it, and no matter who tells me *my* curves are sexy; it feels like a big lie. Some people live many years healthily overweight some keel over and die. The truth is, my infertility is directly related to my weight. My depression is related to it. My anxiety is related to it, hell even my confidence as a writer and an artist is impaired by the way I look. Will I ever be happy with the girl in the mirror? Maybe not. But I was a lot happier looking like this....

"And I raaaaan, I ran so far awaaaaay..."

....or this...

"Taaaaaaaaaaake ooooooooooon Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee - take ON me..."

...or this...

"I blessed the raaaaains down in Aaaafrica...."

...than I was looking at the person I see today. Which is scary. Because it was the 80s. I guess sometimes you just have to wake up one day and realize it’s time to change things.

I know I’m pontificating again, but I need to pep-talk myself sometimes. I need to remind myself that there’s the light at the end of the tunnel. There’s a world of adorable clothing that isn’t priced to the high heavens because sellers like Lane Bryant and Avenue know full-figured girls will suck it up and pay for it if they want to wear anything besides Wal-Mart crap. There’s a world where shopping isn’t an experience that makes you feel worse about yourself. There’s a world where you don’t get grumbled at every time you visit your doctor, and lectured like an obstinate child. There’s a world where you can wear shirts above your belly or without sleeves and not feel like you’re the most disgusting thing on earth. There are long boots that would fit my calves, airplane seats would be so much more comfortable, I wouldn’t be afraid to model my own costumes. I would feel okay about wearing a bathing suit.

The only benefits of being overweight:

• The d-bags of the world generally ignore you or pretend you’re a non-entity if you’re size 12 or up—so that’s a plus.

• If you puff yourself up to look even bigger, nobody will sit next to you on the plane.

• Fewer people will crowd into the elevator with you.

The list of drawbacks could go on forever. So I won’t go there. Happy short-week all. ;)

The HC

A weighty whopper of a Wednesday

This office special was inspired by the
brief glimpse of blue sky we saw yesterday.

Hello all! I’m in a good mood for a change. Go figure. I’ve been so grumpy lately I’m not even bearable to be around I imagine. Poor hubby. :0D

I’ve finally hit the thirteen-pound mark. Things are moving again, I guess. Water is the key. There are a few things I am learning about this process:

1) it’s easy to think it’s not working. You’re doing everything right, eating the set amount of daily calories and you’re not losing weight... sometimes it’s just a matter of making a minor adjustment and to keep plugging away; but I can still see why so many people just walk away from the program. Plateauing can be disheartening. Luckily I have a wonderful support system in my hubby (who weighed in at 29.4lb mark last Wednesday), so he kept me from being discouraged.

2) This is a healthy way to lose weight. It’s not the way everything *thinks* you should lose weight, and it’s not a fast way to lose weight. The general consensus is diet and exercise and it’ll drop away. That’s what they’re pimping on ‘The Biggest Loser’... working the fatties into jiggling mounds of sweat and indignity like they’re at torture-boot camp. That is not my cup of tea. I’m not a jock; I’ve never been a jock. I used to find every excuse in the book to avoid going to PE class or participate in it, and gaze wonderingly at the kids that would bounce around like over-caffeinated psychos and run the whole mile and think ... wow, that person is a complete lunatic. It’s just never been my thing. It’s heartening to know that I can still lose weight and not be forced to run around like an over-caffeinated psycho.

3. This ‘lifestyle change’ (you are not supposed to refer to Weight Watchers as a diet you see) does one incredible thing... it makes you appreciate food a lot more. You take a lot for granted when you’re not really thinking about what you’re eating. You just go ‘yum’ and cram it into your mouth. But when you are limited to a certain daily allotment of calories, how you choose to consume those calories becomes the challenge. You aren’t deprived by any means on this program. You can eat whatever you want on Weight Watchers, but if you decide to go to McDs and stuff a greasy burger down your throat, you might not be able to eat much else for the rest of the day. So you end up avoiding these things so you can eat more for less so to speak. You avoid bad things like burgers and fries and red meat and pizza and chocolate mostly because you want to not feel hungry all day after you’ve satisfied that yen. You start making things you like with better ingredients, leaner products, less oil, etc. You don’t actually realize it until afterwards as you look into your pantry and fridge and sort of take stock of what’s changed about their contents. Things you love just seem to taste better, it’s more of a treat and an indulgence when you have to earn it.

4. Sometimes you fall off the wagon (which you are allowed to do... you have a weekly ‘wagon tumbling’ allotment of 49 points to do naughty things on. We hardly ever use those points but it’s nice to know they’re there for holidays and such). It’s okay. Just pick yourself up off the ground, dust yourself off, and start fresh the next day. It’s all good.

BUT you don’t *have* to fall off the wagon. You can do naughty things and still be *on* the wagon. There are all these little things out there for the ‘lifestyle changers’ that hit that naughty spot. There are these little slider burgers that you get with soft ooey cheddar on them for five points each, which hubby and I will indulge in when we’re thinking about burgers. We count out and oven-bake fries when we want to be naughty. Lean Cuisine makes these itty bitty dessert-plate sized pizzas, and Dan came home last night with these wafery dessert things from Skinny Cow... Oooooh my Goddd they are SOOO GOOD. Just eating those little indulgences are like partaking in the ambrosia of the Gods when you don’t eat them habitually. That one little 100 calorie bar was like heaven in chocolate form. Four points of heaven. It's a significant possibility that those little chocolate bars are the reason for my good mood today. Who knows?

That's a pretty big chunk.
I've dropped a little over two of 'em.

5) It’s working. I’m losing weight. It’s not ghost weight, or water-retention fluctuations... I’m actually losing poundage. It’s pretty astonishing after feeling so defeated by it. And I’m not starving myself, for putting myself through diets that yo-yo my weight, like when I did the Atkins and then gained back the 40lbs I lost + 10 more. I *am* challenged by other factors, my PCOD for instance messes with my cholesterol and my insulin levels and makes losing weight all the harder, which is a pain in my butt. But even with that and my plateau weeks included, I am averaging 1.8lbs lost a week. That’s nothing to snort at. Even my boss said something to me about it. “If I may ask, how much weight have you lost?” he asked, but before I could fully reply he said: “15 pounds, huh? About 15? It looks good.” GLOW! I’m noticing it a teeny bit now. My jeans are looser, for one; and my double chin seems to have receded by a smidgen (I could be imagining it). I don’t have a goal weight; I have a goal ‘appearance’. I’ll stop lowering my calories when I get to the point where I can look in the mirror and say: “Okay, I’m good with this.” Then I’ll go into maintenance mode and hopefully stay there. I really, really, really want to sew myself a regency gown and have it look like it’s supposed to look on me.

When I lived in Belgium, weight wasn’t ever really an issue. I’m not saying I was skinny, I wasn’t. I was healthy. And when I went through puberty, I was curvy. I was size 10 in 7th grade and I had D cups. I was DD by the time I was in ninth grade. But I wasn’t overweight by any means. I only gained weight when I moved to the US, and I think that has a lot to do with the amount of calories that are served per meal, the type of food and believe it or not, the frequency and time of meals. I ate 4 meals each day before. Breakfast (light), a huge lunch, goûter, which we had at around 4PM and it was something as simple as a tartine (a slice of bread with something on it... pate, cold meats, cheese, Nutella and some cornichons or something) and dinner which wasn’t even close to the proportions it is here. Lunch was closer to the dinners served here. You’d have soup, then a plate with meat, starch and veggies and salad. I ate a lot. I know I did. I like food too much; and I also ate bad things, like tons of fries with mayonnaise, and waffles, and chocolate of all sorts. But I never had a weight problem until I moved to the states. I gained 40 pounds in the first three months here (it was also partly culture-shock and depression that contributed to that weight gain... I hated it here when I first arrived and went into this weird state of fugue. I’d left everything that meant anything to me behind; friends, horses, a life, so my heart was broken and I had nothing in common with this crazy mall-riddled country).

I'm amazed how well the detail is maintained in the printing process. Exciting!

Aaaaanyway... MY SPOONFLOWER FABRICS ARE HERE! They are SO cute. OMG! I had to scale down the graphic size on the ‘Cameo’ one. As you can see in the picture, it’s pretty giant. I scaled it down from 12x18 to 7x10ish. Hopefully it won’t be so ginormous.

This scale might work for a bedspread or curtains or something.

I also have another special project underway. I found some beautiful voile-like cotton with a delicate roll-pattern on it. So I have bought a number of other things and plan to make myself a new gown for the Pittock Mansion picnic in July. I have been accessorizing as well, and am so thrilled with a few of my finds. But these will not be revealed until July 31, and I will also be posting a project journal on the costume piece, something I haven’t done in a while (this is the first sewing I’ve done in about a year... the last gown I made was for Faren so she could go to the Fox Hunt). It’s weird to feel excited about costumes again. It’s been forever.

My mom brought me this item when she came for Mother’s Day on Sunday:

Those bedazzled sails are just my sorta thing. ::ugh::

It’s obvious she put a lot of thought into what I like and pays attention to what I wear because it’s *just my style* ::eyeroll:: What’s worse is she said to me once again: “I got this for you. I’m sure it will fit, it’s huge.” And the reason I waste my time with her? The jury is still out on that one.