Between vacation and a nasty cold I picked up after we came back I went exactly a month without going to the gym. Since I ate off-plan a lot during the trip (with the exception of an absolutely magnificent display of carnivorisity at a Brazilian steakhouse in Vancouver, literally one of the best meals I've ever had) I kind of wonder if somehow that weakened my immunity and caused me to catch the cold. But I got to the gym twice this week including yesterday, which was my birthday. I remembered last year, which was my Big 4-0, spending the weekend getting drunk and eating crap and watching football. This year my big luxury was going to the gym at 7:15 instead of 4:30. Fear my audacity.
Thanks to various gift certificates and moolah laid on me in honor on the natal day, I decided to shop--specifically for jeans.
The back story: last year before our vacation I decided that I was going to buy jeans. I didn't own any and was tired of wearing sweats. I ventured into Lane Bryant with a sense of embarrassment. I don't care how they tart up the place, it is and always will be the Fat Chick Store. Once there, I did find jeans ... in size (gulp) 24. And although they were stretch they were still tight around my non-existent waist. I bought them, but I drove home severely bummed, and after the trip they hung in my closet, dark blue testaments of how far I had fallen.
Fast forward to this year, getting ready to rampage in the Pacific Northwest. I'm rummaging in my closet and find the jeans. For the hell of it, I try them on ... and I look like a gangbanger because they're so loose. I don't particularly want to buy new ones, so I take them to our tailor and have them taken in a bit. They're still huge, though--I can literally pull them on and off while buttoned and zipped, but since they're stretch I brought them anyway just so I could have the pockets. There were a couple of times during the trip that I literally feared they'd fall down around my ankles because I had stuff like my camera in the pocket.
So yesterday I ventured into TJ Maxx in search of cheap "transitional" jeans. Since the jeans I had were 24s and I'm a crappy judge of sizes I picked out a pair of 22s and a pair of 20s to try on. But then I thought "wait. Should I maybe try an 18?" I found a pair from a different maker than the twenty-something sizes in an 18 and brought it in, figuring I'd try them first.
And ... they fit. They were tight, but they fit. I didn't care for the styling, though, so I went out to see if I could find a pair like the twenty-somethings sizes. I did ... and they fit perfectly.
I have not been able to fit into a size that started with a one in roughly five years. My squee of joy echoed throughout the dressing room.
Progress.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Eight more things about me, or I'm Being A Post Whore
The indomitable Tracy of Fear and Loathing in the Kitchen apparently didn't scroll down far enough to see that I'd already done the Eight Things About Myself meme, but since she is a most cool and funny chick I figured what the hell.
1. By nature I am not a superstitious person, but whenever I fly I always wear my Yankees cap. Even if it clashes with my outfit. Then again, navy goes with everything.
2. I ADORE the NFL (in case the name of the blog wasn't a tipoff). The ONLY reason I have digital cable is so I can get the NFL Network. I have a brokerage account whose sole purpose of existence is to pay for tickets and trips to games. I frequently break the "if you're over 30 you're too old to wear jerseys outside of games" rule. I have three fantasy teams this year. Ironically, I couldn't care less about college football, although the bowl games were handy mind-occupiers in my younger years when I was recuperating from New Year's hangovers.
3. Outside of sports, I rarely watch TV. Name any popular show and I can guarantee you I've never seen it (with the exception of one episode each of "The Sopranos" and "Desperate Housewives"). This year I even missed the Oscars, the one non-sports event I look forward to, due to being exhausted by travel. I went for several years without owning a TV and just kind of fell out of the habit. However, I can and do put in twelve-hour couch potato sessions during football season.
4. I used to be a voracious reader, but being on the internet almost non-stop seems to satisfy my print addiction. The last book I read was the new Harry Potter. I used to spend a fortune on books and come home from the library with armfuls of stuff, but not anymore. When I do read it's usually historical fiction or biographies, with the odd mystery thrown in.
5. One thing that I ALWAYS need is music. Even when I was absolutely dirt-poor I always had some source of it, even if it was a shitty 1970s-era cassette player. Now, of course, I have my iPod. I am not the one to come to for the trendy music. In my mp3 list I have everything from 50 Cent to music written for a 15th-century wedding of a Medici and a French princess. My current favorite band is Within Temptation, a Dutch band with a female singer whose music is described as "symphonic metal." If you have hard guitars with a chick singing I'll listen to it, since during my teen years I worshipped Pat Benatar.
6. It is rare that even armed with a map and a decent sense of direction I do not make at least one wrong turn when going someplace I've never been before. However, once the place is found I will always be able to find it again from memory, even if decades pass between visits.
7. I can vomit at will without the aid of fingers or implements down the throat. This was a skill I learned in childhood because my mother, a nurse, demanded, uh, hard evidence that you were sick when you claimed it in order to stay home from school. I often employed this to avoid alcohol poisoning in my younger years. I'd be a hell of a bulimic.
8. I can talk about myself endlessly. :D
1. By nature I am not a superstitious person, but whenever I fly I always wear my Yankees cap. Even if it clashes with my outfit. Then again, navy goes with everything.
2. I ADORE the NFL (in case the name of the blog wasn't a tipoff). The ONLY reason I have digital cable is so I can get the NFL Network. I have a brokerage account whose sole purpose of existence is to pay for tickets and trips to games. I frequently break the "if you're over 30 you're too old to wear jerseys outside of games" rule. I have three fantasy teams this year. Ironically, I couldn't care less about college football, although the bowl games were handy mind-occupiers in my younger years when I was recuperating from New Year's hangovers.
3. Outside of sports, I rarely watch TV. Name any popular show and I can guarantee you I've never seen it (with the exception of one episode each of "The Sopranos" and "Desperate Housewives"). This year I even missed the Oscars, the one non-sports event I look forward to, due to being exhausted by travel. I went for several years without owning a TV and just kind of fell out of the habit. However, I can and do put in twelve-hour couch potato sessions during football season.
4. I used to be a voracious reader, but being on the internet almost non-stop seems to satisfy my print addiction. The last book I read was the new Harry Potter. I used to spend a fortune on books and come home from the library with armfuls of stuff, but not anymore. When I do read it's usually historical fiction or biographies, with the odd mystery thrown in.
5. One thing that I ALWAYS need is music. Even when I was absolutely dirt-poor I always had some source of it, even if it was a shitty 1970s-era cassette player. Now, of course, I have my iPod. I am not the one to come to for the trendy music. In my mp3 list I have everything from 50 Cent to music written for a 15th-century wedding of a Medici and a French princess. My current favorite band is Within Temptation, a Dutch band with a female singer whose music is described as "symphonic metal." If you have hard guitars with a chick singing I'll listen to it, since during my teen years I worshipped Pat Benatar.
6. It is rare that even armed with a map and a decent sense of direction I do not make at least one wrong turn when going someplace I've never been before. However, once the place is found I will always be able to find it again from memory, even if decades pass between visits.
7. I can vomit at will without the aid of fingers or implements down the throat. This was a skill I learned in childhood because my mother, a nurse, demanded, uh, hard evidence that you were sick when you claimed it in order to stay home from school. I often employed this to avoid alcohol poisoning in my younger years. I'd be a hell of a bulimic.
8. I can talk about myself endlessly. :D
I'm not dead!
Sorry for the long silence. Mr. LRA and I are currently in Vancouver on our vacation, which started (and will end) in Seattle. It's been a couple weeks since I've hit the gym due to a nagging deltoid pull, but I've pretty much been on plan and am endeavoring to do so on the trip, more so by avoidance than anything else. I do not, however, regret the amazing scoop of caramel/coffee gelato I had at Butchart Gardens yesterday, which along with some macadamias and sugar-free apple drink was about all I ate. I do have a couple of small indulgences planned--garlic fries at Safeco Park during the Mariners game, which if they taste halfway as good as they smell (they also serve them at Qwest Field, where Mr. LRA and I took in Seahawks/Bucs on Sunday) will be awesome and some rice with my shawarma at a little place here in Vancouver that comes highly recommended and happens to be conveniently located in my hotel plaza--but other than that I'm staying reasonably paleo.
The arm is feeling better, so once home the weights will be hit with a vengeance.
The arm is feeling better, so once home the weights will be hit with a vengeance.
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