Victory in denim

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.