The road to (my) low self esteem is paved with good intentions...and fat pants.

Good morning!

The fact that I work seven minutes from my parents' house has, in the last few years, been a source of mild annoyance and awkward hilarity for me.  My mother finds the oddest reasons to drop in to my place of business and, in the course of a conversation, will forget that we're in my place of business.  She has no problem discussing, out loud, in my office, in front of NBM with his bat-like hearing about her various issues, including gas and bowel movements.  She's brought up tender topics like my own approaching menopause and always, always, always this new health thing or that to battle my life long war against my weight.

I've always blushed easily, so to say these visits leave me red faced is really not a big deal.  Still, hey, I bet no one else has their parents drop in at their work and talk about hemeroids.  Right?

Well, this week I believe my parents hit an all time high water mark for uncomfortable visits to my office.  And honestly, I'm sure they meant it in the best possible light...but given the fact that my mother has always been a size 4-6 where I've been shopping on the plus side of the aisle for more than fifteen years, this was a stinger.

You're the only one
big enough for these pants...and no more
wire hangers.

See, here's what went down:

My grandmother lives in a very nice old people's home where they play bingo and win little prizes.  I'm not sure what grand prize bingo tourney g-ma won, but the prize was a plus size pair of women's sweat pants...in turquoise.  

My grandmother used to be a sturdy woman.  I take after her and my aunt that way.  Old age  (She's 97) has taken its toll and she's shrunk a bit as old women will.  She's no longer that sturdy of a woman.  "She still thinks she's this big," says my mother, "but she's much smaller."

At this point, my mother is holding the sweat pants up...while standing in my office...and I know all too well just where this is going.  But I'm a good daughter.  I have to wait for the boom.

"So I tried them on, and they are way too large for me."  She says, a smile on her face.

At this point my face is so hot I can feel the make up sliding down my neck.

"So I figured they'd fit you just fine.  You know, for when you're writing."

She hands me that rolled up wad of soft material and I take it.

"See, hold it up...look, they'll be just fine on you."

Did I mention NGTJ and PM are both witnessing this?  Thank heavens NBM, who is a health nut and will, on ocassion, express enthusiasm when NGTJ and I talk about diet and exercise.  (He's nothing like my old Evil Bossman, though, so I give him points for that.)  

Yes, my coworkers are witnessing my mother and father standing there, handing me these massive sweat pants, and talking about how all the females in my family tried them on and decided I alone was large enough to wear them.

Earlier in the day PM, who had a fairly lousy week, expressed the desire to shoot himself.  When parents left (but NOT until after they then launched into all the gory details of my father's upcoming cataract surgery...the perfect diet plan.  Have a parent give details of an upcoming procedure.  You'll never want to eat again.)  I asked him if he did, indeed have a firearm with him, because I, too, wanted to shoot myself.

Peaches' boyfriend, a very sweet boy who is funny and awkward and fits in around here pretty well, heard this story and made me feel a bit better:  "I'm sure she meant it in a nice way, though, right?"

She probably did.  

And, curse it all, they are comfortable pants.

Yes, I'm wearing them right now.

Shoot me.

And You Wonder why I need a Glass of Wine every Day after Work.

Good evening!

Noelle C, as it turns out, is not a funny person.  She's not like Elsie W, who was loud, annoying, messy, completely unaware of whether or not her clothes were inside out, that sort of thing.  Noelle C is a different person entirely, and yet, the result is the same.

She is driving me out of my mind.

I could look past the fact that she never, ever, EVER stops talking.  It doesn't seem to matter that no one is listening or even within earshot.  It's like that old proverb...if Noelle C is talking in the office and no one's around to hear, will she continue talking?

The answer is YES.

And it's not that she is a complete, total, and utter fanny fluffer when it comes to Lumbergh.  It's almost sad the way she can't have a thought on her own without first clearing it with him.  It's also very sad that she's in love with him.  He seems to enjoy it, except since he's a completely self centered brain fart of a boss, he has no idea the weird repercussions there can be to allowing a whackadoo like her to think he's okay with the overt romantic attention.

Oh, and that part makes me want to barf.

No, the reason Noelle C is driving me out of my mind is that she is deaf in one ear, has almost no hearing in the other, refuses to do anything about it and gets mad when she can't hear what anyone's saying.  She's convinced, since no one talks to her, that everyone thinks she's worthless.  Thing is, people talk to her all the time, she CAN'T HEAR THEM. 

She went in to try on hearing aids.  She was amazed at how loud everything was in the store.  She decided not to buy them.  I get that they're expensive, but if you saw how she does her job, and the complete disconnect there is, you'd want to throttle her and yell, "GET THE HEARING AIDS!"

See, one big part of her job, and, most of the time, mine, is getting phone numbers and addresses from customers.  Elsie W was terrible at this, but mostly because I'm pretty sure she was illiterate, and therefore everything was spelled really, really wrong.  BUT, Noelle C, since she is fairly deaf, instead of turning up the sound on her phone headset, she pretty much just fills in the blanks with whatever she figures sounds good.  This would be fine...except we are sending sales people all over the state, and getting things like the ADDRESS and the CITY right are sort of key.

Today, however, I was at my wit's end mostly because she has this way of blaming me for things that I barely have anything to do with.  For example, this week Peaches is having a fund raiser for her school orchestra.  We are selling candy bars.  Very nice, high end, candy bars.  I put a box out at work.  Everyone loves them, especially Noelle C, who bought 4 in two days AND ATE THEM ALL.

I love chocolate...I would have died with that kind of cocoa intake.

Today, she informed me that she had to stop eating chocolate because she was experiencing allergic symptoms.  (She's convinced herself that the swelling of her butt is exactly the same as the swelling of someone's tongue or lips.)  She said, "You brought that in here and now I'm getting so fat."

Yes, yes, I rammed four gigantic candy bars down your throat in the past 24 hours.

Not happy that I didn't apologize for my sin of bringing candy into the office, she turned to the one person she knew would give her a sympathetic ear:  Lumbergh.  What follows is the precise conversation between a woman who is 90% deaf and won't do anything about it and  a guy who never speaks above a whisper even though he knows she's nearly deaf and can't hear anything he's saying.

"Lumbergh?"

"Yes Noelle c?"

(giddy, because now he's looking at her)  "I can't keep eating like this.  Sarah brought those candy bars in here and now I'm having allergic reactions to the candy."

"So stop eating the candy."

(She doesn't hear this.)  "I'm going back on my diet."

I should mention she was on the diet when she started working at Initech, which is why on her first day she had to pull down her pants in front of me and show me that she was a size 16.  I'm also a size 16. I have never had the inclination to show anyone the size tag on my pants.

"Oh, that's good."

"Yes, I'm going to lose 80 pounds next year."

"Oh, by when?" (now he's interested because well, he's a gym nut.

"January first."

Now,  I know what she means, but since she can't hear his question and he refuses to speak up, I know I'm up for some good theater.

"No, "  he whispers, "by when?"

"January first.  80 pounds."

"No, how long will you take to lose the weight?"

"January first."

"But how many months will you give yourself to lose the weight"

"Next year.  8 pounds a month."

Worst "Who's on First" routine EVER.   This conversation actually goes on for a few more minutes but it doesn't matter.  These two are the number one reason I reach for the pinot noir when I get home.  He whispers, she can't hear, and yet they insist on talking to each other fifty times a day.  And the minute he leaves the building, do you know what she does?

Oh you know what happens....

Yes, she hovers over my desk and tells me how jealous she is because Lumbergh and I have conversations, while he just ignores her.

Folks, I cannot make this up, and I don't think I'd want to....real life is just way too funny.

Five for Friday: Maybe God likes me Fluffy.

Good Friday morning!

Well, it's a good day for me.  Why?  First, NBM went to the Green Bay Packers game last night and stayed out past his bedtime.  This means there will be no NBM in the office today.  Also, it's a Noelle C Free day, so there'll be No whackadoodle doo.  Finally, The Green Bay Packers WON last night over their arch rivals, the Chicago Bears in a game that was so fun to watch, it made me feel sorry for countries who DON'T have American football on a regular basis. 

Today's Five list is the product of a lot of thought.  I've got a birthday coming up in a few months and I realize that I'm really, really tired of a lot of things and fighting what is turning out to be a losing battle might just be one of those things.

Anyway, enjoy!

Five reasons I might be meant to be fluffy.

5)  All my favorite relatives are fluffy.

Even as a kid I didn't enjoy the company of my less fluffed relatives as much as I did those who were fully fluffy.  I'm starting to resemble my beloved God mother, my Aunt Carrie, and each day I look in the mirror, I realize that's not a completely bad thing.

4)  Something always seems to get in the way, and it's not just that I'm slowly forming a physical bond with my couch.

I've been trying to lose weight for years, but the past nine months I wanted to train for a 5K.  I never said anything about weight loss, I just wanted to train for the race.  But it was one thing after another, starting with the speedy degeneration of my thumb joints earlier this spring to the car accident this summer.  Now my after work time is filled with doctor's appointments and physical therapy and I'm starting to feel like maybe God likes me fluffy.  (I don't want KRAM or any of my friends at Gold's Gym to fear, however.  My PT has given me a laundry list of exercises I must do everyday.  It's very nearly a 20 minute workout.)

3)  Randy Mantooth, Rick Springfield, David James Elliott, and Russell Crowe aren't showing up on my doorstep to sweep me away and my Hubby loves me the way I am.

If you lost weight, I'd write
a song about you.

If you got skinny you could ride
in the squad.

Oh if only you'd lose weight, then I'd fly you off in my F14.



Are you NOT THIN YET?  ARE YOU NOT THIN?

Ladies, we all do this:  We all dream of a day our favorite actor/musician/whatever shows up and takes us away from everything...right after we lose twenty pounds.  Shoot, it's a big part of the premise for my book Dream in Color.  And while the daydream is nice, and a good motivator (How many years have I said I'm dropping twenty by the time Rick Springfield shows up in town?  What do I really think is going to happen?  He's going to look out over the of women and say, "hey, look, Sarah's lost some weight.  I love her now."

Meanwhile, my Hubby loves me, and has loved me for more than 25 years, just the way I freaking am.

2)  I'm starting to sort of like my clothes.

Don't let the double X fool you.
There's no room for Fluffy.

See the heart?
Even their logo loves
the fluffy girl

As much as I've griped over the years about the lack of selection for fluffy girls in normal stores  (and seriously, TJ MAXX?  You're a glorified rummage sale store....and the best you can do for 52% of the female shopping population is ONE RACK of fluffy clothes?  Guess I won't be a Maxx-inista.  And guess what?  I drive my daughter and her friends shopping all the time.  I don't go where I can't shop.  Burlington Coat Factory is the same type of store and yet I've found some awesome clothes there.  Ponder it.)  I looked at my closet the other day and I realized I may have found my groove stylistically speaking.  I have a wardrobe full of comfortable, semi stylish, clothes.  Would I like to be a size 10 and shop in the normal departments?  OH YEAH!  But then, what would I do with all these great clothes I have NOW? 

1)  Just how ugly would I be if I weren't fluffy?

My fluff is filling out what would be wrinkles and my double chin is actually overlapping my unwanted facial hair.  If I lost the fluff, I might be more hideous than I am now!  I'm not sure I can take that chance!

But I'm thin!

Does this mean I'm going to stop going to Gold's altogether?  No, of course now.  Half my hilarious material comes from that place.  My PT has moved into a maintainance phase, as we slowly realize that my neck injury may not get better.  So they've got me working on some machines now, machines I can use at Gold's.  (You know that thing you see on the health channel where the super obese people get their sweat on by pedaling with their hands because they're too huge to move anything else?  Yep,  that's what I can do now.)

What this does mean is that I might just stop beating myself up for my weight. Hey, who knows...maybe I'll get lucky and I'll be one of those old women who just sort of shrink as they age.  By the time I'm 80 I might be my ideal size.

Meanwhile, maybe I just need to work on being happy instead of working on being thin.

Sarah's Olympics!

Good morning!

I can't believe it, but the 2012 London Olympics are very nearly over.  It seems like not a minute ago we were watching Queen Elizabeth parachute out of a helicopter and Mr. Bean play "Chariots of Fire."

While watching more than my fair share of coverage, I couldn't help but note that there's a group very under represented in any and all Olympic events.  We have the Olympics, where the super fit able bodied compete.  We have the Para Olympics, where the super fit not quite as able bodied compete.  But there's another section of the population that could, and probably should, get up and compete in, well, something.

Ladies and Gents:  I give you, the Sarah Olympics!

And Sarah in Lane 3 has just drowned
in the first 50 meters.

The Sarah Olympics are for the not at all fit.  These are contests where people like me rise up from their couches and their bags of Frito's and compete in athletic events for which they have no training or measurable ability.  I got the idea last when while watching swimming with my friend, Marie, and her husband, Dave.    It was one of those backstroke races and you know how they have to enter the water by sort of diving backwards underwater? Well, Dave and I both agreed that if real people were in the Olympics, at least one of those swimmers would start the race but never surface, having inhaled a noseful of pool water.

Thus an idea was born, an idea that developed then with the help of Hubby, who suggested that events for the former couch huggers be assigned according to a draw from a hat. 

Yeah, she's crying.  BUT
she managed to do 90%
of her routine perfectly.

Picture Gymnastics.  I mean, we couch sitters are pretty rough on these tiny, starved, mutant teens who can do flips and vaults, and fly from bars and seem to have no human sense of pain.  Yet have one of them fall off the balance beam while doing some sort of triple somersault flip spread eagle move and we all yell at our TV, "You are terrible!"

Until, in the Sarah Olympics, one of us draws balance beam from a hat...and the gold medal winner will be the one who is able to make it from one end of the beam to the other without falling.  Granted, we wouldn't look at miserable as the Russian Gymnasts who sobbed their way through these games.  But then, in the Sarah Olympics, we're getting people off their couches...not out of gyms where they've trained for 80% of their lives for this one huge moment.

Anything involving the word "bars" would be right out for me.  The last time I had to hold my body weight up or pull it up on a bar, was the President's Physical fitness test in high school.  They had me stand on a chair, and get my head and shoulders above a high bar.  The idea was for me to hold myself in that position, once they removed the chair.

They couldn't get the stop watch started fast enough.  I believe I clocked a 2 second hold.  I wasn't the worst in my class...there was one girl who fell to the floor before they turned on the stop watch.

Now I'm not suggesting we put in the games that everyone plays.  In the Sarah Olympics there would be no Table Tennis, Badminton, Basketball, Soccer, or Tennis.  Basically, if I've played it and managed to be on a winning team at any point, it's not an Olympic sport.  Granted, the athletes in those events have taken backyard fun to a whole new level, but still, if a couch sitter CAN do it, then it shouldn't be an Olympic event.

She finished ahead of 7 other runners.

Distance running has always been a fascination of mine.  True, it's dull as toast to watch on television, but I'm in awe of anyone who can run more than nine feet.  One of the most enduring Olympic images in my brain is from the 1984 Los Angeles games when Swiss marathon runner Gabriela Andersen-Schiess staggered into the arena.  It was clear there was something very, very, very wrong with her.  Severe heat stroke had pretty much paralyzed half her body but she waved away medical personnel and finished with a time that would, in the first five Olympics, won her a gold medal. 

This year's gold medalist made it
500 yards before collapsing.  It's a
Sarah Olympics record!

In the Sarah Olympics, the marathon would look a little more like the "Bring out Your Dead" scene in Monty Python's Search for the Holy Grail.  Someone with a cart just follows the runners around, picking up the ones who have fallen.  Gold medal goes to the person who completes the most in the 26.2 mile race.

Bronze medal.

Another event that fascinates me is diving.  I got pulled into diving big time.  I love the water, and I don't mind heights so much.  But put the two together, and then make people twist and turn and swing around in the air before hitting the water, and I'm hooked.  Of course, the Sarah Olympics would look a bit less like the current Olympics, and a bit more like a Mr. Bean sketch from years ago.

Gold medal.

Silver medal

I love the idea of track and field events in the Sarah Olympics.  The Shot Put competition would be measured in inches...and I have a feeling the bronze medalist wouldn't have to do much more than actually pick up that big honking ball.

(Check this video!)

Hurdles.  Yeah, I did a hurdles unit in gym class in college.  I liked the hurdles.  See, what I did was made sure I had the hurdles on the very end.  Then I'd run up to the hurdle, and run around it. In the Sarah Olympics, the hurdles competition would just be a mess.  The track would look like Christmas Day in a house where everyone got Tinker Toys.  High jump, long jump, triple jump.  All measured in inches, not feet or meters. Weight lifting?  Sure...I could probably lift that bar thing that holds the weights.  In the Sarah Olympics that might be enough for a bronze. So as you're enjoying the final moments of the Olympics, and if you check out the Para Olympics, which are coming up in the next couple weeks, think about this.  How would YOU do, if you competed in the Sarah Olympics?

A final video for your amusement!

When I am an old woman I shall wear a swimsuit on the treadmill.

Good morning!

My grandmother has always loved purple.  So, since I can remember, she's incorporated purple into her wardrobe.  When the book "When I am an Old Woman I shall wear Purple," came out we immediately thought of her.  I still do, so many years later.

I bring this up because when most of us think of old ladies, we think of old ladies who were purple hats or sweatshirts with birds on them, or things like that.

And when we think of what people should wear to the gym, we think of sweat pants and shorts and t-shirts and jog bras.

Weird transitional thought?  Bear with me.

Yesterday I went to Gold's  after what I like to think of as a bit of a break.  Okay, it was about six weeks and basically I was too blah and busy to go, and I forgot to pack shoes one time and then I didn't have a water bottle and it was hot...and whatever!

So yesterday I got there and was feeling pretty good.  The scale informed me I'd lost about 3 pounds in 6 six weeks.  Given what I have eaten and haven't exercised in that amount of time, I was pretty happy to see a negative number instead of a massive gain.

I then headed to Cardio Cinema where it's dark and no one judges you.  Until now.  I was getting a pretty good sweat going on a treadmill when an older lady walked past me.  Granted it was dark, but it was really hard to miss what she was wearing. 

For the pool, yes.  For the treadmill
NO!

She was wearing a one piece swim suit, complete with ballerina type frilly skirt.  I am not making this up.  She strode past me in her one piece swim suit. 

Now I'm one to put the best construction on everything at first.  So I figured she was coming in to have a word with someone and then she was headed to the pool.

Nope.  She got on a recumbent bike and started pedaling.  Hard. 

Wipe down the seat
with disinfectant please!

Not since Jennifer Lopez wore that basically naked green dress to the Grammies have I thought, "Oh Sweetie, put down a paper
liner on your seat before you sit down."

Until yesterday. 

I looked at that old lady on that bike wearing that one piece swimsuit with the frilly skirt and her old lady work out shoes...and I said, "EWWWWW!"

And then I made very sure I didn't get on the same bike she'd been on.

As I was leaving Gold's, I saw her continue her work out.  (Again, it's really hard to miss a fat old lady...oh didn't mention she was a fluffy girl, about my size?  Yeah, she was very fluffy...in a swimsuit working out like everything is normal.)  She was on a treadmill, sweating away with the 20 somethings.  Now granted, she probably had more material in her one piece suit with the frilly skirt than the 20 somethings had in their spandex shorts and fitted yoga tops.  BUT, with the 20 somethings, there was ZERO chance of fanny cheek slipping out of those shorts.   Getting a wide view of wrinkly old lady fanny was a VERY REAL POSSIBILITY.

If you must work out
in a swim suit, this would
be okay...

 I guess my point of this is two fold:  First, it is clear that not everyone has been listening to my summer fashion suggestions.  (Yes, I'm also talking to the mom who thought it was okay to go to the grocery store in her swim suit.  Yes, the shorts were okay, the no, no one should have to stand next to you in line and wonder if the stress you're putting your swim top straps under will finally destroy those little straps and we will all get a great view of your...well let's just call them saggy glands, shall we?)  Second...work out clothes are work out clothes.  And swimsuits are NOT work out clothes.  If you forgot shorts and a shirt and all you have is a swimsuit, that is God's way of telling you it's a POOL DAY.

Meanwhile, I'm too traumatized to work out today.  I need to lie down.

Happy Independence Day to all my American friends!  God Bless America!

(And stay away from the liquor if you're going to set off fireworks.)

My REAL New Year's Resolution!

Good morning!

On January first, I made a couple of resolutions.  I was going to do the Wii twice a week, go to Gold's 2-3 times a week, and take a multivitamin every day.

Here's an update.

My virtual Yoga trainer
has no idea who I am anymore.

I haven't touched Wii FIT since November.  I have managed to make it to Gold's 2x per week almost every week, with a couple of exceptions, and I do take a multi vitamin almost every day.

But as the first quarter of 2012 closes, I realized something:  I wasn't addressing my REAL resolutions.  That's not that unusual.  Sometimes we can't make resolutions until the year has started because we don't know what a particular year is going to require of us.  This year, I'm finding, is a year where I must have and show NO FEAR.

Let's review my year thus far:  Hubby lost his job in January.  He got a new job, a job that started in a city more than an hour from our home.  His job entails a lot of shifting, working in new places all the time, moving around.  It seems scary for him...but it's also scary for me, because I'm the keeper of the books here.

Skippy finished high school.  He's looking toward the fall with a hazy idea that he wants to go to college, sort of.  While his other classmates already know where they're going and how they're going to finance things, we haven't a clue on either front.  He has not applied to any colleges or anything.  He has a lot of fear, the idea of choosing a career and then paying for it is very scary.  For me, there are two fronts of fear:  first, try explaining why you son, who looks homeless, hasn't been seen by many relatives or his church friends in eons  (because he goes to a different church now) that yes, he was an honor roll student all thought high school, no he didn't drop out, he finished early, and no, we don't know where he's going or what he's doing with the rest of his life. 

Try saying that to yourself about your own child.  See if that doesn't scare you just a tiny bit.  Then try saying it to your judgemental parent/relative/neighbor.  In this society, a kid that doesn't have his life planned at the end of his junior year of high school must be a loser, right?

Nope, not a loser.  Just not interested in spending $20K a year on general education when we don't even know what we want to do.  But there's fear there every time says, "So, what's Skippy going to do?"

He's 18...I don't know if he knows what he wants to do with the rest of his DAY.

One would think that Peaches is the one I don't fear for at all, and one would be wrong.  She's a hard core vegetarian.  She's getting new friends.  She's also, I'm finding, far more opinionated and militant about her opinions than Skippy ever was.  This scares me like you have no idea.

As I look at all of this...I realize that this is a year where I could curl up in a ball of snot and hide.  I could just open a bag of Cheetos and dive in, never to return.  I could get really fat, and hide from the planet because I'm too scared to open my eyes.

That would be easy.

No my friends, 2012 is officially, for me, the year of no fear.  I have to resolve to battle against my internal fears and not only function, but excel.  I have to bite the bullet, and just write the book I want to write and hope that readers will read it.  I have to get my rights for "Dream in Color" so I can control that book as well and build my e-book empire on my values as an author. 

I am okay with the fact that I'm an e-book author.

I am okay with the fact that my son looks like a homeless person, and will probably live in my basement until lightning strikes and he decides to make a career choice.

I am okay with never really knowing here Hubby is going to be working week to week.

I am okay knowing I will be getting emails from Peaches' teachers asking me why my daughter did or said something they didn't like.

I am okay with the fact that  my mother is never going to stop hounding me about getting a vial of corn put on my belly button so that she can prove i'm fat because I like corn on the cob.  (That's another post for another day.)

I am okay with the fact that I may never be thin again.

Yesterday at my Mad City Romance Writers meeting, wonderful romance author Christine Merrill spoke on how to rouse emotions in a reader.  She is a very funny lady who has us in stitches every time she speaks.  Yesterday she said something that rang true with me.  People who are happy, cheerful all the time probably arent' that funny.  It's the unhappy, uncertain, distressed people who used humor as a defense mechanism.

Maybe that's why this blog works so well.  If you look at the list above you might think I have a lot of reasons to be sad, nervous, bitter.  Sometimes I am.  But most of the time humor is my sheild.  It protects me from being sad, from pain.

So, my friends, 2012 is officially the year of no fear for me.  I'm not going to be afraid to face my life.  Armed with my sense of humor, I will use this blog to crush my fears about life.

Buckle up.  I am going to make you laugh until you injure yourself, or die trying.

It's going to be way easier than actually getting to Gold's 3x a week.


A couple updates: 

THREE CHEERS TO DEE!  Dee just completed another body challenge at Gold's and is down to 137.5 pounds.  Friends, my good friend Dee has lost now 68 pounds since August of 2010.  She's kept it off.  She's gone from an inhome daycare provider to a Body Vive instructor at Gold's.  I could NOt be more proud of her!

Conda once again crushed me this week, but Ifeel big numbers coming on in my next weigh in.  My friend and critique partner, Marie, thinks Conda is purposely staying heavy so she can get to the final and destroy everyone by losing the weight at home.  So I guess that's going to be the way I'm playing it, too.  I'm just going to hide from the TV audience for 3 months and drop 90 pounds that way.

Oh wait...I have NO TV audience!

Well look out Conda...because I just dropped a ton in water weight this week and I've been to Gold's for actual sweat producing work outs.  I feel a reverse crushing coming on!

All I wanted was a pair of earrings...what I got was a blog post.

Good evening!

My good friend Dee tells me that I shouldn't write angry, but that I can blog angry if I want to.  I needed to vent to Dee for about 45 minutes today because of what happened.

You all know I LOVE Kohl's department store.  LOVE IT.  If they sold groceries, I truly would never shop anywhere else.  True, I said that about Walmart, but I really do mean it about Kohl's.  I love their clothes, I love their prices, I love their housewares.

I thought I loved their jewelry.

Let me back up.

Yeah, she probably worked with Elsie, too.

This has been a very rough week for me.  Last week Friday Elsie decided she was mad at me for DOING MY JOB and for DOING HER JOB BETTER THAN SHE DOES and she shrieked at me on the phone at the end of the day.  Realizing that for whatever reason, she was never going to get fired, I decided I had enough, and I cleaned out my desk.  I haven't quit my job but to quote Alison, the Basket case from "The Breakfast Club,"   "You never know when you might have to jam."

Rough week at work often translates into a rough week at home, and this week was no exception.  Skippy was dour, Peaches was sour, Hubby was non communicative and I don't know what we are feeding the cats, but the cat boxes have been super foul this week.  Oh, and thanks to my weird schedule and the fact that I felt like crud, I didn't get to Gold's.

So this morning I was feeling very, very low.  And then I realized that I've lost about half my earrings, all my favorites, of course, and that didn't make me all that happy.  I don't have a lot of earrings to begin with, and the ones I have I really do love.

So hubby, being the good guy he is, gave me the Kohl's card and a coupon and told me to get some pretty earrings.

At first it was a great trip to Kohl's.  I was also looking for a pair of semi dressy shorts. I didn't find any, but I found some Capri pants that slim me, and frankly, a slimming pair of Capri's is far better than a pair of shorts.  Besides, at my age and weight group, I shouldn't be revealing that much of my legs.

So I was very excited about myself when I got to the fine jewelry counter.  I was even MORE excited when I got to the counter and saw that everything was 60% off PLUS another 15% because I was there before noon. 

SCORE!

A couple things caught my eye, but they were locked in a case and I couldn't see the price.  I looked for a clerk.  There were two, at the other end of the counter, talking to each other.  I was the only customer at the counter.

The one caught my eye, walked down, looked at me, sniffed, and said, "someone will be with you in a minute."

Um...someone?  How about you?

She left.  No matter, another girl came up, a young thing, named...Sarah.  I pointed to the earrings and said, "May I see those please?"

Now, maybe I don't understand fine jewelry counter etiquette.  But she looked at me like I'd just asked her to strip down and wrestle.  Then she looked very, very bored.  "Which ones?"

"Those, the blue pearls, those...."  I pointed.

She pulled them out and I looked at them.  I thanked her and handed them back.  "How much is the matching necklace?"

"Which one?"

"The one that matches the earrings I just handed you...that one...THAT ONE."

"That's two necklaces sitting together."

She could haven't sounded more bored...but then I'm pretty sure she'd be dead.

"The wiry one."

She pulls out the necklace, I look at it, love it, but am not ready to part with quite that much room on my Kohl's card.  So I thank her, tell her I'll be back and walk around the counter looking at other items. 

I never actually leave the counter.  Never, not once.  I finally find what I really need, some simple good hoops, little hoops to wear with my other gold hoops from Kohl's.  Again, I can't see a price.  I look around for Sarah, who is also not visible.

I finally lean way over the counter and see her kneeling on the floor, HIDING FROM ME.

Yes, you read that right. In a store where everyone is super helpful and cheery, I managed to come across the one department where they hide from customers. 

"Excuse me?"  I say in my most polite voice.

She ignores me.

"EXCUSE ME!"  I say in a far less polite voice.

"Yeah?"

"I'd like to look at these earrings please."

She sighs heavily.  "In a minute."

Now, normally, the wild, loud angry fat woman in me would come raging out.  But it's been a rough week, and I've haven't been well.  So instead, my insecure, nervous, fat girl who thinks she's not worthy of anything makes an appearance and I all but crumble at the humiliation of it all.  This little twenty something in her Dana Buckman (the only reason I know this is because I have the exact outfit in fat girl size at home) suit has crushed me with her witheringly bored sighs.  It was all I could do to stay at the counter and wait for her to stand up, get out her key, unlock the case, and ask "Which ones?"

At that point I knew I didn't dare look at a pair of earrings without buying them.  She had me in her power, and I had to do it so she could be left in peace again.  "I'll take these."  I said in my "I know I'm fat, please sell these pretty things to me anyway" voice.

"You done shopping?"

Well, I wasn't...but then I guess I was.  "Yes,"  I responded meekly.

"You got other stuff?"

"Yes."

She sighed heavily.  "You got a lot of stuff?"

"I have three things, that's all."

Another weary sigh.  "Come to the other side."

While I was making my way around, an older lady walked up to the counter and very nicely asked Sarah if she could look at the sales flier tucked next to the cash register.  Sarah gave the older lady a completely blank face, the kind teens give the elderly when the elderly utter words, and said, "I don't even know if it's a current one, so you can't have it."

The older woman stared at her, shocked at the response.  "Well, I wanted to check something."

"Well," says Sarah, "I'm not giving you this flier, so maybe go up to customer service...they probably have a flier up there."

I was enraged.  How dare this wan little blight of a person talk that way to that nice older lady?

NO COUPON FOR YOU!

Oh, but wait...I still had to pay for my earrings. 

It was sort of like buying soup from the Soup Nazi in Jerry Seinfeld.  (See Skippy, that show is important for something.)  I stepped to the counter, handed her my four things, and then said, "May I use this coupon?"

She looked at it. "This is expired.  So no, you can't"

Now, I've been to Kohl's when they've let people use coupons that are expired, or they've given people coupons, I've had it happen to me.  Not this chick.  She didn't tell me how much I saved...and she didn't ask me to take the survey.  She handed me my receipt.  She didn't even say thank you.

Now, I should have stopped at the customer service counter.  I should have.  But I was in such a mental black out...and you women, you know what I mean. You can't believe someone has just treated you the way you've been treated, and then you think you deserved it for whatever reason.  My mother always felt she had to take it because she was the Principal's wife, and she wasn't dressed nicely enough.  My grandmother felt she had to take it because she was the pastor's wife, and she wasn't dressed nicely enough.

I felt I had to take it because I'm fat.  (I was dressed just fine, thank you.)

I have, by now, broken out of that mental black out, and I know two very important things.

1)  Oh, I will be taking that survey this time.

2)  I may have to stop in at Kohl's tomorrow, "Pretty Woman" style, and inform them that the next time I need to buy earrings, or any jewelry, I'll be going to Walmart.

Granted, not quite the effect Julia Roberts got in "Pretty Woman" but it's a big step for me.

Sarah discovers the root of her weight loss issues and now it must die.

Good evening!

So I was killing time between the time I get home from work and the time I have to leave the house again to "do something."  I was sitting in the bathroom, reading.  (Don't just me, everyone reads best in the bathroom.)  I have itchy winter skin and as I was scratching my thigh, I noticed something.

It was firm.

It was tight.

It had actually broken through the protective layers of fat I've grown on my legs.

Oh my stars!  I have a muscle!

I haven't had a muscle in my leg since high school when I was in the Fox River Valley Lutheran Youth Band.  (A shout out to BUS #4 on the Washington DC trip!  WE RULE!) 

Okay, I just had my 80's flashback.  And I was thin.

Anyway, so I found this muscle on my leg.  My right leg.  My left leg hasn't apparently caught up yet.  And now I'm wondering...how did this muscle get there.  Will it be leaving?  With others follow?

I'll admit, I was waiting for some sort of result.  I mean, I've been working out at Gold's Gym 2-3 a week since the first of the year.  I've been doing the treadmill, and yes, running has been involved.  (Marie, I know that's all passive...I refuse to take ownership of my running style!)  But there's been no weight loss, though my pants do seem to be a touch more loose.

So I'm sitting there in the Room of Requirement, admiring this one lonely muscle and it hits me:

 I've been working out, and since I cut out my Starbucks trips COMPLETELY in the last four weeks, AND I'm still eating a largely vegetarian diet AND  I haven't touched a Cheeto since Christmas...and there's been no weight loss.

I've found the reason.

Muscle weighs more than fat.

THE MUSCLE MUST DIE!

It would be easy.  It's just there, right under the skin.  I could just hack it out, magically lose 80 pounds, and call it a day.  Then KRAM and Naturally Balding Mark wouldn't greet me like I'm one of those cute old ladies who gets a smile no matter what when I walk in to Gold's.  Then I could stand next to that woman in the locker room, the one who blow dries her hair while she's naked because SHE'S JUST SO AWESOME.

I could leave the scale in the ladies' locker room on my weight so the girl behind me would feel bad about herself.

All I have to do is remove this one stupid muscle.

Or....

I rethink this.  If I cut out the muscle, I'll bleed and I just don't have any bandages and I really don't feel like going to Walgreen's because I'm tired and I have a chapter to write and frankly this all sounds like a lot of work. 

Maybe...maybe if I get a good night's sleep, the muscle will invite some friends and I'll be all buff.  And then it won't matter how much I weigh because I'll be buff.  And KRAM and Naturally Balding Mark will high five me, and I could tell that woman in the locker room to PUT ON SOME FREAKING CLOTHES.  And I would abolish the scale in the locker room because weight is a number.

Or maybe I should just stop reading in the bathroom.

Where's the moisture wicking article of clothing for this?

Good evening friends!

Again, I apologize for not checking in more often this month.  I'm working feverishly on my first draft of "Fresh Ice" as well as blocking my Elsie W book.  (By the way...have you voted?)  November will be worse since I've just signed myself up for NaNoWriMo  (National Novel Writing Month.)  The idea is to complete a novel in a month.  Why they picked November, one of the socially busiest months in the year...I do not know.  But I am determined to get two books out by Christmas...okay, Valentine's day at the latest, so I must, as they say, sally forth.

However, I have to pause and share with you a problem I'm sure many people, fluffy women especially, have.

There are parts of my body that are simply never, ever dry.

Okay, I'll give you a minute to get your minds out of the gutter.

Thank you.

As we age, ladies, gravity stops being our friend.  Everything gets pulled downward, which means there are portion of our body that are covered by other portions of our body...and therefore these covered portions don't get the sweet drying relief of a soft breeze because...well, these are portions that really, no one wants to see out in a soft breeze.

You've got to have friends...
friends who know where to get
good supportive moisture
wicking bras.

When I was in college, one of my favorite milk through the nose comedy routine was of the Bette Midler talking about taking the pencil test on her upstairs female bits.  The theory was that you could go without foundation garments if you stuck a pencil under your breast and it fell out.  I believe Divine Miss M shared that she stuck a wing backed chair in there and it stayed. 

See, it was funny because I was thin and had a small upstairs.  Now I'm fluffy, and two kids (and countless bags of Cheetos) later, I'm hitting wing back chair status.  Which means there are large portions of my upper gut that are not getting dried by a cool breeze.

But it all evens out...because a liquid mass will fill the space it's put in, and thusly my gut drifts downward toward my knees, hanging gently over my undergut...for lack of a better term, and putting yet more acreage of skin in the moist dark of my flab.

I could live with that, except for one thing...skin that stays moist tends to get rashy and itchy and not so pretty.  Think athlete's foot...under the mammaries.

So I hit the stores to find undergarments that will magically wick away the moisture.  (I hit the stores to find undergarments that will magically make my body think it's been to Gold's gym four times a week so it weighs 140 pounds...but I haven't found that product yet.)  I've tried sports bras, but here's the secret about athletic clothing...

THEY DON'T MAKE WORK OUT CLOTHES FOR FAT PEOPLE.

I'm not making this up.  Go look in the plus size department of any store...sure there are T's and sweats...but not work out clothes.  It's like...if you're heavy, it's assumed you're going to wear the workout clothes for lying on the couch, so why bother making anything fashionable or pretty?  Or supportive?  (that's what the couch is for, right?)  Go to the sporting goods store and look for a plus sized sport bra.  NOT HAPPENING.  I know, I've looked.

Okay, so if I am a fluffy girl, and I want to work out, I'm relegated to the ugliest clothing in the world....the sweat pants with the elastic band at the ankle.  These pants say one thing:  I'm afraid I might sneeze and lose a cookie down my trouser leg, so I'm binding the cuff.

And if you want to jog, but you have a bit of back fat...for get it.  If you have massive missiles, but no back fat, you can get your pick of jog bras.  (I know: Hubby's workout regimen includes reading "Runner" magazine and they go into tremendous detail about good supportive jog bras.  Just not for the fatties.)

So back to my original problem:  I have not been able to find anything that will wick away moisture from glacial fat covered areas.  I've tried powders, I've tried lying naked on a bed and holding my fat pouches up while a fan blows on me.  Believe me, it's not nearly as sexy as it sounds. 

Short of hanging upside down from one of those anti-gravity things, I'm not sure what to do.

Don't mind me...I'm just drying my undergut.  Get in line..
The blonde is next, but then it's your turn!

So hey, wanna make a million bucks?  Try designing some workout clothing for plus sized girls that 1)  Doesn't cost as much as a Vera Wang wedding dress and 2) actually wicks away moisture from those covered areas.

Oh, and a pair of really comfy, sexy sweat pants wouldn't be bad either.

Once again, a fluffy girl is CRUSHED by the metric system!

Good evening!

Before I get started, the contest for the best title for my new book about my work life has been extended one week.  THIS FRIDAY I will post the five titles I like best.  Author of the winning title will receive free copies of all my published writing  (having a computer or an e-reading device is sort of a must.)

Now then, as you all know I wear a step counter on my shoe.  I've been measuring the number of steps I walk each day for probably the last 7 or 8 years.  Not that it's done me a lot of good in the weight loss department, but I am able to tell you how many steps I take on an average day at Great America  (22477)  how many I take in the office on any given day when I take a walk at lunch time  (6482)  and how many I take on a normal day at church when I'm teaching Sunday School  (3644.  I pace a lot when I teach.)

The other thing I thought I had down to a science is how many of my steps equals a mile.  (between 2300 and 2400, depends on the counter.)  This I have been as certain of as my own name for a long time.

Which is why, for the last several weeks, I've been really excited to see that while my actual steps seem to have slacked a bit, my actual distance has increased, almost doubled!  Sure, I was only taking about 5000 steps at work...but I was covering nearly 4 miles, when up until recently, I'd have to do close to 10000 steps, (My daily goal) to reach a distance of 5 miles.

I attributed this to different things:  I had a longer stride, (due to the massive muscles I was now suddenly forming in my legs)  I had finally, FINALLY found the $5 step counter that ACTUALLY WAS CORRECT, and I'd been walking all these miles all along.   I was just that awesome and the step counter gods had decided to finally reward my loyalty by giving me a bigger distance number.

So imagine my complete sense of defeat when I took a closer look at that distance on Friday and saw the letters KM behind my distance number.

It's not that I wouldn't...but since I live in the US
I don't think I could...just finding a pole that
length would be impossible!

My step counter was, and is, stuck in the kilometer setting.

I'm not well versed in metrics, but I know that KM is a smaller unit of measure than MILE.  (I grew up in a decade when Americans didn't think metrics or computers would really last...so I was only exposed to metrics a few times in my formal schooling...and I think I was sick both those days.)

This of course means only one thing:  I did not deserve the ice cream bars I ate each night, as I cheered myself by saying  "I may not have hit 10000 steps today, but I walked 7 miles, and that has to count for something!"

I guess the moral of this story is, as many of mine tend to be:  Don't get fat.  It just makes more work for you later on.  Like then you will have to know the metric system!