One of the things I was most excited about in going to the US this past weekend was the shopping. And you know what? I didn't get that much. Oh sure, I got a few tops, and a really kickass pair of knee high black boots, but nothing for the bottom.
Why?
Because nothing fit the way I wanted it to. I tried on lots of dresses, skirts and trousers. And everything made me feel lumpy, squishy or otherwise pudgy. I could have gone up a size. Or two. I could have accepted it and bought larger clothing, or different brands. But I didn't. Maybe it's stubborness or maybe it's dissatisfaction, but I refuse to start buying myself more clothes in bigger sizes that what I'm used to.
Yes, size is just a number. And yes, I wear different sizes depending on the brand, cut, fit, etc. But if the clothes don't make me feel good, I'm not going to buy them just to buy them. Then I'll just resent them and they will hang in my closet, taunting me, and making me feel inadequate.
So instead, I bought some new gym clothes. I bought new workout bottoms and some new sports bras. Those fit. And guess what? They're about to get used. I'm off to the gym now. Because if I'm oh-so-slow at work, I see no reason not to take off to the gym for a midday break!
I'm writing this sitting in O'Hare airport, waiting for my flight back to London. Which is three hours delayed. I guess it's a good thing I'm not too busy at work these days, because there's no way I'm going to make it into the office before noon now. Whoops!
The weekend home was really nice. We had a wonderful weekend together, and my mom's birthday brunch was gorgeous. Her friends are some serious foodies, so the eating was unbelievably good. The party was held at her friend M's restaurant, and seeing all the people who came to celebrate my mom was pretty special. She's nifty.
Spending time with my sister was really interesting. She and I had a rocky relationship basically from when I was in high school until she started college. That's a solid eight years where we just didn't get along particularly well. Now, though, we are very close, and I treasure that. Since January, she's been focusing intensely on exercise and eating properly and has managed to lose around 50 pounds - I've written about this before. It's awesome. She's worked so fricking hard, working out a lot, and being very careful about her food intake. Watching her this weekend, it drove home to me why she has managed to be so successful, and why, quite frankly, I'm still at the same weight. It's diligence. Pure and simple. She goes to the gym and works her ass off at least five days a week. While we were home, she went twice, and did tons of cardio and weight lifting. (I went too, but wouldn't have gone had she not wanted to.) She logs all her food in Daily Plate. She works hard, plain and simple.
I could work hard. But I'm not. I'm doing okay about the gym, I'm eating sort of sensibly. But I'm not being diligent.
You know what though? I can be diligent. I can be organized. I can work hard I'm just not doing it right now. But this weekend jumpstarted things for me.
A, my sister, is awesome. She's a phenomenal woman who has achieved a truly inspirational thing. I want to lose a third of what she did. Surely by being diligent, like her, I too can be successful. I just need to get off my duff and do it.
Boy did I feel popular this morning, with my 26 comments! Thanks, EP, for all the multiple posts!!
Tomorrow I'm flying home for the weekend - it's the big Six-Oh for my Mother Dearest, so both my sister and I are flying home to help her celebrate. Happy birthday, Mom!
I'm really looking forward to it. Living in London, I don't get to see my family all that often, so trips home are precious to me. Of course, I'll be a tad loopy due to jet lag, but that's fine. And I cannot WAIT to hit the shops in the US! I get paid in US dollars, and let me tell you, they do not spend well over here. Everything is freakishly expensive, so I tend to save up all my shopping for trips back home. I have a little list going. I want:
knee length black boots
a wireless mouse
a portable hard drive
at least two new work outfits
possibly a new suit
at least two more sports bras
at least two more regular bras
capri length gym pants
as much fabulousness as I can handle from the best store in the universe, Target
Oh yeah baby . . . shopping spree commencing in T minus 36 hours!!
I've never thought of myself as a particularly careless person, but the past few days are giving me pause. First, there was the iPod touch. And then yesterday, D's watch.
Back in Australia, D's mom worked for Cartier before she passed away from cancer in 2002. Before she died, she got D two watches: a Cartier watch and a Baum & Mercier watch. When D's house got broken into in July, the burglars stole the Baum & Mercier watch. He was absolutely devastated, saying that was the only thing he had which was irreplaceable due to the sentimental value. Thankfully, they didn't get the Cartier watch.
On Monday, I went to the Cartier store near my office to pick up the watch which was being serviced. That night, I went to the ballet at the Royal Opera House with some friends, and showed the watch to one of them. I went back to D's that night, but forgot to give him the watch. Last night, I remembered, and went into my bag to get it. No watch. I turned my bag inside out, went through every pocket, and it was nowhere to be seen. I panicked. I thought that maybe it could possibly be in my desk drawer where I keep the bag, but wasn't hopeful. Then I started thinking back to the Royal Opera. I had shoved my coat in my bag and pulled it out as we were leaving. Could the watch have possibly fallen out?
Oh. My. God.
I'm sitting on the floor, hugging D's knees, sobbing about how horrible I felt, about how I couldn't believe I could possibly be so careless with something so important. He, to his credit, was completely calm, telling me it wasn't my fault, that it was okay. I knew, however, it wasn't. This was the only thing he had that really meant something to him. And did I mention that today is the six year anniversary of his mother's death? My timing was impeccable.
This morning, I scoured my desk drawer, but to no avail. Hoping against hope, I called the Royal Opera to check with the lost and found. I described the watch, and the guy whistled as I mentioned it was Cartier, in a red velvet Cartier bag, please-oh-please tell me you have it.
After an agonizing five minute wait which felt like a lifetime, he got back on the line. They have it.
Thank God for the honesty of strangers. Thank God someone turned it in.
Adding insult to injury, I worked out with my personal trainer at the old gym for the last time yesterday - he gave me a free session - and I am incredibly sore as a result. This, of course, was not helped by the fact that I could not unclench my muscles until just now.
Fourteen days. That's right. In fourteen days, D will officially become Roommate. Not flatmate. Roommate. I can't wait! We went through his flat last night, compiling a list of everything we want to move from his flat to mine. Bear in mind that his flat, which he owns and has lived in for the past six years, is 1000 square feet. My flat is about 600 square feet at best, a lot of which is taken up by stairs, since it's on three levels. There is going to be some serious squishing of stuff and manipulating of storage space to make it all fit. But we're taking the attitude that we might as well move it over to my place in the first instance, and then whatever doesn't fit can into the storage unit. Plus, I want to make sure that he feels like it is our home, rather than my place in which he is staying, if that makes sense.
So that's Good News.
Also, this weekend while we were just wandering around, we found an HMV that actually had Wii Fit in stock! We jumped on that bandwagon, as we've been on the prowl for one for several months now. I cannot tell you how much fun it is! I've never had a video game system before, and was never really that keen on computer games. But this is fantastic. Last night, we each played for about an hour, going back and forth. The games are really fun, and some of them actually give you a workout! I did all the yoga postures that were available to me, and can feel it a little in my back this morning. That doesn't necessarily make up for sleeping through my run this morning, but it helps.
That's also Good News.
Plus, while I was walking around this weekend, I popped into my favorite boutique just to browse. I found this black jersey dress with an empire waist and big buttons down the sleeves. It's sort of Grecian looking and goes below my knees so I can actually wear it to work. I tried it on, and had That Moment when I looked in the mirror. The "hey, I look GOOD!" moment. And it was awesome. So of course, I bought the dress! This morning, my secretary told me how nice the dress looked. She's very fashion savvy, and this is the first time in two years she's ever complimented me on my clothing. Clearly, I must be doing something right.
Good News times three!
But here's the Bad News. When I bought my new laptop back in July, I got a free iPod Touch with it. For a while, I was going to sell it on eBay, since I already have a Nano and bigger iPod as well. But then I waited too long, and they came out with the new Touches. It just didn't seem worth the hassle, so I decided to keep it. It's pretty fun, I like it, it's a PDA as well, yadda yadda. When I left the office on Friday, I thought I put it in my bag. But then I got home and couldn't find it, so I assumed it was still in my office. This morning, I turned my office upside down looking for it, and it's nowhere to be seen! Stupid, stupid me. Somehow, I've managed to lose it. I really hope it turns up. I guess the silver lining is that I didn't pay for it, but still. I feel dumb.
I ended up taking off early on Tuesday, sleeping for most of the day, sleeping for most of Wednesday and then going to services for Yom Kippur on Thursday. A nice short week at the office, eh?
Seriously though, I feel much better, except for this cold sore the size of Texas that decided it was a good idea to take over my head and eat a giant hole in my lip. Seriously. Even if I hadn't been feeling sick on Wednesday, I might have stayed home because it looked that nasty. When I went to the pharmacist to get something for it, she looked at me, shook her head sadly, and said (in a posh British accent), "oh you poor dear, don't you know you're supposed to put something on them before they burst like that?" Thanks, lady. Much obliged.
Oh, and some other news? Thanks to my sickness / fasting / whatever, I'm down a pound or two! We'll see if it sticks.
And here's some really really great news that means the weekend and weeks going forward are going to be hectic but awesome . . . D exchanged contracts on his flat!! This means the sale is locked in, it is going forward, and he'll be moving in with me in seventeen days. Woohoo! Here's to roommates! The good kind . . . the kind who (hopefully) do their share of the laundry . . . the kind who make you purr at night when they rub your back while they think you're sleeping . . . mmm . . . roommates . . .
Things in pretty quiet here in London-land. The markets are still all topsy-turvy, which means work is super quiet. It also means I've actually had time to focus on setting up some pro bono projects, which satifies the squishy liberal core at the center of this seemingly capitalist corporate lawyer.
Weight wise? I'm not sure. I ate a lot of salty foods this weekend, so I haven't gotten on a scale because I don't want to depress myself. M and I didn't go for our run on Sunday because it was raining so hard we were worried we'd have to hitch a ride on Noah's Ark to survive it. I'm coming down with some sort of cold-sinus-draining-thingy so I didn't go to the gym this morning. I think I may take today off entirely and see how I'm feeling tomorrow before hauling my butt back in there.
That's about it on my end. Quiet at work, slightly sick. Par-tay.
Today is a better day. I can feel it. The sun is shining, I feel well rested, and TOM is leaving. All these factors, plus, hey, it's Friday, can't help but make it a better day.
Yesterday, I was pretty upset for much of the day. My friend H insisted we go to the Boot Camp class at the gym. We had been planning to go anyway, but she demanded that I attend, saying it would get my mind off things. And boy, did it ever. We had to leave work at 5:30 to make the 6:00 class which in itself is a bit cheeky, especially since I didn't roll in until around 10:15 yesterday. Given how slow we are these days (thank you credit crisis), no one really cared or even noticed.
The class was exactly what I needed. High energy, high impact. The instructor was hysterical and kept making us yell with him, either doing countdowns of the last ten seconds of a particular exercise, or telling him we were still with him. If we didn't yell loud enough, we had to do push ups. After a crazy cardio warmup, we were divided into groups and did fast-paced circuits around the room, doing dips, squats, lunges, push-ups, jumping jacks (or star jumps, as they are called here) and holding plank position amongst other things.
It was perfect.
Afterwards, D and I went back to H's flat to make dinner, and ended up putting on cheesy pop music and dancing around her living room. Well, H and I danced. D just sat there, amused, and periodically shimmied on the couch.
So all in all, I'm in a much better frame of mind. So much better, that I actually got on the scale this morning. And lo and behold, I'm back below 160. Granted, it's 159.5, but I will take it, log it, and rejoice in it.
About a month ago, D accepted an offer on his flat. Given the market conditions, I didn't want to get my hopes up too much. But as time went on and they got closer and even set a date for completion, I started thinking of it as more and more of a likely thing. He was going to move in with me in three weeks.
The buyer pulled out last night.
I'm pretty devastated. I know it's not the end of the world and we'll move in together eventually, but there are a whole slew of reasons why it doesn't make sense for me to move in with him. It's a long story and a complicated one, and I don't have any answers.
So we're back to the beginning now. Starting this process of trying to sell a house again so we can move on to the next phase of our relationship.
Did I mention TOM is in town? That's not making this any easier, let me tell you! I'm trying to put a positive spin on it somehow. I'm trying to say to myself, Self, it's okay. Look at this as a new beginning. Rather than waiting for that fateful day when D moves in with you, you are going to start moving forward. You are going to keep on doing the good things you're doing, and do more of them.
But Self is having a hard time believing that right now.
My weight is stuck. Just locked down, playing with the same five pounds over and over and over again. I keep bopping along, thinking maybe I'm down then up it pops again.
I know my eating isn't awesome. I'm eating out too much and I'm eating too much period.
But then again, that's not always the case. Exhibit A: D and I went out for Chinese on Monday night. We got a set meal, and had soup then crispy aromatic duck (our favorite). The mains were about to be served, when we both realized we were full. We had them pack up the mains, and then had FIVE takeaway boxes to eat over the next couple days. We're still not through them.
I think it's just that I'm not being that careful. I'm not trying that hard. Part of me thinks, eh, if I'm maintaining, that's okay. I'm working out more, I'm not eating crap, I'm just eating a lot.
Maybe I should just throw the scale away, focus on how I'm feeling, the exercise I'm doing and the fact that I'm not obsessing over food and weight the way I used to. I'm working out, and that gives me license to enjoy food, rather than think of food as some sort of emotional guilt-wagon. Is that a healthy approach? I'm just not sure.
I had wanted to be 150 by October 17, when I go home for my mom's birthday. As of this morning, I'm back up to 162, though I had sushi last night so I'm hopefuly some of that is just water retention. There's no way I'll be down 12 pounds in 17 days. Hell, with my track record, I won't be down 5. So maybe I will just throw that scale away. The rule about not saying anything if you can't say anything nice should apply to scales. I don't mind a few home truths every now and again, but this perpetual morning letdown is getting a bit old.
