Happiness...

Happiness is having lost enough weight that I could put on a dress that doesn't look like a sack to get dressed up in for a date with my hubby.

Happiness is the desire to be seen, dressed in my pearls and new dress, knowing that I am so much nicer looking today than three months ago.

Happiness is having lost enough weight to wear the 3 inch heels I wore for the first time today instead of the flats I've been wearing for years because my feet would hurt too much..

Happiness is going to a restaurant dressed as nicely as I could, ordering soup and salad and being content with that.

Happiness is the approving smile in my hubby's eyes as he walked with me, and the feeling of contentment and health I have been having because of the way I live now.

It was a good evening.

Shopping and Self Image

Dropped another pound. Always on the weekend for some reason!

Went shopping at Walmart’s yesterday. Discovered that now that I can wear smaller than women’s 22s, that it’s opened a whole world of things for me...but my shape is still frustrating!

Finally out of the Plus Size prison, sort of. I’m wearing everything from 14/16 knit tops to size 20 wovens. At Walmart, once you get out of the 18w sizes, they spread the 16s, some 16Ws and 18s through almost every part of the women’s clothes -at least at my local one.

Tried on two dresses. One a size 20 cotton sundress with a surplice top which fit me nicely. One a size 18 dress with a jacket. It fit me...but my tummy looked yucky in it...I would have to wear an all-in-one body briefer with it. I said later to that one. I’m looking for clothes that will let me wear them as I shrink and also for going to Houston where it will be very, very hot and I need light and cotton!

I also managed to get some camis in XL sizes which are not plus size, and they fit fine, and a cute size 16 pink top to wear with my jeans. And a skirt with a non-elastic waist and zipper which actually fit...My waist has been out of proportion for the rest of me for so long that being able to close something around my waist in the size 18 range is great. I have a size 16 hip and a size 20-22 waist! The only store I have found that size to my real measurements waistwise is a neat online shop called Newport News. Their 18w match my last week’s measurements exactly! Thick waisted.

I’ve been in the 22-26 range so long that being able to look in other sections of the store is just great fun.

I wish my tummy were tighter, though. Sigh. The look I really want I will not be able to do until it is a bit flatter. Of course, we always want what we can’t have.

I've been putting off doing much work out except for walking, because the last two times I've done this, I've either gotten plantar fastitis, or hurt tendons in my arm. But I am fast reaching the point that walking around the stores isn't enough exercise, and now that I can buy stuff, it's getting expensive!

My wedding ring is getting loose. That’s something else that I’ll have to deal with soon, too.

Weigh-in Day

Today's weight: 214 (loss of 2 lbs for the week)

Original weight 252

Original measurements:
Chest (not bust) 45
Current chest: 40 1/2 loss of 4 1/2 inches

Original waist: 47.5
current waist: 39.75 loss of 7.75 inches!

Abdomen (3rd month, started measuring a month into the diet)

original: 52
current: 47.75 loss of 4.25 inches

hips:
Original: 52
Cuurrent: 45.5 loss of 6.5

I like my every 4 week recap....when I see the progress I made, it makes me realize why I can't wear any of my old clothes!

Went shopping yesterday, and found out that I can wear knit tops in the 14/16 size . No wonder my 18 tank tops were feeling too loose.

Not yet there on wovens, though.

Quiet

Now that Teen is at his aunt's and I have little to stress about on a daily basis, I find the house is so quiet!

Probably needed it, but I am, I hate to say it, getting bored.

I don't want to spend all my time online. I don't really want to spend all my time working around the house. I don't want to spend my time chasing around town (not that there's a lot of places to chase around here, but there are some!). I spent yesterday afternoon "dusting" my hair - checking it for split ends and snipping them. I have hair past my waist, and doing this helps it lay nicer.

But still, that has to be a symptom of too much time on my hands! It's like when a sick person is too sick to do much, but gets crabby because he's bored. Sounds like I am well on my way to regaining my equilibrium.

Armchair Fashionista

I admit it. I have become an armchair fashionista....My coffee table is piling high with issues of Vogue and Elle and Harper's Bazaar, and Lucky and In Style. I have succumbed to buying celebrity magazines like Star and Us, not so much to know the marital woes of Jessica Simpson and the latest twist in the Lindsay Lohan diet saga, but to look at what they are wearing, how they carry it off, how they fix their hair.

Now that I have dieted down enough that plus shops are not the only option (and mostly becoming an ex-option as I hit that twilight zone of size 16, both plus and not plus) I find myself searching the internet for neat clothing stores to window shop. "Could I pull that look off?" I wonder as I glance through the offerings, or "Doesn't anyone here know how to design a dress that doesn't look like everybody else's sundress? or worse, ugly sack?"

This is really how I am judging sites: Can they offer a dress that is interesting, and not a copy of the style everybody else is doing with only minor differences.

It's been great fun. I point things out to my husband. "See how that doesn't work?" I say of one of the latest pouf skirts. "If you show that much shoulder, you really need a longer skirt. The eye doesn't know where to go." I wonder and am amazed at some of the hairdos the models are wearing. I drool over a 50s retro suit that some designer has made...very lean lines that even if I was a size 3, I couldn't pull off because I am too short (but I think are so beautiful).

I long to design something and sew it, but I've been losing weight too fast, and my dress form, even adjustable as it is, was padded to fit my overly large size, and I am not sure I can make it fit me properly now. So I am making notes in my head. I want to start a scrapbook of design ideas for when I have the size and shape I want, or the one I end up with anyway.

If fashion isn't fun, it's not worth doing. As I can afford to, I will add what chic I can to the clothes I am replacing...but the anticipation of being further down the road makes it even more fun.

Monday, Monday

Son is safe in Seattle. He was so excited and just knew everything to do when we took him to the airport (like all teens), so when I reminded him about not leaving his bag unattended and all that, he acted properly like I was telling him the obvious (although he thought I was worried about him losing it - he didn't realize that they could confiscate it!). When we got to the check-in where we were going to have to let him go, he eagerly walked up to the line, with only a little look back. Happy boy. He's going to have a rough time when he gets back because of court, but that's life. But now I have him away from the "friends" who he's known forever, but who have been getting him in trouble.


Went to a steak house on Saturday after we left the airport with hubby. It was a good choice for my diet - one of the better type of restaurants for me to go to...can buy a steak, cut out a portion about the normal size I eat, and save the rest for later, eat a salad with vinegar for dressing, and eat a plain baked potato portion (or whatever). Easy to keep the meal in the 500 calorie range. I've been avoiding going out because of the difficulty in deciding what fits my meal plan.

This morning, it's been Monday Morning pampering: beauty treatment for hair and skin (I was using a microdermabrasion product on Monday, but it bothers my skin too much, and I'll have to find something else for that), pedicure and manicure time (nails have been chipping a lot lately - wonder if it's the diet, the medication or what?).

Now it's time to get some things done I wanted to. No kids, no hubby around and underfoot. Time to stop putting it off. I've been trying to turn oldest son's old room into an office (he moved out this year), but it's only half there. I had been sick for most of the last year and a half, or depressed, and so much didn't get done because the guys weren't going to handle it, and I couldn't. Remediation time. Works as exercise, too.

And of course, there is laundry!