Sunday, April 28, 2013

First 5K!

Couldn't have asked for a better day--well, we could have; it was drizzling and overcast and a little chilly--or better people to be with or a better neighborhood (ETA that'd be the Ravenswood/Lincoln Square area, in case you can't see the shirts; I didn't mention it anywhere else, duh-doy). That's Kate and ManKate, two of my very best friends and seasoned marathon runners, who ran with me the whole time. Kristen came out to cheer and then buy breakfast, and Catt (whose amazing Flickr is here) took a wonderful series of pictures, but because I'm an egotist, I'm only going to share the ones that feature me (so please visit her Flickr to see them all, plus many many other beautiful photos):
Pic by Kristen in color

Pic by Catt in black and white (plus: awwwwwwww)

Hamboning, as per usual

Nervously fidgeting with my number
Sprinting the last five seconds; I love how focused I am and how no one in the photo is even looking at me... that's running for you.

After, with Kate
And one of my very favorites (that doesn't feature me or the Kates)
Overall, I defied my expectations, considering how nervous I was this morning. I ran it in 36 minutes plus and kept my pace around 11.5 minutes on each mile. I have to say that the Couch to 5K app from Zen Labs was absolutely a big help in teaching me to do that (with some in-person advice from Kate from time to time helping tweak my training), and I'm going to start the 10K training with their 10K app because I really want to run the Frank Lloyd Wright in Oak Park with The Kates in the fall.

For the rest of the day, I'm going to sit in my housecoat (well, a gray Old Navy cardigan) and pajama pants and watch tv on my laptop while the day gets sunnier and happier. As I told a friend in e-mail: I feel like I did my time in the out-of-doors this morning.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Nancy Drew and The Case of The Phantom Fat-Girl Adjustments

One of the oddball recurring issues I have now is reaching around to assure myself that:
1) My shirt isn't riding up
2) My pants aren't so low that my underwear band is showing, e.g. The Marky Mark Look

I feel like they are, the long-standing curse of being too big or clothes being a touch too small or a combination thereof, but it turns out it's like the phantom limb phenomenon (thanks, as always, Wikipedia), only, y'know, for 40+ lbs of missing kitty litter. I should grow my network of Weightlossians to see if it's a wide-spread issue affecting the community, or if I'm simply haunted by my missing butts.



I tried to be bold and brave and shared the below photo on the Gwynnie Bee Facebook wall:
Sunday casual look
I love this top: it's not quite a faux wrap, because it has a side tie belt, but it doesn't give me the jitters like a full-on wrap would. Also, the pattern is funky fresh and awesome.

I liked it so much, I wore it to work the next day with my "new" Isaac Mizrahi for Target pencil skirt from eBay (which is a heavier fabric and also the zipper is frustrating and catches, so I don't know how many more wears it will get before being retired or resold).
Monday work look



I'm going to yoga tonight for the first time in about two months. I sincerely hope I can remember how to do things and stuff. At least I know I can officially do a side plank (for about five seconds).

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Car Karaoke and my first selfie

I went home for a Dad and family visit recently. Normally when I rent a car, I bring a clutch of CDs along, but this time I relied solely on the radio to get me through the 7+ hours (actually, 8+ thanks to Loop traffic and my stupid error of driving up 94 through Milwaukee on the way up; an hour delay due to a lane closure between EC and Osseo on the way home) there and back. I had a surprisingly successful run of it, including:

1) Hearing "Lightning Crashes" three times and "I Alone" once. Are the kids bringing Live back? Did someone die?

2) Singing what I considered to be outstanding versions of "In Too Deep" by Genesis, "Oh Sherrie" by Steeeeeeeeeeeeeve Perry, and "Roll On" by Alabama (in particular my hammy performance of the "Somebody upstairs was LISTENIN'!" segue into the final chorus).

3) Learning all the lyrics to both "Carry On" and "Some Nights" by fun. (I had to Google-pod them on my YouTube; I guess THEY'RE the thing the kids are listening to these days) and "Trouble" by Taylor Swift. I heard each of these songs a total of six times on six different radio stations. Runners-up included Adele's "Rumor Has It" and the new Avril single (I refuse to Google-pod how to spell her last name) where she listens to Radiohead while falling in love and gets thrown out of bars and also sk8tr bois her eyeliner into being a hero with Chad Kroger's.

Also: are we sure that fun. isn't just a Queen or Kansas cover band who also have original material?

As I was leaving Dad's, I tuned in to Acoustic Sunrise on Cities 97, which was one of my very favorite radio shows when I lived in the area, and was just in time to catch this:
And I was pretty much a mess for the next ten minutes. Curse you, John Denver's Ghost, and sweet Brandi Carlisle and also Emmylou Harris (but not really; you my girl, Emmylou). Home is not West Virginia, but that song (along with "Calypso," for some oddball reason) has always made me melancholy. Add it to driving away from a too-brief visit with Dad, and it was super sad sack town in my rental.

Good thing I had three more rounds of Taylor Swift to look forward to, right? And also John Tesh's weird radio show where he plays lite FM and then shares Paul Harvey-type thoughts, only for rich white granola types?



I haven't taken a lot of outfit photos--my outfit yesterday, in particular, was designed by I Could Care Less by the House of Ugh--but today's is pretty cute:
Don't worry: I adjusted my cardigan belt after this photo was taken.

That's a Loft cardigan I bought from eBay paired with a Dress Barn tulip-print skirt also purchased from eBay (the pink tank is Loft, and it's a Large so it's therefore a little boobtastic). I feel like if I'm going to work out of being in a funk, I need to at least dress the part.

Also, my sis-in-law Joy informed me that a "selfie" is a pic you take of yourself and post to your booger (I had a fit of laughter over that because that is not what I imagined the definition of a "selfie" to be). So that's gotta happen:

BooooooooooooooooOOOOOOoooooo I'm the headless booger poster!
This is not an eBay purchase. This was a splurge, because I've never been able to fit into Banana Republic sizes before and because it's the Mad Men collection (and a Peggy dress at that; Peggy Olsen, like Emmylou Harris, is my girl) and it has emerald green in it. I'm thinking it could be a work dress, but I love it so much and feel so heartybeans about it that I almost want to save it for special occasions only. I wore it out with my sis-in-laws to dinner at an Ecuadorian restaurant--super, super delicious, and any cuisine which features seasoned potato pancakes filled with cheese is absolutely acceptable. I think I'll wear it again to dinner out at The Portage next Wednesday as well (they're making a dandelion cocktail! Mmm, weedy!).

Duse also bequeathed to me a metric ton of clothes as she transitions into her next teeny size, so I'm looking forward to adding those items into the rotation. Guess this means I have to stop trolling eBay like a creeper, right?



I'm continuing along with functional training. I imagine it is doing good work--I feel pretty good right up until I feel like someone hit me all over with a 2x4 and then pushed me down a few times for good measure--but about 40 minutes into the session, I often find myself making horrid whiny noises, particularly if the trainer says the phrase "30 seconds to go."

I'm also preparing for the 5K (in theory):
Pretty much, Homer... pretty much

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Here comes the rain again (damn your eyes, Annie Lennox! Damn them!)

I was never a kid or teen who had a whole lot of interest in clothes. Like a lot of my generation and fellow Wisconsinites, sweatshirts and jeans ruled the day. When I did have interest, it was for the trendiest--and therefore retrospectively ugliest--items. Neon yellow moon boots? Check. Neon green stonewashed overall-skirt combo (worn to Bad English/Whitesnake concert)? Check.

I'm trying very, very hard, in my recent interest/obsession with my wardrobe to stick to a lot of colors and styles that will not come back to haunt me in pictures (and thank goodness none exist of me in those neon yellow moon boots). However, I am still loving some of the trends I see at Gwynnie Bee and my favorite stores: peplum, the return of neon in a more balanced, non-stonewashed-at-least-I-won't-acknowledge-that-colored-stonewash-made-a-comeback way.

And I'm planning my outfits before school work, mostly with giddy anticipation.

For example:

I was super excited about this dress, a Dress Barn faux wrap, that I purchased off eBay for $25. It is funky without being aggressive about it, it's flattering, and it gave me a chance to wear my beige/taupe/whatever heels, which is a trend that I think is now accepted as fashion canon (is fashion canon a thing? Should I stop talking in nerdy fandom jargon?).


I was excited about this dress, a Croft and Barrow "spiral wrap," in theory, but when I tried it on after it arrived from the eBay seller ($17.10--so important to note the price, isn't it, because I'm beginning to learn that unless it is a label I can't readily go and find myself in the store, I'm not going to pay more than $20 anymore), I discovered that "spiral wrap" was code for "no waistline at all."

Luckily, I had purchased a Banana Republic leather belt ($13, from the Goodwill in San Francisco, which has some thoroughly cool items for sale in their eBay shop) and was dying to try what I'd learned in my Beginner Belts course with Kristen. I checked in with her on an early AM e-mail, and she informed me--along with a guest judging appearance from her hubby--yes, yes, yes to the belt.

Wednesday was rainy and cold, so I reluctantly switched over to trousers--gosh, I wish you all had been at Plato's Closet the day I stopped by and the be-pierced twentysomething working the counter said, in reply to my query about selling my too-big work pants: "Do you mean...trousers?" And the italicized emphasis made it sound like I was trying to sell him some kind of illicit or embarrassing materials, like drugs or porn--and a cardigan:

Ruffled Ann Taylor cardigan (eBay, $17) with a Loft speckled gray-and-black tank underneath and Nine West pants I bought while thrifting with Kristen and Kate on Saturday. They're just snug enough around the waist to give me that lovely mini-poppyseed muffin you can see under my sweater. My favorite part besides the frilly cardigan was my necklace, which I bought at Hazel, because their Facebook page is eeeeeevil:
Sorry about the glare, y'all; better photo on Hazel FB page (it's evil! EVIL!)
I know that sometimes I can like flowers and whimsy to an alarming too-too-shabby-chic level, but the colors and the shape of this necklace called to me, and I loved it against the gray-black tank.

And then today happened. While I'd been thinking about potential outfits the night before, I also had functional training, which was bananas and kicked my ass all over the place. I woke up this morning to another dreary rainy day and was thus sullen about the first two outfits I tried:

1) A dress I purchased from the Goodwill in Arlington Heights is another one of those funky-but-not-too patterned numbers with the added bonus of a shirtdress collar without the shirtdress shape... but I think I'm still about five pounds away from a flattering fit, because my boobs make the waistline narrowly miss its target. Results: BOOOOOOOOO!

2) A stripey, springy Charter Club wrap skirt, which is also a five-pounds-more item, because the back hits me just high enough that when I sit down, I'm going to give everyone a little Bridget-Jones-going-down-the-firepole show. My bottom, it seems, is also the size of Brazil.

So this is what I committed to today. Take special note of the "Get it over with" smile on my face for the daily nerd pic to Kristen:

I guess the color combo is sort of a metaphor: it's spring, but it's also gray and gloomy here, and the trainer last night decimated me to the point that I would like to unscrew my arms and set them aside like I was Bender Rodriguez.

The top is Limited. Yep, eBay. A triumph, budget-wise, at 99 cents. I don't often buy high collars. Due to my round head and big cans, I stick to open necklines, mostly v-necks (Dave Rose of Happy Endings and I have that, and only that, in common). But I'm trying new things! I liked the color! It's mostly cute, but for the fact that I could have held in my poppyseed mini-muffin a little!

(I'm sure my dad will read this whole clothing section and say, "What the hell? Was that even English?" And the answer is: no, it wasn't English at all.)



It was a somewhat discouraging experience at functional training last night. I seemed to be the oldest person attending class by at least ten years, if not fifteen, and I seem completely incapable of doing any ab exercises for more than 10 seconds without wanting to crawl out the door. I could only seem to focus on what I couldn't do, or how slow I was, when normally I would be excited I was doing it at all. My body is tired and aching today, which suggests I did something, but I couldn't tell you what that was, other than fail and be chunky and flabby.

I'm trying to give myself a little room to be chunky and flabby, along with crabby and sulky (ChunkyFlabby CrabbySulky is the title of my dance album, dropping summer 2014). I've been so upbeat and Richard Simmonsy that I was bound to have an off day mentally/emotionally. I'm trying to avoid what my dad calls "a pity bag," where I crawl into what I picture to be a sleeping bag full of cartoon thunderclouds with frowny faces where I stew in my own pouty juices. Probably good if I take my day of rest today and run tomorrow so that I don't drive myself further into a snit. I had to take a walking break of 2 minutes or so during my first 30 min run and that cheesed me off; I'm afraid tonight I would just get off the treadmill if I felt the need to walk.


Not included in bio: him butt stink.

Kate met Tux this weekend, and for a dedicated dog person, she went pretty nuts. If I could pick the perfect home for him, I would pick the next person who walked into PAWS and said, "This is my first pet, and I grew up with dogs." His love of running and chasing reminds me more of a dog than a kitten. Tux is definitely less mysterious and a-holish, than, say, Plum or Trumper.

(No one is less mysterious than E. Edward.)

Tux will go back on Saturday, April 20th, so if you know anyone looking for a goofy, high-energy, lovey dog-cat, you might want to send her/him the hyperlink above. Please name it something other than "him butt stink." PAWS thanks you for that.

Friday, April 5, 2013

Happy Friday!

An unfortunate combination of events:

  1. My recent journey through eBay has given me the insight that I love skirts.
  2. I work four blocks from a Loft
So as you can see, I was defenseless against this happy pink skirt:
Not my office, though I am now considering buying an art print of my own.
The top is Loft too (another "whoops, I was going to get my prescription at the neighboring CVS, and they're having a 30% off sale!" purchase), but I'm beginning to size out of it. Luckily, Kristen taught me about belts and belting billowy shirts last weekend, so I'm hoping to get a few more wears out of this cute flowered top before I have to hand it over to her (hee hee, such a sacrifice, when she has literally given me an entire wardrobe in the past three years).

I know I said I was going to wear eBay purchases this week, so here's my other happy spring skirt, a Talbots pencil skirt I got for $16:
The green Coach purse to my left is not mine, but if she drops her guard, it will be...

I never thought I'd see the day I wore a skirt to work once in a month, much less twice in the same week. And now eBay is sending me a marketing e-mail with "fashion suggestions for me." You're not helping, eBay. You're not helping at all.



This week, I'm down 4 lbs for a total weight loss of 44.5 lbs. As Catt helpfully points out, that is two bags of kitty litter! Hard to believe I've shed two bags of kitty litter from my body. No wonder I don't have heartburn six days out of seven and also smell a whole lot less like kitty litter (probably still a little, though).

In exercise news, the LadyGym bootcamp is crazy popular, so between full classes and my overbooked week, I'm only going to be able to go twice. However, I'm very excited for tomorrow morning; I only recently stop having good-workout pain in my butts and my upper arms.

In the meantime, I've reached the end of the road with Couch to 5K: day 3 of week 8 is run for 30 minutes, and after that, it's go-go-gadget-5K! So I'm going to spend the next few weeks before Ravenswood 5K working on bettering my time and running outside as the weather improves. And I finally have a hoodie! Which means pockets for keys and my cell phone (which is such a piece of shit, so I think trying to MapMyRun is a pipe dream, but I'm going to give it a try)! Also, I'd like to get a small MP3 player that is compatible with my Amazon Cloud, so if anyone has any awesome suggestions that are not Apple products, I'm all ears.


I had my first Level 2 Lead shift at PAWS, which means I'm in charge of closing duties and telling other volunteers what to do. Luckily, one of the old salt Level 2 volunteers was there, so I got told how to tell other people what to do. I like training wheels like that.

My favorite PAWS kitty right now is Mandell (her bio is here). She's a big juicy bean-bag chair of a cat, and her "behavioral" marker is sort of puzzling, as she's never given me a moment of sass when I've visited with her. After I'm done fostering Tux Bucks, if she's still there, I might be her holiday foster for a month.

Tux is great, but it'll be nice to be kitten-free for a while. He's going to make some family very happy with his capering, but at my house, full of adult cats and adult me, his energy level can be a bit taxing. I understand why Trumper is alternately curious and annoyed.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Trainers and friends and points in between

I attended my first functional training class last night as a part of an eight-week "bootcamp" at LadyGym. As I was just telling Mare Bear on our Lose It! friend comments bologna, I really liked it, even though it kicked my ass and, as Max Silvestri said in his act that I saw before both John Mulaney and Aziz Ansari, shredded my bis and quis. I'm stiff and hurting in my arms--that's the planks and "mini-planks" (where you lower yourself down to your forearms one at a time, then go back to regular plank) and push-ups--and my beeeeehind--that's the squats with kettlebell and buckets of lunges--but I was so happy to have gone and made it through. The trainer was such a great combination of no-nonsense--she had us run a round of sprints again when several members of the group (NOT ME) did not listen to her directions--and encouraging (explaining to me to pinch my abs to my "back pockets" during my push-ups to work my core more), and it made me excited to continue on, even though my schedule is getting pretty cramped with PHR prep and volunteer work and continuing to train for the 5K

I'd been thinking about the bootcamp for most of March, but having a conversation with Duse motivated me to go and sign up last Saturday. She's been doing her own thing for her health and fitness up dere in St. Paul, dontcha know--wokka wokka, Fargo!--and we've been spending a lot of our phone chat time inundating each other with food talk and exercise talk. It has been great: not only do we get to get all the obsessing and planning out of our systems, but we protect our other friends and loved ones from having to hear the constant monologue in our heads. She's been trying all sorts of stuff, like hot yoga and WW recipes, and I share with her all the 5K nonsense and feedback on all the classes I've tried at LadyGym.

But going last night and having a really positive experience, surrounded by other gals--most of them younger, damn them--made me reflect on how lucky I am to have so many strong and supportive friends in my corner. I guess something about the way we all came together in a circle at the beginning and end of the bootcamp class reminded* me of the network of friends who surrounded me in the days after my mom died, who took me shopping for a funeral suit and didn't think anything of stopping with me when I had to sit down and catch my breath for a minute, nor think twice about buying a toaster to replace Dad's grody and annoying one because that was the problem I fixated on that seemed to have a solution, rather than the very, very unsolvable challenge that loomed over Dad and Andy and Tony and me. There they were, Julie and Mary and Tracey, girls I'd went to college with, had pretty dumbass fights with--in Julie's case, still do on an annual basis--drunk with and cried with (mostly over stupid boys)--surrounding me and keeping me standing and steady enough to do weird, hard tasks like play hostess at my mom's wake about 30 years too early, by my count.

*Well, reminded me, with less burpees and jumping jacks, that is...


And if I want to stretch the metaphor out, the trainer, the person who focused me and challenged me and supported me and helped me get stronger would be Kate and Duse. Kate saw me onto the plane to get back to my family, packed my suitcase full of dirty clothes--because I have a lifelong habit of always having at least three loads to do, minimum--and was my compass when I returned to Chicago, where I usually cried in the kitchen while doing dishes and wandered around lost and numb through our shared living space (and poor Mike, her future husband, who is such a dude...). And Duse, after receiving such a hard phone call where I didn't give her much room for her own reaction, picked me up from the airport and drove me all the way to Amery, where she stayed for three days, seemingly without a second thought to her own responsibilities. They're both definitely different, Kate and Duse--one introverted, one very much not introverted--but they're two of the best friends a girl could have and will have, hopefully, until the day I die (cause of death: buried under a pile of cats), and I take so much inspiration from how they've faced the challenges in their own lives--getting married, buying houses, turning a hobby into an amazing and award-winning skill, having parents face health crises--and the way the two of them have been front-line cheerleaders as I began to change my eating and exercise habits has made it easier and easier to tamp down the occasional negative voice in my head that says I have a long way to go or that something, like running for longer than 90 seconds at a time, is impossible.



I guess overall, it is a positive thing that this phase of getting healthier is helping me revisit the past six years from a different angle. I never want to bury it. And for how true it felt when I said my mom broke my heart, it makes me feel hopeful when I seem to be glued back together in a mostly whole piece, not too crooked or buh-janked. And I'm glad I have my circle of gals, whether we rode the E bus to "town" for elementary school, went to UWEC or Harlaxton, met over the Interwebs and points between, or married my smelly brothers, who still inspire me, challenge me and, from time to time, kick my ass and make me stronger. I may not have a man in my life--you know, a for-real one, not, like, Jeremy Renner or the guys on Southland--but I don't feel incomplete in any way (probably unfortunately for my aunts, who still hold out for a wedding).



Enough maudlin bologna! I am wearing this top today courtesy of Gwynnie Bee:
Pictured: not me, though I wish, 'cause those shoes are great
Too bad it is currently out of stock at Igigi, or else I would have ordered it. It's so pretty and flattering. I looooooooove it. And after I send it back tomorrow, I will begin wearing some of my recent thrifting/eBay finds!