A Smaller Target

Oscar Blog Post 1: Thrifting Saturday

Passing thought -- this is sort of the Mexican / Spanish language Oscars.  Not an original thought though, obviously.

Before we headed over to the SCADS lunch at Versailles, Lisa R (who was kind enough to drive me) and I went thrift shopping at my favorite Goodwill (the one in Santa Monica).  I'd browsed there very briefly the day before with another friend and knew I wanted to get a new pair of jeans.  I already had three pairs, but none of them fit right anymore as my body continues to adjust to its post-tummy tuck re-configuration. 

It was a pretty good thrifting day, made still better by Lisa R (who used to own a consignment shop).  What did I find?  Two boho kind of shirts by eyeshadow.  They're both cute and in shades of brown (size medium).  Sort of casual without being tee-shirts.  A white fitted jacket (size medium) and a pair of dark wash skinny leg Earl jeans (a very very snug size 30).  The Earl jeans still have store tags on them too!  Total?  $30.  Gotta love that.

The jeans aren't honestly very flattering -- I look much better in boot cut jeans and they're definitely too small for me.  But I wanted a pair of jeans that I could use to measure how my body is changing.  Or rather how it will change once I can get back to the gym.  Given that I have to do that attractive "jean hop" to get into these, I think they'll do the job. 

So far I'm pretty happy about who've won!  Especially Alan Arkin.  Yeah, I know Eddie Murphy probably deserved it, but I'm not forgiving the "N" movie so easily.

New Scale

Weight: 165.8 

Yesterday I went thrifting with Lisa Freemont (my backpacking buddy).  We hit a couple Out of the Closets (where Lisa found me a cool pumpkin colored cord jacket) and St. Vincent's before going to Pho 79 in Chinatown.  It had been a long time since I'd had that lovely soup.  Too long. 

Meanwhile, Paul had gone off shopping / picking up my synthroid at Costco.  He brought me back a couple of things: my drugs, PowerCrunch bars and... drumroll and note that it's Saturday and yet my weight is posted.

Yes!  I have a new scale.  It was a surprise kinda -- I thought he was getting me a simpler, less expensive one that we had a coupon for.  This thing is super cool.  It measures body fat and  hydration levels, lets you set goal weights and even keeps a memory of the last (not sure how many) weigh-ins.

The scale is by Health-o-Meter and is called the "Professional Body Fat Monitoring Scale."  I think it must be their newest model because I couldn't find an on-line picture -- the one there isn't the right model number and looks nothing like it.  The model I have isn't even listed on their website.  It's very sleek and was a great deal -- $29.99 at Costco, which was only $10 more than the most basic digital scale I thought he was going to get me.  I'll take a picture when I get a chance.

After spending some time reading the directions last night and programming WAY more information in then one would think a scale needed --including date and time-- I finally stepped on to find that I weighed 165.8, which sounded about right.

Anyway, I'm going to be keeping track of body fat % and hydration, though I'm also going to try not to make myself too nuts about it.

Weighing can get compulsive.  Or so says the Scale 'Ho.

Wandering Around LA

Weight: 238.6  (This is so cool!  This is lower than I've dieted down since the early 1990s!)

I've spent the last couple days wandering around Los Angeles (well, actually Southern California) with my parents and brother (my family).

On Friday I took a Santa Monica Big Blue Bus to meet my mom at LAX.  I also learned an important lesson.  Namely, it's better to wait for the express bus, even if the other comes by first.  I got there on time to meet her at baggage claim (isn't it sad not to be able to go to the gate anymore?) and then went with her to rent a car.  We hung out at a nearby Starbucks until it was time to meet my dad who was flying in from Florida (he'd had meetings there).  Event though they last saw me a few weeks ago and I've lost almost no weight on the scale since then (and I sure haven't been working out aside from walking) they both claimed to be able to see a lot of weight loss.  I dunno.  There's a little, I think, because my clothes are fitting differently, but it was great to hear.

It was still really early in the day still.  My dad took us for a great breakfast/lunch at Pacific Dining Car (the original, not the newer Santa Monica one).  This was exciting for me because it's a really historic LA restaurant and I'd only been there once before.  It was a wonderful meal.  I had a scramble of smoked Salmon, eggs and goat cheese, with tomatoes instead of potatoes and loved it.  I could only eat about a third, but that was cool.  My mom only ate half of hers and we both had ours boxed with the thought that my brother would (and did) eat both our leftovers.  What I realized is that I don't need to feel self-conscious about not eating "enough" or ignoring the toast or whatever.  No cares and no one should care. 

We went to my brothers and then the four of us went thrift store combing (my brother wanted to find a good/cheap end table for their place).  I found a pile of clothes (shirts) at Out of the Closet in sizes ranging from 14 to XXL to L.  It was so weird, everything I tried on, including a navy silk shirt (size 14) from DKNY, fit.  My mom helped me thin to pile to things that fit and looked good... which sadly didn't include the DKNY silk (it felt nice, but navy just isn't my color).  I got quite a happy pile of shirts for $30 -- less than I was spending per shirt frequently when I was a 4X.  It was neat to realize I could look in thrift shops now and find things that fit.  That's definitely going to be on my agenda from now on. 

Then we picked up my brother's girlfriend and all went out for Mexican food (my parents being sadly deprived in Portland).  Again, I was able to eat about 1/2 a side of refried beans and most of a biggish bowl of abondigas soup.  I didn't feel deprived, but I didn't end up sick either.  One of the waitresses at the restaurant stopped us to say she almost hadn't recognized me (we've been going there since I needed a high chair) that I'd lost so much weight.  Very cool. :)

Yesterday we all went to a family party at my mom's cousin's.  She's selling the house that was her grandparents (my great-grandparents) and wanted to have one last time we all were there to say goodbye to it.  I'm sad to see it leave the family in a way, but then again, I don't want to move to Oxnard myself to live in it and it's way too big for one person to keep up.  It was the first time most of these people had seen me since surgery.  No one in my mother's family really has a weight problem (in fact, my cousins are generally on the naturally too thin side of things).  Everyone asked me how I was feeling and told me I looked great.  That felt really good.  After a half hour of chatting with one of my cousins on the patio, I realized I'd been sitting in a semi-flimsy plastic chair with arms.  And that I'd fit, no problem and not even worried about it being sturdy enough.  That's definitely a wow moment.

I also seem to have inherited a sterling silver tea service.  Ooo, shiny shiny.  :) Thank heavens for my reputation for liking to polish silver. 

And that's what I've been doing these few days.