when you should have just stayed in

The husband and I went to a local Mexican place this weekend, expecting decent food with a beer or margarita. We try to frequent local places over chains, which, given where we live, is no easy task. We have just about every chain on the face of the earth within a 10-mile radius. I kid you not - name a chain, any chain, and it's probably in my backyard.

We walk into the restaurant and the decor is... questionable. Even for a Mexican place. Fake flowers, fake stucco... the works. We then proceed to wait 5 minues for someone to seat us. At this point, I kind of wondered about the place but talked myself out of it. We were both hungry and how bad could it be?

As it turns out, it was very bad. We left an hour and a flipping half later after being served a cheap ass beer instead of regular beer (those frat party college years yielded excellent taste buds to discriminate between Natty and Keystone and real beer), waiting half an hour to get our bill, almost throwing up from smelling the disgusting fajitas at the table next to us, and the husband being served a the most pitiful teeny tiny piece of brown avocado. And those are just the highlights!

Luckily, we don't have experiences like this often, and this time it was comical. But the next time I get a bad feeling about a place, I'm not going to apologize for high-tailing it out of there!

seriously, stein mart

Have you seen this commercial for Stein Mart? Basically, it's a lady talking about how she loves to shop and how much money she saves. Nothing outrageous about it. Pretty boring, actually.

And then she says this line:

"....and you don't have to hide it from your husband, you can actually tell him about it!"



Think about those words.

It's 2010 and as a woman, I should identify with hiding purchases from my husband so he won't see what I bought? Uh-hunh.

Missed the boat on that one, Stein Mart. Marshall's and TJ Maxx are lookin' pretty good right now.

feeling funky... and not in a good way

I am in a FUNK lately. Maybe it's the dreary weather and overall lack of sun, but a more likely cause is the copious amount of fluorescent lighting in my office building. And the time I've been spending there! I am not, by nature, a particularly positive person. I'm okay with that - but prolonged Debbie Downer-ness is hard for even me to deal with. And when that happens, you know it's bad!

So to get into a better mood, I thought I'd make a list of things that have made me happy today, in no particular order:

1. Our dogs and their sweet dispositions
2. Reese eggs
3. Gap's Friends and Family sale, and new Banana turquoise earrings!
4. The husband, even though he is currently in NYC running into Kelsey Grammar in lobbies of hotels
5. Daffodils in our backyard that will soon bloom
6. Weight Watchers and the size of my arse getting smaller - though not much this week, see #1 on this list for why
7. Netflix and The Wedding Date I rented to watch for the 349085th time
8. Thank you notes
9. Magazines, especially the ones that just arrived today
10. Sushi takeout

makeup monday: maybelline eye studio color pearls marbleized eyeshadow

Why the folks at Maybelline decided to go with an eyeshadow name 6 words long is beyond me! But I picked this up about 2 weeks ago in Ivy Icon (pictured) and really like it. It was $6-7 at Target. I use the right side in the crease of my lid (it's a goldish brownish greenish color once it's all together), and the left on an angled brush for some color on the bottom lash line instead of brown or black liner. To see more colors from the same line, visit Maybelline's website.

ww update and 10 year old pants

I'm sure you're all dying to get an update on my battle against flabby arms and muffin tops. Maybe you're not, but let's pretend, shall we?!

Progress - I lost 2 pounds last week, which brings my total to 9! I also bought some skinny jeans this weekend, which oddly are WAY too long on me (which makes no sense, as the other types from Gap fit me just fine) and will need hemming (and I'll need to do a shot of tequila before I wear them because I'm not convinced they're a good look for me). I am now down a size in the Real Straight jeans, which is exciting. I know - size is just a number blah blah blah but it feels GOOD.

Setbacks - I kind of fell off the wagon this weekend, eating out a few times (PF Chang's is not at all WW friendly)and discovering Reese Eggs at the grocery store. I'm not going to beat myself up over it, but I have a feeling I won't lose any weight this next week because of it. It's disappointing.

I want to share with you a goal of mine - however shallow it may be - and that is to fit into these pants:

They have been sitting in my closet for a good long time now. They've moved with me from place to place to place. I do a decent job editing my clothes and getting rid of things I don't wear anymore, but I've kept these around with the goal of fitting into them again. I bought them in high school almost exactly 10 years ago when Mrs. H and I got jobs at a movie store in the mall and had to wear only black and white. We watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off a million and a half times at that job, but that's a different story for a different day.

The pants are from Aeropostale and they're a size TINY. Really they're a 2 but that is tiny.

Is it silly to fit into a pair of pants I wore in high school? Well... yeah. But it's not just about the pants. It's about the way I felt when I was able to wear the pants. At that point in time, I didn't wonder 'does this make me look fat' about every item I tried on, and I felt comfortable in a bathing suit. I didn't look at myself in photos and get disgusted. And my goal is to feel that way again. I think it's a goal for many of you too! College, for a number of reasons, brought out my insecurities and even though I was still roughly the same size, it wasn't the same.

I haven't tried the pants on yet, and I'm sure they're not going to fit me right now. But I have hope, which is more than I had a few months ago. But as I'm looking at the rise on the pants, I'll just be trying them on, not wearing them. Pretty sure that they would go past my belly button! And that's even less desireable than my hangups with skinny jeans.

back to your roots

On Friday, I caught Who Do You Think You Are on NBC with Sarah Jessica Parker. If you haven't seen the show, basically, these celebrities (one per show) work with genealogists and ancestry experts to explore their family history and to find out more about themselves. They travel to different locales and visit the places where their family lived.

I was glued to the TV! I find ancestry fascinating. When I was little, my dad's side of the family had a family member that moved to a town where there was a large genealogy library. She put together a huge index of research back to the 1700s! It has photos, copies of articles, and even interviews. I remember flipping through the book and reading it line by line.

Of course, Ancestry.com was a huge sponsor of the show, and it motivated me to sign up. It was probably the incessant brainwashing at every commercial break. My dad's birthday is coming up soon and I think I'm going to make him a family tree book or poster, since he's interested in this stuff too. The site is really neat - they even have scanned copies of census data and records! Especially interesting for a geek like me.

it's csa time

Earlier this week, I signed the husband and I up for a local CSA for Summer 2010. A CSA, or Commmunity Supported Agriculture, is usually a weekly delivery of fresh produce for a set price that you prepay before the season starts. The CSA we chose has locations all around the metro area where I can pick up the veggies on a set date and time window, so it's very convenient. You can't choose the contents, so if you're a picky eater, this probably isn't the best idea for you. I've read that at some CSAs, you have to work weeding and picking veggies in order to sign up - but that's not how any around us work.

Our deliveries start in June, and I'm already looking forward to it. Although I'm still going to try and have a bigger garden this year, there are some things that I just don't feel confident growing! I'm also looking forward to it because I think it'll force me to eat more veggies, which is never a bad thing. To find a CSA in your area, check out Local Harvest.

saks, you sneaky devil

I got this email from Saks earlier this week and thought - wow, that's all stuff that I like. How would they know that?! What a coincidence. And then I realized they're taking my search and viewing history to send me targeted emails so that I'm more likely to buy something. Sneaky, sneaky, but SO EFFECTIVE. I have been drooling over a white ceramic watch since the husband got me this one for Christmas. It was beautiful but took up my entire wrist and I wouldn't have been able to type with it in. Or move my left arm. So back it went. I looked at the Toy Watch above but it's also huge. There is a Michele version that fits the bill EXACTLY but it's mucho dinero. Maybe I'll check out this Fossil version though.

the scales of justice

I had moment of scale-induced panic on Friday. I've been using my Wii Fit to keep track of my weight (it has cool graphs! and a little Mii!) and on Friday, it told me I was 7 lbs. heavier than my heaviest weight ever. I was disappointed and angry with myself. What was I doing wrong? Could the Weight Watchers be backfiring? What the hell?!

I was grumpy and went upstairs to the other scale we have in the house - an old school dial one. I didn't have much faith in its accuracy but I thought there was no way I was 7 lbs. heavier. I don't really care about my weight, I mean, to me the way my clothes fit is more telling than a number - but still! And it said... that I was the same weight I'd been for the past week. I was relived but wondered what my real weight was. After weighing myself again at work like a crazy person and losing a pound, I confirmed that the Wii was not accurate. I don't know what's wrong with it but it is WRONG. And I'm relieved.

So on Saturday the husband and I picked up a new fancy scale at Costco. It's not on the website but it's glass with bioimpedance to test body fat. So the scales of justice are prevailing (hardy har har) and the weight is coming off... slowly but surely!