straight leg is code for “if you have curves, you’ll never fit into me”

I bought my first pair of straight leg jeans this season for 2 reasons.

Reason #1 -

Reason #2 –

(in chocolate brown, though)

I did this because neither pair of shoes is reaching their full potential underneath of jeans. Bear with me. I tried to put them on the outside of a pair of jeans I already own, but they didn’t look right. I chose the narrowest leg I could find (which, incidentally, is somewhere between a boot cut and a wide leg) and it looks silly when you tuck the jeans inside of them. Baggy, almost.

So I bought straight leg jeans. In the same size as all of my other jeans.

I can’t fit them over my butt.

Seriously folks, it’s impossible. When I initially tried and failed, I thought to myself, “Self, surely they sent you the wrong size, there’s no way a size 8 10 12 is too small. I proceeded to check the tag, and what to my depressed eyes did appear but a 12- (extra long, for which I would like to give an extra ‘atta boy to the folks at American Eagle Outfitters. Sometimes, long is just too short) and then I knew.

When they say “straight leg”, what is actually written there, between the lines, is in fact “straight body”. These jeans should come with a warning label. Warning: Do not try on these jeans if you already think you need to lose weight, have just been broken up with, recently (within the last decade) ate dinner, or if you’re not built like Cameron Diaz. Failure to follow these instructions could result in post traumatic stress disorder.

I think I’m going to start hanging pictures of Cameron around my room for inspiration. And have the jeans framed and hung on my wall. If I didn’t have enough motivation to get into shape before, it was just shipped to me via UPS.

What can Brown do for you?

nesting

Husband is (hopefully! maybe!) coming home in three weeks (EEK!) and I have gotten into full-on clean the junk out of here, I guess I should make room for his stuff, mode.

I’m nesting, if you will.

Yesterday, I spent about 5 hours putting away my spring/summer clothes, pulling out my fall/winter clothes, finding space for them and then realizing that my husband is going to need a place in which to store his clothing, and re-doing everything that I had just done.

Did you catch all of that?

At the end of the day, my closet was neatly organized, and really, what more can a girl ask?

Although, I was faced with the reality that I may have too many clothes when I realized that I could pretty much fit all that my husband owns (as far as clothing goes, I mean) into this:

And my clothes are hangin’ out on the East Side (in a deluxe apartment in the sky….) in this:

(alright, so I like Yankee candles) This is also not taking into consideration that, apart from Army gear, I’m also hogging up the most closet space, including space for shoes and purses which can’t be seen because my closet is another 3 feet wider inside on either side. The bad part? In my car right now are a total of 6 HUGE trashbags full of clothing on their way to Goodwill, 3 of which include clothing (and some shoes) that I discarded. Some stuff I had only worn once or twice. (The other 3 bags are filled with clothes that the rest of my family discarded. The math? 2 parents+ 4 siblings = 3 trash bags full of clothes + Fancythis’ clothes = 6 HUGE trashbags full of clothing. I mean seriously people!)

So now I’m all ready for him to come home. And I think also, that we may need to take him shopping!

amazon.fancythis.com

Only in my world could my sister wear these shoes:

  and still be shorter than me.

Note: my brother is sleeping in the background in spite of the flashes in his face and the TV (not pictured) blaring. He is clearly a product of a large (*cough* noisy *cough*) family.

Note 2: Yes I am wearing sweatpants with my dress. Don’t judge me. I was in the middle of changing when I decided to have this picture taken.

plunging to my death – or otherwise entitled – the sunny side of life was this close to becoming extinct

This weekend, I was away with our youth group at the Reality Factor 2008 retreat. This year, we stayed here - North Bay Adventure Camp. This was the first time we have changed our yearly retreat location in some four thousand years. North Bay was better than our previous location for the following reasons:

the rooms were MUCH nicer

there were 2 toilets/showers for every 10 people as opposed to every 100 hundred people

the food was REAL food

the rooms were MUCH nicer

there were more activities for the kids (and leaders) to do during free time – this meant that they were actually TIRED at the end of the day and wanted to SLEEP as opposed to keeping leaders up all night

it was more technologically advanced

the rooms were MUCH nicer

Needless to say, it was a blast, spending time with kids, delving into the scriptures with them – it was wonderful. So at this wonderful NorthBay, there was a zip line. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it here before, but I’m not the biggest fan of heights. That is to say, I’m pretty sure that I would rather stand face to face with Osama Bin Laden himself, than to do anything that relates to me standing on, near, or within 5 miles of anything resembling a mountain or very large hill. (skyscrapers and airplanes also fall into this category). I was feeling particularly brave, however, and I decided to go for this zip line thing and risk my life.

So I went with one of the moms (who’s also a leader) as a sort of mind trick to myself. Like “If this 40something woman can find the courage within her to do this, I had better get my act together.” So I did it.

I know it looks like I had fun, but I’m here to tell you, it was SCARY. They make you jump off – by yourself. Sure, they have some guy up there egging you on, but that’s no good if he doesn’t actually make you do it.   They can’t make you - for legal reasons or some such nonsense. And let’s not even talk about that little thong-like apparatus that allegedly is a safety harness. I had the guy at the top check it twice before I would even go. This was after the first lady had already strapped me in it and told me I was good to go.

Then, as if I hadn’t had enough, I did it again! I didn’t get that one on film because the woman who filmed the first trip of death actually went with me the 2nd time. It was good fun. And I must say, I have this strange sense of pride in myself now. I actually faced a fear – head on! and beat it!

As one of the leaders says – I am more than a conqueror. Woo-hoo! Will I do it again? Maybe, just maybe.

Really what I’m trying to say, is that I’d like to be appreciated around here a little more. You could have lost me – and then what?!

the missing pillow sham

When Hubs and I got married a little over 2 years ago, Pottery Barn put out this gawgous duvet/sham set which I just had to have. It’s lovely. It’s a slate background with little porcelain blue and ivory flowers – the perfect duvet for a room in which a man and a woman coexist.

Paired with it was a porcelain blue quilt and sham set that matched just right. With some money we received as wedding gifts (and a little from our own account) I snagged it. I got two standard shams that match the duvet cover and two euro shams that match the quilt.

As Pottery Barn is wont to do, they have since “discontinued” (what is the appropriate word there?) both sets. It was at that moment, when I decided that I should have purchased three, not two euro shams. We have a king-size bed, and the pillows just don’t seem to, um, fill it. I can’t think of any other way to describe it. Our bed just looks empty. It is, mind you, when no one is in it, but you know what I mean. It just needs that extra euro sham, and then POW! all will be right with the world again.

Problem is, it is nowhere to be found, not even on eBay. I clearly picked the most popular color, because if you pop on over to eBay and search for my little set you will see every color and size sham except for the one I need.

What’s a girl to do?

evil, your name is bernie

Do y’all remember what happened to me the last time I worked out? Well, after that little episode, I was hesitant (read: entirely too lazy and unmotivated) to jump back in the saddle again. But, my husband is (hopefully, maybe) coming home in a month, and, I’ll be honest, the scale revealed some numbers the other day that I have never seen before in my life.

All I’ll say is, it’s pretty bad when your fat jeans are too tight.

So I got back the motivation to do something about it. The kind of motivation I haven’t seen in myself since before I got married and lost some 30-ish pounds. Oh how I wish I hadn’t gained it all back plus some!

Anyway, there’s this guy at my church who’s like, a body builder or something, and he helped some friends of mine get in shape before their weddings. And I recruited him to hook a sista’ up. I mean, I gotta look my best too, ya know? Especially before I go poppin’ a few kids out and ultimately destroying whatever figure I do have.

We started yesterday.

This morning, I didn’t put makeup on because I was afraid that I would draw Picaso-like images all over my face with my liquid eyeliner and mascara.

Right now, it is taxing to even type this post.

As the day went on today, the pain in my arms, chest and back (the “good” kind of pain) has gotten progressively worse. It hurts to function. As a normal human being, I mean.

Today, we worked our legs. I can only imagine how tomorrow will go. Something like:

Can barely make it down the stairs in the morning to get breakfast.

Need someone to drive me home from work in the afternoon. (What was I thinking buying a stick-shift?!)

So, I’ll keep you posted. This could be a wild ride!

gotta love that economic breakdown

Gas is under $3.00/gallon! Now who says the government doesn’t want the best for the country?

wordless wednesday – finding humor in my situation

no place is a safe place

In the last 48 hours, my workplace has seen 2 separate incidences of theft. That’s not so shocking until I tell you this:

I work at my church.

Two different women, in the last 2 days have had their purse’s stolen. One – right out from under her desk. (She’s the senior admin assistant) The other, had her car window busted into and her purse was stolen out of her vehicle. (She’s a teacher at our Thursday homeschool co-op program) I believe the latter of the 2 has it a smidge worse as she has to have a window repaired and do everything necessary to close up and re-open her life.

I know I shouldn’t be, but I’m shocked. Ordinarily, I have very little faith in people to do the right thing, but come on, the church? Take your criminal activity elsewhere people!