515th Friday Blog Roundup
I lost a lot of weight about two years ago, which necessitated buying several new pairs of pants and jeans. I was dumbfounded when I saw the size on the pants. It was much lower than I had worn in the past. And I’m going to admit this: I was between two sizes and I went with the smaller one ENTIRELY OUT OF VANITY FOR WHAT WAS WRITTEN ON THE TAG.
Yes, I needed to shout that because it is now two years later, and I have put back on some of the weight. Just enough so that if I had bought the larger size, I would still be smoothly sailing through winter. But I didn’t. I went with the smaller size. Because I was short-sighted and vain and waaaaaaaay too proud of myself. Like stupidly proud. As in forgetting that I always bounce back up a little bit to settle in this weight range.
So my pants are snug.
I dug back out MyFitnessPal… who is really MyFitnessFrenemy… and I am attempting to eat better so I don’t need to buy new pants.
I am considering getting a tattoo on my upper leg so I’ll see it every time I go clothes shopping which reads: buy the larger size.
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Ann from Tragic Optimist wrote a board book for kids, and I got to see it this week. It’s called Glasses, and the book has its own site. It’s exactly what you think: a very cute book for getting kids comfortable with their glasses. (Or, I’d argue, a good book for ALL kids to read, especially when they start noticing differences between kids.) The rhyme is upbeat, the photographs colourful, and the glasses all cool. (Yes, these kids are cooler than you are.) In getting a copy to read with your child (or for a family member or for your school, etc), you’re not only opening them up to being comfortable with their glasses or their friend’s glasses (not to mention opening up a discussion on any external device that helps a person get through their day such as a hearing aid or wheelchair), but you’re supporting a member of the ALI community. Double plus.
Glasses wearers unite!
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Yes, this is your weekly reminder to back up your blog, social media accounts, and email.
Seriously. Stop what you’re doing for a moment. It will take you fifteen minutes, tops. But you will have peace of mind for days and days. It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.
As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments in order to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.
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And now the blogs…
But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week. In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:
- “Ellora’s Cave Sues Dear Author: Hello Steisand Effect” (Smart Bitches Trashy Books)
- “More Closure” (Serenity in Chaos)
- “He’s Not Scary. He’s a Little Boy” (Jameson’s Journey)
Okay, now my choices this week.
Serenity in Chaos has a post about parallel universes playing host to our unmade choices. I love her description of what it felt like to have her reality and her dreamworld merge inside her mind. She writes: “I gasped within, because at that exact second, there was no difference between my reality and my parallel universe. There was no need for the parallel universe anymore. It was breathtakingly beautiful and surreal at the same time.” Isn’t that gorgeous?
Hope Floats Amongst the Cherry Blossoms has a post about the far-reaching effects of infertility; namely, the other people affected when you can’t have a child. She writes about observing her father at the pool looking wistfully at some kids splashing around in the water. She wonders aloud what will happen if she can’t give him a grandchild: “If I can’t give him one, will he ever get to be in that moment again… to experience the joy of a child that is part of your family, your inner circle and play? Has the moment passed? Has it passed for me? And for him?” I had a lump in my throat reading the post.
Earth & Ink has a post about why she continues to blog even though she cannot write about the largest thing happening in her life. She explains: “In offline life, I’m in the middle of something I can’t write about. So I am chilled. Quieted. In multiple ways, silenced. It is distressingly similar to being Ariel and having had someone has put my voice in a box. Although granted, a bit more subtle. And lots less fairy dust.” I like this post because I could not only feel the weight of having something huge closing off your voice, but I could also sense the light at the end of her tunnel, ensuring she can speak again.
Lastly, in the microblog world, More Than a Mom has a very moving post about the presence of her mother being with her as she runs. It was so quiet, so brief, that it almost felt like a sigh. A sigh of a post.
The roundup to the Roundup: My pants are too small. (Or I am too large.) Glasses! Your weekly backup nudge. And lots of great posts to read. So what did you find this week? Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between October 3rd and 10th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week? Read the original open thread post here.
19 comments
I did the EXACT same thing last year – bought the size smaller pants when I was in between sizes. I am regretting that decision this year.
And I laughed out loud at MyFitnessFrenemy. So true.
xoxo
Good idea on the tattoo.
Maybe I’ll tattoo along my right thumb, “Sure you wanna eat this?”
I bought two pairs of pants (jeans and beige cargo pants) when I was at a ridiculous weight from IF stress and some medication combo giving me anxiety attacks and accelerating my heart. I had to buy them, because all my other clothes were falling off. But I have NEVER been able to wear them since I got pregnant with E. I need to be at an unsustainable weight to wear them. I wish I had just bought them in one size bigger. Then I would still get some use from them. (And I had to stop using MyFitnessPal last summer because I got too obsessive about it.)
Congratulations Ann!
Mel, you are giving me these posts this week that I need to hear. First yours, now someone else’s. In a week where I just polled a local expat Facebook group to see what I should pay my eight year old neighbour to pet sit my cat and found out that the eight year olds of expats in this country are getting paid more per hour to pet sit cats than I’m getting paid per hour to practice medicine and surgery as a fully qualified vet with fourteen years experience (watch out for my new “elite” pet sitting service…) it’s nice to come here and find a tribe I’m more in synch with.
(And not to rant, but one of them justified her rate by saying you couldn’t buy a “decent” toy for less than the price she was naming, when the price she was naming is more than Santa spends on his total annual budget for each of our children. So obviously my first step was to note down her name so I could refuse any gift-related invitations she might send me because our definitions of “decent” appear to vary so very considerably.)
(That had nothing to do with your post but it was just such a relief to find a place where somebody might understand. WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? WHERE ARE THE REAL PEOPLE WITH REAL LIFESTYLES?)
Mel, I look forward to your Blog Roundup every Friday. Thanks for posting it! 🙂
I’m eating caramel apple gelato as I read this, probably expanding into new pants, myself. I find that I am in desperate need of constant apple pie right now. And I love my new glasses, but they don’t let me see as well as my contacts, so I”m going back to get them checked tomorrow because I look so cool in them that I need to wear them more often.
Today I read an insightful blog post about soldiering on with blogging after being belittled by a reader: http://coffeeandteafamily.blogspot.com/2014/10/moving-on.html
Buy pants that fit! life to short for pants that don’t fit. Although if your weight oscillates it’s good to have a few choices.
I liked “Golden Afternoons” on lukeandannablog.
http://lukeandannablog.com/2014/10/golden-afternoons/
AND THIS!: http://babymakingmerrygoround.blogspot.com/2014/10/two-years-later.html
MyFitnessFrenemy! Nice.
Thank you so much for your words about my book. It really means a lot to me!
Thank you, Mel, for sharing my post in the Friday Round-up. I really like your idea for Microblogging Mondays. It is a creative option to keep the writing flowing. I love the versatile, creative quality of blogging.
I am thrilled to be part of your Friday Round-Up this week. Thank you so much!
And I am asking for a FitnessFrenemy for Solstice this year. And now I know what to call it. I’m thinking Frida Frenemy.
I have a pair of pants that are best described as “wishful thinking” on my part. Basically, I fit in them for approximately 5 minutes on a really good day at the lowest weight I ever manage. I generally fluctuate a bit in weight, so I actually keep pants in a couple of sizes in my closet (I have read so many articles that say this is both problematic for organization and for maintaining weight. But, given my general tendency to fluctuate and then throw in infertility treatments with swollen ovaries and so forth, and I’ve finally just accepted that keeping a small variety makes life so much easier and less expensive for me.)
But I too have definitely bought the smaller size strictly for the number on the tag.
Love the MyFitnessFrenemy…
THANK YOUUUUU so much for sharing my blog links. When it comes to pants, I actually tend to buy larger pair of pants, especially after moving to Finland. The thing is, in winter I need to wear a pair of long john under my pants, so I want to be able to eat and walk around comfortably. However, the bad thing about this is that I can get complacent because I feel that I still fit my pants comfortably in summer/autumn (without the long john)…and then when I weigh myself, I realize that I have gained some kgs and then I panic ha ha ha ha…
I so get it about the clothes. A year and a half ago I got rid off all my pants as they were too big. Now all the newer ones are snug or too small.
This post is raw. It is real. It describes what I am sure most every woman going through PCOS/infertility feels or experiences at some point in their journey.
http://waitingforbabybird.com/2014/10/15/i-am-not-a-face-of-infertility/
I LOVED this piece from Huffington Post — especially meaningful today, which is Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Day.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nancy-davis-johnson/the-other-quiet-mom_b_5972990.html
As for the pants, like Katherine above, I tend to keep more than one size in my closet, just to be safe. 😉 I find that as soon as I give the stuff in one size to Goodwill, I wind up going out & buying it all over again. :p Right now, I am mostly just wearing yoga pants, which can be dangerous…