sausage stuffed in spandex

Had dinner at Olive Garden with Carrie and the boys last night. Hadn't seen them for about six weeks and if you have or know children, especially babies, you know that lots of changes can occur in just six short weeks. Justin is thinking about walking and Kyle smiles all the time.

It was super fun to have dinner with them.

And I ordered chicken alfredo pizza, ate only half and one bowl of salad and not a single breadstick. Go me. While I still don't want to know the calorie count on what I ate, yikes, I'm giving myself credit for only eating half. And Kyle gets credit too, as feeding him a bottle took enough time to slow down my eating and help me get to full faster.

And I was happy to do it. I love those boys. (And their mother, though she's not convinced it has anything to do with her anymore. ) :-)

I could have gotten home in enough time to read Caleb a bedtime story, but instead I got the idea stuck in my head that I needed to see my progress in action by trying on jeans.

This was not such a good idea and it boils down to one word.

Spandex.

Seems that the jeans I've worn for almost three years contain 1% spandex. Huh. After digging for about 5 minutes for a size 12 short, I found a pair and took them to the dressing room. They went on and buttoned and all was okay. But just okay. What is with those mirrors anyway? Yikes.

But then I took them off and checked the tag and they were TWO percent spandex. And that additional percent makes a difference, you know. So I gave them to the fitting room attendant and went in search of a pair with only 1% spandex, which would therefore be a better equivalent since 99% cotton/1% spandex in a size 14 is what I currently wear.

Those took longer than five minutes to find. And in trying on the second, better suited for comparison pair, I learned two things: first, that additional percent really is stretchy; and second, my body is not now, nor will it ever be, suited to low-rise jeans. I mean, really.

The good news? I was able to get the size 12, 1% spandex up and buttoned and still breathe.

The bad news? Low-rise don't fit my body type and instead of being able to focus on being down two sizes since Christmas and getting into a smaller size, spandex or not, I cried all the way home at the thought of joy-stealing-spandex in my jeans.

Even if it is only one percent.