It’s the first of the year so I’m currently on my annual January-February diet struggling to lose the 15 pounds I gained last year. Yep, it’s a bit bizarre but it works for me. This is the seventh year I start the year out by shedding the additional weight and then gradually gain it back the remaining ten months by eating whatever I want. I figure this way I’m only miserable and crabby 1/6 of the time and plump and happy the rest. I get to wear the small end of my closet for 1/3 of the year, the mediums another 1/3 and the large clothes (all red for Christmas) the final few months of the year before starting the cycle all over again in January.
Only last year I got a little carried away and gained 20 (discovered peanut butter M&Ms) instead of 15 so I’m gonna have to add another two weeks and finish the diet at the end of Feb instead of Valentine’s Day as usual. Bummer. No chocolate bunny ears for me!
Anyway – yay!!! – I’m halfway there as we move into February (down 11 pounds as of this morning) so to celebrate, I thought I’d share an excerpt from my book, Mom NEEDS Chocolate. Hope it makes you smile!
Beauty IS the Beast
Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised (Proverbs 31:30 NIV).
If you’re like me, you have three halves to your closet: the skinny half (those teensy sizes from the glory days, wreathed in spider webs). the
regular half (the majority of your wardrobe); the fat half (garments whose massive bulk makes them appear more numerous than they are).
The skinny clothes are those adorable outfits you can’t bear to part with because you dream that one day you’ll shimmy into them again. The regulars are the tried and true, the wardrobe you live in daily. The fat clothes are insurance for horrible days when bloated bunnies burrow in your drawers, or the previous week’s cheesecake catches up with your caboose.
It’s the dark ages indeed when you must tap into the rotunda clothes so often that they gradually migrate into the regulars and you even begin adding to their number. Heavy sigh. I knew I was in trouble when I couldn’t zip any of my nice pants and I had an upcoming speaking engagement. What to do? No time to shop (too depressing anyway). The answer to my problem presented itself with the daily mail. Ah ha! A mail order catalog!
I quickly spotted a dignified but elastically functional pants outfit (that means bending over won’t pinch the waist rolls or produce a wedgie up to the eyeballs) that was a lovely shade of pink. Perfect. I’d look like a blushing petunia. I immediately ordered one a size larger than usual. Not because I’m bigger of course, but because the fabric looked like a high shrink risk (they’re all high shrink risks when they’re double digits)!
With only days to spare, the two-piece outfit arrived and I hastened to try it on. Wait – what was this? There were three buttons and three buttonholes on the right side of the double-breasted jacket, but only two buttonholes for the three buttons on the left. This unfortunate omission left the jacket gaping open directly over my left bosom.
Now this may be an ingenious fashion statement for Madonna, Janet, or Britney, but not for a mega mama speaking to a group of hungry Kiwanis. Indignant, I called the catalog company.
“Yes ma’am? How may I help you?”
“Why, you can send me a buttonhole!”
“Excuse me? Your item is missing a button?”
“A buttonhole! My jacket has three buttons and two buttonholes. You forgot my buttonhole!”
“Uh, ma’am, would that be a double-breasted jacket?”
“Yes, it would.”
“Well, that’s the way they come.”
“What? That can’t be right.” I flipped to the catalog picture and sure enough, while all the other buttons harmonized with their holes, the pencil-thin model’s top left button was performing a solo. Oh her it was hardly noticeable. On me, it would’ve been a ticket to the slammer for indecent exposure.
But all’s well that ends well. A local seamstress saved the day and graciously zapped the gap with a brand new buttonhole.
Okay, BFFs, your turn! Regale your waiting BFF community with your own stories of wardrobe malfunctions. Hugs!
