It's Getting Hot in Here

I went through a phase where I refused to wear pants. All though it probably sounds like it, I was not 6 when this phase occurred. I was 23-27. 4 solid years, I owned maybe 2 pairs of pants, and those were for necessity.  My mom insisted it was abnormal not to own pants. My boyfriend at the time (now-husband) was completely weirded out the first time he saw me in jeans.

I just had a love affair with the girliness of skirts and dresses.  I felt more grown-up, prettier, more feminine, sexier, and let's be honest--it was so much easier to get ready for work when all I had to do was slip on a Banana Republic wrap dress.

Slowly but surely, as my calves got heftier, and as my never-ending need to look girlie died down and was replaced by blazers and slacks, my closet became a safer haven for all pants alike.  I hadn't even worn a dress to my new job, and it'd been almost 2 months.

I broke free last week.  It was 900 degrees out (that is a scientific number. It was 900 degrees, I swear it. And anyone who tells you it was just a really humid 97 is a liar).  I had already shaved my legs for a pedicure.  Dress--on. 

It felt like I'd been on a carb-free diet for two years and had decided to allow myself a piece of the most wonderful cake ever. Comfy, put together, and pretty. 

So now I'm back on a dress-buying binge (way healthier than Swedish Fish and Doritos).

This is next on my "to-buy" list (like a "to-do" list, but less productive and way more fun).

These are a few of my favorite things

I've become obsessed recently.  With a food, duh.  Ok, two.

The first is quinoa. Hear me out. I know, I know. If you were looking at me right now, you'd be whispering to your best friend, "Yeah riiiiight that biznatch is obsessed with quinoa."

But, I'm serious.  Specifically, quinoa salad.  Oh my God, people, it's hot outside, and my tubby tummy has been craving the juicy goodness of fresh veggies and fruit. Light vinaigrette's. Rose wine. Quinoa salad. So much so that when I discovered CPK had brilliantly added a quinoa arugula salad to their menu, I dragged my husband there (who was totally happy with his white pizza--add bacon, please).

I'm DYING to try this recipe.  I plan to cook up a huge batch and nom on it for dinner this week (my husband isn't a big fan of leftovers. He's also not a big fan of me eating "weird" things for my meals....like cheese and crackers, or some cooked black beans, and probably some quinoa salad I keep in a tub for a few days. But he's working a lot, and while the cat's away, the mice shall play---with whole grains?).

Ok, secondly, let's talk chocolate--a fat girl staple.  Except, I'm not really big into chocolate. I can turn down chocolate cake if I have to.  Offer me a chocolate pie or a piece of peach--I'll go for peach.  I don't have a secret stash of Twix in my house.  Maybe it's TOO sweet?  Regardless, I do love me some mixing of sweet and salty.  Enter salted dark chocolate.  After a spa session with my hubby in Napa, I spied a bar of this complex confection in the waiting room, which I promptly swiped and saved for breakfast the next morning.

Buuuuut, I'm going back on Weight Watcher's this week, so...buh-bye salted chocolate. You were a good friend, albeit brief. I will think of you always.

PS. While I wait for my husband to emerge from his laundry-induced haze (he won't let me touch his laundry, afraid I won't hang it up properly or something...I literally had to beg to be allowed to do a load of his darks last week), I am indulging in the perpetual amazingness that is Dirty Dancing.  That scene, in his room? When they're dancing after his rando friend has a sketchball schmashmortion...omg.

So Much to Do, So Little Time

I'm in Napa, as I write.

In what was perhaps the most indulgent day of my life yesterday, we woke up, ate carby breakfasts, sat by the pool for a few hours with literally no one around, headed to the spa for 2 hours of treatments which was concluded by wine and cheese, stopped at the hotel bar and had more wine and some salad (right???), lounged around watching tv, and then capped off our night at Bottega, the most delicious Italian I've ever had. Outside of Italy, natch.

We leave tomorrow. Oh how very sad. This has been the perfect vacation.....At least I will have a tan (and 13 bottles of wine) to remind me when I get home.

It's the Final Countdown....

On Saturday, me and the hubs are heading to Napa for what I'm calling is our mini-moon. We will get to London and Paris in the Winter for our real honeymoon, but a 5-star resort in Napa with wine tasting adventures in between laying beside the pool and noming on the local fare doesn't sound like too much of a compromise.

But oooh Lordy I'm nervous.

How the eff am I going to diet here?!?!?

A smattering of our foodie itnerary:

Sunday--

Morimoto Napa

But sushi isn't that bad...right?

Monday--

Bottega

Ok yeah, now we're talking.

Tuesday--

Bouchon

AAAAND...yes, this is where I die.

I'm probably going to need a few massages to get me through this.

Eat a Cookie Hall of Fame: Sarah Winchester

The Real Housewives of Orange County have really outdone themselves this season....but having just worked in the OC for almost two years, I know where all this nuttiness comes from. There's nothing to do in Orange County.

So, anyway, really, all those OC biznatches are skinny skinny skinny--proof that alcohol calories are not the same as cupcake calories. Unless you're consuming Cupcake Vineyard wine...which is a whole other, delicious discussion.  But recently, a new twig has fallen from the bat-shit-crazy  tree and landed in Newport Beach--Sarah Winchester.

Like her namesake, this Housewife is ba-na-nas.

And ridiculously, undesirably skinny.  Which really confuses me. Even Alexis Bellino, whose weight is misleadingly high as a result of inflated boobs and her honker nose (that no doctor apparently can fix), could take this Sarah on in a highly-produced cat fight.  But these broads just let the Sarah insane train keep on coming.

Sarah broke a piece of sugar bow off of Heather's cake last week.  My first thoughts: 1. No, she didn't. She does not eat. This is fake. 2. Heather doesn't eat anyway, so who cares what's missing from this hideous cake better off at a Sweet 16?

Anyway, I digress.

No One Likes a Skinny Girl salutes you Sarah--you don't make shockingly bone thin look good, but you do a GREAT job with totally nuts.

Those are the dead eyes of a woman who could use a 100-Calorie Pack. Stat.

Big Mac, Filet-O-Fish, Pocket Full of French Fries

At the beginning of May, I left my job.

I am only 29, but I was plunged into a brief "WHAT THE EFF AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE?" phase.  My almost-mid-life crisis.  Maybe cosmetology school? Write a book? Give up and have a baby?

I decided upon the most obvious of answers--Become a reality tv super star.  Duh.

At the same time, I was starting a new diet (another post, my pretties).  My brain started turning, and because this doesn't happen much, I let it go as far as it wanted.

BAM!

I decided to try out for the Biggest Loser.  I'd be famous AND thin.  I'd probably have my own talk show before I turned 30 (it should be noted that if I if I had my own talk show, I would not have two little British girls jumping around, repeating the highly obnoxious words of Nicki Minaj).

I found out Biggest Loser wase casting in Los Angeles the day after my birthday.  I called my very thin best friend, who loves watching fat people suffer so much that she took the day off from work to join me in the endless line at the cattle casting call.

But hark! After I sent in my "pre-registration", I got an email from someone who works on the show, proclaiming me "adorable", with a note to skip the line and use the attached VIP pass to get right in.   So, the day-long ridiculousness turns into an hour.

Here's what I learned at this casting call:

-Fat people, despite being in line for a show to lose weight, cannot stop themselves. A man selling ice cream from a cart was making a KILLING. I literally saw a girl take a picture with her McDonald's meal.

-No one has a sense of humor.  When I commented to a casting PA that the hallway he'd stuffed 15 of us into for waiting was "really a bad choice for a bunch of fat people," at least 3 people glared at me. Because no knew apparently knew what they were at Biggest Loser casting for.

-There is nothing worse than judging a group (a 700-person group) of chubbies based on their looks and actually going so far as to pick people out of the crowd based on said looks.  People turned on me. Worse, people turned on my poor skinny friend.

Needless to say, I didn't get a call back.  Dream crushed. New, "real" job had. Sigh. Unless, of course, they start the Real, Real World--for unemployed 30-something's.

She's Baaackkkkk

That's right.  I have, indeed, revived from dead...or, my wedding. It just took 4 months.

So many wonderful things have happened, not the least of which was my brief appearance on a reality tv show featuring plus-size brides picking out the wedding gown of their dreams.  Thanks, TLC, for showing the entire nation (and Canada...yes, our neighbors to the north see this too. Which I know to be true because two different Canadians emailed me after to tell me they happened upon me and my back fat) my dress size.

Truly, every bride's dream come true.

But, despite this, my gown was gorgeous, the wedding was perfect, and just like every blushing bride/heffer, the piece de resistance of my wedding was the booze and the food. Here me now: No expensive wedding is complete without chocolate-covered bacon.

See y'all tomorrow. Seriously. I'm back.

Really.

No, really.