On love and hate and Oreos

Everything takes work, doesn't it?  Work to figure out what you want to do and then follow through for more than two weeks.  Work not to eat the whole bag of Halloween Oreos, which are simply regular Oreos with orange colored frosting.  I thought I could resist them this afternoon when I made the careful decision to buy them over any myriad of cookies that would not have survived the two block journey between the grocery store and my house.  Turns out no, I needed to consume the entire middle row tonight, despite the fact that I kind of hate those cookies.

I pushed back a family photography shoot set in late August under false pretenses.  I told the photographer we needed to reschedule in mid October because I so wanted to have the pictures taken outside with the fall leaves.  I lied.  I like the leaves and all, but I wanted to lose weight.  At the very least, I had to lose the extra six pounds I gained over the summer, saying yes to every pastry ever folded with butter and pumped full of vanilla cream.  I even turned other things into pastries.  While staying at my brother's house, I scrounged for something sweet late at night.  While everyone else was asleep, I dug deep in the basement storage shelves to find an economy size bag of animal crackers and grazed on them religiously all four nights we were visiting.  The crackers might have been stale, but I think I kind of loved them. 

Before the photo shoot, I needed to lose that dang summer weight and I had aspirations of more.  I imagined the weight flying off of me, whizzing away while I spun in a steady circle of moderation and diligence.  A Slimfast shake for breakfast, turkey and carrots for lunch, a Slimfast shake for dinner if I was really good.  No rice, no bread, no sweets, no snacks.  You get the picture.  The crumbling picture.

I lost a little summer weight.  But not enough.  I'm back to baseline and that means rolls of mother belly oozing over my too tight jeans and feeling bad about it.  I still love my one pair of skinny expensive 7 For All Mankind jeans, even if they hurt.  And I still hate my Valu Village comfortable jeans that wait patiently in the pants drawer, waiting for the day that always comes when I feel dejected and huge and must put them on in order to breathe.  I wore those stupid things on Saturday so I ran yesterday.  I didn't run today but I did squirt dish washing soap over the remaining orange Oreos.  Then I placed them at the bottom of the kitchen garbage and camouflaged them with a Land's End catalog, so Hub wouldn't have cause to ask about why I'm throwing money away in the form of an iconic American treat.

I also kept the photo shoot appointment.  The weather's supposed to be good and the baby's getting over her cold so I have no excuse.  I just have to suck it in and smile.  And I hate that.  Hopefully, when I look back in twenty years, I'll only see a relatively wrinkle free face and some little munchkins.  And I'll have to love that, right?!?