warning: I am taking this moment to complain

Yes, folks, the warm weather is FINALLY upon us which brings a shivering thought: swimsuit season (cue scary music from Psycho). This is the time of year we housemoms are dragged to the store to replenish the swimsuits that our kids have grown out of. Although our swimsuit is not out of shape (having been mostly ignored last summer. why, you ask? naturally, we didn't want to be caught dead in it), we take this moment of swimsuit shopping for the kids as an excuse to go shopping for ourselves, desperately hoping that a miracle suit does indeed exist which will erase all our cottage cheese while simultaneously dropping 20 pounds and lifting our saggy boobs. Although every year hopefully yields a kindof cute suit in the store that we splurge on--it never looks as good at home, and though we vow we will return it in our spare time, somehow that time passes and the suit is relegated to the drawer with our other 5 suits . . . . .there's always next year, right?

The weather here in Salt Lake has been confusing-- within consecutive weeks in MAY we had a snowstorm followed by record highs (it was 92 degrees on Monday!). I will thus take this moment to complain about our crazy (nonexistent) spring:

Generally spring is a time for me to shed my oppression of the indoors and bask in the mild weather outside: by this I mean daily walks--to the park, to the gas station, or nowhere important. These daily walks accomplish a change of pace from the doldrums of winter AND provide an excellent way for me to shed my mammal pounds (yes, I am a science person--mammals BIOLOGICALLY tend to gain weight before or during cold months to prepare them for a shortage of food at the end of winter. To us humans (also mammals) this means gorging ourselves during Thanksgiving, Christmas, and that lovely holiday known as Valentine's (aka the holiday that keeps the chocolate companies in business-- seriously, when would you ever buy a box of Russell Stover chocolates at the grocery store except to quickly appease the guilty conscience on February 14th brought on you by "forgetting" the holiday for your dear lover?). So for those of you who gained weight this winter, don't feel bad. It is just part of your biological programming.

Because I can not let down nature, I have naturally put on pounds this winter (naturally, of course), but because of the odd weather (extended winter) I have missed my opportunity to gradually shed my poundage via daily walks. I was painfully reminded of this fact earlier in the week when I finally dragged out my shorts and was shocked (disgusted with myself) to discover the pants were TOO tight--way too tight! Hoping this sad fact was due to the pants shrinking in the dryer (you know, during the winter when I was washing them soo much), I raced to the bathroom and jumped on the scale. This was the knockout punch. I have gained 7 pounds since December--arghh!! Now 7 pounds may not seem like a lot, but to me (a hearty 5 foot 2) it is the difference in one whole pants size!! Add on top of this, the dreadful 30 pounds I had to get rid of after Davis and Eliza (AND all that college studying, pizza, ice cream, etc-- hey boys, if your girl is a little round in college, give her a break--how is she supposed to get good grades while sitting on her behind while devoting her life to books?). So my tight shorts and the awful memories of carrot sticks and salad for 6 months during my weight loss extravaganza is my recipe for freaking out about 7 pounds!

So, you ask, where have I been this week since I haven't been found lurking on the internet at night as usual? Yes, I've been hitting the treadmill and counting my Weight Watchers points. I vowed I would do 4 miles a day--be it walking, running, jogging or whatever, and thankfully, there has been a lot of good TV on this week so I can devote an hour to the two T's (the Tube & the Treadmill) (P.S. For those of you NOT watching "So You Think You Can Dance" get with the program, it is GREAT Television).

The result: in 5 days I have lost 3 pounds, which is probably mostly water weight, but I am encouraged by the results. I am still dreading my first swimsuit appearance, but will remain cautiously optimistic. So to all you ladies out there: I wish you happy swimming and foggy sunglasses to blur all the blobs you might see on yourself.