It just dawned on me...and other random thoughts

that in 10 days it is my birthday. Next Thursday, 8 December. I'll be 33. Please note it in your diary for future reference. Today I spontaneously bought two pairs of denim jeany things - because really, almost 6 weeks in trackiepants or equivalent is long enough. They're size 18 BLAH. Normally I'm 14 on the bottom half of my body, 16 on a bad day and for about six months leading up to turning 30 in a size 10 - TEN - something I'd never been in.my.life. Seriously, I just went from babywear straight into a woman's size 14, all with my Mum standing at the changeroom door saying things like "when I was your age I could meet my hands around my waist, it's amazing how you have no waist," or "when you're old you'll be one of those women who gets a skirt of fat around your stomach, you'll have to be so careful," or "oh no, dreadful. You look like a sack of potatoes, get it off." All said of course with great love and concern about my wellbeing. This is also the woman who raised me to believe I could achieve anything I put my mind to, to never ever give up and to always stand up for what I believe in. Although those times I'd come home crying from school saying I was ugly (there were braces, very.bad.acne, glasses and real, not perceived, fatness) it would have been lovely if her reply had been a bit more than, 'but you have lovely eyes'. God, sometimes being adopted has a lot to answer for. Anyway, they're an 18. They're actually too big, they've fallen off twice (I now need to buy a belt - don't you just love the whole retail viscious cycle) but the muffin top that would have resulted in the 16 was just too depressing. I am of course guessing about the muffin top as I had a baby wedged on my chest in the Baby Bjorn and a husband looking more and more bored so I just bought them without enduring the whole hideous this sure isn't Narnia world that is the change rooms at Target. That's right. Pants, not tried on, bought from Target. I know I know, the heady heights my life currently orbits in. Tomorrow, or maybe Wednesday is the day of going to the Dark Side. Yes, you know what I mean, the Death Star to those of us who love to bake, eat and cook with oil and put butter on our bread - the G.Y.M. My employer is trying to keep us all healthy and worked out a deal with Fitness First, the mothership of all evilness in the realm of physical pain, yummy mummys, small dick weight lifters, bimbos, bimbettes and all those people who enjoy running on a treadmill and watching TV with the sound off.In a moment of complete I'm incubating stupidity I signed up. I figured its cheaper, it will be automatically deducted from my pay so I won't notice it (hah!) and that if I'm paying for it I know I'll use it. EVERY single normal person who has ever had a gym membership is now laughing into their second bowl of icecream for the night. The reason I haven't been a member of a gym in about 10 years is because:

1. I have very obsessive tendencies, so instead of just going three times a week and walking on a treadmill, it won't take long before I get up at 5, jog to said gym, do a class, lift some weights and God knows what else. It is quite scary.
2. the smell. That weird mix of gym socks, sweat, deodorant and god knows what else that just reminds me way too much of PE at school.
3. Despite my ludicrously ample boobage, I have quite a masculine build and basically start to resemble a wombat - a dumpy nuggety lump of gristle - way too quickly. This is completely contrary to why I was there in the first place, to drop kilos and look svelte. I have never ever EVER looked svelte in my life. It is something I strive for. Forget world peace, forget career success, forget fame - if I could look svelte for just one day, no, one month, I would be such a happy woman.
4. the people who go to the gym scare me. There are never ever other oompa loompas like myself. Never anyone with bits that wobble or overhang. No one else ever seems to sweat as much as me. Ever. I feel like they're all looking at me, which is ridiculous because I know they're so busy checking themselves out in all those friggin mirrors they're not caring one jot about me, until they think I'm having a heart attack because of 5.
5. I go very very red when i do any form of exercise. You can understand then, that with the wobbly bits, the sweating and the red face issues, I am NOT looking forward to gym outings at all. But it's that or the return of the black dog of body issues. It would also mean a whole new work wardrobe for which there is no budget.

So... its to the gym I go. It's enough to send me to the icecream without even worrying about a bowl.

In keeping with my obsessive tendencies, I've become a picture taking, comment checking manic. Sometimes I'll just log in while I'm waiting for water to boil. Just to see if there are new comments. I'm starting to take pictures of really dubious subject matter like fruit soaking for christmas cakes. I'd load the shot but Blogger is behaving very weirdly this evening. And even that is irritating.