Some days I can’t get dressed more creatively than jeans and a band tshirt.
And then there are days when I decide that the best thing to pair with pattern is more pattern! And stripes!
It’s all various vintages of Anthropologie. Except the Crocs. Those are from Crocs.
Filed under Maggie's closet
One of my biggest blogging pet peeves is weight loss bloggers who don’t lose any weight.
Actually, it’s not the unmoving numbers on the scale that bug me so much. It’s the purported use of the blog as a source of accountability and support followed by the subsequent bashful admissions of poor eating choices and the gym schedule that never was. It feels all bait and switch; I want to follow a story. Stagnation, even if you have tons of excuses for it, ain’t a story.
Which is all a big fat preface to saying that I gained weight in my little weekly weigh-in today and I am feeling really sheepish!
I had some little snarly thoughts about never blogging about weight loss efforts again. Which isn’t the same as abandoning the efforts, because I’ve still got some purple snow pants to squeeze into. But maybe it would be better to just not blab about it. Like any sane person. Or I will become my own biggest pet peeve. And that’s too paradoxical for current musing.
Soo… I bequeath myself one more chance. But, if the scale tells me something dumb again next Tuesday, then I’m just gonna keep that little gem to myself.
Or maybe make Fat Tuesday a once a month occurrence.
Whatever! We’ll see, shall we?
Right, so. The dirty details, eh?
October 4: 193.0
October 11: 189.6
October 18: 191.4 +1.8 pounds
RATS.
Filed under Chubby girl, Fat Tuesday
When we went to England at the beginning of September, one of the several stops we made was a visit to Gran, a little old lady and The David’s only living grandparent.
We went to dinner with Gran, who had fish and chips. She described the fish as “snowy white.” Twice.
Then she made some reference to the war.
And like the awesome American that I am, I said “What war?”
<eye roll at myself from the future>
So then Gran starts to tell me all about how the homes of some of her aunts and uncles had been bombed, so they were all living together in her house. One of her cousins slept underneath his mom and dad’s bed. *But why underneath? Was there no other floor space for him elsewhere in the room?*
She told us about the poor, poor Irish people, like the Kennedys who lived in what sounded like a one room shack attached to the back of their house. They were Catholic, Gran was careful to point out, and they had 5 children. Some days, Mrs Kennedy would come around asking if they could spare an egg for Mr Kennedy’s tea.
If that wasn’t pitiful enough – this family of 7, without enough money to keep everyone fed – she told us that Mr Kennedy fell into a vat of boiling sugar at work and she never saw any of them again.
Filed under Family, Friends and other Humans
It’s finally the good time of year here in the Bay Area. All golden glowy light and intense blue skies. Enjoying it so much!
Right. So, I’m critical.
I don’t congratulate myself for simple acts of completion. I don’t take compliments especially well.
I have ideas about what’s good and if that vision isn’t met, well… then, it’s non-good.
So I don’t call myself a Runner. Just like I don’t call myself a Photographer. Or a Writer.
I don’t have an exact definition for what it would take to be a Runner, but I feel like I’ll know it, if and when it happens.
Now, I know there are people out there who feel very empowered by calling themselves Runners. And I get that. I know there aren’t international standards for Running, except that it’s called “walking” if one foot is always touching the ground. Which, technically, might mean that’s what I’m doing when I’m “running.”
Anyway. Yeah. Some people are all “I”m a Runner!” even though they’re trotting along at 15 minutes per mile. Fine for you.
But I’ve just got a touch too much Asperger’s in my genetic code. I can’t say it if I don’t fully believe it to be true.
The thing is, I really want to be a Runner. In spite of how much I disenjoy the act, I just really want it.
I did two half marathons this year, a 10K and some 5Ks in the pursuit of this wanting. I have had little improvements here and there, but not enough that I feel properly accomplished, and man alive, I’m just so frickin slow.
So I have a new plan. In fact, it’s an old plan that I have already followed and completed, so I know that it is doable.
I’m redoing the Couch to 5K plan. C25k, as the cool kids call it, is a training plan that involves little intervals of running with walking and is intended to take people from doing no exercise at all to being able to run or jog for 30 minutes straight.
But since I can definitely already keep up a steady state of gentle, harrowing plodding for well over an hour, this time I’m not just going to try to *survive* Couch to 5k. I’m going to gnash it up into little bits of glitter and lightning.
I just finished Week 1 this morning, and did all of my one-minute intervals at sub 8 minute miling. It wasn’t all out sprinting, but it felt pretty fast. As the intervals get longer and longer, I expect I won’t be able to keep the pace up that high, but I’m hoping that the process will still have forced me into speeding up overall. And then, I have secret magical beliefs that I will be able to complete a 5k in less than 30 minutes.
Who knows. Maybe the snark monster will still be snarling if I finish in 29 minutes and 59 seconds. But at the moment, I have having some very pleasing visions of gazelle-like glory…
Filed under Running, the bitch goddess
the interwebs are abuzz with all things halloween. and pumpkin. holy toledo, the pumpkin!
and since it’s only right and proper to jump on one band wagon at a time, today I’m going to have thoughts about halloween costumes.
i don’t really do the sexy costume thing. i blame all my wobbly bits, which i’m not willing to put on parade. not even for the fear factor of it all.
but i have a whole lotta liking for the idea of a costume that totally exposes faux wobbly bits.
Filed under Uncategorized
I have a Pinterest profile. Yeah, I know. Old news, right?
Anyway, sometimes people repin stuff that I’ve pinned there. And it feels kind of like what it used to feel like when your tweets got favorited and you’re all “gold star for being cool!”
In other words, it’s kind of awesome when someone else takes note of something you’ve found, some gem off the interwebs, and decrees it worthy of a repin.
Except that my most repinned pin is not one of the lovely dresses I’ve posted in my scourings. It’s not the neat robot shaped crayons. Or the Liberty fabric rain boots. Or the amazing vacation cottage built like a treehouse.
It’s a baby hedgehog.
Filed under the interwebs
you know that game where you list three things about yourself and everyone else has to guess which one of them is a lie?
well, this game is sort of like that, but no lying.
less of a game then, really, and more of an opportunity to absorb random little snippets about maggie.
this opportunity brought to you by Rebecca, who’s orchestrated a little stampede of little facts.
1. I am never sure how to answer when people ask where I’m from. I grew up in Eastern North Carolina, from the age of 4, and lived there until I was 13. I went to high school and college in rural, western NJ. And I’ve been here, the SF Bay Area, the longest – almost 12 years now.
2. I used to work with autistic kids and did one-on-one respite care with this one guy named Danny. Danny’s family got us both season passes to Six Flags and over the summer, I took him there most weekends. Because of his disability, we got a go-to-the-front-of-the-line pass and could get on the rides dozens of times in a single day. Amusement parks will never be as good for me again.
3. My lip balms always develop a significant curving slope to them. I do not do this on purpose. 
Filed under Little Facts, Tidbit
I am too fat for my snow pants. Again.
As a lovely example of my contrariness, when everyone else is getting all twitchy about readying their bikini bodies, I’m very busy eating a lot of cheese. Instead, I get all worried about being winter wear ready for ski season, because of these stupid snow pants. I refuse to buy new ones. I will use the ones I have!
This year, I ran a half marathon at the end of March and another at the end of July. Which seems like something that would encourage thinness, I know. But I get all tangled and weird, using these herculean physical endeavors as excuses to have treats. And hamburgers.
And then! After it’s over? Oh, THEN! That dreamy period of sloth we call “recovery.” You’re supposed to do it. Take a little break after you do something so taxing!
Me? A break?
Mmmm. Yeah. Ok. That sounds delightful. I think I need to make some popcorn to go with this recovering.
So Sir Isaac comes along and he’s all “You’re at rest! Stay at rest!”
Next thing I know, it’s been a month since I’ve put on my sneakers.
Twice this year, then, I’ve gone through periods of it’s-ok-to-eat-too-much-cause-I’m-in-training followed by I’ll-start-exercising-again-soon-but-right-now-I’m-in-recovery.
Which means that now I’m fat again and I can’t fit into my snow pants again. (Yeah, this happened last year, too. Not because of the marathons. Just because of natural proclivities for fatness.)
All of which is to say that I’m on the wagon again now and have about 20 pounds to lose before Christmas.
Hence, there should be a “fat tuesday” post every week, while I try to regain my former levels of svelte-like chubbitude that mean I will be able to fit into my size Large snow pants. Because Large is large enough, dag nabbit.
Week 1 -3.4 pounds
Filed under Chubby girl, Fat Tuesday
I just learned about a year long challenge to send out one card or letter, once a week, starting on October 9, 2011 and ending on October 7, 2012.
October 9 is apparently World Post Day. Hooray for mail!
It’s also a Sunday, so we can’t actually make use of the post on the actual day of celebration.
Anyway, starting today then! A Monday and a day in which the postal service is in full swing!
It’s 52 Weeks of Mail!
I like the interwebs as much as the next gal. But I’ve also got a big love for paper products and ho-boy, do I love mail. I always participated in those wacky chain letters I’m sure everyone got in our younger days. I even sent some stranger a new pair of underwear in the mail once because of a chain letter. I think I even got a few sent to me, as well, but not the 583 pairs I was promised for participating.
I don’t send people panties so much anymore, but I sure do like sending mail. I’ve got a handy stack of cards at my desk at work (where my job is not related to sending letters in any capacity) just in case I have a correspondence emergency.
handy stack
So, Etsy Greetings Team, I accept your challenge! I will send mail!
However, I do snort at you ever so politely. You are a group of people selling cards, issuing a challenge for people to send more cards. It’s a wee bit self serving, no?
But whatever. We all must serve the selfs and cards are nice. Good luck to you and to anyone else who decides to take the challenge, as well!
Filed under Nifty things
margaret edith 