Posted on July 11, 2010 - by Ashley Jackson

Defyance

[Note: I originally wrote this post on Saturday evening, but my site went down before I could post it. I'm not going to bother rewriting it so that references to today/yesterday/tonight/etc. refer to the correct day. Bah!]

Greetings, all! I hope everyone is having a lovely weekend. I’m having a great weekend because it thunderstormed last night and dropped the temperature way down–when I walked outside this morning it actually felt cool! Of course, then it got up to 86, but that’s so much better than it has been! I wish it would stay this way all summer…

Apparently I wanted to show off my mad cheese portioning skillz, because I took this picture of 1 oz of cheese. First try, baby.

Thursday’s breakfast was Liberte Mediterranee apple crumble yogurt, with which I have utterly fallen in love. I never would’ve suspected that this would be my favorite, but it’s so awesome. (If you’re still eating yogurt with high fructose corn syrup and fake fruit in it, stop and get some Liberte…mmmmm…)

I had a top-secret meeting Thursday morning, to which a co-worker brought Dunkin Donuts. Remember when I said I was trying to eat mostly raw and vegetarian before dinner? Yeah, well. If the meeting bribe had been cookies or brownies I would’ve been able to resist, but donuts are my kryptonite.

[I'd make a joke here about how I'd sell U.S. secrets to foreign governments for the right amount/flavor of donuts, but I work for the government, so that's not really funny. And I can't say I'd sell out my own mother for donuts, because that would be wrong. Plus, she reads this. So just imagine how much I love donuts. It's a lot.]

Anyway, I was informed of the presence of donuts at the meeting early enough that I put off eating my planned mid-morning snack and ate a donut instead. I had a glazed chocolate cake donut and it was dreeeeaaamy…and then I took one for the road…

Lunch was this gigantor salad.

It had romaine lettuce, tomatoes, hardboiled egg, peas, celery, mushrooms, onions, sunflower seeds, the cheddar cheese that I was weighing in the first picture…maybe more, I don’t remember. And I’m too lazy to get up and find the paper that I wrote down all the weights/ingredients on. (Lest you think I’m weighing things for the wrong reasons–I’ve been weighing all these highly veggie-based meals to make sure that I’m getting enough calories during the day.)

I also mixed up some dressing–dijon mustard and lime juice. I added it to the salad, put on the lid, and shook it like a Polaroid picture. Or an Etch-a-Sketch.

Unfortunately, Gigantor Salad was too big and was taking so long to eat that I gave up after eating about a third of it.

I also had this bowl of grapes.

Later in the afternoon, I decided to eat my other donut.

Oh, it was good. Mmm.

Thursday’s dinner is not on the camera and for the life of me, I can’t remember what I ate. I think I wasn’t very hungry so I just ate a couple of cupcakes late in the evening. That sounds right. I’m out of cupcakes now, by the way!

Friday was supposed to be a Lazy Friday–aka, the Friday that I get off every two weeks in exchange for working 9-hour days instead of 8-hour ones–however, I’m completely swamped at work this month. Several co-workers encouraged me to go ahead and take my day off because the work would still be there when I got back, but I knew that if I took a three-day weekend with so much left on my plate, I’d spend it worrying about the upcoming workweek. So I went in anyway, and I got a lot of work done, and left feeling like next week’s workload would be a little more manageable as a result.

—

I’ve mentioned that I’m going to start trying to eat mostly raw and vegetarian before dinner on weekdays, but I keep forgetting to explain why I’m trying this out. There are a couple of completely random reasons.

1.) I feel like I don’t eat enough vegetables and especially fruit, and if you eat raw, that’s what you eat. And since fruits and veggies are so low in calories, you eat a lot of them.

2.) I’ve grown to really like bringing in meals of carrots/tomatoes/assorted veggies and hummus and fruit–I always feel better after eating something like that than if I went and got a hamburger or even if I brought dinner leftovers.

3.) When I bring leftovers, I have to reheat them. My laboratory has about 45 employees/cooperators and we share our floor with a couple of other groups that have probably 20+ employees between them. We used to have four microwaves on our floor; now we have two, and they’re both in the break room, and since most of us take our lunch between 11AM and 1PM, lines tend to form. If my lunch doesn’t need to be re-heated, I don’t have to spend time waiting for a microwave or heating up food.

4.) I almost always eat at my desk, either while I’m working (if I used my lunch break for a walk or if I’m eating a snack) or while I’m checking news or blogs. Finger-food type meals–carrot sticks, cherry tomatoes, grapes, etc.–are really easy to eat while I’m working at my computer, and then I don’t have to wash any utensils or use any disposable ones.

5.) I like meat, but let’s face it–it’s higher in calories and easier to overeat on than fruits and veggies. By reserving it for dinners and weekend meals, I’m helping to keep my calorie intake in check.

There are other reasons, but those are the ones I can think of right now. Of course, I’m new to this all-veggies-most-of-the-time experiment, and it was Friday, and I was stressed, so I had yogurt for breakfast and then acquired a bag of peanut butter M&Ms that I munched on all day. I may also have had some Cheetos and a KitKat. But that’s okay–Fridays have always tended to be my “cheat day” and I did much better this week at eating well than I expected to.

And then for dinner, I made sure to eat well.

I steamed some tuna and the last of one of my containers of broccoli, then served it with some mixed beans and grapes. I went back for a similar-sized piece of tuna and more beans afterward. Tasty dinner!

Heath loves to sleep on my couch, curled up in a ball with his nose tucked into his paws.

Unfortunately, he heard the camera turn on and uncurled from the cuteness. Sigh.

I’ve been wanting to find a cute, not-sleeveless dress to wear to church, because when I wear a skirt and shirt to church I feel like I’m going to work. I’ve also been trying to find a new bra, because the one I wear the most is getting worn out and the hooks are starting to rust. And I remember that episode of House where the lady died because she scratched herself with her bra hook and got a staph infection. It could happen…anyway, I’ve bought and worn several different brands of bras over the past few years and I keep coming back to one in particular that just fits better than the rest. And since it’s practically the only one I wear, it’s definitely in need of replacing at this point.

I decided to take an evening trip to Ross on Friday night. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anything–none of the dresses were doing anything for me, and they seem not to carry my bra size (a common problem when I go bra shopping).

This morning I had some yogurt for breakfast, then headed to the Cameron Village shopping center so I could finally go to The Athlete’s Foot and get my new shoes and orthotics. I’ve been dreading going to Cameron Village because there’s always so much construction in the area, and because I’ve never been and I perceive it as a very crowded place. I don’t like to go to crowded places. I knew there was construction on one of the streets I would’ve needed to take to get to Cameron Village, so I tried a different route–and ended up sitting in one spot for 10 minutes while I waited for a flagman to tell me and the mile of other cars that were stopped that we could drive in the one lane of traffic that was open.

In fact, I spent more time sitting in traffic than I did in the store. My experience buying shoes at The Athlete’s Foot was much better than my previous experience buying running shoes at another local shop. At that store, I got the impression that the employee who helped me wasn’t really trained in how to fit shoes. And I felt like when he asked me to walk for him, he was staring at something other than my shoes (if you get my drift). I ended up with my Nikes, which have been good shoes, but I wasn’t really eager to return to that store in the future.

However, today, I was the only customer in the store for most of the time I was in there and the associate who helped me was very nice. I handed him the recommendation form I got from my doctor’s office and after he measured my feet and had me walk (and pointed out that I was walking on my left foot differently than my right one, so I know he was paying attention!), he went into the back and came out with four or five pairs of shoes for me to try on. I tried them on without the orthotic inserts in first, and it turned out that the first pair I tried on was the pair I felt the most comfortable in. And I was happy, because they were purple!

Shopping for running shoes is such an aesthetic crapshoot…you don’t go with what’s pretty; you go with what’s comfortable, and if you end up with ugly shoes, well, that’s life.

I’m very  happy with these and their purple accents, though!

And after I got home, I discovered this little clear window in the bottom, backed with lime green, and I laughed, because while the insoles that came with the shoes were purple…

…the pair of orthotics that the associate felt were the best for me were lime green!

He had me try on the shoes with these green Superfeet insoles (this was the brand that the PA said he liked best), and they felt really weird. Instead of hitting along the middle of your arch, where you’d expect them to hit, they hit toward the back of your arch, more towards your heel. I walked around in them for a minute or so and the sales associate said he could tell I was walking better in them, but he had me try on the “less aggressive” blue insert in my right shoe to see how it worked. I could barely feel it and he thought the green ones would be better, so I went with those.

Now I have this cool purple/green running shoe thing going. Awesomeness! My recommendation form came with a 10% discount and I ended up paying about $135 for the shoes and the orthotics. I hope this helps with my foot issues! Honestly, I’m not feeling very hopeful at the moment, just because this has been going on now for over two months and seems like it will never end. But I will try to be more optimistic…

I stopped in at Marshalls on the way home and checked for dresses and bras, but had no luck. I didn’t even look at the box my shoes came in until I got back to my apartment, where I discovered that my new shoes have the coolest name ever.

Defyance. Bwhaha.

After I got back, I made nachos for lunch.

Then, in the cool dim light of my living room, I took a wonderful afternoon nap. And then I woke up all hot and sweaty. Bah.

I made dinner–a leftover piece of tuna, leftover beans, peas, and grapes.

I headed to Crabtree Valley Mall in a final attempt to find a cute dress. I decided to wear my new running shoes, because I was warned that I needed to break in the orthotics slowly by wearing them for a couple of hours the first day, then a little more the next day, etc. And sure enough, by the time I got done wandering around the mall for an hour and a half, my feet were tired and kind of hurt…

I went to the lower level of Macy’s and while I did find a cute dress that fit (and even fit in a size 8), the neckline was very weird–it looked like it was supposed to be an off the shoulder dress with a cowl neckline, but the neckline didn’t fall right in either of the sizes I tried on. I decided it was the dress and not me. I did see lots of cute sleeveless dresses with cardigans, but I’m not willing to spend $128 on a dress and $49 on a sweater, so I didn’t even try them on.

Then I went to Sears and they had nothing. I took the escalator up, then walked back over to the top level of Macy’s to see if they had bras in my size. Clothes shopping is such a hassle for me–I have a short torso, an hourglass figure, and a small ribcage but a large bust–and bra shopping is the worst because most stores don’t carry my size, and if they do carry it, it’s the lowest band size and the highest cup size they stock and is therefore very hard to find. I’d almost given up at Macy’s when I turned around and found myself staring at the very bra I was wearing. Except, of course, it was a few years newer. I went through the racks and managed to find a bra (seriously, a single bra) in four different styles of that brand, then tried them on and decided to buy the two that fit the best. One was $30 and one was $32, and they were on sale for 30% off, so I was shocked when I paid for them and they cost $36.95 together.

Turns out one of them rang up at $16.99 retail, so it ended up costing less than $12. I’m not sure if that was an accident or not, and quite frankly I don’t care, because I’m a few pounds away from having to special order bras that cost more than a week’s worth of groceries off the Internet and I’ll take what I can get now.

But I still don’t have a cute dress to wear to church.