pinning for team fatass

so i've been horribly addicted to pinterest now for a couple of weeks.  dang it.  if you haven't been sucked in yet, it's basically a virtual pinboard that you can use to "pin" things you find on the internet so that you can go back to it whenever you want to.  it's the greatest time suck that ever was, and when i'm bored or have nothing better to do, i'm perusing the posts for all sorts of stuff.  folks pin fun things ranging from food items to home projects to inspirational words to fabulously nostalgic items that i'd forgotten all about. 

anyway, i've pinned a bunch of wonderfully fattening things to my "food" board, including something i'd seen ages and ages ago on picky palate's blog.  what do you get when you mix up a batch of this:

throw in a package of these:

and do this:

oreo stuffed chocolate chip cookies.  it's a freaking cookie INSIDE of another cookie, people.  and once i was reminded of this fantastic idea, i had to try it for myself.

since the recipe yields 2 dozen cookies, i did what i often do and halved it.  and when i flattened those gobs of dough around the oreo and sealed the edges, i ended up with these things that were damn near the size of tennis balls:

by the way, i was pretty impressed that cutting the recipe in half yielded exactly a dozen consistently ginormous cookies.  recipes don't usually produce the number they promise.  see how big they were?

after spending a little quality time in the oven, they spread a little but were still huge and made the house smell amazing.

i didn't tell the hub what the secret was about these, and the joke was on me when he announced that he'd decided to quit sugar in an effort to drop some poundage for the summer.  crap.  but seriously, how do you resist this??

mmmmm.  they really are so ridiculously good.  the oreo softened up a little in that dough, and the flavors just go so well together.  anyway, since i'm apparently the only one who's indulging in these at the moment (the teen is at her dad's this week, and the bean - well, what she doesn't know can't hurt her), i put most of them in the freezer.

how the hell am i going to survive with the hub's self-imposed sugar ban?  bah!  does he not know who i am??

the lucky wan

my poor teen.  she came up to me this weekend and said "you haven't made ME anything in a while."

and she was totally right.  dang.  i felt really bad, and so when she said she would like another top like the one i made her a full year ago (using fabric she picked out around the same time), i dropped what i was doing and jumped right into it.

luckily, it was really simple to make and i was able to bust it out in no time.  look at how cute the material is:

since my current obsession is making matching non-bias tape for stuff, i added some to this top too.  i think it's a nice detail and makes the top look a little less...homemade.

and while i was at it, i threw together a little pincushion for myself.  it took all of five minutes and i really needed to replace the shitty one i'd been using.  it's not fat enough and i always get stuck with the pins from the bottom.

later, while we were watching tv together, we were both hit with a gigantic craving for a payday candy bar.  damn commercials.  except that i was too lazy to go out to get one, so instead i found a recipe for payday-esque cookie bars.  it's probably bad that i already had the random ingredients to make it right in my pantry, huh?  whatever.  they were really good.

plus, she had minimum days this week from tuesday on, since it's the last week of school.  i got to spend some really nice afternoons with her, watching movies together and just hanging out.  and then we took her friends rock-ell and softballa to a sneak preview of the newest nicholas sparks movie, "the lucky one"...starring zac efron.  we all love hottie zac, but no one more than rock-ell.  remember?

it was one of those free screenings where they ask you to watch a movie that's still in the final stages of production and fill out a questionnaire when it's over.  and because they weren't messing around with the "no camera phones" rule - they checked bags thoroughly and ran a scanner over you - i have zero photos of the evening to share. 

we had a really good time, though.  it was a totally predictable movie, using the classic nicholas sparks formula.  you know: boy searches for and finds girl against all odds, she falls for him over time, discovers that he's been hiding something since day one, somebody dies, they live happily ever after.  i'm fairly certain i haven't spoiled a damn thing for you if you plan to see this flick - every one of this dude's movies follows that pattern.

but the eye candy.  oh, boy. 

mmm-hmmm.  ol' zac sure has grown up, and he sure is purty.  rowwwwr.

rainbow pride

for the bean's "last day of school" (this is in quotes, because she's going to continue through the summer so as not to confuse the hell out of her), the preschool had a fun hawaiian rainbow party to celebrate.  when they do this kind of stuff, they have the kids dress up in whatever the color of the month is.  like february was red, march was green - you get it. 

but she didn't really have anything "rainbow."  so when i saw this on the calendar, i knew i had to make something for her to wear.  when i was in about the 4th or 5th grade, rainbows were super popular and you weren't cool if you didn't have one of these:

let's just say i wasn't cool.  my kids will be cool, dammit.  so the bean and i took a trip to the fabric store and bought this:

i had a picture in my head of what i wanted to make, and it didn't take a lot of each color.  luckily, joann's will sell you a piece as small as 1/8 of a yard.  i'm sure the lady at the cutting table was bitter to serve me that day.

we went home, i dug out one of the bean's tank tops in her current size, traced it and made a pattern.

i was excited, because this was the first time i'd tried the whole "making a pattern from an existing piece of clothing" thing.  never mind that it was a simple tank top.  baby steps, people.

look at how fun the fabric looked all together!

i cut the top out, made ruffles from each color, and got to work.

it didn't take too long for the top to come together.  and because i wanted the neck and armholes to look nice, i did some non-bias tape to sew around them.  it was kind of a pain in the ass because the knit fabric was a little thick once it was folded over twice, but it worked. 

i was so stinking proud of myself when it was done and the bean was stoked to try it on.  it ended up a teeny-weensy bit too big, but that's okay.

is it totally conceited to say that she had the cutest outfit in the whole damn school?  'cuz she did.

gettin' some good head

i've been wanting to try animal restaurant in west l.a. for ages.  my friend weezermonkey has been a handful of times, and her photos and blog posts always make me drool like mad. 

so when our friend ms.blake decided to come down for a visit and magically scored a reservation there, i was out of my mind with excitement.  i pored over the online menu and got myself all riled up, even knowing that the offerings change regularly.  well, and of course, i was stoked to see my friends, too.  heh.

since AMP lives out in my direction, i traded a few tweets with her and proposed that we carpool.  she was a little worried that we'd run a little late, but it was okay - i figured it would be better to ride together and be able to roll out in the carpool lane.  we managed to get on the road and pulled up to the valet just in time.  luckily, she'd done her research and knew where the place was - tricky, because there's no signage to let you know that you're there.  i guess if you gotta ask, you got no business being there.

you think that's bad?  oh, wait.  the rest of the photos i'm about to share are no better.  heh. 

the menu really hadn't changed from what was featured online.  i was excited to step out of my comfort zone and try pretty much anything - but i had to draw the line somewhere, and that was "veal brains."  nuh-uh, buddy.  ain't no way.

while a chunk o'chicks shared a house bottle of vino, i was excited for some mexican coke.  the monkey and 10yearstogether went with the bottled root beer.

we started out with some non-animal dishes - the baby kale and shaved asparagus.  both pretty tasty, but definitely not the star of the show.  at least, not for most of us.

the first real animal-y dish:  pig's head!  and it was really effing good.  i'd been imagining a big ass plate o'decapitation, but it looked and tasted like...meat.  mighty tasty meat, at that.

pig's ear.  no, not the hairy dried up kind you give your dog as a treat.  and that egg was cooked. to. perfection.

oh, and at the end of the bench sat the mayor of l.a.  yup, we dined with vee-yah-rah-GOH-ssa.  not that you can tell from my picture.  you'll just have to trust me on it.

barbecued pork belly sliders.  this was my pick, and it was super delicious.  of course, i thought they looked like boobs.  because i am 12.

i also liked the napkins with a little buttonhole.  too bad i didn't have a button to feed through it.  my necklace fit nicely, but it was choking me and i had to pull it off.

aside from those fabulous sliders, i was super bowled over by my first taste of poutine, topped with oxtail gravy.  ms.blake and i seriously contemplated licking the plate clean.

melted petit basque with chorizo.  it was when this was served that we learned something astonishing about our friend insomniac:  she doesn't like hot cheese.  i gasped even as i typed that.

thai bbq quail.  such a teeny-tiny little bird.  and so delicious.  we felt like giants as we noshed on this.

balsamic pork ribs.  they were meaty and tender.  yes, my picture is sideways.

this evening also marked my first foray into the world of foie gras.  we chose two dishes - the foie gras loco moco (unlike any old hawaiian plate lunch you've ever had) and the foie gras with biscuit and maple sausage gravy.  oh, so good.  i'm a fan.

what's a good meal without dessert?  despite the monkey's warning of mediocrity, i was antsy to try the bacon chocolate crunch bar.  she was, of course, totally spot on - but i knew i'd regret not at least trying it once.  it was...blah.  and i didn't detect any bacon in it aside from a few crumbles sprinkled on top.  oh, well.

terrible photos of the sticky toffee pudding (the best out of our selections) and tres leches cake.

our server mistakenly ordered the berries with vanilla custard, so a few of us ended up enjoying it on the house.  not me, though.  duh.

as we tallied up and took care of the check, i opened my foursquare app to check in.  i was super amused to be reminded that my first meeting with ms.blake was almost a whole year ago.

and look!  i only have to go seven more times to snatch the mayorship.  yeah.

it was a wonderful meal with fabulous friends and lots of laughter.  as we waited outside for our cars, the server came scurrying up to us with a plastic bag in hand - "you forgot your pants!"  ms.blake had brought a pair of premium denims for the monkey, and she'd left it behind.  besides a hilarious story from 10yt about waking up the night before and roaring like a damn lion out of hunger, that was probably the funniest line of the evening.

oh, how i love my friends.  and eating with my friends.  they're the best.

accountability

okay, i've finally done it - i had a personal training session.  first time i've set foot in a gym in, oh, about four years.  yikes.  as a result, i'm ridiculously sore right now and had trouble steering my damn car home after the workout.  how pathetic is that?

so, yeah - i've been blessed with a fairly decent metabolism.  most of my life, i've not really had to worry that much about weight and diet and stuff like that.  hell, there was a time when i was stuck at 105 pounds for what seemed like forever, but those days are long, looooong gone.  but then as soon as i hit 30, that metabolism slowed down big time.  boo.

but even after i had the bean, i managed to do okay - got right back into that wedding gown on our second wan-niversary two months later.  of course, i was pretty conscious about my weight gain and hit the gym religiously throughout that pregnancy.  i actually had trouble gaining weight at first, and by the time i delivered, i'd still only packed on about 25 pounds.  lucky for me, nursing did its magic and i lost that extra padding fairly quickly.

i still don't feel really awful, despite the copious amounts of junk i stuff my face with on a regular basis.  i'm still only one pound over my wedding weight, although i notice that the number fluctuates a bit from one day to the next - anywhere from one to five.  that's not too bad, i suppose. 

but not being active was starting to bug me.  i'm so freaking lazy, people.  it's terrible.  so when the hub mentioned that he'd befriended a dude at the cigar shop who owns a local gym and is a super duper personal trainer, i bugged him to hook me up.  it took months, but he finally did.

and holy cow.  this guy is yoked to the max.  a former mr. olympian, he's in incredible shape and trains professional bodybuilders, both male and female.  he works with pro athletes too, and the walls of his gym are adorned with framed photos of his protegees.  i was pretty stinking intimidated as my lumpy ass hopped onto the elliptical with those pictures staring down at me.  luckily, he's really nice and friendly, and if i ever need to straighten anybody out and the hub isn't around...well, i know who to call.  ha!

to keep me honest, i'm posting my stats.  eek.  here goes:

natural waist (at my belly button): 

hip:

bust:

thigh:

bicep:

i don't have a picture of it, but the scale said 132.6 after working out.

so there.  i don't know what'll happen as i trudge through thrice-weekly sessions at the gym, considering i don't do well with diets or watching what i eat (aside from tracking the view of the grub on its way from the fork into my mouth).  i guess all i want to do is to maybe tone up a little and just feel healthier overall.  i'd also love to NOT look like ass in a suit like this one. 

that's not so much to ask for, is it?