shirtwaist dress... i want one.

ever since i read about shirtwaist dresses on the twenty pieces blog (so it's been, what? a day and a half? ;) i have been seeing them everywhere. my second cousin was wearing one today at my grandpa's burial at sea. and then i randomly found this one on etsy. i want it. (and it's "only" $62! :)

and, mostly, i want to "pull it off". but my body doesn't agree with this style. supposedly it "works for every body type". but the more i've been perusing fashion blogs, taking in new and classic styles... i've discovered that my body doesn't fit into any of the "classic" woman shapes. even when it has much less poundage, i still have a belly. and love handles. most clothes that like to say that they accentuate the good and hide the bad do exactly the opposite for me! i do NOT have childbearing hips. or a big butt. just a belly. and no, it does not "sit lower" as people always describe - it really does look like i'm pregnant! so you get a dress like this, that has it's tightest spot in the low waist (aka belly) area, and i'm not even gonna find a size that fits until i'm double what a skirt that sits on my hips would be. i'm hesitantly loving all the highwaisted stuff currently out there, but there is NO WAY i could wear them! empire, yes. current fashion, no. i sometimes wonder if there is ANYone out there with this same problem. i see one or two here and there. but i kinda feel alone in this! two of my three sisters have this same body type (hips, no; love handles, yes) but they are currently a size 0 and 4 respectively, so you can't really tell. i envy my other sister's "normal woman" body (inherited from my mom's side, as opposed to the other 3 of us getting a lot of our dad's characteristics). we went bridesmaid dress shopping last week. and guess what style is popular (& affordable, and therefore "the one"). yep.  so i'll wear a size 16 sunshine yellow bridesmaid dress. but on my own time, i'll stick with the shifts... which i love just as much with all their gathering and ruffles and lace and colors... :)

my healthy snack last night...

i usually can only tolerate a snack that includes both sugar and flour (ie. something baked :) i look at everything else in the cupboards and fridge, and say "we don't have anything to eat"... but i've been feeling so much healthier the last few days - able to make "healthy choices"... so last night THIS was my snack - and it was delicious, and i went to bed without feeling hungry later that night! :)

some ways i've been moving toward health and wholeness since starting this blog:

* food - a big one. eating reasonably-sized portions (much smaller than my traditional average)... choosing healthy foods whenever possible... cooking healthier, more colorful meals... still enjoying a cup of chai or mexican hot chocolate here and there (along with some fresh flowers and ripe apricots at the street fair in uptown whittier last night :) - i don't believe in total deprivation ;)

my attempt at fashionable gym attire... ok mostly i just liked the headband - i used just a stretchy black one, but topped it with a strip of lace... i can't help "altering" what i wear. :)

*exercise: enjoying heading to the gym these hot summer mornings for my own self-directed cardio and circuits, or... ZUMBA! i've taken a few classes now, and it is so much fun! it's like i'm playing... learning dance moves and working out my body at the same time... i come out sweaty, but loving it! so much high energy from the teachers (and loud music: salsa, hip-hop, zumba! my ears take a little while to recover...). i just wish i could keep up with the constantly changing steps and movements... i have never been a dancer, and some of the steps (and hip shaking: "muevela bompe bompe!") feel completely counterintuitive to me. and it seems like everyone else does it just fine... i'm sure most of the ones i'm seeing have been doing it for a while, so they're used to the tempo & what steps happen where. but i

truly feel like i'm living out the whole "two left feet" thing - i feel bad for the people behind me, hoping to follow me as i can see the instructor better than them... good luck with that! i find myself having the urge to quit, thinking "oh, it just comes naturally to these little latina girls; this white girl just can't dance - might as well give it up". but i really have the desire to push through, work hard at something, and learn to excel at what did not just "come naturally" to me. it's risky. but part of being healthy for me is being brave. stepping out and trusting.

 *brushing & flossing my teeth, and washing my face at night - healthy skin & healthy teeth - two things that are usually the first to go by the wayside when i'm lacking energy. but the last four nights, i've been making the effort, and somehow it seems to keep reinforcing the cycle, and i feel healthier all around!

*counseling & spiritual direction: it was a good week. learned some things about myself and how i reflect God's image like no one else. learning to love. steps in the right direction.

healthy steps.

toward freedom.

a healthy dinner menu from

Martha Stewart's Healthy Quick Cook cookbook:

sparkling fruit coolers (ice cubes of cranberry juice, lemonade, limeade, with sparkling water poured over, and garnished with a lime wedge)

apricot-glazed chicken (i cut up a whole chicken for the first time in my life! even left the bones in some of the pieces - for jason - eww, but i also feel like i've stepped into the world of real cooks now :)

layered summer salad (layers of yellow, red, and orange bell peppers, radishes, and carrots, each one marinated in it's own juice: lemon, lime, orange, grapefruit, and red wine vinegar; and tossed with olive oil & salt and pepper - this one was even better a couple days later, after marinating in said juices!)

haha - you know it's a good summer day from this shot - blue popsicle covered face, shirt off, marker all over... my son, joey didn't like my food i made, but he was too cute not to include! :)

 

 ...and for dessert, my first creative recipe: a fruit salad (haha) 

"Clementine Flowers": a fruit salad

      this started out as the dessert course in the martha stewart book, but then i discovered that the only ingredient i had that she required was cherries! i hadn't been able to find "eau de vie" at the grocery store, and half of the fruit i had bought (a week earlier :) had gone bad. so i decided this would be my first foray into adventurous cooking, and just went with what i had: a perfectly ripe mango, a pound of cherries, and some clementines. this was truly brave for me! i have always wanted to "cook creatively", and had even made that a goal of mine this last fall, but have never been able to really follow through... i have learned and enjoyed being creative in so many areas of life, but never this one! so i courageously looked square in the face of cutting up a mango (never a successful task before), pitting cherries (never TRIED before - note to self: get a cherry pitter :), and creating!

     the original recipe had called for oranges, and to prepare them all fancy without any of the pith... clementines, i discovered, are a little small to attempt that with. as i cut away the pith from each clementine section, the rest just fell apart in a heap. so i came up with a new way of cutting them - cutting off the peel in segments, and then just slicing them! they ended up looking like orange flowers, and paired with the cherries, made a striking new dish. now, i didn't want to leave it at just the three fruits, so i splashed on a little sparkling water (i think this step is completely omittable - i thought it might make the fruit sparkly and bubbly, but i didn't notice a difference in taste).

     then i remembered: lime and salt on ripe mangoes. i had this for the first time when i was working full-time at children's hospital of los angeles, from the "street fruit vendor" (do they have these in other cities?? i'm curious) - my coworkers would buy mangoes with lime, salt, and "chile". i wasn't brave enough to try the spicy version, but i got it with lime and salt one day, and it became an obsession. you know how people always claim that salt brings out the flavor in fruit? i always thought they were crazy, too (let my sweet stuff stay sweet, thank you very much!) until i tried it. a-mazing. so, i thought i'd try it here - and it was just as good as i remembered it. it worked with the cherries and clementines, too! (and then i remembered how my grandpa used to put salt & pepper on his oranges, and i always thought he was crazy - maybe he was onto something after all! :) so, although i'm sure other people have cut clementines into flowers before, i don't know about any ;) so this really was a creative venture! feel free to use my recipe!

my first ever fashion blog post!

    today, most of my wardrobe has been specially chosen, designed for one main purpose: to hide the belly. nothing too tight on top; fullness, gathering, and ruffles are definite pluses. but a lot of times it backfires. when someone asks me now if i'm pregnant, and they are surprised by my "no", they blame it on the clothes "because they look like maternity clothes". they are. a lot of them at least. and then there's the plaid, basically shapeless ones. i don't love plaid, but i love that these shirts are the only ones i never get asked in!

    here's the yellow one (a Savers find), paired with cutoff jean shorts (also from Savers years ago, originally full-length jeans... i guess my altering of my own clothes isn't as recent a development as i thought!), a little halter-back-sleeveless-jacket thing? i can't figure out what to call it... the handmade rosette is attached to an alligator clip (hence the migration from headband to shirt... i've also worn it on shoes and purses!) and by far my favorite part: the shoes!

i altered the shoes today (see before & after photos below). i know, you're like, "they were pretty darn awesome to start with!" yeah. i know. but i have this weird thing about peace signs left over from growing up ("don't you know they're upside down broken crosses??" sigh.), and i thought they'd be better without them... so i covered them! sewed on a circle of fabric, then some vintage lace, and then three tiny beads. i love how they turned out, and that they're the STAR of this photo shoot! :)

p.s. i did this whole shoot by myself. the photos will be much better in the future, i'm sure, once i get my (amateur - "for the love of it") photographer husband involved!! :)

a little background

i have never been a health nut. i remember my mom taking us to health food stores growing up, buying wheat germ, carob chips (what's wrong with chocolate ones??), lentils by the pound. she was determined that we'd develop healthy eating habits: "where's your green vegetable?" Milk with every meal.

then i went to college. the options in the cafeteria were endless! i actually did eat some salads (of my own free will!), but it was mostly pizza and cereal and chocolate chip (not carob) waffles. i gained the freshman 15, and sometime around my junior year, i decided to start exercising. went to "the fitness center" for the first time in my life (had i ever even SEEN a treadmill in person?). reattempted running after a very long hiatus - my two best friends in high school were both cross-country runners, and i tried to run with them one time. i ended up having to wait for my parents to come pick me up, wheezing, from the top of the hill on Le Point Street. the doctor gave me an inhaler and diagnosed me with "exercise-induced asthma", never having heard a wheeze from me. (i definitely pulled THAT one out with my volleyball coach when she tried to get me to run laps with everyone else... she didn't buy it.) at some point, i grew out of supposed asthma; then i was just out of shape - that's why i couldn't breathe when i ran (i'm sure the LA smog didn't help either ;)

so, since all that, i have gone through phases - eating healthy and exercising (or not) for various reasons: my cholesterol was too high, get that heart healthy!, jason wanting me to for togetherness' sake, pregnancy, gallstones... i have never been one to be motivated by losing weight, or body image... but the less clothes that fit, the more motivated i'm becoming!! post baby number one, i lost some of the FIFTY POUNDS i gained while pregnant, mostly the day he was born. but i kept the rest of it, safe and secure around my belly! i've always carried most of my weight there. people always (have the gall to) ask me if i'm pregnant. ever since i gained 15 pounds the first year of marriage, it's been "are you pregnant?" no. and then they try to backpedal "oh, it must be that style of shirt" or "your posture", or "really? huh - it's just that you're so skinny everywhere else!" thanks. that helps (no, it doesn't). Me and a girl at work have a club (we're the only two brave souls in it so far) for people who get asked if they're pregnant when they're not. we come up with sassy replies like "no, just fat!" haha actually, i've never been able to say anything remotely sassy in the face of embarrassment like that. i just shrink. and NOW that i've kept all that extra pregnancy weight on since joey was born (over 19 months ago now!!), people i don't know often just ASSUME i'm pregnant: "oh, is it going to be a little brother or sister?" or "getting some balloons for the baby shower? congratulations!" i see a lot of people wondering, looking at my belly, trying to figure out a good way to ask... "so, have you talked about having a second?" or, even more subtle, "do people always bug you about when you're gonna have a second?" but i know what they really mean... and i'm sick of it! not of them. of my own inability to have self-discipline. to stay on the harder path to health and wholeness. of the belly itself! sick of clothes not fitting, of not being able to choose clothes i LOVE because it highlights this area, of people thinking i'm pregnant, of not looking and feeling my best.
i tend to have very little energy. i blame it on trying to keep up with a very active toddler that constantly needs me; or not enough alone time; or sleep deprivation. i'm sure those (plus more) are all part of it. but i sometimes wonder if it's also this spare tire weighing me down...! if i was exercising my body, becoming strong and fit, if i was putting better nutrients in, would energy come pouring out?
there are a thousand reasons that being fit and healthy are good for me, mind body and soul... but somehow it's still hard to stay motivated. i have some sort of emotional crisis (argument, disappointment, depression), and it all flies out the window. or chick-fil-a is having a(nother) promo, and i can't resist the free cholester-- i mean food! or i go to get a snack, and "can't find anything", so end up with some empty-calorie pre-packaged food, chilling in the cupboard for just such a time.

SOOOOO... i'm starting this blog. for motivation, for accountability, for fun! i've been reading lots of creative blogs lately, and have been LOVING some of the fashion ones, complete with savers thrift store finds, and awesome photo shoots (like this one), so i thought this could be a good chance to have a little fun of my own! documenting the transformation in my health and wholeness via my wardrobe... (see last post on my art & life blog for more of an explanation of that: http://rustyartist.blogspot.com/2011/07/renegade.html )

so, i made a new meal plan - healthy, fresh, and fun, have big ideas for getting organized enough to keep healthy snacks in the house (and unhealthy ones out!), joined a gym (words i never thought i'd say), and i'm blogging!

as of today, i am 5'9 1/2" tall (that probably won't change) and 197lbs (that hopefully will,  as this journey progresses. i'm not looking to "diet", or to "lose weight" specifically. my goal here is truly to be HEALTHY. WHOLE. closer to the original intention of how i was designed. to be transformed. i am actively seeking health and wholeness in lots of other areas of my life right now, too - mental, emotional, marital, relational, spiritual). i don't have a list of rules that i plan to stick to. i still plan to bake - something i really enjoy - but maybe just SHARE more of it! so you're welcome to ask me about this journey, but don't expect me to say "i have completely cut out ___" or "i commit to exercising for _____ every day". i long to live this out freely... enjoying time exercising (zumba classes, family hikes, swimming), being creative in my cooking - a goal i've had for a while, being HERE in this present moment, fully engaged with my own heart, and God, and people around me, and life!

so here goes............