Weaver's Web

I walked into my closet this morning intent on looking good today. I picked up a pair of black 'khakis' about 2 weeks ago. Today was the first day I was wearing them and I wish I hadn't removed the tags. They're loose already. No major loss here; they were all of $15 at Kmart. Got them when I went in to get some smaller gym shorts and saw they were on sale. I had been having trouble finding anything in my closet that fit correctly that weren't jeans. I did find some last weekend, btw.

My boots are hanging from copper tubing high in the closet and this pair of black and white were directly over where the pants were hanging. Haven't worn them in next to forever and given their color with a pair of black pants I grabbed this black and white shirt, the cap I bought the other day and though you cannot see it in this photo, a hair clip made of black and white shell I got in Belize 5 years ago.

I woke my husband up to say goodbye and he took one look at me, smiled and said, "the 50's called. They want their shirt back."

My office manager took one look at me and announced, "Love the outfit! Picture time!"

I hadn't thought of an outfit, but looking at the photo, I guess this get up qualifies. As I said a while back, when I find something in my closet that fits, it gets worn. These days, I'm not too sure just how long I'll be able to wear anything. This shirt only got identified 3 weeks ago as wearable and already, the first time I'm wearing it, its loose.

Slept the sleep of the dead last night. After being. Up most of the night before thanks to childbirth, when I fell into bed last night I was out like the proverbial light. I'd driven to Los Altos for a meeting & not long after supper I was horizontal, called my husband & was in the land of nod moments later. Slept a solid 9 hours.

Up at 6:30, I was out the door and off to the gym by 7 to get a run in. After 4 miles I hit the tub for a soak, then showered & headed back to my friend's place for breakfast and the meeting.

Serving on a statewide committee with 4 other folks I've known for 25-30 years, I last saw these people in mid October which translates to 45 lbs ago. Three of the four of them made comment of the change whe the 4th sweetly smiled but said nothing. I suspect this was stressful for her.

Like me, she's a fellow celiac. She's also very heavy & unlike me, hasn't changed since the diagnosis was made 4 years ago. In just over 4 months, I'm 70 lbs down. For me the diagnosis meant a end to my inflammatory arthritis and with that the ability to move again. Yesterday afternoon, I watched her struggle up the stairs.

I'm learning what I can do again. I needed to plug in my cpap the night before which meant getting under a desk to the power strip. That meant getting on my knees on a hardwood floor, getting to my feet again. I hesitated for a second, then just did it. I won't lie and say it didn't hurt to be on my knees on the hard wood, but it really wasn't the struggle it would have been just months ago. I didn't need to hesitate.

Si, se puede.

At 5:30 I headed north, saw mothers & children at the hospital, sent one mom home, the other, still not ready. That one had suffered a fairly major post partum haemorrhage. Before heading home, I stopped for Chinese, a bottle of gluten free soy sauce in hand. They had offered to use my soy if I brought it to them. They've been preparing food to go for me for months subbing corn starch for wheat flour on several dishes and omitting the soy sauce, but this was the first time I'd brought them tamari to cook with.

The place is a modest one, that changed hands 2 tests ago. It passed from one Chinese family to another. It's a brother and sister plus their spouses, with their dad doing the bulk of the cooking. You can see the kitchen thru the pass thru window. I usually interact with the sister-in-law, who's generally in front. Hers is the strongest English & she's charming. She notice the change in what I would order a few months back, and asked why. I explained my problem with flour, and that what that cooked was stuff I brought home for my household to eat, saving me from cooking on nights when I didn't get home early enough to. I confessed while they ate Chinese, I had a salad. That night she pointed me to the mixed veggie dish on her steam table. "No flour. No soy sauce," she said, "you can eat that."

When she saw me walking past the place a few days later, she rushed outside to catch me. "You can have the chicken curry!"

Startled, I turned. She smiled, then repeated herself.
"But you said it had flour." The curry had been my favorite.
"Yes. Corn flour." She had looked up celiac disease and saw it was a problem with wheat. I had said flour, not realizing they translated corn starch as corn flour."

Last night the father sniffed, then tasted the soy sauce, then turned to the window, smiled and shot me a thumbs up. He speaks no English, but after a barrage of Mandarin between him & his daughter-in-law, he made it very clear he was preparing things from scratch, even coming to the window to show me he was doing a quick marinade of the beef in my tamari, for an order of broccoli beef. Wonder why I like this place?

After supper, I spent some time in my closet sorting things, then put some shirts that newly fit into the wash. I awoke a bit ago, stuffed up and coughing, my throat parched and scratchy. I tossed on a robe, hit the head, then transferred the clothes to the dryer. Found another dozen shirts I can now wear again, and have culled a bunch more, now too big to wear. Need to cart stuff out of the house, and pack away what I want to list on eBay this summer. Amongst the shirts in the dryer are 5 more Levi's denims; after I got the first shirt on sale 10 years ago & wore it a few days, I went back and got it in all the colors it came in. Honestly, I'm surprised to be wearing them again already. I got them before the weight started 9 years ago, and by my recollection, I was 15 lbs lighter than I am now when I had to stop wearing them. I'm very self conscious in clothing I feel are too tight.

I'm going to try lying down again, see if I can get back to sleep for a bit.

I spent part of yesterday caving on a treasure hunt on an archeological expedition chasing the holy grail digging out my closet.

Rob finally was able to get back over to resurrect our dryer, which after a new set of relays and an igniter once again dries clothing! The amount of dust, dirt and unmitigated debris we found once we opened the dryer was frightening. It's a damn good thing it was not working, or there could have been a fire. While he was working on the machine's innards, I vacuumed, wiped down and cleaned off/out the front panel, and then turned the vacuum on the inside of the machine. The odor of burning dust once the machine was running again was a bit alarming, but as Rob said it would be very short lived. He also redrilled the heavy plastic piece that held the lint filter in place, which had come loose and despite every thing that I did to keep it in place, continued to do so. That problem, now fixed, was likely why the insides was so damned filthy.

I've since done 3 loads of wash, which have been folded and put away.

So, the 4x's are no longer part of my wardrobe. Those shirts have been culled from the from the herd. Well almost all of them. There are some heavy weight denim shirts I'll hold on to for a bit, to toss over another shirt as a light jacket. I've got a whole slew of Levi Denim shirts the next size down from my current (3X), I hope to be in by spring.

AND I finally found the 48's, or at least some of them. Three pair of Lands End jeans have been found and 3 pair of Dockers.

That means tonight when I get home, I get to work on pants to start culling that part of the herd.

After I go to the gym.

When I got home last night, I had a light meal (chicken curry - carry out, gluten free) and while my husband munched on his dinner I got down to business folding and putting shirts into boxes. I have a large amount of clothing and just like I'm letting go of the weight, I need to let go of the fabric.

I had sorted out all of the 5x shirts at least a month ago and hung them in another area of the walk-in and last night I reached clarity I HAD to get them moved out of my closet. I boxed up at least 30 shirts last night, maybe more. Nine are in a carton at my front desk waiting for a friend to come pick them up. Her son's a big boy and should be able to make use of at least 8 of them, plus she has an assortment of 'nephews' who're also young men 'of size', so anything that doesn't work for her son, should work for one of the other boys.

There is another box of at least 20 shirts now in my garage. I think come summer I'll begin listing them on eBay. Most are in superb, like new condition, most are office or dress shirts, and the quality on all of them is quite nice. I have a penchant for Lands End and every one of them is a Lands End shirt.

Hopefully this weekend, I'll begin boxing up the 4x's. These days, I routinely fit into a 3x and am even beginning to get into some of the 2's. I also need to start boxing up my sweaters and vests, and it's time to go thru the T's and other gym clothes. Some things will be given away now, and things that are in like new condition I think I'll put away till summer when there hopefully will be time to sell them.

This morning saw me at the gym for a 5.25 mile run (1:10 minutes to go that distance) after which I soaked for 10 in the tub and stepped on the scale. Sixty-five pounds are gone. When people have asked me how much more I want to lose, I've been saying rather manner-of-factly, about 110. I now need to start saying about 100. Tomorrow marks 4 months since I started. As of today, I can use the scale in my office without adding a counter weight; I'm at the scale's max limit, but I can use it. This is a milestone I'm savoring. It also means I'm right at the threshold of another milestone & it's a big one - getting out of the 300's into the 200's. I'm also closer to where I was when the arthritis got so bad and when this gain began, than to where I ended up. That's just 50 lbs away. I hope to get there by this coming summer. We shall see. I'll get there when I get there, but I will get there, and beyond.

Saw my physiatrist colleague after brunch, and had my prolotherapy. I'm sore now after the injections, but so far the results have been well worth the temporary soreness. The left ankle is definitely giving me a lot less grief, and the sensory neuropathy in the seural and saphenous nerves is markedly less painful. She's been injecting right where these nerves pierce the fascia of my left leg, and while I far from enjoying them, I'm loving the results. After a long day on my feet yesterday, I got out to my car at the far end of the lot, realized I'd left my phone on my desk so I turned and quick stepped back to my office to get it. I hit me as I was unlocking the door, there was absolutely no pain anywhere in my legs, ankles, joints, back, or anywhere else for that matter. I was moving without hesitation, without slowness, without thought.

And to think, it all started with giving up wheat.

Well, sort of.

I threw on a polo I tie dyed a year or two ago this morning, topped it with an open denim shirt for warmth and headed out to the gym. After my run, I took a look in the mirror and shook my head. This polo, one I thought I had done a really nice job dying, is really just too big to wear anymore. I'm swimming in it.

AND that was how I was going to work. I didn't have anything else with me. I'm used to dressing down at work; I am after all, the boss. A tee shirt was the only other alternative and that was just not going to cut it. It was either wear the polo, or stop to buy something else.

I am NOT buying clothes. (Other than shorts and sox for the gym) I'm going down fast enough that certainly I don't want anything of significant quality, as likely within a short period of time, I won't be able to wear it any longer. I also HAVE plenty of clothes in a wide variety of sizes, to make shopping really unnecessary. However, this grandchild of tailors and seamstresses, this lover of textures and fabrics and colors, sees nice things and desires them.

I was pissed last month when a nice flannel shirt that fit me well, became hopelessly stained in the wash. (My husband does not separate colors.) Yes, I could dye it, but by the time I get to it, it would be too big. It actually is already.

SO, I wore the tie dye today and wound up garnering comments from a fair number of people who asked how much I've lost. That was not my intent in wearing that shirt today.

It's now after hours and I just found a box of shirts here in the closet at my office. How these got here, I don't remember. They're all of a size I can wear now, which means they've been in the box at least 5 years. Over half of them, I need to get rid of, as they're either too old, too synthetic or too not my style, but there were several I'll enjoy and are perfect for the season. There were 3 turtlenecks (blue, green and teal), 2 polos (one long sleeve, the other short, emerald and rust respectively) and one luscious heavyweight flannel in a royal blue plaid, all of them 100 % cotton and all from Lands End. I slipped on the green turtleneck, tucked it into my jeans and tossed the flannel on over it, buttoned it halfway and left it un-tucked. I just looked in the mirror and very much liked what I saw.

I still have a very long way to go, but I don't have to look like an unmade bed while I'm in the process.

I'm a happy puppy. Yes, indeed.

I have needed to attack my closet for some time now. There is just way too much unmitigated STUFF in there. I have heard a 4 year rule; if your haven't worn it in 4 years you should get rid of it. It's a bloody walk-in closet which unfortunately has allowed me to channel Fibber Magee.

Well I now have three trash bags to go to Goodwill tomorrow, & another huge arm load of things to put on eBay. I spent the day going in & out of the closet, sorting, discarding, laundering, folding, reorganizing and putting things away. Sarah spent the day helping me, though not before my husband checked to see if she'd gone spelunking in the past. I continued on my own after she headed home. Five loads of laundry later and I am off to bed.

This is a very good thing.