Christmas Party and a New House!

Zoie and Princess Perfection, you guys were right. I did go with my gut and wore the black dress, with brown high-heeled boots, and felt pretty :) Maybe I was a little more dressed up that some of the others, but not enough that I felt uncomfortable or like the other girls were sending bitchy thoughts my way! And A liked the look, so that's good enough for me :) I did say I'd post some pictures if it ended up going alright, so (deep breath) here they are! (I had to do the whole set-a-3-second-timer-and-then-sprint-to-the-other-side-of-the-room thing, so excuse the "uh, yes, this is totally natural; I don't feel stupid at all..." facial expressions. I was also halfway through getting ready, which is why my hair looks like it hadn't been brushed for a week. Because it hadn't. I did not go out with it looking like that!)

[photos deleted]

So, uh, there you go. That's me.

Now, would you like the same-old, same-old news next? Or the shiny, new, exciting news?!

Well, in same-old, same-old, I'm still hovering around the 120-125 range, which means my BMI, with infuriating predictability, is still hovering around 20. Sigh. This is entirely my own fault. I might just eat the whole family's Christmas dinners this year, move to the forest, and become a fat little recluse.

But, in shiny, new, exciting news, A and I have moved into our little house! It's about 1/3 the size of his parents' place, where we've been living, but it's so nice to have a place that feels like "ours" (even though we're still renting). It's unfurnished, and the grand total of our own furniture is a bed, one old dining chair from the early 1900s that I really do intend to re-upholster one of these days (...) and the wardrobe I was working on over the summer. So we're scouring freecycle and ebay, and trying to resist the overwhelming temptation to blow our life savings on a massive Ikea-thon. But for now we're pretty happy just sitting on the floor and enjoying being there, together, in "our house" :)

This is partly the reason I've been absent from blogging for a while (in addition to the reasons mentioned in my last post, which are also still in play) - because I've been sorting and packing and unpacking and arranging. This will continue for a while, so I may be largely silent over the next few days, especially while we wait for the engineer to come hook up our internet at home.

But I will try to read your blogs whenever I can and keep up on all your news and progress! In case I don't get on here again before Christmas, I wish you all a time of peace and contentment, and a rest from all this yearning and striving to which we subject ourselves.

Much love, Sophie

Oh bugger...

A's colleague's just told him that the party tomorrow is "pretty informal". What does that mean? I don't want to scrap the dress and go in jeans or something - I feel ugly in jeans! And what if "pretty informal" to other people doesn't mean jeans at all, it means casual dresses. Then I'll be extra-ugly. Then again, if you're too overdressed people think you're kind of stuck-up :/

It's not an extremely "dressy" dress; it's black, and knee length, a body-con/pencil fit, shows a bit of cleavage and has little cap sleeves. If you had quite a smart dress code at the office, you could almost wear it to work, except for the fact that it's a bit booby. Kind of "Mad Men", and I do like it a lot. But I don't like the feeling of walking into a room full of people and all the women thinking, "Who the hell does she think she is?!"

A suggested wearing it with flats instead of heels, which I guess could help. But I think it's too long for flats - there's nothing worse than stumpy-calf syndrome is there?!

*sigh*... I know this is a trivial thing, it's just a Christmas party. But it's the first time I'll be meeting anyone from A's work, and I want to make a good impression. I don't want his colleagues sniggering at him because his wife's turned up looking totally inappropriate.

Wish I was a man - what I wouldn't give for "chinos and a shirt" to be the answer to every socio-sartorial crisis...!

Starving... or not...

I'm sorry I haven't posted in such a long while. I'm toying with the idea of giving up this blog (again - ha) because I feel kind of removed from the person I was when I first started writing it. For the most part, I don't even want to be real skinny and any anymore. Don't get me wrong, I love when I can feel my ribs or my hip bones. And I still haven't learned to look in the mirror and see anything other than a giant beached whale. But I've decided to stop trying to do that and instead try to believe that my opinions about my body or about food and nutrition in general are just wrong. I won't give those opinions up, I'll just make the choice to believe that they're false.

As in:
"Sophie, you look like a huge gelatinous behemoth, and that may always be the case. But you're not one. What you see isn't really there."

I'm just in two minds about the whole issue. I've tried before to stop thinking I'm fat, and it's just thrown me into a panic. So I'm not sure, in practical terms, how one goes about it. Any ideas??

I feel like I'm starving at the moment. But in reality, I know that I'm not. On Friday and Saturday I was really busy with friends and Christmas stuff, and indulged more than I should have. (Think pizza, Nandos, and Maltesers... :/ ) It's 5pm now and so far I've eaten 3 teaspoons of cereal, 1 bite of cake (it was a colleague's leaving party at lunchtime), a pear, and a banana. I'm planning on just vegetables for dinner, though it depends who else I'm cooking for - I can't very well feed that to A! Tomorrow night is his office Christmas party. I'm excited about it - about meeting his colleagues and having a night on the town, but I'm nervous too. Am trying  not to assume they'll think I'm a total loser straight off, and am restricting more than usual yesterday, today and tomorrow to try and give myself a little confidence boost. I've got a fitted black pencil dress to wear and if my tummy's not flat it'll show. Still need to figure out how to accessorize it so it's less funereal and more festive, haha. If I'm not gross, I'll post a picture. I think if anyone who knows me reads this blog they've probably figured out long ago who I am.

In other, more exciting news, my sister did have her baby a few weeks ago! She had a little boy; they named him Levi.  I'm just dying to go visit, but that has to wait until January...

Also, I think A and I have finally found our new house! The landlord's just doing a credit check on us before he accepts our offer, so we're trying not to pin our hopes on it until it's secured. We've done that before and then been crushed when it's fallen through, so being a little more cautious this time.

Ok, that's all my big news! Now to go catch up on yours... :)