confession...

nothing like some good italian comfort food. 

hi.  my name is alaina, and i stress eat.

it's true.  i think i've known this about myself for a while, but this semester it has become painfully obvious.  let's rewind a bit to january 2011.  just about 11 months ago, i decided rather than making any new years resolutions, i would set a few measurable (and reasonable) goals for myself.  one such goal was to cook a new recipe at least once a week.  not that hard.  and i'd say i stuck to it - at least until the summer.  in a 100+ year old house with no a/c, it's absolute hell to stand over a stove or turn on the oven.  so that kind of stopped.

but... then i started school.  and so the whole i'm-not-cooking-because-it's-hot thing turned into i'm not cooking.  because i'm too busy.  so now, when i cook, it's things that are kind of big, so we have leftovers and i don't have to do it again in another few days.  nice, right?  good wife right there.  and, being so busy and all, i've been skipping breakfast since this summer, which i know is a huge no-no.  and now life has just gotten busier and busier, so it's grabbing dinner on the way home and ordering in chinese when i'm way too exhausted to cook.  it's getting bad.  i mean, i ate a vegetarian egg roll at 10:30am today.

i should have known over the summer when i got my bridesmaid dress for em's wedding and when it came it was a little too... tight.  so i exchanged it and got the next size, and in the process saved $100 because the dress was then on sale.  so i figured it was a good thing.  well, when philip looked at me earlier this week and said, 'hey babe, have you tried on your bridesmaid dress?' well, that was a new low. between this stress eating thing and the holiday season... i need to practice some self control.  i think i'll go for my mom's suggestion of having a glass of wine instead of dinner when not too hungry.

to be honest, i've always had a fairly healthy body image.  i am not a big girl, but i have a few curves.  sure, my behind is big for a little white girl (but smaller than j.lo's).  but there are parts of my body that i like.  i never allowed a scale in our house, because i believe that if you like what you see, then why attach a number to it?  either you are happy or you aren't.  and since i am approaching the 'i am not happy' end of the spectrum, some changes will need to be adjusted to that theory here in the january 2012.

but here's hoping that if i keep stress eating, i could look like this:

'she wore her sexuality with an older woman’s ease, and not like an awkward purse, never knowing how to hold it, where to hang it, or when to just put it down.'
— zadie smith, white teeth
ps - this is from slaughterhouse 90210

and yes, the bridesmaid dress still fits. for now  :)