Ragamuffin, or Short, Fat Cow.

Those seem to be my only clothing options these days. I've got a couple of pair of jeans that fit great, but are a couple of inches too long (hand-me-downs from a coworker who lost weight). They're great in the waist, in the butt, in the thigh, but long enough that I've been walking all over the bottoms, shredding the hems. One pair is in considerably worse condition than the other pair, but they both need to be replaced with jeans that fit ME properly.

So, today I decided to stop in at the store that coworker said she got these jeans at for a couple pair just like these, but in short, instead of medium. Ya know.... Usually I'm OK with the fact that I'm exactly 5 feet tall. Being short doesn't bother me so much most of the time. I've kinda grown accustomed to it. Even FIL's razzing doesn't get to me any more.

But, when it comes to clothes shopping, it just makes me feel like a complete COW! Not only does that store NOT carry this brand any longer, but the jeans that WERE "my" size (a size 20), were TOO small. (THANK YOU LEVI's! YOU SUCK!!!! Nothing like making a girl feel horrible about herself, even given the fact that I've lost weight, like telling me that I'm BIGGER, even though I've actually dropped pounds.) And, all the other size 20's were MEDIUM length, or even LONG! COULD NOT find a single other pair of 20-short jeans at Gottschalk's. MUCH LESS the boot-cut I was looking for. That boot-cut or "flare-leg" jean draws attention DOWN toward the ankle, instead of allowing attention to rest on the fattest part of my body - MY ASS!

So, here I am at Gottschalk's, the ONE pair of 20-short, flare-leg jeans is TOO SMALL! F*@# THAT! I wasn't going to go to 22. I'll just try to find a different brand. One I know cuts their jeans a bit more generously: like Liz Clairborne or Gloria Vanderbuilt. But yeah..... NONE of them had 20-short, MUCH less those 20-short, "flare-leg" or "boot-cut" that I wanted. All 20-med. and 20-long, tapered leg. Again..... i don't need my butt looking any bigger than it already is, and I CERTAINLY cannot afford to shell out $50 bucks for a pair of jeans I'm going to shred in a month's time by walking all over them.

Well, THEN we (Scott, Tay and I) went to Play it again Sports and dropped over $350 on new gear for Tay for hockey, since she'd outgrown about half of the gear she wore till May. (Including BOTH pairs of skates!) After 2 hours of sitting there on a weight bench, reading magazines and waiting for Scott and Tay to finish up, I got up with a nasty back-ache, a growing head-ache, and the desire to get the clothes shopping over & done with so I could stop looking like a ragamuffin in my ripped-up, shredded jeans. (And they're not even STYLISHLY shredded, this pair. Oh no! This is the first of the two pair Diana gave me, and when the heels shredded to threads, I cut off the bottom hem. Then I have inadvertently proceeded to cause one leg to rip UP the length of the leg to almost mid-calf, by stepping on it over and over. My OTHER pair, the lesser-shredded of the 2, was in the wash at home. We left home in a hurry this morning to get Tay to the hair-stylist's in time for the ONLY opening available for today. So I didn't get my jeans into the dryer and ready to wear in time to ACTUALLY wear them. With hockey starting on Monday, her hair needed a good trimming.)

We went to Fred Meyer's where I've had reasonably good luck finding jeans (20-short) that fit me, before. Though I've never looked there for "flair-leg" or "boot-cut" before. NOT ONE PAIR of 20-short, to be found. Not even any 18-short "flare-leg"s. I wound up trying on 2 pair of Gloria Vanderbuilt 18-short "tapered leg", and wouldn't you know it..... I could hardly sit or squat in them. I KNOW I didn't just pack 10 pounds back on, even if I AM on my freaking period. How come all these jeans are refusing to fit, all the sudden?!?!

I left Freddy's in tears. I HATE feeling like a short, fat cow. And yet...... When NONE of the jeans in my size will fit.... That's EXACTLY how I feel. Scott wanted to try Walmart, but their jeans have a tendency to be sewn of crappy material (thin, bad-quality denim) and poorly sewn. I refuse to buy my jeans there, any more. THEN Scott mentioned going to Sears, as we hadn't tried looking for jeans there yet. I can only take so much humiliation in one day, though. F*** that. I'm not going to Sears today, to be shot down yet again on finding jeans that fit and feel good on me.

As bad as it sounds to say..... I feel like not leaving the house again. I mean, Scott confronted me right off the bat with "why're you wearing those ratty old things?", when Tay and I met up with him at Gottschalk's. (He had to work this morning, a couple of hours.) Never mind the fact that he KNOWS I don't have any decent jeans at this point, he was POINTING OUT that I looked like a ragamuffin. Then to have manufacturer after manufacturer carry jeans that either emphasize the size of my @$$ or don't carry jeans in my size AT ALL..... Naw, not gonna wander around any more stores being made to feel even worse than I do. And I really just kinda feel like not going out AT ALL!

Then of course, Scott got mad at me when I told him I wanted him to take me back to my car (left at the Lib., so we'd only be taking ONE vehical all over town) so I could go home, while he and the kiddo went to pick up her new bed. He started getting upset with ME because I was in such a bad mood over the pants, said he didn't see why _I_ had to go spoiling what WAS a "fun day" as far as he was concerned. YEAH, 'cause it's MY idea of fun to be humiliated over and over about my size. And on top of that, Tay was getting rather short-tempered with ME because I wasn't being quick about the shopping. As if I had any control over how hard it is to find jeans in this town that fit me.

Screw it.... SO here I am, sitting at home. Yeah, quite frankly feeling rather freaking sorry for myself. F&&& the common sense that says "Kati, at least you HAVE clothes" or "Kati, at least you've got the food to BE fat." Or "Kati, well why don't you use this as incentive to lose MORE weight so you'll actually BE a "normal" size." No, I feel crappy, and I feel like eatting ice-cream, and I wish I had a freaking girl-friend around who's house I could run to for hugs and crying and ice-cream (or brownies....).

And I've been reminded recently too, that I DON'T have any really close friends, close by. Tay was being a *hit the other day, and yelling at Scott and I, and refusing to help out around the house after she'd been "asked" nicely, and after being yelled at quite a bit, I started yelling back. Then Scott started yelling at ME and telling me that Tay doesn't think I love her because I yell at her so much, and why do I always have to yell at her so much..... Never mind the fact that she'd been yelling at me ALL DAY (first thing in the morning, till I left for work.... as soon as I walked in the door AFTER work....) God...... I wanted to run away. I'm tired of always feeling beat-up upon by them. Tay's learned which buttons to push to get Scott off being mad at HER and point the blame at me. She's learned how to play him against me, and even though _I_ see it, he doesn't.

I'm just so sick of it. And the fact of the matter is, I don't have anywhere I can go when I need a break. Scott's parents are HIS parents and quite honestly, even if his Mom wasn't so wholely focused on the SIL and niece & nephew's, she's still Scott's mom and will side with him. I don't have any friends close that I can go to, to hide out for a couple of hours. Instead I wind up either sitting out on the back deck, freezing my butt off, or sobbing in the shower. But still, listening to Tay scream at me, and Scott blame me. Ever since I got back from Spokane, I can't help but think maybe Scott WANTED me to stay down there. And maybe I should have.

Liz (the brown-noser) is making things miserable at work again. She got her nose out of joint last Sunday after Diana and I put her in her place as to trying to tell US how our Sunday schedual should work. Diana and I have been working together for 3 years, and we've got our Sunday habits and work-ways figured out, and we'd already started instructing the new lady, Roxie, on how things go on Sunday. And Roxie was doing JUST FINE with working with Diana and I. Then Liz came in on her OFF time, for some reason, and started telling Roxie that how Diana and I had instructed Roxie was "wrong" and telling Diana and I off for having figured out our own rhythm..... Anyway, so Diana told Liz (nicely) where to stuff it, and I backed Diana up. So Liz took herself off in this snit-fit, and came in the following day, complaining to "Boss Lady" about how my perfume was making her sick. I'd been wearing this perfume for a couple of weeks, by then, and Liz hadn't said a damned word about it. All the sudden she was in full-blown panic-attack mode about how this was making her sick??? Anyway, after Liz went home, Boss Lady asked me (nicely, I'll give her that) to please stop wearing the perfume to work. I did say ok, that I'd stop. Tuesday, Liz came in and started making all nice and pretending to be upset about the trouble she'd caused me. Bull! She's got some serious passive-aggressive tendencies, and some major control issues, and when we don't let her walk all over us and allow her to run our work-day, she winds up pulling this passive-aggressive BS.

Anyway, when Liz started "apologizing" for the "trouble" she'd caused over my perfume, I told her off about it, reminded her that I KNEW she'd not had ANY problem with it for 2 weeks (and I've worn the components to this perfume SEPERATELY for years, but finally thought to combine them and it smells fantastic, as even LIZ said at one point), till she got her nose out of joint over being put in her place on Sunday. I told her that I wasn't falling for her little snit-fit. She hasn't spoken to me since, which is fine by me. But instead she's "put a bug in Boss Lady's ear" several times this week, getting me or coworkers who are friendly to me, chewed out for various things. And Boss Lady seems to have finished out the week in a pissy-ass mood herself, looking for reasons to chew folks out. *shaking head* So, work isn't even feeling like a refuge these days.

Seriously..... I want to run away. I wish I had a little cottage in the woods, stocked with yummy goodies and good books and good music, and NOBODY to piss me off for miles around, and I'd love to just go there and get away from everybody and everything. For like a month.

**********

Tay's curriculum FINALLY came yesterday at 9 pm. UPS had it, and it took the guy that long to drop it off. Of course, as soon as I got the box opened and started making sure that all the parts & pieces were there, Tay started asking me what we were going to be doing for her first Art lesson, and which was the first book to read for her reading course...... I haven't even had a chance to read more than the first 3 pages of the Instructor's manual, so I don't have ANY idea. But of course Tay thinks I should have it all figured out by now. *sigh*

**********

One decent thing..... We had the inlaws over for supper last night. I made lasagna and they loved it. And MIL didn't bitch about my house being too messy or anything. It's something, at least.

**********

The garden at FIL's has been mostly pulled up. The beans and peas, lettuce, spinach, chard, beets, carrots, radishes, are gone. There are about 5 more cabbage to be cut. The potatoes will be dug up tomorrow by FIL and Scott. FIL is hoping we can go ahead and get the green tomatoes canned this coming week. *shrug* That's fine. He pulled the last few that were starting to ripen on the vine, and brought them over yesterday for Scott and I. He knows that I'm hoping ONE of my Black's will ripen enough to save the seed from, so he brought me the rest in case one of my Black's are in that bunch. That was nice of him.

Here at home, I pulled my turnips last week. I got some huge ones. (2 that were bigger than my infant-niece's head! Most were larger than my fist, but not-quite head-sized. A couple were small-ish. 19 in all.) I've got a couple of pics to share, but didn't get them uploaded yet. I also made the last of my swiss chard this week. I left my beets in, just in case they still manage to grow at all, now that they're not over-shadowed by the turnip greens. I'm probably going to pull my 2 tomato plants inside tonight or tomorrow. I've been holding off bringing them inside because I was hoping the tomatoes would ripen naturally, outside.

But the forcasters are predicting snow tonight or tomorrow. It feels like it, too! (Though, today is clear-blue skies, so it's unlikely we'll see snow tonight.) The fireweed flowers bloomed out and then the plant cottoned out early this fall, so we'll have a kinda-early winter. About a week and a half early, at this rate. Certainly before Tay's birthday, this year.

Anyway........ I think that about covers the crappiness for this week.

Hope y'all are having a decent weekend.