A Royal Pain...

Today is April 29th, 2011. It also happens to be the day that Kate Middleton & Prince William tie the knot. Now, if you're into that whole following celebrities, go for it. It's never been my thing. I really could care less they got married. Not to be rude, but I don't care if Brad Pitt gets married or Kate Hudson or really any other American celebrity, so British royalty does nothing for me either.

Mark posed the question on Facebook asking which of his friends would be watching the wedding. I noted I'd be watching the back of my eyelids. Sadly, that didn't happen. At 3:00 am, I was awakened with heart burn bad enough to choke a horse. I couldn't get any relief, except sitting straight up, which is miserable to me to do in bed. :/ I finally tossed and turned until I gave up and moved to the couch.

Here I was faced with a decision. Sit alone in the dark with my heartburn, grapes and cheese, or turn on the tv. The tv won. I was awake for almost 2 hours. I made it right up to the part Kate walked down the aisle and the minister said the typical, "We are gathered together here in the sight of God and this congregation" or something like it and I turned off the tv and went to bed. I'd seen her dress. My curiosity was satisfied. In the amount of time I watched, here's my list of things I found interesting. You don't have to agree, just my personal opinions. :) And did anyone else feel sorry for this horse and rider? Ouch!



1. The lack of window tinting on the vehicles is disturbing. Americans like our privacy.

2. Who knew William was already balding?

3. I’m so glad the queen isn’t my grandma.

4. It must suck to be Harry.

5. Charles is really old.

6. No one will ever love Camilla like they loved Diana. Ever.

7. The dresses of the mother of the bride and step mother of the groom are kinda pathetic. I was expecting something more,
well, royal.

8. How old IS the queen anyway?

9. Kate’s photographer's outfit is ridiculous (specifically, the one photographing her as she left the hotel).

10. I’m glad I'm not the photographer.

11. I can’t watch all this without thinking about Diana & remembering how she died. :(

12. Can you imagine the stress the mother of that youngest flower girl must be feeling? Will she pick her nose or do a pee pee
dance in front of millions?

13. How can a female body guard protect Kate while wearing a hat that obscures most of her view?

14. Kate really is lovely.

15. Are those real trees inside the Westminster Abby?

16. Interesting the bridal party follows the bride, while we have the reverse here.

17. Kate holds dads hand instead of arm. Hmmm...

18. How it must pain William to not be able to turn around and watch her come down the aisle!

19. I still have massive heart burn....

20. Hat or horns? You decide...

Pregnant predjudice

I've been wanting to blog about this for weeks, but just couldn't bring myself to yet. I'm sure one of these days I'll have an upbeat blog post. Ha ha! Keep waiting... :)

For all my skinny friends, don't bother to keep reading...if you wear anything bigger than an XL, feel free to read on...I think you'll feel my pain.

Shopping for maternity clothes when you're a plus size is the closest thing to torture I can think of. I think every single time I bought maternity clothes when I was pregnant with Coleman, I cried. Not when I got home, in the store. This time hasn't been quite as bad, because I did loose some weight after having him, and I haven't had to buy much this time since I could wear the stuff from last time. I even bought a size smaller jeans this time! I was elated! :) But really, when you look at it, the selection for fat people STINKS.

Here's what a typical shopping trip to find maternity clothes looks like for me....I wonder into the mall. (Yes, the mall, because regular stores don't carry things that fit) I have to keep walking right past the trendy shops like, Pea in a Pod, because they don't make anything CLOSE to my size...I head straight for Motherhood Maternity. Oh thank you Motherhood for actually HAVING clothes that fit me. But wait, they are all the way in the back corner of the store. Next to the bathrooms and the clearance items. Don't want those things too close to the front. They don't look cute draped on the little skinny mannequins. It so doesn't help your metal state of mind that they plaster a nearly anorexic looking girl with a precious little bump on every bag of clothes you buy there too. Like it's not painful enough, they have to remind you.

Now, don't think I'm being way too off beat here, but, I wonder if this is to some degree how black people felt when they were made to ride at the back of the bus, or have separate water fountains. Like they were diseased. Like they had the plague. Yes, I'm overweight. I get that. I have scales & a mirror. I'm not blind. I can see it, and so can everyone else. So, is it necessary to try to hide it, or punish me for it? There's an entire store of adorable, trendy clothes there. Things I'd LOVE to wear, but can't. When you go to the Plus Size section, it starts looking like Omar the Tent Maker designed the clothes. They are huge, shapeless and ugly and usually made from ghastly prints I would be embarrassed if my grandmother wore, much less ME! They are also hideously expensive. Seriously, I went last week and bought four items and it was $100.00. FOUR! That's it! And that was with a sale! A single pair of shorts was $40.00. Now, that may not be a lot to some people, but it's a whole lot to us. And, considering I'm only going to be wearing them 2-3 more months, it's a lot of money to spend.

As we were leaving the store on Sunday, I started to tear up. I had told myself, "Next time will be different. Next time will be better." It's not. Not by much anyway. I had great expectations of loosing a lot of weight before I got pregnant again, but it didn't happen. Honestly, I had told Mark a couple of weeks before I found out I was pregnant with Coleman I didn't want to get pregnant until I lost weight because I hate seeing myself in pictures, and I knew I'd want pictures with my baby. I still love the pictures of him, but I can't ignore the me that I don't love looking at.

I tell myself that if I never knew what skinny looked like, maybe this wouldn't be so hard. I hate my thyroid for whacking me out and making me gain so much weight. It's not like I stuffed my face with doughnuts and candy bars to look like this. Oh sure, I have my part, but for the most part, it's the dysfunctional thyroid that hangs on to every ounce of food I eat. My size 8's are gone for good and they've been replaced with a much, much larger size.

I did find a dress I like today at Target. I'm excited because I'll have something new to wear this weekend when we go on our short, but sweet babymoon. I keep saying one day I'll open a plus size maternity store and it will be wildly successful. I can't be the first overweight person to be pregnant. Until then, I guess I'm stuck with the moo moo's and frightful prints that lurk in the back corner. If you're blessed with the gift of thin, treasure it. :)