Archive for March, 2010

NOTE: Since my friend the lovely Miss Poppy has been letting her Diaryland blog go to seed, she will be posting her Igigi review here at TranceJen. Now everyone be nice and make her feel welcome! – Jen

So, I’m the sorry slacker getting my review in late. I can definitely say that it’s not because I didn’t like the dress. I was gifted (read: it was free to me, take that Federal Regulators) with the Igigi Forget-Me-Knot dress in black.

I was pleasantly surprised by the quality construction – the fabric has a lovely drape and is fully lined with a soft and silky fabric. I’m a curvy size 12 and the dress highlighted what I like about my figure: v-neck for some cleavage, nipped waist to show off the curves, while hiding what I don’t like: the clever gathered knot at the front hides a tummy pooch nicely and the ¾ length sleeves cover not-ready-for-prime-time upper arms.

I felt very confident in this dress – not only did I look great (if I may say so myself) but I felt great because the dress was cut well and fits wonderfully. It’s not often I wear a dress and don’t spend most of the night tugging on the hem or picking at the waist – not this dress.

In short it is the perfect, versatile dress. Crunch it up into a ball to pack, shake it out and it’s ready to go. Dress it up with heels and some chunky jewelry for a night out, or wear it with a pashmina or cardigan and tall boots for work. Best of all it washed beautifully on the hand-wash cycle of my front-loading washer and dripped dry in hours. I don’t think you can ask for more can you?

Oh wait, you can, because if you go to Igigi.com you can use the code Weetacon for a generous 20% off if you hurry – offer good through today, March 31st.

I totally forgot to take my medication yesterday morning, making for a hot mess of a day.

I was all caught up in cleaning the basement, rocking out in particular the large metal desk we have down there that has been overwhelmed with an avalanche of shit for several years, throwing stuff out, earmarking stuff for the garage sale (how can one family have so many desk lamps??); and then I passed right the hell out, right back into the exercise bike that was directly behind me.

OUCH.

Seizing into a large metal exercise bike is a little bit like diving head-first into a pile of metal rubble and trying to swim. It’s not fun.

I woke up some time later with my back on fire and my head feeling like someone had taken a bat to it, and the rest of the day was not much better.

So, this morning I am taking it kind of easy, resting my sore body and trying to sort of stretch out the soreness, but this afternoon I will be back in that basement until I am remotely satisfied with the level of work that has been done.

In other news, my mother is trying very hard to talk me into going to church with her on Easter.

I am just not a church person, people. I’m just not. It sort of intimidates me, it sort of bores me, and I’m just not into it. We had the following conversation about it, and she was not happy.

“So are you going to go to church with me?”
“Only if I can wear an Easter bonnet.”
“FINE.”
“MOM. I just… don’t like church.”
“You should be in church with your family on Easter.”
“Fine, then I will wear a bonnet, and I will carry a basket of flowers.”
“JENNIFER.”
“Mom!”

She is not easily amused, my mother.

Then she went and took the J-Man shopping, and the child picked out some gorgeous, pimped-out, square-toed church shoes and a lovely shirt, so now I HAVE to go. Can’t have the child there, looking all smooth without his mother, can I?

My mother, she is sneaky.

I seriously do need to find something to wear. I don’t think the Igigi dress I got will fly, because I don’t think the Lutherans are ready for that kind of cleavage. Actually, I don’t think they’re ready for the type of cleavage involved in ANY of the dresses I own. I don’t own anything church-y. I need a Mormon friend from whom I could borrow something long and ruffled and high-necked.

Church. The damned ceiling will probably fall in on me.

In other news, am I ever going to stop sneezing? Since I slipped up and smoked, it has been my penance – a constant, annoying sneezefest.

Happy Tuesday.

I crapped out unbelievably early last night due to one large whanging seizure that was enough to make my head continue to vibrate even up until this morning.

Jeez.

I am feeling much better, thankfully, but I am sore like a mofo and sort of have the sensation that that I have been beaten about the back and legs by many tiny little men with tiny little hammers.

Brainfuck! It is the malady of never-ending analogies.

Tonight begins Passover, and a hearty Chag Sameach to my Jewish homies.

Since my mother is the half that is Not Jew, there will be no seder here, but I will definitely be thinking of my grandparents as I generally do on this day.

In other news, I have had The Conversation with my stepdad about The Cat.

“There’s no way in hell I’m having five cats, Jennifer.”
“I will pay you to board the cat.”
“WHAT?”
“I will pay twenty-five dollars a month to board the cat.”
“That’s ridiculous. There are just too many cats.”
“You won’t even see our cats. They will be in the basement.”
“Ridiculous.”
“Basement!”
“Ah!”
“I’m NOT getting rid of my cats!!!”
“BAH!”

At this point he waved me off in his charming Irish way. (not) I do feel that I made a little headway, though, and got him thinking.

At least I got him thinking about how stubborn I am.

Happy Pesach, y’all.

So, I smoked on Friday night.

I smoked about eight cigarettes, primarily because I was with V., who is an evil, bad, bad influence, secondarily because I was drinking many beers.

Friday night V. and I wound up waiting until the J-Man was about to go to bed and heading over to the home of A&A, who are a lovely lesbian couple that we like to hang out with and who were hosting brunch the next morning for a whole cabal of us crazy bitches.

We stayed up half the night drinking and talking and laughing like maniacs, and it was a lot of fun.

And I smoked. I am not proud. I screwed up royally. But I am back on the patch and back in the saddle or on the wagon or whatever the hell you want to call it, and I am trying again.

Sigh.

I feel terribly guilty, but I am still trying to look at it this way: Eight cigarettes in two weeks is not so horribly bad. For me, it is really really good, and now I know that A: I need to avoid beer until I am stronger-willed, and B: I need to avoid V.

Kidding. I won’t avoid her, but I will be a little more vigilant around her, since I know she is a die-hard chain-smoker.

So that’s that. Trying again, avoiding alcohol.

Saturday morning’s brunch was a big, loud, mimosa-filled blast, and I ate my weight in biscuits and gravy and drank far too many mimosas and nearly laughed until I peed on the couch as friends performed junior-high-school dance routines.

It was a good weekend, smoking aside.

How was yours?

Went to brunch.

Had twenty mimosas.

Am drunk.

Happy Saturday.

You guys are awful nice.

I am loathe to post full-body pictures of myself, because well, I’m a chubby girl, and I have Issues, and it is Hard, but you were all very very nice, and thank you.

So.

The J-Man’s test results came back, and after all the drinking of barium and stabbing of little arms, nothing much was found. His stomach X-rays were fine, and his blood was fine.

The only thing that came up was a little blood in his urine, which I am not really that worried about because he was sick during the time he had the tests, and he probably had a low-grade infection. I am taking him in today for a repeat urinalysis to make sure that it isn’t still there.

The kid was actually complaining about having to go pee in a cup again, and I put the kibbosh on that quickly. Don’t complain to ME about peeing in a cup when you have an outward-sticking appendage, Mister. Not cool. It’s as easy as it can get for You.

“Well, how do YOU pee in a cup?” he asked.

“Just trust me when I tell you that there’s a lot going on down there, and that it isn’t as easy as just standing up and letting fly.”

“Gross.”

“Keep that in mind as you enter puberty.”

I really prefer him to think that women are as mysterious and as disgusting as possible. THAT’LL prevent pre-marital sex!

Right.

In other news, I purged about half of my shoes yesterday and am giving most of them to friends and to charity, but I will be selling a few designer pairs (and some Docs, including the gorgeous cherry-red patent leather ones) on eBay. I will let you all know when this is about to happen, so that you may get the jump on the sale, because I have some very very nice, very rarely worn shoes, sized 8 to 8 1/2 (mostly 8 1/2).

It was actually a lot easier than I thought, purging the shoes. I had a lot of seriously chunky-heeled baked-potato-like shoes that really needed to go because they have not been in style since the early nineties, and I had a lot that were just plain uncomfortable.

I still kept too many for my mother’s taste (about forty pairs). She is still threatening to take a big box of them and donate them to Amvets without my knowledge, but if she does that I am going to take her collection of fleecy sweatshirts and burn them.

This is war.

I also went through my beads. Are you familiar with those giant hardware store containers with drawers that are meant to house little nuts and bolts? I had three of these, each one about three feet tall, filled with thousands of beads. Yesterday I took every single bead out of every single one of those drawers and put them into teeny little Ziploc baggies.

That took about two hours, and was enough to cause a head-busting migraine, but it felt good, and there is really no room for the storage containers at the new house, so I’m going to have to make do with the giant bag of baggies.

It will make jewelry making a lot more difficult, to be sure, so I am going to have to figure out a system.

In still other news, it is apparently Visit Jen Week up in here, and I have been lucky enough to host both an old high school friend and my old roommate (both pregnant) this week. It’s been a slice to sit around and catch up. Tonight my friend V. is coming over to spend the night and watch movies, and tomorrow morning we are going to brunch with a load of old friends, where we will probably get unreasonably intoxicated on mimosas and cause quite a stink.

All in all it’s shaping up to be a good weekend.

Hope you have one, too.

Happy Weekend.

Rarely do I review anything on this site other than my own bizarre thoughts, but when given the opportunity to review some fabulous fashions for Igigi, maker of lovely, lovely clothing for women sized 12-32, I jumped at the chance.

I have long admired Igigi’s gorgeous dresses, since I have seen them frequently gracing the beautiful frame of one Miss Wendy Bix, who is one hell of a fashion plate.

I have perused the website longingly but have been reluctant to buy, because let’s face it, I am a Target shopper, and I believed that until the talented and forward-thinking Yuliya Raquel decided to drop a discount line, all hope was lost.

This was happily not so. I went to Weetacon a few weeks ago and participated in a charity raffle, and although the stars are generally aligned against me in terms of luck, I won a hundred-dollar gift certificate for Igigi!

Imagine my surprise. I was seriously over the moon!

As soon as I got home, my hot little hands were on my laptop, searching for the Igigi website.

I purchased two items with my hundred dollars, both fantastic deals from their sale section.

The first item I bought was the Imperia Lace Dress.

I cannot fully begin to express how much I love this elegant, gorgeous dress. It is truly Choice. It feels like a dream – luxurious and comfortable and sassy all at the same time.

This photo, taken by the J-Man, really does not do it justice, but here is me, wearing the dress:

Holy Cleavage, Batman.

Nice, no? Very nice.

It nods its head toward old-school glamour, and I love that. The dress is perfect with a pair of black platform round-toed pumps, or maybe some cute little retro Mary Janes.

Love.

The second item I purchased was the Marcela Wrap Jacket.

This finely constructed jacket can either be dressed up, as shown on the model, or down, as shown here:

I love it. It was probably not shown here to its best advantage with my ratty Tegan and Sara t-shirt, but take note! This jacket can make even your ratty Tegan and Sara t-shirt look awesome and stylish and chic.

I cannot get over the superior fit of these garments. As a, shall we say, big-boob-ed-ed girl, I am very hard to fit in both dresses and jackets, yet both of these pieces fit beautifully and comfortably, with no binding or pulling across the girls.

I will most definitely shop Igigi again, cost be damned. The quality construction of these garments as well as the superior stylings make throwing down a few bucks well worth it.

It’s hard to find fashion-forward clothing in larger sizes that does not scream “Omar the Tent Maker” or “Boring Blah Blah Blah”. Yuliya Raquel and crew have managed to create beautiful, comfortable, sexy pieces that flatter women of all sizes and shapes.

AND, to top it all off, if you use the promotional code WEETACON up until the end of March, you will receive a staggering twenty percent off of your purchase price. Not bad at all!

Go forth and shop, beautiful ladies.

Happy Thursday.

Don’t worry, I am still not smoking. I just thought I would compile a few facts that I have learned during the nine days I have been without my beloved squares.

Let’s do one for each day, shall we?

9. I can be the biggest bitch in the world. Seriously. Just try me. I will hurl a hamster at you. (long story)

8. When I am irritable I want sex and am not above blogging about it. *shame shield*

7. I have had to seriously, seriously cut down my caffeine intake. This is probably a good thing, or I would be Flying Off Of The Walls.

6. I have all this SPIT in my mouth! Really! I didn’t think I had a particularly dry mouth before, but all of a sudden there is a plethora of spit there that certainly was not there before. It feels… strange. I sort of understand why people spit now, not that I would ever do such a thing.

5. I don’t know what to do with my hands, therefore I have been typing and typing and typing. If you are my Facebook friend, I am heartily sorry for you. I have Facebook diarrhea.

4. I managed to lose weight (six pounds) my first week of quitting smoking, but I chalk it up to stress. Plus, it was the weight I’d gained in Green Bay, so it doesn’t really count.

3. I really do hate the smell of cigarettes now. My mother lights one up, and I go into the next room. They smell awful. Did I really smell just like that for twenty-one years? Ugh.

2. The patch helps TREMENDOUSLY, IF you’re using the right dosage. When I was on the wee small patch, it didn’t do much, but now that I am on the big honkin’ patch, it really is helping a lot. Thank God.

1. I have a lot more energy and am a lot less likely to just SIT. This is probably the best benefit to not smoking. Before I could sit and catch up on my Tivo and smoke the day away, and now I am much more likely to DO something.

Thanks to all of you for sticking it out with me during the Quittening. I’m sure there will be more maddening cravings and freak-outs to come!

Happy Wednesday.

I think – hell, I KNOW I have been doing pretty damned well so far with staving off cigarette cravings, but right now I can honestly say I would behead my own dear mother for a square.

I totally would.

And the bitch of it is that I wouldn’t even have to, because right in the next room, right there in the kitchen drawer, is a half a pack of my mom’s noxious little non-menthol ultra-lights.

Right. There.

I want one so badly, you guys. So damned badly. I can almost feel the smoke curling through my trachea. I can feel the comfortable weight of the cigarette in my hot little hand. I can feel my nerves begin to calm as I inhale…

GOD.

This is torture.

I’m on the patch, damn it all to hell. Isn’t it supposed to be DOING SOMETHING FOR ME??

GAH.

I want one.

I really, really want one. And the only thing stopping me right now is all the tweets and Facebook statuses and journal entries about how GREAT I’m fucking doing and how done I am and how I am never, no never, going to smoke another nasty fucking cigarette ever again.

Because that would make me full of shit, and I am NOT full of shit.

Which is exactly why I have been posting all of those tweets and statuses and whathaveyou. To keep myself in check.

Damn it all.

I need to breathe.

I need to breathe clean air.

I need to breathe clean air while taking a walk around the block, and that is exactly what I am going to do.

Later.

I’m sort of nervous about using CraigsList. Is that silly? I just feel weird about people I don’t know traipsing through the wreckage that is my basement and haggling me to death over things that I would really rather, at this point, just toss into the alley.

That would be stupid, though. I might as well get a few bucks for this crap.

So far I have a large metal desk, a barely-working treadmill, a barely-used weight bench, and some very nice toys that I am almost ready to list. I just hope that this is going to be a relatively painless process.

Have you had much luck with CraigsList? Hit me up in the comments with your stories.

In other news, the cat behind me is snoring gently and sweetly, and I wish I was, too.

Happy Tuesday.